Christian Deconstruction: Three Paths and Where They Lead

Editor’s note – “Deconstruction” has become one of the most loaded words in American Christianity, used to describe everything from honest wrestling with hard questions to a slow walk out the church door entirely. Zack Duncan takes the time most hot takes skip: separating the word from the destinations it actually leads to. He writes from inside his own story, not just from theory, which is part of why BCW wanted to run this piece. Doubt isn’t the enemy here – the question is always where you take it.

What is Deconstruction, Really?

Christian deconstruction tends to lead to one of three different places: eventual reconstruction, institutional avoidance, or deconversion.

Let’s look at the first one.

Eventual Reconstruction

It’s possible to strip away pieces of an inherited tradition and ultimately rebuild a deeper faith. When this happens, the growing faith may be more personal and less tied to a specific cultural expression or set of denominational distinctives.

Consider the Apostle Paul.

He thought the way to honor the God of the Torah was by persecuting the followers of a new sect that claimed Jesus of Nazareth to be God in the flesh.

Paul, just like many others who were zealous for the law, found these claims to be offensive and dangerous to the Jewish faith.

And Paul was proud of that faith, along with his ethnic heritage, and his religious track record. He describes his pedigree this way:

...circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. (Philippians 3:5-6)

But then, a supernatural encounter with Jesus challenged all of his assumptions.

He was made blind, humbled, and had three days of remaining in darkness to wrestle with the staggering reality that he should have been worshipping Jesus as Lord instead of oppressing His followers.

Paul eventually realized it was Jesus who was truly the center of His faith in God, and reframed his devotion to God accordingly. And with this new perspective, he became a world-shaping missionary and evangelist driven by a deep love for Jesus.

In the same way, a Christian who has gone through a severe trial of faith and deconstructed old assumptions can come out the other side and find they have more trust in God and a deeper love for Jesus than ever before.

Editor’s note – Paul’s story is the extreme case, but the pattern holds for ordinary believers too: God can use a shattered assumption to rebuild something sturdier than what came before. The difference between Paul’s reconstruction and someone’s deconversion often isn’t the intensity of the questions – it’s whether Jesus stays at the center while the questions are being asked.

But that’s not how deconstruction works for everyone.

Institutional avoidance

Many Christians have witnessed or personally experienced spiritual abuse and hypocrisy in the institutional church.

When leaders are not practicing what they preach, it can understandably lead to questions about whether there is anything behind the preaching. Is there something real? Or is it all charade and grab for religious power and money?

While some of these questioners remain committed to the institution, others choose to disconnect and pull away. The disconnecters often say they remain committed to Jesus while they step away from organized worship and mission with fellow members of His Body.

In the long term, some of these people may eventually reengage with the local body of Christian believers, while others may find that their faith becomes less and less important to them.

Editor’s note – Duncan names institutional hypocrisy honestly, and Scripture does the same. But “committed to Jesus while stepping away from His Body” deserves a second look: the New Testament never pictures a believer thriving apart from the local church, however imperfect it is. Disconnection often feels safer, but it rarely ends anywhere but the third path he describes next.

And that leads to the third path.

Deconversion

Many people who embark on a deconstruction journey end up leaving the Christian faith entirely.

These people have reasons and one of the most common is that the Christian faith no longer seems to make sense.

As seven out ten deconstructers put it: “I’ve questioned my faith tradition and it’s failed to provide satisfactory answers.”¹

Many of these people have confronted hard questions and decided the answers aren’t compatible for them.

Here are just a few of them:

• How could a loving God allow all the suffering we see in the world?
• How could Jesus claim to be the only way to God?
• How can we take the Bible seriously when science seems to point elsewhere?
• If Christianity is real, why do Christian institutions have a history of self protection and covering up abuses?
• How can Christians live in a world where they believe there are literal demonic spirits?

Such people may end up as atheists, agnostics, or simply classify themselves as religious “Nones.”²

Bart Ehrman, Joshua Harris, and Timmy Gibson are notable former Christians who deconverted from the Christian faith and remain public figures.

Towards Deconversion or Reconstruction?

Why do some people ultimately build back their faith on even stronger ground while others shun Christianity?

That’s a big question that seems too massive to try to answer in a single article. But it’s related to this one: What is objective and ultimate reality?

And nothing shapes our view of ultimate reality more than how we answer these two questions:

• Is the God of the Bible real?
• Does the God of the Bible really love me?

If someone going through deconstruction ends up answering both of these questions in the affirmative, they are headed firmly towards reconstruction.

Jane Isley is a person of unshakeable faith in Christ who previously went through a period of deconstruction.

She asked hard questions about what she had been taught and found some of her beliefs changing. She also kept her eyes fixed on God even as she questioned some of the things she had been taught about Him.

Just as it did with Jacob, the path to deeper faith often runs through this type of wrestling with God.

It can be painful and leave us with a limp, but that’s often the way of things on the path of following Jesus.

Editor’s note – Jacob’s wrestling match left him with a limp and a new name – both at once. That’s often how this works: the questions don’t evaporate, but neither does the hand holding on. A faith that survives real wrestling tends to be harder to shake than one that never had to.

In my own life, I’ve wrestled with some hard questions as well. Questions like:

• If God doesn’t seem to answer my prayers does it mean He’s angry with me?
• Must all Christians be a member of a specific political party?
• Must I perfectly reconcile the idea of God’s sovereignty with human responsibility and choice?
• Must ‘real’ Christians avoid church calendar rituals and milestones like Lent?

These were all questions that I would have answered in the affirmative at one time or another. But they all eventually changed to “no.”

It really got started with Lent.

One Example: Re-examining Lent

I’ve previously written about my experience where God first unexpectedly called me to engage in Lent nearly sixteen years ago.

I had always avoided Lent, believing it was “too Catholic” and not something that a true Christian would participate in. Suffice it to say, this was a belief that was challenged, investigated, and ultimately changed.

It was hard to have my beliefs challenged, but I now see that there were questions that needed examination. Questions like:

• Why was I quick to affirm the 1,700 year old Nicene Creed as authoritative, but just as quick to reject the 40 Day Lenten season established by the same Council of Nicea?
• Did it make sense for me to see Martin Luther as a defender of the true Christian faith, while ignoring that the fact that he still marked the Lent season even after catalyzing the Reformation?
• On what grounds did I continue to celebrate Christmas and Easter, while not acknowledging that the same 1645 Directory for Publick Worship that banned Lent in England had also banned Christmas and Easter?³

And I was struck by the words of Jesus regarding the necessity of self-denial. It seemed like an obvious fit with Lent. But if it was, why did I have a natural aversion and find Lent objectionable.

The hard questions ultimately helped me see my skepticism about Lent was something I needed to discern with a skeptical eye.&sup4;

Editor’s note – Lent is one small test case for a bigger principle: inherited assumptions about what counts as “too Catholic,” “too charismatic,” or “too liturgical” deserve examination against Scripture rather than tribal habit. That kind of re-examination is the reconstruction this piece describes – not destruction of the faith, but a pruning of what was never essential to it.

Questions and Doubts are Not the Enemy

Asking hard questions is intellectually honest and important work.

And if you seek God even in the midst of confusion and doubt, I confidently believe you’ll ultimately find all of your answers in Him.

Thomas famously doubted in John 20:27 and Jesus didn’t turn Him away. Jude, the brother of Jesus, instructed his readers to be merciful to the doubters.

Doubt doesn’t scare God.

The key is to take your doubts to God, not to run and hide from Him in shame or fear.

Because the Christian life is ultimately about Him.

It’s not about a perfect record of faith that we build on our own and then deliver to God so He will love us. It’s about what He does in our hearts when we allow Him to.

The father of the demonized boy in Mark 9 displays this when he honestly acknowledges his inner battle to Jesus.

Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

He offers up both his belief and his doubts to Jesus, and he sees Jesus work the miracle.

I pray we continue to do the same and expect the same.

Sources and References

1: Religious “Nones” in America: Who They Are and What They Believe: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/

2: The Deconstruction Network: Initial Survey Results: https://thedeconstructionnetwork.com/initial-survey-results-dec-2020/

3: Directory for the Publick Worship of God: https://thewestminsterstandard.org/directory-for-the-publick-worship-of-god/

4: The regulative principle

A Word from the Editor
Every honest believer eventually meets Thomas’s moment – doubts still in hand even with resurrection news in the room. Jesus didn’t ask him to pretend the doubt away; He invited him to look closer. If deconstruction becomes an excuse to leave the room, something has gone wrong. But if it becomes the occasion to look closer at Jesus, it can build a faith that finally feels like your own, not your parents’ or your denomination’s. “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief” is still a prayer God answers (Mark 9:24).

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Editor Comment: Thank you for mapping deconstruction's different endings so clearly, Zack – this kind of honest, Christ-centered distinction is exactly what readers working through their own doubts need to hear.

This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.