I recently spent some time listening to Dustin Kensrue’s new album, Desert Dreaming. I like his music, and the new album is good. The first song I heard, though, reminded me of the rumors that he has walked away from orthodox Christianity:

When I left town, I was swept up
With the visions of a man from Galilee
Along the way, I lost my bearings
I got swallowed up by sins of certainty

The heart of sedona

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I learned that Kensrue was a former worship leader for Mars Hill, the failed church that rose to the heights of evangelical influence with many campuses, only to collapse with the failings of it erstwhile leader, Mark Driscoll.

Listening to the song, Heart of Sedona, off his new album, Desert Dreaming, gave me pause. The words seem to confirm the rumor, and the story seems all too familiar lately.

His music is as good as ever, but it comes with the melancholy of what used to be. Or maybe it never was. It’s hard to know how to process the deconstruction of someone’s else’s faith.

Given the back story (involvement in a failed church movement), I suspected his “deconstruction” (and many other artists who seem to have followed a similar path) may be symptomatic of some malady that has infected America Evangelical Christianity.

My entre into Kensrue’s story begin with the article, It’s Not Enough: Dustin Kensrue’s Turning Away, which is where I learned that Kensrue was intimately involved in the toxic environment of the Mars Hill church movement led by Driscoll, a controversial and polarizing personality.

I had heard of the rise and fall of Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Church, but I did not jump on the curiosity bandwagon when people associated with Christianity Today produced the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I only heard about it, and I had listened to a discussion of the podcast on another podcast, so I felt I needed to hear it firsthand to gain some perspective.

The podcast describes the talent and bravado of Mark Driscoll, who was also polarizing and toxic and seemingly proud of it. Driscoll was staunchly reformed in his theology with a cultish personality and a flair for the dramatic. He attracted people on the edges of faith in the notoriously countercultural Seattle area. I summarized some of my thoughts on what I learned in Keeping It Real for the Church: Talent in Tension with Character)

I have also gone back, now, through the tweets highlighted in the article I noted above, and I have poured over Dustin Kensrue’s Twitter (X) feed to gain further insight. These things give me additional food for thought in considering the “deconstruction” of Dustin Kensrue as it relates to the American Evangelical Church.

Though I have spent considerable time researching these things, my thoughts remain preliminary and exploratory. I am not certain that I have gained sufficient perspective to be clear or certain of any conclusions, but it seems to confirm my sense that the story is symptomatic of a problem with the American Evangelical Church.

In fact, the original article I found may also be symptomatic of the same issues with the American Evangelical Church and of current American culture, itself, affected as it is by social media. I apologize for the length of this article, but I am afraid I do not do much more than scratch the surface.

It occurs to me that the Seattle area may be the epitome of our post-modern, post truth world. We are drowning in a seemingly endless sea of information that lies at the feet of anyone who dares to put a toe in the water. The Internet haunts our waking hours and tend to isolate people who get caught in its undertow.

Modern people are desperate for community and certainty as a result. This is not a predominantly Christian phenomenon. People predictably signal their tribes in every social media response to highly controversial happenings, such as the Trump guilty verdict that was publicized recently. The “community” we strive to connect with, however, is as hollow and unfulfilling as it is harsh and polarizing.

A similar impatient and brash confidence to rush in where angels fear to tread seems to be the same kind of “stuff” that fueled Mark Driscoll in captaining the trajectory of the Mars Hill movement and attracting people who desire real and intimate community.

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Yet, people followed him because of his talent and ability to persuade. Driscoll’s take-no-prisoners approach to ministry left many spiritually dead bodies in its wake. Truth was championed to the detriment of the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated in giving up his life.

People were drawn to Driscoll because he preached certainty with boldness that shielded them from honest doubt. When that shield fell quickly away, the faith built on the hard soil of certainty could not withstand the searing heat of sunlight. Without roots embedded in humbler and richer soil, it withers quickly.

The article I read places the blame of Kensrue’s retreat to more progressive Christianity on errors in his theology. “If only his doctrine was sound, he would be ok seems to be the import of the article.” (My paraphrase)

Doctrine is very important, of course, but the way of Jesus is not simply a matter of thinking the right thoughts. In an Internet driven world, though, thoughts are more accessible than love that must be modeled and lived in close community.

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I learned something about process theology in college when I was a young Christian 40 years ago. It was a tempting way to resolve the apparent incongruity between Jesus and “the Old Testament God” by positing that God has been learning over time how to become a loving, forgiving God.

I believe that Kensrue and others who are attracted to “progressive” thinking like Process Theology have some legitimate issues with the reformed, American construct of God that needs some deconstructing. The “controversial financial dealings and interpersonal sin issues” of the leadership at Mars Hill also deserve some deconstructing.

It seems that even if our theological houses are constructed on a solid foundation, the structures we build on that foundation that are not plumb with the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus can not stand. Jesus emphasized love, self-denial, consideration of others, humility and reliance in our human weakness on God. These fundamental characteristics of Jesus and his followers that we see in the New Testament were not clearly evident in Driscoll or Mars Hill.

Kensrue describes inerrancy as the linchpin of his former belief that came undone, leading to a deconstruction of the caustically reformed view of God and of His Church advanced by Driscoll/Mars Hill.

The doctrine of inerrancy is notably a view of Scripture that only dates back a couple hundred years or so. In fact, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is not much older than Process Theology.

Biblical inerrancy and the reformed emphasis on God’s sovereignty is a kind of doubling down on raw faith that can prop up strong personalities like Mark Driscolll. Such strong, cultish personalities seem to lead often to “spiritual abuse”. I hesitate to say that Driscoll is guilty of spiritual abuse, but the danger is apparent in what I have learned.

Kensrue’s Process Theology may be a reflexive reaction to the excesses of such a strongly authoritarian approach to theology and spiritual life. On Kensrue’s Twitter (X) feed, he speaks of his former (begrudging) belief in a God who tortures people forever for not bowing to Him. The fact that God holds the keys to belief (according to Reformed theology) nagged at Kensrue’s sense of justice.

Kensrue says he tried to push thoughts to the back of his mind about the unfairness of consigning people to hell who have had the keys to faith withheld from them. Such is the problem with extreme reformed theology taught by people who model the construct of a harshly determinative God from the pulpit.

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Process Theology is a different way of piecing together these seemingly conflicting or paradoxical threads of Scripture. We call it progressive because it, more or less, stops trying to make sense of the seeming incongruities between the view of God we often see in the Old Testament and the view of God lived out in the person of Jesus.

Process Theology lets go of inerrancy and stops trying to hold the seeming incongruities together. It posits a different paradigm, speculating that God is changing and has changed over the years into a more “reasonable” deity – one that lines up better with our human sensibilities.

I am prone to believe that errors lie in the thinking of both camps. As finite beings, we struggle with mysteries that lie at the edges of our understanding. We must ever be humble and reliant on God and His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. We cannot stop being humble or reliant. We must be careful of thinking that we have arrived at the perfect theology or way of following Jesus.

Dustin Kensrue has swung widely from the hard certainty of the Mars Hill experience to the soft and mushy world of process philosophy. It’s an understandable reaction to the Driscoll/Mars Hill experience. In this swing, though, I see a man who is still seeking to hold onto Christ as best as he can.

Both Kensrue and Driscoll need grace, as we all do.

Driscoll’s hard certainty pushes some people away and locks other people into a potentially brittle theology. The threat of more progressive theologies, like Process Philosophy, is a total unmooring from the foundations of truth. We need truth, but we must be ever willing to bend to correction in our understanding of it.

I am not sure, at this point, what pearls of wisdom might be found in the stories of Dustin Kensrue and Mark Driscoll. I am inclined to see risk (and error) in the extremes. The wide swing to a more progressive view may just be the other side of the same coin in this case – a strong desire for authentic faith.

I think we should take Jude seriously when he exhorts us to be merciful and compassionate with those who doubt. (Jude 1:22) I think we should extend the same mercy and compassion to ourselves in our own doubts. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, and certainty is not faith.

But, God is love. He is patient and longsuffering in His love for us. I hope and I pray that Driscoll finds the grace of God in humility and that Kensrue keeps a hold of the Ancient of Days who is, as the Bible says, unchanging. While I don’t believe that God is changing; I believe that we are changing, and our constructs and understanding of God are changing.

That change may even be reflected in the Bible as people have been inspired by God to record His revelation over time. The way people viewed God in the Old Testament compared to Jesus, may be the change that we see. As finite beings, we need to give each other grace, and we need ever to seek the grace of God to lead us forward as we seek to follow Jesus, who was God in the flesh.

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Jesus as the Primary Reason: Many adherents of open and relational theology point to Jesus as the central reason for embracing this view. They see Jesus’ love as revealing a God who loves nonviolently and engages in genuine relationships with humanity.

1. Scriptural Emphasis on Divine Love: Open and relational thinkers interpret sacred scriptures (including the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’an, and the New Testament) as emphasizing divine love. Passages like “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) underscore the primacy of love in understanding God’s nature. [I have studied the ancient texts of the major world religions. (Many years ago in college, granted) I do see some similarities between the texts of the world religions, but there are irreconcilable differences, also. I do not see this emphasis of divine love in any of the texts, but the Judeo-Christian texts.]
2. Logic of Love: Advocates of open and relational theology argue from the logic of love itself. They question whether love would cause unnecessary pain, predestine some to eternal hell, or entirely control others. Their answer is a resounding “No!”—a loving God must be open and relational. [There are good reasons to believe that the Bible doesn’t teach predestination to eternal hell or that God controls people within orthodoxy and without resort to Process Philosophy.]
3. Moral Intuitions: Some individuals arrive at open and relational theology through their deepest moral intuitions. Even those who haven’t been exposed to religion respond to truth, beauty, goodness, and love, suggesting a Source that grounds and summons such responses. [If it’s true that no one is without excuse for knowing that God created the world. (Romans 1), we can also assume that our moral intuitions can also be informed by God without the requirement of Scripture to aid us, but the fact of sin and of the prevalence of the sin nature should give us pause to rely too heavily on these intuitions without the aid of Scripture.]
4. God’s Relational Nature: Open and relational theology portrays God as genuinely relational. Unlike views that pre-program all of life or emphasize divine control, this perspective recognizes our free choices and their significance. [This can be said within orthodox Christianity without resort to Process Philosophy.]
5. Uncontrolling Love: Oord’s theology emphasizes a God whose love is uncontrolling. God does not coerce or manipulate; instead, divine love invites and empowers genuine relationships. [This can be said within orthodox Christianity without resort to Process Philosophy.]
6. Divine Influence and Human Actions: In open and relational theology, God is influenced by human actions. This contrasts with views that depict God as unchanging and unaffected by our choices. [I think that it’s highly unlikely that God changes. We change. He doesn’t. He may appear to change, but I think that is explained better by the view that our perspective of Him changes.]
7. Rejecting Limited Divine Foreknowledge: Open and relational theologians reject the idea of limited divine foreknowledge. They argue that God knows all that’s publicly knowable but doesn’t possess exhaustive foreknowledge of every future event. [This may be the most difficult thing to grasp from our perspective. If God is not confined within time, however, we should understand that God can see past, present, and future. This does not mean that He predetermines outcomes any more than watching the tape of a football game and knowing the outcome means that we have determined it. I think Molinism is, perhaps, the best we do at trying to reconcile these concepts at this time, but even that is a very imperfect conception. Some things simply remain mysterious to us, which is to be expected of finite creatures.]
8. Embracing an Open Future: Rather than a settled future, open and relational theology embraces an open future. This means that possibilities remain, and our choices matter in shaping the unfolding of events. [I think we inevitably err when we try to reconcile the paradoxes we see to choosing which biblical principals we hold into and which ones we let go. As with the seeming contradiction between Newtonian physics and quantum physics, we need to hold onto a principals of truth, even when we cannot presently reconcile them.]
9. Meaning and Purpose: The open and relational view provides a framework for believing that our lives have meaning and purpose. Our choices genuinely matter, and we participate in co-creating with God. [Again, this can be said within orthodox Christianity without resort to Process Philosophy.]