It might be surprising to hear that some aspects of deconstruction are the result of the good instinct to push back against mere human tradition. If we are only located within Christianity because that is what has been easiest to a certain point, as soon as something else becomes easier, our faith will crumble like the house built on sand. If our faith is founded on a mature belief in and understanding of God’s Word, it will withstand the challenges we face in life. The parable of the house built on the rock versus the house built on sand is applicable here (Matthew 7:24–27). And when we understand that God has been on a campaign of salvation in Christ that will encompass the entire creation in the new heavens and earth, we can find our place in that order. When we understand that God created the universe and us and that the world he created “very good” has fallen into sin, we can reconcile what our conscience tells us should be from the often “very bad” reality of life in a fallen world. God has given us his Word, the Bible, not to tell us everything we need to know, as if a single book could contain all the details of calculus, quantum physics, and botany, but to give us the key to help us understand any conceivable subject we might investigate. We read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Job 28:28 Psalm 111:10 Proverbs 1:7, 9:10, 15:33)-meaning that our faith impacts not only what we believe about God, heaven, and morality, but it touches every aspect of our lives, from what we wear to who we marry to how we examine claims of competing belief systems. What causes “deconstruction,” and how do we construct a faith that can’t be deconstructed? Biblical FoundationsĪs Christians, we should first and foremost look to Scripture to see what God has to say about how our faith should be constructed. Whether deconstruction ends in apostasy or theological liberalism, it is always a move from a superficially more biblical stance to a less biblical perspective. Other times, the process of deconstruction ends up with a faith that looks a lot more like the surrounding culture than anything the Apostles would recognize as “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Sometimes, as in the case of I Kissed Dating Goodbye author Joshua Harris, “deconstruction” ends in a loss of faith altogether, followed in his case by a botched attempt to make money off a deconstruction course to help others along in their apostasy. It can be an effective way to get another 15 minutes of fame when someone’s career is in need of resuscitation. Deconversion or liberalization of “ Christian celebrities” is nothing new. Christian singers, writers, and other cultural figures speak about their own process of deconstruction. “Deconstruction” has become a buzzword among Christian evangelicals of a certain type.
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