“Why do you believe in God?”, my friend asked me about six months ago. After a few minutes of silence, I simply said, “I don’t know, I just do”. Realising that it was far from a satisfactory answer, I wondered whether I did still believe and if so, why? I mean, I wasn’t going to church and hadn’t been for a while, unless I was there to sing.  I thought about God, but only from time to time. Since coming to Cambridge, had I completely forgotten about my faith?  

‘They believe for a while but in the time of testing they fall away.’ Those are the words in Luke’s Gospel on the ‘Parable of the Sower’. It refers to those with a faith that lacks roots to keep them grounded and who, therefore, do not stand the test of time in the face of life’s worries, pleasures, desires and adversities. After reading this, however, I realised that I hadn’t fallen away. Yes, I believed in God partly because I was raised a Christian and went to church religiously (no pun intended) every Sunday until I was sixteen, but I also believed because I wanted to. Maybe it’s a comfort, believing that something is there even though you don’t know for certain that it actually is. Maybe it’s a way of explaining things we don’t understand.

Arriving as a nervous fresher, I had certainly experienced life’s worries and adversities. My routine went out the window, sleep became a passing fancy whilst trying to live by the ‘work-hard, play-hard’ mantra of the Cambridge undergrad, and it became very common to feel like I was losing control. Many people discover (or rediscover) religion at university, while others turn away from it. I had done neither, but was existing in some kind of passive, limbo state. When my friend asked me why I believed in God, it was the first time I was forced to question my belief, to test it. 

It all became clear rather rapidly, as I realised that worship and belief are two very different things and I could follow the latter without the former. I only came to understand this when reflecting on my time spent working ‘behind the scenes’ in churches (involved with choir and church events) and after having been to various services in Cambridge as a student. I had become disillusioned.  The behind-closed-doors politics of the church distanced me from a sense of true belief and worship, and I felt myself becoming more un-Christian. 

This disillusionment was perpetuated at Cambridge when I attended a few evangelical services. I am here to criticise that style of worship, but I realised that it really isn’t for me. I’m more of a High-Church kind of gal – quiet, contemplative, restrained and ceremonial. I just didn’t feel comfortable with the hand-raising, singing and vibrant displays of praise. What was crystal clear, however, from all of this confusion and dissatisfaction was that my personal faith, my own sense of belief, had actually become stronger without public worship. For me, God is still very much there, but I don’t require weekly worship to sustain that. In fact, private contemplation helped me through a number of struggles in my first year. Talking to God made me feel as if I had my own private (and free) therapist with whom I could chat whenever I wanted.  

If I was to answer my friend’s question now, I’d tell her that I believe in God, because I choose to and because I genuinely think there is a greater force acting in our world. There is, inevitably, an element of comfort in that and many people hold on to their religious beliefs because it brings them peace of mind. And what is wrong with that? In the past year, unhappy with the public act of worship, I’ve been unsure about whether or not to stay on the religious bandwagon. But I’ve interrogated my faith and still find it to be strong. In the rather modern words of Micah, “I’m not giving up. I’m sticking around to see what God can do.”