De-Construction of one's childhood faith is a thing. The numbers of people who are dismantling their faith and abandoning it are significant. If you Google statistics on deconstructing faith, you will not find that the numbers are zero. Our Christian youth are leaving Christianity. I'll leave it to you to research this, but some of the most recent research claims that 42% of adults have deconstructed the faith of their youth.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, deconstruction is what it is called when an individual dismantles their beliefs (usually their Christian beliefs), leading to an abandonment of those beliefs. It does not always end with one walking away from their faith, but for the most part, when it is labeled as such, that is precisely what has happened.
There are always those in the public eye that have taken this route. They usually tend to get a decent amount of attention, especially when their "celebrity" status is rooted in their Christian life. Such is the case with Christian authors and speakers or pastors. There are also those on the fringe of Christian Culture (like Rhett and Link), and much could be said concerning these deconstructionists and their impact. In fact, I believe that there are probably a few really good books out there that address this in a truly helpful way, so I am not going to attempt to address any of that in this post. Instead, I'd like to offer a few thoughts from my own experience, rooted in my own encounters... I'll leave the analytical breakdown of famous deconstruction stories and their impact for the famous people to write about.
