Hi all,
I’ve been explaining the process of ‘deconstruction of their faith’ that many well known Christian musicians and ministers talk of doing. Of those we know, there are many more of our sons and daughters, grandchildren and friends who are also deconstructing their faith.
Deconstruction is not the act of reformation, which is to re-form ideas and understanding about the Lord. It is the act of tearing down all they were taught and knew and replacing it with popular culture’s ideas.
Deconstructing one’s faith requires a crisis.
A crisis of faith starts the process. It could be a tragic event that doesn’t fit what they thought was God. It could be unanswered prayers concerning someone they loved taken by illness or accident. It could be they see a moral failure in a leader they had put on a pedestal.
Maybe they see something they don’t agree with or question, and they find no answers in their church. Maybe they grew up isolated from other world views and were suddenly thrust into the world in college or their first job that challenged their beliefs.
Sometimes it starts with a person who can’t reconcile Old Testament stories of violence, slavery, or death penalties for seemingly minor things by today’s standards. They make the mistake of measuring cultures 3000 or more years removed from the standards of today, rather than setting the Bible in cultural and historical context.
Christianity is not about fighting demons; it is about encounters with truth
Paul writes in II Corinthians 10: 3-6 that our spiritual warfare is not power encounters with demons, but truth encounters. Here is the passage in the Greek:
“For the weapons of the warfare of us are not fleshly but divinely powerful to the demolition of strongholds, arguments overthrowing and every high thing lifting itself up against the knowledge of God and subduing and taking prisoner every thought into submission and compliance with Christ.”
This makes it clear our battles are not primarily with demons, but our own thoughts and emotions. Our battle is one of encountering truth, objective truth, and bringing thoughts and emotions of subjective truth into obedience. Demons can intensify, entice, focus us on our emotions, but the primary battle is not wrestling with demons – but with our own thoughts and emotions.
We do this everyday in other areas as a matter of maturing in Christ.
Let’s say we watched two people talk we love or respect, and we are offended by one person’s way of speaking to the other. Not a sin, just something we think should have been handled differently. Or maybe that one person strongly holds an opinion you don’t agree with.
An imagination and emotion rises up that makes us angry; we form an opinion they are wrong. We are disappointed in them. We now have an attitude towards that person. Our emotions are running away with us; thoughts are one with our emotions. To feel is to think, to think is to feel.
But then love rises up. A godly thought rises that it isn’t our business how those two people interacted with each other. A godly thought rises into our minds from our spirit that says we need to mind our own business and lay our ideas and emotions and thoughts aside about it.
A godly thought comes that we reacted that way because our mom and dad acted that way to each other and it brings up all sorts of memories we need to take control over. Do we bring those emotions and thoughts captive to Christ, or entertain them and form a stronghold in our emotions towards that person? If we hold onto that stronghold, a demon can easily enter to entice us to more bitterness and wrong thinking.
We want to grow. We see the problem is with us not them. We ‘forgive’ though it isn’t actually forgiving for no sin was involved. We let go and acknowledge to ourselves it isn’t our business how 2 other people talk to each other. And the Lord’s peace returns to our soul and thoughts towards our friend.
We have just successfully encountered the truth, brought thoughts and emotions captive, and grown a little bit in Jesus. Our battle was with truth, for Jesus is Truth.
Truth is our weapon by which we grow in Christ.
Jesus said He is the way, truth, and life, and way to the Father. In deconstruction ungodly thoughts and emotions are entertained and enlarged upon not brought captive to Christ. The belt of truth of Ephesians 6:11 holds the rest of the armor of God together.
Shipwreck of faith: I Timothy 1: 19
1: 19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some have left concerning faith and have made shipwreck…
Shipwreck: ‘naugeo’, literally, to break a ship. It is where we get nautical. Paul suffered a shipwreck documented in Acts 27. They ran aground and the ship broke apart, battered by the waves against the immovable shore. The word picture Paul uses is that of a person’s faith running into the shore. Their faith breaks apart by waves and wind coming against it. What are the wind and waves making their ship of faith shipwrecked?
Ephesians 4: 14-15:
“That we no more be like little children, tossed to and fro by every wind of cunning teaching and craftiness by people in their deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love we will grow in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, Christ.
People battling what popular culture says versus what they think they know of the Lord, need someone to walk them through deconstruction that they may go through a reformation.
In Philippians 1: 9-10 Paul prayed they would have much knowledge and discernment. Acts 17:11 the Berean people are praised for examining scripture to see if Paul was telling the truth.
Jude v22 says to have mercy on those who doubt, and Jesus engaged those with hard questions.
Christianity isn’t constructed by popular culture, it is a revelation from heaven. These people need someone who knows the Lord help them reconcile the issues they are wrestling with, that they might receive their own revelation from the Father concerning these things.
How to help someone struggling in their faith is next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
