Welcome to Conquest of Grace! If you would like to know more about who I am and where I am coming from, I highly recommend checking out my about page.
We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4b-5 CSB)
My fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to propose a challenge to you all. Don’t just scroll past! Look at something for me first, please. Just take some time to go to r/Deconstruction on Reddit and look at several of the stories people have provided for their “deconstruction.” Don’t worry! The rest of this article will wait for you while you do so. Such stories won’t corrupt you either. If you truly want to understand, you really should take the time to have these stories in mind. While you do so, I want you to keep two questions at the forefront.
How do they describe what Christianity is?
What were their experiences like with other Christians?
If you spend time looking through this, and other deconstruction content (you will find plenty on Substack), you will find some rather important factors at play. There are several themes that repeat themselves. The first theme to recognize is that the most typical deconstruction narratives revolve around emotional and social issues and not logical or scientific issues with Christianity. In fact, the arguments proffered against Christianity tend to be just a cover for the real reason these people abandoned their faith. That doesn’t mean their experiences were fabricated, nor does it mean that their grievances are illegitimate. It means that their “deconstruction” began via a very negative experience they went through. Often a series of negative experiences. Whatever “intellectual” reason they give, it developed after this period of deep disillusionment.
A cursory glance at these stories should tell you that the Wikipedia definition of deconstruction is a bit disingenuous. The deconstruction or exvangelical movement doesn’t really represent a generic and neutral “process of personal religious re-examination”. Nor is it accurate to claim that it is an “open-ended process” with an “uncertain” outcome. The intention is clearly apostasy and criticism of Christianity. No matter what. It is not a logical and objective analysis of the validity of the claims of the Christian religion or the veracity of Scripture.
The article that Wikipedia links to support the above plainly describes leaving “religion.” The author, Darly R. Van Tongeren PhD., even offers his book with the title Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion. Such a book makes it pretty clear what the supposed “uncertain” outcome is. This isn’t an objective evaluation of Christianity or the religious claims that one believes. It is a post hoc rationalization for abandoning Christianity. This means finding whatever excuse one can to convince others, and especially oneself, that your reasoning was justifiable. As opposed to an emotional and peer-pressure driven rationale.
It’s hard to escape this when you look at the reasons provided. The above linked article that Wikipedia references describes some very revealing reasons for people’s deconstruction.
First, some people leave because of cultural stagnation: They are getting more ideologically progressive, but their religious organizations are not. Often, people report intellectual reasons for leaving religion, or mention they simply outgrew their faith. Other times, respondents indicate that they cannot endorse the values of their previous religious organization, including their views on LGBTQ+ individuals, stances on gender or sexuality, or pervasive sexism and racism.
This reasoning is rather curious because, for one, it showcases that “deconstruction” is blatantly unidirectional. This isn’t leaving “religion” this is abandoning one religion in favor of another! Sarah McCammon’s book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church, points to something extremely similar. In describing the term exvangelical and the process of deconstruction, she says the following:
The term emerged as a hashtag around 2016, and is generally credited to Blake Chastain, who launched a podcast called Exvangelical that year. Chastain and other former evangelicals began connecting online to discuss their disillusionment with Trumpism, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, racism, religious abuse, skepticism of science, and a host of other concerns about white evangelical beliefs and culture. (p. 4)
All one has to do is search through the Deconstruction reddit or Substack with terms like LBGTQ, racism, or sexism to see this framing repeated. This isn’t at all a neutral and objective evaluation of Christianity. This is people who are abandoning Christianity because of the influence of another religion. These stories are conversion stories driven by peer pressure and conformity to popular narratives.
It is here that we start to see how Christians can gain insight from deconstruction. First, by actually listening to their grievances and then using true deconstruction to combat the unbiblical ideas, corrupt organizations, and predatory wolves that exploited them. We also gain by exposing and refuting the exvangelical movement itself and its usage of a hypocritical, self-interested application of highly selective pseudo-skepticism.
Remember the two questions I asked you to keep in mind when evaluating deconstruction narratives? Specifically, how they describe Christianity and then their experiences with other Christians. Keep those in mind because we will get back to them shortly. There is just one matter to address before we do. First, let us apply a little deconstruction to the deconstructionists themselves. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!
I want to pour some cold water on the ridiculous notion of deconstructionists “leaving religion” like Tongeren claims. Linked within the Wikipedia article is a response by Carl Trueman who rightly calls out Joshua Harris (author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and well-known apostate who “deconstructed” his faith) and exposes his narcissistic new sales pitch. One that is every bit as religious as his prior evangelicalism. In place of the purity culture he sold, Harris instead started selling a $275 course on deconstruction. Harris shortly took down the course after receiving considerable criticism (don’t worry though, Jen Hatmaker has a course you can take for only $49!). Trueman describes it as follows:
The accidental properties of the message have changed, but at root its substance is still the same: Josh Harris. He may have abandoned the religious sales pitch, but he has not reframed his life at its most fundamental level. It remains driven by that which places him at the center and presents him as the solution, not the problem. While it would appear that he is now selling a different message, that conclusion would miss the reality of the situation. From purity culture to therapeutic gibberish, there is remarkable underlying consistency here. Harris may have glued a different label on the bottles of life’s elixir that he is hawking, but he is still selling exactly the same product: Josh Harris.
Rather obviously, this deconstruction traded one religion for another. The second religion just happened to be more narcissistic and culturally acceptable than the previous one. This narrative of “leaving religion” is false. Despite what Tongeren and others like him might claim, there is no such thing as a non-believer or non-religious identity. Tongeren inadvertently exposes why this happens when he says, “some people no longer identify as religious because they find the label problematic. Some don’t like the term ‘religion,’ and others no longer espouse the term ‘evangelical.’”
Whether or not people like the term “religion” is irrelevant. Anybody with a PhD should understand the absolute ridiculousness of taking self-interested self-identification at face value. Self-identification is notoriously unreliable (a concept I cover in more depth in my series on this topic).
The religion that these people are flocking to is the religion of Distrephism. For those who have not seen my explanation, Distrephism is a neologism that I have coined to capture the religion and worldview of “social justice”, “woke”, or “progressivism.” All of which are poor terms to describe the phenomenon that we are seeing. In short, these are largely conversion stories from Christianity (or pseudo-Christianity, as we shall see) to Distrephism or some other humanist religion. At least most of the time.
How do we know this? Well, it should be pretty obvious when so many people describe just how important Distrephist beliefs (i.e. social justice/woke/progressive) are to their deconstruction story. Why is it that LGBTQ+, feminism, critical race theory, transgenderism, or climate change becomes so important to their reasoning for deconstructing? Those who deconstruct seem to move overwhelmingly toward the beliefs that make up the religion of Distrephism. Even Christians who deconstruct while still claiming to be religious, spiritual, or even “Christian” fall into so-called “Progressive Christianity,” such as the above-mentioned Jen Hatmaker. Except there is no such thing as “Progressive” Christianity. That is just Distrephism by any other name.
Setting that part aside for now, let us return to those two questions. Because this is where true Christian deconstruction comes into play.
For those paying attention, you find that the descriptions of Christianity within these deconstruction stories contain some alarming red flags. In fact, you should feel rather uncomfortable reading these depictions. There are legitimate grievances to be found and a revealing insight into the superficiality and heresy that exists with alarming frequency in the so-called “Christian” community. And I don’t mean the people who deconstructed.
This is why so many Christians absolutely should deconstruct. However, it isn’t Christianity that needs deconstructing here. It is the plethora of false beliefs, tired clichés, bad theology, and assumptions derived from false religions like Humanism and Neo-paganism that need to be deconstructed. Many Christians need to discard the dead weight of the harmful beliefs they hold to and repudiate the false teachers that pollute their faith with lies. Syncretism needs to be dismantled and rejected entirely.
Look at this Reddit post here. The poster has an image showing “Religious Beliefs To Unlearn.” Notice anything wrong? Some are correct representations of Christianity, like “I’m broken and need to be saved.” But some of them are just plain false. Such as the “religious belief” that “I am responsible for saving others.” Which isn’t Christian at all. We aren’t responsible for saving others. That is because we aren’t the savior. Jesus is the savior. The responsibility is his, not ours. If you want to get technical, it is the Holy Spirit that grants saving faith. We are not capable of giving that to people. Who taught this person these misguided things? What church did they go to that falsely put that burden on them?
How about “Your spiritual self is all that matters”? I’m afraid I missed that one in catechism. I’m also unable to find where in the Bible that claim is. This isn’t a valid Christian belief. This is a distortion of Christianity. At best, it is a simplistic and dangerous distortion of the Christian view of the importance of our spiritual well-being. Jesus did tell us that we should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33 CSB). Yet you just have to keep reading to find that Jesus ends his statement by saying, “and all these things will be provided for you.” Jesus clarified that he knows all the needs we have as human beings. Look at what he says in context:
“Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
It is not true to say that it is “all that matters.” A lot of these sayings are either wrong or so simplistic as to be perversions of Christianity. Jesus told us to seek the kingdom first because God knows our every need and can be trusted to provide that which we need. Of course, need and want are two different things. We often confuse the two things, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jesus never said that our “spiritual self” is all that matters. He specifically recognized the physical needs that we have.
We could say that this person is maliciously misrepresenting Christianity. However, I don’t think that is the case. I think this person is reflecting falsehoods and misrepresentations of Christianity that other so-called Christians told them. I think we all know churches that preach such misguided and dangerous claims like this. These false claims should have been deconstructed and thrown away as coming from a counterfeit Christianity.
I want to point out one more story. In this narrative the person describes their experience at a “Christian Bible college”. The important part is relayed below:
Then one day, in the middle of class, everything shattered. My professor stopped teaching and began commenting on students. When he came to where I sat, he looked me dead in the eyes, pointed at me, and said words that have haunted me ever since: “You will be going to hell.”
In that moment, it felt like my soul was ripped open. I had been pouring myself into my faith, believing I was secure in Christ, and yet my professor publicly condemned me as damned. My chest tightened, my stomach sank, and I could feel the whole room staring. I was crushed—not just embarrassed, but spiritually broken.I tried to speak up about what happened, but when I went to the dean, I was told to keep quiet. To bury my pain and pretend everything was fine. That silence cut just as deep as the professor’s words. It taught me that in that place, my voice didn’t matter. My humanity didn’t matter. I wasn’t safe there.
I understand we can question the validity of this story. Or ask questions about the context that might change our views of what happened. However, I would emphasize the fact that such grievances really do exist. We have no reason to doubt that they are real. Not without being overly defensive. I have enough anecdotal experiences that confirm such things happen.
I seriously wonder just what college this was and who this professor was. What is the point in telling somebody this? Who would actually think that would be helpful? This is spiritual abuse in very clear fashion. That the person here experienced such humiliation, went to the dean of the college, and was then told to keep quiet is absolutely infuriating. That is how a destructive cult operates. Such harmful behavior is what should result in public rebuke and church discipline. Possibly even outright excommunication for those who actively shielded the abuser rather than defend the victim.
These kinds of things are vile and unacceptable. They do not represent Christianity; they represent wolves in sheep’s clothing. Another redditor claimed that “Christianity does not have room for grief. We are supposed to be happy, loving and joyful. In times of trouble we force smiles and say ‘he gives and takes away’. This was by far the biggest road to healing. I had to grieve, but I didn’t know how to. So I stayed stuck for years.”
Woe to the church and supposed “Christians” who taught such a grievous lie to this person. Where were the teachings in Scripture about grief? Grief is a central part of the Christian journey. Pretending to be happy all the time is harmful deception. David grieved for his son, Jesus himself grieved for a friend. A church that “has no room for grief” is a church you should flee as soon as you can! I can guarantee that many of these people belonged to corrupt, legalistic, and unfaithful churches. The kind of church that is so legalistic everyone has to put on a front to pretend to be a “good, happy Christian.” You can see over and over again the conflation of the prosperity gospel (which is an unbiblical heresy), controlling manipulation, shielding of predators, legalism, and hostility towards legitimate questions with true Christianity. All of these traits are a sign of counterfeit Christianity, not the true Church.
Rather than having deconstructed the lies and the counterfeit Christianity that these people experienced, they threw away everything. There is no doubt that many who deconstruct do so to justify sinful lifestyles, worldly acceptance, and hypocrisy. Yet at the same time, we have only to read what Tongeren pointed out when he wrote that “A recent poll indicated that more than 40% of self-identified evangelicals do not believe in the deity of Jesus” to see that there is a serious problem in American Evangelicalism. This label of “evangelical” is misused and distorted, making such analysis dubious. Though the point remains that Christians have not deconstructed enough.
We really need to exercise discernment and deconstruct whatever corruptions, foreign accretions, and misguided platitudes have infected our faith. True Christian deconstruction is a biblical principle. One that we should take care to heed. I encourage everyone to test their beliefs on an ongoing basis. Christians need not fear a challenge to our faith. Our theology, our beliefs about Christianity, and the churches we belong to should always be put to the test. Because true Christianity will withstand any criticism and defeat all challengers. Worldly deconstruction is nothing but a warning sign that we have become complacent and unfaithful to the teachings of Scripture. Deconstruct the lies contaminating your faith before your faith is shipwrecked, and you lose everything!
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless you fail the test. (2 Corinthians 13:5 CSB)
The sensible person’s wisdom is to consider his way, but the stupidity of fools deceives them. (Proverbs 14:8)