Deconstructing Faith

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron.

And this is the Uncut Podcast, where we have uncut conversations about faith, life, ministry,

and all of the above.

Cameron, how are you doing today? I'm doing okay.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sometimes I re-listen to either portions of the,

I usually re-listen to portions of our podcast. And I went back and I told myself,

Cameron, you need to talk more directly into the mic because you're too quiet on the podcast.

So I'm gonna try and lean into the mic a little bit today so you can hear me.

And, you know, and, and, you know, the thing that's been surprised, that surprised me is like, I'll look back and I'll

see the video and you're like, Oh, and I'm actually pretty impressed with how well the audio does come through. It does.

Yeah. Cause if you're listening, Cameron often puts a good, like two, three feet between himself and the microphone sometimes.

So I like to lean back and relax and try and enjoy the conversation, but I have to realize that, you know, there's

people that need to hear what we're saying, or they're not going to listen if they can't hear.

Um, but also I think this is like, this should be episode 16. Yeah. Yep. I think like what the,

I think the average podcast lasts about seven episodes before it kind of Peters out. So we're

twice as long as the average, I think so. Plus some. Yeah. So, okay. I think we've,

you know, if a podcast is going to make it needs to make it pass like 10 episodes.

I mean, I suppose it's, you know, if, if the podcast, the longevity of a podcast was based apart how many...

Listeners or viewers there was, maybe we wouldn't survive, but I don't know what our, even what our

average viewership or listenership is right now. Well, actually, I think it's fairly, I think we're

maybe somewhere around half of what we get for the sermons that we send out, which I feel like

is fairly competitive. Okay. For, you know, considering that we've been putting out sermon

messages through podcast and YouTube and stuff like that for a long time. And that's got a pretty wide.

Viewership. And we've, we haven't done significant advertising or even promotion of this podcast.

Don't, don't think we've done a single like in person Sunday morning announcement about this.

So people are finding out about it through just word of mouth.

Maybe we should do that. Maybe we should plug it on socials at some point.

Yeah, maybe we did plug it on socials in the very beginning.

In the very beginning, yeah. But we haven't done like, you know, a lot with it.

I guess one way, okay, help us listeners. Oh yeah, listeners.

And viewers, help us by commenting or rating.

Depending on where you're listening or watching, just comment or rate so that we know

that there's still some engagement or we can see the engagement a little bit more.

Yeah. that would be helpful and encouraging. Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I think pastors probably have a bit of a leg up

on most people who try and do a podcast for the first time, because we're already used to doing,

sort of very weekly talks, like and in having to deliver kind of without fail. Yeah, you know,

you don't want to come to a church where the pastor is like, Hey, guys, it was a really busy

week. And I just, I just decided I couldn't get it done today. So like, we're just going to sing some more songs. Like, right.

Nobody comes back to that. No, no, nor should they.

So, you know, I think we've got a leg up on, you know, we're,

we've already got a bit of a rhythm of doing things like that. Right. I think that helps.

Yeah. And I was, you know, speaking on the future of the podcasts and topics and all of that, I was talking with a friend who's a pastor in Erie.

And their particular church is an Assemblies of God church, and we were talking about a

or an issue that they were having

in the midst of their worship service and how I would go about addressing it and dealing with it.

And it got into a pretty good conversation a pretty good conversation about worship.

Philosophy and Like the orderliness of worship. Yeah, and the theology of the orderliness of worship versus.

Yeah, or and or like We've talked about this before and I know we we have it kind of on deck for a conversation at some point about,

Spontaneous worship. Yeah, I'm like, knowing that you're talking about an assemblies of God church,

and I'm like, all right, there's a handful of things I can imagine that might be happening.

Yeah, it was an issue with the gift of tongues and interpretation, and where.

To what level does the pastoral leadership manage, I guess, manage that in the midst of

of corporate worship. And we're also talking about 500 people in the church.

Or something like that at that church. So it's a little bit bigger than conduit

and the dynamics maybe are a little bit different.

But anyway, what we were saying is what they,

he's the executive pastor and his senior pastor, Pastor Nicole Schreiber, thought it may be a good idea

some time for us to get together and not even do a stump,

for our positions, like I'm right, you're wrong, let's figure out who's more right and who's more wrong,

but just be able to have an honest conversation about maybe differences in approaches to worship,

orderliness, and leadership.

That would be fun. Yeah, and we said, well, let's do it over lunch or something like that.

I'm like, well, that would be fun. But like, why don't we do it on a podcast,

and let others benefit from perspective? Yeah, you know? So maybe that's something that we can do in the future.

Yeah, I think that could be a really beneficial thing. Cause like, if you're committed to a church.

Or you're committed to like a certain denomination of churches,

not everybody gets a fair look over the fence of the other denominations necessarily, I think.

Like if you've not had the opportunity to explore.

Like if you come from a more conservative, maybe evangelical or middle of the road kind of place,

and you've never been to a more charismatic church,

Like you just, like, you don't have a concept of what's on the other side of the fence,

other than maybe you're just preconceived,

like notions or something like that.

So I think there could be, there could be benefit to just like, oh.

That's why that church does things like that, right? Right instead of just saying oh, they're crazy. They're crazy,

Or they're too conservative or they don't have the Holy Spirit. We do or whatever. Yeah,

Who or they're like a or they're a woke church or something like that. Yeah, that's,

We could talk about that Right

And maybe we will a little bit. Well, we kind of are today a little bit today a little bit because I do think that,

that we're gonna, there's a, you know,

we're gonna talk about the big scary word, deconstruction.

Yeah. Maybe not be as scary for many people. I think there's some sense where.

Maybe in different church cultures or different areas of the world,

if you say I'm deconstruct, like I'm in a process of deconstruction,

as it pertains to my faith, they would know immediately what you're talking about

and what you're doing. Yes, yeah.

I don't know that I'm, like I don't know that I'm convinced that if I said,

stood up on a Sunday morning here at Conduit and was like, how many of you have ever gone through a period where,

you know, like you've deconstructed your faith,

that there would be an abundance of people who even knew what I was talking about?

Well, it's still, as far as like words go, it's still a relatively new one in common usage

and is, you know, is probably, is thrown more around and probably...

I don't know, more just like in some, in certain cultures of the church and maybe more liberal centers,

it was like a big thing in Chicago.

Like everybody deconstructed everything in Chicago when I was there.

See, I don't, I'm curious as to whether or not it is a phenomenon that happens on a certain side

of a theological spectrum, or if it's a phenomenon that happens within a certain like age range?

Like are millennials more,

are they more, do they tend to deconstruct more than boomers or Gen Xers or wherever we are now? I can't keep up.

You know, so, and whether or not like there's a timetable, or not a timetable, but if there's like a natural period

In which you generally will deconstruct.

Right, like kind of a theological midlife crisis. Yeah, I think you're on to something there.

Well, and because I'm of the persuasion that deconstruction is nothing new.

That it's not. It's not. It's not at all. It's something that's very, very old.

We've been doing for a long time.

We've maybe just not named it that. I think the name for it,

I think people, I think people, irrespective of like theological persuasions and area political persuasions, like, regardless of all of that, I think people just in general, at least here in the West, very much deconstruct, I think the West is very much in a, and we can talk about reasons why I think the West is prone to deconstruction.

But I think maybe the word deconstruction itself.

The terminology that has kind of gone around it has become trendy in certain circles,

but not the phenomena of deconstruction.

That's what I would say.

And I mean, in an effort to be super clear about what we're even talking about.

Yeah, we actually need to define what we're talking about. So when we talk about deconstruction,

what we're talking about is the process that someone goes through when they.

The process that someone goes through when they begin to maybe take all of the things

that they've classically believed,

or have been taught to believe or have thought, right, and they, in some way, shape, or form,

begin to kind of systematically question.

The beliefs themselves, but also the premises that lie underneath the beliefs and start to

come against the authority of that belief in their life and may end up may end up completely

rejecting, completely rejecting the thing that they have previously believed because of how it

was pushed into their life or how they came to believe it or who believed it or who else believes

it. Yep. Sometimes we don't want to believe certain things anymore because of who the

belief is associated with. That's a big thing. Yeah. I mean, even I can resonate with that,

you know, I, I risked so, uh, but, uh, you know, as you're describing it, I was like,

what is it like a good example of this? And you know what, like a really maybe fun, funny

example or easy example of this is like the kid who's grown up believing in Santa Claus.

Right.

Right. They've grown up believing in Santa Claus and the parents have maybe waited a long time

to tell them that there's no Santa Claus. They maybe like have held off on like,

we don't want to ruin the magic, whatever. Also, this is not a judgment on Santa Claus. I'm not

sharing my personal thoughts on that.

Don't let your kids listen. Yeah, don't let it. Pastor Luke's about to ruin everyone's childhood.

But they grow up and they're like, and then at some point they go.

Santa's handwriting on the package label looks an awful lot like mom's, right? They begin to ask

that question, they inevitably come up to mom and dad and they're like, is Santa real, right?

Right?

And parents, you know, and then one, Santa's not real. So who then gave me all of those gifts?

You guys gave me all those gifts, okay?

Does Santa actually see me when I'm doing something wrong or naughty or nice, right? Like the whole...

Like the whole... We're gonna have a whole generation of people deconstructing Elf on the Shelf.

You're not wrong on that one.

Right? Coming into that like, or what about like, you know, the big trendy thing the last several

years is to get like videos of people making videos as Santa and putting the name of their kids in it.

Well, who was that strange guy that was telling me to behave, you know, when I was little?

All of those questions come in and a kid then begins to say, okay, what do I do with this

new information? Do my beliefs change? Do I, you know, all that? Now, that's a little

bit, that's maybe a little bit of a slanted way to talk about deconstruction because I'm

from starting with something that is.

Undeniably not true right Santa, but but then the the downstream from that is the,

well What else did you tell me? That's not true, right is the Easter Bunny not real.

Easter chicken that lays the eggs Easter chicken There's an Easter chicken guys. I swear,

It just it provides that example provides a framework for what happens in people's faith.

And so they encounter something that maybe they have a hard time accepting

or believing anymore, and it starts a whole kind of like.

Unraveling process. Right, yeah.

I was trying to think earlier today, as I was thinking about what we were gonna talk about today,

trying to think earlier about what are some of the classic places that we see people start deconstructing.

You know, so like, okay, let's say I've grown, I grew up in the church.

You know, kind of classic story, parents dragged me to church every Sunday morning

and Wednesday night, whether I wanted to or not,

would describe my life or my family as a Christian family in a Christian home.

Maybe I saw a lot of hypocrisy at home because we're all hypocrites, right?

And it created a little bit of discontinuity in me because my parents were pushing me in one direction,

but I saw that their lives were going in another.

It's sort of a typical story.

And so essentially everything that they gave me in faith or forced upon me in faith,

and the brokenness of my relationship with them or the hypocrisy that I saw in their life,

brings me to a point of being like, okay, everything that they gave me,

I'm now gonna begin to. Right.

To question whether or not this is something I believe, or whether it's something that they believed on my behalf.

And I think the reason I wanted to talk about this today was last night at the end of one of our classes,

we were having a conversation with someone

who described the kind of the relationship that they were having with their faith right now

as one of detangling.

Yeah. Which I think is. Maybe a better word. Such a better word.

It's much less destructive.

Deconstruction sounds or has the like implication of taking a hammer to everything.

Well, and like the thing too is that deconstruction, we're talking about it in a very faith.

We're talking about it very specifically when it comes to faith,

but deconstruction is like a broader intellectual.

Cultural phenomenon. Cultural phenomenon. And it's like, you know, in part, it's a natural thing

that comes out of postmodernism and all of that.

Like, let's just upset all the norms. Like, let's build everything, you know,

let's tear everything down.

But the problem is with deconstructionism, deconstructing things is that,

well, if you deconstruct everything, you eventually end up with nothing,

which is a little bit the existential crisis of the world.

The modern age. But yeah, detangling I think has a more, I like that word too.

I do too, because I get this image of like a big ball of spaghetti, right? And I use this sometimes

in my counseling relationships with people, is that our experiences and our life and our emotions

and our thought patterns and our bodies and our beliefs is like a big ball of spaghetti. And often

And when we come to a place of crisis or we're in a place of de-disregulation,

we wanna try and like, what's wrong with this ball of spaghetti?

And it becomes overwhelming and we get flooded and we can't deal with it.

And so it's okay, like, let's just take out a single strand of pasta one at a time, right?

Talk about it and set it off to the side. And eventually, as you pull out all those things,

you're eventually left with, it's not a tangled mess anymore.

Makes more sense. And so, the detangling of theological belief, I think,

and all of the things that come along with it,

is a much more helpful, I think, language, because I think it's just more honest.

It presumes a little bit more theological and intellectual honesty, rather than saying,

the premise of all of the things that I believed, I hate it, and so I'm just going to take a hammer to it.

Whatever survives, survives.

But that's not really a fair – it's not really giving the thing a fair shake.

Right. Well, there's that. I do not know who made this quote. Maybe you can tell me who said the quote.

Oh, what is, I'm going to butcher the quote, faith is seeking understanding, or faith is

doubt seeking understanding? I think it was like an Aquinas quote or something like that.

I don't know. I don't know who it was. I'm familiar with the quote, but I'm not sure who it was.

Yeah, but I guess like all that to say that like, I do think that sometimes, like, I feel,

like on a regular basis, I will have a conversation with someone and they're like, I'm experiencing

doubt. And it's like a really big scary thing. And I understand why, is because sometimes when

people experience doubt, they're like, well, does that mean everything is going to end up

falling out from underneath of me? I'm like, well, no, doubt exists in the context of faith.

You can't have doubt if you don't also have faith first. It's a precondition for doubt to exist.

And so like, take that and, and, and wrestle with it, but like, but do so in a, you know,

honest way, honest way, in a way that doesn't necessarily just like pick the

whole thing up and throw it out the window. Right.

You know, you say spaghetti. I immediately thought of, um, wired headphones, Christmas lights or Christmas

lights, right?

Like, and you're trying on, you know, and eventually just like, oh, I'm just

going to go buy a new box. buy a new box, because you don't want to fix it.

Sometimes people do that. They try.

So kind of two questions, maybe to guide some more detailed conversation.

One is the one I already asked. What is one of like, what are some of the like

main places that people start deconstructing?

And what are some of the key experiences that happen in people's lives,

that initiate a period of detanglement or deconstruction.

Yeah.

Do you have any that come to your mind? Well, I would say to answer the second question first.

Yeah, like what sparks it?

What sparks it? I can think of a couple of things.

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that spark it. a deeply personal experience that,

that a person is absolutely validated in, but that strikes again or is opposite

to what they have been believing their whole life or been taught to believe.

So what do you mean by that? Put some more flesh on that. So I'm talking about like the deconstruction

of purity culture. Yeah.

Around issues of sexuality, not just, not homosexuality. Right.

Just sexuality in general.

Yeah. sexuality, premarital sex, um, the idea of like, you've lost your virginity, you've,

you've committed a carnal or not a mortal sin. Um, that's, you know, reprehensible or, or even, you know,

like people begin to, you know, deconstruct, um,

you know, there's, there's this sense where like, for instance,

if you grew up in a, in a type of, uh, culture in regards to human sexuality that was like,

the you know, most egregious sin that a teenager can do is to Have premarital sex right and it is like a huge thing that gets talked about in youth groups

Yeah, it's like if you do so, it's it's essentially the end of the world, right? Yeah that sense sure and

And we're not gonna really necessarily,

at least I don't intend to really comment about that whole discussion,

because it's complicated.

And so then someone has sex before marriage.

And they may end up in a long-term relationship with that. with that, right?

They use that as the starting point for like, okay, well, everything that's good in my life now, especially in this relationship, maybe I've got children or whatever like that was based upon what my faith and my family told me not to do and, and in the midst of them telling me not to do it, it created a lot of shame, it created a lot of embarrassment, created a lot of like, I was ostracized, I was seen as the person on the

the outside, I was the rebel child, I was the prodigal,

I was the crazy one, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You know, and I don't want anything to do with the type of faith culture that that produces.

So that's kind of a, you know, like one example of a place that people start their deconstruction from,

but I've seen people flat out reject,

all of Christian faith based on the response.

Of the church with sexuality. Yes. Very common thing. Very, very common thing.

Which is not really, I don't think, actually about sexuality that is making them

like reject the faith. I think it's like the feelings of shame,

that they received or felt like were there.

Might have been there, that made them not even want to engage

the conversation of faith out of a responsiveness

to not wanting any more shame.

I don't want it anymore. So I say that's one example of where deconstruction starts

and then it just kind of waterfalls into, like, okay, there's shame as it pertains to my sexuality.

You follow the bunny trail.

I don't want anything to do with Jesus.

And it doesn't... Because they say they're Jesus people. Right. It doesn't take long to get there for most people. Yeah.

So that's where that starts. Yeah. I think one, I think that's a really, really, really popular one, or not popular,

but common one. And then I think the other one that I'm seeing more and more and more of,

in particularly in recent years is the moral failure of visible public leaders or personal,

faith leaders. Like if I was at such and such church and turns out that that pastor was doing,

x, y, z. A lot of times it's an affair of some sort, or sexual abuse. And then the church.

It's like a combination of both the moral failing of someone who was idolized, maybe,

or looked up to, or was important in the church, or in their faith, but then also the, perhaps

maybe the lack of the way in which a church might respond to that.

Respond to it, yeah. Right? You're just, okay, well, because we've had pastors who have had moral failings for,

and failures like that for years, right?

Forever. Forever. The difference is the connectedness and the shrinking of the world. We're maybe

more aware of them than ever. But now we get a front row seat to, well, how does the church

respond to it and is the church...

Covering it up is are they you know, whatever right? I've heard a gazillion horror stories, but I've also been in enough complicated.

Situations to know that no one ever has the whole story,

But that's a whole we could talk about we can go down that drama of like, you know,

judging from afar things that we really have no context for making clear and harsh judgments on but,

But again, that's an understandable reason, particularly if you're part of the faith community,

where that's happening, not just a like, looking onward at maybe a public figure, I can understand

why that might cause some deconstruction.

But particularly if you're in a church, where that's happening, right, like that would be

cause for like, well, the person who was supposed to be the maturest of us all, and stood up

front is not living a life according to the Bible, and then all the other leaders are

all just like in on it and not holding him accountable or not taking the right steps

and things like that, why then should I take these things seriously that this person has told me?

Right? And there goes the thread.

I think similarly.

What comes maybe maybe is a bigger picture of the one that you mentioned around with sexuality, but

is when people experience extreme amounts of control from a church. And, and typically when

you're like, like, I'll say that typically those situations are just categorically wrong. Yep.

When we're getting into a place of like, like very much trying to control all thoughts,

behaviors, like spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, those types of things. And they begin to like,

someone will, you know, begin to say like, I don't want to live my life like this.

Right. And then they have to leave. And those are typically the more extreme

places, you start to get into more things that are a little bit more closer to

cults or our cults, but like, even just like, um.

But yeah, any place where we're law, legalism and control kind of mingle a life feel like a lot of people come out

of that at some point. Um, usually because of, uh, like, I'm tired of living this way. in this way. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I think there's a part of that too that answers the other question,

which is when does deconstruction in a person's life actually happen?

Now it's different for everyone, but I think in general,

it usually happens when there's like some emotional

or physical separation from the origin of the faith,

separation from the origin of the faith of the faith that they are deconstructing.

So you see a lot of kids go away to college Being in a deconstruct or untangle or redefine,

right if you are a parent of someone who is in college and you feel like they have just,

Fallen off the rails of life in freshman their freshman year,

Say it's pretty normal. Yeah hundred percent. It's pretty normal and they probably haven't actually fallen off the rails

they've probably just fallen off your rails.

Yes, that was.

It's not, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. No, it's not.

And you actually, you actually kind of want that to happen. A little bit.

Yeah, you want some personal ownership with the development of their own belief and faith.

And then sometimes that journey can be a pretty long one.

It can be. and sometimes painful, but it's important.

And so when there is a kind of a beginning of a separation, sometimes you see it when there's.

Not necessarily a physical separation, but there begins to be an emotional separation.

So you can be physically proximate to someone or something or some people,

but then beginning to deconstruct.

I mean, your example of like cultish type, super high controlling environments,

there begins to be some emotional separation from that community of origin,

and then they begin to question inside the midst of the community,

and the community reacts strongly against the questioning,

and that strong reaction usually is an indicator for them that they, wow, I was right.

They're they're gone, but then in the process and then now they get the physical separation and,

now the deconstruction really starts to happen. Yeah, because the,

Constraints are awful because the constraints are off I feel like if I were to put a general age range deconstruction can obviously happen at any point in life and

What but like I would say that like the most common age range to be deconstructing I would say is maybe between between 17 and 27?

Yeah, I was gonna say like 18 to 30, but basic thing, you're getting,

you're out of the house, you're going to college, you're starting your career, you're meeting new people.

You might get married and meet your spouse's family who might have a completely different worldview,

or culture or whatever. Or you might meet your spouse.

Exactly. Fall in love with someone who's got different values,

ideas than you, and that's a place where sometimes things shift.

Sometimes you deconstruct so you can stay in a relationship. That happens a lot.

It's not the most healthy reason to deconstruct, in my opinion.

It's probably one of the most unhealthy, if you ask me, I mean we see this a lot

when you have, even with kids.

I say kids, but people, With people who have what we would consider

to be a healthy faith, strong faith,

not a faith that's been jammed down their throat,

not a faith that's been pushed into them through shame and guilt and condemnation,

but one that they've truly received and have lived themselves, then they meet someone.

Who they really like but who is maybe,

Spiritual but doesn't follow Jesus or yeah something stupid like that, you know,

And or has no faith at all,

And in the midst of their like desire to be with that person they a somewhat of a deconstruction or an abandonment

or a walking away from or diluting of, whatever you wanna call it.

It becomes a, like, I'm not doing this anymore.

And it's a form of deconstruction, I think, that happens quite a bit.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

Have you ever deconstructed anything? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Oh yeah. So that's the, that's probably the flip side of the coin is that I think we've maybe been

talking about deconstruction. Deconstruction is not always a bad thing.

No. It can be. Yeah. But like. Yeah, I think we can use it.

I think we can use it as a way to describe maybe the process of developing a deeper or

or a more nuanced perspective.

So maybe we do our own detangling of the things that we thought were,

of utmost importance or the things that we didn't think were important then

that we think are important now.

But, you know, you asked me that question and then I've been kind of like subconsciously

thinking though, well, what would be an example of something that I've deconstructed?

And I... Yeah, I have a hard time thinking of anything in particular myself because I was wondering,

I was like, is there anything? I feel like I have.

Well, yeah, I feel like I have too, but I think we probably tend to think that the things

that we believe, we've always believed and that's why we believe them now.

I'm sure there's lots of stuff that's there. I think maybe more than the like,

I'm not so sure that my theology on primary issues has changed.

In fact, I'm pretty positive it has not changed.

But probably my, the vigor at which I will defend my secondary theological opinions You

is much, much lower than it was in college.

And that's not because maybe I don't have strong beliefs about those secondary theological

opinions, but it's that I have put them in the right nuanced category of being secondary.

Yeah, you know, well, you know, I think I think I would say something similar of I,

think the this is actually a really big big thing, but I think the,

Realizing that things are maybe not as black and white or as clear as maybe I was told or,

others thought they were or told me they were at one point the.

You know, so this this would happen with, like, extreme regularity, and you probably saw it, maybe, too, in your higher education,

but, like, at my Bible college, like, I would routinely hear students, and they would be

just, like, blown away as they're learning and studying theology and studying the Bible for the first time.

And as they're coming, and they're wrestling with, like, actual critical studies and really

difficult topics, and, like, sometimes these individuals were learning for the first time

that the Bible wasn't written in English, right?

Or that Jesus wasn't white. Or Jesus wasn't white. Now those are kind of extreme examples,

but like they were coming and they were like, Ma, I feel like I was lied to by my youth pastor.

I'm still a believer, still have faith, still pursuing Jesus, but I feel like my church lied to me,

because they were giving me these apologetic answers that now that I'm actually studying this,

I'm realizing are really pat or really superficial or were really like convenient,

because they tied everything up in a nice bow,

but they left out all the nuance.

They left out the places and the gaps where faith still had to stand in the gap.

And now they're shaking their faith up a little bit because they're like,

well, I thought things were just simpler than that because, you know, such and such pastor

or such, and a youth leader told me so.

And I think this is a really big, this is a big thing for me,

and I think it came through, and I can't remember what the question was

when I was being interviewed here.

Someone asked me a question about, like, responding to children's questions and things like that.

Like, how would I explain a difficult theological topic to a kid?

And my answer, my conviction is don't lie.

So, like, as much as possible, tell the whole truth at an age appropriate level.

And I think sometimes it might be really because like, there's a there's there's a section

of like, of Christianity that I used to bump into more often, that like is all about like

trying to because they know kids deconstruct their faith at college age, and when they

they go away to college.

So they try and like sure kids out with all of these apologetics and try and build them up in the faith

before they leave to college. Cause once they leave the nest,

they're like gone or whatever.

Like can't learn anything anymore. Can't learn anything anymore.

They're going to go away and they're going to deconstruct and they're going to lose their faith.

And so there's this huge emphasis on trying to build up kids faith in a high school area,

before they go away to college in anticipation of that potential life crisis.

You don't want them to lose their faith in college.

And what I think sometimes happens in the interest of building up those kids' faith,

we maybe perhaps simplify really complex answers to complex questions,

and then we give the kids those, like, okay, just accept this apologetic answer.

They go away, they go to college, they learn things, and then they maybe look back and they're like,

that answer doesn't hold water anymore.

What then am I like, why was I being given subpar theological answers?

Have you ever, have you noticed that or encountered that before?

Yeah, I guess I never really thought about it.

But, or I guess I never really thought about the down the road implications of that,

but I do see how that can be, you know.

That can be a thing. I wonder what the difference then between.

Not necessarily lying, because I'm not sure that I would say that people are out there lying to

kids about theological things. I think that there's probably a, that they're bringing the

lowest level of truth.

Lowest level of non-nuanced truth to them, but then maybe never building upon

that most simple explanation.

And just letting that be what it is and never revealing or exposing,

to maybe the whole reality that exists within the question or the answer.

Yeah, yeah. I'd like, for example, I think the two topics that probably come up the most,

is like authority of scripture.

I think if we, if people.

I would see people given a really simplified version of the authority of Scripture. Then,

they would come and they would realize, oh, the way the Bible came together was way more complex,

than I was told. Now I'm unsure as to whether or not the Bible is authoritative. The other one

that was… And we had that question last night.

Had that question last night. Yep.

It's understandable, it's a very common question. The second question, and I don't know, we might

get people who are angry about this one is when it comes to seven-day creationism and just exactly

how did God go about creating the universe? And, you know, was it a literal seven-day?

I know people who will die on that hill. Sure.

Of like, it was a literal seven-day, precisely the way it was told in the first chapters of

Genesis to believe anything else is to not be Christian. I know people who would say that. Yes.

If you go to a Bible college, you go out there, you'll find other Christians who confess and

believe in Christ, but have slightly different interpretations of that passage, who still

absolutely 100% believe and confess that God created the universe, that that passage is,

authoritative, has things to teach us and influence the Christian life, has deep theological

significance, but is not reflective of the specific details of how God created. And they,

might have a different view. And so all now you're encountering Christians with different views.

Whoa, like, you know, and so that becomes a point, again, of potential unraveling or

detangling or deconstructing. Yeah, I think those are two really good examples of maybe some of the

things that you could give really basic, simple answers for, never revisit. And then when there's

exposure to different perspectives or nuancing, then it becomes troublesome because everything

that they've built their faith on at that point seems to be,

you know, built on sand. Yeah. Yeah.

Seems uncertain. Right. Right.

Yeah. Do we have any advice for anyone who would be deconstructing?

Um, yes, I would say...

I would say the tendency in the process of deconstruction is to surround yourself,

with people who are also deconstructing. Yeah.

And while I wouldn't discount that altogether, I would say you get into a little bit of like

like self-fulfilling prophecy spiral,

where it's like the classic example of, that we believe the narratives that we,

we continually expose ourselves to the narratives, for instance, in the media, that we already believe.

Yes.

And we won't expose ourselves to narratives that are on the opposite side of the spectrum

than what we already believe because what we believe is right,

so why would we expose ourself to the other? Yeah.

I think that's dangerous. I think it doesn't actually make us more firm,

or have more security in what we believe. So I would say to the person who is going through

a period of deconstruction is to make the effort to sit with.

And have honest conversation with someone who has maybe already gone through a period

of deconstruction, but who may sit on the opposite side.

Of the thing that you are believing or not believing or whatever.

Yep. So that you can have an honest conversation and that nuance can be, nuance can enter into the room.

Yeah. Or perspective can enter into the room. I feel like you're trying to avoid people who will just, yes, yes, like be yes men and

nod and affirm in a really unhelpful like, kind of like,

yes, us too, that we'll just like, and that does not necessarily have good guardrails on it.

No.

But you're also trying to avoid someone who is going to just want to shut you down.

Yes. Like crush you a little bit, maybe try and pull you into line in a really forceful way.

Yeah, well, I would say in particular, that was advice to people who are deconstructing,

but maybe advice to parents of kids

who are deconstructing is, when they enter that period,

and if they have physical separation from you,

they're at college or something like that,

I'm going to tell you right now.

The harder you push back on that, the further they're going to go.

Well, it's a difficult truth to wrestle with because parents are wrestling with this truth

at that stage is that their kids are not theirs and they're not kids.

They're their own. They're their own individual person. And I say that as someone who's not a parent, but I hope,

And I don't know. I don't know. I'm not a so I'm gonna say this with,

Gentleness because I don't even know I'm not a parent But I think it's a truth that is really hard to hold into perspective when you raise kids,

That even when they are little infants that you're holding them. They are,

little individual people.

They know it at no point do they stop being an extension of you and become an individual that that is always true.

There needs to be some contextual deconstruction of raise up a child in the way he should go right and when they are old they will not depart from it

which is just like a well I just have to raise them up in the way that they

should go and then it will ostensibly remove their sense of free will and sin

Yeah.

So that they will go the way in which they've been told.

When you compare that against the whole context and wisdom of scripture, it becomes pretty

clear that I didn't grow up in the way I was told.

And that's both in a negative and positive way.

Like I chose to follow Jesus, where that necessarily wasn't like...

It wasn't a foregone conclusion. It wasn't a foregone conclusion.

That's not necessarily the way that I was raised. In fact, the signs would point

towards a completely different conclusion.

And the opposite is also true, because I have a will.

And the Holy Spirit works in my life, and there's grace upon grace.

And we're freeing individual people. So I would say to parents, and I am a parent,

I'm not at that stage yet, but I'm also not without perspective.

I'm like at like 20 years of perspective of seeing parents absolutely like just.

Grip that steering wheel. Oh my gosh, like crazy. And I'm telling you right now,

I've not seen a single example where the harder you grip, the better it gets.

Well, you know, the thing is, is like, we've said that this is deconstruction is nothing new. It's,

very old, right? I would even point and go back to the Reformation was its own form of deconstruction,

right? The Protestant Reformation, the breaking off of the castes, right? So you want my short

answer of why in the West, in particular, we deconstruct so much? Protestant Reformation.

Yeah. Like, cause we are a, we are a Protestantism is a fruit of probably the

most significant deconstruction that's ever happened apart from the deconstruction

of the Jewish faith into the Christian faith.

Right. Well, and that's an overstatement. That's an overstatement.

Yeah. That's an oversimplification. But, um, but, but the point being made that like, you want to know why the

Catholic Church has mostly stayed the way it's been.

Eastern Orthodoxy has stayed the way it's been.

It's because of the way they were informed. Whereas in Protestant Reformation,

Protestantism is wide and varied and vastly different and continues to change and shift.

And we have new denominations all the time.

Why?

Because we started as a Reformation or we started from a place of deconstruction.

That's my quick little like social commentary as to why the West is the way it is.

But I had something else I wanted to say. I can't remember what it is anymore.

But there is, oh, all that to say, I would remind anyone who's like,

if you are a parent and you're dealing with kids, like you at some point sowed wild oats.

You were at some point like, you know, you like, I think back we can like probably

biggest generational deconstruction would have been the hippie movement that I can think of in like,

semi-recent history. Sure. You know, where every generation is wrestled with the questions of

what I have received, what is good and what is not. And if something is not good, what can I do to,

set that aside and build something better in its place? And I think the temptation of every

generation is to think, we're the generation that got it right. And we have blind spots.

There are things that I probably do not have right, will not have right. And the generation,

that comes after me will do better than I did. But there's also things I think I

hopefully do have right and the generation coming after me, hopefully carries those things on and

maybe they will drop them, and I don't know. That's part of the trusting of faith and passing

on of all of those things.

Mhm. Mhm. Agreed.

Anything else from you on this or no, I think that's probably enough Before I start saying things to get me in trouble. Um,

But you know, we'd always love to be able to talk about,

The issues that we talk about more specifically so if you're listening or watching and you're like

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