4 Things You Must Do if You are Intellectually Deconstructing Your Faith
A Guide to Honest Deconstruction
Dan Foster recently published ‘Doubting Christians are Sick Christians’; this article is my contribution to that discussion. I agree with Dan on a few points, but, as we will see, I think there is more to be said about intellectual deconstruction.
I know Dan personally, and I disagree with him about many things. Despite that, however, we still respect and love each other (Crazy right? Who knew that you don’t have to agree with people to love them?)
Also, by way of caveat, this article really only applies to those who are on a journey of intellectual deconstruction (cf. emotional/spiritual deconstruction).
Let’s begin.
What is Deconstruction?
Dan summarizes Rachel Held Evans’ definition of deconstruction as follows:
“The point of faith deconstruction is to break down every idea, practice, belief, and tradition of a religious system into tiny pieces and then examine each fragment one by one to determine the truthfulness and usefulness of each part”
Evidently, this relates to a primarily intellectual exercise. According to Evans (and Dan), deconstruction is a meticulous examination of one’s beliefs to determine their veracity and practicability.
Elsewhere in that article Dan, in admonishing pastors who are terrified of people deconstructing their faith (and rightly so), relates the process of deconstruction as “[the exercise of] intellect when it comes to Christian faith.”
Then, we have established that deconstruction, as typically defined, is an intellectual process- a process of picking apart your beliefs and critically examining them to see what’s true (and useful).
So, here’s how to do it well.
1. Read before you Reject
If there’s one thing everyone can probably agree with, it is that contemporary evangelicalism has not necessarily been a bastion of the intellect. From the arrival of the Young Earth Creationist movement in the 20th century, to the rampant anti-vaccination tendencies among staunch evangelicals- it’s not a great look. This also (likely) extends to the church you may have attended. Put differently, your pastor may have done a poor job at conveying good theology to you (or may have not developed good mainstream theology themselves). So, unfortunately, you may have to put in the hard work yourself (if you are after honest deconstruction, that is).
Deconstructing strawmen is a waste of everyone’s time
A consequence of rejecting without reading is that you likely aren’t deconstructing historical/orthodox Christian tenets. You are only deconstructing what you believe (or want to believe) Christian tenets are. For honest intellectual deconstruction, reading (or re-reading) is something that needs to be done.
The last thing you want to happen is finding out that you’ve had some serious misapprehensions about what you thought you were deconstructing after you had ‘completed’ a long journey of deconstruction. Meaning that you are faced with the dilemma of deconstructing (or re-deconstructing) all over again.
If you are intellectually deconstructing, you are setting up the next stage of your faith journey- it should go without saying that we should aim to do the work to ensure that we aren’t swinging blindly at things that may or may not be the right walls. If you call it a day after you’ve demolished everything but the walls you were supposed to demolish, you’ll have to start again (and will probably need to make a few trips to IKEA).
Deconstruction isn’t an easy or simple process. To honestly deconstruct, we must engage with the best arguments for the beliefs we are examining and purporting to reject. Failing to do this enables confirmation bias and facilitates distortions. We must properly measure before we cut (or swing).
Of course, you may be content with deconstructing whatever beliefs you happen to hold or have held (notwithstanding whether they are accurate or robust) and, as long as you are honest about that, that’s ok, each deconstruction journey is different.
Here is a starter reading list (FYI, I haven’t read all of these yet):
- Evidences/Arguments for God’s existence: On Guard by William Lane Craig; Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (for more advanced readers); Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Moreland and Craig (also advanced).
- Atonement: Atonement and the Death of Christ by William Lane Craig; The Cross of Christ by John Stott.
- Hell: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis; Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism by Date, Stump and Anderson; Four Views on Hell: Second Edition by Burk, Stackhouse, Parry and Walls; also see Pain/Suffering/Evil recommendations
- Pain/Suffering/Evil: The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis; Why Does God Allow Evil? by Clay Jones; God, Freedom and Evil by Alvin Plantinga; also see Hell recommendations.
- Genesis/Creation: The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton; Genesis Unbound by Joshua Sailhamer
- Adam and Eve: The Lost World of Adam and Eve by John Walton; In Quest of the Historical Adam by William Lane Craig; The Genealogical Adam and Eve by Joshua Swamidass.
- Multiple View Books: Counterpoints Series by Zondervan Academic; Spectrum Multiview Book Series by IVP.
- General Books: Questioning Christianity by Paterson and Roux; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
- General Internet Resources (Free): Inspiring Philosophy; drcraigvideos; Reasonable Faith; Capturing Christianity; Questioning Christianity.
- General Podcasts (Free): Undeceptions with John Dickson; Unbelievable? with Justin Brierley; Reasonable Faith with Kevin Harris and William Lane Craig.
2. Be comfortable with saying “I don’t know” or “I haven’t read enough yet.”
Secondly, we need to be comfortable with saying “I don’t know”. Deconstruction is not a process of puffing up, or something that should feed our egos. Boldly proclaiming to our friends and family that we’ve ‘thoroughly examined x and subsequently don’t believe it anymore’ when we have not is only setting us up for failure, and looking like a fool later on.
It is inviting them over after we have “renovated” our house only for them to discover that everything is identical except for pieces of destroyed furniture littered around; where the only demolishment will have been the things we have brought to the house, and not the objects we were purporting to demolish or renovate (namely, unnecessary walls to improve value or quality of life).
Again, properly engaging the material about the things we have issues with is something that is foundational to honest (intellectual) deconstruction- you don’t want to have to re-deconstruct because you never wrestled with the scholarly reasons for the things you’ve purported to reject in the first place.
3. Don’t build yourself an echo-chamber.
Take a break from Medium (as much as you might want to think that this is a good scholarly source of information, it is not). Find some mature and thoughtful mainstream Christians who know their stuff to hash out your intellectual/theological qualms with (yes, although they are rare, they exist). If you can’t find any mature and thoughtful mainstream Christians; the next best thing is to read, watch, and listen to mainstream Christians who are scholars (see my reading list above). Do not rely on characterizations offered by Rohr, Bell, Zahnd etc. Engaging with those you disagree with and reading the best cases that they have to offer is generally good practice for everyone (especially for fundamentalists who have a made a habit out of constructing themselves creationist echo-chambers). This way you can ensure that you are being exposed to good arguments and ideas- and not their caricatures- that you may have otherwise not been exposed to.
So, try to reflect on whatever echo-chambers you have constructed and make an effort to expose yourself to things outside them.
This is how I had deconstructed out of being a staunch Young Earth Creationist- I had been exposed to things that made that belief increasingly hard to hold, and then had figured out that not only is it unnecessary, it is not even the best reading of Genesis 1. After deconstructing that wall, I found that my faith had flourished and had opened up much more.
4. Reflect on why you are deconstructing.
Some of you have gotten to the end of this short article and have deemed that it is rather grating. Some may think that I am being arrogant, condescending or patronizing (I am not trying to be).
If this is you, this probably provides for a good point of reflection:
if you are intellectually deconstructing, why are you recoiling when I suggest, and provide resources for, engaging your intellect?
It seems to me then that, for many people, deconstruction does contain (or can be driven by) another facet:
Deconstruction is therapeutic for those who have wrongly suffered harm, hurt, or abuse from those in the Church.
If this is you, I cannot know your hurt; but I know that you are hurting, and I am sorry. Many Christians have done a horrible job at playing in tune with Jesus’ beautiful melody. It sickens me to see so many manipulative and abusive (read: un-Christlike) behaviors prevalent in so many churches and in so many Christians.
Just recently, I had attempted (unsuccessfully) to warn a friend of mine that her love interest was engaging in various creepy, manipulative, and emotionally abusive behaviors towards her- all predicated on the belief that she was his “predestined wife” (when they have not even been on a single date, nor have held hands). This is the kind of stuff that can be so endemic in insular or fundamentalist Christian circles, and I can see why many decide to throw it all out. That kind of stuff is just a big recipe for spiritual and emotional disaster.
After reading this article, you might recognize that you are actually on a process of emotional or spiritual deconstruction rather than an intellectual one- and that’s ok. We are all on different journeys. Own your process, don’t guise it as something that it is not. I think that way, you might save yourself a lot of heartache (and headaches).
For those who are intellectually deconstructing, I hope this article was helpful and that you engage with the resources I have provided (if you haven’t done so already).
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