The pain, loss, and redemption of deconstruction.

Never did I think I would find myself here. Here, being a belief system that is different but so much better than it was before, yet so at odds with the places that formed my early faith.

Contrary to how it might appear, I don't actually care too much about the things people believe. The problem is that I care about how people treat people, and that has a lot to do with the things people believe. When it comes to advocating for better treatment of people, it's hard to do that without addressing the underlying beliefs. So while I don't care about beliefs on their own, I care about how they affect others.

Fleshing out this perspective in myself made me realize something intriguing and awful about my old communities: they practice the exact opposite. They care so much about what people believe that as long as you believe the "right" things, you can quite literally get away with murder.

That was the major hang-up for me. As much as I bought into the belief system at first, I could never get passed the checks in my soul that knew treating others badly was never the answer. It didn't sit right with me that you could basically bully people into becoming a Christian and it was okay as long as they said the prayer at the end. And even if they didn't, you just got to shrug your shoulders and say their blood wasn't on your hands because, well, at least you warned them about hell. The skewed definition of "love" felt a lot like hate, and while I thought maybe it was my "sin nature" talking, that didn't sit right with me either.

So I started pushing back, and at first, my challenges were accepted. I was told that I made people think, and that I was wise beyond my years. I can remember appreciating these remarks but having an intuitive sense that it wouldn't last long. Sure enough, I soon heard accusations of "wanting to be liked" and being a disappointment. The former being quite the claim seeing as how the people that once supported me were dropping like flies.

It didn't make sense. From a young age, I was always told that there were primary and secondary issues in Christianity. You needed to agree on primary issues, like Jesus was who he said he was. As for secondary issues, most other things were up for debate. But as I began to land differently on secondary issues, others started taking steps away. I was confused. These were secondary issues. Even more so, all of my evolving and changing beliefs were motivated by wanting to better follow Jesus. Through this process, I've wanted nothing more than to love and live like Jesus. I thought that surely, striving after the central figure of Christianity itself would keep me "in," but it didn't.

That has been the most disorienting part of this whole thing: being made out to be an enemy of Jesus rather than someone wholeheartedly devoted to his way.

This dizzying disorientation was only amplified when I found the word "deconstruction" and started using it to describe what I was doing. It was such a clarifying term in the midst of such a tangled mess of questions. For me and others I know who use the term, deconstruction simply refers to the process of taking apart your beliefs, figuring out where they came from, how they work, and if they are true. It's an incredibly healthy process that I recommend for all aspects of life, not just faith.

It wasn't long before evangelicalism heard about deconstruction, made up their own false definition of it, then went to work tearing it down. I heard pastors say people only did it because it was sexy, or because it earned you street cred ("you just want to be liked"), or because you were butthurt about the way your parents raised you. Never did any of these teachers mention how so many of us have sacrificed everything we have ever known in order to better follow Jesus — jobs, community ties, volunteer positions, and sometimes even spouses. Never did any of them acknowledge the full on hatred and harassment some experience, or how they have been asked to no longer have a visible role in the church due to their change in beliefs on a secondary issue. Never did any of them note how so much of deconstruction is motivated by wanting to be a better person.

Truly, people that have deconstructed are some of the most devoted followers of Jesus I have ever met.

The most common way I see deconstruction misrepresented is when it is conflated with deconversion. But many people who deconstruct do not deconvert, and not everyone that deconverts goes through deconstruction. The unfortunate reality is that for the critics, none of this is about truth anyway, but about setting up a new enemy for the church to attack.

And attack, they do. They accuse us of having never known the "real Jesus," and in a sense, I agree. The difference, though, is that I firmly believe my deconstruction led me to the real one. Still, they invalidate the anguish and, in some cases, trauma, a person experiences when they say that "it was people that hurt you, not Jesus," while refusing to be held accountable for the very harm they, the people, caused.

It gets worse. Not only did they push us out for not conforming, then lie about what we were doing, then refuse to properly represent us, then blame us for the problems they caused, but then they also demand we repent and come back to them from their pulpits.

Is it any wonder that I can't go back to the same communities that gaslight us by saying they never caused any harm? That refuse to take accountability? That won't practice what they preach?

Yet those of us who have been through this... those of us who have lost, who have been insulted and belittled, those of us who have been made to feel so incredibly small for not believing the same way as our former communities... we all tend to have the same thought on occasion: "What if I just pretend to go back to everything I used to believe? Would all of this pain and separation go away? Would I be welcomed back?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, I don't get very far before my entire being screams absolutely not. I think that has a lot to do with my commitment to authenticity and being absolutely allergic to anything fake or pretend. But it also has a whole heck-of-a-lot to do with just wanting to follow Jesus no matter what that makes Christians think of me.

It's a testament to our commitment to Jesus that we don't pretend to "go back" just so our communities will accept us again; so our parents will let us come home; so our friends come back into our lives. I said it before but I'll say it again: people who deconstruct are some of the most committed followers of Jesus I've ever had the honor of knowing.

The whole being pushed out or made to feel so unwelcomed we have no healthy choice but to leave is only the start of the pain. Every time a favored pastor or theologian's abuse is substantiated, we look back to our churches to see if they are finally getting it, only to see them making excuses and shaming the victims, as well as those fighting for accountability. We get excited about new studies demonstrating the very things we've been insisting for years only for our old friends to say that science is corrupted and that we can't trust anything "the world" produces. We see admired individuals from our former churches asking the same questions and coming to the same conclusions as us, hoping they will get through to the others, only to see them pushed out just as we were.

I never stop hoping that the tide will turn... that something or someone will shake things up in such a way that they will realize it's not too late to get on board with the way of Jesus. It's not too late to embrace love and experience a freedom and peace that worm theology cannot give you. But they have to want it, and I don't think many do.

That's when the sobering realization hits: the people that have turned their backs on us do not care about us. They do not love us. They never did. If it was true care and love, a change in our beliefs for the betterment of ourselves, those around us, and our faith would not have caused them to put a canyon between us. It's not that I think they hate us either. I think they genuinely believe they are doing what they think is right, but at this point, they are willfully ignoring the evidence that they shouldn't be this way.

On a recent episode of The New Evangelicals Podcast, guest John Pavlovitz said this: "... really, the most confrontational thing I ever do with conservative evangelicals is share the words of Jesus and say, 'Tell me how you feel about this in light of these things,' and that's where I get the most resistance and the most anger. Because I think when you're in that world, you don't even realize the mission drift that you've been a part of until someone from outside that system says, 'Wait a minute' and gives you some of the words of the Sermon on the Mount. And then they go, 'Well, I feel antithetical to those things. How can that be?' And that for me was part of my journey. It was looking around and life began to argue with my theology, and I had the choice of leaning into the information or leaning into the old story." After host Tim shared a related anecdote, Pavlovitz summarized the point by saying, "If the words of Jesus begin to sound like heresy to you, I mean, that's probably a problem."

And maybe that's what it is. Maybe some have unknowingly become so caught up in the mission drift that the way of Jesus sounds like a threat to Christianity. That is scarier than any sermon on hell or rapture or tribulation that I ever heard.

We lose a lot in deconstruction. But often, our faith isn't one of those things.

For everything we lose, we also gain a whole lot. We find out who really cares and who really loves. Sometimes, the ones that stick around surprise us in the best way. Many of us find that deconstruction is actually a coming back to ourselves, of realizing many of our intuitions were right all along. We are able to find healing, and acknowledge that bad theology can have a profound impact on our well-being and our self-esteem. We also find each other.

Three years ago, I started The Christian Advocate. A place born out of loneliness has turned into a beautiful community of people asking the same questions, landing all over the place, and daily trying to figure out what it means to live like Jesus on this side of deconstruction. So, I asked them what they wished their former churches and friends understood about their deconstruction. Here's what they said:

"That I'm still a believer!!" 

"I just feel like they don't/can't understand because their theology is so based on being right."

"That I had faith, prayed, and read my Bible, but still struggle with my mental health."

"I would have loved help, not lectures. Lectures just made me feel worse about myself."

"Embarking on a faith journey is about evolving my faith. It's not about destroying it."

"That there's no malice, that I'm okay with them living their life the way they want to, and that I wish they could have clarity to feel the above mutually."

"My faith is actually deeper than it used to be."

"Just because my statement of faith changed doesn't mean my love of Jesus has." 

"That we are walking away from tradition in order to be more like Jesus."

"I am not lost. Don't make me your project."

I also asked them how they felt about being so misrepresented by the evangelical church. Many said they felt anger, despair, wanting to pull their hair out, disoriented, and an overall sense of feeling misunderstood and ignored. They most certainly don't feel loved or valued.

I don't know who is going to read this, so in closing, I'll speak to two groups of people here.

To those who have been through this and are going through this, please know that you are not alone, and that while you might still feel hurt on occasion, you don't have to live there anymore. This process is hard, but it's so worth it.

To those who haven't been through this and feel the urge to judge, please don't. I've told some of my story here, but I've intentionally used communal language throughout because this is our story, not just mine. Don't make the same mistakes the evangelical church continues to make here. It's not too late to turn around. I don't care who you are or what our past interactions have looked like. I'm always willing to share more about deconstruction and what that has meant for my life and the people in my community if you are ready to listen.

Thank you to everyone who has made the past three years of TCA so filling and beautiful. I'm so excited to keep doing this with you. <3