A girl I follow on Instagram spoke at a virtual conference recently, and the name of the conference intrigued me, so I tuned into a few sessions. It was the Deconstructing Faith Summit, and I actually learned a lot from it. “Spiritual Deconstruction” has kind of become a buzzword I’m hearing more and more often. One of the speakers said he could see it popping up on church signs in the near future: “this is a spiritual deconstruction affirming church.” In today’s society, full of skeptics and unreliable news sources and hurt within church walls and global catastrophe after global catastrophe, it makes sense. A lot of people are full of doubt, questioning everything, including the faith they were born and raised in.
The summit featured a variety of speakers. Here are some of the testimonies from the sessions I tuned into:
A woman felt called by God to get her Master’s degree, but her pastor told her that God told him that if she went, something bad was going to happen. A man in authority at her church, who she looked up to, spoke out against what she felt God led her to do. She ended up not going to graduate school but has felt hurt and conflicted ever since. This led to her spiritual deconstruction.
Women were told they must be virgins until marriage and then they must submit to their husbands. They were told that by holding up their end of the bargain, they would be blessed with great marriages, perfect pregnancies, and healthy babies. They felt they had no agency in their lives and no ownership of their bodies. They felt betrayed if they followed all the rules and didn’t get their perfect life. This led to their spiritual deconstruction.
A man had too many run-ins with short-term missions and charities that only served the self. His church only served the community for character building and didn’t really care about the people in the community. This led to his spiritual deconstruction.
A woman who grew up in the church came out as queer and felt like she no longer had a seat at the dinner table or at her church home. She saw God more in her friend running after her in the parking lot than in the pastor preaching against homosexuality. This led to her spiritual deconstruction.
People with mental health issues felt like they couldn’t ask questions about it at church. They were told their faith wasn’t good enough to help them. Others experienced racial hurt within church walls. Several felt guilt for not following all the rules every single time. You can’t miss a Sunday service. You can’t skip a tithe check. You aren’t allowed to say ‘I don’t know,’ especially when it comes to questions of faith. This led to their spiritual deconstruction.
And even though I don’t 100% agree with everything that was said during these sessions, I have to say that I understand. I completely understand being hurt by the church, even being hurt by God for letting bad things happen in the world. I understand the doubt and the questions. I understand losing hope in people who constantly fail you. Some of these people still seemed to maintain their faith even when dealing with being hurt by the church, and for that, I commend them. However, where I start to see issues is when people let this hurt created by people or situations negatively affect their faith in God.
People will constantly fail you. We all fall short and we all struggle with sin. This is a fallen world and news alert: you will have troubles. You will face trials of many kinds. God allows this to happen. But that does not mean He is not good. That does not mean He will not win in the end. His plans are far greater than anything we could possibly imagine, so we will never understand. We will never have all the answers. And that is okay. What we need to learn is that humans are not perfect, so we need to have grace. The world is not perfect, so we need to have faith. Have grace for the person dealing with sin, for the person with questions, for the person who looks and sounds and acts differently from you. Have grace for the person who causes, whether intentional or unintentional, pain in your life, for the person responsible for the church harm, for the person who led you to your spiritual deconstruction. And have faith that even though bad things may happen, God is still good. Even though you may step away from the church, the Bible is still true. Even if you have doubts or questions, God still loves you and wants you to follow Him.
And, on the subject of love, that’s at the core of this issue, right? These people were not shown love in God’s house, so they turned away from their faith. Our love for others is supposed to be the number 1 way people know that we are Christians, that people can see and understand God’s love for us. If we show hate, especially in the name of the Gospel, we are taking God’s name in vain. God is love and our first and foremost mission on this earth is to make that known.
I think it is definitely in your right to step away from a toxic church environment. You deserve to ask questions and to answer questions with, “I don’t know.” It is 100% okay to take a break and reassess what you believe. But I’d be careful about completely deconstructing your faith, because God and the Bible hold absolute capital T Truth. You can’t just decide that God means whatever you want it to mean and that Heaven is for all good people. You can’t just live your own truth on the fence of spirituality, being affirming of everything and sure about nothing. God doesn’t like lukewarm- it’s all or nothing. As Christians, we are not called to be comfortable, to be constantly happy, to please everyone. We are called to get out of our comfort-zones, to suffer for the sake of the Gospel, to please God above all else. It’s not an instagram-worthy narrative, but that’s the truth. Be courageous, spread love, give grace, and walk in faith.
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Keela Dee Subcreations 
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