Introduction:
I recently finished reading a book that highly recommend for anyone who is either struggling with their Christian faith or who knows someone who has went through the process known as "deconstruction". In this post and the next, I'll offer a review of Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett's book: "The Deconstruction of Christianity: What it is, why it's destructive, and how to respond".
What is deconstruction?
On page 25, Alisa Childers cites online personality Melisa Steward, a former professing evangelical Christian, whom she says epitomizes the deconstruction process. Childers then observes:
"Deconstruction is not about getting your theology right. It's not about trying to make your views match reality. It's about tearing down doctrines that are morally wrong to you to make them match your own internal conscience, moral compass, true authentic self, or whatever else it's being called these days."
On page 26, the authors offer their definition of deconstruction:
"Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard."
As the authors go further in explaining deconstruction, they note how certain people have tried to use the term in a good and bad sense to describe anytime someone critically examines their Christian faith, the doctrines they profess, and the institution of the local church. The authors conclude that trying to utilize the term deconstruction is inadvisable. They describe deconstruction as follows on page 19:
"For the majority of people from the broader culture in the deconstruction movement, the Bible is seen as a tool of oppression to be rejected, not a standard of truth to be affirmed".
They later add: "In fact, most major deconstruction platforms bristle at the idea that anything other than one's personal conscience should guide an individual toward breaking free from oppressive systems (perceived or actual) and toxic theology, which is defined as any doctrine or practice that someone deems harmful".
Overall contents of the book.
Childers and Barnett's book is divided into three main sections.
Section One of the Book: #Exvangelical
The first is called "#Exvangelical", dealing with the movement known as deconstruction, its beginnings, and helpful definitions. Alisa Childers went through a period of time where she deconstructed her faith. Tim Barnett is a Christian apologist and main speaker for the Christian apologetics ministry "Stand to Reason".
By the combination of Childers' experience and Barnett's Christian apologetics expertise, the opening chapters of the book provide helpful explanations of what deconstruction is and does. In the one chapter they call "fallout", they cite those who have deconstructed and the loved ones of those who have done so as describing the process filled with claims of "freedom" mixed with a profound sense of grief.
Section #2 of the Book: #Deconstruction.
The second section of the book delves into "deconstructing deconstruction" or explaining the process in detail. Barnett and Childers note on page 77:
"Every act of deconstruction contains three basic elements: (1) a process of deconstruction, (2) a belief being deconstructed, (3) a person deconstructed."
So, what factors contribute to a person starting the process of deconstructing? In Childers and Barnett's research, as well as what I've observed in the lives of those whom I've known going through this process, the following factors are noted.
1). The problem of evil and suffering.
2). Perceptions that certain Christian doctrines are toxic (examples being male headship in marriage, purity culture or the idea of sexual abstinence before marriage, the Bible's rejection of homosexuality, church scandals and hiding of such, abuse in the church, perceived contradictions in the Bible or inconsistencies).
3). Any present or past political climate and Christians equating Christianity with objectionable platforms of political parties involved.
4). Not knowing how to handle doubts and thus concluding it's better to jettison Christian beliefs than to deal with the doubts.
As they rightly point out, deconstruction doesn't happen overnight but represents what has been a long-term process of gradual pulling away from church life, prayer, and Bible reading. In my own research I've listened to around a dozen or so deconstruction stories over the years and have even experienced close people in my own life go through such situations. Anecdotally, Childers and Bernett's conclusions are on point.
Perhaps the most valuable section in the second part of the book had to do with the matter of objective truth. As they note, all who undergo deconstruction embrace a relativistic or subjective view of truth. On pages 102-103 the authors discuss objective truth vss the relativistic view of truth. First, they cite Christian philosopher Douglas Groothius:
"A belief or statement is true only if it matches with, reflects or corresponds to the reality it refers to....In other words, for a statement to be true, there must be a truth maker that determines its truth."
When Groothius speaks of a "truth-maker", he is talking about any object outside of ourselves to which our mind observes, sees, and concludes to be there as a real detail of the external world. Whenever anything matches with that reality, it is said to fulfill the conditions of truth, since truth is (in the words of the late Christian apologist Norman Geisler) "telling it like it is". For example, my cat is in the same room I'm typing this blogpost. The cat would be a "truth-maker", an object outside of my mind with which I can perceive with my senses and which I can say to myself: "there is truly a cat in front of me, trying to get my attention". My conclusion about the cat is true (it corresponds with reality) because the cat himself is there.
This idea of "objective truth" or "correspondence view of truth" contrasts with the deconstructionist's view of "relative truth". As the authors note, and as I myself have noted in listening to former professing evangelical Christians who have deconstructed, they'll speak of "what is true for them".
In the deconstructionist view of truth, objective truth claims are nothing more than "power claims" that attempt to oppress those around them. Reading life and doctrine through the dual lens of "oppressor/oppression" is drawn from the popularity of critical theory which makes truth out to be what personally enables someone to align with what culture defines as an oppressed group and opposing an oppressor group. For those who deconstruct, evangelical Christianity is full of "oppression" and people getting their way, all in the name of so-called "objective truth".
Ironically, to deny objective truth and claim that no one has the corner market on truth is itself an objective truth claim. As the authors go along throughout the rest of the second part of the book, they rightly note that with the denial of objective truth also comes the denial of the possibility of meaning.
Deconstruction as a process among former-professing evangelicals draws its impulse partly from a philosophical movement known by the same name. That movement, promoted by such philosophers as Jacques Derrida and Paul Riceour, claimed we could never know the true meaning of an author or any given text. Time and distance between us and the author, coupled with the changing meanings of words makes the quest for "what the author means" a fool's errand per the literary critics who espouse deconstruction. In the end, the reader is the one who has to determine the text's meaning.
It is this impulse that feeds into the contemporary movement of Christian faith deconstruction. In the final analysis, the goal in faith deconstruction is not to arrive at "truth" (since there is no one truth) or even new meaning (since meaning eludes even the most persistent seeker according to their view). Instead, the person who deconstructs can only hope to arrive at inner peace with themselves and chart a course that will help them live out their own personal view of truth.
In the next post I'll continue with this book review, noting what we find in the third part of the book and important takeaways for the reader.
