Reconstructed Faith

Over the last few years I’ve noticed a trend among people using the word, “deconstruction” to describe their eventual abandonment of orthodox Christian doctrine. Their story usually involves encountering something in their lives which causes them to doubt the truth, or at least the relevancy of Christian teaching. This is then followed up by more and more encounters of things that cause them to reject more and more of the essential beliefs of Christianity. Eventually their journey will usually end at a minimum, rejecting some of the core teachings of Christ. So they gradually, brick by brick, deconstruct their faith.

I want to offer my perspective on that dynamic. You see I’ve encountered many, many things that have caused me to, at times, question what I was taught about Christianity/Jesus. However, instead of, “deconstructing” my faith, those situations always seemed to build it up, or ‘reconstruct’ my faith and it always came out stronger. When I approached those doubts in humility knowing that I wasn’t the source of all knowledge but that God was, I was always led (usually via the scriptures and older believers) to an understanding of the situation that made far more sense than what the culture around me was saying.

The interesting part of how that dynamic worked in me was that every time I doubted, my mind would always fall back the following historical realities:

Jesus was/is real.
Jesus said what he said and did what he did. Even from a human perspective the Gospels are a reliable testimony to his life and teaching.
He really died and really was buried.
He really did rise from the dead and appeared to literally hundreds of people.
He really did claim that he was God and that faith in him is the only way to God.

So in my doubts I began to realize that my perspective on Jesus didn’t really matter. The reality of who he was/is and what he did/does is what really matters. We have become a culture so fixated on the idea that belief/faith/trust is so important that we tend to believe that if someone believes hard enough they actually create a reality. The silly nature of this seriously held belief can be seen by examining walking.

If that version of ‘belief’ were true then you would never trip while walking a day in your life. When you are walking you have the utmost faith that you foot will proceed to the proper place for you to take the next step upright. You trip precisely because although you believe with the utmost belief that your foot will move to the proper spot, the tree root in front of your foot blocks your foot from getting to where it is needed and… you trip. Your utmost faith didn’t cause your foot to somehow travel through the tree root or make it disappear. The tree roots objective reality was fundamentally more important to your walking than your ‘belief’.

It’s not that belief isn’t important. It is. If you didn’t believe that your foot would allow you to walk, you would never even try to walk. So belief is important and it works properly if based on reality. You may note that people learning to walk again after accidents, don’t really have faith that they can walk again. I would disagree. The doubt may be overwhelming in their minds but so long at they put their foot out to try, then they have at least some small faith. And the more they see, through hard work, that they can walk, their faith grows and gets stronger. But note their faith, or anyone’s faith on anything for that matter, grows as a result of trusting a reality, not trusting something that isn’t’ true.

So to my friend who might be deconstructing their faith, I say what matters is the reality of Jesus. You may think this or that. You may not like what Jesus says, or want to change what He says. In the end however, the real issue is not what a person likes or doesn’t like. The issue is Jesus is real. Our job is not to construct Jesus in our image but to learn more and more about who the real Jesus is and worship and serve him.

#resconstructedfaith