Before You Lose Your Faith: Deconstruction and the Church

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Brett McCracken: You’re here for before you lose faith dealing with doubt and deconstruction in the church. My name is Brett McCracken, I’m a senior editor for the gospel coalition. Really excited about this conversation today. It’s a really timely topic. I think most of us in this room probably have people in our lives who are on this deconstruction journey, whether children or people in your church or walking with friends, family. So I hope this is going to be a helpful conversation and I think it will be. First I want to thank Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for sponsoring this panel today, you can learn more about them at their booth in the exhibit hall [email protected] So thank you to them. So I’m going to introduce our panelists in a minute. But just by way of preface, just a few thoughts. Some estimates are that 60% of people raised in the Christian faith, deconstruct their faith after high school. And I think we’re seeing that this trend of deconstruction is increasing. It seems to be accelerating in recent years, coinciding with the rise of the religious nuns, people who I don’t identify with any faith. And the factors behind this rise and deconstruction are many, and we’ll talk about some of them today. I think social media and the internet has something to do with cultural changes, political dynamics and political shifts that have made Christianity distasteful or untenable for some people, or whatever the reasons for it, this rise and deconstruction and deconversion are distressing. It breaks our hearts to see people leave the faith Enough, enough so that we at TGC thought we should produce some resources on it. So we came out with this book it just released before you lose your faith. I think it’s one of the free books that you should receive for being here at this conference. It’s an edited volume. So there’s a bunch of contributors. I contributed a chapter Trevon contributed to chapter we have Karen swallow prior Rachel Gilson, Derek Reese, Maui, Joshua, Ryan, Butler, and many more. So it’s an excellent resource for people who have people in their lives are going through this. So be sure to pick that up and read that. And we’re going to talk about some of the themes in that book today in this panel. One thing just that we should know about deconstruction is that it doesn’t always have to end in deconversion. Right, deconstruction can be a healthy thing. It’s not always bad. Doubt and questioning can be valuable in the life of faith, something that Ivan Mesa writes, he’s the editor of this book, in the introduction to the book, he says this, deconstructing, however jarring and emotionally exhausting need not be not end in a cold a sack of unbelief. In fact, deconstructing can be the road toward reconstructing building up a more mature, robust faith that grapples honestly with the deep, deepest questions of life. And I think that’s really what we want to focus on today. How can we walk with people through deconstruction? How can we respond to this trend in a way that leads more of these people back to Faith to a more robust faith rather than away from the faith? So I think there’s some positive ways we can talk about that, hopefully. But first, let me introduce our panelists. So we have Elisa Childers. She’s a wife, Mom, author, blogger, Speaker worship leader. You may remember her from the CCM group, Zoe girl and you want to remember Zoe girl.

Brett McCracken: Elisa is she is an astute observer and a critic of progressive Christianity. And she’s written some of the most successful most read articles on the gospel coalition website, whether reviewing books by Rachel Hollis, Jen Hatmaker Glennon Doyle, or deconstructing the deconversion story of YouTube comedians Rhett and Link. She’s just a talented, effective communicator on this topic. so grateful to have you here and her new book. Another gospel came out recently. And this is a great book. It’s a helpful first person account of her personal experience with progressive Christianity. So Alisa, thanks for being here. And then we have Preston Perry Preston is a poet performance artists teacher apologist, originally from Chicago. His writing and teaching has been featured in places like the gospel coalition, the poets and autumn tour legacy disciple. In 2017, Preston founded bold TV and bold apparel as avenues to engage the public and theological discourse. And if you haven’t already checked out Preston’s YouTube channel, I would urge you to do that. It’s called apologetics with Preston Perry and he has these great videos where he engages in kind of street conversations with random folks who are agnostics, atheists. You know, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, black Hebrew, Israelites, sometimes like the whole wide range of people on the spectrum of belief or unbelief. And so I think you’re going to be a helpful voice on this panel for your experiences with probably many of the questions The people who are deconstructing their faith often kind of bring up so we’re grateful to have Preston Preston is married to Jackie Perry. They live in Atlanta and they have three daughters. So, thanks for being here, man. And we have trevin wax. Trevin is a general editor of the gospel project at LifeWay Christian resources. Trevon is a regular columnist for TGC. You’ve probably read some of his articles. He’s contributed also to The Washington Post religion News Service world Christianity Today, which names trevin, one of 33 millennials shaping the next generation of evangelicals. tremens authored numerous books most recently rethink yourself the power of looking up before looking in, and the multi directional leader responding wisely to challenges from every side, which is also one of the free books you received here at GDC 21. He and his wife Corona, have three children and live in Nashville. Okay. So we are going to jump into questions here. And the first question I want to throw out to all of you whoever wants to answer is to go back to what I said about deconstruction doesn’t always need to lead to deconversion. In your experiences, what does healthy deconstruction look like? What factors are present that makes someone’s deconstruction journey, ultimately lead them to a more robust Orthodox faith rather than leading them out of the faith? Any anyone want to jump in first on that?

Alisa Childers: Well, I would just say it depends on how you define deconstruction, because if you’re going to define deconstruction as going through all of your beliefs, picking them apart, discarding the ones that are untrue, then I think that deconstruction can be very healthy, especially if you’re deconstructing maybe some of the cultural, Christian things that some of us grew up with. If you’re deconstructing even anti and unbiblical practices, I think that can be a good thing. But I think typically, in our culture, deconstruction is more understood as sort of being undergirded by relativism, in my experience of reading deconstruction stories, there’s sort of this fundamental assumption that objective truth doesn’t really exist. And so it’s sort of our job as an enlightened, mature Christian to deconstruct the construct of truth that we grew up with. And ultimately, the purpose of that is to live our own truth to sort of get to the bottom of that, and reject that, and live our own truth. So I think a healthy deconstruction would be based in truth, and an unhealthy one would be based more in a relativistic postmodern type of setting.

Trevin Wax: I think along those lines, I think there’s a there’s a healthy deconstruction, that can often take place in the lives of young people who grow up in the church, and have to arrive at a point where they are really questioning what do I really believe? What does the Bible Really Teach? Do I believe this just because I was handed this because I was taught this? Or do I believe this? Do I really own this form? myself? Is this is this faith? True? And is this faith going to be mine personally, rather than just something I’ve sort of inherited, and a lot of times there are young people in our congregations who go back to what Alyssa said, with the two kinds of deconstruction there sometimes will confuse which process is actually going on there. And I think we’ve got to be careful that we don’t take difficult piercing questions among young people who have grown up in our congregations as necessarily a sign that they’re there, they’re in that relativistic moving toward a deconstruction that would lead them away from the faith, they may be asking really good questions, because they are they have faith that are seeking understanding? That’s a healthy process, one that I think should be encouraged and one that should lead church leaders to, to want to brush up on Okay, well, it’s a really good question. And even if you don’t immediately have the answer, it’s the kind of one that you’d want to, to help them wrestle through some of those questions and help them understand from Scripture, why it is we believe what we believe or why do we do certain practices or why our churches is a certain way? So I think that’s a key thing to remember is that everyone’s particular experience is different. And when someone is opening up about doubt, or they may be like me, I was a challenging young person like I’ve the way I would learn is I’ve challenged my parents, but it wasn’t because I was trying to move away from the faith is because I was really challenging, hard to see. Is this real? Like, is this going to is this gonna withstand all of my, my questions and my, you know, trying to understand what it is just how solid this Christianity thing really is. Don’t always take that sort of aggressive questioning as as coming from someone who’s hostile to the faith sometimes That’s the personality of a of a teenager who’s really wrestling for themselves, what they with what they believe.

Preston Perry
I’ll just quickly add, I think a healthy factor is someone not deconstructing their faith on an island. And for church leaders to understand that we shouldn’t allow someone who is deconstructing their faith to be on the island. I think that when you are alone with your thoughts, your questions, your doubts, I think that you need, you know, mature Christians around you that you know, you can come to with those questions. And so I just think this being a community, not divorcing the community, as a whole, just, you know, having community around when you have those questions and doubts.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, totally. I think we were talking before we got out here about so much of the critique of against conservative Christians talking about deconstruction is that we’re recommending that it take place in the church. But the critics are saying, but the church is the most unhelpful place for this. And that’s, we’re out of the church for a reason. And so why are you Why are you wanting us to deconstruct within the very place that has been hostile to us or unsafe for us? So what’s interesting is that community is now developing online. So I think most of the people in my experience, who are going through deconstruction, journeys are finding kind of a community of fellow deconstructing Christians online, whether podcasts or blogs, or Twitter or whatever. So that gets to a question that I wanted to ask about the conditions in our culture right now that are making it. So fertile for deconstruction, Charles Taylor, in his book of secular age talks about the conditions of belief that that have to be there, in order for belief to be plausible. But I want to flip that and ask what are the conditions of unbelief that make deconstruction so plausible today? What are the kind of structural cultural factors in place that are contributing to this social media, as I mentioned, might be one, any other thoughts on that? Not so much the issues in particular, the hard questions about hell or sexuality, but just kind of the structures in the conditions in our culture that are making deconstruction such a thing right now.

Trevin Wax
We live in a in a world of endless choices in so many different areas. And so one of the things that makes deconstruction plausible, is the fact that there is this endless variety of, of options. And because we also live in a society that is all about looking in to find and express yourself as being the purpose of life, you know, expressive individualism, there are all kinds of identities that people can try on for themselves. So one of the when, and then when you have the internet age that you were talking about, Brett, I mean, you wind up, you wind up being able to access information, and be able to tap into communities of people who have found some kind of identity around the fact that they are now can don’t consider themselves Christian or evangelical, or whatever their background was that that’s part of how they see them finding out who they are. So the challenge from from that kind of a society is that there are all these options that are out there. And we as Christians are called to, to live and to be the church in this kind of an environment. The opportunity with that is that knowing that there are other all those other options available, it actually can give Christians additional reasons and additional motivation. And sometimes can you can press on things that maybe previous generations wouldn’t have pressed on, or wouldn’t have been seen as controversial. And you wind up coming up with a firmer faith on the other side of that, because you’re actually testing aspects of of your faith in different ways. So both challenge and opportunity, like with any cultural context, I think is what makes this so prevalent.

Alisa Childers
I think, too, if we look at deconstructing it’s really a movement, right. This is a phenomenon that’s happening. That’s really a movement, as you mentioned, there are Instagram pages and Facebook pages, there are therapists emerging to help you to deconstruct your Christianity that you grew up with. And so I think we need to realize that this movement is largely an ex evangelical movement. Certainly there are some deconstructed Catholics and, and things like that as well. But this this is a movement of people who are reacting against the type of Christianity they grew up with. And I think it’s two pronged. I think it’s doctrinal, and it’s a reaction against maybe some of the unbiblical things that they were brought up with. If you go online, you can find this kind of growing sentiment of the six pillars of deconstruction that start with questioning the Bible, then it moves on to the doctrine of hell and then penal, substitutionary atonement. There’s eschatology and these these pillars that the deconstruction movement say this is what holds Christianity up and once you knock One of those down, the whole thing falls. And so I think doctrinal beliefs is is one of the prongs. The other prong is things like people are walking away from maybe they’ve encountered legitimate spiritual abuse. And in chapter four of my book, I talk about some of these reasons. Hyper fundamentalism, hyper legalism, the problem of suffering, not understanding how God could be good and not answer prayers that they were told in church, God’s gonna answer those prayers. And then he doesn’t, and they don’t know what to do with that. So I think that it’s a it’s a reactionary movement, we’re really they’re walking away from something more than running to some sort of universal thing that they’re all saying, yes, this is what unifies us. This is what we believe.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve I think that’s totally true. It’s so much driven by emotion and baggage and hurt, Preston, because that’s the case. So often, people who have left the faith or deconstructing have just hurt from their past in the church. If you’re in a conversation with someone on the streets of Atlanta, how is it? What is it? How do you approach it differently? with someone like that? I would, I would almost guess that it’s somewhat easier to talk about Christianity with a Muslim or, you know, a Mormon or a Buddhist, someone who has an entirely different religion than someone who grew up as a Christian in the church, but just has all this emotional kind of baggage and hurt. So where do you start with them? What do you say?

Preston Perry
Yeah, I talked to in the streets, I typically talk to two types of people, I talk to people the issue just named while I talk to like Hebrew, Israelites, or More’s. And I found out that these people have left to face because they’re, they’re mad at America, or they’re mad at, you know, white supremacy. But a lot of times when I talk to people in other religions, atrocity to hear why they serve the godly serve in the first place, the first thing I do, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t necessarily try to knock them over the head with Scripture. I try to learn their names. I try to you know, learn why they believe what they believe in the first place and get a foundation of who they are. And then after that, I try to ask them like, why do you believe what you believe? What what what drew you to believe what you believe? Because I think a lot of times I run into these Muslims and Java’s witnesses, they’ve had encounters with Christians, and they wouldn’t good encounters. You know, they kind of feel like Christians beat them over the head with Scripture. And so I never want to talk one, once one to one Jehovah Witness and act like, you know, no, you because I talked to another Jehovah’s Witness, I’m gonna deal with them. Like they made an image of God like their individual and go from there.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, every story is unique. Like Trevon, you said that as well. Yeah. So I think starting from a place of listening and trying to maybe ask the question, what is the Christianity you’re rejecting? That’s a good, you have to kind of figure out like, what exactly are you rejecting? Because more often than not, it’s not necessarily the Nicene Creed that they’re rejecting. It may be some of that, but it’s the cultural baggage. It’s the politics because

Preston Perry
people peep also people in that in those religions, they haven’t really deconstructed anything, they were brought up in a religion. And so like, when I talk to Mormons, they were brought up in this and so I want to I want to know, like, Why? Why do you think this is the truth? And let’s go to the scriptures and try to see how this contradicts what she believed that makes that makes sense.

Brett McCracken
Elisa, something you mentioned, you talked about kind of this growing industry, this like deconstruction, trademark, industry of books, and podcasts and influencers and all of that. And something that troubles me just generally in the church today is this dynamic of the internet is this formation space, it’s a spiritual formation space. And, you know, Christians everywhere right now are being discipled almost more by the voices they’re finding online than their own local church pastor. And to go back to the idea of like, healthy deconstruction takes place in the local church. Well, in the pandemic, we spent less time in the local church than we ever have, and more time online than we ever have. And so maybe that’s accelerated this deconstruction trends. So what advice would you give to pastors and people trying to disciple Christians who they know in the flesh in their local space, but how do you counter that online? influence?

Alisa Childers
Yeah, this is a really good question. And so just for a little bit of a context for me to answer this question is that I kind of I went through my own bout with deconstruction and doubt of over 10 years ago as the result of being a part of a small class in a progressive Christian church. I didn’t know it was progressive Christian Church at the time, but it sort of catapulted me into this bit of deconstruction. I don’t want to exaggerate it. I never lost my belief in God. But those pillars I mentioned those started falling for me. I didn’t know what to call it at the time. But it was very scary and you’ll hear people who talk about deconstruction describe it. As with words like tears, It’s a terrifying thing to be raised in something and then you no longer really believe it. And so in my own life, what I discovered was I had a couple of people in my life who reacted very differently from each other. So when I would sort of get brave enough to maybe mentioned something, one person in my life reacted with a ton of fear. And just basically shut me down, don’t that’s, you shouldn’t doubt you shouldn’t ask those questions. Just believe the Bible. You know, Jesus. Yeah. And it was very, very fearful. And that really pushed me away. And I didn’t feel like I could really trust that person to go deeper into what I was really thinking. Now there was another person in my life, who reacted completely calm, just like, oh, okay, well, yeah, that’s a good question. I remember thinking that when I back when I was a hippie, or whatever. And let’s, let’s discover that I don’t know the answer. But, you know, let’s check back in in a week. And that invited me into more of a conversation. And I think, especially when it’s our kids, I get so many emails from people with grown adult children that are in the process of deconstruction, and they’re saying, what do we do? And I just think the best thing we can do is like, like Preston said, really genuinely care about them as a person and what they do believe and why they believe that and try to engage without being too dogmatic with our truth claims, right? You don’t want to if somebody is in that process of deconstruction, you don’t want to come in and debate mode, you want to come in in curiosity mode. And so I always tell people, you don’t have to be fearful because you don’t have to know all the answers. You don’t have to be a theologian or an apologist. You just have to be curious, and be willing to go on a journey with somebody to discover some of the answers if they’re teachable and open and want to know the answers. But that’s the question because sometimes, it’s kind of like, just like I heard Trevon describe it. Sometimes doubt and deconstruction can be just seeking for answers to justify that you’ve already kind of left

Brett McCracken
trevin a question for you on in your book, rethink the self, you talk about how two of the most common questions about Christianity that arise in a deconstructing journey? Are is Christianity true? And is Christianity good? Is that right? Those are the two. Which one do you think is kind of the dominant one right now in what you’re seeing with the deconstructing journeys is mostly about the truth claims and kind of that cerebral level? Or is it mostly about the kind of, is this a good thing? Like, is this a beautiful thing? Or is it both wood? And how do you respond to each of those?

Trevin Wax
Well, they both they both hang together at at some level and of course it’s different for for different people. So there’s there’s not a one size fits all there are some who are more intellectually minded who ask really good questions and who are more in the in the vein of running really detest things rationally and logically that may be tripped up on the some of the truth claims of Christianity. But I do think that what what often happens right now, and I probably a little bit of a of a more dominant starting point. And I’d be curious, maybe there’s disagreement on the panel about this, but I do think the goodness of Christianity is one of the the key things leading to questions that then began to unravel some of the truth claims of Christianity. So how can Christianity be good? if, you know, this is Christianity’s? You know, some of the the egregious things Christians have done in the past or how good Christianity good with our view of sexuality, or how could Christianity be good and beautiful if this when when Christianity from a moral perspective no longer seems to be plausible and make sense? And then leads to questions about truth. This actually is the opposite of challenge that apologists and Christians were facing a century ago. A century ago, you had a lot of people who were thinking, you know, the way that we are going to save the faith for the next generation is in this scientific age that we’re living in an age of technological wonders. We need to downplay you know, if not deny, or at least downplay the the supernatural truth claims of Christianity because we can’t expect people to, to believe in you know, or to weaken. We can’t lead out with the fact that you know, Jesus was born of a virgin and things like that. And, and so the idea was, let’s just emphasize the morality, the the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man. And this was the the move that a lot of Christians made a century ago thinking this is the way forward with the truth. Well, a century later, things have flipped the other way. And, you know, 100 years ago, people wanted the morality of Christianity without the miracles. Today, there are a lot of people that would like the miracles of Christianity without the morality, the morality is the is the trip up point and people will say I can affirm the creed but Don’t expect me necessarily to go along with what the Bible teaches or what the church has taught about sexuality, gender, and things like that. And so they today, I think the goodness in beauty question tends to be more of an entry point because the moral structures of our society have changed in such a way that Christianity seems not just old fashioned, but repressive, and actually harmful. And when that happens, it leads to questions that then lead to the, to the truth, questions as well.

Preston Perry
Yeah, I just wanted, I want to quickly I like the religions that you you mentioned before, they’re often brought up in those religions, but the experiences that I’ve had, when people who have left the faith or or deconstructed their faith and found another faith, they did so because of their interaction with Christians. And so I think it’s important for us as Christians to, to, to allow them to see that the God of the Scriptures that you have done away with, is not the not the enemy, right. And so I do a lot, a lot of work of trying to build a good rapport with them, and given them an experience with the Christian property that they’ve never had. Because I’ve heard people say, I’ve left the church because the people in the Christian church exploit people left the Christian church, because people in the Christian church don’t identify with the black experience. And so I look at myself is that is there part of their first representation of what a true Christian looks like? And I think that speaks value about the God that I that I serve.

Brett McCracken
And that’s good. Yeah, I think, in my experience recently, and this is maybe kind of an elephant in the room that we have to discuss a lot of the goodness of Christianity that doesn’t look good, doesn’t, that fragrance isn’t nice to people is political things, right? There’s a lot of young people I know who have started their deconstruction journeys or have really like accelerated in their deconstruction journeys, in the last four years. In the the Trump years. So yeah, if what I’ve heard is like, it’s kind of like they say, you know, there’s something in Christianity that would lead so many Christians to fundamentally support this. I don’t want to have anything to do with that. I’ve heard people telling me that. So it’s almost like all the theology Jesus Himself is less compelling as an attraction as the repellent of this political thing that supposedly is a package deal with Christianity. So maybe Preston, how would you respond to a young person like that? Who’s thinking of walking away from Christianity or has walked away because specifically of what they’ve seen in politics? Yeah,

Preston Perry
we’re actually experiencing that a lot in our church, and just not I think, our church, but a lot of African American churches, who feel like the, just the church in the West don’t identify with who they are as a black person. And I wrote a poem called nouveau Christian and one of the lines I said, Are you terrified of hugging someone who voted for Trump on Sunday mornings. And I don’t think that Trump is the enemy. But I do think that a lot of times, it’s hard to sit in the pews with people who don’t feel like they identify with who you are holistically as an image bear. And so I’ve heard, you know, a lot of black Christians who feel like, the church wants me to be Christian, but now black. And so how do I how do I deal with that, and now you have in the black community, a lot of these black religions, taking advantage of that, you know, taking advantage of how some white evangelicals respond when a black body pops up on the news, and, you know, recruiting them into their, their false religions. And so I think the way we deal with that is to truly venture into the heart uncomfortable conversations. I think another way to deal with that is when somebody like Mike Brown does on the news, don’t just have Bible study the next day without addressing the congregation as if you’re black brothers and sisters in the church are not hurting. I think sometimes we just have to pause and know that people in our communities are, are struggling, even if they’re not in our in our worlds. And so I think that I think the church has to essentially just mourn with those who mourn. And I think that we will see a lot of people have when they have those questions, they will come to the church and not go out into the world and yeah, adopt lies.

Trevin Wax
I think I think there’s a flip side to the political question as well. There are many places in the country because we are in such a polarized moment in which a churches hardline stance against you know, Trump or Robert Gabbard, it can also drive people away or people think people go for sort of a secular, post Christian, right wing political views? And I mean, that’s one of the things that’s been said the last, you know, a few years or so is it? You know, I think the joke is, if you’re afraid of the Christian, right, you should really worry about the post christian right, you know, and what that looks like. And so there are there are definitely there are places in the in the country where, on either side of the political question, it could lead people to a place where they’re, you know, moving away from historic Christianity. The the so what do we do in that kind of scenario, I think the most important thing that we as, as Christians need to remember is that Christianity is a global faith. The last four years, which have led to some of the stories you’re talking about, Brett, I mean, is a is just a tiny fraction of a 2000 year history of Christianity, and really only a tiny fraction of issues that are facing Christians all over the world today. And so one of the things that we’ve got to be able to do, I think, if we want to be able to study the souls of our people, during difficult tumultuous political times, is to be able to lift our eyes above the the rancor of the current moment, and to be able to recognize the as the church falls short here, and the church falls where there and that, that the the gospel is not tied ever to one political tribe, or one political party or a partisan movement, that but that the gospel must transcend that. And that we must look for ways to show people in our congregations, that we are united to people who are in other parts of the world facing other parts of challenge other kinds of challenges, and yet are united with them by the blood of Jesus, and that that is our ultimate identity. And if you can’t relative, if there’s anything that should be relativized, it should be politics, because right now, we live in a society where as religion is on the decline, people are making their politics, their religion. And that’s one of the challenges that we face. And I’m sure there are many people in this room watching online who, who are seeing that happen, whether it be on the right or the left, in their congregations, and it has to be resisted, because at the end of the day, it’s idolatry.

Preston Perry
I just want to I just want to quickly add, I think I think it’s important for us to also know that the the issue really isn’t Trump, is it? The issue really isn’t policy? I think the issue is, is people in your congregation, are they convinced that you love them? And so I think that when people are afraid to sit in the pews and people who voted for Trump is not you voting for Trump? Is they this seed has been planted in people’s minds that who you voted for goes against how I was created in the imago day. And so I think that we need to, we need to do the hard work, of having those hard conversations. So the enemy cannot have a field day in the minds of our brothers and sisters in the pews. And so I do a lot of urban apologetics and these urban apologetics that I do. I’m consistently confronted with people who are telling me that I’m a fool for worshiping with my white brothers and sisters. And I know the gospel goes against that. Right. But I think people, black black brothers and sisters in the church, I think they’re they’re running to these religions, because they feel like they have more of an identity within then their true brothers and sisters in Christ. And I think that’s the problem. I think we need to do a hard work and letting people know, yeah, I voted for Trump, but I still love you.

Brett McCracken
You know. And so that’s that’s a good word. I think one of the things I’ve observed that kind of relates to or talking about is this conflation of politics and theology. So that to be theologically conservative, somehow you also must be politically conservative. And vice versa. Like if you’re politically progressive, does that mean you also need to change your beliefs to be more theologically progressive, but I think the global perspective that you raise, Trevon, it just helps remind us that we can kind of disentangle those to some extent, you can be a theologically conservative Christian in some other part of the world that has a totally different political scene than the US. And maybe your politics lean left, even though your theology is as conservative as a Republican in the US or whatever. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of work we can do there to disentangle that conflation of you must be politically conservative to be theologically conservative or something like that. I want to switch gears a little bit and ask a question to you Elisa. As I was reading your book, I was thinking back to I’m j Gresham, machins book Christianity in liberalism. And he kinda defines progressive Christianity liberal Christianity as another religion entirely. It’s further from Christianity than than Protestants and Catholics are like Protestants, Catholics are closer together than liberal Christianity is from Orthodox Christianity. And you say in your book, that if you became convinced that Jesus was just a good teacher or a man to imitate, you wouldn’t become a progressive Christian, you just walk away from the faith, because, quote, progressive Christianity offers me nothing of value, it gives me no hope for the afterlife, no joy in this one. It offers 100 denials with nothing concrete to affirm. And I think that’s true of what we’re seeing the deconstruction is deconstruction with very little interest in reconstruction. So my question is, if it’s true that if this is true, then isn’t progressive Christianity always just a transition stage to know Christianity? Or do you see people who actually kind of sustain an active meaningful faith as a progressive Christian?

Alisa Childers
Yeah, this is a really good question. So I would say that I think it would be it would be overshooting it to say, yes, it’s always this, this sort of doorway out of the faith. But I do think, and this is going to be anecdotal, I don’t have studies to back it up. Just my experience engaging with the movement is that in many cases, it is in fact, I’ve received after I wrote an article for the gospel coalition, sort of comparing some of the beliefs of progressive Christians and atheists. Interestingly, because when I was in my faith crisis, I couldn’t find really any apologetics that we’re dealing with progressive Christians. But it was all the same stuff, like all the same claims, and the same questions were being answered by the apologists when they were answering atheists. And so it really stood out to me that they had some of these beliefs in common. And so certainly, there are a good number of progressive Christians who, who so far, you know, are staying there. There, there are theologically informed, progressive Christians biblically literate, they’re not all just you know, biblically illiterate, or just trying to be hip and cool. They get characterized that way, sometimes, but some of them are very deeply convinced of their theology. But I do think that in many cases, it is a doorway out and Bart campolo, who is the son of famous evangelists, Tony campolo, I think makes this point really well, he started going through a process of deconstruction. And he started questioning the resurrection and the deity of Jesus. And he said it was when you refer to unanswered prayers, he said it was like death by 1000 paper cuts. And, and I was watching an interview with him, and he kind of made the point. You know, if you’ve lost all these beliefs, you should just call it what it is. And that’s why he calls himself a secular humanist. And so that’s why in the book, I do argue that, you know, progressive Christians are this isn’t just a group of people that have changed their minds on some social issues. This isn’t just a group of Christians, who might be rethinking politics. They are teaching a different god, it’s a different Jesus, they have denied core doctrines of the faith, like, like human beings having a sin nature, that sin separating us from God, the blood Atonement of Jesus, these are all things that are roundly rejected in the progressive church. So yes, I do think that in many cases, it is a way out. But certainly, I think it would be an exaggeration to say in all cases, but I did get a lot of emails from atheists after I wrote that article saying, Yeah, that was that was it for me?

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t happen always. But sadly, it’s, it seems like more often than not, you see this progression, right, you see this first question and change on doctrine, then you see, an Instagram posts, you know, that’s kind of pondering like, distancing myself from the church. And then, you know, the next thing, you know, they’re taking mushrooms and having psychedelic trips, you know, which is a real deconstructions story that I saw on social media last week, and I have a worship album by this former Christian musician. So it’s a sad progression, but we’re running out of time. So I just want to land in a practical question for and I want each of you to answer this. What’s the best advice you would give to a pastor or parent, friend, family member walking with someone on a deconstruction journey? journey of doubt journey of deconstruction? What’s the best helpful advice you’d get?

Trevin Wax
I just say, Don’t lose confidence in the power of the word and the power of Christian community. The word still changes lives the word is powerful. The word when it’s implanted in people’s hearts and minds over time, even if there’s a season of deconstruction. We are Christians who live with hope, and people may have here to walk away from the faith for a while. But we can continue to hold out hope that Jesus hasn’t finished writing that story. No matter who it is, no matter how far they may have gone, Jesus is in the business of telling great stories of redemption. So trust in the power of the word and then the power of the Christian community. And a lot of times, it is terrifying because people are walking away. A lot of I will say this, don’t make this mistake. A lot of times people, I see this happen in our circles a lot. They assume that when someone is moving away from Orthodox Christianity, that they’re doing so because they are wanting popularity with the world or whatnot. There’s a huge social cost. And it’s scary for people who are considering leaving the community of faith that they belong to, and what they might face and how alone they might feel when they’re moving in that direction. So don’t assume the worst of people’s motives, as they’re wrestling or as they’re, they’re, they’re moving away. Understand that the power of the Christian community is, is extraordinarily important. And that the the church is the hermit, it needs to be the hermeneutic of the gospel as Leslie newbiggin said that it’s a it’s a place where the gospel should be on display and should be seen as as possible.

Preston Perry
Yeah, I’ll just quickly say, be a be a friend, and be available. My wife often talks about homosexuality, and she often talks about how sometimes Christians can treat people according to what they struggle with, or what they’re struggling with. And I think that I think that we do that we make people we we make people always like we remind people about what they’re struggling with, instead of just being a friend, you know, so I have a pastor, I’m very close with my pastor. And it was a person in my church who was going through a deconstruction phase in their in their walk. And he simply just told them, like, whatever you’re going through, just don’t cut me out. Like, let me like, let me always be there for you. And so we have friends who walked away from the faith because of you know, they wanted to be homosexual. And I found it encouraging that they still wanted to come to our house and have dinner, no one opposition. And so I think that Christians just you know, sometimes we just got to be normal, and sit down and have a conversation with somebody and not talk about what they’re struggling with. And then when they’re ready to talk, they’ll come to us.

Alisa Childers
And I would just say, just to add to, to all of that wisdom from my brothers here. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the problem is purely intellectual, it’s very rarely purely intellectual. giving them an apologetics book is probably not going to fix it. You know, just bringing your best apologetic arguments. And I’m, I’m an apologist, so I love apologetics. But it’s it’s not usually what they’re needing or what they’re wanting. And so I think Preston, what you said, was so wise in that, they need to know that you love them, and that you genuinely care about them, and you genuinely care about what they believe. And then I would say that the second thing is to just live out the real thing in front of them, not just with your words, not just telling them the right things to believe. But let them see in your own life that this brings. This is joy from deep down in your own soul, that there’s an immovable anchor of hope within you. And they will know that that’s what my parents gave me. And I know to this day, that even though the apologetics helped rebuild my faith so much it was the genuine Christianity that my parents modeled for me my whole life. That clued me in to thinking, I don’t want to deconstruct that. And so I think that just loving in a genuine gospel centered way is is key. It’s good.

Brett McCracken
Yeah. And I would just add, I think that, what I would say is just make sure to point people to Jesus, like there’s a lot of issues circling around this. But we can lose Jesus in it. And just, he’s being lost in the politics and the issues and the baggage and the church abuse, and there’s so much terrible stuff. But this is a question about Jesus, and how do you respond to his claims of who He says He is? So point people to Jesus, remind them that Christianity is not mostly about what Christians have done or not done. Christianity is about what Jesus did for us and point them to him, right, Jesus is greater, he’s greater than your doubt he’s greater than all these things that are happening in our culture that you’re wrestling with is greater than politics and these issues that we’re struggling with so white people to Jesus and then pray, I think all of us should be praying for our friends and family members on this journey. And so on that note, I would love to just pray to close our time. Father, we thank you that you are a great God that you have done it. You have paid the cost, It is finished on the cross. That’s the most important thing we can affirm and believe in To remind others to affirm and believe. And I just pray for those in this room who have people close to them, who are walking away from the faith who are on journeys of doubt, questioning. It’s such a painful thing to go through. So I pray that you would just come for people, as they struggle with this as they walk with people who are struggling with this and meet them in their doubt and their questions and their deconstruction and go after them. Like you’d go after the lost sheep and bring them back to the fold. That’s our prayer. We want people to have stronger, more robust faith, after having gone through this deconstruction and to be able to testify and to bear witness to the fact that they have questioned Christianity but ultimately returned finding it the most satisfying answer to their anxieties and stress and worries and problems. You are the answer. You are greater. And so we celebrate that today. And we need your name we pray. Amen.