The Deconstruction of Christianity - A book Review
A review of Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett's book
Deconstruction is something that has been quite the buzz word and boogeyman in evangelical circles over the last few years. And interestingly enough, many “bible believing” Christians appear to be scared of it.. I have many friends who either have or are deconstructing Christianity. In desperation it seems, the families of these friends grabbed a book titled The Deconstruction of Christianity by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett, presumably to better understand the deconstruction movement and to correct their erring children. These families then recommended the book to my deconstructing friends and eventually it made its way to me… which brings us to this book review.
To start with, this book makes it very clear where it stands on the issue of deconstruction (it’s right there on the front cover after all)
The Deconstruction of Christianity
What it is, why it’s destructive, and how to respond
What is Deconstruction? (according to the authors)
The book starts with some definitions in the Forward written by Carl R. Trueman. Quote below (bold mine)
Every generation has its high-profile apostates. What is new is the cool postmodern terminology that has emerged in the English-speaking West for doing so: that of "deconstructing the faith."
Here we have the first glimpse of a common theme in the book. Trueman is essentially defining anyone that is deconstructing as an apostate. Someone that is leaving the faith.
Barnett makes it very clear in the quote below (bold mine) that he believes deconstruction isn’t something that you do and stay within “historic Christianity”. And almost more interestingly, progressive Christianity apparently isn’t “historic Christianity”. Not only are the authors warning people to not deconstruct, but they also want you to stay within a very narrow brand of Christianity that they believe is “historic Christianity” - however - upon reading the book, their “historic Christianity” looks suspiciously similar to White American Christianity.
deconstruction is a transition away from historic Christianity and toward something else. For example, some who deconstruct their faith end up in so-called progressive Christianity,
Deconstruction is as old as humanity itself. It began with Satan—the father of faith deconstruction-and continues today.
With statements like this, and a whole section of the book detailing how deconstructionists don’t believe in truth (apparently we only want some subjective feel-good truth) (quote below), it is no surprise that the authors believe deconstruction is a bad thing.
The deconstruction movement isn't about submitting to the truth. Instead, it's about people choosing their own truth.
and…
Deconstruction is a flawed process. It assigns religious belief to the upper story, treating truth as a matter of personal preference, and makes the individual the ultimate
If I were to summarize what deconstruction means to the authors it would be the following:
Deconstruction is a process where people start by asking questions about historic Christianity with the intent to run away from absolute truth. They do this so they can feel good about themselves, create their own “truth”, live in sin, and ultimately so that they can live their lives however they want. It’s good to ask questions, but it needs to be done with a good heart and should land you squarely back into the answer provided by historic Christianity (as believed by the authors)
These authors are amazingly bold in their assertions. So bold it feels like they are using it as a cover for how badly they are misrepresenting the deconstruction movement. I truly hope that this misrepresentation is accidental (although that wouldn’t mitigate the terrible impact of the book). However, with how much they claim to have researched, it seems like they are intentionally misrepresenting the movement.
My experience with deconstruction
In the deconstruction stories I’ve read and the people I know or watched online that are, or have, deconstructed Christianity, very few of them are actually falling away from Christianity. Most are actually desperately searching for Jesus and the truth. Granted, they typically are leaving fundamentalist Christianity. Often leaving white Christianity. But they aren’t often leaving Christianity in general.
So when the authors make their own definition of deconstruction, it seems very disingenuous. The definition they give below is one that practically none of the people who I’ve known or seen deconstruct would agree with. And when debating a topic, it's always best to use definitions that both parties would agree on
Remember, we defined deconstruction as a process of rethinking your faith without requiring Scripture as a standard. By contrast, reformation is the process of correcting mistaken beliefs to make them align with scripture
Because of this misrepresentation, the book overall is essentially a giant strawman argument. A 200+ page description of how Don Quixote is charging giants only to find out eventually that the apostate deconstructionists aren’t giants at all…. That the giants are windmills… And the windmills are actually Christians in search of Jesus.
What makes this more disappointing isn’t the book itself (which is plenty disappointing), it’s how much praise this book gets from white evangelical Christians and how much they use it to attack (all in the name of Christian love) their deconstructing family members (who are often, ironically, Christians).
Clueless perspectives
Some pieces of the book show how clueless the authors are about the topics they are covering. For instance, in the following quote the author is addressing how some deconstructionists reject Christianity because they were taught that all women must submit to all men in general. The author’s answer to this is….
It simply isn't true that Christianity teaches that women have to submit to all men. In fact, nowhere in the Bible is this taught. The Bible teaches that wives should submit to their husbands, but it doesn't require every woman to submit to every man.
I agree with what the author states.. However, that completely misses the point that very large portions of American conservative Christians teach this. These Christians believe this to be true. I’ve seen grown, competent women defer decisions to teenage boys for this very reason. It’s a toxic Christian teaching. And one can argue that it isn’t a part of “true christianity”, but that’s exactly what many deconstructionists are trying to do. They are trying to untangle this syncretistic shit from Christianity. They (we) are trying to determine what pieces of the fallen world and culture have been pulled into Christianity that need to be “deconstructed”.
But people like the authors want to stand on their doctrinal certainty and state:
They're not merely renouncing bad beliefs and behaviors; they're rejecting sound doctrine.
That is not my experience whatsoever! And not the experience of many many deconstructing friends that I’ve known or seen.
Certainty of the white church
In an article titled The People Who Don't Have Any Questions, historian Jemar Tisby outlines how the white church is so certain that as a whole, it doesn’t have any questions. Tisby asks:
How can a group of people be so certain about topics that are so complicated? How can they say with so much certainty, "The Bible says..." when so often their interpretations have led to injustice and oppression?
You can’t do theology without asking questions. It’s essential. Even for things you are “certain” about need to be examined regarding how they apply to new situations and circumstances.
So when I hear the authors of this book say:
Questions about salvation, sexuality, gender, and abortion all have answers that aren't theologically complicated.
I find it really odd. The answers to these questions are not so cut-and-dry as the authors claim. That’s why Christians debate them. But the authors of this book want to keep their heads in the sand and believe everything is simple. I get it.. It feels safer when everything is simple and fits exactly what you have grown up believing. It takes guts to seriously re-examine your beliefs and consider other Christian (and non-Christian) understandings of the bible (among other things).
The authors are the type of Christians that warn against letting the culture infiltrate the church in order to maintain doctrinal purity (thereby admitting it’s possible for the contamination to take place) and yet aren’t willing to examine the theology to determine which pieces of culture have infiltrated the church over the last couple thousand years. The “decolonize your theology” concept/movement is looking to do exactly this - to remove the American Colonizer influence from Christian Theology to better understand and follow Jesus. But the authors apparently don’t want this to happen. Hell… They don’t even consider progressive Christians to be real Christians. Obviously a very narrow definition of Christian - one narrow enough that I worry that Jesus himself may not fall within.
And speaking of cultural influences on the church, quotes like the following show how little the authors believe that American Christianity has been influenced by American Culture. The authors are sure that deconstructionists have to “assume” that things like white supremacy, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and Christian nationalism have impacted American Christianity. Surely the American church couldn’t be impacted by these. One has to just assume that they are real.
Here's how critical theory works in the deconstruction world. In the minds of many people today, Christianity (and evangelicalism in particular) is assumed to be shaped by oppressive ideologies like white supremacy, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and Christian Nationalism
What about the people leaving the faith
So far, mostly I’ve been pointing out how I believe the authors are misrepresenting the deconstructionist movement. That, in my experience, the movement is primarily filled with people that are searching for the truth about Jesus and the bible and happen to land in places other than the narrow strip of Christianity that the authors inhabit.
But one might ask, does the book accurately apply to those who are actually leaving the faith. Those who are becoming apostates? Maybe the author’s definitions are wrong, but are they right about this?
My answer to this query is a resounding, NO…
I don’t see this book helping anyone who is actually leaving Christianity. And I don’t think it would help a person who is trying to minister/help someone that is leaving Christianity. I say this for a couple reasons.
First, the book’s tone on this topic is that of conflict and war. Not ministering and healing. No one that is leaving Christianity out of pain or logic is going to be helped with a posture of warfare (be it war or spiritual war).
"IT IS TIME FOR US AND YOUR GENERATION to declare war on this idolatrous deconstruction Christian movement!" declared Skillet front man John Cooper
Jesus isn’t threatened by people asking questions and people aren’t saved by taking on the title of '“christian”. The authors of this book seem to see the spreading of Christianity fitting the analogy of “warfare” and less of the analogy of “a healing physician”. Are we Christians really called to go to war to spread Christianity (spiritual warfare or otherwise)? [Note: looking at Christian history, you could justify this approach - looking at the example of Jesus, you cannot] Or are we called to help to look after orphans and widows in their distress (James) and to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free (Luke)?
One of these sounds a lot like white American christianity that is essentially useless to everyone (especially those walking away from it). And the other sounds like Jesus.
Because of statements from the authors like the one below, I also believe they fall into a type of Gnosticism. I say this because it seems like they believe the biggest thing at stake with deconstruction is that someone may not gain eternal life.
However, if we engage in this process based on our own personal feelings, we run the risk of walking away from eternal life.
And although I’m not trying to trivialize that, there is a lot about Jesus’ mission (as mentioned previously in Luke and James) that has a lot to do with the here-and-now that the authors don’t seem very concerned with. If someone doesn’t deconstruct their white American Christianity, they may never actually follow Jesus on this earth and may never actually be “jesus” to those that need him here on earth - in the current reality.
More shitty things
The authors are pretty skilled at spiritual bypassing. Where they don’t want to examine the fruit of Christianity. They just want to blame all of the bad stuff on fallen people.
If everyone followed God's perfect ideal for how we are to interact with one another, there would be no abuse. It's fallen people, not Christianity, who are abusive.
Another example of the authors buy-in to toxic theologies is that they can’t see the issues with Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) and apparently feel the need to pass it off as Christian orthodoxy. Even when neither of the two oldest churches (Catholic and Greek Orthodox) in existence support this atonement theory - and even more to the point, have branded it as heretical. And even if one believes in the doctrine of hell in general (in the evangelical sense), there are certainly toxic ways to depict and teach it. And as it pertains to hell, the authors don’t even give a passing glance at Christian Universalist teaching - which I’m sure they wouldn’t consider as “Christian”.
There certainly are valid examples of abuse in the church, such as sexual assault and abuses of power. But many deconstructionists go further, saying that some historic orthodox teachings of Christianity such as penal substitutionary atonement (Jesus paying the penalty for our sins on the cross), the doctrine of hell, and complementarianism are abusive by nature.
The authors have no intention of evaluating a tree by its fruit (which is a very biblical concept). If the vast majority of fruit from complementarianism is rotten, it’s a good indicator that the tree (theology) is rotten as well - and should motivate someone to start examining the core theology. But this isn’t something the authors have any intention of evaluating, because apparently you are just supposed to decide what is true and nothing else matters.
We are well aware that some churches have made mistakes and even engaged in abusive behaviors in the way they have taught and implemented certain doctrines. But often, deconstructionists believe that it's the doctrines themselves that are the problem.
Two random things that irked me
Two things that really irked me about the book.
One, that they are convinced that their doctrines are taught so clearly in the bible that that they don’t need interpretation. This is seriously disingenuous. Everything is an interpretation that you read. And even more so when it’s an ancient text written in an archaic language that’s been translated multiple times. So, let’s be honest. Yes, there is truth in the bible (one might even say “objective truth”), but very little can be seen as being taken from the bible without an interpretation of what it really means (that’s why we have thousands of Christian denominations). The authors expound ad nauseum on how the bible contains objective truth. In a sense, I agree with them. However, where we sharply separate is on how closely we can get to that objective truth. When we interpret something as complex as the bible, we may never know (this side of death) how close we get to that objective truth. Fortunately, God is gracious, merciful, and restorative - so I’m not concerned about the fact we can’t guarantee 100% accuracy on doctrinal issues. As a side note: I totally get that when you believe in a retributive God, like the authors, this is a huge concern - which is likely why they pretend they don’t have to interpret anything.
Two, the authors don’t really seem to understand fundamentalism or conservative Christianity. I grew up in Christian circles where women didn’t talk in church unless their husbands or the pastor gave permission. If a woman went in front of the church to talk, she had to have her husband beside her while doing it. Penal Substitutionary Atonement wasn’t a theory - it was just fact, to the point where most of us didn’t know that other atonement theories existed till well into our adulthood. Many weren’t allowed to listen to “rock” music or in any way appear to be “worldly” (which honestly would have meant not listening to ZOEgirl, ironically). And boys and girls generally weren’t allowed to be friends - hell, we were barely allowed to talk to one another.
With that considered, the authors either don’t know about the breadth of Christianity out there and how much of it has absorbed toxic pieces of culture that need to be deconstructed. Or they are ignoring it for some reason.
In Summary
This book is generally worthless unless you want to use it to feel smug. If you want to feel good about yourself and how you haven’t fallen into the “trap” of deconstruction, this is a good book for you.
If you want to learn what people deconstructing are actually trying to do, you should read almost any other book. If you want to learn how to be a Christian helping the world, don’t look here.
If you are serious looking to expand your understanding of Christianity and believe there is even a small chance that there is some piece that needs to be examined and potentially excised (deconstructed), you should check out one of the following books
God of the Oppressed - James Cone
The Politics of Jesus - Obery Hendricks
Shalom and the Community of Creation - Randy Woodley
If God Still Breathes, Why Can't I? - Angela Parker
The Skeletons in God's Closet - Joshua Ryan Butler
Jesus and the Disinherited - Howard Thurman
Jesus and the Politics of Mammon - Hollis Phelps