The Benefit of Doubt: How Confronting Your Deepest Questions Can Lead to a Richer FaithSample

What Is Faith Deconstruction?

You don’t have to scroll for long on social media, YouTube, or through the news to hear about young people leaving the church and “deconstructing their faith.”

I’ve found that deconstruction is when a Christian examines their faith to let go of what is untrue and hold on to what istrue. It’s going on a spiritual journey to release what’s contrary to God’s heart and embrace what’s true to His heart.

Typically, deconstruction happens in three stages of spiritual maturity. When done right, these three stages can lead to a stronger faith.

Stage One: Construction

Your faith was constructed.Building your faith is like building a house. You take the “materials” from everything you learn through the Bible, sermons, conversations with friends, and your spiritual experiences—and build your understanding of God and the Christian life.

But there are cracks in your construction you can’t see yet. Why? Because what you were taught wasn’t perfect, conversations with friends may have led you to believe some lies, and you might have developed a simplistic understanding that couldn’t handle the pressures of life.

Stage Two: Deconstruction

So what if you discover your house has some issues? Some wood is rotten, or there’s a crack in the foundation. What do you do now? When that house is your faith, you deconstruct.

We may assume our beliefs all come from the Bible, but that’s probably not as true as we think. Too often we subconsciously absorb our beliefs from other people, our church, or our culture and then assume they’re from the Bible.

Then one day we wake up and realize several things we deeply believe may not actually be biblical. Or, worse, we don’t realize that it’s not biblical, but we do realize that it’s not true. And now what do we do? Do we walk away from Jesus?

No. We deconstruct, letting go of what’s not true. Then we reconstruct. Holding on to what is true.

Stage Three:Reconstruction

Years ago, we discovered that two side-by-side rooms in my house were infested with a dangerous, toxic mold. Did we nuke the house? No.

If the whole house was dangerous, we may have. But it wasn’t the whole house; it was only two rooms, so we deconstructed those two rooms. We got rid of what was toxic, rebuilding it with something better.

When you realize that parts of your faith aren’t true—aren’t personal or credible or beautiful—you don’t discard your faith. You discard the parts that aren’t true. And you do some rebuilding.

So how do we rebuild our faith? We look at Jesus, which allows us to develop an accurate picture of God.

When you look at the life of Jesus, you realize He was amazing in His character, His love, His compassion. The way He cared for those who were hurting and cried with His friends. The way He treated people with grace and tenderness. The way He saw the best in the worst of sinners and reached out to the lonely, the lost, and the least of these. If God is like that, I can trust Him, no matter what’s going on in my life.

And God is exactly like that.

It may be scary to go through a thoughtful deconstruction, but it’s worth it. You will grow as a result of change, but change isn’t always comfortable.

Don’t give up. Don’t settle for deconstruction only. Keep moving forward, knowing that new life is coming on the other side as you reconstruct.