I’ve been noticing a lot more evangelical leaders commenting on (or outright attacking) the “deconstruction movement” recently. This is a movement I feel connected to, so I wanted to offer some thoughts. (A thread)

First, some history:

In 1950, 60% of Americans were members of mainline Christian churches. Today? That number is closer to 10%. Where did those people go? Some left Christianity, but most moved to evangelical churches as they rose to prominence. It was a huge shift.

For the baby boomer generation, evangelical spaces likely offered a more relaxed, more expressive way to experience Christian life. I can imagine it was a really exciting, freeing change in perspective.

Boomers found that what worked for their parents was not working for them, so they did something new. This was considered radical, and maybe even heretical by the established churches. (This will be important later).

Many Christians raised in these evangelical spaces are now experiencing something similar... we’re finding that the evangelical perspective isn’t working for us. Sometimes this realization is gradual, sometimes it hits all at once.

The treatment of the Bible as infallible and unquestionable, the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, the perceived lack of will to address racial justice, the absolute bungling of the topic of sexuality, the adherence to doctrines of original sin and eternal conscious torment...

These topics and more are areas in which many of us found ourselves completely dissatisfied with the evangelical church’s position or approach. It just wasn’t working for us.

So we began to ask questions.

Big ones.

We found that these questions often weren’t welcomed. If they were permitted, it was always in the context of “as long as you end up believing the right things when you’re done this little ‘phase’ you’re in.”

ACTUAL searching was not encouraged.

But the ball was rolling now. We wanted to know more. To understand. So we started reading. Learning. And what we found didn’t always line up with the evangelical narrative.

We discovered that there is a lot of ambiguity in the Bible. Unknown authorship. Apparent drawing on other pre-biblical sources. Contradictions in gospel accounts. A seeming development of the Jesus story over time.

We learned that eternal conscious torment is supported almost nowhere in the Old Testament and shakily in New Testament. Annihilationism and Universalism are possibilities also. (Some early church fathers were universalists).

We learned that the verses condemning homosexuality are only in 6 places, and most of them are talking about sexual assault. None of them are talking about the loving consensual homosexual relationships we have in our culture today.

We learned that masturbation is normal and healthy. That sexual desire is a biological and psychological urge we shouldn’t feel guilty for. We learned that our bodies are beautiful and our own. We learned not to be ashamed of them.

We stopped thinking of ourselves as inherently bad, dirty, and broken. We began to see that we are one part in a beautiful, diverse, fabric of humanity. Where we once felt shame for simply BEING, we now felt the joy of BEING.

Now, evangelical friends, you may rush to say that “you can know all these things and still be a Christian”. I would wholeheartedly agree. Many do. The progressive Christian movement is full of such people.

But if, in the next breath, you demand that they return to the theological views they’ve departed, you will find that your place in their lives will evaporate. Scaled up, this will result in the evangelical movement losing power, influence, and attendance over time.

As more and more evangelical leaders notice this trend, I am seeing their messaging become more and more desperate. More and more geared at scaring people into fearing “deconstruction”. More and more militant, painting this as a “spiritual battle”.

We were taught to seek truth, and it seems to many of us that truth has left the building.

We were taught to seek Jesus, and it seems to many of us that Jesus has left the building too.

The evangelical church at large often doesn’t resemble the Jesus we see in the gospels.

Jesus seems to have been imminently concerned with the poor, needy, and those least fortunate.

Increasingly these are the people the evangelical church seems to have aligned itself against, often appearing very anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-BLM.

Evangelicals, you can argue with me that this doesn’t accurately depict the evangelical church. That’s fine.

But I’m telling you this is what it looks like from where many of us are standing. While you’re defensively arguing these points, people are walking out your doors.

Again, none of this means that Christianity is destined to be irrelevant.

I know many progressive Christians that deeply love and seek divinity, but are less rigid about what that might mean.

It just means that, as John Shelby Spong said, Christianity must change or die.

Many are beginning to embrace a NEW radical, perhaps heretical idea :

That humanity & divinity is a beautiful mystery to be explored with openness, wonder, and a dedication to non-harm.

To embracing goodness wherever it is found - not necessarily limited to Christianity.

If the evangelical church remains determined to misunderstand, mischaracterize, and mistreat the loose community of people who “deconstruct”, then evangelicalism will gradually be relegated to small corners of the faith world... never to hold much sway again.

People have been reforming faith traditions since there have been faith traditions.

Evangelicalism is not eternal.

So in 100 years, will we look back at the “deconstruction movement” as a phase? Or, will it ultimately be the evangelical movement itself that bears that label?