/ˌdēkənˈstrək(t)/  reduce (something) to its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it.

The deconstruction of faith has been somewhat popular among American evangelical Christians. What is it and is it good and right? I think it depends on what people mean by deconstructing their faith and what they hope it will produce. Deconstruction of faith is reevaluation of everything one has been taught or everything one believes about God to see if it is true.

An unhealthy deconstruction of faith examines and evaluates what one has been taught about God and how to put those beliefs into practice compared to what one has decided for themselves is good, right, and true. What is good, right, and true might be based on personal desires or beliefs or based on what the culture says is good, right, and true.

A healthy deconstruction of faith examines and evaluates what one has been taught about God and how to put those beliefs into practice compared to what God says about Himself and what He says about how His followers lives should look. What is good, right, and true is based on what God says is good, right, and true. This requires an earnest seeking of the Lord and all that He says about Himself in the Bible.

A healthy and an unhealthy deconstruction of faith might look the same on the outside. Both question what is true and what is to be believed. Both may lead to the abandonment of previously held beliefs or practices. However, a healthy deconstruction of faith abandons beliefs and practices that do not hold up to what God says and reconstructs a faith that is based on God’s truth. An unhealthy deconstruction abandons beliefs and practices that do not hold up to what a person desires to believe and practice and reconstructs a faith of their own making or abandons faith in God altogether.

So, how can someone deconstruct their faith in a healthy way? Reading the Bible, meditation on His word, prayer, and Christian community are necessary for a healthy deconstruction of faith.

If we want to know who God is then the best place to start is in His word, the Bible, because ,”All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work “(2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV). Many people do not like the Message version of the Bible, but I find it helpful to use in conjuction with more approved translations such as the ESV. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 in the Message says, “Every part o f Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another – showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way . Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.” We start deconstructing our faith by reading God’s word. Listening to sermons or reading what other people have to say about God’s word can be helpful, but then we might fall right back into the same problems that had us deconstructing our faith in the first place. So we go directly to the source, the Bible. This might seem overwhelming. There are 66 books. There is an OT and a NT. Where should one start – in the first book, Genesis, or go straight to the ending in revelation? Or maybe start in the gospels, the accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The truth is that there is no wrong book or right book to start with because each book is ultimately telling the same story, God’s story. However, some books are easier to start with than others. I find starting in the Book of Luke and then reading Acts as helpful to understanding who God is and what it means to be a follower of Christ. Others prefer the book of John. There are resources that can help you read through the Bible. One of my favorites is The Bible Re-cap. This is an online resource, and there is also an app for your phone, that provides a daily reading plan to either read through the entire Bible in a year or to focus on the NT. This resource provides prompts for prayer and reminds you to look for who God is and/or what God is doing. After you read the daily selected Scriptures you can listen to a woman named Tara Leigh Cobble summarize what you have just read and give her “God shot.” Many years ago, I read about a 90 year old woman who had started reading her Bible everyday in her 20’s because someone told her that it was good for her. She found out this was true and she has read the Bible every day for over 50 years because she doesn’t want to miss out on what God has for her. I am feeling the same way. I started reading the Bible because I was told it was a good spiritual discipline and now I read it everyday because I want to and need to in order to stay closely connected to God. Reading the Bible is how we know who God is. It is the primary way God speaks to us in the Western world.

Next is meditation. This is not the type of meditation where your try to empty yourself of all your thoughts. It’s a meditation on God’s word that fills you up with Him. This is a great practice after you have read His word. You can re-read a verse that was impactful or helpful to you and your soul or you can meditate or think through how the truth of what you read is different from what you were previously taught or thought. You can meditate on how what you’ve read makes you know more about God or about how His word ought to impact your life and the way you live. It is a time where you let God’s word and truth wash over you. I am not good at sitting still. I typically read the Bible in the morning and then go for a walk or a run, and during that time I mull over and meditate on what God’s word says and what it is teaching me. I ask God to give me understanding and I ask Him to amaze me with who is so that I can know Him more rightly. I ask Him to stir my heart to love Him more and worship Him the way He deserves and then I listen. Meditation is another way of hearing God speak.

Prayer is how we connect with God by speaking to Him. Prayers can be spoken out loud or silently. They can be said alone in the privacy of your own home or done in a group with others. Prayer is often used to ask God for things, like sitting on Santa’s lap with your Christmas list, but that is not the intention of prayer. Prayer is an intimate discussion with God our Father and Jesus our Lord and Savior. Just as we build and maintain our relationships with loved ones here on earth through intimate conversation, we build and maintain our relationship with God through intimate conversation in prayer. Because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, we now have direct access to God. We can talk with Him about all that is going on in our lives. We should begin our prayers by getting our hearts in line with God. A great way to do this is by praising God for who He is. For me, I think about all that God has done in creating the whole world, all that He has done historically as told in the Bible, and what He has done for me personally. When I do this, I can’t help but praise His name. Next, we should thank God for everything we have because all that we have comes from Him. We thank Him for all the relationships that He has given to us and for sending His Son to die for our sins. We then can and should confess all of the ways that we have lived for ourselves and not for Him, all the ways we’ve hurt others or maybe even ourselves. We tell Him all these things, not because He needs to be informed (He already knows), but because we can share everything with Him without fear and with the knowledge and hope that He forgives us and makes us clean and whole. As a parent, I often know what my children have done, the good and the bad. When they confess their wrong doing to me, they might be needing to get it off their chest, but for me it is a way to build our relationship and to disciple them. They might need comforting before they need discipline or instruction. This is a glimpse of confessing to God. He already knows. He forgives. He comforts. His word teaches us what to do instead of what we have done. And finally, because He is a good father, we can ask Him for help or to provide for us what we need. We can ask Him to show us what to do and what would be best for our life each day and in every situation or plan. Through prayer, we talk to God and He listens. He either answers our requests with a yes, a no, or a not yet. And we trust that because He is a good father, whatever answer He provides to our request is the right answer. We might not undestand why He says no or not yet, but we trust that He can see a bigger picture of what will be best for us.

Trusted Christian community is a great place to discuss what we are learning about God from His word and our time in meditation. This requires relationships with other people who are reading God’s word and are actively participating in their relationship with God. Discussion helps us process all that God is teaching us and in a trusted Christian community or group of people it keeps us from misunderstanding God’s word.

When I “deconstructed my faith” it was because some things that I had been taught and thought were true weren’t really adding up to what I had come to understand about God through reading the Bible consistently. I previously didn’t fully understand His grace and mercy and how His grace and mercy are extended to me everyday and in personal ways because of my relationship with Jesus. I misunderstood His wrath. I thought and was taught that I deserved anything and everything bad in my life because I had wronged God and He was mad at me. A lot of the things that I was taught and thought pleased God weren’t true. While a clean house is nice to live in and regular showering feels good, cleanliness is not acutally next to Godliness. It doesn’t help me know God more and it doesn’t make God love me more. Actually, nothing I do or don’t do makes God love me more. He already loves me the most, the way a parent can love each of her children the most while loving them all the same. Because of Jesus, He loves me the most and He loves you the most too.

When I sat down with His word and began to deconstruct my faith what it all boiled down to and what was reconstructed, is that God is the Creator of all things. He is righteous – all He is and does and says is right. He is love. He is just. He is good. All of who God is has been shown to the world through His Son, Jesus Christ, who though he was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God as something for Him to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a servant and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form he humbled himself in obedience to God. He did not live for any selfish gain or personal agenda. He lived out the Mosiac Law the way God intended it to be lived. He worshiped God and obeyed Him. He loved people by healing them and showing them who God is and he loved God and people by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross so that all of the debt to God from sin was paid (Philippians 2:6-8). Through faith, belief, trust that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and my Savior who paid my debt to sin and through understanding that I can not do anything to please God without faith, I have been saved. I am His and He is mine. I no longer have to fear the wrath of God. Instead, I have been brought close to Him through Jesus. I am now an adopted daughter. I am His beloved. I am a part of God’s Kingdom now and I am to live for His fame and not my own. I am to live for His agenda – loving and praising Him alone, being about His name and glory and not my own, loving others by sharing the gospel and caring for those in need. I am an heir of the inheritance of Christ and all that belong’s to Christ. I will receive the Kingdom of God when it comes in full. I will rule and reign with Christ and all the other Christians on the New Earth.

In deconstructing my faith, I had to also deconstruct myself. Do I believe The Truth as God defines it? Will I be about God’s business, agenda, fame, and glory or do I want to be about my own? Will I love others the way God tells me to love them? Will I take care of those on the fringes of society – the orphan, the widow, the alien or foreigner? Will I be for those and stand up for those who can not stand up for themselves? Will I see all of my possessions as from God and use them to grow His Kingdom and to take care of those in need? Will I empty myself of all my foolishness to gain the wisdom of God? This has been much harder than deconstructing and reconstructing my faith. The reconstruction of myself as a Christ follower is a life long process. Some call it sancitification, the processing of becoming more like Christ. It’s a bit of a three steps forward and two steps back situation, but I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).