Most of the faithful spend the majority, if not all, of their lives in stage three. Typically, believers in stage three find comfort in conformity with their community - the specific beliefs, practices, do’s and don’ts all contribute to a shared sense of security. Think of stage three faith as The Institution - that is to say, it corresponds to the capital “C” Church. These range from a primal or undifferentiated faith all the way to a universalized or enlightened faith.įor our purposes, let’s just look at stages three and four. This is precisely what James Fowler argued in his Stages of Faith, proposing that there are six stages to a person’s faith development. Is it, though? What if deconstruction indicates a developing, not a deteriorating, faith? Mapping deconstruction onto Luke 16 suggests that deconstruction is a function of bad character, of an overly-indulged flesh - or, as Butler put it, of our innate “desire for autonomy from God.” It’s a pretty sweet setup if you wanted to, say, delegitimize criticism and avoid accountability. At least that’s what Butler and the evangelical church would have us believe.īecause if those deconstructing are the Prodigal Son, then that would make the church the Forgiving Father.
If Butler’s characterization is to be believed, then people who go the path of deconstruction are lazy, offended, arrogant rebels who just want permission to go their own (sinful) way. It casts the questioner as the hero grappling authentically with a God too distant to trust or too difficult to believe.” “Deconstruction here is usually presented as an anguishing process of honest wrestling (‘I just don’t understand why God won’t show up and answer me’). Others deconstruct while harboring an addiction (drugs, alcohol, porn), to release their guilt.”Īnd there’s this one, which just sounds like something one of Job’s friends could have written:
“I minister in a college town (go ASU Sun Devils) where students regularly deconstruct when they’ve started sleeping with their girlfriend or boyfriend. “If Butler’s characterization is to be believed, then people who go the path of deconstruction are lazy, offended, arrogant rebels who just want permission to go their own (sinful) way.” Those same books will be useless if, beneath the surface, he really just wants to justify his sin.”ĭeconstruction “allows you to save face, to look virtuous in your departure from God (‘He’s the problem, not me’), while distracting you from squarely facing your true motivations.” “It’s a bummer if someone’s dealing with church hurt and you hand him a stack of apologetics books to read.
Not that you’d know that reading Butler’s article.Ī pastor at Redemption Church in Tempe, Ariz., Butler stops just short of advocating for outright contempt for those in deconstruction, an attitude especially evident in the following excerpts (emphasis mine): It’s a process that requires tenderness and trust. Because, above all, deconstruction is a loss - of certainty, of community, of comfort. For everyone, it comes with grief and pain. Usually triggered by painful religious trauma, deconstruction engulfs a person, forcing them to confront all the ways in which the current form of their faith has failed or hurt them.įor some, this vivisection results in a reimagining of their faith. Unfamiliar with deconstruction? The name implies a certain tidiness and agency, as if a person just wakes up one day and decides to simply pick apart their faith in order to rearrange it all into an easier, more comfortable configuration.