Deconstruction is sooo 2022!

Noisy Deconstruction

Evangelical deconstructionism is soooooo 2022!

What was once the noisy talking point of Christianity among many evangelicals now seems to have gone fairly quiet.

And it was noisy, wasn it? For a while at least. For a while back there it seemed that this thing was not going to bottom out any time soon,  as big names left the church, always with a scolding for the church on the way out, as well as a nod and a wink to the secular culture.

The Instagram, social media version of Christian deconstruction was well known. “A” list and “B” Christian leaders and entertainers would announce they had “shifted their thinking” on central Christian tenets (usually around sexuality, though not exclusively) and were no longer self-identifying as evangelicals. Or even as Christian.

We’d open up our favourite online Christian news journal in the morning or see a post from someone and we’d be like “Not another one!” We’d be slightly shocked – even though we should not have been given Jesus’ parable about the soils – when the pressured perseverance required to be a follower of Jesus was less attractive than the public popularity for not being one.

And much of it was about public popularity. Surely not all. But a good deal of it. Especially in the arts industry, in which cancellations abounded, and any sniff that you may be aligned with those bigots would see you cut from the roster or the program. And once again, there’s biblical precedent for that, because our tendency is to love the sugar rush of the praise of other humans now, rather than the protein fill of God’s praise in due time (well done, good and faithful servant, and all that.).

And the message on the way out from those deconstructing was often the same: Get on board church people!  There’s no future in this unloving, reactionary, non-affirming version of the faith that is unattractive to the modern culture. If we could only get the church to change some of its teaching, the secular society would see that the church has something worth saying. The church might have a chance of survival if you just ditch those supposed non-negotiables!

Nek minnit?! The aforementioned “A” or “B” lister is posting socials with their same sex partner or new hetero lover, and talking about how “free” they now feel.

Sure, some ended up in more liberal (aka heterodox churches committed to false teaching) expressions of the faith, but like with many evangelicals giving up on the faith, a leap to complete faithlessness in often too confronting. Deconstruction by its very nature is a process of dismantling. It’s a bit like getting tattoos – hard to stop once you’ve started (trust me on that one!).

Dangerous Deconstruction

Of course there are all sorts of psycho-social reasons – and relational reasons – for such deconstruction. But the letter to the Hebrews is pretty clear about what is at the centre of this: it’s a rejection and recrucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Don’t believe me? Then have a read of Hebrews 6:5-7:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,  and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Did you catch that? Crucifying Jesus again? What could that possibly mean? Well, in the context, the Jewish Christians to whom this letter is being written, are considering deconstructing their new-found faith because of the cultural and social pressure they were facing for identifying with Jesus.

And their rejection of Jesus, and their desire to return to the safety of a socially acceptable, and politically recognised, Judaism, seemed on the surface like not too big a deal. We still get God, right?  But the writer says no!

The writer of Hebrews is clear: “You know that when you leave Jesus you don’t do so as a neutral? You know that when you leave Jesus you are saying to the world, actually the powers of this age were right in crucifying Jesus, he’s not the King, he’s not the Messiah, he’s not the Saviour. Your turning away from him may not actually say that, but that’s what it means in not so many words. And that’s how God views your treatment of his Son.”

Deconstruction is dangerous!

Quiet Revival 2025

But as I said at the start, deconstruction is also so 2022!  For what is the overall tone in 2025? While it’s not by any means a flood returning to the faith, or people pouring in the doors for the first time such that church leaders cannot cope, there’s a definite reversal of the trend away from faith, for sure. And it’s not simply among the newly converted “A” listers who we read about, and whose socials we follow. It’s just as likely the “Quiet Revival” that the UK Bible Society reports about.You know, the types that never get invited to the cool parties. The types Jesus seeks and saves.

Read and listen to the likes of Justin Brierley and his podcast and book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. Tune in to Glen Scrivener. Ask yourself why the likes of gay Jewish liberal journalist Bari Weiss keeps exploring the faith question on her podcast Honestly.

Of course, as I said, none of this means that our churches are packed. They are not. But it does seem like the next census in Australia – 2026 – might see a reversal of the precipitous decline of those identifying as religious. In the past two censuses (censei?) a further 900,000 people ticked no religion each census! The humanists were pretty confident that trend would continue. But maybe it won’t.

What I was hearing anecdotally, was of young people in particular turning up at Christian unions on campus, or coming cold to churches, in order to find out what this whole Christian thing was about. Young people with zero – and I mean zero – understanding about the faith. No Bible knowledge. Not a smidgeon. No cultural Christian baggage. Nix, nada, nothing.

Young men and young women were discovering the Christian faith for the first time. Curious not angry. Worn out and worried by a secular culture that offered them so much but delivered them so little. And now the data is backing up the anecdotes.

Orthodox Faith

And it turns out those coming in the doors are not by and large rocking up to churches that have deconstructed the faith and drunk the Kool Aid of the Sexular Age.  It’s as if they can sniff out the sulphur permeating those expressions of church. Maybe not at first, but eventually.

Sure some might find their way there, but it would seem that those who have tried everything – and everyone – in their search for meaning and purpose in life, are not going to settle for the secularised, anti-transcendent, scornful-of-miracles/resurrections kinds of churches that have been on life support the past couple of decades.Those involved in the quiet revival do not want a church that looks like a tame-ish version of what they just left behind.

And a good thing too! In fact I think it behoves us to warn such seekers away from such churches. Those churches and their leaders hollowed out the faith of many a Christian. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing and should be counted as such, and called out as such. Orthodox Christian leaders should lose no sleep at night feeling disenfranchised for calling out such churches. We’re not in a popularity contest here.

By God’s grace many seekers are finding their way to orthodox faith (as well as Orthodox faith, but that’s another blog post). And that’s to be expected. Be encouraged as churches and church leaders that if God is calling someone to Himself, His Holy Spirit will give them the discernment to know the truth when they year it. And lies when they year it.

I remember speaking to a “newbie” who was around forty years of age, and she said that the burden she felt in life – a burden that defied her position, her happy family, her education, wealth and status – was completely unlifted by the heterodox church she found herself in.  “Nope!” she said, before shifting her attention to a local Jesus-focussed, Bible teaching evangelical church, where she promptly got saved. Result? In her words “I felt like a burden was lifted from me!”

Of course the return to faith isn’t merely a return to Christianity. As I have said in the past, there is a veritable tsunami of crazy spiritualities making its way onto the Western secular shore. A shore once stripped of the detritus of Christianity by the retreating sea of faith is open to something – anything – that can offer a hint of transcendence in this immanently framed age.

And none of this is to say that deconstruction of the faith is not continuing in 2025. It surely is. But one thing is for certain, it’s no longer the story in 2025. The story in 2025 is of those with zero faith at all in the past, who are now constructing it, slowly, but surely.  Not a surge, but a trickle. Or as we might say, a cloud the size of a man’s fist that could lead to a downpour.

And that’s a good thing.

Ships That Pass In the Night

A Christian psychologist who sees both Christian and non-Christian clients told me of a trend that she saw in which Christians, bored with their lives and marriages, were asking the questions like “What would happen if I left Jesus?” or “What would an open marriage be like?”

Meanwhile a whole bunch of her non-Christian clients were lamenting –  after living godless lives and being hollowed out by multiple relationships -, “I wonder if there is more to life than this?” She said the two groups were like ships passing in the night.

The 2022 deconstruction and the 2025 revival are like ships passing in the night. Headed in different directions, and different destinations. Ships passing in the night do indeed reach very different destinations. One will reach the safety of harbour, and the other will make shipwreck of themselves on the rocks.  And there’s precedent for that in Scripture too (Tim 1:18-20):

This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Deconstruction is a betrayal of faith, a smothering of conscience, and a blasphemy in the face of Jesus. We need to hear that charge with all of the sobriety in which Paul delivered it. If you are thinking of deconstructing your faith for some bauble or trinket on offer in this age, then heed that warning.

So as I finish, here’s what I am sobered by – the last day destination of both groups.  As in capital “T”, capital “L”, capital “D” last day. Imagine those joining the quiet revival, who have had their fill of the secular age, casting a sorrowful glance over at those who, for a bowl of stew, were happy in this age to give up their birthright.

They would surely look at them aghast and exclaim “You gave up joy forevermore for something that over a good portion of our lifetime we found completely empty and unsatisfactory? Why on earth would you do that?”

My prayer is that even as many find faith for the first time, wending their way from Vanity Fair to the Celestial City, scarcely believing such good news and such hope ever existed, that it will make those who have deconstructed, jealous enough to return to the safety of the harbour.

Next post: Strategies for how your church can prepare itself for the quiet revival.