There were some things, for me, that were unshakable. I suppose that’s what it comes down to.
In Christ alone were the words of eternal life, and there are still some decent historical apologetics, that I’d probably put on the same level as a credible witness reporting a miracle today.
I think most of us who wind up staying in Christianity do tend to go through reformation more than deconstruction and reconstruction, so not a bad term to use. It is interesting how I seem to see a lot of interest in deconstruction lately, possibly due to religious leaders trying to make sense of the rise of the “nones” in recent years.
I guess I prefer the term deconstruction because to me that is what is is. It’s a major overhaul to your faith, not just how it affects your actual life and the choices you make, but how you even relate to God and view the Bible. Deconstruction is not positive or negative. Some deconstruct and never build it back and fall into atheism. Some rebuild it in a way that is not Christ centered and become disciples of another faith and yet, many also begin to reconstruction ( rebuild their faith in Christ ) and continue to live out their faith in a new way.
It’s also part of the game. Years ago I saw theistic evolution as the main term. Then I saw evolutionary creationist. Now I’m beginning to see and hear more and more use Christian naturalism ( not to be confused with nationalism). New coined terms will arise and old ones will come back and so on. Negative and positive connotations to a word may not be the same for everyone.
I like the language of deconstruction and reconstruction. If we want to use reformation I would probably want deformation as the precursor in this context.
“Words are just pegs to hang ideas on” was a sentence that I read a long time ago and still remember. The sentence came from someone called Henry Ward Beecher, if I remember right.
We are free to chose the words we use but may end up in communication problems if my definition of a word differs from that of others. Is it a big problem if someone uses the word ‘deconstruction’ and another the word ‘reformation’?
I like the quote about pegs. I use the same concept with the term “hooks” all the time. It comes from when I was teaching. The more of them we have, the more ideas we can grasp and the more connections we can make.
I think we see from the video as well as the discussion, that the terms deconstruction and reformation have different meanings and implications. Unfortunately, the fellow in the video seemed not to understand what many people experience, who describe it as deconstruction. Or perhaps he was creating a strawman in order to blame people, who have experienced genuine deconstruction, for deliberately dismantling their faith.
Vinnie and others around here have given powerful and reasonable descriptions of what they have gone through, how and why. None of them seem to have gone in with the plan of dismantling their own world view and bringing on what follows.
A quasi-philosophical description that I think fits the concept of deconstruction is over here. It’s not a pleasant thing, I understand.
Many of us are doing something more like reforming. And even that feels dicey. Listen a bit, and that’s where some deconstructions have begun, trying to figure out why one thing doesn’t fit or what a better answer is.
I’m not lobbying for one path or another, rather for an accurate assessment of our ability to understand, much less judge, someone else’s conscience or experience. Everyone has a different need for and understanding of “uncovering (the) truth.” Everyone has to decide for her/himself how to go about that, if at all.
In my humble opinion, Reformation is not adequate enough to describe the level of change needed in classical Christianity. With that said, one could argue that deconstruction (followed by some type of reconstruction) is simply going further on what the Reformation started. I guess this is a worth conversation to be had.
If my observation is correct, it seems ofttimes deconstruction continues to even destroy the building materials so there is nothing to reconstruct with.
Yes and no.
I think it’s fair to say that his description isn’t an accurate reflection of what everyone goes through who describe their experience as “deconstruction.” It is certainly unfair, tone-deaf and lacking in empathy to describe someone in the early stages of the process in particular as “hypercritical, lack of self awareness, shallow thinking when it comes to theology and stuff like that.” If you assume that he is referring to everything that flies under the banner of “deconstruction” in that way, then yes, his description is inaccurate and unfair.
But there are some people for whom, as far as I can tell, his description is completely accurate. In particular, there are people who have deconstructed all the way beyond atheism into actively promoting an approach to deconstruction that is exactly what he is describing—hypercritical, lacking in self awareness, and shallow theologically. You see this in particular when you get people sarcastically describing the Bible as being all about talking snakes and talking donkeys, or continuing to insist that it demands a young earth and cannot be interpreted otherwise, and using such assertions as reasons for not taking it seriously—showing the same disregard for such matters as cultural and historical context, literary genres and figures of speech as young earthists do. It’s also an attitude that they’re going to find in spades on some of the pro-deconstruction forums on the Internet, such as the “exvangelical” or “ex-Christian” forums on Reddit, the “nonreligious” and “progressive Christian” channels on Patheos, or the videos that YouTube’s algorithms start recommending to them.
The problem is that we’re using the same word—“deconstruction”—to refer to both the genuine and honest questioning that many of us go through as Christians where we’re trying to clear out the baggage while holding onto what is good and pure, and to the no-holds-barred approach leading all the way to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We need to help people who are deconstructing to avoid the latter while honestly helping them through the former, and that is probably going to need a different word to describe it, whether “reformation” as he suggests, or something else. And I think that’s the point that he’s trying to make.
I feel that reformation can maybe capture a different type of re-evaluation and shift. I found my transition from a very transactional and law-based Church of Christ to a charismatic, faith-focused, yet still very conservative and evangelical Anglican church to be a reformation of sorts.
The subsequent re-evaluation of evangelical systems of theology and preconceptions formed a definite deconstruction. It was not demanding to throw out all things, but rather to serious search all those things and the meta-narrative itself.
It is frustrating how he basically equated questioning the text as deconversion. The evangelical/Chicago statements approach vastly overstate and promote a certain idea about the text and then tie it into almost a requirement of “genuine faith”.
How is this a science post?
Deconstruction is very often an issue that is triggered by bad attitudes towards science in particular that people encounter in their churches.
It does get discussed from time to time in various BioLogos articles, for example here:
I meant your own post here. Fair enough to say it’s not about science? (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good general post about faith and a relevant topic these days.)
I think it depends on your perspective. For me, science was right at the heart of it because it was my attitude to science that I had to sort out in order to do my job properly and to progress in my career.
Having once been in the church but now out of the church for 30 years (and with a small amount of knowledge of what deconstruction looks like on the atheist side of the aisle), this is what I am seeing, for what it is worth.
The first question that someone will come to is whether they are questioning the basic faith based beliefs of Christianity. If the answer is no, then it leans more to the side of Reformation. This process, IMO, would involve untangling 2,000 years of Christian tradition and culture from the core understanding of scripture. In a way, a bit like the Sola Scriptura of the Protestant Reformation. There would also be a process of personalization in trying to figure out what Christianity means to each individual person, akin to the “personal relationship” that many people often use to describe their Christian beliefs.
When I hear Deconstruction I often think of a skeptical view of the basic tenets of Christianity. People may be looking for reasons to continue to believe in God, or at least the God of the Bible and Christianity.
So I don’t think people should try to replace Deconstruction with Reformation because they could be two very different things. One is a crisis of faith while the other is a crisis of theology.
Good distinction.
Since this discussion earlier and rolling terms around in my mind I think I’m going to start using “ Christian naturalist “ as the label for myself but I still think I’ll use evolutionary creationism as the default term for the subject of how evolution and faith plays a role in understanding genesis 1.
Can the latter lead to the former – it would seem like it could. The converse maybe not? If someone is having a crisis of faith then likely they’ve already been through a crisis of theology, if they’re going to have one.
I think the use of deconstruction comes from the idea that it was constructs that were being evaluated and rethought. But the association many people have with the word is maybe more linked destruction than analysis, so I share your feelings about the word and don’t use it to describe myself. About ten years ago people used the term “faith shift” and I liked that, except many people then began to apply it to deconversion, so then I didn’t want to use it. Same with ex-vangelical, it’s not telling anyone where you are, just where you don’t want to be.
I didn’t watch the video, but my problem with applying “reformation” to the current convo is that I associate it with the historical process of reforming Christianity with institutional level, corporate reform, not individual’s personal journeys. And all the talk of deconstrction is about highly personal journeys and I don’t see much evidence of any institutional level reform in Christianity these days.
I prefer to think of my own process as disentangling not deconstruction. There is a lot of white cultural supremacy and patriarchy and politics and American exceptionalism and modern Enlightenment that got tangled up in the form of Christianity I was raised in, so I don’t feel like I am tearing down and discarding my Christian beliefs so much as trying to weed out the stuff that was only ever a culturally biased preference or misrepresentation of Christianity to begin with.
While I’m not a big fan of “deconstruction,” there are situations when the word is used appropriately. I define deconstruction as using poststructuralist methods (especially those by Derrida) to analyze beliefs and systems for evidence of binaries, hierarchy, oppression, etc. It can trace its heritage to ideas by Neitzche and Marx.
A poststructuralist analysis of Christianity has its place, but my issue with personal “deconstruction” is it usually only leads to skepticism about some things and not others. For instance, it may lead one to skepticism about the core tenants of Christianity but not skepticism about objective moral values or scientific realism.
I prefer the instances of “critical exposure” or what I call “epistemic shaking,” where one subjects aspects of their worldview to skepticism and see what works and what was believed on not-so-solid grounds. In many cases, this leads to a “re-building” or reformation of Christianity that is more personal and less self-assured.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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