Deconstruct

There are pockets of what seems to be cultural Christianity where believers are relating their experiences of "deconstruction." They are turning aside from their church experience and perhaps entering into a place where they no longer believe in God or think they need to believe differently. James 4 provides direction when we doubt or have a faith crisis:
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

As we relate to God, the nature of that relationship will change over time - and a great metric is to evaluate our level of devotion to Him?  There are some that say Christianity is no longer working for them - perhaps that is a case of them working, rather than trusting and falling in love with Jesus.  We can become tired and jaded in our own strength, but God wants us to partake of His presence so that we will grow in Him.
 

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When God seems distant to us, there is certainly a reason, and we can take the necessary steps to renew our relationship with Him, because He is calling us closer. Jeremiah 23 states:

23 "Am I a God near at hand," says the Lord, "And not a God afar off?
24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?" says the Lord; "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord.

There's a concept that's going around out there called "deconstruction."  It is apparently a thing in the more progressive wing of so-called Christianity, but the concept can have ramifications for all of us.  A Religion News Service piece states:

Our Bible App describes deconstruction as “a hot word amongst progressive Christians” that “embodies the personal task of ditching toxic theologies and doctrines for beliefs grounded in love, social justice, and liberation for all.”

This app has been raising money to release a devotional book called, The Deconstructionist's Playbook, which features a variety of authors, described by the article as "theologians, pastors and other 'questioning Christians."

RNS relates that one of the contributors to the book, Deborah Jian Lee "said she noticed a theme: People raised in mainstream evangelical Christianity felt like they had to choose between their faith and parts of their identities."  The article goes on to say:

Social media and books like “The Deconstructionists Playbook” are creating a new space where that isn’t necessary, she said.

The word, "deconstruct," sounds so enlightened, so fresh, in a radical sort of way.  Like finding a new path and being liberate.  It's nothing of the sort.  A piece on the Summit Ministries website plays off the announced "deconstruction" of the YouTube comedy duo, Rhett and Link, who announced almost a year ago that they no longer believed in Christianity.

The author, Ben Keiser, writes: "A running theme in Link’s story is his discouragement in trying to live a committed Christian life. He talks about how he wanted to please God but was always afraid of disappointing him...It wasn’t that he necessarily felt that God was disappointed in him, but rather that he was disappointed in himself."

But God offers us a different way of thinking; Keiser states:

When we rest in God’s great love, no longer are we burdened by our failure to serve God perfectly, nor do we get caught up in a fruitless attempt to earn God’s favor. No longer are we crushed by doubt when we don’t feel like we’re experiencing God’s presence in the moment. Instead, the Christian life becomes one in which we get to know God more deeply—our service and devotion to God flows out of this knowledge of God and rest in his love. It is not something we muster up ourselves. And sometimes, resting in God’s love takes a long time.

Apparently, Link also had problems with the Church's treatment of LGBTQ individuals, to which Keiser responds: "...the church excludes certain kinds of behavior, not because it hates the people who practice that behavior, but because it believes that certain behaviors are destructive and outside of God’s design. This is an unpopular truth. No one is forced to join the Christian community. But if one does, there are certain expectations and parameters—just as there are in nearly every other group."  He adds, "...a true commitment to Jesus means that we yield our sinful desires to him, no matter what those sinful desires are. Giving up sinful desires will often take time, but we can trust that our identity is secure in God’s love for us.

But there's a difference between deconstruction and reformation.  You now have people who are classifying themselves as "exvangelicals," and even those who had claimed to be Christians saying that they are not any longer. Relevant Magazine says:

We’re talking about a process called deconstruction—an academic term for the systematic pulling apart of the belief system you were raised in. It’s what happens when the questions you’ve pushed down your whole life finally bubble over the surface, and you’re forced to stare honestly at your doubts. The infallibility of the Bible. The omniscience of God. The finality of hell.

This is all more common than you might think. “There are a lot of Christians—millions in the U.S.—who are deeply fearful and traumatized by their own curiosity, because of the structure in their community and theology.”

So says Mike McHargue, broadly known as “Science Mike” to fans who relate to his “Christian turned atheist turned follower of Jesus” journey. McHargue started blogging about his experience online and was surprised at the response.

But there are severe ramifications if you take the wrong approach to a crisis of faith; McHargue claims over 40% of people experience a faith transition at some point in their lives. In The World and Everything in It podcast from WORLD Magazine, John Stonestreet referred to a "really hard lesson...that the evangelical church should have been learning for a long time, which is this idea that the quickest way to empty your church is to agree with the culture," adding, "...the attempt to make the church relevant to the ideas predominant in the culture actually ends up making the church non-distinct. And why should I get up and go to hear a sermon—even if it’s really cool and there’s a rock band and a smoke machine—on a Sunday morning when I can just listen to NPR. You know? It’s like it stops having any relevance. And I think the perpetual search for relevance by the evangelical church has always been its undoing in so many ways."

When we do encounter doubts, it seems a better option than to "deconstruct" is to "deepen" or walk with the Lord - instead of running away from Him and the teachings of Scripture, we can run toward Him and allow Him to refresh us.  It's been said that if you don't feel close to God, who moved?

Stonestreet says:

I think doubt is very often an ingredient or a part of faith. And doubting is part of the human experience. It’s part of the way God made us. And I think a much more important question is not am I doubting, but am I doubting well? The Biblical distinction that I think is made maybe more clearly is the difference between a seeker and a mocker. Proverbs really talks about those who seek truth and the Psalms are filled with people who if you read the statements in any other context you would think it’s a doubt. But the inability to take hard, fast stances on things leads to kind of an ethos where the cool kid is not the seeker but the mocker. The one who assumes upfront that truth is never going to be found, so he mocks the search himself, even while he’s on the journey.

We have the Holy Spirit as a guide to help us deal with doubt and to discover truth. It's trendy these days to experience of crisis of faith, yet to end up in a different place spiritually that is not necessarily Biblical - one can be "enlightened," but enlightened about the wrong things.  We have to see past the angel of light who would lead us away from God and follow the light of the world, who will gladly and abundantly show us more about Himself.