Deconstruction or deconstructing is a word that is being increasingly used to describe a particular phenomenon linked especially with US Evangelical Christianity. The idea is that as someone loses confidence in their inherited evangelical faith, they start to deconstruct. The challenge the assumptions and tenants of their faith which levels the ground and enables then to reconstruct a new faith that works for them.From what I’ve observed, this seems to be primarily though not exclusively a US phenomenon and those who do “reconstruct” tend to end up with a more liberal theology.
I’m not intending to engage fully and theologically with the phenomenon here but I would like to make a few observations about it. First, I think that the US centric nature of it is important. I wonder to what extent this reflects the social and theological context of US Christianity. Deconstruction may reflect the tie up Christianity with right wing politics. Secondly, I wonder to what extent it is a reaction to more fundamentalism outworkings of Christianity rather than a thoughtful Evangelicalism which often ends up being by-passed. Thirdly, it probably reflects the stage that US Christianity is at. The US has remained a country and culture dominated by Christianity of a fundamentalist/Evangelical/orthodox/traditional nature long after Europe and the UK moved away from such expressions, via liberalism and modernism towards secularism. If this is what the US Church is experiencing then deconstruction is not something new.
It may well be worth those currently deconstructing their faith or considering it to be alert to the fact that they are not the first to go through such a process. Collectively Europe and the UK have already been through it. Individually, many Christians have too. Some, sadly seemed to completely lose their faith.
However, this also means that there are many practising Evangelical Christians around who have experienced a crisis in their faith, who have wrestled with the same issues an often engaged the same theologies, scholarship and arguments that are being promoted as the solution today. They have wrestled with these things, found the promised answers wanting and have come through with their faith in Jesus and in God’s Word strengthened, not weakened.
It would be helpful then for those of us who have been through such experiences to talk openly and candidly about our own experience. This will require humble honesty. It might also then help deconstructionists to recognise that there are people who have been through this and come out the other side, not landing in liberalism. There are also though who have come at things from the other direction, leaving behind liberal religion or even scepticism, agnosticism and atheism and finding hope in Christ and the sufficiency of God’s Word.
Faithroots 