Years ago my wife and I helped a family pack for their next move. The family had a massive treadmill that needed disassembled. The husband and I worked on the equipment. I asked him if he had the instructions, to which he replied: “Eh, we lost those years ago”.
As we kept taking things apart, he tossed some parts in one container and some parts in another. I asked him if we needed to label the items, to which he replied: “Eh, we’re just winging it”.
As we loaded vehicles for transporting their possessions, I noticed we had leftover nuts and bolts, which my friend dumped in a bag to put in yet another unmarked container. Moving can be a difficult time for many people, especially if you don’t have things marked, or instructions, or at least a well thought out plan (trust me, we’ve moved 11 times in our thirty years of marriage!)
In our culture a similar disorienting experience has taken shape called “faith deconstruction” or what some call “exvangelicals”. In the next several days I'll participate with other speakers in an upcoming apologetics conference here BCNY Apologetics Conference 2026 | Baptist Convention of New York I plan to lead a breakout session that will deal with this very subject.
Just like the illustration above, those who choose to “deconstruct” a faith they once professed attempt to do so apart from the Bible while winging it and letting go whatever they feel is unacceptable. Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett define faith deconstruction as follows: "Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard“ [Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. The Deconstruction of Christianity: What it is, why it's destructive, and how to respond. Tyndale Publishers, 2023. Page 26.]
In our Scriptural text for this post, we find Paul urging young pastor Timothy to persevere in His preaching of God’s Word as those he knows or others around him walk away or drift away from their profession of faith. Deconstruction is nothing necessarily new – only in name and expression.
Perhaps someone reading this is going through a crisis of faith. Whether or not your salvation experience is genuine is often part of the reason why such struggles occur (2 Cor. 4:16-18; 2 Peter 1:7). Only as you yield to the Word of God and the Lord’s process can you truly affirm that indeed you are truly born again (2 Cor. 13:5).
It is to Jesus Christ and our current trust in Him we look to for objective (that is, outside of ourselves proof). It is in detecting trust, love, and joy in the Savior we find personal or subjective proof. With that said, understanding how someone picks apart a faith they once professed and how to reconstruct your faith that is in crisis is the goal of this blog series.
Introductory issues about deconstruction. 2 Timothy 3:13-17
The denial of Christ by people in Paul’s time motivated him to write what he did to Timothy. Notice 2 Timothy 3:13-17 -
“But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
What is faith deconstruction?
Now I already gave the definition for this at the beginning of today’s message, but let’s hear Childers and Barnett’s definition again: "Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard.“
Let me first comment on one word in this definition that might be new to some – “postmodern”. Postmodernism is a
philosophical approach that denies
objective truth in favor of relativism,
decrying any one right way to
understand all of life. Postmodernism defies ultimate meaning in favor of personal preferences. Its cousin concept, relativism, states there is no one
“capital-T” “Truth”, but only person-specific “small-t” “truths”. Over the years I’ve observed those who deconstruct adopting the “true for you but not true for me” view of truth.
More to come.....
More to come.....
