Hot Topics Week 5 / Deconstructing Deconstruction
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Deconstructing Deconstruction
Deconstructing Deconstruction
Week 5 of our Hot Topics Series.
We polled.
You voted.
I’m preaching.
Perhaps surprisingly, of the 12 topics in the poll, this ranked second in number of votes, and if combined with a similar option (atheism & doubt) it was tied for first in terms of topics you wanted to hear addressed.
So here we are.
Deconstruction.
We are going to take a few minutes this morning Deconstructing Deconstruction.
Defining Deconstruction
Defining Deconstruction
The word deconstruction has been used to describe a everything from a complete journey into apostasy either atheism or agnosticism to a rediscovery of authentic Biblical faith and a rediscovery of the person of Jesus.
How can one word have such a broad understanding of meaning?
Well, I think it’s because many folks understand the term based on the outcome of the process and not the process itself.
You guys know by now that I’m pretty nuanced in the way I speak and approach topics and ideas.
If there is nuance to the conversation I’m going to try to find it.
I don’t like to latch on to extreme arguments if there is a place for thoughtful conversation.
So, I’m going to define Christian Deconstruction as the process of dismantling elements and structures that have been attached to Biblical Faith.
My definition is morally neutral.
Why?
Because there are many thing that have been attached to biblical faith that need to be dismantled.
That can be good, because it brings us back to a biblical faith in Christ and true theology.
For some it simply means clearing out unbiblical clutter that has been added to the faith by popular America Christianity.
It’s a deconstruction that leads to rediscovery of Jesus.
But, and here is the danger, often times deconstruction leads to a complete demolition of the faith and a walking away from Jesus and the church.
For some it means tearing down their faith completely and rebuilding their life completely apart from historic Biblical faith - questioning everything and looking for answers outside the faith.
So it’s hard to talk about deconstruction with any clarity without listening to the person talking or without defining the terms.
I’m not going to define deconstruction more than this, other than to say that any deconstruction that is more concerned with cultural acceptance and defining absolute truth outside of Scripture is a dangerous demonic scheme to lead folks to deconversion and does not lead a deepening faith, deepening life, or deepening spiritual experience.
Much of the outcome of ones deconstruction is based on the reason for ones deconstruction and the road one takes during deconstruction.
Doors Of Deconstruction
Doors Of Deconstruction
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. 14 How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.
Two Doors.
Narrow and wide.
Jesus is inviting us to a path of life.
It’s narrow.
It requires stripping away the things that would prevent us from making it thru the gate.
But the beauty of stripping things away is that it makes is easier to walk the difficult road.
The wide road to destruction gives us room from lots of baggage.
It gives us room to hold on to a lot of things on the journey.
But those things that we hold onto ultimately lead us away from life.
When we strip the baggage down we discover a Jesus who loves us and teaches us to love others.
One deconstruction forces us to let go of the baggage to hold on to Jesus.
One deconstruction invites us to hold onto the things we like and take pleasure in but we end up letting go of Jesus.
We have to chose a road.
One is a deconstruction to deliverance.
One is a deconstruction to destruction.
Who you chose to walk with on the path is vital.
Who you allow to be your guide on the journey thru the gate matters immensely.
Because, and here’s the thing, we live in an age where doubt and cynicism are celebrated and almost seen as a virtue.
There are loud objections to our faith and there are silent doubts.
And there are many voices seeking to pull you away from faith.
Do not be guided by the unbeliever.
Pull up close to those who have gone thru the testing of their faith and came out the other side.
7 so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Don’t be carried along the by those who have given up.
The questions may be very real and very personal, but
13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.
There is a way thru the trial, the test, the questions, and the doubts that doesn’t lead away from Jesus but leads you to trust him more.
So many of us think that our questions and doubts have never been wrestled with before.
But hear me, there are biblically faithful answers to your questions.
Don’t abandon faith thinking you are discovering truth.
One of my favorite lines from any song, is a line from Switchfoot’s first album - “Doubt your doubts, and believe your beliefs.”
Our doubts, while a real thing to be wrestled with and sorted thru have to be wrestled with while anchored to something that is constant.
Something unmovable, unshakable, unchanging.
May dad used to do remodeling work.
He pastored, but he would do the odd home remodel.
I remember one house he was remodeling.
He pulled up the flooring and discover the floor was rotten.
He had pulled the floor up and discovered that the subfloor was rotten.
He pulled the subfloor up and discovered that the trussing was rotten.
So a job that should have taken a couple days took a couple weeks.
He had to deconstruct the very foundation to rebuild.
Here is the danger in much deconstruction, the temptation is to pull up the foundation because the flooring is rotten.
Listen church, our foundation is solid.
Do not listen to folks who want to pull up the very foundations of the Faith because they found cracks in stucco or because they found leaks in the pipes.
Our foundation is solid.
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
A Solid Construction
A Solid Construction
When building the framework of your life and faith, build it on a firm foundation.
We have a firm foundation.
Christ is our firm foundation.
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”
He is the cornerstone of our faith.
As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:
See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and honored cornerstone,
and the one who believes in him
will never be put to shame.
So honor will come to you who believe; but for the unbelieving,
The stone that the builders rejected—
this one has become the cornerstone,
and
A stone to stumble over,
and a rock to trip over.
They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Jesus is the cornerstone and a stumbling block.
You either build your life on his life and teaching or you trip over him.
Will you survive the storm or will you collapse?
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
21 because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
HEAR ME CHURCH, our foundation is secure.
It is Christ Jesus and the revealed authoritative Word of God given to us in the Holy Scripture.
So, yes there may be thing that need to be deconstructed, even discarded in your faith walk down the narrow road, but do not leave the road and do not build on a differeNT foundation.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own understanding;
in all your ways know him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Devices of Deconstruction
Devices of Deconstruction
There are several common devices of deconstruction.
There are several common themes in many contemporary deconstruction stories.
I identified a few in a sermon about a year ago - Church Hurt, Cultural Questions, and Christian Hypocrisy.
I want to mention them and then mention 2 more, Poor Teaching and Desire To Sin.
1. Church Hurt
Many question the faith because they have been hurt by people in the church.
Hurt by pastors or leaders.
It’s important here to understand that church hurt is real.
But it’s also important to understand legitiment church hurt and simple disagreement or personality clash - being accountable to leaders, striving to live in unity and love, those are biblical concepts that we sometimes don’t like so we claim church hurt.
There is legitimate church hurt - abuses of power, sexual abuse, and ungodly character, those things are real and when they occur can really cause the hurt party or those who have witnessed the hurt question the faith and leave the church and maybe even walk away from the faith altogether.
2. Cultural Questions
Many deconstruct because of questions that are specific to our cultural moment.
Questions lIke science and faith, or gender and sexuality, or racial strife, artificial intelligence.
We ask these questions like they are new.
The specifics may be new but the foundations are not.
They may be specific to our cultural moment but the are not new questions.
Scriptures answers them all.
Christian faith has answers.
They begin to view their faith and the scripture thru the lens of culture instead of viewing culture thru the lens of the faith and the scripture.
The begin to seek out answers that haven’t been tested.
They think their questions are new questions that have never been asked in the 2000 years of Christian faith and tradition.
Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t questions I’m saying that there are good, sufficient, tride and true answers that do not lead away from the faith but that find there foundation in it.
God never pushes us away when we come close with our doubts. He always invites us closer to himself.
3. Christian Hypocrisy
From listening to stories I would say that the recent uptick in deconversion has really been accelerated by what is seen as Christian hypocrisy.
What I mean is that especially over the last 10 years there has been an increasing belief that what Christians want more than the salvation of their enemies is power over their enemies.
I do not believe that is true of the true Church.
But there is a Christian Hypocrisy.
There is a vocal Christian Hypocrisy that demands from others what they don’t live up to themselves.
The church has preached against sexual sin while others who claim Christ cover up sexual sin by it’s leaders.
The church has preached against racism while others who claim Christ embrace racist rhetoric and unjust policies.
The church has preached against sinful politicians while others who claim Christ embrace a political power at all costs mentality (republicans and democrats).
This Christian Hypocrisy doesn’t look like Jesus.
And if the world doesn’t see Jesus when they see the Church they won’t believe in Jesus when the Church speaks.
4. Poor Teaching
Another reason people deconstruct in a way that leads them away for Jesus is poor teaching.
Many have been taught that science and faith are incomparable.
Or that God is a vengeful God who take pleasure in punishment.
Or that God is a misogynist or that God is a republican or that God is a democrat.
Some have been taught totally extra-biblical things as if they were foundational to the faith.
Some have been taught to major on the minors.
And when legitimate questions arise, because those things were so directly tied to the faith, when those things fail our faith begins to break down because our faith was tied to things and not to the person and work and teaching of Jesus.
Maybe this story rings familiar.
BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR FAITH: DECONSTRUCTING DOUBT IN THE CHURCH
Chapter 2 “PROGRESSIVE’ CHRISTIANITY WAS EVEN SHALLOWER THAN THE EVANGELICAL FAITH I LEFT
IAN HARBER Tells his story
“In John 6, Jesus’s hard teaching causes a large number of his followers to abandon him. After they leave, Jesus asks his remaining disciples, “Do you want to go away as well?” (v. 67). Peter, whom I assume is heartbroken and embarrassed from seeing so many he knows leave the one he calls Lord, speaks up: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (vv. 68–69).
This story is my story. I have walked in both shoes: the shoes of those who deserted and the shoes of Peter who couldn’t leave, no matter how hard it seemed to stay. I was an #exvangelical who left the faith of my youth for “progressive Christianity.” Then I returned. Here’s my #revangelical story.
HOW MY FAITH CRUMBLED
The Christian tradition I grew up in—for all the wonderful things it gave me—was not prepared for a generation of kids with access to high-speed internet. Not that the critiques of the Bible we discovered online were new, but they were now at the fingertips of curious folks who grew up in evangelical bubbles. Like me. The answers given in church seemed shallow compared to the legitimate critiques that were a Google search or YouTube video away. What about the contradictions and scientific inaccuracies in certain biblical stories? How have we ever shrugged at the passages in which God commands Israel to slaughter her enemies and their children? How could a loving God condemn his beloved creation to eternal torment? What about all the other religions? Aren't they all saying basically the same thing? These questions, among others, began to chip away at the authority of the stories I was handed as a child.
Not only did I have questions about the Bible, but I had questions about how it squared with my faith's political culture. Why did our policies seem to particularly disadvantage poor and marginalized communities? Why was it common in the church to see Christians degrade immigrants, made in the image of God, who were simply seeking a better life in my Texas town? As important as abortion is, surely we're supposed to care about those suffering after birth as well, right?
I couldn't help but think it had to be more complicated than the story I was being told.
So eventually, I left the faith completely. I wanted nothing to do with Jesus or the church.
Interestingly, it was in a time of mourning when I learned that my mother, from whom I had been estranged, had died at 33 (I was 16) that God began to renter my life. But my evangelical environment lacked a substantial theology of suffering. Suffering was something to avoid or suppress, not a means of God's transforming grace in our lives.
This triangle of questions about Scripture, politics, and suffering laid the foundation for me to explore progressive Christianity…”
IAN eventually embraced progressive Christianity and then left the faith altogether. He continues…
“After the 2016 election I became convinced it was time to begin rebuilding my faith. A few months later, two things happened simulta-neously: I began formal theological education and, in a tragic accident, I lost the grandfather who had raised me. This death plunged me into another season of intense suffering, but this time in a theologically rigorous environment.
One of my teachers said, "We do theology in the light so we can stand on it in the dark." I was doing theology and standing on it in the dark. For the first time I really learned the doctrines of the Trinity and of Scripture as a unified story, and how to read it as inspired literature.
I was taught how doctrines that I assumed were contradictory like penal substitution and Christs Victor actually need each other to form the full, beautiful, biblical picture. I learned about union with Christ and all the blessings it brings. I learned about spiritual disciplines and the life-giving freedom that flows from a disciplined pursuit of God. From there, the wide and rich world of historic Christian orthodoxy swung open for me to explore.
We need more theology, nuance, grace, compassion, and understanding in our churches, not less. But these things are made possible by orthodox doctrine, not in spite of it. Doubt and questions need not catalyze a pendulum swing from belief to unbelief. If worked out in a healthy, thoughtful Christian community and with an abiding connection to Christ, our true vine (John 15)- they can actually deepen faith and strengthen roots, producing a life where we bear fruit and withstand the fierce winds of a secular age.”
Maybe Ian’s story resonates with you.
The answer to your doubts isn’t deconstruction of your faith, it’s a deep dive into the faith.
He goes on to say, “Parts of your faith probably do need to be decon-structed. Your legitimate questions do need to be addressed. These need not be steps away from faith, but steps toward a deeper and lasting faith. Don't stuff these questions down and hope they go away. Don't settle for less than the good, true, and beautiful found in Jesus Christ.”
If you have honest questions, go to Jesus.
He alone has the words of life.
5. Desire To Sin
Make every effort to come to me soon, because Demas has deserted me, since he loved this present world, and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.
Demas deserted Paul because his loved this present world.
Other translations say that he “loved the world too much”.
Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.
Loving the world.
Giving into demonic influence.
Listening to lying teachers.
Turning from truth.
Satisfying their own desires and passion.
Here is a plain truth, many will deconstruct and walk away from the faith simply because they love the world and is pleasure too much.
They want to sin.
As the classic dcTalk song says, “The things of this world are passing away. Here tomorrow but they’re sure not here to stay.”
It’s an echo of John’s word to the church.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
Sin is fun for a season.
If we didn’t find any pleasure in sin we would not be tempted to sin.
For some the pleasure they find in sin gives them a temporary satisfaction that they don’t believe they will find in obedience to Jesus.
But again, the scripture is true when it says sin is fun for a season.
Eventually the pleasure of sin is outweighed by the reality of sin’s destruction.
The satisfaction that we find in Jesus is eternal.
The pleasure we find in sin is temporal.
The pleasure we may find in disobedience is temporal.
The satisfaction we find in obedience is eternal.
The fruit of the tree was pleasing to the eye and enjoyable to the tongue, but it brought death and destruction.
The Christ on the tree reversed the curse and brought life.
Find your satisfaction in Jesus.
Gaze on the beauty of Jesus.
Swim in the ocean of His love.
Meditate on the mysteries of goodness.
Ponder the depths of His wisdom.
Taste the wine of Grace.
Eat the bread of Life.
Don’t deconstruct away from the faith, instead let Jesus strip away the extra baggage, the sin, the weight that has kept you from finding your greatest joy in Him.
Come to the table.
Become part of the house He is building.
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he gave the disciples orders to tell no one that he was the Messiah.
There’s no greater building that the house Jesus is building.
Let’s not add anything on to to it, but let us trust the builder.
Come to the table.