Hello again, I'm Arlen Yoder from the Soulwinnersr.us website. Remember—the angels in heaven rejoice when a loved one or friend gives their heart to Jesus.
The title of my post today is “WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH ‘FAITH DECONSTRUCTION’?” Two weeks ago on social media, I encountered a former friend who has ‘deconstructed’ from the Christian faith. Then last week I saw a Christian podcaster who referenced that many young people are also ‘deconstructing’.
Back in about 1994, my pastor at the time, one Sunday morning, commended the congregation on their godly lives and growth in the Lord. But he expressed his concern about one thing—limited outreach to the community. He said repeatedly, “Let’s do something.” ‘Let’s do something’ about our limited outreach.
So that afternoon I called my friend and his wife, a dynamic young couple who loved the Lord, to see if they were interested in joining me for a downtown street ministry. I was single at the time and lived in an upstairs apartment above a pharmacy on a main street in town. They enthusiastically agreed to the endeavor.
So, every Friday evening for about 1½ years during warmer weather, we made hot chocolate and cookies and sat out front on my front stoop to engage passersby with friendship and the gospel. It was a great experience, and we made friends with several families with children who also lived downtown, among others strolling down the sidewalk.
A seminary professor even took an interest in what we were doing, sent some students downtown to help us, and even asked me to speak at a seminary conference about it. I felt very inadequate, but it was a growing experience for me.
I wanted to grow the ministry by renting a downtown storefront, but my friend had different ideas about how a ministry should be run. So we parted ways, but remained friends in the church. To make a long story short, within about two years I got married and moved to Mansfield, and my friend and his family also moved away.
About two weeks ago, Dee and I were talking about old times, and she mentioned that a former associate pastor at the church we attended had passed away. It sparked my interest in what happened to my friend. I searched social media and found something that I wasn’t prepared for. I found that he and his adult daughter were now engaged in ‘faith deconstruction’ on social media.
What is faith deconstruction, you might ask? According to one website, faith deconstruction is the following:
“The process of critically examining and dismantling previously held beliefs, doctrines, and practices associated with one's religious upbringing. It involves questioning and reevaluating the tenets of faith, often leading to a reformation or even abandonment of certain beliefs.”My friend and his daughter share weekly video podcasts to offer support to people undergoing similar faith deconstruction. I only watched what I will call my friend’s “reverse testimony” video because I wanted to find out what happened to him. He basically was testifying that he has now converted to atheism after a process of deconstructing his belief in Jesus and the teachings of the Bible.
I haven’t watched any of the podcasts because I don’t want to support them in leading people astray. But in the podcast titles, it’s obvious that my friend and his daughter dismiss the importance of Bible characters, Bible miracles, and Christian traditions. I commented below his video that I was very sad watching it. I was actually very bummed for about a week, thinking about what happened to my friend and his past enthusiasm for Jesus.
Then this week I came upon another podcast, this time Christian, where the woman discussed the faith deconstruction movement several times, especially among young people. I found out that deconstruction itself began with a French philosopher in the 1960s, who set about helping people unravel their harmful beliefs about a variety of things.
Faith deconstruction, on the other hand, became prominent around 2016 and has especially taken hold among young people who grew up in church but later became disillusioned with the church and with faith, and they coped with this disillusionment through the growing faith deconstruction movement.
In my friend’s case, I’m not sure who ‘deconstructed’ first—he or his young adult daughter. The internet reports that young people don’t usually change their parents' faith, but their deep questions can sometimes influence their parents who have questions about their own faith.
What are we as Christians to do? Here’s the deal. Twice, the writer of Hebrews issues strong warnings about those who deliberately walk away from the faith as my friend has done. Hebrews 6:4-8 says the following:
“For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt. For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned.”Then Hebrews 10:26-27 goes on to say:
“For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.”So, both passages discuss fire or burning as a punishment for falling away.
My first inclination was to pray for my friend, and perhaps reach out to him. From these verses, however, I think God is telling me not to do so. Please don’t get the idea that God isn’t wonderful and loving. He cares about His children so much that he wants us to keep close to Himself so we avoid the danger of fire, as the writer of Hebrews warns in these two scripture passages. It’s like a parent warning a child to stay far away from a fire. If they get too close to the fire, they may fall in, and it can result in physical death. God is just warning Christians that getting too close to the fire of unbelief can result in them falling in, causing spiritual death, which is far worse.
Please leave a note in the comments if you need prayer about anything—especially as it relates to holding onto your faith. I want you and me to help each other to avoid heading toward . . . 'faith deconstruction'!
See you next time.
