"What is that to you? You must follow me."

Last night I led a discussion on the Apostles' Creed for one of our house fellowships. It was interesting to hear such a variety of views expressed during the course of the evening. For example:

• God cannot be all-powerful (given the presence of suffering)
• Human beings have created the concept of God
• Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in the same God but take different paths up the mountain
• The virgin birth is irrelevant; Jesus was the son of Joseph
• No-one believes in hell these days
• If God created everything he must have created evil as well as good
• You can believe in a spiritual realm where you go after death without necessarily believing in God

OK, so I'm being very selective here. There were some more orthodox Christian views put forward too. But how did I react to all this?

As a reasonably evangelical Christian, I am disappointed that some of my congregation hold a radically different Christian belief to mine. As a world-weary cynic, I am unsurprised by all this and rather intrigued by the range of angles from which people approach their faith. As the minister of this group of people, I am able to take it all in my stride and not be shocked by it. As an intellectual who has recently been wrestling with some of the big questions raised by Richard Dawkins, I find myself sharing the doubts and struggles of others.

One big question is how you can believe in an all-powerful loving God who apparently allows tremendous suffering. Now I need to choose my next words carefully lest I sound horribly selfish and callous. It has occurred to me this morning that whilst I sympathise with the suffering of others and would want to do what I can to help them, I do not suffer greatly myself. Whilst I would find it difficult to say to someone else, "simply trust God and you'll be OK" (because surely there are thousands who have trusted God and whose lives are far from OK), the fact is that whenever I have put my trust in God, he has not let me down.

What I'm saying is that when I look at how other people struggle to reconcile their faith and their suffering, I find I share their doubts. (In passing, I ought to note that there do exist many who have not only reconciled their faith to their suffering but have in the process become shining examples of what it is to be a Christian.) When P said last night that she couldn't see how God can be all-powerful I understood what she meant. But when I look at my own life and experience I find it difficult to think of an occasion when suffering really rocked my faith. Maybe it's because my level of suffering has always been low. Maybe it's because my faith has never been truly tested. Whatever the reason, my experience of God has been good. Why then, should I allow other people's experiences to disturb my relationship with God?

As Jesus once said to Peter when he showed curiosity over another disciple, "What is that to you? You must follow me."