Rend your Hearts, Don’t Deconstruct Your Faith
In the 90’s there was a surge of purity revivals within the church. With the availability of Title V funding, organizations began mobilizing their message. After graduating college, I joined an abstinence organization in Los Angeles, and we began teaching in the public-school systems. I remember one student who shook my resolve. Though we were often welcome in classes after all, what kid wouldn’t mind missing math to talk about sex, but this particular class ended with an unanswered question. Since we were government funded, we could not share the gospel, nevertheless, I was confident our message would be welcome. This particular student raised his hand and asked, “Ok, so what if I don’t experience any of those consequences, why should I still wait to have sex?” I probably answered (but honestly, I don’t remember) something to like this, “Because it is a good life choice.” This answer did not suffice, because he shrugged his shoulders and said, “But why?” Why should he make a good life choice? Why should he think that the standard for living that we were proposing was the best life choice?
How do we begin a conversation if we don’t acknowledge the “But why”? In the quest to understand deconstructionism I read numerous blog posts, listened to podcasts, completed a deconstructionist class, and read Rachel Held Evan’s book, Faith Unraveled. Stories and countless others like them, are rocking evangelical churches. Whether the catalysts stem from pain from a Christian leader, disillusionment with the Church or questions regarding fundamental truths, the stories are real, and we need to have an answer for the hope that is within us. Before I delve into this topic, it needs to be stated that there is no blanket response to pain. There is no quip, no formula or even philosophy that can mend to the hearts of a broken man. Additionally, there is no standard deconstructionist. There is no cookie-cutter crisis of faith situation in which to prescribe a simple remedy.
In Rachel Held Evans book, Faith Unraveled, she takes the reader through her process of doubt and ultimately the deconstruction of her faith. I will address some of her conclusions. It is imperative as believers to determine the goal before we endorse any epistemological theory.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”[1] – Alice in Wonderland
As we begin to travel this deconstructionist path, it is important to note that space will not allow us to traverse every trail of thought. Rachel’s questions are motivated by her disillusionment with the Church and she is saddened by the global evangelical response to world issues. Issues that were once accepted by the Church and society are now creating a rift in the normative standards of ethical behavior. How does one adjudicate between cultural norms and ethical standards of truth?
In the aftermath of September 11, as the world was reeling from shock, a news station broadcast a scene in the Middle East. The program showed a woman being dragged into a soccer stadium and shot in the head for cheating on her husband. This news story’s goal was to increase the American resolve for war. Regardless of our opinions on the justification for war, in that moment, as Rachel watched this event unfold, the sight of the dead woman in a burqa with tennis shoes peering through the bottom, served as a catalyst for her crisis of faith.
“I started asking harder questions. I question what I thought were fundamentals – the eternal damnation of all non-Christians, the scientific and historical accuracy of the Bible, the ability to know absolute truth, and the politicization of evangelicalism. I questioned God: his fairness, regarding salvation; his goodness, for allowing poverty and injustice in the world; and his intelligence, for entrusting Christians to fix things…I even questioned his existence.”[2]
Rachels’ crisis of faith is not new. These questions are not new; they are just new for her. Crisis of faith is not a new phenomenon. In fact, Rachel agrees that the Pharisees, too, had a crisis of faith when comforted with the radical teachings of Jesus. Are deconstructionist justified in their method of evaluation? Rachel Held Evans provides us clues, and we will use her questions as a guide out of the rabbit hole.
Evan’s questions “the ability to know absolute truth”. Are there truths that are relative to culture, to time periods, and even to particular people groups? When Rachel asks, “Can we have absolute truth?”, she asks, not because she believes there is no truth, she questions whether there may be an objective standard of truth. This is clear in her following statement: “We don’t choose our worldviews; they are chosen for us.” [3]
While wrestling with her faith, she posed this question to her dad. Her statement makes an underlying assertion about the notion of truth. Rachel is affirming a particular theory of truth. She is affirming the coherence theory of truth. This states “that people cannot escape their web of beliefs and get to reality itself, or on the grounds that people actually justify their beliefs and take them to be true because they cohere well with their other beliefs.”[4] It seems that she is saying that we are trapped in a web created by environmental, social, political, theological commitments. This web structure is the way in which our worldview is created. We didn’t choose any of these factors, therefore, we are products of coherence, not correspondence. Let’s examine what this means:
“Since truth just is an adequate coherence of a belief with an appropriate set of beliefs, when a belief is justified by way of a coherence account, it is automatically true. Truth is a matter of a belief’s internal relations with one’s other beliefs, not its external relations with reality outside the system of beliefs itself.”[5]
We have finally arrived at the problem of deconstructionism! The reason why deconstructionist have a crisis of faith, is that they view their commitment to theological absolutes as a part of a web in which every belief is connected to another belief. If one belief begins to unravel then the web falls apart. This post-modern epistemic commitment results in the removal of ethical standards of living. In fact, Rachel says, “The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God himself will break one.”[6] She not only has made an assumption about the relationship between textual interpretation and application, but she has failed to see how ethical norms are a reflection of God’s character as revealed in His Word. Jesus called people to change from one behavior to another because of who He was and is. He had the authority to demand change, and we need to agree with Him.
Moreover, competing truth claims, especially those at the core of competing worldviews, often have very different consequences for life. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “We are now getting to the point at which different beliefs about the universe lead to different behavior. Religion involves a series of statements about facts, which must be either true or false. If they are true, one set of conclusions will follow about the right sailing of the human fleet; if they are false, quite a different set.”[7]
Now we can begin to see why deconstructionism leads to confusion and even denial of God. Deconstructionist often use the analogy of a building, but upon closer review it’s a theory of truth that challenges the notion that truth must correspond with reality. Instead, the attempt is to align truth with culture and opinion. And in that sense, truth is not objective and absolute, rather truth is subjective and relative.
This leads us to the second point of evaluation and the last part of her statement, her belief in the existence of God. Because deconstructionism can lead to unbelief, this objection raised against God is an essential point that deserves our attention. Let’s look at two contrasting perspectives. The first is from Anthony Flew, an atheist philosopher.
“Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods." Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So, they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So, they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last, the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"[8]
The conclusion from Anthony Flew seems to parallel the crisis of the believer. Is there really a gardener, when all the evidence seems to suggest that there is not? The conclusion of the Flew’s argument is that since there is no evidence of the gardener, then the term “gardener” is meaningless.
The conclusion for Flew is that since the gardener cannot be perceived by methods he employed, then the gardener does not exist. First, is this parable analogous to the Christian faith? Is Christianity the sort of belief system, in which God can be detected based the methods described above? Perhaps even more pressing is the reason why the men asked the question in the first place. As they walked and saw a clearing in the woods, they noticed distinguishable features that did not seem to be the result of random processes over time. There was something about the arrangement of flowers and the weeds that justified belief that perhaps a gardener was responsible. There were detectable signs of creation. Are gardens the sorts of things that pop into existence? Are gardens the type of the things that are uncaused?
Additionally, is the gardener’s existence contingent on my ability to perceive his presence? Is it possible? The question as to why, how, or if God, I mean the gardener, reveals himself and by what means is another topic indeed.
“The ability to experience the God may be due to a fault in your faculty not a fault in the existence of God.” - Richard Swinburne
Secondly, Anthony Flew’s parable in the garden raises further issues. In a famous article by William Lane Craig titled “The Absurdity of Life without God”, he addresses this proposition.
“Modern man thought that when he had gotten rid of God, he had freed himself from all that repressed and stifled him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself. For if there is no God, then man's life becomes absurd.”[9]
Craig continues to explain that life without the existence of God is absurd. A few years ago, the physicist Stephen Hawking, predicted the end of the universe and suggested that humans should begin to colonize other planets. If death is inevitable and life’s origin is random and accidental with no purpose and no design, then the search for meaning is absurd. So, we return to our “But Why” which sits like an elephant in the room that mankind must strive to ignore. Because if there is no God, then our questions and ultimately our answers have no meaning. Ultimately, if there is no gardener, then set a match to the whole thing, because at the end of the day, there is no point.
Is deconstructionism a biblical model of evaluation when there is a crisis of faith? It is important at this stage to refer to scripture as a guide.
“The object of reading the Bible is that we should proceed from discovery of what the text says to where we seize and are grasped by its truth and its consequences for life and ministry. We do not read the text out of mere historical interest, but for the purposes of transformation, in order that the Scripture might become a revelatory text for us.” – Karl Barth
Jesus was a master apologist, because he used metaphors, analogies, and parables to direct His listeners to timeless truths. Jesus asked questions and posed scenarios, and the disciples had to think, ask clarifying questions, and process each parable. In fact, asking questions is part of discovery learning. And one of the most important questions that he asked was in Matthew 16:15-17.
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:15-17, NIV)
Who is Jesus and not who is Jesus to me? Jesus said that Peter answered correctly, thus indicting that it is possible to answer incorrectly. To say the right things about Jesus and His redemptive work revealed in Scripture is the basis for doctrinal truths.
As a professor of world religions, I was asked how I could teach about religions. I think the concern was that I would water down my commitment to Jesus, because I taught other religions. In fact, the opposite was true. I enjoyed learning about the faith of others because I understood why they made those religious commitments, and yet, I still held fast to my Christian faith.
“Taking on the yoke of Jesus is not about signing a doctrinal statement or making an intellectual commitment to a set of propositions. It isn’t about being right or getting our facts straight. It is about loving God and loving other people.”[10]
Rachel has introduced a new set of propositional truths in which she hopes others will ascribe…ironic. These are her fundamental truths. The love of God in John 4 is relative and has no objective reference point. She states that love is bigger than faith. The goal is to widen the path of access to Jesus. Why, because of the existence of multiple religions? This reality removes any exclusive claims for salvation for any faith.
This line of thinking committed, what I call, “The Oprah Fallacy”, my term. A few years ago, on a popular television show, the host, Oprah Winfrey, would have her annual holiday give-a-way. One by one each person in the audience would receive, a gift even.. She would call out and say, “You get a car, you get a car, you get a car!”
This is how we approach reality of multiple faith traditions. The fact that there are multiple traditions, means that there are no right paths for salvation.
“You get to go to heaven; you get to go to heaven.”
This line of thinking is incredibly disrespectful to those of different faiths. How arrogant to equate Hinduism with Atheism. How arrogant to equate Islam with Buddhism. This assumption does not show an appreciation of their faithful communities and it diminishes the tenets of their faith thereby making the claims meaningless.
Evan’s epistemological theory affects her theological presuppositions. So, for Rachel, because she has chosen a relativistic post-modern theory of knowledge, it necessarily informs the biblical doctrine. Biblical doctrines are questionable, because the noetic structure for belief-formation is justified based on its relation with other beliefs. A person is forced to only accept those doctrines that fit in their web.
“So, we began to deconstruct- to think more critically about our faith, pick it apart, examine all the pieces, and debate which parts are essential and which, for the sake of our survival, we might let go.”[11]
Rachel, though sympathetic for Zarmina who was shot in the head, is making assumptions about the way the woman might respond to God. As countless philosophers have noted in the past, it is not necessarily the case that if God did reveal Himself, that this revelatory experience would produce belief or love for Him. In fact, it could illicit a sense of hatred for the divine, a sense of jealously for my lack of divinity or it could create a retaliatory response, a desire to destroy the perfection as a way to feel less imperfect. So perhaps the means that God has chosen to reveal Himself allows us the maximal opportunity to respond in a way that will increase my ability to love and worship Him as my Lord.
“Rend your hearts not your garments.” Joel 2:13
When Israel sinned, they would tear or rip their clothing as a demonstration of their repentance. The prophet Joel told them to keep their clothes intact. Instead, they needed to tear up their hearts, change their thinking. The goal is not to change the things of our making, but to change our hearts.
Deconstructionism raises alarms because any method that leads away from the truth is inherently false. How do we answer, the “But why”? Due to the complex and varied reasons of why a person struggles with his or her faith, each “but why” must be answered in light of biblical revelation.
“Your speech must always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” (Colossians 4:6, NASB)
Scripture is for teaching, admonishing, correcting with love and compassion so that by our witness we might win some. The “But why” is not the problem. It’s our posture when steeking an answer. Deconstructionists forget that narrow is the way. Deconstructionism seeks to widen the path that God says is narrow.
It has been touted that deconstructionism will lead to a revival in the church. Do we need a revival? Yes, we need a revival! A revival of agreeing with God. But a revival apart from the Word is nothing but a concert.
[1] https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/chapters-script/alice-in-wonderland-quotes/
[2] Faith Unraveled page 26
[3] Pg. 102
[4] Phil Foundation 154
[5] Phil Foundation 143
[6] Faith Unraveled 158
[7] Phil foundation
[8]Antony Flew, "Theology and Falsification," University, 1950-51; from Joel Feinberg, ed., Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy, Belmont, CA: Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc., 1968, pp. 48-49.
[9] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-absurdity-of-life-without-god
[10] Faith Unraveled 213
[11] 208
