Thoughts on Deconstructed Faith

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. 

Thought 1: Not that dissimilar to myself. 

One of the most surprising things about those that I've actually been able to have actual conversations with is that I didn't find that my thought process was that dissimilar from one who had deconstructed. I believe that I've even said as much in a couple of those conversations. The things that brought most of the people I've met to a point where their faith began to deconstruct were things that I had also contemplated and wrestled with. 

Most (if not all) of the deconstructionists that I've met and communicated with, began that journey away from their faith because there was a disconnect between what they had been taught and what they experiencing in the observable world. Sometimes this disconnect was the hypocrisy of one or more believers that they trusted. Sometimes it was a relationship or experience outside of their faith that they couldn't reconcile with their faith. A few times it was a perceived "good" that their faith was declaring "not good".  And quite often it was some question posed that their faith could not answer. (Or at least it was a question that they did not perceive that their faith could answer.)

When I talked with someone who had walked away from their faith, whether they considered it a deconstruction of their faith or not, I kept finding that I felt like I was speaking to a kindred spirit. I had experienced hypocrisy, I had experienced things that seemed good outside of what my faith called good, I had encountered questions that may faith didn't seem like it could answer. And when my conversations tarried in those discrepancies, hypocrisies, and questions, we were very much on the same page, and our differences didn't always appear until we would begin to discuss how we sought to rectify discrepancies, answer questions, and/or confront hypocrisies. 

Thought 2: The Stated Causes of Deconstruction are often a Veneer over the Truth. 

A veneer is usually a thin covering of wood for decorative purposes. One will usually see a veneer on an older piece of furniture. It is recognizable when it is peeling away from the body of the furniture. (see the image).  A veneer can be used to create the look that a high quality piece of lumber was used, when the reality is that the furniture is actually something much less expensive.

I have found that the stated reasons (causes, triggers, motivations, or instigators) of a person's deconstruction is quite often a veneer over the actual reasons. I am not saying that the person who has deconstructed is purposefully attempting to put a veneer over their reasoning, but that, through lengthy conversation, the actual reasons tend to show up just under the surface. This often means that the person may not themselves realize the real reasons. I am sure that we are all like this at one time or another regarding many of the things that we do or believe, but with the person whose faith has been dismantled, this may be one of the most important things to discover. 

The discovery of the deeper reasons, which are lurking just under the stated discrepancies, hypocrisies, and unanswered questions, can be beneficial for both the person with the deconstructed faith and for the person who may be attempting to win them back to that faith. Of course, this must be handled carefully, prayerfully, and saturated with great compassion. If you go probing about in someone's life, attempting to discover what lies at the heart of the things they are doing and believing, they will grow keenly aware of what lies in your own heart as well... it is a two-way street. When that happens and your own veneer is pulled back, they will need to find love. If love is not present, you will find that veneer will be re-applied and thicker than ever. 

Thought 3: Lasting Faith Needs to be Robust. 

I like the word robust. I try to find opportunities to use it as often as possible. I think that is because there seems to be very few things in life that are all that robust. Our furniture is made of press-wood, our dairy products are fat-free, and our meats are sometimes meatless... well, my meats are never meatless, but we live in a world where they sometimes are.  So, I tend to crave things that are not -free, but are -full!  One of those things is Faith. 

Before I say anything else, I feel the need to clarify something: Faith is not a feeling of trust. I know that most modern media uses the word faith in this way, and I know that you may use the word in this way, but that is not what faith is. Faith is not the thing that we have to stand in our gaps of knowledge. Faith is what we believe, based on the knowledge that we have. The apostolic writers of the New Testament would tend to use this word in reference to the things that we can know because they have been revealed to us. A more accurate use of the word faith is when we might say something like, "... the Christian Faith..." (If you need a more robust explanation of this, please let me know.)

Back to the point: we need a robust faith. A robust faith is one that has fed deep on the revealed Word of God. It is a faith that has read the Word, studied the Word, and listened to the Word being preached through and taught. It is also a faith that has developed through the asking of hard questions, being investigative of the text itself, being critical of claims made about the text by others, and being humble in the presence of those challenging texts. A robust faith is not a faith that is easily satisfied with simplistic answers to difficult or hard truths. (This implies that a robust faith also recognizes the existence of difficult texts. See 2 Peter 3:16.)

In my experience... whether that has been in-person or a shared story... those of a robust faith have seen their faith bear up under scrutiny, trial, tribulation, hypocrisy, discrepancies, etc. But I have also noticed that an individual's personal robustness of faith is quite often supplemented by a community of people who also have a robust faith. Many of those who have gone through the deconstruction of their faith, didn't really start heading that way until after they had sought help from those around them, and found that their questions were only given "pat" answers that lacked any real substance. 

Closing Thought. 

I'll end my thoughts right there. So much more could be said, but I believe that this is a place where we ought to fortify and begin to build our defenses. The evil one wants to deconstruct everyone's faith, and he quite often targets our youth. Many of our churches have adopted an anti-intellectual approach to faith, and our youth have found it wanting. It is time for us to start digging deep into the Revealed Word, not only to grow our own faith for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of the next generation.