1. How did you come to believe what you believe?
My first semester in college, my childhood faith, such that it was, was destroyed by a 10 minute conversation with a person from the same background as me, who had decided to become an atheist a few years before. That persons concerns and questions were mostly legitimate, given the fact that the SBC church I grew up in did not preach/teach the gospel in a biblical way. The message was that people needed to join the church and get baptized or they would burn for eternity in hell. There was no talk of following Jesus, learning to obey His teachings, or what comprises saving faith.
I became an agnostic, bordering on atheism. However, I was honest and was open to the idea that God may be real, although I had been misled about Him.
After studying a wide variety of religious beliefs and systems, I noticed that almost all of them were reacting against or referencing the Bible for their authority. I realized that I had never really read the Bible except in small groups of verses, so I decided that I couldn't purport to know anything about religion in the Western Hemisphere unless I had a strong working knowledge of the Bible.
I simply starting reading the Bible cover-to-cover. Over the course about around 16 months, I believe I read the Bible all the way through two or three times, and some portions (like the entire New Testament) many more times through.
After I had a good feel for the story it told, I noticed that God was apparent to me, although I wasn't sure how to be "right" with Him. (I can't explain how God was apparent to me, but I sensed His presence with me as I studied, and especially as I prayed for insight and understanding. Those prayers were answered.
2. On what authority to you base your belief?
About the same time I became aware of God, I also became aware that much of the teaching I had been given was either completely wrong or severely distorted. Some of it was my fault, because children don't always understand things because they don't have enough life experience, but other things were flat wrong - like the teaching that "walking the aisle" and getting baptized made you right with God. Although, to be fair, we always had contradictory message that baptism doesn't save you, so it was confusing.
I decided that if I was going to be a disciple of the God I sensed who was with me, I was only going to trust the teachings that I found in the Bible. If I didn't have a contextual teaching or specific passage of doctrine, I simply wasn't going to trust it. At the same time, I kept in mind the teachings I had been raised with and kept my eyes open for references to those areas so I could develop my own understanding of them.
3. Do you believe you are right in what you believe?
Of the things that I have studied for myself, I have quite a bit of confidence in them. For the things I have heard other people teach, I am somewhat tentative and skeptical. I have found my faith and understanding growing consistently every year, so I am always open to considering new evidence.
4. Can there be more than two rights on a single point of doctrine?
I think our understanding is always partial and some things are intended to be held in constant tension because the human mind doesn't not have the imagination, knowledge or intelligence to completely understand the ways of God. For instance, exactly how the Divine will and the human will can co-exist without one completely preempting the other.
5. Did you ever believe different on a doctrine only to change your position?
Yes. Usually it is on those doctrines that I have inherited from the culture and I have assumed to be correct. My theological biases when reading scripture help me distort my understanding of what is actually written. That's why interpreting the Bible within a community of believers is so important - especially when all of the believers are not from your theological position/heritage.
6. If so, what lead you to change your position?
Usually a convincing passage of scripture or the understanding of related doctrines and theological tensions that pull things into alignment. I am notoriously conservative about changing theological positions. Some of my brothers and sisters in Christ get impatient with me because I don't follow theological trends, or come to my conclusions and value evidence in the same way they do.
7. Do you believe God the Holy Spirit played any role in your current belief or your change of belief?
I wouldn't know God or know anything about God without the aid of the Holy Spirit.
