Side effects of going rogue…

I miss studying theology.

Evangelical nostalgia – the kind of longing for a specific way of living out the Christian lifestyle – has been hitting hard lately. I find that when I’m most stressed or anxious, this longing for the way things used to be increases drastically. Early on in my deconstruction process, I had often forced myself to stay within the confines of the theological paradigms of evangelicalism so that I didn’t have to deal with that sense of waywardness wrought by questioning everything. I didn’t want to feel adrift, which is what happens when the beliefs that shaped and guided your day-to-day start to unravel.

But knowing what I know now prevents me from going back.

What I’ve noticed this time around, though, is the nature of the nostalgia has shifted. This isn’t merely a desire for the sense of comfort and safety (both of which are conditional within evangelicalism), but rather for the sense of purpose I felt when I studied theology. As an evangelical, it felt like I was feeding my soul – not just reading the bible, either, but rather connecting certain verses and passages to specific beliefs. And when I got to seminary, it felt like I was learning new ways to better understand God – feminism, womanism, liberation theology, etc., were all couched in the framework of understanding the image of God and what practices we might adopt to honor God’s image.

The theology I’d study actually meant something beyond getting others to agree with me. In fact, it was the opposite. Studying theology helped me navigate the biblical text in such a way that challenged my thinking and/or my behavior, which then compelled me to challenge others. The deeper I’d dive into the text, the more of a “woke liberal” I’d become – and for no other reason than believing I was following what God was teaching me.

On the outside of evangelicalism, though, there isn’t always that shared sense of purpose, let alone having a similar upbringing. Many that I know now either had a healthy religious upbringing where beliefs were taught, but never forced, or had no identifiable religious influence at all. Talking about Jesus now often introduces an entirely new concept where I have to double-back and summarize bits of the bible just so whatever point I’m trying to make has a chance at being understood. In a lot of ways this can be a good thing – it allows a fresh perspective on long-held beliefs or ways of understanding, which can then further the deconstruction process.

And yet at the same time it was nice to have companions on a similar theological journey. It made me feel connected to something bigger than myself, which in turn kept me from retreating within myself and/or pushing everyone else away. With all that’s been going on for the last 9 months, I guess I’m just afraid that I’ll reach a point where I’ll choose to close myself off, where I’ll choose callousness over connection.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in these last 9 months it’s that Islam is not a religion for the individual. Every Muslim I’ve encountered is deeply enmeshed in a community – where everyone’s fed, everyone’s clothed, everyone’s housed. Everyone’s connected. I’m not saying I’m interested in converting to Islam (or reverting? I don’t know, I’m still learning); I don’t think I can convert to any religion anymore. But I do think that if at its core, evangelical Christianity hadn’t been so tied to capitalism and harmful ideologies, I wouldn’t be feeling the side effects of having gone rogue.

Any other former evangelicals feeling this? Or something like it?

Quick thoughts on Deconstruction…

The first time I encountered the concept of deconstruction was in my Intro to Literary Theory class during the summer of 2009. I forget what we were reading, but I remember the class discussion vividly. It was the first time I ever willingly spoke up during class, and that was only because… I was a devout evangelical.

Deconstruction, which is essentially the process of critically analyzing language of meaning (e.g. religion, philosophy, politics, etc.) in order to better understand its assumptions as well as its impact, invaded my evangelical brain as a demonic force. And if I hadn’t spoken up to highlight the obvious contradiction that you can’t say, “There is no meaning,” without assuming meaning to each of those words, I would have failed my church, my faith, and my God.

Or so I thought.

During May of last year, I went with a group of friends to float the river, and I was naively ill-equipped with what could generously be described as a pool floaty. For most of the trip, we were fine. We hit a couple shallow spots and scraped a few rocks, then got stuck once along the bank, but overall, it was an enjoyable ride. But eventually we came to a bend in the river that caused my floaty to capsize and I flipped backward into the river, and because our floaties were tied together closely, I was sort of trapped under the water.

The actual time elapsed with me under the water was probably no more than 20 or 30 seconds. Surprisingly, I never panicked while submerged, but my legs had cramped so severely that I couldn’t kick anymore. Thankfully, one friend found me, pulled me up, and in no time at all, I had my floaty around my waist. Not even 10 minutes later, we were pulling ashore where I could start to warm up. Every muscle in my body was exhausted and in pain. And as I sat within the little sunshine left to the day, I reflected back on the several articles I had read the week before about the dangers of floating or swimming in rivers in the PNW during May, when the river water is cold with freshly melted snow. I was mere moments away from becoming a statistic.

Near death experiences have the tendency to cause people to have existential crises – moments where we either question the way we’ve been living or realize that way of living hasn’t been enjoyable or meaningful in any way. These experiences are a visceral lesson in deconstruction. That Literary Theory class left me just as jarred as when I had emerged from the river, and I started to question what I believed to be true.

It started with inerrancy, a doctrine that states the Bible is literally perfect because God breathed it into existence. My own specific church did not value inerrancy as an essential doctrine and not long after this became public, our church had to close its doors. But once I started critically engaging the text, inerrancy fell apart like a sandcastle at high tide. And while I could have just kept rebuilding it, there was no motivation to do so, because at that point I had already discovered that its importance was fictional. Its foundation was sand.

Leaving evangelicalism altogether still took some time, even after our church shut down. I was still convinced that we were onto something good where we focused on actually loving our neighbors as ourselves and building a viable church alternative to anything evangelical. But convincing yourself that you aren’t evangelical while operating only amongst evangelicals within evangelical culture might be possible, but no one’s going to think you’re doing anything different. Of course, the most logical thing I could do was go to seminary.

I write all this for several reasons, but mostly to keep the term “deconstruction” where it belongs: in a positive light. Recently I watched a TikTok where someone in their evangelical fervor was “declaring war on the deconstruction movement and its founder,” whoever that is. The person who stitched the video highlighted that instead of addressing the valid reasons people are leaving the church, this “war” is being declared on the people who left and the means by which they did so.

But this “war” assumes that everyone who deconstructs from evangelicalism is now an atheist or agnostic, that we’ve conspired with the Devil by renouncing our faith. The reality is that there is no singular outcome for those of us who deconstruct. Some turn to atheism or agnosticism, yes, but many choose to remain within the Christian faith, just not evangelicalism. And some find other faith expressions to be more meaningful for them, based upon how they’ve deconstructed from their evangelical upbringing.

Deconstruction is not a movement; it’s a method of critically engaging what we believe to be true. It allows us to see our realities with more clarity where we’re less reliant on theological or political presuppositions (these can still exist, though, in a white supremacist society). And it enables us to decide for ourselves what we value in life and what kind of communities we want to be a part of. It breaks things down so we can build something better.

That Literary Theory class wound up becoming one of my favorite classes I’d ever taken. It changed the way I read, wrote, and engaged the world around me. For me, deconstruction is not something that’s going to end. It informs the way I do everyday things – eating, sleeping, drinking, working, voting, living. Because once you acknowledge that we make our own meaning, you only have the time and energy to do just that. We don’t have to accept the premise that there’s only one intended purpose for our lives – or that there’s a purpose at all. Deconstructing allows us to knock, to ask, to seek… even if we never find.

And I think that’s what makes it worthwhile. It’s an ever-expanding horizon, compelling me to keep going.

 

An Easter Reflection (From the Outside)

It’s weird to think that today used to mean a lot for me. About a decade ago, I’d grab my ESV Study Bible, a small notebook, and wear my Sunday best, which back then usually meant my cleanest clothes. If I was really feeling it, I’d hit up two services – either two morning services or one morning and then the college group in the evening. After service, I’d try to join up with some church friends for lunch or just head home to read from the Bible some more, journal, or write a blog (usually a combination of all three). Easter was once a full-day event.

It made sense at the time, I guess, but it’s hard for me to imagine trying to maintain that level of social interaction now – now when I’m thoroughly exhausted even halfway through a work shift that doesn’t involve as much social energy as church would. Even today, though we had our lobby closed, I was wiped from not even an hour and a half of talking to customers coming through our drive-thru – many of whom were on their way to an Easter service of some kind.

So many things are much clearer to me being on the outside of that world than when I was in the thick of it, but what’s clear to me today is how much of a spectacle Easter Sunday was. Part of that comes with the territory of having a religious holiday, sure, but for the evangelical world, it was less about commemorating the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and more about being seen in front of others commemorating the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And though bigger church services are what I have in mind here, smaller churches often followed the same model – the worship team plays a few extra songs, pastor gives a slightly longer sermon, and everyone’s (ideally) wearing their expensive attire. People raise their hands during each worship song, give the “Amen!” and “Mmmhmm!” at various points throughout the sermon, and then enthusiastically shake someone’s hand on the way out of the sanctuary.

It felt like a pep ralley for Jesus.

Actually, it felt more like a high school prom dance where everyone shows off how much of their parents’ money they spent on a tuxedo or a dress. But in this case, everyone was trying to one-up each other for their visible devotion to Jesus – raising their hands higher, singing louder, clapping harder, the whole bit. It makes me wonder now, a decade later, if it was ever actually about Jesus? Did I really believe that today was about the resurrection, or was I just trying to be accepted amongst my peers? Was it ever about following the teachings and examples of Jesus or was it really about my own insecurities?

There are evangelical voices that continue to dismiss the many perspectives of those who’ve deconstructed or outright left the church as having not really believed. And for a long time I thought they were wrong about this; that we did actually believe, but the expression of said belief was not what these evangelicals wanted. But it seems they were partially right; in these situations, I didn’t believe in the subversive Jesus who hung out with sex-workers and taught everyone to have all things in common with each other. At least not yet. I believed in the social-status Jesus – the one who demanded belief statements, cishetero-patriarchal obedience, and devotion to the almighty dollar (“prospering for God’s glory,” as it was once told to me). Easter was like the Super Bowl of our pious performance.

Toward the end of my evangelical stint, I did actually start to listen to the subversive Jesus – or at least I tried to. That’s what caused me to leave. You can only get so far when you start saying that gay, lesbian, trans, and queer people are all made in the image and likeness of God, and that Black lives actually matter (not just the unborn ones, as is often the retort). But Easter Sunday was still an enigma; how do I make sense of a day that’s intended to commemorate the triumph of a deity through the violent death of said deity’s supposed Son? Having seen so much violence in recent days, months, and years, how can I sit here and believe that such a death was intended? That God needed to kill Their Son in order to save humanity… from Their wrath?

My only conclusion is that it wasn’t intended even if it might have been anticipated. Perhaps the prophets, the truth-tellers, of old knew that such a rigid stance against oppression and rampant exploitation would come at a cost. Maybe they knew that no one could resist the greed and lust for power of those at the top of social hierarchies without surrendering everything. But I have a hard time believing that the God who inspired liberation movements around the world would ever intend for the death of Their own self in human form – and that instead the resurrection was a way of showing oppressors would never have the final word.

Easter, then, seems closer to its pagan origins – a time of rebirth and renewal. Instead of gathering with others to flex our peity, perhaps we’re supposed to gather together to care for each other’s needs – both the material and immaterial (mental, emotional, spiritual)?

I know of many Twitter mutuals and friends from seminary whose spiritual practices embody this style of community – and not just for Easter, but for their everyday lives. Honestly, I envy them a little. I miss the days of having a community wherein sharing our understanding of Jesus’ teachings was a regular occurrence. For me, there’s still too much baggage – too much negative energy around the bible, church, and even the concept of Christian spirituality to feel comfortable in most Christian settings.

But reflecting on this framing of Easter – as a liberative event rather than a time of spiritual competition – is helping. My not-quite-agnostic-but-also-not-quite-believing self needs a lot of time and space to process all of what I had gone through before and during my evangelical days (and a little after, too). At the very least, though, I can acknowledge that it feels less hostile, less laborious, and a little more… hopeful(?) than it did before. Some part of me can actually see the broken pieces coming back together, even if I can’t quite see the whole of the puzzle.

And I think that’s enough for now.

Feel free to share your experience of being on the outside – especially on a day like today – below. Part of filling the void of leaving former communities means constructing new ones and I think this can be a space for that, even if it might wind up being temporary for all of us.

Thanks for reading.

Reading Wright: Did Jesus Intend for Christianity?

This is certainly a question that deserves a much longer discussion with a much larger reading list than a few books. But while reading Wright’s preface the other night coupled with reading the first ten chapters of Matthew, I had to wonder if, during Jesus’s ministry, did he intend to break away from Christianity?

In a paragraph where he lays out why he uses BC/AD rather than BCE/CE, Wright says, “It is strange that it seems to be scholars within the broad Christian tradition who are afflicted with these problems. Jewish writers do not affect ‘Christian’ ways of referring to dates and books, nor would I wish them to.”[1] The question of Jesus’s intent for a new religion is definitely not the topic of Wright in this quote, nor in this paragraph (and probably not even in the entire book series). But that last little side-comment, “nor would I wish them to,” to me, showcases that Wright isn’t really setting out to convert anyone to Christianity – at least not with this book.

Then I go from Wright’s book to Matthew’s gospel where I read Jesus saying, “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them.”[2] Then a few chapters later, Jesus heals a man with a skin disease and says to him, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. This will be a testimony to them.”[3] Sure, that last little bit seems to indicate that Jesus is aware of how his healing will be perceived, so he’s looking out for the man he just healed – that he will be believed when he says he was healed. But with his comments about not abandoning the Law and the Prophets mixed with this deed of healing a man then making sure he follows Moses’s commands, I’m left to wonder if Jesus ever wanted Christianity at all?

I say this as someone who sees Jesus’s words and deeds paralleling not only the prophets’ desire for social justice, but echoing the Hebrew Bible’s teachings on wisdom as well. By every indication – again, not reading the gospels through the lens of Paul’s letters – it seems to me that Jesus was trying to get Israel back on track with the heart of Judaism, less so with trying to establish something new (especially with the Sermon on the Mount). Yes, there is the Great Commission at the end of the Synoptics[4] that indicates Jesus intended his teaching for the world (and certainly John’s opening lends to this as well), but does that necessarily mean that Jesus wanted a whole new religion?

Again, this question deserves a longer discussion and maybe that’ll happen here. And it is definitely not the question in view within Wright’s words; my next post with Wright will certainly focus on what he actually says. It was just his consideration for Jewish records that stood out to me a little differently when I read from Matthew’s gospel. And it is certainly a question that I often thought about during seminary, but never had much of a chance (or the space) to explore.

But what do you think? And, whether or not it’s true, what do you think Christianity loses by being its own religion? Or what do you think it gains by emphasizing aspects of the heart of Judaism (focus on justice, wisdom, etc.)?

As always, be safe, wear a mask (it goes over your nose), and thank you for reading.

---

[1] N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, Fortress Press, 1992, xv.

[2] Matt. 5:17, CEB.

[3] Matt. 8:4, CEB.

[4] Even this isn’t so strong of an indicator of Jesus’s intentions for Christianity because we know from the end of Mark that not every manuscript has that Commission. Since it was added at a later point and since Mark’s gospel is likely dated well before the others (by 20 or 30 years), isn’t it possible that the Commission was a story about Jesus that gained prominence after Mark had been written?