Deconversion, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction – A deeper look down the rabbit hole :
What is a deconstruction story in Christianity? –
Faith deconstruction, also known as deconstructing faith, evangelical deconstruction, the deconstruction movement, or simply deconstruction, is a Christian phenomenon where people unpack, rethink and examine their belief systems. This may lead to dropping one’s professed faith altogether [deconversion] or may result in a stronger faith [reconstruction].
“What is Christian Deconstruction | Zach Davies | Ep. 29“
@20:29 mins – “When I talk to people, the problem is not with Jesus. The problem often revolves around church … church herds, and things that they misunderstood, or have heard Christians say that doesn’t reconcile for them with who they understand Jesus to be.”….. And so, as long as we are keeping the foundation [the work and person of Jesus Christ], you’re in a good spot.”
Please do not confuse leaving a particular version [or all versions] of the organized “church” systems with departing from a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ … they are two entirely different concepts. This is explained in part in the following article [which I can so relate to, since many aspects of Ken Eckerty’s journey mirrors my own].
“Why I Left the Organized Church – A Personal Testimony”
https://www.pilkingtonandsons.com/art_eckerty_whyileft.pdf
Introduction to Ken Eckerty’s personal testimony :
The word used in the new Testament for “church” is the Greek word ekklesia which literally means a “gathering” or an “assembly” of believers. It is the means and the vehicle that God has chosen to fill all things with the glory and preeminence of His Son. The saints gather together to manifest Christ and encourage and build one another up in Him. Each member manifests a measure of Christ thus bringing fulness to His Body.
Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 that “where two or three are gathered together in His name, He is in their midst”. This could take place anywhere ; in a home, on a boat, in a park, and yes, even in a “church” building. When two or three [or more] saints gather and sing together, or pray together, or exhort one another then they have fulfilled the New Testament meaning of ekklesia. In other words, God’s true Assembly is not a building, or an organization which holds to a particular creed, but a people who have been redeemed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ – and understanding this truth is so very critical to understanding what true Christianity consists of.
Going to a church building is done perhaps a few times a week … being the Church is a daily lifestyle. Many accuse those of “forsaking the assembling of believers” because they do not “go to church” or meet the way they think “church” must be done… they simply have an impaired understanding of what the word ekklesia denotes in scripture. The New Testament does not tell us how to worship, it simply tells us to do it. Just because some elect to not worship the way the majority of professing believers do today, does not mean that they have forsaken the assembly of themselves with fellow believers.
When I refer to the term “organized church”, I’m referring to that system of denominationalism that says “worship must be conducted in a certain manner”, and “sign on to an entire list of doctrinal truth statements [whether you believe in the entire list or not … not simply the primary doctrines concerning salvation] in order to become a “member” of their organization” – which they deem to be the true test of a person’s genuineness… this is how far have we fallen [as a whole] from New Testament Christianity in these last of the last days prior to Christ’s return to the Earth.
The scriptures make it clear that the very moment that a person is born again and indwelt with the Holy Spirit, they become joints heirs with Christ and members of the [universal] Body of Christ [1 Corinthians 12:12-27] … the hard questions one must ask at this point is, “how can such a spiritual blindness/ mind-set exist in a genuine follower of Jesus Christ? and, “why do so many professing Christians have such a hard time comprehending this?”
Perhaps some of you can relate to the following narrative described by Micah Murray :
“when we criticize the church”
When We Criticize the Church – Micah J. Murray
“We were sold a package deal…
Truth and lies, hope and despair, real and fake – all tied up in a neat package with a bow and sold to us with the label of “Christianity”. The men in the suits with all the words told us that what they taught was true. They said it would fill the aching emptiness in our hearts, that it would get us into Heaven. They told us that it was the only way. We believed them because we were children, and because their voices were the only voices we’d ever heard. With piles of Bible verses and mountains of logic and waves of emotion, they constructed a package deal. And we bought it.
Then we grew up.
When we grew up, we stepped outside the doors of the churches where we had been sold “Christianity” and found that the package wasn’t enough. The neat answers and the principles and the trite songs and the out-of-context Bible verses were dissonant and flat in the world we discovered. Many of us have never set foot inside a church since then.
Some of us clung to the right answers, trying to “walk by faith”, trusting that “His ways are higher than our ways”. Ignoring the cognitive dissonance. Ignoring the unanswerable questions. Trying so desperately hard to please God. Trying so desperately hard to convince ourselves that this was “life more abundantly”. Always nagged by the thought that maybe we just weren’t trying hard enough. Nagged by the fear that the whole thing, the whole package deal named “Christianity”, was a lie.
Then somewhere between the aching loneliness and the lurking agnosticism, in the terrifying darkness, we saw a glimmer of hope. The voice of Jesus whispering above all the words we’d heard about Him. His love reaching past all we’d seen done in His name. His hands gently beginning to untie the neat bow that had tied up the package deal so cleanly and kept us so cruelly from freedom.
So we began, unconsciously, the process of deconstructing our “Christianity”. It’s a long and difficult journey, and often it feels like there’s no compass. See, we’d been taught the Bible was the source of all truth, and that whatever was footnoted with a Bible verse was true. We’d been told that there was only one way to interpret it, and that any other way was wrong and dangerous. Then we began to realize that many of those things so neatly footnoted with Bible verses were simply not true. Not because the Bible was not true, but because the hermeneutic was flawed. We realized that you could find a Bible verse to support any view, no matter how broken or twisted. And so the admonition to “just trust the Bible” held little comfort, because we were unable to read the Bible without hearing the words of all those men in suits selling us truth and lies mixed together.
With that package finally torn open and spilled out, we’re now analyzing it piece by piece.”
Rapture Bound Outreach 