Deconstructing Christianity

A week or two ago, John Cooper, from the Christian rock band Skillet, took the stage at a concert and decried the dangers of what has been called Christian deconstructionism. Cooper called the trend a different religion and made the claim that it was time to show the world who is in charge. This comes on the heal of the band's new release -- Dominion. Because of this name and his comments, John has been labeled a follower of dominion theology by the deconstructionists of TikTok. 

Dominion theology is essentially a contemporary form of Puritanism, which seeks to unify government and faith, making America a true Christian theocracy, even by way of political violence. I attempted to reason with the TikTok aristocracy by referring to Cooper's own comments on why the album is called Dominion, which has to do with God reigning in a Christian's personal walk. I tried to show that these folks were conflating Cooper's spiritual sense of dominion with a theocratic militant form of dominion. After all, Scripture tells us that the battle isn't with flesh and blood, but the demonic world (Ephesians 6:12). Yet, these folks denounced reason and stuck to their guns. In their mind, even spiritualized language was chocked full of suspicion and Christian nationalism, as well as patriarchal elitism. For them, Christianity has been deception and control, which they now see as they deconstruct from such toxicity into atheism or agnosticism.   

Well, I too have deconstructed. I too have seen toxicity in Christianity. I too have concerns over evangelical forms of nationalism. I too see theological ills within westernized Christianity. But, I did something else as I deconstructed -- I reconstructed. I found that the castle I was building, though built on a solid foundation, was missing hardware, adornment, and some structural elements that made it solid. I needed to strip down to build back up. 

My form of deconstructionism has been to avoid the proof-finding mission of locating toxicity and then throwing the baby out with the bath water. I haven't stopped when a theological problem or inconsistency is found, because often times the inconsistency is because of a modern Christian anachronism or misapplication of either Scripture or interpretive method. I haven't reconstructed into a squishy or shallow Christianity that ignores the tough stuff. I haven't reconstructed into some apocalyptically paranoid Christianity. I haven't reconstructed into a nationalist-theocrat. And, I have not reconstructed into a liberal revisionist. I believe I have reconstructed into a balanced and sober Christian, who has come to grips with his own depravity, who laments at the materialism and rampant cooperation of people with the demonic, and yet one who still sees the joy and beauty interwoven between the dark threads of life. I have become more prayerful, contemplative, transparent, rational, and aware. And still, I have not been derailed by any broken train track, nor have I switched tracks for a more palatable path. 

In the end, I think deconstruction can be healthy. Socrates once said that "[a]n unexamined life is not worth living." We ought to pause and re-evaluate our ideologies, philosophies, and theologies from time to time. We need to become aware of the problems in our beliefs and practices -- our inconsistencies. We need to wrestle with deep things. We should never entrench deeper instead of dealing with the problems logically. We should not erect walls to protect our weaker beliefs. Yet, we should not abandon our beliefs just because we find a spot we're uncomfortable with. Above everything, we need to look at the narrative and context of our beliefs historically and in light of current information. Not that we need to find a synthesis between disparate sets of information, but we need to adjust how we deal with such things. Case in point, many deconstructing Christians are doing so over LGBTQ matters, claiming, "How can a loving God send people to hell for loving someone else, even of the same sex?" 

That is a tough question. We need to first know what hell is and why and how people get there. Many deconstructionists have issue with the concept of hell to begin with, but seem to always moralize for God, which is a logical fallacy if God is indeed supreme above humanity. Our inability to understand God does not negate God, but shows our limitations. Nonetheless, the historic Church was not naive or impotent when it came to wrestling with hard things and there are plenty of insights available from the first few centuries of Christianity that help back-fill our information gaps and steer us from our biases. Much of our info gaps, in my opinion, are because of the legalist structures of Protestantism and not the ancient faith.

In the end, I believe deconstructing is good, but it ought not stop with our inability to tie up loose ends. We simply need to revisit ourselves and our beliefs regularly, recognize our shortcomings, seek context, and not simply jump ship when water pours overboard. Maybe the boat needs us to bale water instead of abandoning the ship outright. Keep fighting and seeking after the truth. Blessings.