Deconstruction: The Slope Is Slippery
The demonization of deconstruction.
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”
1 Corinthians 15:1-6
Matt Chandler’s The Depth of the Gospel sermon. Oh boy.
I’ll say this: I understand the point. If you grew up anytime between the 1990’s-2010’s, you were trained to defend the Gospel in the culture wars. Many of the sermons in the pulpits of Evangelical churches were centered on if you knew where you were going when you died, and if you were going to take people with you. Names like Francis Chan, Tony Evans, John MacArthur, John Piper, Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, and Billy Graham, all preaching on topics such as The Truth About Hell (MacArthur), The Pattern of Detours (Evans), Taking Back What The Enemy Stole From Us ( Chan), and my personal favorite, a thirty second clip from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association entitled, Are You Ready to Die?1 which is a wildly ominous video of Billy Graham’s last recorded statements, used as a trailer to his television special of the same name.
All of these sermons came to us with the assumption that we live in this evil laden world that we must protect ourselves from. We had to be prepared to fight the good fight. The 2000’s of my childhood and the 2010’s of my teenaged years were shaped by the concept of spiritual warfare. That we were to arm ourselves with the Armor of God2. Some of you could quote Ephesians 6:10-18 by heart, I’m sure.
For decades, Evangelical churches did their darnedest to steer us away from questions, and into the firm conviction in Biblical inerrancy, so that we could stand and fight for the gospel in our seemingly hopeful expectation of the coming end times. And under no circumstances were you to deconstruct. You were to be like Thomas; you could doubt only up until God proved all of your measly human questions wrong. That was the acceptable “deconstruction”. The idea of deconstruction has been around for a long time - and I’ll let you do your own research here - but the language surrounding it today really started to develop amidst the chaos of the election of Donald Trump, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic four years later. Even in 2020, it was largely under the table, with many Evangelicals quietly questioning, but still too afraid to mention it outloud. Between 2020-2022, almost every major Christian publication had something posted on deconstruction. In an article through Focus On The Family, Subby Szertsky describes deconstructionists who use the process to remove toxic theology and practices as “admirable, something all followers of Jesus should pursue”. However, for those who are leaving the faith as a result of deconstruction, Szertszky says this train of thought is “deadly to one’s spiritual health and often leads to total abandonment of the faith.”3 John Bloom, a staff writer at John Piper’s Desiring God had this to say about the Christian interpretation of deconstruction:
“In the Christian world, this translates to critically questioning traditional modes of Christian belief, and often refusing to recognize as authorities those perceived as occupying privileged Christian institutional positions who “supposedly speak for God.”4
The message from Evangelical pulpits was clear: if you reach the point where you are questioning too much, you’re doing it wrong. You’re a bad Christian. You have a weakened faith. Which brings us to Matt Chandler. Chandler, currently on teaching staff at The Village Church in Forth Worth, is a prominent voice in the Evangelical convention of pastors these days, many people who grew up in my age bracket know him, know his sermons. Most recently, his name has been brought up among dissent surrounding an inappropriate online relationship with a female congregant (a conversation for another time). Chandler’s sermon on August 29, 2021 drew a slew of backlash from many, as well as praise from many others. In the clip in question, he says:
“You and I are in a day and age where deconstruction, and the turning away from and leaving faith has become some sort of sexy thing to do. I contend that if you ever experience the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ actually, that that’s really impossible to deconstruct from.”5
Those are some big words with big ramifications, aren’t they?
One of my favorite takes on all of it was from April Ajoy, a TikTok creator and co-host of the Evangelicalish podcast. Ajoy typically makes humour out of even the most ridiculous of Evangelical rhetoric. She makes light of a really serious topic in her video about “Sexy Deconstruction” - the fact that Millenials, Gen Z, and even some older church populations are leaving. Many are starting to recognize that the theology and rhetoric pushed on them of the culture wars, and the coming end times… might have been a little bit exaggerated.
Okay maybe a LOT exaggerated.
The Scripture above is the one read at the beginning of Chandler’s sermon. Chandler, along the lines of many of his colleagues, accuse those of us in the camp of tearing through our entire lives and theology of never having really experienced the Gospel; of being asleep. Most of the conversations I’ve had with friends who are deconstructing and have left church spaces is that they left a church not because they didn’t know or hadn’t experienced Jesus - it was because they began to recognize that their church didn’t look anything like the Jesus they preached.
Fairly often (aka when our adult schedules have time), I’ve been sitting with a friend of mine in this process. She often asks me a lot of thought provoking questions. I learn much from her as she walks through this, and as I walk through it alongside her. In our last conversation, she asked, “What do I do? What’s the next step when you go from feeling indifferent towards God (because of church trauma/abuse/hurt) to the feeling hatred towards God? Seems like the obvious next choice is walking away entirely, but that’s just the easy choice.”
Her wisdom shows here. And her heart. I also think this question is really at the heart of the deconstruction I’m seeing many of my friends go through. The questions of:
Where do we go from here?
Does God have space for me to hate Him for a little while?
I don’t want to walk away, but I could because that would save me the pain of God, my Creator, being disappointed in me.
Honestly, friend, that’s between you and God. But know that what you are going through, or the person you know that’s going through this process, are not doing anything wrong. Walking away from a church space, or from people in the church, or even God for a moment or two does not make you weak, less than, or totally deprived. My only advice here is to really lean in with someone you trust. Be honest with them, as much as you can be. This can be an isolating process if we go it alone. Lean in with those you love and those who love you. You never know who needs to hear your heart, or if you need to hear yours.
As I help teach through the foremothers of Jesus in the season of Advent, I’m left with this thought, that I hope will help carry you not just through the reflective season, but throughout the year:
When we intentionally seek out peace and rest, the Lord provides not only peace and rest for us, but the ability for us to provide peace and rest within the larger narrative of our communities. I know you are in search of rest. I hope that you are resting well, my friend.
Chief, Editor in. 2020. “The Greatest Sermons Ever Preached by the Top Preachers of All-Time.” ConnectUS. April 22, 2020. https://connectusfund.org/the-greatest-sermons-of-all-time.
“Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians%206:10-18&version=NIV.
“Deconstruction: A Look at a Popular and Polarizing Concept.” n.d. Focus on the Family. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/deconstruction-a-look-at-a-popular-and-polarizing-concept.
Bloom, Jon. 2022. “What Does ‘Deconstruction’ Even Mean?” Desiring God. February 15, 2022. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-does-deconstruction-even-mean.
“Matt Chandler Deconstruction Is Sexy.” n.d. Www.youtube.com. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxQE7zTOEYLjeSZnTYp4mAbYyDw8v2WJbU.
Interesting discussion, thank you for your thoughts and kind words.