Deconstruction

When did I start saying faith deconstruction?

I creeped on the word deconstruction for awhile. I watched it from afar on social media and curiously looked through posts that mentioned this mystery word. I signed up for a spiritual deconstruction class, then panicked and emailed the facilitator.

“Does this class script the end of my journey?” I asked. “Is the purpose to walk away from my faith?” I worried.

“No,” she assured me. “My heart in creating the course is to help people know they aren’t alone in the wondering.”

Perfect. I needed something to describe what I was trying to unpack and deconstruction felt like the best fit. Once I landed in communities connected to this term, however, I quickly learned that even folks going through deconstruction don’t necessarily love the word, yet we don’t have something better to call our journey.

Where does faith deconstruction begin?

Here are a few questions I get on a regular basis: What does deconstruction mean? Does everyone start at the same place? What are the best resources to guide you? Where does deconstruction end? The problem is, this is a personal journey that is closely tied to the roots of your identity, how you were raised, and how religion played a role both of those things, so it is impossible to speak to someone else’s experience. What I do know and can speak to is my own experience. I spent quarantine writing a memoir that covered twenty years of my life from college to COVID and I found a few things that didn’t add up.

I almost married at 19 because I had kissed dating goodbye.

I spent much of college waiting to be pursued by a spiritual leader while suppressing my own spiritual voice of leadership.

I was told by a therapist that I couldn’t enter the mission field because of my “drinking problem,” when I had only tried alcohol a few times in my life.

I was passionate about social justice, but I wasn’t finding folks in the church willing to stand up against injustice.

As I finished my book and started my blog, the discomfort of these experiences collided with the current political climate and I ended up in some interesting conversations. I started sharing thoughts on social media about reproductive rights and marriage equality and I would get private messages with pushback.

“This is clearly a sin,” the messages would always say. “And here is why.”

I wasn’t always articulate in my responses, but I never stopped thinking about these topics. I wanted to learn. I wanted to understand why I felt so differently about things than folks I had been in small groups with or folks that had mentored me. Something just felt off.

What does the deconstruction journey look like?

I pulled the first threads. I started to allow myself to question and push back and not accept all the answers for things that didn’t make sense. Why aren’t women allowed to preach? Why are we asking our LGBTQ+ friends to denounce their identities and be celibate for life? Why are so many evangelicals defending their vote for that man? Why aren’t churches leading the conversation on racial equity? Why aren’t we doing more for the poor? Why is this not a deal breaker? These questions began an unraveling.

I was given answers. I was given answers that were theologically sound and Biblically based. And I was absolutely not satisfied with these “theologically sound”, “Biblically based” answers. I dug deeper. I read history. I read about race, sexuality, feminism, gender roles, evangelicalism, politics, justice, and more. I read the Bible. I started to see how folks can manipulate the Bible into interpretations that fit a nice agenda. I saw how evangelicals throughout history found ways to push or pull the masses in different directions with platforms and charisma. And I lost trust in everything.

I’m in the middle of this. I’m continuously reading, analyzing, discussing, and trying to build a deeper understanding of my own faith. This journey will be ongoing for a very long time, and it isn’t an easy one. I hold a lot of questions about who I used to be, what I used to believe, and who I used to trust. At times, I feel angry about past experiences in the church. When I talk to Christians now I sometimes put up defenses to stay grounded in my own convictions as I continuously work to figure out what those convictions are. I know there are folks that scrutinize my blog posts and social media wonderings with a lot of questions. Has she left her faith? Has she gone off the deep end? Is this Biblical? But I hold fast to what I’m doing because I’d rather default to love than hold on to manipulation. It’s tough business once you start to question because you start questioning everything. There’s a lot to unpack, and it’s interwoven with the identity I’ve held on this planet for almost 40 years. Yet the freedom I feel in living and loving as I become true to myself is worth every step of the journey.

Where does faith deconstruction end?

Deconstruction ends differently for everyone. If you have seen me write about this in online spaces, you will know that I become quite protective of my deconstructing community when folks try to dictate where we need to land at the end of all this. I want to honor everyone’s journey and allow them the space to work through and process what they need to shed as they step in to the pieces of their identity that are their full and true selves. But I do think I know where I’ll land, and I also think I know why.

I do believe in God. The other piece of my memoir is that there were things that happened over the years that I believe were undeniably God. That therapist that prevented me from becoming a missionary? I used my Spanish to become a bilingual elementary school teacher instead. The years I spent waiting to be pursued by a spiritual leader in college? I married someone who didn’t grow up evangelical and cheers me on when I take the spiritual lead. Some might say that I pulled myself out of tricky situations, but I feel in my bones that God steered me in those new directions and protected me from becoming a missionary or from marrying someone that would run the moment I started deconstructing my faith.

And someday, when I can find the words and the strength to share Jenna’s medical story in this space, I will tell you why spending 5 years searching for a medical diagnosis for our daughter’s mysterious kidney disease led us right into the arms of God.

People are starting to notice in my social media profiles that I identify myself as a progressive Christian.

“How did you land on progressive Christianity?” they ask.

“That’s what I am today,” I respond.