Deconstructing Deconstruction
What is Deconstruction?
I once worked at a church that gave me a ministry/job description through which I was perplexed by several lines that caught me off guard. “Avoid culturally polarizing topics when preaching” was the first phrase which I found confusing and overpowering. What topics are culturally polarizing? Who decides these things? What happens when the Word of God and Jesus’ words present “culturally polarizing topics”? Doesn’t Jesus call His followers to live counter-culturally or at least according to the culture of the Kingdom? And doesn’t that Kingdom culture confront and call people out into a new way of life? This seemed to be more influenced by what certain political affiliations thought were polarizing than what the Word of God stated.
Another phrase that was used stated “don’t use deconstruction of faith as a method in the school of ministry.” I was truly so alarmed by this statement as I had done everything within my power to build up the students of the school of ministry I oversaw and help them to learn how to think rather than what to think. But then it dawned on me that just like with the first statement about polarizing topics, this statement was influenced by a certain perspective about what deconstruction was.
For many people they hear the word deconstruction and immediately generalize this process as a destroying of one’s faith. There is a rumbling happening in the Evangelical Christian world in which many people are deconstructing their faith. The pushback against this process is both helpful and detrimental.
It’s helpful in the sense that there are many who are not deconstructing their faith but demolishing it. Interestingly enough the Cambridge Dictionary defines deconstruction as “the act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand its meaning, especially when this is different from how it was previously understood.” If this is what people are truly doing in their deconstruction process, this only fortifies their faith in Christ and reveals a heart posture of humility, a growth mindset, and an openness to always present themselves before the Lord to be transformed by the renewal of their minds (Rom. 12:1-2).
This is where the pushback against deconstruction is detrimental. When churches and faith institutions ask for their community members to not understand the meaning of what they are asked to believe this is called indoctrination. This is pushing forth agendas and belief structures, and simply asking masses to believe it because of the dynamics of power.
However, this is not the way of Christ and it is most definitely not the calling of the Church and Christ followers.
Is Deconstruction Christian?
In fact, Jesus’ first words in His public ministry were, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near (Mt. 4:17).” The word repent is the Greek word metanoia (μετάνοια) and it implies the changing of one’s mind, thoughts, and lifestyle. This is not only a manner in which we pursue forgiveness from God, but it is the process through which we look to find a new way of life in Christ.
Repentance is such an important concept that Jesus immediately welcomes those following Him to practice it through His sermon on the mount (Mt. 5-7). He uses the phrase, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you” or something similar six times in this sermon. This dealt with topics from the Law and how the religious leaders had interpreted it through legalism and the people had missed the true meaning of God’s Law and Word. Jesus is not only showing the people that He is the correct interpretation and fulfillment of these things, but that they must think differently in order to live in the fullness of life that He has come to give them.
Jesus continually marks His ministry with opportunities for people to think differently, to learn something new, to change their minds and hearts, and to find the way, truth, and life in Him alone (Jn. 14:6). And the followers of Jesus thought this was such an important concept that they included the exhortation to repent in nearly every New Testament letter. The repeated invitation sounds like “repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38)”, “we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16)”, “don’t conform to the ways of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rms. 12:1-2)”, “put off the old self and be made new in the attitude of your minds (Eph. 4:22-24)”, “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things (Col. 3:1-4)”, and other many similar encouragements to think differently.
In other words, the way of Jesus, the way of His disciples, and the invitation from the Word of God is for Christians to consistently think differently. Our call is to reorient and reframe our understanding of God, the world, and ourselves by searching, studying, and allowing our minds to be renewed and transformed. This calls for asking the big questions. This calls for us to bring our doubts and concerns to the Lord. This calls for us to join with others and sharpen one another in the process of allowing God refine our faith and lives. This calls for us to actually love God with all of our minds and not just the other parts of our existence.
Ultimately, this calls for bringing the things that we have heard from others before the Word of God and prayerfully considering what things are from God and what things are not. John said it this way to the early Church as a way to help them discern the false teachings of the day: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God (1 Jn. 4:1-3).”
As scary as it sounds to some, we are actually called to deconstructive thinking as a part of the process of allowing God to renew our minds, to transform our lives, and to build better, more intentional relationships and communities.
In fact, without deconstruction thinking, there wouldn’t have been a number of truly impactful movements in the Church and world throughout history. Most specifically, it took a radically brave group of men and women to initiate the Protestant Reformation through the groundwork of thoroughly researching the beliefs and practices of the Church and prophetically challenging the status quo to see the truth they discovered extended to all people.
Without this openness to repentance and deconstruction we will unfortunately continue to see the overgeneralizations of our world and society. We will continue to see the pushing forth of indoctrination. We will continue to see the grasping for and protecting of power dynamics that wield truth as a weapon rather than freely speak truth in love as a resource for all. We will continue to see polarization, biases, and prejudices as the foundation of many who don’t believe there’s any need to research what they believe and why.
How Can I Approach Deconstruction?
With that said, I want to point out a few things that I believe are incredibly important for all people as it deals with deconstruction.
Deconstruction is Not Demolition
The process of breaking something down into separate parts to understand it is not the process of throwing a stick of dynamite and running for cover. Unfortunately, many people enter into deconstruction processes by simply pushing “detonate” and never looking back. That’s not deconstruction. That is demolition.
Deconstruction is the process of looking at the aspects of our faith and prayerfully opening ourselves to be searched, reverently searching God’s Word, asking the Holy Spirit to pour out wisdom and revelation, and allowing our minds to consistently be changed for the outcome of growth in our relational connection with Jesus. This is like walking into our homes and seeing something that is unsightly, out of place, or in need of repair, and then doing the work to replace, fix, or move it for the betterment of the home. To continue the metaphor, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, this is of the utmost importance to us to regularly do check-in’s with the Lord about what things we are believing and why, and then allowing God to help with make the necessary changes.
Our faith in Christ is both strong and delicate which means deconstruction calls for both intense and intentional questioning, researching, studying, and reframing our lives through the truth and grace of God. We should not try to blow it all up and we also should not think that we have everything figured out. Our call is to repent, to be renewed in our minds, and to love God with all our mind.
For many, deconstruction may include unpacking things that previous pastors, parents, or mentors told us and understanding them in a new way. This can often lead to people using these new pieces of knowledge as ammunition to exact revenge or to inflict harm on those who harmed them. However, deconstruction is not about demolition. It’s more about love than proving somebody else wrong. The goal of revisiting these things is to gain a deeper understanding and a better way of loving God and others, and then putting these things into practice.
If deconstruction looks more like demolition than building, we are missing the opportunity for what God invites us to do with Him and in Him.
Deconstruction is Not a Solo Adventure
One year I took my 2003 Toyota Corolla in for an oil change and got it back with a list of about $4,000 in suggested repairs. I started researching some of the work and thought to myself, “This seems easy enough for me to do.” So I watched the YouTube videos about various mechanical repairs, ordered the parts, and started on the work.
At first, I was able to replace shocks/struts and change the transmission fluid, and I felt like I had missed my calling as an auto-repair technician. However, when I started on the second repair, I was quickly met with the harsh reality that I had no idea what I was doing. I called a friend who graciously came to my aid and showed me quite a few things along the way. In return for helping me with the car, he asked for guitar lessons and we built a great relationship from both instances.
What started as a solo adventure rapidly turned into a needed community for me to receive help and give help. However, for many that deconstruct, they do so alone. They leave their faith community behind and try to explore the deep questions, doubts, and theological concerns they have alone.
At first, this may be helpful as some faith communities are not open to this type of process and avoid the hard questions. This may also be helpful in giving space and time to prayerfully consider, research, and discover new revelation of the Lord. However, the more time we spend alone in deconstruction the more we will find that we were never meant to do life alone and the more we will find that we are better off doing this work with others.
Not this is not an encouragement to go out and find every angry, traumatized, and hurt person in the deconstruction process. This is an encouragement to ask trusted people to go with you though. The process of reconsidering and thinking differently is only aided by doing it with another person. This is both challenging and comforting. Challenging in the sense that the process won’t be fast and there will always be accountability, but comforting in the sense that the process will lead to depth and you’ll always have somebody to grow with mutually. As the old saying goes, “The one who goes alone, goes fast. The two that go together, go far.”
I will also add that not only trusted people that you can call family, friend, or mentor are important, but also reliable voices and ears such as counselors, spiritual directors, and pastors too. I definitely recognize that many people deconstruct because of pastors, so this is nothing to rush. However, when the time is right, there are plenty of people in spiritual formation positions that would love to journey with those asking the hard questions.
Lastly, there is One who is always with us and always inviting us into the Counsel of His wisdom and revelation. All too often, the process of deconstruction is done without the help of the One who has been given to lead us into all truth (Jn. 16:13). Inviting the Holy Spirit to guide us, shape us, and speak to us about the questions, doubts, and process is not only important, but necessary.
All of this to say that when we go alone, we may find that some things are easy to unpack and discover, but we will quickly find that we are desperate for a community of support, accountability, wisdom, and formation. Don’t go alone, beloved.
Deconstruction is Not About Information, but Transformation
For many, the belief of deconstruction is that if we can pull apart arguments about certain theological topics or Scriptural standpoints to obtain the right information all will be at peace. However, more often than not the accumulation of more information is not what leads to peace but more anxiety. It’s the anxiety connected to believing that we now have the correct truth and we must protect it at all costs. It’s the anxiety flowing from a “know-it-all” posture of discovering the only truth about a topic. It’s the anxiety that is revealed by the constant grasping for more information in order to feel more peace.
Simply put, learning more information is not the goal. Rather, being transformed is the purpose of deconstruction.
When people enter into the process of asking questions and revisiting topics in the Word and theology, the goal should never be to look like a bobblehead that’s filled with knowledge, but to look like Jesus who is filled with love. Paul said it this way, “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies (1 Cor. 8:1).”
One key to this all is the theological concept of “epistemological humility.” This idea is rooted in the understanding that there will always be things about which we are ignorant and that the things we do understand are always impacted by a number of pre-existing beliefs. This means that we practice humility with what we assume to know and that we live with an openness to grow in our understanding of any subject at any given moment.
This practice doesn’t dismiss that we can believe in universal truths such as Jesus is Lord and that He did die for our sin and was raised from the grave. But it does mean that we don’t hold these truths as information that makes us better than others, but as gracious and powerful realities that transform us. It means that we can cling to these facts and still engage with others to hear their perspectives, to grow in our understanding, and ultimately to be transformed in the process.
The temptation, not just in deconstruction but in life, is to hold information and wield it powerfully above and against others. Yet, the Gospel of Jesus both confronted with questions and informative teaching, as well as welcomed with transformative grace. Jesus is often found responding to questions with questions that invite the asker(s) into a redemptive posture. He is also found repeatedly both showing the severity of sin and the immensity of His grace (“neither do I condemn you. Now, go and sin no more.” Jn. 8:11).
There are most definitely many areas of Christian belief that have been exposited that should be deconstructed with thorough, intentional, and prayerful research. There are a wide variety of topics in which information has been given that has wounded, divided, and caused more harm than good. The goal should not be to deconstruct our thoughts about these topics to gain more information but rather to experience the transformation that God graciously offers to all.
And the best part about God’s transformative process is that it’s about our whole being. He will meet us with new information that leads us to deep and good beliefs that flow into righteous and holy practices. This will bring healing to our hearts and minds as well as extend love to those around us. God’s just that good to reach into the hard and harmful things and turn them into something more beautiful than we can know or imagine. I would like to propose pursuing God’s transformation as the foundation of any type of deconstructive thinking.
A simple way of practicing this is the prayer from Psalm 139:23-24 in which David sings, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Let God search you and lead you into His information and transformation.
What Now?
Here’s the thing: we will always find ourselves with big questions concerning our life with Jesus and the faith journey we are on. There will always be opportunities to research and study various theological topics. There will always be something we heard about the Bible or God that we should test. There will always be some type of healing we can receive or information we can learn or transformation we can experience.
The goal is not to hear a word like deconstruction and either throw in the towel on our faith or throw out anybody asking questions from our faith communities. Rather, we should heed the words of Jesus and the invitations extended to those who follow His way. We should daily search the Scriptures as we bring our big questions, immense emotions, and theological inquiries to the Lord. We should invite others to join us as we unpack harmful, confusing, and large concepts about God and the world. And more than anything, we should open ourselves to the power of God in what deconstructive thinking can lead to: repentance and renewal.
God is big enough to handle your questions. God cares enough to hear you and walk with you. And God is good enough to transform it all into something better than you can imagine. It might be painful, it might be hard, but know this: through deconstruction the Lord can construct something glorious in your life and come to dwell in it. C.S. Lewis said it like this:
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” - C.S. Lewis
Don’t be afraid, beloved. The Lord is the best at taking the broken, deconstructed pieces of our lives and building them into a masterpiece. It’s for that masterpiece that I pray and write, amen.
