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ATTLEBORO - It's the greatest of stories - a child of humble birth grows up to become the savior of all humankind.

The story of Jesus is one that anyone would want to believe, but what if they don't, or are not sure if they do?

What if Christians find themselves questioning everything they were taught about Jesus, and even what they were told about God?

Those who doubt at some point in their lives are hardly walking alone, according to pastors and scholars and everyday believers and seekers.

Doubt has been around since the beginning, and is evident throughout the Bible, said Pastor Tim Hatch of Living Waters Christian Church in North Attleboro. He noted that even some of Jesus' closest followers had doubts.

"Thank God they did, because sometimes I have doubts," Hatch said.

That seems particularly reassuring coming from the ranks of evangelicals, who seem so certain in their beliefs.

But Hatch said doubt is not the enemy of faith.

"If anything, it may even be a helper of faith," he said. "If you never explore doubt, your faith is not genuine."

As the Christian season of Advent opens today, the Nativity is on widespread display, depicting a scene and a life that many view literally while others accept only metaphorically, or perhaps not at all.

While religious doubt has been around since Christianity began, it has been getting more attention in recent years, particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that made many Americans wonder where God was in all that horror.

Doubt also has been sparked by incidents of religious extremism, new scientific discoveries, renewed debates over creationism and evolution, recent publications of other gospels, manifestations of evil in the world, and natural disasters that take thousands of lives.

Considering those factors, the climate was ripe for a recent stream of books by atheists such as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that grabbed the public's attention the past two years and became best-sellers in a country where atheists account for only about 5 percent of the population.

Then came the recent release of a book on Mother Teresa titled "Come Be My Light," a compilation of her private writings and letters that chronicle her decades of questioning her faith in God. While her doubts were a shock to many, they were a comfort to others who related to her struggle.

"To hear that Mother Teresa had doubts is very comforting," Hatch said.

There's no doubt that faith is widespread in the country. Polls repeatedly show that 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans say they believe God exists. But as noted in one of the surveys by the Baylor Institute for the Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Texas, religious views are very complex and diverse, and those who believe in God do not necessarily agree on what God is like, and what God wants for the world.

And despite their belief, Americans are paying attention to the non-believers by buying their books, and by delving into novels such as "The Da Vinci Code" that challenge traditional Christian teachings about Jesus.

Even as Christianity remains the dominant faith in this country, a recent study by the Barna Group, a Christian-based research organization in California, indicated that younger generations are increasingly skeptical. One recent study of 16- to 29-year-olds showed that they are much more critical of Christianity than the same age group was a decade ago.

Another study by Barna in August suggested that although two-thirds of adults accept well-known Bible stories such as Jesus' resurrection as the literal truth, Americans continue to wrestle with the nature of God and the value of the Bible.

Yet, some say that kind of questioning can be healthy, and even necessary.

"Doubt is a kind of catalyst for faith," said the Rev. John Fisk of First Baptist Church in Attleboro. "It is the thing that pushes us forward. By questioning ideas and beliefs, you get to understand in a deeper way."

Fisk, who leads a Christian meditation group at his church, has studied the mystics such as St. John of the Cross, who experienced a "dark night of the soul," a term many are now applying to Mother Teresa's experience.

Fisk said his understanding of the dark night is that it comes during a process of purging and cleansing, a time of deprivation and detachment from the possessions and addictions of life that can bring a sense of emptiness and abandonment by God. That is when doubt can enter, he said.

The key, Fisk said, is to be receptive to God, and to strive for union with him. People should look for God's presence in their doubt, he said, and then "God will lead you in the right way."

One of the most common times for doubting God is after the loss of a loved one, particularly the death of a child. Hatch said people at those times often question how God could allow that to happen. But he said that can lead people back to God through the belief that he will one day come and restore justice.

In the end, he said, faith is a choice.

"You can follow doubts to a destructive end or to a more determined end, to a God of justice," he said.

Some Christians exploring their doubts find their way to places such as Murray Unitarian Universalist Church in Attleboro, a congregation that respects diverse religious views and encourages people on their faith journey.

The Rev. Sandra Fitz-Henry of Murray said it's very common for people to say they have lost faith, or at least faith in a certain kind of God. That does not mean they have lost their need for faith, she said, but it can mean they need to come to a new understanding of what they believe.

"Doubt is what allows us to have a constant, living relationship with faith," Fitz-Henry said.

She sees the word "faith" not as a noun but as a verb, not as something people have, but as something they experience and that keeps happening to them.

For her, faith is a relationship with a sense of the sacred, and a trust in a superior power. She considers herself a believer, but not in a God who is an overseer in the sky, a being who decides who lives and dies after a plane crash.

Instead, she sees God as a source, an energy that is part of all things, that is "beyond our comprehension, bigger than our imagination."

Although she does not believe that Jesus was God, Fitz-Henry believes that Jesus had divinity, and was an extraordinary person who was a manifestation of divine possibilities.

She delights in the celebration of Christmas.

"I love the story of the birth," she said. "It's a great story."

Although the biblical account may not be historically true in all its details, she said, it has truth embodied in it on the nature of birth and hope.

"Every night a child is born is a holy night," she said.

Gus Pearson of Norfolk, a member of Murray Church, doesn't accept any religious teaching as true, including the Christmas story. Jesus may have lived, he said, but he certainly wasn't born of a virgin, and he definitely wasn't the son of God.

A self-described atheist, Pearson grew up Christian, and was a Bible-toting teenager who was talking about someday becoming a minister until one day, at age 16, he realized he really didn't believe any of it.

Belief in God is based on the human desire to stay alive, he said, and people's inability to accept the idea that someday, they will no longer exist. Religion, he said, fills that need by providing the concept of an immortal soul, a spirit that survives forever.

"That's why we have religion," he said. "We don't want to die."

What he believes is that "death comes as night comes. You slip out of the world without fear and enter a world of dream-like sleep."

At age 92, Pearson said death is very near, and given his physical disabilities, that's fine with him.

"I look forward to the bliss of everlasting sleep," he said.

But until it comes, he continues to do what he has done all his life: to question everything, to read voraciously, to wonder about life and its origins, and to share his journey with others at Murray.

How the world began is "a wonderful mystery," Pearson said. "I accept the mystery. I do not accept that it could be God."

David Wulff, a professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Norton who teaches and researches the psychology of religion, said doubting can end in disbelief and atheism, but more often it leads people to a new form of belief.

Some scholars, he said, view doubt as essential in developing one's own faith.

According to one theory, he said, people go through several stages, starting with beliefs based on what they were taught by authority figures, then continuing through a middle phase of questioning those beliefs and recognizing the validity of the faith of others and finally reaching a point of commitment when they take a stand on what they believe.

Sister Chris Loughlin, a spiritual counselor and one of three Dominican nuns who run the Crystal Spring Center for Earth Literacy in Plainville, said that rather than trying to fit their beliefs into a certain dogma, people today often develop beliefs and a concept of God based on their life experiences, and on how they interpret them.

"How we see things is where faith comes from," she said.

When people begin to rethink what they were taught in childhood, she said, they can come to a new and broader understanding of God.

"People are figuring a way to go forward," she said. "In faith, they are working things out."

She believes it is healthy to question. Otherwise, she said, people are not thinking.

"Spiritual growth is an invitation, and faith is accepting the invitation," she said. "Doubt is not a lack of faith. Doubt is the capacity to have faith without the assurances that sometimes comfort us."

John Conti, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College in Easton, said doubt is an integral part of faith.

"Doubt is an invitation to plunge into a deeper experience of God," he said. "The spiritual life is a journey. You never arrive. You're always walking."

But it's a journey that's not for the faint of heart, he said, and a period of doubt can be a dangerous time if people give up and move away from God.

"Ask questions not to shut God out, but to be open to get answers," he advised.

At Stonehill, he deals with students who are at an age when they doubt everything, including God, but who also have the the freedom to question and the opportunity to learn Christian teaching as adults.

Most people do not doubt that God exists, Conti said, and instead their doubts usually center on particular religious teachings and practices. Although he has at times questioned what God was doing in the world, he has never doubted the existence of God or the reality of Jesus.

"I passionately believe in Christ," Conti said.

Wulff of Wheaton College said those who do not accept or believe literally in the biblical story of Jesus' birth can still appreciate the message of Christmas.

A self-described agnostic, he still sees great worth in the positive aspects of Jesus' life.

"Here's someone who brought a new vision of human possibility," he said. "He provides an image of goodness and values. He modeled acceptance of people of all kinds."

Hatch said while some may dispute the particulars of the day and time and location because of the lack of details in scripture, what is important is that Jesus was born, a truth he has never doubted and one that has been historically proven.

"All that matters is that he came to life," Hatch said. "What matters is the essential message."

GLORIA LaBOUNTY can be reached at 508-236-0333 or at glabounty@thesunchronicle.com.