Thoughts for Pastors on Deconstructing the Faith

Dave was a big part of our church plant and our lives. He loved Jesus, led a small group in his home, and his wife joined our church staff. He encouraged me in good times, but especially during hard times. Their family held the place in our lives and ministry to which most pastors can relate––the sort of cornerstone couple that a pastor comes to rely upon, confide in, and even assume is a bit self-reliant for their spiritual well-being.

A couple of years ago, I traveled through the city where he lived. I called him to catch up when he shared with me some (for me) hard news. He told me he was no longer a Christian. We talked for a while, but it was clear there was no going back. His words still ring in my ear:

“Ed, I’m as likely to become a follower of Allah as I am to return to following Jesus. I just don’t believe it anymore.”

Those words stung. They still do. It wasn’t simply that someone had walked away from the faith, like the stories of Christian authors and musical artists who have done so publicly in the last several years. This was someone I knew and deeply cared for. This was someone to whom the Lord had entrusted me to be a spiritual father and guide. A relationship that first began as one of those a pastor learns to count on (and even take for granted at times, if we’re honest) transformed into one of those relationships that often haunts a pastor with feelings of regret and thoughts of what he could have done differently.

We have called the transformation through which Dave has walked many things throughout Christian history––apostasy, backsliding, deconversion, and more. More recently, it has been lumped into a rather complicated term: deconstruction.

To be clear, deconstruction is not a monolithic experience. And, contrary to popular misconception, not all deconstruction results in apostasy (though it often may). For some, like Dave, their deconstruction journey leads them to abandon the faith altogether. For others, it represents a journey––often brought about by a disillusionment with the faith tradition in which they were raised––toward rediscovering Christianity in a manner that feels more authentic (often, though not always, involving moving away from one Christian tradition toward another, such as an evangelical who becomes an Anglican).

In his book When Everything’s on Fire: Faith Formed from the Ashes, Brian Zahnd defines deconstruction as “a crisis of Christian faith that leads to either a reevaluation of Christianity or sometimes a total abandonment of Christianity.”¹ One shouldn’t confuse deconstruction with deconversion because many who in some way deconstruct their faith don’t necessarily depart from it at the end. It can reasonably be said that all deconversion is deconstruction, but not all deconstruction is deconversion.

The destination where a person’s deconstruction journey takes them could depend on how the Christian community surrounding them stewards their skepticism, doubts, pain, and questioning.

In Outreach Magazine, where I serve as editor-in-chief, Michael Lee recently wrote about the topic, explaining:

“God has warned us that we, especially those who presume to be teachers (James 3:1), bear responsibility for the faith formation of others (Mark 9:42; Heb.10:23–25). We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. But rather than assuming the posture of humility and responsibility, my research indicates that Christians are much more likely to respond to leavers with contempt and accusations rather than empathy and a sincere desire to listen. Two quick judgments that the participants in my study commonly heard were that they were never Christians in the first place and that they left the faith to live a life of vice. Whether or not this is the case, I would suggest that rather than reactively blaming and shaming leavers, we should be quicker in lamenting and looking inward at ourselves and our faith community and how we might have been complicit in their leave-taking.”

Deconstruction, like many terms so commonly used today, can be something of a Rorschach (inkblot) test––people see what they want to see in the term. It is subject to many interpretations and meanings. For some, it represents a great apostasy happening in our time––and blame for it is often directed toward Gen Xers and Millennials. For others, the term describes a painful but necessary journey to recover an authentic and deeply held faith that rejects what deconstructionists see as concessions to worldliness and sin by the institutions that formed the faith of their youth. People use the term as a label of their identity and as a boogeyman to heap shame upon those wrestling with tough questions of the faith.

The differences in interpretation don’t allow us to ignore its reality. We can’t wish it away or guilt people out of it. In this article, I want to look at the concept of faith deconstruction to understand what is happening, some reasons why, and to offer a response to this trend.

Why Some Deconstruct (Out of) Their Faith

We shouldn’t be surprised that some people deconstruct their faith. We live in a world that is both digital and global, where novel and discordant ideas travel as quickly as orthodox ones do. We also live in a time when Christians are exposed to the wide cultural and theological breadth and deep historical depth of the Christian family––confronting them with sincere and devoted Christians who don’t necessarily think or interpret Scripture the same way they were taught in Sunday School.

Add to that the tendency for younger adults to latch on—though not necessarily in a life-changing way—to ideas that cut against the grain of their upbringing––especially when they have felt that the faith of their upbringing has failed them. I can empathize when believers connect with others who have walked through church hurt, been seared by the sting of legalistic Christians, or scarred by Christian leaders who failed them. 

In a forthcoming article in Outreach Magazine,LifeWay Research head Scott McConnell summarized four general groups engaging at some level in deconstructionism:

1) Some have doubts about doctrine, especially given that our faith journey is usually not as neat as a Sunday School class may seem to make it.

2) Some develop a lifestyle inconsistent with the Christian faith (think: Rich Young Ruler).

3) Some are working out their salvation, weighing the cost of discipleship, and seeking to learn more.

4) Some are processing real hurt they experienced in church or through other believers or Christian leaders.

We also recognize that ideas like deconstruction or other anti-institutional trends fertilize the algorithms from TikTok to YouTube, cultivating more and more people––young people, in particular––ready to take steps to reassess or abandon their faith. Our divided, polarized, angry world has created a petri dish for doubt to grow. Some respond by digging in their heels, embracing a harsh neo-fundamentalism; others step back from faith toward deconstruction.

Yet, the key here is that people deconstruct in different ways and for different reasons. My best advice: listen to them.

Deconstruction or Development

Many Christians walk through a deconstruction journey, especially those whose deconstruction is catalyzed by groups 3 and 4, outlined by McConnell. They hold true to a focus on Christ and the authority of Scripture. The difference lies in the reality that a feature of deconstruction is often a catalytic crisis of faith moment or a slow-burning crisis of faith journey where norms are challenged in a more intensified way.

So, some are deconstructed, and some of those will deconvert, but how do we respond as pastors? They are my focus in this too-brief article on a complex subject. As such, let me offer a few ideas for pastors to shepherd those in your congregation who are considering or are already deconstructing their faith.

1. Show the patience of a shepherd. It’s not accidental that Scripture considers pastors shepherds. Shepherds must show great patience with sheep, who are characteristically stubborn. If someone tells you they are deconstructing their faith, it’s not a reason to respond with shock and awe, nor condemnation and ridicule. Talk with them, hear their story, and empathize with their journey. One of the worst things you can do with someone wrestling with tough questions is make them feel ashamed for doing so. Joe Terrell is right when he says, “the prideful prioritization of conformity over unity”² is a reason some deconstruct today. Have conversations, not with the assumption that the person deconstructing is bent on abandoning faith, but rather that they have questions that they may not have been able to process with other believers.

2. Recover a Christ-centered Christianity. Remember in 2 Chronicles 34 when Josiah brought reforms to Judah when they discovered the Book of the Law? They had, in a sense, “lost the Bible in church.” We’ve turned Jesus into more of a mascot than the Master and Lord of His church. Jesus is Lord of the church and history and is the center of the entire Grand Story of the Bible. We must recover a faith centered on Jesus that manifests in our lives, relationships, and worship.

3. Be careful in using and defining the term. Paul Tripp, in the final episode of “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast, said, “We should all be deconstructing our faith — we better do it. Because our faith becomes a culture, a culture so webbed into the purity of truth that it’s hard to separate the two. And we better do some deconstructing, or we’re going to find ourselves again and again in these sad places.”³ People mean different things when they use the term deconstruct, and we should ask what they mean rather than assuming.

4. Offer a Jesus-centered way. I recommend shepherding those on a journey like this neither to dig their heels in and ignore their doubts and struggles nor to walk the way of the deconversionist. There can be a dark night of the soul through which people walk—and emerge the other side. Charlie Meo asks,

“Could it be that the movement of deconstructed Christianity is because the church has failed to declare and demonstrate the Bible as the True Story of the world? Contrary to the Enlightenment and resulting pluralism, Christians declare that we can know the meaning and goal of history told through the unfolding Story of Scripture.^“4

Teaching the greater Story of Scripture invites people at various stages of faith development—or de/reconstruction—to grasp Christianity not primarily as a system of morals or a reductionistic list of doctrinal statements but as the way to meet God and be transformed by the living Christ. Jesus is the center of the Story, after all.

©2023 Ed Stetzer. Used with Permission.

1. Cited in Joe Terrell, “Five Real Reasons Christians Are Deconstructing Christianity,”  https://tinyurl.com/ycmcsmph. ↩︎
2. Joe Terrell, “Five Real Reasons Christians Are Deconstructing Christianity,”  https://tinyurl.com/ycmcsmph. ↩︎
3. Christianity Today, and Mike Cosper. “Aftermath.” The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. December 4, 2021. https://tinyurl.com/2hrt35dm. 36:57. ↩︎
4. Charlie Meo, “Reconstructing Our Christian Identity,”  https://tinyurl.com/5c265ym8. ↩︎