I don’t like giving more air time to the anti-deconstruction crowd than they already get. With all the clanging noise from John Cooper during the past few weeks, I feel like it’s time to move on from the folks who seem hellbent on demonizing people who are questioning their faith. But alas, who is at it again but none other than Alisa Childers. And wouldn’t you know it, this time she’s teamed up with the increasingly irrelevant The Gospel Coalition.
In her article “Why We Should Not Redeem ‘Deconstruction‘,” Childers does what she does best: build straw men in order to obfuscate. In the very first paragraph, this is made abundantly evident:
Many years ago, my Christian beliefs were challenged intellectually by a progressive Christian pastor. It threw me into deconstruction that took several years to fully come out of. I found out later that he himself had already deconstructed and had hoped to propel his congregation into deconstruction so he could convert them to progressive Christianity. He was very good at it. In fact, he was almost totally successful. A few of us came back around to a historically Christian understanding of the gospel, but most did not.
Now, while I admittedly have no idea who this pastor is, I highly doubt he was propelling his congregation into deconstruction so that he could convert them to progressive Christianity. I suppose it’s logically possible, but I find this highly dubious.
First off, you don’t propel people into deconstruction. Anyone who has acknowledged that deconstruction is happening to them knows this. In case you missed the way I phrased that, let me repeat myself: Deconstruction happens to you. You don’t wake up one day and think, “Gosh, I’ve got a busy day. Gotta get the kids to work. There’s that leak in the bathroom sink that needs fixing. And oh, if I have time, I’ll thrust myself into an existential crisis and question my entire paradigm.” Sorry Alisa, I call BS on the framing of your narrative here.
Also, here is where Childers is at her dishonest best: in pitting “historical” Christianity against “progressive” Christianity. The fact that she, a Protestant, continues to do this without getting called on it is beyond me. Newsflash, Alisa: Your tradition is a progressive one. Literally, it progressed away from Catholicism, which is way more historic than Protestantism.
I know she knows this.
Of course, what she means by “historic Christianity” is what she would probably call “traditional Christian theology.” But even a statement like that is a misnomer. There is no such thing as “traditional theology.” There have always been theological disagreements, and no matter how you slice it, appealing to even the earliest creeds (the Apostles’ or Nicene) is a form of question begging. Plus, let’s all just take a moment to acknowledge that the final editor of the Nicene Creed was a full-blown Universalist. So, you wanna get “historic?” Fine. Let’s start embracing the universal reconciliation of St. Gregory of Nyssa.
Anyway, moving on…
Later in the article, Childers puts forth a definition of deconstruction, one she also uses in her book, Another Gospel?:
In the context of faith, deconstruction is the process of systematically dissecting and often rejecting the beliefs you grew up with. Sometimes the Christian will deconstruct all the way into atheism. Some remain there, but others experience a reconstruction. But the type of faith they end up embracing almost never resembles the Christianity they formerly knew.
On the surface, this is not a terrible explanation of what happens during deconstruction, but it is hardly a working definition. Yes, many systematically dissect their faith. Yes, some folks become atheists. And yes, some people move out of atheism back into some mystical form of Christian spirituality. In fact, that is sort of my trajectory. However, here’s what Childers and folks like her fail to understand or refuse to admit: The dissection of one’s faith is something that stems from having an open mind and open heart, from allowing life’s experiences to help shape and mold one’s worldview, and from being honest when one’s previous beliefs don’t match what they’ve since experienced. Time and time again, Childers and her ilk paint this false narrative that people are systematically choosing to deconstruct.
Again, deconstruction happens to you when your rigid dogmatism is confronted with experiences that force you to confront what you think you already knew.
But with the way Childers approaches the issue, she will never “get it.” Why? Because, as she’ll get to in a later paragraph, she seems to believe that there is some “objective truth” out there that can be approached void of our subjective experiences. As she’ll state, “[Deconstruction] has little to do with objective truth [because] deconstructionists do not regard Scripture as being the final authority for morality and theology.”
Well, duh!
Of course people who have earnestly and honestly questioned the relatively modern notion of Scripture being the final authority for morality and theology do not regard it as such. Because it’s not. It never claims to be. If it did, its entire premise would be a lesson in question begging. How so? Because Christians can’t even agree on what Scripture is or how many books are supposed to be in the canon. Every sect points to themselves as the authority. Protestants say it is 66 books, Catholics say it is 79, Eastern Orthodox say it is 81, and Coptic Christians say it is a whopping 84. And all are correct according to themselves.
Furthermore, within the pages of what every Christian agrees is Scripture (except for maybe Marcion and a few others), Jesus says,
“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40, NRSV)
In other words, you think that final authority comes from the Bible, but really it comes from the Word of God, who is comprised of flesh and bone, and probably a beard and a way more melanin than white Evangelicals would like to admit.
After spending my entire life reading Scripture, I am thankful that it is not the final authority. I am thankful Jesus came to help us interpret it, but also frustrated that Christians like Childers want to snatch both his authority and exegetical creativity away from him. They clamor for a biblical worldview, one where they ignorantly think objectivity spews forth from the pages, missing their subjective internal grids and filters, in order to give them their coveted divine download, but miss the fact that Jesus came to offer us a Christlike world, where Scripture is filtered through him and his life. To put it succinctly, they put the biblical cart before the Christ-horse.
But because online spaces like The Gospel Coalition continue to pump out anti-deconstruction rhetoric dripping with fear, Childers will keep pressing on. Fear is a great motivator, which is why Childers ends with more than a hint of it:
Deconstruction has taken on a life of its own, and now is the time to accurately define our words. After all, if the word means everything, then it means nothing, yet it carries the potential to suck unsuspecting Christians into a dangerous vortex of influences from which they might not return.
If nothing else is gleaned from her article, she’ll leave you with this: Deconstruct to your own demise.
But whereas she leaves you with fear, I’ll leave you with hope.
If you are deconstructing your faith and feel like everything is crumbling around you, just know that you are not alone. Others are struggling right alongside you. Others are wrestling with the tough questions. You may not feel like there is much hope today, but, to paraphrase Gandalf, we have a fool’s hope. Keep pressing on. Keep growing in love. The only way out of your struggles is through them.
Peace and love, and may you continue to expand your heart and mind for the benefit of yourself and others.
If you wanna get to know me better, please follow me on social media. I’m pretty active on all platforms:
Also, if you’ve been digging my work on here, and want to see me be able to continue writing as close to full-time as humanly possible, please take a look at my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/mjdistefano. Even $1 a month helps bigly!!!
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In