Putting Deconstruction In Its Place
Examining the "where" of deconstruction
I recently finished reading The Deconstruction of Christianity, the new book by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. It’s the only other book on deconstruction written on the same topic and to the same audience as my own that I’m aware of. Like me, their book seeks to speak to the Church about deconstruction, helping people understand it and think through how to respond. This article won’t be a proper review. Like any book, I have my places of agreement and disagreement with it. The very last thing I want to do is tear down someone else’s book to promote my own. And this book doesn’t even warrant an angry takedown. There is lots of truth in it, even if I would frame some things differently than they do.
When I first saw their book, I was worried it would preemptively cancel out my book. And while there are certainly places of overlap, after reading it, I still think there is a place and need for my book. What I hope to do here is not detract from their book, but make one addition to it.
At the beginning of part two, Childers and Barnett state that there are three elements common to every deconstruction story:
A process of deconstruction (how someone is deconstructing)
A belief being deconstructed (what is being deconstructed)
A person deconstructing (exactly what it sounds like, the person who is deconstructing)
I agree with all three elements and think this is a helpful framing of things. There are enough variables in these three things to introduce a significant amount of complexity already. Does the person maintain the authority of scripture or not (at best, it’s probably complicated)? Are the beliefs more doctrinal or cultural in nature? What is the person’s temperament, and how does that influence how they approach uncertainty and pain?
Even though those three elements are correct, I immediately felt like another crucial element was missing. There is a process, belief, and person involved with deconstruction, but there is also a place. The question of where is just as important as how, what, and who. While deconstruction is experienced as an individual endeavor, it isn’t. It can’t be. Everyone's story is indelibly shaped by the context that they are in when they begin deconstructing. You can’t view someone’s deconstruction isolated from where they are situated when everything falls apart.
The environment someone is in when they begin deconstructing is a crucial aspect of this. If someone is in a loving, caring environment where they have thick friendships and intentional structures in the church, when they stumble across hard questions or cultural idiosyncrasies, then they will be far more likely to move slowly through deconstruction. There is more incentive to hang onto the faith; they will be more open with their questions and issues with those around them and more likely to believe the best about others and not see rank hypocrisy around every corner. The intensity of their deconstruction will be far less than that of someone who grew up in a strict fundamentalist environment that demanded certainty and uniformity while withholding relational grace and the means of grace.
Once you include the where of deconstruction, you’re no longer talking about an individualistic process of reexamining your faith or an individual crisis of faith (depending on how you define it). Simply examining the person, the process, and the beliefs isn’t sufficient. You have to examine the environment that is behind those things.
Why do so many people who are deconstructing retain the rigidly literalist hermeneutic of the fundamentalist churches that they left? It might be because that’s all they were ever exposed to, and think that if that’s not how you’re interpreting the Bible, then you’re doing it wrong. The environment influences the shape of the deconstruction.
And once you start examining the environments that someone’s deconstruction arises from, suddenly, the form of church is no longer neutral to the experience of deconstruction. Some places do lend themselves to more intense deconstruction than others. It’s worth examining our church structures and consider how we can reconstruct them in ways that lead to the flourishing of someone’s faith—or at least drain the anxiety out of doubts and hard questions.
There is no single church structure that will prevent people from deconstructing. Like Childers and Barnett said, the process, belief, and person all matter. Don’t be surprised when you find people in healthy churches deconstructing. Place is only one of four separate factors. But I do think it’s an important piece, and I don’t think any conversation about deconstruction is going to be very productive without including it.
It’s worth examining our churches and church cultures to figure out how we have, perhaps unwittingly, created anxiety that keeps people from being able to flex their faith through questions, doubts, hard knocks, and the natural shifts of life. After all, there is no such thing as an individual faith. We are all bound up in the church. The local church should be the place where our faith is watered, nurtured, and strengthened. Do our church structures lead to more health or to less? Do they foster relationships or isolate people? Do they build up someone’s faith throughout their life or stifle it?
When we talk about deconstruction, we can’t leave out the place. We are who we are only in relationship to others. We’re wounded in relationships, and through relationships, we’re healed. I hope we can build churches that foster the love of God and others throughout all of the peaks and valleys of life.