Deconstructing Faith

When I went away to college, I quickly realized something that alarmed me: I had no idea what I believed. Sure, I knew what I had been taught growing up in a conservative Christian context, but I’d never been forced to think deeply about those teachings because they’d never been questioned before. Suddenly, I found myself in a new place full of people who thought differently than I did and wanted to know why I believed what I believed. And I had nothing to tell them. I had grown up in a faith system, but that faith simply had not become my own.

At some point in each of our lives, we’re going to come to a place where our faith is tested. Whether it be a personal tragedy, a major life shift, or (like me) exposure to differing worldviews, something is going to eventually come along that forces us to look at what we claim to believe and think, “Is this actually true for me?” Until that point, faith may seem simple and straightforward, but once you come face to face with something that makes you question everything, nothing will ever be the same.

There is a huge difference between believing something because it was taught to you and believing something because you know it to be true. Whereas teaching is external, experience is internal. Both can be formative, but only one holds true in the face of these faith-testing events. When things get real, you start to find out what you truly believe, and everything else simply falls away.

For many of us, these faith-testing experiences actually serve to reinforce what we’ve already been taught. They give us an opportunity to take what we believe intellectually and put it into practice. You can’t know for sure that you believe God is in control until you find yourself in a situation that’s completely out of your control and have to trust in him. These can be positive experiences that leave us even stronger in our faith than before.

But they’re also edifying. They help us burn away the things that we thought we believed but were never really true for us. The things that don’t make sense when we really consider them. Maybe even the toxic things that held us back from loving ourselves and others the way we’re supposed to. When our faith is tested, we cling to what we know, but we let go of the rest, and it’s a beautiful thing.

And here’s another beautiful thing: You don’t have to wait around for some major life experience to start looking at your faith this way. You can create your own faith-questioning event right here, right now. It’s called deconstruction, and it’s the powerful process of taking your faith system apart piece by piece, questioning every aspect of it, and finding out what’s actually true for you.

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In the face of this newfound diversity, I started to question everything I believed about God, the world, and other people. I looked at every single teaching from my childhood and wondered, “Why do I believe that? Is that really true?” I considered how biblical, rational, and compassionate each teaching was and made a judgment call based on those criteria. Some of the stuff I kept, and other parts I threw out completely.

But for a while there, as I was questioning everything, it felt like I didn’t believe much at all. Sure, I clung to the very basics of my Christian faith. But everything else was in flux for a long time. It was scary in a way, but it was also really freeing not to feel weighed down by all of these beliefs that really weren’t mine. It gave me room to figure out what it was that I actually did believe.

People of faith often get freaked out by the idea of deconstruction, and part of that fear is understandable. It’s scary to doubt yourself. We all like to think that we have it all figured out, but the truth is that absolute certainty has never been a part of the deal with God. That’s why it’s called faith. There’s a lot we can know, and we’re called to seek out that knowledge to the best of our ability. But at the end of the day, many matters of theology are simply mysterious because we serve a transcendent God, so we have to be willing to accept the fact that we may not have everything down just right.

Far too often, we witness tragedies of faith when a person starts to question what they believe and eventually gives it up altogether. They think that if part of what they’ve been taught isn’t true, then it must all be worthless. This is a failure on the church’s part to teach nuance, foster humility, and make room for diversity of thought. The truth is that you can question major parts of your faith without throwing everything out, or giving up your faith community. And when we make people feel like they’re doing something wrong by asking questions, we’re setting them up to become frustrated and maybe even walk away altogether.

Wouldn’t it be better, then, for us to create a space within the faith community for people to ask these questions in a safe and loving environment? Instead of twiddling our thumbs hoping no one goes through anything that causes them to question things (which they inevitably will), we should be proactive and encourage people to go through this deconstruction process before life forces them into it. In that way, we can help prevent at least some people of faith from giving up entirely and instead offer them the ability to find and claim a faith of their own.

After all, that’s the whole point of the discipleship process anyway. We’re not trying to create copy-and-pasted, cookie-cutter Christians who robotically repeat what they’ve been taught. No, the goal is to form mature, Christ-following individuals who have experiences with God that have transformed them in ways that they can’t help but share.

And those experiences will lead us down different intellectual and theological paths. I may feel particularly convicted about social justice, whereas someone else’s journey might lead them to focus on apologetics. That’s perfectly acceptable. We don’t need uniformity of thought, but unity of faithfulness to God and his purposes, and that can only come from individuals who have truly experienced faith in their own lives.

Deconstruction is not something to be afraid of. It’s something to encourage and embrace. When we become scared to question our faith, we forget that the people who taught us had to go through this process themselves. They had to make their faith their own, and so do each of us. This process of questioning one’s faith, taking it apart, and finding what is true should be a part of every Christian’s journey into spiritual maturity, and it’s our job as the church to make room for it.

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By the time I got to seminary, my faith had been thoroughly deconstructed, which actually put me ahead of the curve. A big portion of my graduate education was made up of teasing apart each and every aspect of my theology and asking, “Why do I believe this?” But seminary also taught me something important: You can’t simply go through the process of deconstruction and leave it there. Before I graduated, I had to go through a rebuilding process, putting my faith back together piece-by-piece and forming something that was true for me. When I left school, I came away not only with an education, but with a faith of my own that I am now able to take with me into my ministry.

Deconstruction is valuable in and of itself, but it is not the end goal. After all, having no faith system isn’t much better than having one that doesn’t fit you. The purpose isn’t to create skeptics who question everything and never come to any conclusions. No, the whole point of deconstruction is to lead the way to something new: reconstruction.

Once one’s faith has been fully taken apart and questioned, a person is left with two things. The first is a set of basic building blocks, the aspects of one’s faith that have survived the deconstruction process. These are the things that you know that you know that you know, and no crisis, question, or alternative worldview could ever change that. These are important, as they form the foundation for one’s faith going forward.

The second thing deconstruction leaves behind is equally important: space. Now that all of the stuff that doesn’t fit has been cleared away, one has plenty of room to fill with things that are true. The basic building blocks of faith are essential, but we are called to move beyond those at some point. Reconstruction includes exploring different answers to theological questions, weighing their merits, and choosing the one that fits. Over time, this will lead to a genuine, cohesive faith system that’s true to you.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t still leave room for space. If the deconstruction/reconstruction process teaches us anything, it should be humility. There are a lot of smart, Christ-loving people who disagree on major theological issues, and that’s perfectly acceptable. As I said before, we’re dealing with mysterious, big-picture questions, so there’s always going to be an element of not knowing to it. But this process allows us to embrace the mystery rather than flee from it.

And that’s where we truly discover faith: in the place where what we know meets the mystery of the God we serve. That faith is authentic, it’s true, and it’s ours, but we can only attain it by going through the process of deconstruction and reconstruction. It’s hard, and it will take some serious time and effort, but once you’ve been through it, your faith will never be the same. I’ve been through a major deconstruction/reconstruction process in my own life, and I’m constantly practicing it in smaller ways, too. It’s been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope that you’ll choose to go through it as well and find it as meaningful as I have.

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If you’d like resources or someone to talk to about this topic, feel free to reach out to me anytime. It’s something I’m very passionate about it, and I’d love to chat with anyone who’s interested. I’m currently going through this process with my young adult Sunday school class and would be happy to share resources, swap ideas, and answer any questions you might have about my personal experience with deconstruction or my approach to teaching it. Thanks for reading!

Sequels

It happens all the time: A successful film hits theaters and takes the box office by storm. Everyone starts raving about it, and cries of, “You haven’t seen it yet?!” can be heard at water coolers everywhere. News comes out that the movie broke a few records and is set to make the studio a boatload of cash. And then someone inevitably makes the proclamation, “We’ve got to make a sequel to this!”

But the idea of a sequel comes with a big set of issues. How does one follow up something so successful? How can a creator make a film that measures up to the quality of an original idea with a concept that is in and of itself unoriginal? How can they remain true to the heart of the first film without repeating the same formula and thus becoming redundant? Therein lies the problem with sequels.

I’m not saying sequels can’t be successful, or that there’s no right way to do them. I’m simply saying that they’re hard and often underwhelming. Making a follow-up that is both groundbreaking and true to the original is a difficult thing to do.

I can sort of relate to that predicament right now in my own creative endeavors. You see, 2017 was a great year for the blog. Last year, I started writing on a regular basis again and put out articles on some topics that I’d been considering for a long, long time. Looking back on some of my favorite posts over that time, I started to wonder, “How am I ever going to follow this up in 2018?”

And really, that’s the situation I find myself in with my life as a whole. I’m sensitive to the fact that 2017 was difficult for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but for me personally, it was sort of a banner year. I worked my first year in full-time ministry, at my dream job no less. I graduated from seminary. I worked through some personal obstacles and discovered the joys of living without anxiety. And I finished out the year spending time with the greatest friends, family, and girlfriend I could ever ask for. How could anything that comes after be any better than that?

When we find ourselves asking these questions, whether it be about a creative project or something in our personal lives, it can feel debilitating. It seems like there’s no way to do better than before, so why even try? One of my biggest fears—and I think one of the most fundamental fears of human existence—is peaking. What if we’ve already reached our highest point, and it’s all just downhill from here? It can be enough to make one want to give up altogether.

Or if it doesn’t make you want to give up, it might force you to cling to the past. Isn’t that why we often hate sequel films? They can get so focused on recreating the original that they end up telling the exact same story. That’s a natural temptation in life, too. If something worked before, we may as well try it again and hope that it turns out as well as it did in the past. But the thing is that doing the same thing over and over eventually gets old. You wouldn’t want to read blog posts about the same topics over and over, would you? I certainly wouldn’t.

Alternatively, one might be tempted to go in the opposite direction, throw out the whole thing, and start new. Forget the original and come up with a new idea that happens to share some of the same names and places. Completely change everything in response to a new situation. But is that really a sequel? That’s really more of a new thing in and of itself. And while starting over is sometimes necessary, it’s usually a lot more meaningful (and a lot easier!) to start with what you’ve got and work from there.

So there must be another way. A way to make a sequel that doesn’t break from the original but doesn’t just repeat the same formula either. And I think this is the key: maintaining what’s central to the thing while recognizing that aspects of it will have to change in response to new circumstances. That’s why series like Star Wars and Toy Story have been able to last for so long (and will continue to do so). They have a core identity that never changes, but they also adapt to new cultural circumstances and shifts in their audience in order to stay relevant while maintaining the heart of the original.

And that’s what we’re called to do in life, too. We can’t keep doing the same thing. Life is a series of events and follow-ups to those events. If we want to follow them up well, we have to consider the good stuff, find what’s central to it, and hold on to that while letting go of the parts that need to change as time goes on. This is what makes a great sequel in film, in writing, and in life.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do with the blog this year. There are certain elements that are core to what I do here: Compassion. Faith. My personal experiences. But there are lots of pieces, like the topics themselves, that will change in response to contemporary circumstances. I have an endless source of topic ideas because the world around me is always changing. One thing that won’t change, though, is me sharing my honest, deep reflections on current issues in light of everything I’ve learned and seen. That’s what this blog is ultimately about, and that’s what I’m doubling down on as I try to follow up a great year of writing with another one.

And that’s what I’m doing in my life, too. There are core things about me and my approach to life that won’t change. But the circumstances are inevitably going to change, and I’m ready for it. By staying true to what’s central to my identity while letting go of the thoughts and habits that were only necessary for a time, I think I can make this year a fitting sequel to the last. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it might even be better.

This process looks slightly different for everyone, but I’d encourage you to do the same. Whether last year was a big hit for you or more of a disappointment, you can follow it up with one that surpasses what came before it. By practicing stability in who we are while adjusting the nonessentials to fit whatever we’re facing right now, we can each create a sequel worth living. And that’s my hope for each and every one of us this year.

Beginnings

And here we are! It’s 2018. Every year, we get an opportunity to start fresh. This new year is a blank slate, and we each have the ability to make of it what we will. Whether your goals are vocational, educational, relational, or otherwise, you’ve got an entire year ahead of you to accomplish them in the ways that you see fit. No matter what life situation we might be in, we each find ourselves at a beginning point right now as we begin 2018.

Along with the new year, I’ve had a recent fresh start in my personal life: a new relationship. A few weeks ago, I asked my friend Katherine if she’d like to be my girlfriend, and a funny thing happened. She said yes!

Needless to say, I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings as of late. As I take on the new year, a new romantic endeavor, and maybe even a new creative project or two, I want to make sure that I’m clear on what these beginnings are and how I can best handle them. And of course, I thought I’d share my reflections with you, because it wouldn’t be a real thought experiment if I didn’t blog about it, right? Here’s where I’m at when it comes to new beginnings.

The most salient characteristic of beginnings—and the one easiest for us to relate to—is that they are exciting. They’re full of unlimited potential and nothing to hold us back from fulfilling that potential. They can be whatever we want them to be. Looking out over a blank calendar, we get the sense that it can be filled with anything at all, and that can leave us feeling excited and motivated to make the most of these opportunities.

But that excitement isn’t without its hangups. You see, excitement is nice. It’s fun. It’s exhilarating, even. And it has the ability to lead to some amazing things, but only under the right circumstances. And that’s why new beginnings require a great deal of discernment.

To me at least, discernment is the process of taking an endless list of possibilities and narrowing it down to the set of steps that fits you as an individual. When I was preparing for ministry, I had to look at all of the possible areas that I could minister in and narrow it down to the one or two that I really felt God leading me to work in. That was a long, sometimes difficult, process of discernment, but we each have to practice this sort of discernment when we start something new.

Because as exciting as new beginnings can be, they can also be daunting. A blank slate means endless possibilities, but how are we to choose just a few? How do we know which potential path is the one that will lead us to where we want to be? How do we begin? If we don’t take the time to answer these questions, we end up like a child in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, basking in the plethora of possibilities but never able to commit to any one of them. And before long, we find that the opportunity to take advantage of the beginning is over. Suddenly, it’s March, and we haven’t even taken that first step yet.

And so we must be intentional whenever we come to a new beginning. Last week, we talked about endings, and one of the biggest takeaways was that endings give us an opportunity to learn so that we can do better next time. And beginnings are when we have a chance to put that learning into practice.

Trying to be healthier this year? What did you try last time that worked well (or not), and what do you need to change to make this attempt more successful? Want to start a relationship off on the right foot? What are your intentions for it, and what do you want it to be centered around? How are you ensuring that you’re in the mental and emotional place you need to be to set yourself up for success? These are the sorts of questions that tend to get rushed over when we’re excited about new beginnings. But they have the power to give us the gifts of intentionality and discernment (and all of the benefits that come along with them) if we’ll only take the time to ask them.

Please don’t get me wrong: I’m all about excitement. Believe me, I’m excited about my new beginnings, too. But I’ve started and failed at too many things to keep doing it the same way over and over. And I car way too much about these new beginnings not to give them the attention and preparation they deserve. As you’re thinking about what you want to accomplish this year, I hope that you’ll do the same. These new beginnings are opportunities to make lasting change, and we can each do it if we approach them with discernment, intentionality, and, yes, a healthy dose of excitement.

Thanks for reading, friends. Happy new year, and I’ll see you next week!

Endings

It’s the last week of 2017, which means another year is about to go into the books. It seems like just a few days ago that we were celebrating the new year and anticipating all of the great things that 2017 would bring us. Now, all of those expectations, accomplishments, and maybe even disappointments are in the past as we say goodbye to this year. It certainly feels like an ending to me.

I’ve recently experienced an ending in my own life: the shuttering of a writing project I’d been working on all year. It was a great experience, but it was time to say goodbye, and so I did in an intentional, conclusive way. I’ve never ended a project so officially before, so it was a kind of ending I’d never experienced.

Due to the time of year and season of life I find myself in, I’ve been thinking lately about endings in general: what they are, what they mean, and how to handle them. I won’t pretend to have all of the answers, but I have been spent some time on it, so I thought I might share my reflections on endings during this time when I’m experiencing a few of my own.

An ending initially involves losing something. Whether it be a period of time, a creative endeavor, a relationship, or anything else, when something ends, it’s gone. That’s what an ending is: the event of something coming to a close. And that loss usually involves at least some amount of sadness. Even if you’re glad to be ending something, it still involves a loss of some kind. And that loss can leave you feeling vulnerable or even incomplete. You’ve gotten used to having something in your life, and suddenly, it’s gone. That can be disconcerting, even if it’s an ending that you’ve been looking forward to.

Endings also include an element of change. When something goes away, everything left behind cannot stay the same. There has to be some reshaping, some compensating, or some supplementing to fill in the space where the ended thing once was. Or there can be a giant hole, I suppose, but that in itself is also a pretty significant change. Either way, your life is different after an ending than it was before. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of change. Even good changes can cause anxiety for those of us who prefer the status quo, but endings force us to face change in one way or another.

But that’s not all. Because endings give us an opportunity for learning. I’ve found that I do some of my best reflection when I’m coming to the end of something big. (Thus, this blog post.) An ending is a time to look back on your experiences, synthesize what you’ve learned, and integrate it into your mindset going forward. Whether an ending is positive or negative, there is always something to be learned from it, and in that way, any ending can have a positive impact on one’s life.

Similarly, an ending can be a time of growth. I believe that we are each called to be constantly developing in response to the things we experience in our lives, and I’ve found that these endings are great times to practice that. When we’re learning and experiencing change, we can allow those things to shape who we are, how we think, and what we do in the future. In doing so, we give value to these endings, regardless of how we feel about them. If we allow these endings to spur growth in the right direction, we can redeem even the most bitter of endings and come out the other side of them changed for the better.

And ultimately, endings make room for new beginnings. I’ll get more into that next week, but here’s the gist: Endings happen for a reason. Whether it’s to learn a lesson, free up time, or create space in your life for something you really need, an ending is always meant to give way to something new. But in order to prepare for and fully take advantage of that opportunity, one must first go through the loss, change, learning, and growth that endings bring. Once you’ve successfully navigated your ending, you’re ready for a new beginning. More on that next week.

"Happy Holidays" Isn't an Insult

It’s that time of year again. The stores are decked out with trees and ornaments. Neighborhoods are covered in endless strings of lights. Everyone’s freaking out trying to get their last-minute gift shopping done. Soon, we’ll be traveling here and there to celebrate with our families. It’s all quite exciting. But in the midst of it all looms a linguistic battle that is so petty and so ridiculous that it actually sucks the joy out of the season for many.

I’m referring, of course, to the needless, endless tirade against the phrase, “Happy holidays.” For years, certain Christian groups have been on an all-out attack against the phrase claiming that the only appropriate holiday-themed greeting this time of year is, “Merry Christmas.” To them, any other language is demeaning to Christ and the fact that Christmas is a holiday celebrating his birth. They see the phenomenon of non-Christian holiday greetings as a threat to their celebration of Jesus.

But it’s not. It’s really, really not. And this week, I’m here to tell you why. If you’re reading this article and you already agree with me, maybe this will be a little encouragement for you to keep up the good fight. If you’re reading this article and you’re already offended, maybe this will be an opportunity to re-think your approach to others this year. Either way, I hope you’ll read on. Here’s my spiel on why, “Happy holidays,” isn’t a problem.

It’s simply a matter of fact that there are multiple holidays celebrated this time of year. Generally, the “holidays” are thought to extend from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day (both of which, by the way, are secular holidays) and to include Christmas. But this time of year also covers other holidays, including religious festivals like Hanukkah (older than Christmas) and cultural celebrations like Kwanzaa. In fact, this time of year has been considered a time of celebration for all of human history, probably because of the astronomical wonder of the winter solstice.

Christmas itself is a by-product of this special time of year and not the source, which sort of undermines the whole, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” argument. While it’s true that the holiday is a celebration of Jesus’ birth, we don’t actually know the date of the original event itself. And so, early church leaders had to choose a date to commemorate Christ’s birth. They picked December 25 because it was the day of the pagan festival Saturnalia, giving them a way to turn a holiday people were already familiar with into a sacred day. So really, Christmas was the original usurper of the season, not any other holiday. Even if other people are trying to steal Christmas from Christians (which they are not), isn’t it a little hypocritical to be upset about it? Just a thought.

But here’s the thing: There’s no reason we as a society cannot recognize and celebrate multiple holidays during this time of year. We live in a secular, pluralistic country, and that is not a bad thing. Diversity is something we should recognize and celebrate, not resist. How boring would it be if we all celebrated this time of year the exact same way? Isn’t what makes it special the fact that each person and family finds their own unique way to commemorate the season?

I think that the reason Christians tend to get so uptight about this issue is that we have enjoyed a monopoly on power throughout our nation’s history. From day one, Christians have been in charge. So even though officially the United State is a secular country, many of the policies and even the calendar of national holidays have a Christian bend to them. This is called hegemony, when one worldview dominates and suppresses all others, and the Christian hegemony in the U.S. is dying. Other religious and cultural groups are stepping up, pointing out the hypocrisy of our way of doing things, and demanding to be recognized. But this is a good thing. Suppressing others because they disagree with us is not only wrong; it’s distinctly un-Christian. And it needs to stop.

It’s not a culture war; it’s a recognition of diversity. It’s not an attack on Christmas; it’s a celebration of other holidays, too. Because Christian opinions aren’t the only ones that matter, and Christian holidays aren’t the only ones that matter, either. We can celebrate Christ’s birth without getting offended by those who choose to celebrate something else during this time of year. We can honor the spirit of Christmas and recognize that other holidays are going on as well.

So this year, instead of assuming the worst when someone tells us, “Happy holidays,” how about we respond with love instead? Here’s a radical idea: If someone wishes you well, maybe you should do the same back to them. Isn’t that what this season is really all about? Spreading joy and peace? As people of faith, it’s up to us to lead and to set an example for how this time of year should be celebrated. Because if we’re acting like a bunch of humbugs, how can we expect others to do any differently?