Deconstruction or Spiritual Growth?

There has been a lot of discussion in recent history about this term deconstruction. I have talked to friends who are “deconstructing their faith” or students saying they are “deconstructing what they believe.” The term deconstruction has gotten a lot of hype because one group of people or other came across it online or in an English class. It seems to explain where people are coming from and what they are doing with everything from faith to gender to sexuality.

Deconstruction itself is not a new term. It was first coined by a linguistic philosopher named Jacque Derrida in 1969. He was working on the philosophy of Renee de Saussure who had realized that words only have the meaning that we give them.

In and of themselves words only have significance when we as speakers give them meaning. For instance all English speakers use the term “tree” to mean the green leafy, bark covered plant that grows tall in the woods, in our parks or at our homes. We have all agreed that’s what a “tree” is, but that is not that plant’s essence, because in French they call it “un arbor” and in Spanish they call it “el árbol.” The thing these words point to are the same thing, but they only work when you know English, French or Spanish, other than that they aren’t helpful. Then we realize this is three of thousands of languages that try to point to that green leafy bark covered plant. Then we start to put modifiers on “tree” and it gets more complicated (eg. palm, oak, maple, etc.). Words point to things but only derive meaning when those using the words apply meaning to them.

This is all “simple” when we are talking about trees, but what about when we apply the same idea to humanity, countries, or even God? It get’s so complicated that we need to take things apart to start trying to understand what we mean, thus deconstruction. As I said this can get very complicated very fast, so for the sake of brevity I will stop there. If you want to discuss this more please let me know (stew@nucleuscoaching.net).

All of this means that what people have been calling “deconstruction” may not necessarily be what Derrida or other devotees would call deconstruction. I am not encountering droves of college students wondering what we all mean by words like spoon or tree or dentist; nor are we encountering people that are wondering what we mean by humanity or countries, but what I do hear is allusions to questioning what we mean by “God.” Alluding though is as close as we get to classical deconstruction. What seems to be happening is that we are beginning to question the absolute nature of what we have for years called “Evangelicalism.”

Each person I encounter who says they are second guessing or deconstructing their faith has come from the Evangelical circle of Christianity. I am not encountering Muslim deconstructionists or Buddhists second guess their faith in reincarnation, not that they are not out there, I’m just not seeing it as much in other faith groups or subcultures. To be completely clear, my friends in the mainline churches are not seeing this phenomenon nearly as much either. This seems to be mainly isolated to the “evangelical” subculture in Christianity, not many other subcultures are actively “deconstructing.” That means what we are calling “deconstruction” is a second guessing of what people were told were absolute “truths” in Evangelical Churches.

Typically in an Evangelical church you are told you have to believe a set of predetermined rules and interpretations or you aren’t really a Christian. You are further taught that there are groups of people outside of yours that don’t check all the boxes and they only think they are Christians, when in reality they are going to hell. Many of those truths, they claim are "essential for people to believe or they are going to hell," have been hotly debated in Christianity for centuries. It wasn’t until mid to late 20th century that Evangelical Christians started to say those “truths” were settled and to question them made you a heretic.

There are two reasons this is so important, the first reason is about Evangelical Christianity the other is about faith development in general. I’ll take the first one I mentioned last and start with the faith development reason first.

Faith, no mater the religion, typically develops by someone passing it on to a person and that person begins to grapple with the ideas that are taught to them. Once they start to grapple they go into a time of questioning the validity of that faith in their day to day lives. Christianity and especially Evangelical Christianity is subject to that very effect. In Christianity once you start to make the faith your own you go through a time of wrestling. Some people call it sanctification, others just say they are beginning to work out their faith, either way you question everything you accepted as true in the early days of your conversion. Brian Zhand has called this a renovation of faith. I like that analogy.

Let’s say you inherited a house from your grandparents, when you move in you find all the nostalgic corners that hold all the memories of your time at their house. Once you’ve been there a while you start to make small changes that make the house your own, decorating etc. You begin to realize that what was popular in design when your grandparents lived in the house are not the same for your generation, plus your tastes are not their tastes. As you design you decide that some structural things need to be reinforced and while you are at it major portions of the house need renovated. So you decide to take the house down to the studs and rebuild everything. This is not a total deconstruction of the house, its a needed renovation to make the space yours. When you apply this analogy to faith, we get "what the kids these days are calling" deconstruction. It isn’t deconstruction, its a renovation.

To renovate your faith isn’t as cool of a term as deconstructing your faith. What is happening is that people are rethinking the whole thing, not razing the house. There is nothing wrong with questioning everything, to make Christianity your own. Every Christian who stays a follower of Jesus has had multiple moments of renovation. We have looked at our faith, compared it to what Jesus taught and what our culture needs, and reimagined it. We especially reimagined it when we realized the faith we were handed by our evangelical mothers and fathers had dry rot and termite damage all through it, from years of toxic leadership, misogyny, and racism. Renovation is needed, it is not a complete destruction or even a typical deconstruction, it has some hallmarks of it, and is a normal developmental stage for people who are pursing a realistic faith in Jesus.

Why is this something that seems to be happening more in evangelical circles than others. Like I said above Evangelical Christianity has so much wrong with it and many people have accepted it as true Christianity. I grew up being told that the Catholics were wrong because of a host of issues, that the pentecostals were wrong because of the crazy worship services, that other churches didn’t believe in original sin so they were wrong, and it even got to the point that if you aren’t a Republican then you are wrong, that’s not to mention those churches that let women preach or be elders or that didn’t condemn homosexuality on the spot. I could go on and on but I will stop there

I say all that to show you the toxic nature of things. We stood in high towers and lorded it down on those not like us, all the while, our leaders were sexually harassing women, preying on vulnerable people, and covering up sexual and physical abuse in the church because it was bad for the “look of the church.” For years we condoned racism and discriminated against anyone not the same color as us and told women they were second class citizens in the church and we promoted those men who pushed this sort of thinking. Yeah, I’d want to take that apart too. It would be one thing if this was an isolated thing, but it has happened so many times we have to question the entire structure of Evangelical Christianity. I do not blame anyone for deconstructing that edifice.

My concern for the church and Youth Ministry is that we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. I know that analogy has been used a million times, but its good. Let’s define the baby and the bathwater quickly: The Baby is our pursuit of Jesus to try to understand who this man was and how he effects our life (in deconstruction circles we call that the sign). The Bathwater is the structure we’ve used in the past to understand Jesus (in deconstruction circles we call that the construct). There is nothing wrong with throwing out the construct but the reason the construct was in place is something we want to keep. I want to pursue and understand Jesus, I just don’t want the evangelical Pharisees telling me how to do that, even if I mess it up from time to time.

The paramount thing for us is the construct is not the good news of Jesus. For centuries Christians have thought and rethought how to pursue Jesus and help others do the same, but the pursuit of Jesus is the center of what we do in Christianity. I tell people all the time, take it apart, put all the pieces on the table, look through all the pieces of the construct and see if they are helpful. If they are not discard them, if they are helpful, keep them if they help you understand, wrestle with, and pursue what Jesus called the good news of the Kingdom of God.

You will deal with this if you haven’t. Think through how you keep the baby but throw out the bathwater and start over again. It will help you guide and disciple the students that are doing the same thing. It will help them know they aren’t crazy or going to hell, they are actually pursuing historical Biblical Christianity.