Deconstruction, but you didn't hear it from me
Uncovering doubt and learning what to do with it
I didn’t stumble upon the term “faith deconstruction” until well into a dramatic reckoning with the evangelical faith I grew up with. Originally, there was relief. Instead of just a mess of doubt, I realized this reckoning was a well-defined, documented process. I wasn’t alone. That relief was short lived. I quickly learned that deconstruction was far from an objective, neutral descriptor. It was often used to warn solid Christians about their questioning peers. One of my favorite acerbic descriptions is from Grove City College Professor, Carl Truemann, who argues,
"(mis)use of the Derridean d-word gives the whole a specious veneer of intellectualism and a certain superannuated postmodern chic."[1]
In non-elite words, all the cool kids are doing it.
But I didn’t adopt deconstruction for its trendy label, it kind of adopted me. I’ve made peace with it, but not easily. It needed to happen, and it was inevitable. I believe that each deconstructionist has a unique story, and each story has something to offer others facing their own faith struggle. The following is my offering.
That can’t be doubt; no way that’s doubt
Looking back, I can point to pivotal moments where unease and doubt appeared. Honestly, doubt came first, but I would never have admitted it. In my tradition, a doubter was spiritually shaky, worthy of the unflattering simile in James 1:6, “like one blown and tossed by the wind.” A faith built on the infallibility of scripture, a four-step-road to salvation, and the charge to stand up for what you believe in left little room, or compassion, for doubt. So, even in the childhood moments when I squirmed with discomfort over the Romans Road, or grew skeptical of a heaven full of only gold and happiness, I assumed I just lacked faith or was too prideful.
“Someday,” I reasoned, “I’ll be so broken by my utter depravity that I won’t be able to stop telling the world about the One who paid my debt and rescued me from Hell.”
So the reasoning went.
Put on the cardigan and play the part
I sat with this unease well into my 20s, circumventing it by finding other aspects of evangelicalism to love, one of which was belonging to my church community. It was so easy to look the part, play the part, and enjoy the friends that came along with it. On Sundays, I would sling my vibrant, Vera Bradley diaper bag over my shoulder, smile, and drop off my screaming infant at the church nursery.
“Go!” the kind workers would say. “Enjoy the service. Be fed.”
And off I would go with my husband to join the other families in our identical stage of life with identical goals: to raise children in the fear of the Lord. All the steps were laid out for us: go to church, sing hymns to our kids at night, memorize scripture with them, start a Thursday morning Bible study, repeat. We knew the most important thing we could teach our kids was that they were sinners, utterly helpless without a Savior. Nothing good could come from them, it all came from Jesus. We could unite as parents around this important charge, and we believed the more we brought this gospel into all aspects of our life, the more we would see our kids become like Jesus. The moms were assured that it was absolutely the right choice to stay out of the workplace (apart from selling essential oils while the kids napped) so we could have teaching moments at home. We were promised peace, knowing we’d kept out kids out of indoctrinating, public spaces. “Keep going Mamas, you’ve got this!”
Right?
The clock is ticking
When my oldest was four it became clear he was approaching the age-of-some-sort-of-accountability, and the pressure to present the gospel was mounting. My time to resolve doubt was ending, and I was no closer to resolving it than a decade before.
I had just started teaching our church’s preschool class. We were encouraged to present a gospel invitation each week, which meant asking the kids if they were ready to confess their sins and accept Jesus into their hearts. Preparing for my first week of teaching I was struck with the shocking realization that I couldn’t do this. I didn’t truly believe it. I could no more present this gospel to a room of four-year-olds than I could to my own four-year-old. Needless to say, I quit teaching as soon as I could, wondering what on earth I was going to do with my doubt. I found my way into a sort of disengaged limbo that worked fine- until we ran into a little year by the name of 2020.
Um, what just happened
Early into the pandemic, back when we thought school would only be closed for two weeks, I adopted the posture of my conservative, evangelical community: the virus was a joke, Christians don’t live in fear, closing church was religious persecution, and don’t even say “mask” around me.
But in May, after the murder of George Floyd, I found my paradigms about race and the church flipped completely upside down. Pride broken, I saw the reality of racism in myself, my community, and my country. I was horrified to learn of the role the church had played, and was playing, in perpetuating a culture of whiteness, supremacy, and segregation. I was wrecked. After that, it wasn’t long until I understood that the new, diverse voices I was listening to were also singing a different tune about COVID:
Masks? Absolutely- we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable.
My rights? An utterly American fabrication not found in the gospels.
Shut down church? It grieves us to close, but we refuse to be a site of viral outbreak in this community we love and strive to protect.
My previous pandemic attitude abruptly reversed. As I looked at my church with new eyes, I realized the gospel we were preaching was disturbingly detached from human suffering and any sense of kinship. As the virus forced our faith to meet the road, I saw that it wasn’t truly our neighbors we were loving. We were loving ourselves.
And thus, deconstruction began
The gospel I’d been raised with had centered me in communities that shrugged at racism, denied the connectedness of all people, and made my individual relationship with God supreme. But there were Christians preaching a slightly different gospel, one that led them in the opposite direction. They weren’t just coastal elites; they were deeply faithful to Jesus and attuned to the cry of the suffering. I needed to learn from this community, I needed to listen to new voices, no matter how much they were decried as capitulators to a social gospel.
Commence!
So, I dove into new books, podcasts, and theologians. It was an all-in acknowledgement of doubt, and a struggle to reimagine the building blocks of my faith. It was all at once achingly lonely, confusing, and hopeful. There was a lot of spinning in circles. Today, there still is. I am still caught off guard by antagonism in people I thought would be understanding. I’m increasingly aware of the spaces in which this is not ok to talk about. I grieve over the loss of easy certainty and ready-made community.
But every time I find a new way to let light shine into scriptures that were previously shrouded in darkness, I am filled with relief. I am fascinated by discovering what majority culture had blocked me from seeing. I rejoice that there are things that I don’t even know that I don’t know. I’m all-in on this rebuilding process, even if it’s a rough ride.
This brings us to today
This journey is what I’ll chronicle in this newsletter. I’m rethinking the gospel, the role of community, human nature, prayer, response to diversity in all forms, what church should be, how to disciple my kids, the theology of social responsibility, and more. Every week brings new questions, new reconsiderations, new opportunities to wrestle through uncertainty with art, contemplation, conversation, and community.
As I wrestle, my desire is to write without swiping at the low-hanging fruit of derision. There have been plenty of times that I’ve scoffed at my previous beliefs and the communities that hold them. But what feels victorious in the moment ultimately stalls progress. Gentleness, curiosity, a communal focus, and hope are the postures towards which I want to bend my heart. If you’re also trying to gently reimagine a walk with Jesus, I invite you along. This journey is one that grows dark in isolation, but floods with light in community.
More to come.