I deconstructed from evangelicalism for several years. It was the best thing I ever did. After , I finally felt that I could see Jesus more clearly and I am more able to follow him without all the trappings of institutional religion and theology. As I am still reconstructing my experience coming back to the church is more healthy and as it should be. Good work Randal.
Deconstructing cult-think is a good thing, but it's CRITICAL that the person have adequate support and social structure to help them go through the trauma of losing cherished assumptions. It's growing pain.
Ironically, it is just that failing which is driving many people from the evangelical church. There is little support for people who ask questions, and many report they are pressured into not asking questions. A demand for unquestioning obedience is a dangerous thing as it is one of the indicators of a cult. The presence of one indicator is grounds to ask if there are others - it is not proof by itself.
I found the evangelical church quite confusing and fear based. There was a certain allowance of questioning and intellectual pursuit, but it was within strict boundaries. The unspoken implication (or spoken if you went too far) was one of danger. The message was " feel free to investigate, as long as you come to the conclusions we have already reached".
"you're free to speak your mind my friend, as long as you agree with me. Don't criticize the father land, or those who shape your destiny" steppenwolf, The Ostrich.
Yeah, and if the only investigation you do is within the "safe space" of that in-group's apologetic industrial complex, it can sustain a false sense of being devoted to reason and objectivity.
This follows naturally from the fact that Christians think they have access to infallible truth via the Bible and the fact that denying this truth results in eternal punishment. That means there is one known answer and any other opinions on that answer will land you in hell, so of course they aren’t going to want to hear or take those other options seriously.
Alissa Childers idea of deconstruction it is ok to question your beliefs but only if they contradict a literal reading of the Bible. In other words your beliefs are not allowed to change fundamentally and you cannot question your basic assumptions such as "Is the Bible inerrant or Infallible like I've been told". You cannot ask basic foundational questions like "Do these beliefs hold any water at all?"
The funny little detail about this is - even if you believe that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, you can come to vastly different conclusions about what the Christian faith entails than evangelicals. Especially when trying to apply the sermon on the mount. A piece of the gospel largely ignored by evangelicals.
@@MrSeedi76 Indeed. I have actually seen cases where conservatives have turned "Love your neighbor" into "Don't argue with your fellow conservative Christians." It's all subjective in the end.
As an Evangelical, I convinced myself that it was okay for me to come out as trans (which I thought of as "self-castration"), based on an ultra-literal reading of Biblical teachings about "eunuchs". No one else wanted to talk about that interpretative option in Bible study, needless to say!
When I went to seminary to become a church planting missionary, I had to study ecclesiology - theology about the church and what it should be. The process of deciding what matters, what God’s plan is, and how to plant healthy churches in different nations with very different cultures, naturally led me through “deconstruction” and critique of the American Evangelical churches that formed my early views. The missionary work of the church requires deconstruction, before critical contextualization.
I just discovered your channel and I'm loving it. I'm a religious Jew and I think (from what I've seen so far) that I have a similar orientation in my faith as you do in yours. Go from strength to strength in your work. (Footnote: just a tiny bit of Hebrew help: "shamayim" שמים is pronounced with the stress on the penultimate syllable, shaMAYim.)
The only thing I’d add is that regardless of whether a healthy reconstruction follows or not, deconstruction is not always a process by which someone moves from milk to solid food. Sometimes, the best and most necessary periods deconstruction serve to breakdown whatever substance is present in the place of true spiritual milk to begin with.
Great example. It seems silly to demonize deconstruction as a word, which is what Childers and Burnett are doing. If someone says, "I'm thinking through the component parts of my faith to see what holds up under scrutiny", are they going to say "that's dangerous, you need to stop!"? Well... Yeah, actually. Many apologists are nervously saying you can examine those building blocks, but only if you have already committed to sticking with your previous beliefs in certain areas. In other words, no honest examination is allowed in those areas. This dishonesty is extremely off-putting for someone who is seeking solid foundations for their faith.
You could also liken the anti-deconstruction movement to political scare tactics. Political parties need to motivate people to vote, and the best way to do that is by taking out of context quotations and making the other person look like a monster so you have to go out and vote. It helps keep the system alive.
I suspect that Alisa and Tim mean something different by “deconstruction”. The way you’ve defined it, it is same thing as critical thinking. Surely they wouldn’t suggest that critical thinking is a bad thing. I don’t have their book and I haven’t listened to their interviews in the topic but I’m guessing that by “deconstruction” they mean something like “unjustifiedly or unreflectively ceasing to believe essential Christian doctrines.” If that’s right then surely you’d agree that that would be a bad thing. Just trying to make sure you two aren’t talking past one another.
They mean "disagreeing with our interpretation of the Bible". I heard Childers say in an interview about people who deconstruct: "they stop believing what the church has believed for thousands of years." If that's the case, I wonder why Childers isn't catholic or eastern orthodox. Her brand of faith exists since the 19th century.
And that's fine, except they haven't ever clarified that position. After a lot of videos ragging on deconstruction by red pen logic, it's clear that they don't have any other viewpoint.
They usually begin with a caveat that investigating faith is okay, but urge people not to call it deconstruction. They’ve made it clear that it’s only okay to come to certain conclusions. They back up this idea by targeting bad arguments, implying that the whole movement is based on a misunderstanding of Christianity. On multiple occasions they claim that it’s an emotional argument based on contentious ethical issues. Concerns are usually met by parroting Bible verses and Christian doctrine without engaging the difficult questions.
@@seanpierce9386 that's what it is, I've been trying to find the words for that: it's an unwillingness to address certain difficult questions for fear that it might make them questions one thing themselves or cause a follower to questions something.
Good video! But a correction: The Amish Rumspringa doesn't actually work that way. It is a common misperception. Rumspringa just means "Running Around" and it covers the period between around 15 years old and either baptism or marriage for the Amish. Almost always, the Amish teen going through Rumspringa lives at home with their family, works in a family business, goes to Church every other Sunday (that's how the Amish do it), and mostly observes the rules of Amish life. For some kids in some communities, they get a bit more "wild." They might dress non-Amish, grow their hair out, drive a car. Some teens will rent a party apartment that has video games and beer. But even those kids sleep at home in their parents' house. In the past, especially in the 1990s, things got very out of hand for a lot of Rumspringa kids: doing and dealing drugs. Since then, the community has built new institutions, such as youth groups that make the Running Around period a lot less wild. The vast majority of Amish teens and young adults remain pretty traditionally Amish, dressing Amish, riding horses and buggies, and then getting baptized and married before they are 20. Retention rates are something like 90%. The only time a young Amish adult will move out of the community is if they have decided to fully leave it.
I guess I am example of deconstruction leading to becoming an atheist, but I could be wrong. I feel like many theists (evangelicals) get an attitude of I'm right and your wrong and do not acknowledge that they could be wrong about parts of or all of what they believe. Things aren't that black and white and being willing to investigate and challenge your beliefs is important
One of the reasons i stopped engaging with their content was the constant attack on "deconstruction" like it was this huge problem and you shouldnt do it. Looking into it, i found that deconstruction can be a very helpful process for people who need to rexamine a faith that they grew up with but either didnt fully commit to or contained teachings/practises that arent in the Bible. Yes, sometimes people deconstruct all the way out belief and sometimes they deconstruct and reconstruct a belief system that doesnt match up with the Bible. They act like those two outcomes are the only ones and their attitude towards people who are insecure in their belief will only do more to push them that way. It's like a form of theological snobbery: "you're having doubts about things? Youre grappling with scripture? Why dont you just believe harder then!" As if we arent meant to grapple with scripture and help those among us who are struggling in their faith.
I deconstructed from my faith. I use to think that Jonah may have been swallowed by an actual whale. Upon cross referencing the bible, I realized that understanding does not align with other parts of the bible. I thus deconstructed from that understanding.
The irony is that she writes this: "An unexamined faith is not worth believing. An examined faith is a healthy faith. That’s why it’s important that we examine and reexamine our beliefs." I agree with the premise that Christianity's validity lies in its historicity. But a truly examined faith would recognize that Evangelicalism is not historical Christianity. Why do you think it's so difficult for a person's epistemic commitment to actually be to what they claim rather than to be to the doctrine? In other words, for many Evangelicals, they believe exegesis is determined by using a literal-grammatical-historical hermeneutic. But their epistemic commitment is not actually to that hermeneutic; it is to the doctrine. And they will defend that doctrine, even if it requires using a metaphorical/metaphysical-ungrammatical-ahistoric/anachronistic hermeneutic. But why? That's the part I don't understand.
Dogmatism requires conformity, and anything that threatens conformity is to be strongly discouraged. Wasn't the purpose of the Reformation to overcome such dogmatism from the established church?
I havd to say, l have only seen harm come from people who say they are "deconstructing". I think you are talking about a different kind of deconstruction. Not necessarily bad. Deconstruction, in the general understood sense is more of a destruction as far as I can see. It seems to me to be about arguing the hind legs off a donkey. If you argue hard enough, sometimes the legs come off. That is not a good thing. If people start to believe that the sky isn't blue and 2+2=3, then that is a problem. The arguments that some of these people come up with are sometimes crazy. Often manipulative. They find something in the old testament that sounds off. And they remove it from its context and turn it upside down. History things need to be understood in historical context. You can't look at something centuries in the past in the context of modern woke culture and critisise it. I think people like Macdowel are doing a good job. Keeping everyone on planet earth
I deconstructed from evangelicalism for several years. It was the best thing I ever did. After , I finally felt that I could see Jesus more clearly and I am more able to follow him without all the trappings of institutional religion and theology. As I am still reconstructing my experience coming back to the church is more healthy and as it should be. Good work Randal.
Deconstructing cult-think is a good thing, but it's CRITICAL that the person have adequate support and social structure to help them go through the trauma of losing cherished assumptions. It's growing pain.
Ironically, it is just that failing which is driving many people from the evangelical church. There is little support for people who ask questions, and many report they are pressured into not asking questions. A demand for unquestioning obedience is a dangerous thing as it is one of the indicators of a cult.
The presence of one indicator is grounds to ask if there are others - it is not proof by itself.
I found the evangelical church quite confusing and fear based. There was a certain allowance of questioning and intellectual pursuit, but it was within strict boundaries. The unspoken implication (or spoken if you went too far) was one of danger. The message was " feel free to investigate, as long as you come to the conclusions we have already reached".
Yep and this paradoxically pushes people away.
Accurate
"you're free to speak your mind my friend, as long as you agree with me.
Don't criticize the father land, or those who shape your destiny" steppenwolf, The Ostrich.
Yeah, and if the only investigation you do is within the "safe space" of that in-group's apologetic industrial complex, it can sustain a false sense of being devoted to reason and objectivity.
This follows naturally from the fact that Christians think they have access to infallible truth via the Bible and the fact that denying this truth results in eternal punishment. That means there is one known answer and any other opinions on that answer will land you in hell, so of course they aren’t going to want to hear or take those other options seriously.
Alissa Childers idea of deconstruction it is ok to question your beliefs but only if they contradict a literal reading of the Bible. In other words your beliefs are not allowed to change fundamentally and you cannot question your basic assumptions such as "Is the Bible inerrant or Infallible like I've been told". You cannot ask basic foundational questions like "Do these beliefs hold any water at all?"
The funny little detail about this is - even if you believe that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, you can come to vastly different conclusions about what the Christian faith entails than evangelicals. Especially when trying to apply the sermon on the mount. A piece of the gospel largely ignored by evangelicals.
@@MrSeedi76 Indeed. I have actually seen cases where conservatives have turned "Love your neighbor" into "Don't argue with your fellow conservative Christians." It's all subjective in the end.
As an Evangelical, I convinced myself that it was okay for me to come out as trans (which I thought of as "self-castration"), based on an ultra-literal reading of Biblical teachings about "eunuchs". No one else wanted to talk about that interpretative option in Bible study, needless to say!
When I went to seminary to become a church planting missionary, I had to study ecclesiology - theology about the church and what it should be. The process of deciding what matters, what God’s plan is, and how to plant healthy churches in different nations with very different cultures, naturally led me through “deconstruction” and critique of the American Evangelical churches that formed my early views. The missionary work of the church requires deconstruction, before critical contextualization.
I just discovered your channel and I'm loving it. I'm a religious Jew and I think (from what I've seen so far) that I have a similar orientation in my faith as you do in yours. Go from strength to strength in your work. (Footnote: just a tiny bit of Hebrew help: "shamayim" שמים is pronounced with the stress on the penultimate syllable, shaMAYim.)
The only thing I’d add is that regardless of whether a healthy reconstruction follows or not, deconstruction is not always a process by which someone moves from milk to solid food. Sometimes, the best and most necessary periods deconstruction serve to breakdown whatever substance is present in the place of true spiritual milk to begin with.
Great example. It seems silly to demonize deconstruction as a word, which is what Childers and Burnett are doing. If someone says, "I'm thinking through the component parts of my faith to see what holds up under scrutiny", are they going to say "that's dangerous, you need to stop!"? Well... Yeah, actually. Many apologists are nervously saying you can examine those building blocks, but only if you have already committed to sticking with your previous beliefs in certain areas. In other words, no honest examination is allowed in those areas. This dishonesty is extremely off-putting for someone who is seeking solid foundations for their faith.
You could also liken the anti-deconstruction movement to political scare tactics. Political parties need to motivate people to vote, and the best way to do that is by taking out of context quotations and making the other person look like a monster so you have to go out and vote. It helps keep the system alive.
Good analysis doc.
The goal is not truth, but to make Christianity true.
I suspect that Alisa and Tim mean something different by “deconstruction”. The way you’ve defined it, it is same thing as critical thinking. Surely they wouldn’t suggest that critical thinking is a bad thing.
I don’t have their book and I haven’t listened to their interviews in the topic but I’m guessing that by “deconstruction” they mean something like “unjustifiedly or unreflectively ceasing to believe essential Christian doctrines.” If that’s right then surely you’d agree that that would be a bad thing.
Just trying to make sure you two aren’t talking past one another.
They mean "disagreeing with our interpretation of the Bible". I heard Childers say in an interview about people who deconstruct: "they stop believing what the church has believed for thousands of years." If that's the case, I wonder why Childers isn't catholic or eastern orthodox. Her brand of faith exists since the 19th century.
@@MrSeedi76 Yeah, for some reason they have a very different take on that when it comes to debating Catholics...
And that's fine, except they haven't ever clarified that position. After a lot of videos ragging on deconstruction by red pen logic, it's clear that they don't have any other viewpoint.
They usually begin with a caveat that investigating faith is okay, but urge people not to call it deconstruction. They’ve made it clear that it’s only okay to come to certain conclusions. They back up this idea by targeting bad arguments, implying that the whole movement is based on a misunderstanding of Christianity. On multiple occasions they claim that it’s an emotional argument based on contentious ethical issues. Concerns are usually met by parroting Bible verses and Christian doctrine without engaging the difficult questions.
@@seanpierce9386 that's what it is, I've been trying to find the words for that: it's an unwillingness to address certain difficult questions for fear that it might make them questions one thing themselves or cause a follower to questions something.
I think a large part of this is the meaning you pour into the word...deconstruction.
Good video! But a correction: The Amish Rumspringa doesn't actually work that way. It is a common misperception.
Rumspringa just means "Running Around" and it covers the period between around 15 years old and either baptism or marriage for the Amish. Almost always, the Amish teen going through Rumspringa lives at home with their family, works in a family business, goes to Church every other Sunday (that's how the Amish do it), and mostly observes the rules of Amish life.
For some kids in some communities, they get a bit more "wild." They might dress non-Amish, grow their hair out, drive a car. Some teens will rent a party apartment that has video games and beer. But even those kids sleep at home in their parents' house.
In the past, especially in the 1990s, things got very out of hand for a lot of Rumspringa kids: doing and dealing drugs. Since then, the community has built new institutions, such as youth groups that make the Running Around period a lot less wild.
The vast majority of Amish teens and young adults remain pretty traditionally Amish, dressing Amish, riding horses and buggies, and then getting baptized and married before they are 20. Retention rates are something like 90%.
The only time a young Amish adult will move out of the community is if they have decided to fully leave it.
I guess I am example of deconstruction leading to becoming an atheist, but I could be wrong. I feel like many theists (evangelicals) get an attitude of I'm right and your wrong and do not acknowledge that they could be wrong about parts of or all of what they believe. Things aren't that black and white and being willing to investigate and challenge your beliefs is important
My deconstruction led to my deconversion.
I hear ya.
One of the reasons i stopped engaging with their content was the constant attack on "deconstruction" like it was this huge problem and you shouldnt do it. Looking into it, i found that deconstruction can be a very helpful process for people who need to rexamine a faith that they grew up with but either didnt fully commit to or contained teachings/practises that arent in the Bible. Yes, sometimes people deconstruct all the way out belief and sometimes they deconstruct and reconstruct a belief system that doesnt match up with the Bible. They act like those two outcomes are the only ones and their attitude towards people who are insecure in their belief will only do more to push them that way. It's like a form of theological snobbery: "you're having doubts about things? Youre grappling with scripture? Why dont you just believe harder then!" As if we arent meant to grapple with scripture and help those among us who are struggling in their faith.
I deconstructed from my faith. I use to think that Jonah may have been swallowed by an actual whale. Upon cross referencing the bible, I realized that understanding does not align with other parts of the bible. I thus deconstructed from that understanding.
The irony is that she writes this: "An unexamined faith is not worth believing. An examined faith is a healthy faith. That’s why it’s important that we examine and reexamine our beliefs." I agree with the premise that Christianity's validity lies in its historicity. But a truly examined faith would recognize that Evangelicalism is not historical Christianity. Why do you think it's so difficult for a person's epistemic commitment to actually be to what they claim rather than to be to the doctrine? In other words, for many Evangelicals, they believe exegesis is determined by using a literal-grammatical-historical hermeneutic. But their epistemic commitment is not actually to that hermeneutic; it is to the doctrine. And they will defend that doctrine, even if it requires using a metaphorical/metaphysical-ungrammatical-ahistoric/anachronistic hermeneutic. But why? That's the part I don't understand.
Dogmatism requires conformity, and anything that threatens conformity is to be strongly discouraged.
Wasn't the purpose of the Reformation to overcome such dogmatism from the established church?
I havd to say, l have only seen harm come from people who say they are "deconstructing". I think you are talking about a different kind of deconstruction. Not necessarily bad.
Deconstruction, in the general understood sense is more of a destruction as far as I can see. It seems to me to be about arguing the hind legs off a donkey. If you argue hard enough, sometimes the legs come off. That is not a good thing. If people start to believe that the sky isn't blue and 2+2=3, then that is a problem.
The arguments that some of these people come up with are sometimes crazy. Often manipulative. They find something in the old testament that sounds off. And they remove it from its context and turn it upside down. History things need to be understood in historical context. You can't look at something centuries in the past in the context of modern woke culture and critisise it.
I think people like Macdowel are doing a good job. Keeping everyone on planet earth
First comment!