If I were to ask someone to define a Christian, I suspect the word curious would not crack most folks’ top 25 attributes. Ideally, you’d hear a lot of charitable things like virtuous, communal, compassionate, and steadfast. You might also receive a list that includes some additional negative attributes, such as close-minded, hard-headed, or elitist. But whether you see curiosity as a positive or negative trait, I’d wager it’s not on either side of your list.
And I keep asking myself: Why not?
In our current political, social, and religious climate, I would contend that curiosity might actually be our much-needed superpower. (And as someone who’s a self-proclaimed Christian, I’d add that it’s also a defining attribute of what it looked like to be a first-century follower of Jesus.)
Part of the reason I became a Christian (and eventually a pastor) was because of the beauty I found in Jesus’ own posture of curiosity. In the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, he is asked nearly 200 questions. He gives a straight answer fewer than ten times. Meanwhile, he asks more than 300 questions of others around him. That’s not because Jesus was non-committal, confused theologically, or unsure of where he stood. Jesus seems to me to have held this posture because he understood that curiosity itself was a profound spiritual practice. And I’d argue that Jesus understood that the spiritual discipline of curiosity is one that forms each of us far more profoundly than the idol of certainty ever could.
What’s perhaps even more intriguing is that Jesus wasn’t inventing this practice all on his own. Though Jesus is often and initially (or even solely) associated with Christianity, it’s important not to forget that he himself was a first-century rabbi. He was tangibly shaped by a Jewish tradition that treasured dialogue, debate, and open-ended wrestling with not only Jewish Scriptures, but with the entire ecosystem of their faith.
Take, for example, his Sermon on the Mount, often cited by Christians as the greatest sermon ever preached. Jesus repeats this refrain: “You have heard it said [insert Jewish tradition or law here], but I say to you [insert theological reframing here].” In this dialogue, Jesus isn’t dropping the mic and starting a new religion in his name. Instead, he’s engaging in curiosity-driven practices that his heroes, neighbors, and rabbis had been enacting for centuries. This posture is specifically called Midrash, which, in my observation, is best described as an ongoing conversation across generations of spiritual luminaries, where the text is never reduced to a single note, but opened up through a symphony of questions, curiosity, and dialogue. To my understanding, midrash is not just about finding an answer, but about nurturing a community where curiosity is essential, not optional.
Even the Torah, which is often sadly reduced by Christians and even some Jews to a set of “rules,” was never only about rules. It was about an ongoing relationship with God and an invitation into a level of abundant life that people could hardly imagine possible on their own. Scripture, from the very beginning, was never intended to be a download of doctrines, dogmas, or static rules, but instead a new way of life that is a rich and beautiful dialogue with God.
But curiosity was not always a practice I embodied. As I embarked on a career as a pastor, I assumed that meant I would eventually have all the answers to life’s most difficult questions. I learned this wasn’t true in a very personal way at my oral interviews for ordination.
I remember sitting in a poorly lit room, surrounded by the Board of Ordained Ministry for the United Methodist Church. For months, I had prepared, writing thousands of words of theological reflections, ready to defend each and every sentence before a panel that would decide if I was fit for ordination as an Elder in our church. The questions came quickly, and to be honest, it felt like I handled most of them with ease. But when they pressed me on my understanding of the complex mechanics around our doctrine of the Trinity, I gave what I thought was a polished and theologically accurate answer. And perhaps it was. But after my response, one of my peers and Board of Ordained Ministry members across the table said something in response to my certain answer that I’ll never forget:
“All you had to say was it’s a mystery.”
At the moment, I didn’t realize the profound impact of that statement, but that sentiment has since guided my pastoral and personal theology ever since. I learned in that moment that certainty doesn’t open a conversation; it ends it. And conversely, curiosity doesn’t end the conversation; it opens it.
In recent years, I’ve had the honor of participating in a fellowship with Sinai and Synapses, which centers our conversations on the intersection of faith and science. I’ve often found myself in these fellowship gatherings surrounded by rabbis, who continually trade teachings, idioms, and even disagreements that were as poetic as they were profound. And what struck me wasn’t that they always landed on an answer. What struck me was that they didn’t seem to feel the same pressure I often do to clamor for certainty. From an observational vantage point, it seems as if curiosity was built into the fabric of their inherited faith. As if this practice of Midrash had cultivated a way of life where questions are not threats to destroy, but treasures to be sought after. It showed me the way in which the same spiritual practices I first saw in a first-century rabbi named Jesus were still being beautifully put into practice.
One of my good friends, Rabbi Joshua Stanton, has often referred to us (me, a Christian pastor, and him, a Jewish rabbi) as siblings in faith. And our familial faith shares an undergirding that began with dialogue, debate, and wrestling. But too often it seems as if we’ve traded our rich heritage of ongoing curious conversation for a cheap counterfeit born out of our lust for certainty.
Some Christians might say curiosity ended with Jesus, in their belief that Scripture is both without error and cannot be challenged. I’d gently remind them that the early Christian church carried Jesus’ posture toward curiosity forward into the community they constructed in his image. The book of Acts is a shining example of this at its best. Two prominent apostles of the Christian Church, Peter and Paul, found themselves embroiled in heated debates about how to live out their faith after the death of Jesus. They wondered if dietary laws or ceremonial practices like circumcision were necessary for the droves of Gentile believers who felt compelled by the story of Jesus to join his growing movement. Peter saw Jewish law as a heritage that must be kept at all costs. Paul saw Jewish law as a hindrance to the advancement of the Jesus story. However, these two men didn’t see their disagreements as threats, but instead as the very soil in which the movement could take root and grow. Curiosity wasn’t their enemy; it was their antidote.
I fear that forgetting this timeless truth reaps consequences that are truly devastating. Fundamentalism of all shapes and sizes (whether conservative, progressive, or otherwise) seeks to silence voices, deny dignity, and distort timeless wisdom into a weapon that can only thrive in the vacuum of certainty.
And the tension between curiosity and certainty isn’t just religious.
It’s found in politics, where individuals double down on their party’s line rather than ask honest questions across the aisle. I see this in science, where curiosity drives miraculous discoveries, while certainty breeds stagnation. And I see it in spirituality, where the allure of certainty eventually hardens even the purest hearts into dogmatic belief. I even see it at my CrossFit gym, where athletes who can admit “I don’t know it all” grow stronger than those who refuse to listen to anyone other than themselves.
It turns out that certainty is a deeply human problem.
What if true wisdom were never about arriving at the right answers, but instead about cultivating the right postures? Because curiosity doesn’t mean abandoning convictions. It doesn’t mean refusing to take a stand. It doesn’t mean your faith is lukewarm. It means holding your convictions with humility, always ready to listen, learn, and be open to change. It means recognizing that God’s Spirit moves in ways we can’t fully chart, and that sometimes the holiest thing we can say is still: “It’s a mystery.” At its best, curiosity keeps us at the table with people we disagree with. It makes space for silenced voices. It reminds us that faith is a dialogue, not a monologue. Certainty ends the conversation. Curiosity keeps it alive.
And if I’ve learned anything since that day I sat nervously before the Board of Ordained Ministry, it’s this: Faith doesn’t demand that we have every answer. It instead invites us to live the mystery of life with courage, humility, and above all, curiosity.