Three Things Deconstruction is Not

What is "Deconstruction"? What is it Not?

Many pastors I know have told me that one of their most pressing pastoral concerns right now is knowing how to minister to people who are deconstructing their faith. For many pastors, this seems to come out of nowhere. Someone was attending their church and seemed perfectly fine until the fateful conversation where their congregant says to them, “I’m deconstructing my faith.”

That word—“deconstruction”—is hard to know what to do with because it’s so ill-defined. Many people mean different things by it when they use it. Because it’s hard to know what someone means when they use it, it’s hard to know how to minister to that person. Oftentimes, pastors who have good intentions but no personal experience with deconstruction attempt to make sense of it so they can know how to navigate relationships with those who are going through it. But sometimes, the attempt to do so risks making it worse instead of better.

For example, I recently saw a chart a church had put together to try and situate deconstruction in the spiritual life. On the chart were five phases: 

1. Disenculterating (separating cultural expressions from your faith)

2. Disentangling (separating unbiblical beliefs from your faith)

3. Doubting (wrestling with aspects of what you believe)

4. Departing/Deconstructing (leaving Christ or “the faith delivered once and for all”)

5. Disbelieving (not yet placing one’s faith in Christ)

The first three had green lights beside them, were placed above a thick, bold line, and were labeled with the name “Peter.” Departing/Deconstructing was above thick, bold line and was labeled with the name “Judas.” This chart was an internal document that the church used to help them relate with people who say they are deconstructing their faith. To be sure, the fact that the church took the time to put something together is admirable. However, I believe that the chart as it’s constructed is flawed and falls short in its ability to minister to people who are deconstructing, and it’s primarily because of a misunderstanding about what deconstruction is.

I don’t blame this church for thinking this way. Talking about deconstruction is difficult because everyone defines it differently. And yet, it seems to me that it will be difficult to minister to someone well when you’ve written them off as a “Judas” instead of understanding what they are going through and walking with them in it.

After walking through deconstruction myself for over ten years and coming out the other side as a committed, biblical Christian, I think there are better ways of talking about deconstruction and walking with those going through it. Here are three paradigm shifts about deconstruction to help pastors better understand what it is and minister to those in their congregation who are experiencing it.

1. Deconstruction is not apostasy

As in the case of the chart the church put together, many pastors assume that deconstruction is either one-step on the way to apostasy or is apostasy. The problem with this is that, if you listen to most people who say they are deconstructing their faith, you’ll hear them say that, far from leaving the faith, they are hanging on by any little amount of faith they can muster. Like the father in Mark 9:24, they cry, “I believe; Help my unbelief!”

People leave the faith all the time, and they feel no qualms about it. There is no wrestling with their faith, no trying to make sense of things, no continuing to participate in the life of the church with all of their unresolved questions, and uncomfortable feelings. They just leave, and there is a word for that: apostasy. We don’t need to use the word deconstruction for something we already have a word for. It’s true that it’s possible for deconstruction to lead to someone apostatizing, but it’s not guaranteed. Do we trust God to hold someone in their doubts? God plays the long game in people’s sanctification. We shouldn’t count someone out in the middle of the process. Which brings me to number two.

2. Deconstruction is not static

This might be something that pastors acknowledge but don’t lean into the implications of. Labeling someone deconstructing as “Judas” does not imply that someone is in the middle of a long process, but that they have departed entirely from the faith. And yet, deconstruction is a process that someone undergoes over a long period of time. There is no pre-determined duration or outcome.

It’s not uncommon for some people’s deconstruction and reconstruction journey to take upwards of a decade, as was the case in my experience. It would be a shame if pastors and congregations gave up on someone in the middle of a long process that involves a significant amount of wrestling and transformation. One of the primary things needed from everyone in the deconstruction process is patience. Being willing to wait on God and allow him to work in the person’s life over the course of a long period of time is one of the best things someone can do for the person who is walking through deconstruction.

3. Deconstruction is not primarily intellectual

This is a tricky one because most conversations about deconstruction are around doctrinal, biblical, and/or cultural issues. That’s what the chart I described in the beginning is trying to get at when they distinguish disenculturating and disentangling from deconstruction. I would argue that deconstruction involves both of those things, and yet is more than those. Deconstruction is first and foremost, before anything else, a crisis of faith. It has far more in common with the dark night of the soul than it does the lecture hall or cable news.

The subjective experience of deconstruction is not factored in enough when pastors talk about deconstruction or minister to people who are going through it. Deconstruction is primarily experienced as grief—at the loss of God, community, identity, meaning, and purpose—not as an intellectual exercise.

They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God… In my soul, I feel just that terrible pain of loss — of God not wanting me — of God not being God —of God not really existing.

That quote was written by none other than Mother Teresa in her diary in 1959. Deconstruction, experiencing the absence of God—the dark night of the soul—is not only for those of weak faith. It is a normal experience for many Christians.

We need to move how we think about deconstruction out of the intellectual register and into the emotional and spiritual register. Along with seeing it as a dynamic process someone undergoes over a long period of time that does not necessarily lead to apostasy, we can calmly love and minister to those who are walking through deconstruction. If we patiently wait on the Lord for him to sanctify his people through the crucible of deconstruction and offer ourselves as an instrument in his hands, someone’s deconstruction can lead to a more secure, confident, and vibrant faith than before.