In recent years, there has been much noise around the “deconstruction” of your faith, primarily in Evangelical Christian circles. To be sure, it’s a long and painful process to recognize that the way certain religious practices (and by “religious”, I mean those ways of being that are meant to create connection and community, not the mindless repetition of empty ceremony) have shaped you now no longer make sense in the light of new realizations. Perhaps it’s a recognition of different ideas about sexuality or gender. Perhaps it’s the encounter of different biblical interpretations. Perhaps it’s even the experience of hypocrisy that leads us to reconsider what “real faith” means.
All of these are essential processes to building or growing a mature faith. An unexamined and thoughtless faith is one that doesn’t have the capacity to hold up in the face of new information or evidence. A carefully reasoned faith is, I think, a compelling way to lead your life because of the way it admits its own bias, is open to using alternative lenses to understand others, and is not threatened by disagreement. But to have a mature faith after deconstruction means being able to critique it. To critique something is not to just be critical of it, but to attempt to see it from more than one perspective. Critique acknowledges the bad but also holds onto the good.
This goes hand-in-hand with some of the ways I try to work with people who either have left their faith or have significant questions about the way they’ve been living it. Even if they’re not in my office to talk about the ways the church has hurt them or refreshed questions of theodicy are keeping them up at night, we’re all here to grow up and wrestle with questions for which there are no more “black and white” answers. We’re here to learn the strength to carry the “now and not yets” of our lives. That’s what living in faith– in hope, in trust, and without perfect clarity–means.
But what does helping someone who has outgrown the former iteration of their faith look like?
I’m grateful for the theological education I received at Regent College. Although a lot of people remark that I’m “no longer a pastor”, the truth is that what I learned about my faith there informs every aspect of the work I do now. And because Regent is a place that is known– sometimes to a fault– for its concern for a historically-grounded faith, I walked out of there having a much better sense of not just where I’m coming from as a Christian, but also where we all are coming from and the origins of the theological traditions we follow.
So to help people through deconstruction and into constructive critique, it helps that I get a sense of why we’re saying what we’re saying and why we’re doing what we’re doing. And then, slowly, to help people develop the ability to “keep the baby” while throwing away the bath water. What’s good about where you’re from? What do you need to repudiate? What form of being do you think you can tolerate for now while not completely casting it aside?
Being able to critique your faith means you can perceive it more clearly. If what you believe in can’t stand questioning, it’s not worth believing in at all. But critique isn’t just bashing. It’s a hopeful engagement that tends towards love because loving is a matter of progressively seeing someone or something and appreciating it for a complexity you never knew they had.
I used to think that a good Christian was someone who could turn up on Sunday mornings and be “abandoned” to worship. You know, buy everything that they’re selling from the pulpit. But after years of working with people who are just so tired of it all– myself included– I don’t think there is such a thing as a “good” Christian. Only people who have seen what’s inside and know they’re in need of someone to save them, and hope that they’re not completely crazy for throwing in with Jesus. No one finishes their work with me becoming a “good” Christian. But I think, when it goes well, they become more deeply rooted– able to be blown about and lose a little foliage, and much less likely to wither and die.