Like many people, I suppose, I have been thinking about the phenomenon known as “deconstruction” since it has become popular to tell deconstruction stories in recent years. A deconstruction story is an “anti-testimony”; it’s a testimony of a journey from belief in the God of the Bible to non-belief in the God of the Bible.
Last summer, a high profile Christian worship leader and the guy who wrote the book urging Christians not to date (that created a generation of non-dating Christians) “deconstructed”. They walked away from their faith and publicly announced it, blogged about it, were interviewed about it and became celebrities of the walk away from faith movement.
Other notables come to mind as well, but I am not going to name them. That isn’t the point. I only recount these stories to demonstrate that “it’s a thing”, as my kids say.
Old timey religious folks used to call it “backsliding”. By that, they meant turning back to a sinful lifestyle, lured away by the temptation of sin. I remember people calling it “falling away”. By that we meant, losing faith, not being able to hold on to it.
Deconstruction seems to be a much more noble and honorable thing to do than backsliding or falling away. (I say that not without my tongue in cheek.) Deconstruction suggests that you had a hand in it. You didn’t backslide against your better judgment or let faith slip through your fingers; you rolled up your sleeves and dismantled your faith, and you found that it didn’t fit back together again.
It’s scientific, right? So it must be a good thing.
Deconstruction is popular, I believe, because skepticism is gaining in popularity. Scientists, like Neil de Grasse Tyson and pseudo-scientists, like Bill Nye, “the Science Guy”, have ridden that wave of popularity scaling away religious (and philosophical) ideas and replacing them with science, because (they say) science has all the answers.
Deconstruction is science, right?
I don’t buy it for a second that science and religion are incompatible, and neither do many scientists. I participated in a Zoom conference just this morning with a biochemist who is a believer. On the other hand, deconstruction might not be the evil that some Christians may believe it is. In fact, I think, deconstruction can be a good thing.
Continue reading “The Upside of Deconstruction”
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