Disenchantment, Deconstruction, and Disentanglement (2/3)

I think there are a lot of followers of Jesus in America who feel a little homeless. Of course, I can only see the world from my address in Ohio, so I understand my view is as limited as it is personal. Nonetheless, I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks in recent days around this topic. They are lay persons, pastors, seminary graduates, and university professors. Lewis’s category of disenchantment is appropriate to describe a common theme among them all.

There are some who have taken the option to tap out of Christianity altogether. The label most use for this these days is deconstruction. Before anyone raises the eyebrow and points the judgmental finger, stop long enough to consider their perspective. I’m not going to list all the most recent evangelical scandals, mainly because I don’t need to. One need not possess a PhD in rocket science to see why people would check out. The church in American can be a hot mess.

Deconstruction ins’t all bad. If you want to renovate your house, you’ll probably do some deconstruction first. You have to move out the old to make space for the new. For some, the new means something other than Christianity. But it doesn’t have to. I found an interesting website with three stories of deconstruction here, for those who wonder what this process might look like. It would be worth your time to read, especially if you’ve never listened to someone’s story who has walked away from belief.

While my goal in these first two posts was more to empathize with those who now find faith nigh impossible, I hope to explore another option in the final post. What if there are good, true, and beautiful things that should not only be kept and cherished, but protected and rooted out from among false ideas and attitudes? Could disentanglement be a better path than deconstruction? That’s probably for each person to decide on their own, but I’ll weigh in with some thoughts in the next post.