I went through analysis of my faith from almost the day I accepted the Lord. Like John’s journey I accepted the Lord as my Savior at 9, dedicated my life to the Lord at 12, went to Bible college and examined my beliefs as I went. My faith was my own, not my family’s or my church. I think the things that helped me were 1) I had several beliefs that I would NOT waiver from. 2) I only used translations of the Word (like NASB, NIV) 3) studied sermons, Bible Studies, etc. of verse by verse studies. Now at 73, I can see that I may be far away from where I started but I am still learning what my walk should look like. Not anywhere close to perfect but walking with the Lord! I went through all the 1960’s, etc. Which was a tough time for Christians also.
Hi Di. In your analysis, did you consider any of the problems I listed above (copied below). If so, what are your answers? 1) The problem of evil 2) The problem of God's justice (an omniscient deity predetermining to eternal torment the vast majority of humanity) 3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery and cruel punishments 4) The inconsistency of the NT about salvation (faith alone? works alone? faith and works? grace alone? ...) 5) The internal contradictions and errors in the Bible 6) The clear belief of Jesus and Paul, as expressed in the NT, that the end of all things (final judgment, resurrection of all the dead) would come in the lifetimes of 'this generation' (Jesus) / the readers of Paul's letters
@@davidkemball-cook559I’ve personally been thinking about looking into the idea that Paul thought it was going to happen in his lifetime, but the only real part I’ve ever heard of with Jesus was when he said that there were some standing there who would see Him coming in His kingdom, but as far as I can tell that was referring to the transfiguration moment. Just a thought.
@@davidkemball-cook559 I'm not Di but I wanted to respond in his place. These are complicated problems and most will not be able to find the time to give in-depth responses. I understand that this comment is very long, but if you honestly want to consider the Christian perspective I would appreciate you trying to understand my arguments. 1) The Problem of Evil: The problem of Evil is something that all worldviews have to struggle with. It seems that something innate to just about every human being who has ever lived tells them that the world is not right. There's so much bad in the world when there shouldn't be. I would actually argue that, outside of Christianity, and especially in a naturalistic (atheistic) worldview. I don't know if you are a naturalist, but I'm going to provide my arguments from the perspective of talking to a naturalist, so I hope you don't mind. If you believe that there is evil in the world, what are you basing that on? Are morals just something that each person evolved to have, and there isn't actually any objective moral law? If so, what if the genes that I evolved to have tell me that murder, or slavery, etc, aren't wrong and evil? Would it not be evil for me to commit them? Why, if there isn't a true moral law, did we abolish the slave trade, or fight for civil rights? That would just be pushing our own morals on other people who have morals just as valid as our own. Not to mention, from this perspective, trying to claim that there is a "problem of evil" against the existence of God is foolishness. It is essentially arguing that "God is bad because I disagree with him". It seems completely foolish to acknowledge that there is no objective standard of morality, that it is purely subjective or a result of genetics, and then to complain that there is evil in the world and that a good God wouldn't allow such a thing. For the Christian response to the problem of evil, it's actually the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Man sinned in the Garden of Eden, and from that point, the world was broken. See, God made humans with true free will, the freedom to choose to do whatever they like. Now, I want you to think, can a person choose to hurt another person? If your answer was yes, you've just answered the problem of evil for me. Evil exists because God gave us free will. God does not cause the evil in the world, but we do, and if God intervened and supernaturally prevented anyone from doing wrong, that wouldn't be free will. "Why would God give us free will if he knew it would lead to evil", you may be asking. The answer is that free will is a necessary part of why God created humans, which is to have relationships with us. If you programmed a computer to send you a text saying "I love you", that will never have the same meaning as an actual human texting you "I love you". In the same way, for us to have true relationships with God, we have to have the freedom to choose or not to choose to pursue that relationship with him. 2) The Problem of God's Justice (I just noticed this, so I wanted to say that I appreciate you capitalizing "God" throughout your message. Maybe it was just autocorrect, but a lot of the time people leave it intentionally lowercase as an attempt at disrespect, so thank you for being civil). I actually agree with you on the problem of God's justice. Thankfully, only a small minority of Christians believe in Divine Determinism (That God has exhaustively determined every thought, action, and event that will ever happen). I touched on this in point 1, but I, and the majority of Christians, believe in free will, which by extension means that God does not predetermine people to go to Hell. This is a good time to clarify, Christianity does not believe that people go to hell because they don't believe in God or Jesus. No, Christianity teaches that people go to hell because we deserve it, even if we (all humans) don't like to admit it. Every sin is a crime committed against God, a perfect, infinite, and glorious being. Any crime committed against a perfect being is an extremely serious offense. People often think that one can get into heaven by being "good enough", but no human has ever been "good enough", because, though we don't like to acknowledge it, each one of our crimes against God is a crime against a perfect, glorious, and infinite being. We often like to think that this is "unfair", or that "God could just forgive everyone", but this would go against his nature. There are three characteristics of God that are essential to understanding the Christian faith. 1: God is perfectly Just. 2: God is perfectly Merciful. 3: God is perfectly Gracious. Justice means to give someone what they deserve, mercy means to not give someone what they deserve, and grace means to give someone what they don't deserve. These three are contradictory no? How can one give someone what they deserve while also not giving what they deserve? I'll explain how God fulfilled all 3 of these in a moment, but here I want to say that God could not (yes there are things God cannot do, that doesn't hurt his omnipotence in any way if he can't do things that are against his nature. A good God not being able to do evil is not a weak God, it's a perfect one) have just forgiven the crimes of all humans, that would not line up with his perfect justice. Despite this, God does not want us to suffer the punishment we deserve because he is perfectly merciful. Thus, in his perfect grace, God gave us Jesus Christ, his Son, whom we did not deserve, to take the punishment that we deserve and pay for it in our stead. This fulfilled all three of these attributes, Perfect Justice in the punishment that was due being paid, perfect mercy in us not having to pay it, and perfect grace in us being given a way out of our punishment in the first place. The only thing we have to do on our side is to accept going into a true relationship with God for us to receive this gift. Much of that wasn't directly related to what you were asking in your question, but it is very closely connected so I wanted to clarify all of that. Anyways, the point is, God does not determine people to go to hell, people choose to go to hell by choosing to sin against God and choosing not to receive his forgiveness by entering into a relationship with him. God does foreknow who will and won't go to hell, but knowing what people will freely choose to do is not equivalent to determining people to go to Hell. God knowing how someone will freely choose meaning that person can't freely choose is logically incoherent. Continued in next comment -
@@davidkemball-cook559 3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery, and cruel punishments I'm going to address genocide shortly, first I want to address the other 3 you listed here. I'll preface by stating here that there are 3 things necessary to fully understand any text (especially ancient ones): Context, History, and Genre. You'll especially see me mention the first two of these in my defenses here. Rape: God never orders or ordains rape. Many people take specific passages from throughout the old testament and attempt to say that they justify rape, but an honest look at these passages (looking at the context, different translations, etc) always shows that it is either talking about consensual sex or taking a woman from a nation that was wiped out as your wife. The passages about consensual sex obviously are not relevant, I can understand the concern over the other type though. To understand those passages better we have to understand the historical context. The idea of marriage as we have it today (two people who love each other a lot getting married) is a pretty modern concept. Throughout most of history in almost all of the world that has not been the norm. Most people throughout history didn't have much if any say in who they were married to, and nobody had any problem with that. Through our modern lens, we often see arranged marriages as twisted or evil, but this is purely a product of our times and our modern idea of love. Throughout most of history, loving someone has not meant just having nice feelings for them, it meant intentionally putting someone else and their needs before your own, love, throughout most of history, was thought of as something that you do, not something that you have. To get back to the question at hand, marrying those Women who were spared when their people were killed would never be interpreted as raping them and forcing them to marry you outside of a modern context. In reality, it typically would be an act of kindness towards these women to take them as your wife. Throughout most of history, women have been taken care of by the men in their lives. Usually, this means their father or brothers until they are married and then it is their husbands. This is why the bible often mentions widows as being pitiable, because they no longer have a man to take care of them so they lead very difficult lives in those societies. Taking one of these women who no longer had anyone to take care of them as a wife was sparing them from a lifetime of hardship. Furthermore, the rules that the Israelites are prescribed for how to treat these women should they take one as their wife make it extremely clear that the men must be very kind to them, including requirements such as giving them time to grieve their lost family members and various other things. I also want to mention that this principle of women being taken care of by men to this extent is not something that is commanded by God, that is just how ancient societies typically functioned, so any perceived injustice in that system is not to be blamed on God. Slavery: The Bible does allow slavery to occur, it does not explicitly and exhaustively condemn the act of owning slaves. An important thing to note, though, is that the bible also did not establish slavery, nor is most of the slavery talked about in the bible very similar at all to the type of slavery we generally think of. The vast majority of mentions of slavery in the Bible were one person selling themself as a slave to pay off debt, and was not a lifetime commitment nor did it put their children in slavery. The stealing and selling of human beings, such as has been common throughout human history, is a capital offense according to Old Testament law. The return of fugitive slaves to their masters was also illegal. Another important point here is that the bible explicitly gives slaves rights and condemns cruelty to slaves. This was unprecedented in ancient society, nowhere else ever gave slaves rights. Israel was also prohibited from having a slave trade within itself. It was allowed to purchase slaves from surrounding nations (where they would have been treated as less than human by their masters), but they were not allowed to have a slave trade within their borders. All of this is to say, yes, the Bible allowed slavery to occur, but it is also very clear in saying that slaves should be treated as other human beings who have rights that should not be infringed. Cruel Punishments: Honestly, I'm not too sure what you're referring to here, I haven't heard this objection raised before. If you give me a specific passage or example I can give more specific input. In general, though, the Bible explicitly prohibits cruel punishment. Perhaps the most famous example is Lev. 24:19-21, the "An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" passage. Some, through our modern lens, see this as cruel punishment, but this was actually a law against cruel punishment. It was establishing that the punishment one receives for a crime cannot be more severe than the crime that they committed. It is important to note that this is less than what humans typically want to do. Most people, if someone knocked out their tooth, would want to knock out two of that person's teeth, if not more. You get the point, this law was specifically against punishing people with more than the crime they committed. If you give me more specific areas of concern I would love to give a more specific response. Genocide: I want to begin by providing the definition of genocide. Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group.” Other definitions include the destruction of people on account of religion. In any case, genocide defined in this way is the intentional destruction of a people group because of their race, politics, culture, or religion. With this clarified, no, God never commands genocide. God does command that certain groups of people be killed and even does it himself in the flood, but this is never for an unjust reason such as those listed in the definition of genocide. When God commanded people to be wiped out it was always a result of their wickedness. Even today, much of the world still allows capital punishment, so clearly the idea that people can be bad enough to warrant being killed is not an unusual concept. This is especially so when we consider that God is the creator of all things, including us humans. As our creator and the sovereign being over this universe, he has the authority to say when people will die. I believe that for most people he doesn't specifically cause them to die at a particular time, but he certainly could and has, according to the bible. I think it is useful to consider this problem from the other side of the perspective as well. If someone is dying, is it wrong for God not to miraculously heal them and let them keep living? I would propose that it isn't, especially when we consider that death is a consequence of humanity's sin. Every human is going to die at some point, and we deserve such a fate. Thus, I don't see why God ordering the death of a certain group of wicked people to be moved forward is an evil act, especially when considering that God knows what those people would have done in the future, and seems to say that those people would never turn from their wickedness even if allowed to live. I understand the concern some have with God ordering the death of anyone, but I think if anyone has the authority to say that someone is evil enough to warrant their death, it is God. I understand that this is a very brief statement on this issue, and I would very much encourage you to research more Christian responses to this issue, because it is certainly something that many have difficulty wrapping their heads around, and I understand that I am far from answering all of the thoughts one might have on this issue. If you have specific thoughts or concerns let me know and I'll do my best to respond to those, but this is a topic that is hard to go too in-depth on in one comment.
I've been "deconstructing" ever since I was r**** at a Christian college and my professor said that kind of thing didn't happen to good Christians. And the. After a lot of things shook my faith I came to a ""God if you're real show me, and if I don't hear from you I'm done." And I heard from Him. I've been reconstructing ever since. But very, very slowly.
I am a so-called Christian CofE and KJV, and find the NT does reveal the OT, but Christianity does not so I deconstructed it. So I have a Ytube video series 'Myths in so-called Christianity'.
@@midimusicforever or is Christianity deluded. Rome wanted a break from Judaism, but the NT roots are in Judaism, but Christianity divorced from its roots in the 2nd century. I am a so-called Christian CofE KJV, but as shown in my videos I have exposed false teaching. I must add your comment seems now to be deluded as Christianity is all man-made not even attached to the God of Genesis 1:1.
@@simonskinner1450 I haven't heard of CofE KJV, what does that even stand for? The God of Genesis 1:1 is called Elohim, which is a plural, but used as a singular in that sentence, by the way. So if you take issue with the Trinity, it's you who have issues. ;)
@@simonskinner1450 For that matter, I'm not going to watch an entire channel, but I'm willing to give one video a chance. Do you want to name a specific one, or want me to just pick one at random?
0:50 What do you mean by 'deconstruction'? 5:00 what role does the need for certainty play in deconstruction (reason 1) 8:44 what we can do to help people deconstruct well 10:32 continuing on reason 1 (the need for certainty) 12:53 what role does hypocrisy play in deconstruction (reason 2) 14:45 what role does the idea of sin (either in your own life or in someone else's life play in deconstruction (reason 3) 19:42 what role do unanswered questions play in deconstruction (reason 4) 23:11 what role does bad theology play in deconstruction (reason 5) 28:01 what role does church hurt and spiritual abuse play in deconstruction (reason 6) 32:08 what role does the idea that you were never safed in the first place play in deconstruction (reason 7) 35:45 what role does the need for authenticity (who am I) play in deconstruction (reason 8) 43:40 what we can do to help people deconstruct well 45:25 what role does culture play in deconstruction (reason 9) 51:35 a recap of the 9 reasons and what would be a good response to each of those 9 reasons
I've done this twice in my life - first during the summer between freshman and sophomore years 40 years ago and again in the last year or two following my wife's death. In the latter the issue was that as a new Christian she had said some very harsh things to our children and each has told me separately that the reason they had rejected Christ was her harshness on faith matters. I grew up in a church that very much taught the scriptures and the importance of them so I knew very well what Matthew 18 says. Finally I understood the Jesus very much loved my wife and that he holds those who love him. Still, despite about an hour a day of Christian RUclips I've not yet made it back to church on Sunday so know I have work to do. Basically she died suddenly and my prayer was "Oh Lord where were you when she needed you most?" while knowing that I didn't pretend to know it all but knew somebody who did.....I pray daily and that part is in good shape but have thus far mostly avoided Sunday services and the scriptures. Thus I understand that I am not yet back all the way.
I hope you deconvert and join your children. It would signal to them that you fully reject the abuse that your wife heaped on them in the name of your faith. There is so much joy, freedom, and peace when you finally let go of the guilt, fear, hatred, self-degradation, and all the other baggage that Christianity brings. It’s not real or true, just emotional manipulation passed down for generations.
I resonate with Johns faith journey. It is good to hear devoted, faithful apologists, Bible teachers, pastor etc., that can tell their faith stories that can resonate with us younger individuals so that we can remain confident in that even older faithful followers have endured and have been tried in the same way for years and years.
Thank you for this! I have a friend, a previous mentor who is 20 years older than me and she is saying she is deconstructing her faith. She has stopped going to church and has embraced some theological concepts that don't set well with me. She does not deny Christ's divinity and saving act, but she is saying some things that make me think she is heading towards a more relativistic salvation. Your video has helped me figure out other ways to have discussions with her so I can really understand where she is coming from and maybe have helpful and kind ways to discuss faith. Thank you!
I've been through deconstruction but goodness, I've seen too much of His goodness and supernatural intervention to doubt anymore. I'm onto "OK God, I don't get this part but you said it so must be true so I am certain it is, just please explain this to me in context".
Haven’t read or watched, but thanks for writing/posting this. Deconstruction doesn’t mean the same as destruction, which is how the term is generally used. You can break down your faith, analyze it, and put it back together stronger than before as long as you start with the foundation of God being God. You take that truth out, the foundation’s just quicksand.
I deconstructed a couple of years ago because I could no longer hold on to mainstream Christian doctrines in the light of: 1) The problem of evil 2) The problem of God's justice (an omniscient deity predetermining to eternal torment the vast majority of humanity) 3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery and cruel punishments 4) The inconsistency of the NT about salvation (faith alone? works alone? faith and works? grace alone? ...) 5) The internal contradictions and errors in the Bible 6) The clear belief of Jesus and Paul, as expressed in the NT, that the end of all things (final judgment, resurrection of all the dead) would come in the lifetimes of 'this generation' (Jesus) / the readers of Paul's letters as well as a few other things. It was a relief when I realised that I no longer had to make sense of it all (and I had tried hard, in the course of doing a theology degree). I was a Christian for all of my adult life until age 68. Doubt I could live with, in the belief that some things we will some day know the answers to. But I could not live with the above glaring (to me) problems, contradictions and errors. And all the arguments of apologists to explain away the above seemed very unsatisfactory to me.
Wow, leaving at 68 is impressive. I left in my mid-40s and it was super tough. I don't think most of these guys understand how hard it is for people who grew up Christian to really take a hard look at the faith and realize it's not true and you've live a lie all your life. One of the reasons I play in this space is to try and help others think about these issues before they spend decades following a worldview that is demonstrably and provably false.
David - I am a boomer like you, and have the same questions and struggles with the Christian faith. The hiddenness of God and the problem of evil are at the top of the list.
I'm sorry to hear of your experience. You of course know that theologians and the church have been wrestling and answering these questions for 2000 years. None of your objections or conclusions are novel (as you know). My very short and incomplete answers 1. Evil doesn't exist if God doesn't exist. It's just your preference. Of course a why question doesn't negate the existence of God. We know there are absolute evils in the world. Therefore God exists. 2. We often try to judge God based on what we think is just or unjust...but do we know the whole story? Do we know all the information? Just like a player who is mad at a coach because he thinks he deserves more playing time... could it be that we have no real idea or concept of how holy God is and we just need to rest in the person of Jesus and the thought that the creator of the universe knows and will do what is ultimately right? 3. This is just more of the problem of evil. Some of this would be depend on how you read the scriptures... aka. Calvinism, Arminianism, Provisionist, Lutheran, molinism, Open theism... there are responses for each one regarding predestination/knowledge, etc. 4. There is no inconsistency. We are justified through faith, but saving faith is never alone... James and Romans both quote the same passage. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness... but faith is seen... and was seen by Abraham's actions. 5. -- Inerrancy isn't saying the current version of the Bible is perfectly intact, but the original transcripts are. When we see that they are 99% similar after thousands of years or hundreds... we have reason to trust it. (not to mention all the prophecies, historical details affirmed, etc) 6. Have you heard of Post Millenialism/ Partial preterism? This explains the coming on the clouds as the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. I know that none of my answers probably satisfied you, which is okay. But there are answers. (and much better than mine) I do think it is a good sign you are here watching this video. Seems you aren't done with pursuit of truth. I think it's evident there is a creator (for lots of reasons I won't list). I think it's clear there is a spiritual realm (evidence of supernatural evil and near death experiences, etc). I think the historical evidence for the life of Jesus and the resurrection are extremely compelling as well as the specifically fulfilled prophecies as well as all of the typologies throughout the scriptures. I also have personal experiences and testimonies of others around me that I can look to. --One of the points raised in this video I think is vital... if you must have certainty, you aren't going to find it on this side of eternity. However, we can have confidence (con-fide) (with faith). When you realize everyone has a faith position, you then have to decide what is most reasonable and founded by evidence...and when you compare, Christianity is in a class of its own. NOW, if you are open to it, I suggest listening to some episodes of the "Side B Stories Podcast"...they are from several atheists who are mainly intellectuals who came to faith and their various stories. May God reveal himself to you as good and present and gracious.
@@michaelsbeverly First off, sorry to hear this. Also, I think it is absurd to get on here and push people away from the faith. If your time is so short, why spend time prying people away from something that gives them hope and peace? You cannot prove God doesn't exist. You can't prove Jesus didn't exist. You can't prove miracles don't happen. You have a faith position, whatever that may be. -- You may think people are naive, but many of us have been down that rabbit hole of doubt and came out on the other side still following Jesus, because it's true and not just because it's comfortable. Question: What is your motivation to lead people away from Jesus?
Hello again! I love these podcast style videos and can’t wait to read the book. A note about uncertainty - growing up, I used to hear James 1:6 used to steer us away from questioning or doubting. It was used like a reprimand and warning. I desperately had questions, and felt like everywhere I turned was another brick wall. I struggle to this day to accept the truth that God has open arms for my uncertainties, and I have also been in faith-based counseling for awhile, where we frequently touch on these topics. Anyway, that was a roundabout way of saying thank you for being a huge part of my growth and “reconstruction.” You are doing such a critical work!
I think Jude gives us some insight into doubt... "be gentle with those who doubt" and also how Jesus responds to the man who says "I believe, help my unbelief!"--- he welcomes it.
I remember finding that a friend of mine didn't know that there's a subjective truth and an objective truth. I think she thought that any 'Truth' was scary, but became more open to objective truth when she realised that no-one was trying to dictate her likes and dislikes. I used the example of favorite colour versus her door key. ( I used them because they were right there in front of us, not any deeper reason!)
As someone who deconstructed a long time ago for many of the reasons listed throughout this chat, I found this video quite interesting. I think both authors danced around the topic but didn't want to go there so I guess I will. I was still open to Christianity and evangelicals until I watched in horror how evangelicals behaved in the age of Trump. I watched as they literally rolled around a golden image of the man at CPAC. When statements are made by Trump or Trump jr to forget about that turn-the-other-cheek stuff that's for losers, and not one word of pushback from Sean or any other apologist out there. That just proved to me it is not about the message of Jesus being preached throughout the world, but just raw power and influence in government to push your worldview down everyone's throat. With this as a backdrop pastors, leaders, and popular authors remain silent so they don't get fired from their churches or have their books pulled from circulation. (and somehow I'm the snowflake who is into cancel culture???) I could go on, but you all get the point so I'll stop beating the dead horse. Let me just conclude with the fact that it took me I would say about 20 years to become comfortable with my decision to deconstruct beginning in the nineties. In the age of Trump, I think it would have taken about 20 min. You as evangelicals may have won the battle in getting Trump into office, getting Roe v Wade overturned ect... but at what cost? was it worth the price as you look at the state of the evangelical church today?
Lots of TRUE Christians can't stand Trump, and his personal moral failings have NOTHING to do with the unchanging Truth of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection. Besides, the Kingdom of God is growing fastest in the world in places very far removed from US politics or culture.
Wait. Christianity and Trump are not synonymous. MANY "Christians" are believers in name only. I can't stand the modern church and I'm a believer. I've been in ministry and it is the most crooked thing I've ever witnessed. Don't base your decision on him or crazy "prophets" talking about him like a Savior. That's not Christianity. That's America worship
Gosh...I am a grandmother...a Biola graduate....and I have had several periods of "deconstruction" as you are referring....I've never questioned my conviction that God exists and I am in need of Salvation thru Christ...but in the reality of how to practice that both in church or life. I'm guessing it will happen a few more times before God calls me home.
Thanks for the video! I'm learning and refining my understanding of fallacies and your videos are riddled with them. I like to write them down and name the fallacy and how you conflate fact with fiction. Keep them coming!
Sometimes you have to question every thing you think you know or have been taught by merely human authority, so that God alone will be your teacher! This can sometimes be a very scary and possibly dark and confusing time in ones life. Because so much of what is traditionally taught is not really of God at all, so part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to uproot and strip away all of the wrong teaching or misunderstanding that we have received sometimes through other people and sometimes by our own spiritual immaturity. It may be the case that our naive illusions about faith and God need to be outgrown, and yes this might involve, for a time, some pain, discomfort and some failure of God to meet our false expectations. Even though this can be a crisis moment it can also be a breakthrough moment for our deeper growth and development as well. God will rebuild the faith especially if the foundations weren't solidly grounded. I think we need to be careful not to have a kind of fools optimism that does not recognize how deeply wounding some of life's misfortunes, tragedies and adversities can be. Jacob for instance when he wrestled with the angel of the Lord(God's pre fleshly, superhuman incarnate form)it wasn't until he was injured smote in the thigh (loins a euphemism for the genitals)and then surrendered to him, that God could then raise him up to be Israel, the Prince of God. But Jacob was crippled and lame in the flesh from that point on, which meant he had to rely on God's strength and not on his own(not to mention the humbling of his male ego and fleshly pride). Likewise many of us go through a time where we are wrestling with the Lord God himself and may not understand what is happening, we may even suffer some loss and hurt, and we may even feel like we are lost and are brought down to death. It is here at this point where God is our only hope that we really have the chance to become a person of faith like Abraham, Abel and like Jacob and all of the chosen elect of God all the way to the Lord Jesus himself who had to face the ultimate desolation and annihilation of the sentimental fictions about God (God is all powerful and all good, according to our purely creaturely human understanding)when dying in the place of sinful humanity. Why has thou forsaken me? This is the universal cry and experience of every human being born a sinner(hence a spiritual orphan, without God and without hope) by nature, and also the supreme test of faith, which flies in the face of all the earthly evidence that makes such faith appear as false illusory fiction. Yet we have the death of the cross (seemingly God's defeat and the devil's victory)as the very place in which God will intervene and prove his power to save and bring new life from death. This faith in the redemptive sacrifice of the cross and the resurrection power of God is why Jacob became Israel and Abram became Abraham and is why all of God's people will be saved by the same faith in Gods savior his Son, that saved all the children of God and chosen elect remnant of Israel. From Abel to Zechariah which means from A to Z and from the beginning to the end, or alpha to omega it is this faith and this faith alone, the faith in the coming lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, that has saved sinners by God's grace and mercy and not because of their merits or worthiness. Also this age of grace where even gentile unbelievers can wrestle(fight and struggle) with the Lord God and NOT be struck dead on the spot, will not last forever. In the coming day of the Lords wrath and judgment this condescending of the Lord to deal with humanity on an equal level and in richly poured out mercy and longsuffering patience, and indefinitely extended grace period, despite human militant hard heartedness, impenitence, disobedience, rebellion and folly, will no longer be widely expansively, maybe not even restrictedly, permitted or accessible.
Maybe I missed it, and if so I'm sorry. But out of the reasons given in this video, the problem of evil didn't come up? This is my biggest struggle as a Christian, and the main reason I could potentially leave the faith one day. I've never heard satisfactory answer, not from William Lame Craig, not from Clay Jones.
Right? An omnipotent god can’t use the excuse of needing to make tradeoffs to allow some evil to achieve a greater good, because tradeoffs are only an issue if you have limited resources. And the “mysterious ways” excuse could be applied to any actually evil god to justify all of their evil acts as secretly good in a way we can’t understand. So that argument can’t distinguish between good or evil gods. And god was fully in control of every factor that led to the supposed fall. Like, why did god send the serpent? Why did he put the tree in the middle of the garden? Why did he intentionally make Adam and Eve with personalities such that he knew they would act to displease him? How could Adam and Eve be responsible for doing wrong, when they lacked the capacity to know it was wrong to disobey god until after they ate the fruit of the knowledge of right and wrong? Why does the god described in the Bible match all the clinical criteria for narcissistic personality disorder? None of this makes it make sense.
I would say it's like a network, not just one thing that causes deconstruction that makes Christianity deteriorate. If you want to see what I mean, watch this video series. IN fact, when I realized I was deconstructing I watched this because the mentor he had told him not to pursue it at first. It really helped me to see the things he put in his videos. I don't know where he is now but his legacy lives on as one of the first good series on Deconstruction.
Once again Sean that was a wonderful conversation, it truly helps in my endeavour to aid and strengthen those who believes or struggling to fully embrace Jesus as Saviour! Praying your health is improving! Blessings with love to you and your loved ones.. maranatha xoxo
Deconstruct is exactly that, you take it apart to examine each piece and it's role in the whole. There are at least two reasons to take something apart, to better understand how and why it works or because there is a problem.
I imagine this is a thing for folk in the USA. The Australian Church and Life Survey 2018 found that 27% of respondents selected they believed in a personal god. The great majority appeared indifferent; with 1:4 not believing in a God. Remember this is those who participate in churches. Folk might rethink their indifference, but they rarely go from Belief to non-belief. I suspect this issue is what folk say in public as what they feel. There has been longer-term research that indicates that 1:10 clergy, priests, and bishops state they don't believe in God. We indifferent - we don't care about the god/not God thing - are the great majority. We can't be bothered 'deconstructing.'
5:05 The need for certainty Sean 8:44 Spectrum of certainty 10:35 12:20 Hypocrisy Sean 14:10 14:45 Sin Sean 16:04 19:40 Unanswered questions Sean 22:20 23:15 Bad theology Sean 27:15 "Tell me about the theology you used to believe in. " 28:06 Church hurt, spiritual abuse Sean 31:20 32:10 Never saved Sean 35:22 35:50 A need for the authentic who I am Sean 40:43 Our concern 42:00 45:28 Culture (How is this different from "being authentic? ") Sean 50:45 51:34 Summary
For me it is simply John 6:29. It’s not “ what” I believe, but rather “Who” I believe. Simply put faith “ in “ someone not in a faith . I believe Jesus is the Son of God therefore my “ faith” is in Him and all He teaches as opposed to an inherited religion practiced by me.
Very helpful. I'll buy the book for myself as well as to share. My chief growing concern likely regards the parallel of cultural strengthing alongside the absolute absence of actual Biblical teaching... maybe, minoring in majors & majoring in minors. Scriptural illiteracy seems to be growing exponentially at a time when the help so needed from Scripture is being lost in the pale. Thanks so much for your contribution!
so the assertion that the presenter's view is right doesn't mean that atheists, Jews, and methodists are wrong @@adamivthropay2982 I guess that we can be saved without accepting Jesus and Lord and savior. That solves that.
I would like to see you do a RUclips presentation on this topic, but focus on the myriad of "Christian Pastors" who have left the faith and now present their reasons on RUclips. How is their "deconstruction/deconversion" different from the average Christian.
I tell you what, It would have been easier for me not to deconstruct. I lost all my friends and support and social life in the Church. I cannot however in good conscience go back with the information I know now about the Bible. Ignorance is bliss. I am responsible for what I know now and must stick to truth. I don't even talk to Christians about it because I don't want to ruin their lives with the truth. My husband is happy where he is, and I am ok with him being a Christian. We have been married for 30 years now. He is the only Christian that stuck with me. Going through deconstruction was like watching someone terminally ill and then them dying. I went through all the stages of grief. But, I am more mentally healthy now because I am not living a dialectic every day.
I actually think that reformation requires deconstruction. Much of it I believe can be good, providing we adhere to the major tenants of the faith. I almost wonder if deconstruction can relate more to Christian culture than Christian orthodoxy.
Another reason is surely sincere questions about certain parts of the Bible combined with the teaching of the innerrancy of the Bible as we have it today.
Just started watching so maybe you cover it.. but it doesn’t sound like you will so far. I’d love to see a discussion on people who are “deconstructing” in the sense of looking for something that better suits and affirms “who they are”, such as with progressive “Christianity” and especially LGBT “Christians”. I have loved ones struggling with “the American Evangelical Church” that has “oppressed them and pushed them away”. Thanks for all you do! ❤🙏🏼
Deconstructing is the process of examining religion through the lens of logic, reason, validated history, and science. When it comes to religious history scholars such as Dr. Bart Ehrman present the academic historical realities of religion and the Christian faith.The true history of the Christian faith will never be found in any church. Apologist, much like politicians, play with the truth in order to make it say what they want it to say so they can keep their jobs.
Embrace it, go the whole hog, even consider yourself as an atheist for as long as you need , it's healthy to finally get the nasty dogma out of one's head space and see life's potential 🙂
Unless you read ancient Greek and Hebrew, you're wrong, your faith is pastors and others who tell you what to believe. Especially when you're a child. The Bible you think you believe in is a mixture of tons of cultural and religious programming, which is why, whatever you are, Protestant, Catholic, Calvinist, Baptist, etc., etc., is based on things OTHER than the Bible. If the Bible was clear and not in total conflict, there wouldn't be 1000s of versions (actually, more, every Christian makes up their own version). I challenge you to study the whole bible from an objective position, find out what the Greek and Hebrew said in important verses/chapters, discover the laws of slavery and subjugation of women, genocide, etc., and then look at the differences in the New Testament, they're vast. Study the early church and ask why even in Paul's day, there were already a whole bunch of different forms of Christianity and it only got worse as time went on. Anything you believe is considered heretical by some other believers, past and present. _Why is that?_ Why do Christians agree on NOTHING? And ask yourself why John (in this podcast, the PhD) is preaching a tolerant and "understanding" faith? Why is is promoting a weak-sauce Christianity?
It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck than to lead others away from Jesus.@@michaelsbeverly -- Christians agree on plenty. What is weak sauce? Sowing doubt is "weak sauce." It's easy to be a critic. What is your worldview? Do you have anything you are certain of? You have proven? No matter your worldview, it is a faith position.
@@mugglescakesniffer3943 What kind of books ? I don't have to though , and you find or don't find inner confirmation as a Christian and test everything against the bible and in prayer , so you don't have to take things blindly without reasoning and having your opinion and convictions
Virtually no one who deconverts starts their deconstruction wanting to reject their faith and it upsets me that John puts up such a narrow straw man of those of us who do lose our faith. John seems to be treating deconstruction like putting bumper guards on a bowling lane. ‘Oh yeah it good to deconstruct, as long as you don’t question or color beyond the boarders.’ If you really want to get rid of doubts you have to fallow them wherever they take you.
Hi there, thanks for taking the time to watch the video and for leaving your comments. I agree that most folks don't start their deconstruction wanting to reject their faith. Many do it to save their faith. I've spoken to lots of them who lost their faith with tears. If I implied that people want to leave their faith at the beginning of their "good faith" deconstruction that was unintended. However, there are people - I've interviewed them - for whom deconstruction had a desired outcome; deconversion. They rejected Christianity first and then justified it by "deconstructing" after the fact. As I said, Christians can do the same thing. They can accept Christianity first and then justify it by constructing an argument for it after the fact. It goes both ways. You say: "John seems to be treating deconstruction like putting bumper guards on a bowling lane. ‘Oh yeah it good to deconstruct, as long as you don’t question or color beyond the boarders." I think you are correct about that. But I think you might misunderstand the context of the conversation. At the beginning of the video, we clarify what we mean by deconstruction. We are not talking about people who are questioning if Christianity is true. We are talking about people who believe it is true but are not sure what it should look like. I agree with you that if a person is doubting the truth of Christianity, then they need to follow the truth wherever it leads. But if someone is a follower of Jesus but is rethinking what that ought to look like, then there are some "bumpers" that they ought to stay within if they want to be faithful to the historic orthodox faith. Those are the people we wrote the book for, not those who are doubting the truth of Christianity. Again, thanks for your comments, and sorry for any unintended implications on my end.
@@johnmarriott6827 It does seem like something of a misdirection though. You guys seem to be saying that there are two types of deconstruction: The first type involves questioning the contents of the faith. This type is good, healthy, mature deconstruction. It's good if Christians do this type of deconstruction. The second type involves questioning both the content of the faith AND the faith itself. This type is poorly motivated, self-seeking, worldly deconstruction. It's bad if Christians do this type of deconstruction. I get how this is helpful for trying to keep Christians in the fold, but how does it help Christians interact with people who are doing the deconstruction that may or may not involve losing one's faith? By precluding the deconstructing of faith itself, it feels like deconstruction is being rebranded from "a potentially faith-threatening journey" to "questioning, as long as you don't lose your faith". That redefinition is the guard-rail that @alexbleyker5816 is talking about. So if any Christians start having doubts or questioning things, they won't stray too far, or consider asking the "wrong" questions.
I share your dislike of redefining terms arbitrarily. In fairness, they did point out at the beginning that they were doing so. But so what? It isn't necessary. 'There are two kinds of buying a car-- one where you get one and one where you don't.' No. Implicit in the idea of buying a car is having one at the end of the process. So too is abandoning belief implicit in the process of deconstruction as publicly understood. Flipping the term on it's head is clever rhetoric, but it doesn't really move the needle. Here's a rule: any claim that can be reduced to a bumper sticker is suspect. @@Jeddacoder
Hello,@@michaelkistner6286 Thanks for watching the video. And for posting a comment. I tend to disagree with your comment that implicit in the process of deconstruction is deconversion. That presupposes a meaning of the word that Sean and I don't share. Nor do we think that the word is as univocal as you say it is given our experience. We each have talked with lots of Christians who use the term to mean rethinking what they believe is the essence of Christianity, not the truth of Christianity. They are using it to describe rethinking what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not whether they will remain a follower of Jesus. We are using the term in the way we do because they are using it to describe what they are doing. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll give you the last word.
"Faith does not mean certainty." But Hebrews 11:1 says, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I'm confused! In the BIOLA apologetics certificate class we learned that in Christianity there is evidence/certainty for our faith - evidence which cannot be found in any other religion.
I’ve known believers who had an addiction and questioned their faith, even a few who became suicidal. Not sure if this is a part of #3 but addiction can bring a person to walk away because they believe how can a true follower in Christ live in addiction.
i recommend talking with people who have deconstructed and getting their reasons for doing so, because the reasons you've given as the main ones are actually in the minority
What is the material difference between a God of the Bible who supports human sacrifice of a Cross vs and Aztec god who supports or demands a sacrifice upon an altar, other than the different places where the victims were killed? How is it that one form is murder and the other version is not? The only thing I have gotten from Christians is that they defend the Cross by using fallacies such as end justifies the means, or appeal to authority.
Went through a hard breakup after a long relationship where it felt like only one of us would make it out with our faith intact if either of us did. In the end, I stayed and the other person didn't. Wonder how much of this connects into relationships for people.
It seems that you're playing semantic games defining deconstruction in the way you have. The vast majority of people who have deconstructed would reject you're definition. If the existence of God is never on the table then you're talking about something different entirely.
Boom! Right there!!! Yes, the error in the church has been "certainty" gained via a certain set of "beliefs" or propositions. Certainty is also the need of many of the young postmodern youth today. We need to become comfortable with uncertainty. Mental health is a big problem in America today and the way to deal with say, anxiety, is to become part of a group that claims to have "moral certainty."
It's the hypocrisy of people in the church! No, atheists just want to sin! We have to preach more! You have to agree with my theology! Apologists will not understand deconstruction and the church will continue to shrink if they continue to deceive themselves why this is happening.
Did you notice all the reasons reflect on mere human relationships, and not on the actual word of God? Everyone seems to think they need a support group to believe the Gospel.
I understand obviously why these guys left out an option, but for a lot of us who “deconstructed”, the reason why we left involved working through all these issues and making the determination that Christianity is incoherent and to continue hold faith is an exercise of unhealthy attachment. So, I think an interesting exercise would be for unbelievers to make a similar list of why people “come to faith” and I think you’d see the problem of trying to armchair quarterback why people believe what they do. With these discussions, it always has this air of trying to other people so one doesn’t have to deal with their own doubt and that a lot of Christian doctrine just isn’t based on fact and should therefore lower your confidence. But at the end of the day, I judge (and yes, ironically armchair quarterbacking) it’s all based on emotionally not willing to give up the fiction.
I deconstructed when I was told, indirectly, that my commitment to Chrisitanity had to be more important than my commitment to Truth. I was unwilling to accept that and left. What I didn't understand was that non-theism creates its own problems, one of which is epistemic relativism. Ironically my commitment to truth led me to conclude there was no such thing as absolute truth. Most public atheists seem to have missed the memo about this, as far as I can tell. They've substituded one form of false certainty for another. Years later I was brought back to belief against my will, crazy as that sounds. But I still encounter Christians who insist on making the same demand of me-- 'Shut up. Show up. Pay up.'. I don't take that any better now than I did then, but I'm stuck. I can't leave and I can't tolerate that attitude. If trying to sort that out counts as deconstruction I'm deconstructing. Not because I don't believe but because I can't seem to find a church that does.
What if “deconstruction” goes back to Jesus himself? “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
It's so telling that the response to "church hurt" is just to tell them they were wrong for expecting so much from their church. When the believers cower, hide, and cover up those issues is what can give people permission to doubt or question that they never had before. The church has not gotten over its impulse to point the finger at those who raise the alarm and not just shut up/keep it quiet. When the exvangelical leaves or deconstructs to a progressive christian the apologists stand up and shout that this isn't the church and it's just a few bad apples but are very quiet when these stories come out because of culture war axe grinding or the paralyzing fear they'll be accused of being "liberal" for not keeping these things quiet and in-house. You know why people don't think Westboro represents the church? Because that's one of the very few times they came out hard and fast. I'll never forget watching them on Fox News go back and forth with the hosts about the Bible. Now granted, the church only said something when they broke out the "god hates the troops" signs, when they said being gay should incur the death penalty the church was quiet but you take what little you can get. Plus Sean shows that the way you stop deconstruction is to limit the scope to "as long as you go in saying you'll believe no matter what" then it's fine, unless they get too liberal. It shows that once you question the basics, the apologist has absolutely nothing and can only hope to retain believers at this point.
It seems those who deconstruct are often disrespectful of their parents' faith. I wonder how parents develop that respect in their kids. Lots of open conversations throughout a child's life?
By far, the primary reason people give for deconstruction and deconversion is that they don’t believe Christianity is true anymore. And apologetics can’t give any good reasons to think Christianity is true. The most you can do is appeal to people’s emotions, and encourage people to engage in self-degradation so they will feel hopeless and helpless without your ideology. Young people recognize this as emotional abuse, because it is. So, good luck!
Why did you choose to redefine "deconstruction"? That seems to just muddy the waters. Dc refers to a specific philosophical and methodological approach.
You missed by far the biggest reason! The doctrine of eternal conscience torment or any form of punitive hell with no end and no redemption! That is by far in my experience the biggest problem. People can’t reconcile that in one breath Christians proclaim how loving God is and in the next breath say if you don’t choose to believe correctly he will torture you forever! That’s a glaringly obvious problem for thinking people
The issue with all of your points is that those that deconvert come to a place where they realize the bible is the claim and it is not evidence. Then realize, there is not sufficient evidence the bible is true and that the god in the book is the one true god. You both are coming at it from a completely different perspective that those that deconstructed and ended up deconverting. If your only audience is people that want to remain christian no matter where the evidence leads them then this book is great!
I hear Christians say that the apostate was never a Christian in the first place. This always bugged me. My guess is that they are 5 point calvinists and there is no possibility for a true Christian to lose their faith.
I have a tough time with the statement, "certainty is not biblical". Luke 1:4 states otherwise. Wouldn't you say "knowing" is also "certainty"? Jesus constantly states "so that you may know" what is that statement other than a gift of certainty? Truly truly I say to you, is an extremely biblical statement about what is true, so that we can be certain. I am 100% certain that Jesus says only what is true, and I only know this truth by the Word of God. That is what my faith is based on.
Deconstructing because Christianity is "cramping your style" belies a real ignorance of what is going on in the lives of many Christians who are struggling with issues of faith. The question is whether there is sufficient evidence to know (not 'feel certain') that Christianity is 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙚-- 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚. And if you think "heck, that's easy", then you need to think about it some more.
Trad Christian here (Prayer Book Anglican, attending a Confessional Lutheran church). One thing I notice about mainstream American Evangelicalism, is a strong tendency to naively take concepts, terms, and practices from both popular culture and academia. In my view, this is disastrous. Certainly, no thoughtful person could object to analytically reviewing one's faith. In fact, this is a good thing to do. However, promiscuously borrowing terms from Marxist Academics (i.e., "deconstruction") is foolhardy. I think this stems from the Evangelical notion, that forms and concepts are simply "neutral" styles, that can be co-opted by Christians. This is a dangerous delusion, with serious consequences. Among which are likely loss of personal faith and most certainly the destruction of high religious culture. Christianity is not a mere parrot of frankly low-rent trash entertainment, passing for 'culture'. Rather, Christianity creates art, music, literature, and law. I wish I could convince my Evangelical friends of this clear reality. Instead, I predict a few more years of praise bands, smoke machines, and (sigh) the latest fad, so-called "deconstruction"... may this foolishness soon be mercifully forgotten.
Philosophical uncertainty is what makes subjective relativism so palatable to many, and the idea that anyone who claims to know the truth is arrogant. That's why dogmatism regarding grey areas of theology is so destructive to cohesion in the body of Christ and efforts to reach the world.
I don't understand why anyone should do anything about this. Christians should be consistent with their own interpretations of reality. If God gives free will to humanity, at the cost of the greatest suffering even to the most innocent and vulnerable, then Christians should let people exercise that power. One would assume that Christians understand God's plan. Sins are only the responsibility of the person who commits them. Anything else would be injustice. And it is the exercise of that responsibility that God judges. Christians assume that they can cheat God and that helping others not to sin helps God read good souls. I do not understand why Christians conclude that removing responsibility from sinners and forcing them to choose according to someone else's criteria would show God the nature of that sinner's soul. It's ridiculous to cheat on God.
The baby is the roots of the religion of the new covenant, Christianity is the bath water that is divorced from its roots in the 2nd century. Christianity is built on bad theology, the truth is in the NT, so I have made a Ytube video series 'Myths in so-called Christianity' to expose false teaching.
Post modernist deconstruction is definitely something different than this. Post modernist deconstruction only serves to reduce everything to absurdity and rip any meaning to shreds.
I'm not sure I like this term. It's causing people to think differently. What I mean is a person says "I'm deconstructing!" Could cause someone to think they are leaving the faith. Instead they mean they are self searching their faith.
Right. It can mean both. But, so many people who deconstruct end up concluding that Christianity is built on no good evidence or justification, so they fully deconvert. And Christians find this very threatening.
So we’ve come up with another new term for people falling away as the Bible puts it. Why are we surprised when the Bible says lots of people will fall away in the end times?
Saved? Only those baptised with the Holy Spirit can be, and then those keeping their promise not sin have hope of grace, there was no atonement on the Cross.
I seriously doubt 1st century Christianity or even 14th century Christianity looks like it looks today, Protestant revolution, Darby ECT. So Christianity is always evolving, so this new evolution now does not surprise me now that I have had a glance into the history of the belief.
I don't agree with your definition of deconstruction. Deconstruction most always involves someone walking away from their Christian faith and that's what comes to mind when I hear that someone is deconstructing. "Rethinking" is a different thing and should be labeled as such. Perhaps you could call it "reexamining." (I know it's too late since your book is already written.)
Oh no no no. I’m not letting the wheels fall off No matter how hard things get I will remember how much of a price Jesus has made for me. I can’t do this alone. I’m praying for this generation. My hope is in Jesus.
The issue is not the evidence for the Truth of Jesus and Christianity: that is solid and voluminous. The issue is the WILL TO BELIEVE that evidence. Until and unless Holy Spirit opens one's heart, mind, soul and spirit to the Truth, one will not believe.
Most people still want to live by truths but we live in the information age now where you are bombarded with conflicting information and you really have to be good at critical thinking to filter the trash out. The other problem in a world of deceit is that when talking about objective truths, are they really objective or just someone telling you that they are objective? This is often part of the deconstruction for the Christian faith because the thing about things that are untrue is they don't work as truths, in other words the deceit has been discovered. So for example, someone prays for something and sometimes the prayers are granted but often times they are not. You could explain this away as sometimes the answer is no or that God has a different plan but how do you reconcile this from just pure chance especially when it has the consistency of pure chance? The bible certainly has problems and then there are concepts outside the bible concerning the Christian faith that seem nonsensical, such as the timing of Jesus if the message was so important. The problem of evil. The problem of a perfect God creating imperfection. The problem of God needing anything, especially a sacrifice of animals in the OT and a human sacrifice in the NT. There is also the problem of Christianity being the "only" way. Sure we get plenty of bad excuses, but nothing good in the reasoning department. Perhaps a God exists, but it makes perfect sense to my why people leave the Christian faith on multiple levels. It even makes sense at a certain level why atheists and theists from other religions become Christians. If someone's thinking and reasoning is bad, there are ways to learn and test why they are bad.
Shouldn’t you celebrate, every time someone leaves the faith? After all, the Bible says they were never truly a Christian, so you’re just cleaning house?
Yeah, people said to me, "You just hate God." or "You just want to sin." To this day I still cannot walk into a liquor store without feeling guilty, and I don't drink except perhaps for special occasions it is very rare. I don't have sex and I have grown to hate sex because My traumatic memories from my Childhood violations are coming back. I still want to be as much like 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5:22-23 as I can. I do not know it all, and I am not perfect. I think what is even worse is Christians will push that on to you even if it is not true. Christians in the Politics discord and the Politics and religion discord are terrible at this and all they do is Presup all day long they are the worst example of Christians I have ever seen in modern times, and they need to be chastened by their own.
based on your presence in all the deconstruction posts and channels, it seems you still live with a tension in your life. -- Question: if you find out at the end you were wrong about Christianity, do you believe you would end up in hell?
I'm not sure where you'd get a definition of hell other than the Bible... which is in contrast with heaven? However, I am much looking forward to walking with God face to face in a fully realized Eden on a new and redeemed earth. It will be a great time. I hope you dodged my question because you feel a conviction in your heart. I'm genuinely sorry you feel so burned by Christianity that you hang out on deconstruction posts like this one and sow doubt and confusion. May the Lord do a mighty work in you! He is LOVE. @@mugglescakesniffer3943
As christians we are called to suffer persecution and if necessary die for Christ. It is impossible to be faithful to this calling if we believe in terms of "degrees of probability". We either believe 100% or we disbelieve 100%. There is no middle ground. Faithful christians don't give their lives for something they are 80% certain of.
I get this thought absolutely. But, we all live with forms of doubt... maybe it isn't intellectual problem with the existence with God... but there is a reason that we seek to build and grow our faith... doubt comes in lots of forms... will God provide for me, will he protect me, will I be okay when I die?
In Paul’s terminology, you confused “faith” with “sight.” We can only have 100% certainty when we have the thing hoped for. There’s no blessing in that. Faith is trust and commitment based on evidence. You can easily commit based on 30% evidence if all the alternatives are 3%. Atheists fall into the same confusion when they demand the level of proof that you claim.
regarding divine hiddenness, Gavin Ortlund (Truth Unites) on RUclips released a video responding to Alex O'Connor on Hiddenness that you may find helpful. He also went through a season of doubt. @@darlenegriffith6186
@@darlenegriffith6186 Amen, I struggle with doubt a lot, I really think that is why some deconstruct (I believe they mentioned that in the beginning). I'd like to think in God's mercy He will honor the doubters faith not because its enough, but because Christ is enough.
Certainty in my faith that Jesus is the way the truth and the life, comes from the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit, not my own power, Gods spirit testifies to my spirit , my faith is not a work of my own strength , but a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, I boast of God for faith in his Son
@@justin10292000 I'm not sure there are many if any true Christians. Also I know plenty of people who hate their sins but continue to do them out of habit or inability to not act on their desires even though they know the consequences will be bad. Christianity is like the gym, you have Christians at all sorts of levels striving to do better, often for selfish reasons.
You touched on temptations from liberalism (e.g. sexuality), but you omitted sins of the right wing. These days much of Evangelicalism is moving towards totalitarianism in various forms. For example, John MacArthur denies religious liberty (and also supports slavery). Many Southern Baptists are abandoning their historic support for religious liberty and are supporting Christian Nationalism. You should have Russell Moore or David French on as a guest to explain better than I can do in a comment.
Hello, thanks for your comment. We spend an entire chapter in the book addressing your concerns. Without question, one of the main reasons many young evangelical Christians are deconstructing is because of their disappointment with what they see going on in the evangelical world as it relates to the alignment between "Christianity" and politics.
Christian nationalism is all in how you define it. It is the liberal boogeyman right now, but we need to take time to think about what people mean by that. --and whether you are pro that or not...we need to repent as a church and seek holiness and make disciples.
@han.nah. It's been defined by advocates, for example, Stephen Wolfe's "A Case For Christian Nationalism". A few decades ago it was called "Reconstructionism". It's basically Purtainism, usually based on John Calvin's ideas. That is, tossing out the religious liberty guarantees in the First Amendment and advocating religious rule. Think "Christian" Taliban. Google "John MacArthur Religious Liberty" for more. He doesn't believe in it.
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I went through analysis of my faith from almost the day I accepted the Lord. Like John’s journey I accepted the Lord as my Savior at 9, dedicated my life to the Lord at 12, went to Bible college and examined my beliefs as I went. My faith was my own, not my family’s or my church. I think the things that helped me were 1) I had several beliefs that I would NOT waiver from. 2) I only used translations of the Word (like NASB, NIV) 3) studied sermons, Bible Studies, etc. of verse by verse studies. Now at 73, I can see that I may be far away from where I started but I am still learning what my walk should look like. Not anywhere close to perfect but walking with the Lord! I went through all the 1960’s, etc. Which was a tough time for Christians also.
thanks for your testimony! It appears others have appreciated it too!
Hi Di. In your analysis, did you consider any of the problems I listed above (copied below). If so, what are your answers?
1) The problem of evil
2) The problem of God's justice (an omniscient deity predetermining to eternal torment the vast majority of humanity)
3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery and cruel punishments
4) The inconsistency of the NT about salvation (faith alone? works alone? faith and works? grace alone? ...)
5) The internal contradictions and errors in the Bible
6) The clear belief of Jesus and Paul, as expressed in the NT, that the end of all things (final judgment, resurrection of all the dead) would come in the lifetimes of 'this generation' (Jesus) / the readers of Paul's letters
@@davidkemball-cook559I’ve personally been thinking about looking into the idea that Paul thought it was going to happen in his lifetime, but the only real part I’ve ever heard of with Jesus was when he said that there were some standing there who would see Him coming in His kingdom, but as far as I can tell that was referring to the transfiguration moment. Just a thought.
@@davidkemball-cook559
I'm not Di but I wanted to respond in his place. These are complicated problems and most will not be able to find the time to give in-depth responses. I understand that this comment is very long, but if you honestly want to consider the Christian perspective I would appreciate you trying to understand my arguments.
1) The Problem of Evil:
The problem of Evil is something that all worldviews have to struggle with. It seems that something innate to just about every human being who has ever lived tells them that the world is not right. There's so much bad in the world when there shouldn't be. I would actually argue that, outside of Christianity, and especially in a naturalistic (atheistic) worldview. I don't know if you are a naturalist, but I'm going to provide my arguments from the perspective of talking to a naturalist, so I hope you don't mind. If you believe that there is evil in the world, what are you basing that on? Are morals just something that each person evolved to have, and there isn't actually any objective moral law? If so, what if the genes that I evolved to have tell me that murder, or slavery, etc, aren't wrong and evil? Would it not be evil for me to commit them? Why, if there isn't a true moral law, did we abolish the slave trade, or fight for civil rights? That would just be pushing our own morals on other people who have morals just as valid as our own. Not to mention, from this perspective, trying to claim that there is a "problem of evil" against the existence of God is foolishness. It is essentially arguing that "God is bad because I disagree with him". It seems completely foolish to acknowledge that there is no objective standard of morality, that it is purely subjective or a result of genetics, and then to complain that there is evil in the world and that a good God wouldn't allow such a thing.
For the Christian response to the problem of evil, it's actually the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Man sinned in the Garden of Eden, and from that point, the world was broken. See, God made humans with true free will, the freedom to choose to do whatever they like. Now, I want you to think, can a person choose to hurt another person? If your answer was yes, you've just answered the problem of evil for me. Evil exists because God gave us free will. God does not cause the evil in the world, but we do, and if God intervened and supernaturally prevented anyone from doing wrong, that wouldn't be free will. "Why would God give us free will if he knew it would lead to evil", you may be asking. The answer is that free will is a necessary part of why God created humans, which is to have relationships with us. If you programmed a computer to send you a text saying "I love you", that will never have the same meaning as an actual human texting you "I love you". In the same way, for us to have true relationships with God, we have to have the freedom to choose or not to choose to pursue that relationship with him.
2) The Problem of God's Justice
(I just noticed this, so I wanted to say that I appreciate you capitalizing "God" throughout your message. Maybe it was just autocorrect, but a lot of the time people leave it intentionally lowercase as an attempt at disrespect, so thank you for being civil).
I actually agree with you on the problem of God's justice. Thankfully, only a small minority of Christians believe in Divine Determinism (That God has exhaustively determined every thought, action, and event that will ever happen). I touched on this in point 1, but I, and the majority of Christians, believe in free will, which by extension means that God does not predetermine people to go to Hell. This is a good time to clarify, Christianity does not believe that people go to hell because they don't believe in God or Jesus. No, Christianity teaches that people go to hell because we deserve it, even if we (all humans) don't like to admit it. Every sin is a crime committed against God, a perfect, infinite, and glorious being. Any crime committed against a perfect being is an extremely serious offense. People often think that one can get into heaven by being "good enough", but no human has ever been "good enough", because, though we don't like to acknowledge it, each one of our crimes against God is a crime against a perfect, glorious, and infinite being.
We often like to think that this is "unfair", or that "God could just forgive everyone", but this would go against his nature. There are three characteristics of God that are essential to understanding the Christian faith. 1: God is perfectly Just. 2: God is perfectly Merciful. 3: God is perfectly Gracious. Justice means to give someone what they deserve, mercy means to not give someone what they deserve, and grace means to give someone what they don't deserve. These three are contradictory no? How can one give someone what they deserve while also not giving what they deserve? I'll explain how God fulfilled all 3 of these in a moment, but here I want to say that God could not (yes there are things God cannot do, that doesn't hurt his omnipotence in any way if he can't do things that are against his nature. A good God not being able to do evil is not a weak God, it's a perfect one) have just forgiven the crimes of all humans, that would not line up with his perfect justice. Despite this, God does not want us to suffer the punishment we deserve because he is perfectly merciful. Thus, in his perfect grace, God gave us Jesus Christ, his Son, whom we did not deserve, to take the punishment that we deserve and pay for it in our stead. This fulfilled all three of these attributes, Perfect Justice in the punishment that was due being paid, perfect mercy in us not having to pay it, and perfect grace in us being given a way out of our punishment in the first place. The only thing we have to do on our side is to accept going into a true relationship with God for us to receive this gift.
Much of that wasn't directly related to what you were asking in your question, but it is very closely connected so I wanted to clarify all of that. Anyways, the point is, God does not determine people to go to hell, people choose to go to hell by choosing to sin against God and choosing not to receive his forgiveness by entering into a relationship with him. God does foreknow who will and won't go to hell, but knowing what people will freely choose to do is not equivalent to determining people to go to Hell. God knowing how someone will freely choose meaning that person can't freely choose is logically incoherent.
Continued in next comment -
@@davidkemball-cook559
3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery, and cruel punishments
I'm going to address genocide shortly, first I want to address the other 3 you listed here. I'll preface by stating here that there are 3 things necessary to fully understand any text (especially ancient ones): Context, History, and Genre. You'll especially see me mention the first two of these in my defenses here.
Rape:
God never orders or ordains rape. Many people take specific passages from throughout the old testament and attempt to say that they justify rape, but an honest look at these passages (looking at the context, different translations, etc) always shows that it is either talking about consensual sex or taking a woman from a nation that was wiped out as your wife. The passages about consensual sex obviously are not relevant, I can understand the concern over the other type though. To understand those passages better we have to understand the historical context. The idea of marriage as we have it today (two people who love each other a lot getting married) is a pretty modern concept. Throughout most of history in almost all of the world that has not been the norm. Most people throughout history didn't have much if any say in who they were married to, and nobody had any problem with that. Through our modern lens, we often see arranged marriages as twisted or evil, but this is purely a product of our times and our modern idea of love. Throughout most of history, loving someone has not meant just having nice feelings for them, it meant intentionally putting someone else and their needs before your own, love, throughout most of history, was thought of as something that you do, not something that you have.
To get back to the question at hand, marrying those Women who were spared when their people were killed would never be interpreted as raping them and forcing them to marry you outside of a modern context. In reality, it typically would be an act of kindness towards these women to take them as your wife. Throughout most of history, women have been taken care of by the men in their lives. Usually, this means their father or brothers until they are married and then it is their husbands. This is why the bible often mentions widows as being pitiable, because they no longer have a man to take care of them so they lead very difficult lives in those societies. Taking one of these women who no longer had anyone to take care of them as a wife was sparing them from a lifetime of hardship. Furthermore, the rules that the Israelites are prescribed for how to treat these women should they take one as their wife make it extremely clear that the men must be very kind to them, including requirements such as giving them time to grieve their lost family members and various other things. I also want to mention that this principle of women being taken care of by men to this extent is not something that is commanded by God, that is just how ancient societies typically functioned, so any perceived injustice in that system is not to be blamed on God.
Slavery:
The Bible does allow slavery to occur, it does not explicitly and exhaustively condemn the act of owning slaves. An important thing to note, though, is that the bible also did not establish slavery, nor is most of the slavery talked about in the bible very similar at all to the type of slavery we generally think of. The vast majority of mentions of slavery in the Bible were one person selling themself as a slave to pay off debt, and was not a lifetime commitment nor did it put their children in slavery. The stealing and selling of human beings, such as has been common throughout human history, is a capital offense according to Old Testament law. The return of fugitive slaves to their masters was also illegal. Another important point here is that the bible explicitly gives slaves rights and condemns cruelty to slaves. This was unprecedented in ancient society, nowhere else ever gave slaves rights. Israel was also prohibited from having a slave trade within itself. It was allowed to purchase slaves from surrounding nations (where they would have been treated as less than human by their masters), but they were not allowed to have a slave trade within their borders. All of this is to say, yes, the Bible allowed slavery to occur, but it is also very clear in saying that slaves should be treated as other human beings who have rights that should not be infringed.
Cruel Punishments:
Honestly, I'm not too sure what you're referring to here, I haven't heard this objection raised before. If you give me a specific passage or example I can give more specific input. In general, though, the Bible explicitly prohibits cruel punishment. Perhaps the most famous example is Lev. 24:19-21, the "An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" passage. Some, through our modern lens, see this as cruel punishment, but this was actually a law against cruel punishment. It was establishing that the punishment one receives for a crime cannot be more severe than the crime that they committed. It is important to note that this is less than what humans typically want to do. Most people, if someone knocked out their tooth, would want to knock out two of that person's teeth, if not more. You get the point, this law was specifically against punishing people with more than the crime they committed. If you give me more specific areas of concern I would love to give a more specific response.
Genocide:
I want to begin by providing the definition of genocide. Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group.” Other definitions include the destruction of people on account of religion. In any case, genocide defined in this way is the intentional destruction of a people group because of their race, politics, culture, or religion. With this clarified, no, God never commands genocide. God does command that certain groups of people be killed and even does it himself in the flood, but this is never for an unjust reason such as those listed in the definition of genocide. When God commanded people to be wiped out it was always a result of their wickedness. Even today, much of the world still allows capital punishment, so clearly the idea that people can be bad enough to warrant being killed is not an unusual concept. This is especially so when we consider that God is the creator of all things, including us humans. As our creator and the sovereign being over this universe, he has the authority to say when people will die. I believe that for most people he doesn't specifically cause them to die at a particular time, but he certainly could and has, according to the bible.
I think it is useful to consider this problem from the other side of the perspective as well. If someone is dying, is it wrong for God not to miraculously heal them and let them keep living? I would propose that it isn't, especially when we consider that death is a consequence of humanity's sin. Every human is going to die at some point, and we deserve such a fate. Thus, I don't see why God ordering the death of a certain group of wicked people to be moved forward is an evil act, especially when considering that God knows what those people would have done in the future, and seems to say that those people would never turn from their wickedness even if allowed to live. I understand the concern some have with God ordering the death of anyone, but I think if anyone has the authority to say that someone is evil enough to warrant their death, it is God. I understand that this is a very brief statement on this issue, and I would very much encourage you to research more Christian responses to this issue, because it is certainly something that many have difficulty wrapping their heads around, and I understand that I am far from answering all of the thoughts one might have on this issue. If you have specific thoughts or concerns let me know and I'll do my best to respond to those, but this is a topic that is hard to go too in-depth on in one comment.
I've been "deconstructing" ever since I was r**** at a Christian college and my professor said that kind of thing didn't happen to good Christians. And the. After a lot of things shook my faith I came to a ""God if you're real show me, and if I don't hear from you I'm done."
And I heard from Him. I've been reconstructing ever since. But very, very slowly.
I am so sorry you've had to experience that trauma
If one is to deconstruct, it should be to shed the man-made for the divine,. not to squeeze God into fitting the mold of what you want Him to be!
I am a so-called Christian CofE and KJV, and find the NT does reveal the OT, but Christianity does not so I deconstructed it. So I have a Ytube video series 'Myths in so-called Christianity'.
@@simonskinner1450 Judging by the video titles, you see to be deluded.
@@midimusicforever or is Christianity deluded. Rome wanted a break from Judaism, but the NT roots are in Judaism, but Christianity divorced from its roots in the 2nd century.
I am a so-called Christian CofE KJV, but as shown in my videos I have exposed false teaching.
I must add your comment seems now to be deluded as Christianity is all man-made not even attached to the God of Genesis 1:1.
@@simonskinner1450 I haven't heard of CofE KJV, what does that even stand for?
The God of Genesis 1:1 is called Elohim, which is a plural, but used as a singular in that sentence, by the way. So if you take issue with the Trinity, it's you who have issues. ;)
@@simonskinner1450 For that matter, I'm not going to watch an entire channel, but I'm willing to give one video a chance. Do you want to name a specific one, or want me to just pick one at random?
0:50 What do you mean by 'deconstruction'?
5:00 what role does the need for certainty play in deconstruction (reason 1)
8:44 what we can do to help people deconstruct well
10:32 continuing on reason 1 (the need for certainty)
12:53 what role does hypocrisy play in deconstruction (reason 2)
14:45 what role does the idea of sin (either in your own life or in someone else's life play in deconstruction (reason 3)
19:42 what role do unanswered questions play in deconstruction (reason 4)
23:11 what role does bad theology play in deconstruction (reason 5)
28:01 what role does church hurt and spiritual abuse play in deconstruction (reason 6)
32:08 what role does the idea that you were never safed in the first place play in deconstruction (reason 7)
35:45 what role does the need for authenticity (who am I) play in deconstruction (reason 8)
43:40 what we can do to help people deconstruct well
45:25 what role does culture play in deconstruction (reason 9)
51:35 a recap of the 9 reasons and what would be a good response to each of those 9 reasons
I've done this twice in my life - first during the summer between freshman and sophomore years 40 years ago and again in the last year or two following my wife's death. In the latter the issue was that as a new Christian she had said some very harsh things to our children and each has told me separately that the reason they had rejected Christ was her harshness on faith matters. I grew up in a church that very much taught the scriptures and the importance of them so I knew very well what Matthew 18 says. Finally I understood the Jesus very much loved my wife and that he holds those who love him. Still, despite about an hour a day of Christian RUclips I've not yet made it back to church on Sunday so know I have work to do. Basically she died suddenly and my prayer was "Oh Lord where were you when she needed you most?" while knowing that I didn't pretend to know it all but knew somebody who did.....I pray daily and that part is in good shape but have thus far mostly avoided Sunday services and the scriptures. Thus I understand that I am not yet back all the way.
I hope you deconvert and join your children. It would signal to them that you fully reject the abuse that your wife heaped on them in the name of your faith. There is so much joy, freedom, and peace when you finally let go of the guilt, fear, hatred, self-degradation, and all the other baggage that Christianity brings. It’s not real or true, just emotional manipulation passed down for generations.
I resonate with Johns faith journey. It is good to hear devoted, faithful apologists, Bible teachers, pastor etc., that can tell their faith stories that can resonate with us younger individuals so that we can remain confident in that even older faithful followers have endured and have been tried in the same way for years and years.
Thank you for this! I have a friend, a previous mentor who is 20 years older than me and she is saying she is deconstructing her faith. She has stopped going to church and has embraced some theological concepts that don't set well with me. She does not deny Christ's divinity and saving act, but she is saying some things that make me think she is heading towards a more relativistic salvation. Your video has helped me figure out other ways to have discussions with her so I can really understand where she is coming from and maybe have helpful and kind ways to discuss faith. Thank you!
Just finished the video. So grateful for you guys. I needed to hear balanced, compassionate conversation like this twenty years ago!
I've been through deconstruction but goodness, I've seen too much of His goodness and supernatural intervention to doubt anymore. I'm onto "OK God, I don't get this part but you said it so must be true so I am certain it is, just please explain this to me in context".
Yes! John 6:68!
Haven’t read or watched, but thanks for writing/posting this. Deconstruction doesn’t mean the same as destruction, which is how the term is generally used. You can break down your faith, analyze it, and put it back together stronger than before as long as you start with the foundation of God being God. You take that truth out, the foundation’s just quicksand.
I deconstructed a couple of years ago because I could no longer hold on to mainstream Christian doctrines in the light of:
1) The problem of evil
2) The problem of God's justice (an omniscient deity predetermining to eternal torment the vast majority of humanity)
3) The character of God as shown in divinely-ordered genocides, rape, slavery and cruel punishments
4) The inconsistency of the NT about salvation (faith alone? works alone? faith and works? grace alone? ...)
5) The internal contradictions and errors in the Bible
6) The clear belief of Jesus and Paul, as expressed in the NT, that the end of all things (final judgment, resurrection of all the dead) would come in the lifetimes of 'this generation' (Jesus) / the readers of Paul's letters
as well as a few other things.
It was a relief when I realised that I no longer had to make sense of it all (and I had tried hard, in the course of doing a theology degree).
I was a Christian for all of my adult life until age 68.
Doubt I could live with, in the belief that some things we will some day know the answers to.
But I could not live with the above glaring (to me) problems, contradictions and errors.
And all the arguments of apologists to explain away the above seemed very unsatisfactory to me.
Wow, leaving at 68 is impressive. I left in my mid-40s and it was super tough.
I don't think most of these guys understand how hard it is for people who grew up Christian to really take a hard look at the faith and realize it's not true and you've live a lie all your life. One of the reasons I play in this space is to try and help others think about these issues before they spend decades following a worldview that is demonstrably and provably false.
David - I am a boomer like you, and have the same questions and struggles with the Christian faith. The hiddenness of God and the problem of evil are at the top of the list.
@@michaelsbeverly Thanks. Yes, for a long time I accepted what I was taught. Then I started to think for myself.
I'm sorry to hear of your experience. You of course know that theologians and the church have been wrestling and answering these questions for 2000 years. None of your objections or conclusions are novel (as you know).
My very short and incomplete answers
1. Evil doesn't exist if God doesn't exist. It's just your preference. Of course a why question doesn't negate the existence of God. We know there are absolute evils in the world. Therefore God exists.
2. We often try to judge God based on what we think is just or unjust...but do we know the whole story? Do we know all the information? Just like a player who is mad at a coach because he thinks he deserves more playing time... could it be that we have no real idea or concept of how holy God is and we just need to rest in the person of Jesus and the thought that the creator of the universe knows and will do what is ultimately right?
3. This is just more of the problem of evil. Some of this would be depend on how you read the scriptures... aka. Calvinism, Arminianism, Provisionist, Lutheran, molinism, Open theism... there are responses for each one regarding predestination/knowledge, etc.
4. There is no inconsistency. We are justified through faith, but saving faith is never alone... James and Romans both quote the same passage. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness... but faith is seen... and was seen by Abraham's actions.
5. -- Inerrancy isn't saying the current version of the Bible is perfectly intact, but the original transcripts are. When we see that they are 99% similar after thousands of years or hundreds... we have reason to trust it. (not to mention all the prophecies, historical details affirmed, etc)
6. Have you heard of Post Millenialism/ Partial preterism? This explains the coming on the clouds as the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.
I know that none of my answers probably satisfied you, which is okay. But there are answers. (and much better than mine)
I do think it is a good sign you are here watching this video. Seems you aren't done with pursuit of truth.
I think it's evident there is a creator (for lots of reasons I won't list). I think it's clear there is a spiritual realm (evidence of supernatural evil and near death experiences, etc). I think the historical evidence for the life of Jesus and the resurrection are extremely compelling as well as the specifically fulfilled prophecies as well as all of the typologies throughout the scriptures. I also have personal experiences and testimonies of others around me that I can look to.
--One of the points raised in this video I think is vital... if you must have certainty, you aren't going to find it on this side of eternity. However, we can have confidence (con-fide) (with faith). When you realize everyone has a faith position, you then have to decide what is most reasonable and founded by evidence...and when you compare, Christianity is in a class of its own.
NOW, if you are open to it, I suggest listening to some episodes of the "Side B Stories Podcast"...they are from several atheists who are mainly intellectuals who came to faith and their various stories.
May God reveal himself to you as good and present and gracious.
@@michaelsbeverly First off, sorry to hear this.
Also, I think it is absurd to get on here and push people away from the faith. If your time is so short, why spend time prying people away from something that gives them hope and peace? You cannot prove God doesn't exist. You can't prove Jesus didn't exist. You can't prove miracles don't happen. You have a faith position, whatever that may be. -- You may think people are naive, but many of us have been down that rabbit hole of doubt and came out on the other side still following Jesus, because it's true and not just because it's comfortable.
Question: What is your motivation to lead people away from Jesus?
Hello again! I love these podcast style videos and can’t wait to read the book.
A note about uncertainty - growing up, I used to hear James 1:6 used to steer us away from questioning or doubting. It was used like a reprimand and warning. I desperately had questions, and felt like everywhere I turned was another brick wall.
I struggle to this day to accept the truth that God has open arms for my uncertainties, and I have also been in faith-based counseling for awhile, where we frequently touch on these topics.
Anyway, that was a roundabout way of saying thank you for being a huge part of my growth and “reconstruction.” You are doing such a critical work!
I think Jude gives us some insight into doubt... "be gentle with those who doubt" and also how Jesus responds to the man who says "I believe, help my unbelief!"--- he welcomes it.
I remember finding that a friend of mine didn't know that there's a subjective truth and an objective truth. I think she thought that any 'Truth' was scary, but became more open to objective truth when she realised that no-one was trying to dictate her likes and dislikes. I used the example of favorite colour versus her door key. ( I used them because they were right there in front of us, not any deeper reason!)
This book helped me tremendously! Thank you Dr. Sean and Dr. John for writing this!
what about atheists why aren't you thanking them
I SAW YOU IN THE CHAT BUT YOU DIDN'T THANK ATHEISTS THERE EITHER
Awesome to hear!
As someone who deconstructed a long time ago for many of the reasons listed throughout this chat, I found this video quite interesting. I think both authors danced around the topic but didn't want to go there so I guess I will. I was still open to Christianity and evangelicals until I watched in horror how evangelicals behaved in the age of Trump. I watched as they literally rolled around a golden image of the man at CPAC. When statements are made by Trump or Trump jr to forget about that turn-the-other-cheek stuff that's for losers, and not one word of pushback from Sean or any other apologist out there. That just proved to me it is not about the message of Jesus being preached throughout the world, but just raw power and influence in government to push your worldview down everyone's throat. With this as a backdrop pastors, leaders, and popular authors remain silent so they don't get fired from their churches or have their books pulled from circulation. (and somehow I'm the snowflake who is into cancel culture???) I could go on, but you all get the point so I'll stop beating the dead horse. Let me just conclude with the fact that it took me I would say about 20 years to become comfortable with my decision to deconstruct beginning in the nineties. In the age of Trump, I think it would have taken about 20 min. You as evangelicals may have won the battle in getting Trump into office, getting Roe v Wade overturned ect... but at what cost? was it worth the price as you look at the state of the evangelical church today?
Lots of TRUE Christians can't stand Trump, and his personal moral failings have NOTHING to do with the unchanging Truth of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection. Besides, the Kingdom of God is growing fastest in the world in places very far removed from US politics or culture.
Wait. Christianity and Trump are not synonymous. MANY "Christians" are believers in name only. I can't stand the modern church and I'm a believer. I've been in ministry and it is the most crooked thing I've ever witnessed.
Don't base your decision on him or crazy "prophets" talking about him like a Savior. That's not Christianity. That's America worship
As a Christian where you following Christ or other so called Christians?
Not believing IS freedom 🦅🇺🇸
I was so lucky to get this book at the reality conference at Biola
Gosh...I am a grandmother...a Biola graduate....and I have had several periods of "deconstruction" as you are referring....I've never questioned my conviction that God exists and I am in need of Salvation thru Christ...but in the reality of how to practice that both in church or life. I'm guessing it will happen a few more times before God calls me home.
Thanks for the video! I'm learning and refining my understanding of fallacies and your videos are riddled with them. I like to write them down and name the fallacy and how you conflate fact with fiction. Keep them coming!
Sometimes you have to question every thing you think you know or have been taught by merely human authority, so that God alone will be your teacher! This can sometimes be a very scary and possibly dark and confusing time in ones life. Because so much of what is traditionally taught is not really of God at all, so part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to uproot and strip away all of the wrong teaching or misunderstanding that we have received sometimes through other people and sometimes by our own spiritual immaturity. It may be the case that our naive illusions about faith and God need to be outgrown, and yes this might involve, for a time, some pain, discomfort and some failure of God to meet our false expectations. Even though this can be a crisis moment it can also be a breakthrough moment for our deeper growth and development as well. God will rebuild the faith especially if the foundations weren't solidly grounded. I think we need to be careful not to have a kind of fools optimism that does not recognize how deeply wounding some of life's misfortunes, tragedies and adversities can be. Jacob for instance when he wrestled with the angel of the Lord(God's pre fleshly, superhuman incarnate form)it wasn't until he was injured smote in the thigh (loins a euphemism for the genitals)and then surrendered to him, that God could then raise him up to be Israel, the Prince of God. But Jacob was crippled and lame in the flesh from that point on, which meant he had to rely on God's strength and not on his own(not to mention the humbling of his male ego and fleshly pride). Likewise many of us go through a time where we are wrestling with the Lord God himself and may not understand what is happening, we may even suffer some loss and hurt, and we may even feel like we are lost and are brought down to death. It is here at this point where God is our only hope that we really have the chance to become a person of faith like Abraham, Abel and like Jacob and all of the chosen elect of God all the way to the Lord Jesus himself who had to face the ultimate desolation and annihilation of the sentimental fictions about God (God is all powerful and all good, according to our purely creaturely human understanding)when dying in the place of sinful humanity. Why has thou forsaken me? This is the universal cry and experience of every human being born a sinner(hence a spiritual orphan, without God and without hope) by nature, and also the supreme test of faith, which flies in the face of all the earthly evidence that makes such faith appear as false illusory fiction. Yet we have the death of the cross (seemingly God's defeat and the devil's victory)as the very place in which God will intervene and prove his power to save and bring new life from death. This faith in the redemptive sacrifice of the cross and the resurrection power of God is why Jacob became Israel and Abram became Abraham and is why all of God's people will be saved by the same faith in Gods savior his Son, that saved all the children of God and chosen elect remnant of Israel. From Abel to Zechariah which means from A to Z and from the beginning to the end, or alpha to omega it is this faith and this faith alone, the faith in the coming lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, that has saved sinners by God's grace and mercy and not because of their merits or worthiness. Also this age of grace where even gentile unbelievers can wrestle(fight and struggle) with the Lord God and NOT be struck dead on the spot, will not last forever. In the coming day of the Lords wrath and judgment this condescending of the Lord to deal with humanity on an equal level and in richly poured out mercy and longsuffering patience, and indefinitely extended grace period, despite human militant hard heartedness, impenitence, disobedience, rebellion and folly, will no longer be widely expansively, maybe not even restrictedly, permitted or accessible.
Maybe I missed it, and if so I'm sorry.
But out of the reasons given in this video, the problem of evil didn't come up?
This is my biggest struggle as a Christian, and the main reason I could potentially leave the faith one day.
I've never heard satisfactory answer, not from William Lame Craig, not from Clay Jones.
Right? An omnipotent god can’t use the excuse of needing to make tradeoffs to allow some evil to achieve a greater good, because tradeoffs are only an issue if you have limited resources. And the “mysterious ways” excuse could be applied to any actually evil god to justify all of their evil acts as secretly good in a way we can’t understand. So that argument can’t distinguish between good or evil gods.
And god was fully in control of every factor that led to the supposed fall. Like, why did god send the serpent? Why did he put the tree in the middle of the garden? Why did he intentionally make Adam and Eve with personalities such that he knew they would act to displease him? How could Adam and Eve be responsible for doing wrong, when they lacked the capacity to know it was wrong to disobey god until after they ate the fruit of the knowledge of right and wrong?
Why does the god described in the Bible match all the clinical criteria for narcissistic personality disorder? None of this makes it make sense.
I would say it's like a network, not just one thing that causes deconstruction that makes Christianity deteriorate. If you want to see what I mean, watch this video series. IN fact, when I realized I was deconstructing I watched this because the mentor he had told him not to pursue it at first. It really helped me to see the things he put in his videos. I don't know where he is now but his legacy lives on as one of the first good series on Deconstruction.
I like using the term detangle instead of deconstruct. People associate deconstructing with "loosing faith"
Freedom and liberty means people CHOOSING to have faith or not 🦅🇺🇸💪😎
Once again Sean that was a wonderful conversation, it truly helps in my endeavour to aid and strengthen those who believes or struggling to fully embrace Jesus as Saviour! Praying your health is improving! Blessings with love to you and your loved ones.. maranatha xoxo
Deconstruct is exactly that, you take it apart to examine each piece and it's role in the whole. There are at least two reasons to take something apart, to better understand how and why it works or because there is a problem.
I imagine this is a thing for folk in the USA. The Australian Church and Life Survey 2018 found that 27% of respondents selected they believed in a personal god. The great majority appeared indifferent; with 1:4 not believing in a God. Remember this is those who participate in churches. Folk might rethink their indifference, but they rarely go from Belief to non-belief. I suspect this issue is what folk say in public as what they feel. There has been longer-term research that indicates that 1:10 clergy, priests, and bishops state they don't believe in God.
We indifferent - we don't care about the god/not God thing - are the great majority. We can't be bothered 'deconstructing.'
5:05 The need for certainty
Sean 8:44
Spectrum of certainty 10:35
12:20 Hypocrisy
Sean 14:10
14:45 Sin
Sean 16:04
19:40 Unanswered questions
Sean 22:20
23:15 Bad theology
Sean 27:15 "Tell me about the theology you used to believe in. "
28:06 Church hurt, spiritual abuse
Sean 31:20
32:10 Never saved
Sean 35:22
35:50 A need for the authentic who I am
Sean 40:43 Our concern 42:00
45:28 Culture (How is this different from "being authentic? ")
Sean 50:45
51:34 Summary
For me it is simply John 6:29. It’s not “ what” I believe, but rather “Who” I believe. Simply put faith “ in “ someone not in a faith . I believe Jesus is the Son of God therefore my “ faith” is in Him and all He teaches as opposed to an inherited religion practiced by me.
Amen...Well said!
Christianity is the dominant view in America. How can you not know this, Dr. Marriott?
Parents and grandparents need to get educated on this phenomenon. My older adult peers do not know what deconstruction is.
I am raising my children without Christianity.
Do you think my children should be taken from me ?
@@lafayetteplace3031 Heavens no! What do you mean by raising without Christianity?
Very helpful. I'll buy the book for myself as well as to share. My chief growing concern likely regards the parallel of cultural strengthing alongside the absolute absence of actual Biblical teaching... maybe, minoring in majors & majoring in minors. Scriptural illiteracy seems to be growing exponentially at a time when the help so needed from Scripture is being lost in the pale. Thanks so much for your contribution!
Really helpful, thank you gents. I'll use this info in my circle.
Wow - this conversation is very insightful!!
Glad it’s helpful!
yes, basically anti-Jewish/anti-Muslim, anti-Roman Catholic, anti-Methodism ... my theology is right and yours is wrong.
Well, if evangelical christianity is true... then the rest would follow naturally, wouldn't it? If we are about truth? @@russellmiles2861
@@russellmiles2861Nothing in this video or the book says anything like this.
so the assertion that the presenter's view is right doesn't mean that atheists, Jews, and methodists are wrong @@adamivthropay2982 I guess that we can be saved without accepting Jesus and Lord and savior. That solves that.
I would like to see you do a RUclips presentation on this topic, but focus on the myriad of "Christian Pastors" who have left the faith and now present their reasons on RUclips. How is their "deconstruction/deconversion" different from the average Christian.
I tell you what, It would have been easier for me not to deconstruct. I lost all my friends and support and social life in the Church. I cannot however in good conscience go back with the information I know now about the Bible. Ignorance is bliss. I am responsible for what I know now and must stick to truth. I don't even talk to Christians about it because I don't want to ruin their lives with the truth. My husband is happy where he is, and I am ok with him being a Christian. We have been married for 30 years now. He is the only Christian that stuck with me. Going through deconstruction was like watching someone terminally ill and then them dying. I went through all the stages of grief. But, I am more mentally healthy now because I am not living a dialectic every day.
I actually think that reformation requires deconstruction. Much of it I believe can be good, providing we adhere to the major tenants of the faith. I almost wonder if deconstruction can relate more to Christian culture than Christian orthodoxy.
My feeling too!
Another reason is surely sincere questions about certain parts of the Bible combined with the teaching of the innerrancy of the Bible as we have it today.
Just started watching so maybe you cover it.. but it doesn’t sound like you will so far. I’d love to see a discussion on people who are “deconstructing” in the sense of looking for something that better suits and affirms “who they are”, such as with progressive “Christianity” and especially LGBT “Christians”. I have loved ones struggling with “the American Evangelical Church” that has “oppressed them and pushed them away”. Thanks for all you do! ❤🙏🏼
Deconstructing is the process of examining religion through the lens of logic, reason, validated history, and science. When it comes to religious history scholars such as Dr. Bart Ehrman present the academic historical realities of religion and the Christian faith.The true history of the Christian faith will never be found in any church.
Apologist, much like politicians, play with the truth in order to make it say what they want it to say so they can keep their jobs.
Embrace it, go the whole hog, even consider yourself as an atheist for as long as you need , it's healthy to finally get the nasty dogma out of one's head space and see life's potential 🙂
One thing you shared really raised my danger antennas. At the end you wanted to return people to credal Christianity...which creed?
Our faith is not in pastors or other people who are still sinners...unless it s a misplaced faith
Unless you read ancient Greek and Hebrew, you're wrong, your faith is pastors and others who tell you what to believe. Especially when you're a child.
The Bible you think you believe in is a mixture of tons of cultural and religious programming, which is why, whatever you are, Protestant, Catholic, Calvinist, Baptist, etc., etc., is based on things OTHER than the Bible.
If the Bible was clear and not in total conflict, there wouldn't be 1000s of versions (actually, more, every Christian makes up their own version).
I challenge you to study the whole bible from an objective position, find out what the Greek and Hebrew said in important verses/chapters, discover the laws of slavery and subjugation of women, genocide, etc., and then look at the differences in the New Testament, they're vast.
Study the early church and ask why even in Paul's day, there were already a whole bunch of different forms of Christianity and it only got worse as time went on.
Anything you believe is considered heretical by some other believers, past and present. _Why is that?_
Why do Christians agree on NOTHING?
And ask yourself why John (in this podcast, the PhD) is preaching a tolerant and "understanding" faith? Why is is promoting a weak-sauce Christianity?
It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck than to lead others away from Jesus.@@michaelsbeverly -- Christians agree on plenty. What is weak sauce? Sowing doubt is "weak sauce." It's easy to be a critic.
What is your worldview? Do you have anything you are certain of? You have proven? No matter your worldview, it is a faith position.
Yet, you read Christian books like they are ex cathedria.
@@mugglescakesniffer3943 What kind of books ? I don't have to though , and you find or don't find inner confirmation as a Christian and test everything against the bible and in prayer , so you don't have to take things blindly without reasoning and having your opinion and convictions
@@marienovikova2236So, you do speak ancient Koine Greek and Hebrew?? That’s impressive
You can have complete assurance❤️🙏🙌
Virtually no one who deconverts starts their deconstruction wanting to reject their faith and it upsets me that John puts up such a narrow straw man of those of us who do lose our faith.
John seems to be treating deconstruction like putting bumper guards on a bowling lane. ‘Oh yeah it good to deconstruct, as long as you don’t question or color beyond the boarders.’
If you really want to get rid of doubts you have to fallow them wherever they take you.
Hi there, thanks for taking the time to watch the video and for leaving your comments. I agree that most folks don't start their deconstruction wanting to reject their faith. Many do it to save their faith. I've spoken to lots of them who lost their faith with tears. If I implied that people want to leave their faith at the beginning of their "good faith" deconstruction that was unintended. However, there are people - I've interviewed them - for whom deconstruction had a desired outcome; deconversion. They rejected Christianity first and then justified it by "deconstructing" after the fact. As I said, Christians can do the same thing. They can accept Christianity first and then justify it by constructing an argument for it after the fact. It goes both ways.
You say:
"John seems to be treating deconstruction like putting bumper guards on a bowling lane. ‘Oh yeah it good to deconstruct, as long as you don’t question or color beyond the boarders."
I think you are correct about that. But I think you might misunderstand the context of the conversation. At the beginning of the video, we clarify what we mean by deconstruction. We are not talking about people who are questioning if Christianity is true. We are talking about people who believe it is true but are not sure what it should look like. I agree with you that if a person is doubting the truth of Christianity, then they need to follow the truth wherever it leads. But if someone is a follower of Jesus but is rethinking what that ought to look like, then there are some "bumpers" that they ought to stay within if they want to be faithful to the historic orthodox faith. Those are the people we wrote the book for, not those who are doubting the truth of Christianity. Again, thanks for your comments, and sorry for any unintended implications on my end.
@@johnmarriott6827
It does seem like something of a misdirection though. You guys seem to be saying that there are two types of deconstruction:
The first type involves questioning the contents of the faith. This type is good, healthy, mature deconstruction. It's good if Christians do this type of deconstruction. The second type involves questioning both the content of the faith AND the faith itself. This type is poorly motivated, self-seeking, worldly deconstruction. It's bad if Christians do this type of deconstruction. I get how this is helpful for trying to keep Christians in the fold, but how does it help Christians interact with people who are doing the deconstruction that may or may not involve losing one's faith?
By precluding the deconstructing of faith itself, it feels like deconstruction is being rebranded from "a potentially faith-threatening journey" to "questioning, as long as you don't lose your faith". That redefinition is the guard-rail that @alexbleyker5816 is talking about. So if any Christians start having doubts or questioning things, they won't stray too far, or consider asking the "wrong" questions.
I share your dislike of redefining terms arbitrarily. In fairness, they did point out at the beginning that they were doing so. But so what? It isn't necessary. 'There are two kinds of buying a car-- one where you get one and one where you don't.' No. Implicit in the idea of buying a car is having one at the end of the process. So too is abandoning belief implicit in the process of deconstruction as publicly understood. Flipping the term on it's head is clever rhetoric, but it doesn't really move the needle. Here's a rule: any claim that can be reduced to a bumper sticker is suspect. @@Jeddacoder
@@johnmarriott6827 thanks for taking the time to clarify what you meant.
Hello,@@michaelkistner6286 Thanks for watching the video. And for posting a comment. I tend to disagree with your comment that implicit in the process of deconstruction is deconversion. That presupposes a meaning of the word that Sean and I don't share. Nor do we think that the word is as univocal as you say it is given our experience. We each have talked with lots of Christians who use the term to mean rethinking what they believe is the essence of Christianity, not the truth of Christianity. They are using it to describe rethinking what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not whether they will remain a follower of Jesus. We are using the term in the way we do because they are using it to describe what they are doing. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll give you the last word.
"Faith does not mean certainty." But Hebrews 11:1 says, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I'm confused! In the BIOLA apologetics certificate class we learned that in Christianity there is evidence/certainty for our faith - evidence which cannot be found in any other religion.
I’ve known believers who had an addiction and questioned their faith, even a few who became suicidal. Not sure if this is a part of #3 but addiction can bring a person to walk away because they believe how can a true follower in Christ live in addiction.
i recommend talking with people who have deconstructed and getting their reasons for doing so, because the reasons you've given as the main ones are actually in the minority
I don’t think anyone ever deconstructed who didn’t begin with some animosity toward the Bible.
Great topic!
but atheism is greater :D
What is the material difference between a God of the Bible who supports human sacrifice of a Cross vs and Aztec god who supports or demands a sacrifice upon an altar, other than the different places where the victims were killed? How is it that one form is murder and the other version is not? The only thing I have gotten from Christians is that they defend the Cross by using fallacies such as end justifies the means, or appeal to authority.
Went through a hard breakup after a long relationship where it felt like only one of us would make it out with our faith intact if either of us did. In the end, I stayed and the other person didn't. Wonder how much of this connects into relationships for people.
It seems that you're playing semantic games defining deconstruction in the way you have. The vast majority of people who have deconstructed would reject you're definition. If the existence of God is never on the table then you're talking about something different entirely.
Boom! Right there!!! Yes, the error in the church has been "certainty" gained via a certain set of "beliefs" or propositions. Certainty is also the need of many of the young postmodern youth today. We need to become comfortable with uncertainty. Mental health is a big problem in America today and the way to deal with say, anxiety, is to become part of a group that claims to have "moral certainty."
Well said. Just hope the youth of today can understand your point.
It's the hypocrisy of people in the church! No, atheists just want to sin! We have to preach more! You have to agree with my theology!
Apologists will not understand deconstruction and the church will continue to shrink if they continue to deceive themselves why this is happening.
Did you notice all the reasons reflect on mere human relationships, and not on the actual word of God? Everyone seems to think they need a support group to believe the Gospel.
I understand obviously why these guys left out an option, but for a lot of us who “deconstructed”, the reason why we left involved working through all these issues and making the determination that Christianity is incoherent and to continue hold faith is an exercise of unhealthy attachment.
So, I think an interesting exercise would be for unbelievers to make a similar list of why people “come to faith” and I think you’d see the problem of trying to armchair quarterback why people believe what they do. With these discussions, it always has this air of trying to other people so one doesn’t have to deal with their own doubt and that a lot of Christian doctrine just isn’t based on fact and should therefore lower your confidence. But at the end of the day, I judge (and yes, ironically armchair quarterbacking) it’s all based on emotionally not willing to give up the fiction.
I deconstructed when I was told, indirectly, that my commitment to Chrisitanity had to be more important than my commitment to Truth. I was unwilling to accept that and left. What I didn't understand was that non-theism creates its own problems, one of which is epistemic relativism. Ironically my commitment to truth led me to conclude there was no such thing as absolute truth. Most public atheists seem to have missed the memo about this, as far as I can tell. They've substituded one form of false certainty for another.
Years later I was brought back to belief against my will, crazy as that sounds. But I still encounter Christians who insist on making the same demand of me-- 'Shut up. Show up. Pay up.'. I don't take that any better now than I did then, but I'm stuck. I can't leave and I can't tolerate that attitude. If trying to sort that out counts as deconstruction I'm deconstructing. Not because I don't believe but because I can't seem to find a church that does.
What if “deconstruction” goes back to Jesus himself?
“Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Certainly as God needed the Temple made with hands to be deconstructed to end the Temple polity on earth in AD70.
It's so telling that the response to "church hurt" is just to tell them they were wrong for expecting so much from their church. When the believers cower, hide, and cover up those issues is what can give people permission to doubt or question that they never had before. The church has not gotten over its impulse to point the finger at those who raise the alarm and not just shut up/keep it quiet. When the exvangelical leaves or deconstructs to a progressive christian the apologists stand up and shout that this isn't the church and it's just a few bad apples but are very quiet when these stories come out because of culture war axe grinding or the paralyzing fear they'll be accused of being "liberal" for not keeping these things quiet and in-house. You know why people don't think Westboro represents the church? Because that's one of the very few times they came out hard and fast. I'll never forget watching them on Fox News go back and forth with the hosts about the Bible. Now granted, the church only said something when they broke out the "god hates the troops" signs, when they said being gay should incur the death penalty the church was quiet but you take what little you can get. Plus Sean shows that the way you stop deconstruction is to limit the scope to "as long as you go in saying you'll believe no matter what" then it's fine, unless they get too liberal. It shows that once you question the basics, the apologist has absolutely nothing and can only hope to retain believers at this point.
It seems those who deconstruct are often disrespectful of their parents' faith. I wonder how parents develop that respect in their kids. Lots of open conversations throughout a child's life?
I so want one of the coffee cups ! where can I buy one ?
This conco is so important
Thanks Sean for Your insights!
By far, the primary reason people give for deconstruction and deconversion is that they don’t believe Christianity is true anymore. And apologetics can’t give any good reasons to think Christianity is true.
The most you can do is appeal to people’s emotions, and encourage people to engage in self-degradation so they will feel hopeless and helpless without your ideology. Young people recognize this as emotional abuse, because it is. So, good luck!
Nice presentation, can't afford the book. GL with your book sales.
Why did you choose to redefine "deconstruction"? That seems to just muddy the waters. Dc refers to a specific philosophical and methodological approach.
Hello there, fellow bulgarian here. I can tell you who is the best in soccer in our country :D
You missed by far the biggest reason! The doctrine of eternal conscience torment or any form of punitive hell with no end and no redemption! That is by far in my experience the biggest problem. People can’t reconcile that in one breath Christians proclaim how loving God is and in the next breath say if you don’t choose to believe correctly he will torture you forever! That’s a glaringly obvious problem for thinking people
You reaaally need to speak up about Dan McClellan.
The issue with all of your points is that those that deconvert come to a place where they realize the bible is the claim and it is not evidence. Then realize, there is not sufficient evidence the bible is true and that the god in the book is the one true god.
You both are coming at it from a completely different perspective that those that deconstructed and ended up deconverting.
If your only audience is people that want to remain christian no matter where the evidence leads them then this book is great!
I hear Christians say that the apostate was never a Christian in the first place. This always bugged me. My guess is that they are 5 point calvinists and there is no possibility for a true Christian to lose their faith.
I have a tough time with the statement, "certainty is not biblical". Luke 1:4 states otherwise. Wouldn't you say "knowing" is also "certainty"? Jesus constantly states "so that you may know" what is that statement other than a gift of certainty? Truly truly I say to you, is an extremely biblical statement about what is true, so that we can be certain. I am 100% certain that Jesus says only what is true, and I only know this truth by the Word of God. That is what my faith is based on.
Our saving relationship is with God not others🙏
Why would you have to do something about it when someone deconstructs? That is their own private life.
Tell that to all the Christians who want the government policing everyone’s bedrooms.
Deconstructing because Christianity is "cramping your style" belies a real ignorance of what is going on in the lives of many Christians who are struggling with issues of faith. The question is whether there is sufficient evidence to know (not 'feel certain') that Christianity is 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙚-- 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚. And if you think "heck, that's easy", then you need to think about it some more.
Let me guess…when at the end you stay a Christian it was the “right” way, if not it was “wrong”?
Trad Christian here (Prayer Book Anglican, attending a Confessional Lutheran church). One thing I notice about mainstream American Evangelicalism, is a strong tendency to naively take concepts, terms, and practices from both popular culture and academia. In my view, this is disastrous. Certainly, no thoughtful person could object to analytically reviewing one's faith. In fact, this is a good thing to do. However, promiscuously borrowing terms from Marxist Academics (i.e., "deconstruction") is foolhardy. I think this stems from the Evangelical notion, that forms and concepts are simply "neutral" styles, that can be co-opted by Christians. This is a dangerous delusion, with serious consequences. Among which are likely loss of personal faith and most certainly the destruction of high religious culture. Christianity is not a mere parrot of frankly low-rent trash entertainment, passing for 'culture'. Rather, Christianity creates art, music, literature, and law. I wish I could convince my Evangelical friends of this clear reality. Instead, I predict a few more years of praise bands, smoke machines, and (sigh) the latest fad, so-called "deconstruction"... may this foolishness soon be mercifully forgotten.
can you imagine believing that your own heart is 'deceitful and desperately wicked'?? How do you live like that? 😵💫
Philosophical uncertainty is what makes subjective relativism so palatable to many, and the idea that anyone who claims to know the truth is arrogant. That's why dogmatism regarding grey areas of theology is so destructive to cohesion in the body of Christ and efforts to reach the world.
I don't understand why anyone should do anything about this. Christians should be consistent with their own interpretations of reality. If God gives free will to humanity, at the cost of the greatest suffering even to the most innocent and vulnerable, then Christians should let people exercise that power. One would assume that Christians understand God's plan. Sins are only the responsibility of the person who commits them. Anything else would be injustice. And it is the exercise of that responsibility that God judges. Christians assume that they can cheat God and that helping others not to sin helps God read good souls. I do not understand why Christians conclude that removing responsibility from sinners and forcing them to choose according to someone else's criteria would show God the nature of that sinner's soul. It's ridiculous to cheat on God.
I think people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not realize how little humans know.
The baby is the roots of the religion of the new covenant, Christianity is the bath water that is divorced from its roots in the 2nd century.
Christianity is built on bad theology, the truth is in the NT, so I have made a Ytube video series 'Myths in so-called Christianity' to expose false teaching.
Post modernist deconstruction is definitely something different than this. Post modernist deconstruction only serves to reduce everything to absurdity and rip any meaning to shreds.
I'm not sure I like this term. It's causing people to think differently. What I mean is a person says "I'm deconstructing!" Could cause someone to think they are leaving the faith. Instead they mean they are self searching their faith.
Right. It can mean both. But, so many people who deconstruct end up concluding that Christianity is built on no good evidence or justification, so they fully deconvert. And Christians find this very threatening.
So we’ve come up with another new term for people falling away as the Bible puts it. Why are we surprised when the Bible says lots of people will fall away in the end times?
Many of the nine points assume the deconstructer holds to inerrancy. Many of these points are irrelevant if the Bible is not authoritative
Saved? Only those baptised with the Holy Spirit can be, and then those keeping their promise not sin have hope of grace, there was no atonement on the Cross.
I seriously doubt 1st century Christianity or even 14th century Christianity looks like it looks today, Protestant revolution, Darby ECT. So Christianity is always evolving, so this new evolution now does not surprise me now that I have had a glance into the history of the belief.
I don't agree with your definition of deconstruction. Deconstruction most always involves someone walking away from their Christian faith and that's what comes to mind when I hear that someone is deconstructing. "Rethinking" is a different thing and should be labeled as such. Perhaps you could call it "reexamining."
(I know it's too late since your book is already written.)
Oh no no no. I’m not letting the wheels fall off No matter how hard things get I will remember how much of a price Jesus has made for me. I can’t do this alone. I’m praying for this generation. My hope is in Jesus.
Authentic self = rebellion
The issue is not the evidence for the Truth of Jesus and Christianity: that is solid and voluminous. The issue is the WILL TO BELIEVE that evidence. Until and unless Holy Spirit opens one's heart, mind, soul and spirit to the Truth, one will not believe.
That is exactly the same crap Muslims say. So which one of you, if any, is right? 🤭
Most people still want to live by truths but we live in the information age now where you are bombarded with conflicting information and you really have to be good at critical thinking to filter the trash out. The other problem in a world of deceit is that when talking about objective truths, are they really objective or just someone telling you that they are objective? This is often part of the deconstruction for the Christian faith because the thing about things that are untrue is they don't work as truths, in other words the deceit has been discovered. So for example, someone prays for something and sometimes the prayers are granted but often times they are not. You could explain this away as sometimes the answer is no or that God has a different plan but how do you reconcile this from just pure chance especially when it has the consistency of pure chance? The bible certainly has problems and then there are concepts outside the bible concerning the Christian faith that seem nonsensical, such as the timing of Jesus if the message was so important. The problem of evil. The problem of a perfect God creating imperfection. The problem of God needing anything, especially a sacrifice of animals in the OT and a human sacrifice in the NT. There is also the problem of Christianity being the "only" way. Sure we get plenty of bad excuses, but nothing good in the reasoning department. Perhaps a God exists, but it makes perfect sense to my why people leave the Christian faith on multiple levels. It even makes sense at a certain level why atheists and theists from other religions become Christians. If someone's thinking and reasoning is bad, there are ways to learn and test why they are bad.
Shouldn’t you celebrate, every time someone leaves the faith? After all, the Bible says they were never truly a Christian, so you’re just cleaning house?
Yeah, people said to me, "You just hate God." or "You just want to sin." To this day I still cannot walk into a liquor store without feeling guilty, and I don't drink except perhaps for special occasions it is very rare. I don't have sex and I have grown to hate sex because My traumatic memories from my Childhood violations are coming back. I still want to be as much like 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5:22-23 as I can. I do not know it all, and I am not perfect. I think what is even worse is Christians will push that on to you even if it is not true. Christians in the Politics discord and the Politics and religion discord are terrible at this and all they do is Presup all day long they are the worst example of Christians I have ever seen in modern times, and they need to be chastened by their own.
based on your presence in all the deconstruction posts and channels, it seems you still live with a tension in your life. -- Question: if you find out at the end you were wrong about Christianity, do you believe you would end up in hell?
Which hell? Cause Christian heaven sounds like hell to me.@@Golfinthefamily
I'm not sure where you'd get a definition of hell other than the Bible... which is in contrast with heaven? However, I am much looking forward to walking with God face to face in a fully realized Eden on a new and redeemed earth. It will be a great time.
I hope you dodged my question because you feel a conviction in your heart. I'm genuinely sorry you feel so burned by Christianity that you hang out on deconstruction posts like this one and sow doubt and confusion. May the Lord do a mighty work in you! He is LOVE.
@@mugglescakesniffer3943
As christians we are called to suffer persecution and if necessary die for Christ.
It is impossible to be faithful to this calling if we believe in terms of "degrees of probability".
We either believe 100% or we disbelieve 100%. There is no middle ground.
Faithful christians don't give their lives for something they are 80% certain of.
I get this thought absolutely. But, we all live with forms of doubt... maybe it isn't intellectual problem with the existence with God... but there is a reason that we seek to build and grow our faith... doubt comes in lots of forms... will God provide for me, will he protect me, will I be okay when I die?
In Paul’s terminology, you confused “faith” with “sight.” We can only have 100% certainty when we have the thing hoped for. There’s no blessing in that. Faith is trust and commitment based on evidence. You can easily commit based on 30% evidence if all the alternatives are 3%.
Atheists fall into the same confusion when they demand the level of proof that you claim.
I would say that any Christian who doesn't admit they have struggled with doubt isn't being honest with themselves.
regarding divine hiddenness, Gavin Ortlund (Truth Unites) on RUclips released a video responding to Alex O'Connor on Hiddenness that you may find helpful. He also went through a season of doubt. @@darlenegriffith6186
@@darlenegriffith6186 Amen, I struggle with doubt a lot, I really think that is why some deconstruct (I believe they mentioned that in the beginning). I'd like to think in God's mercy He will honor the doubters faith not because its enough, but because Christ is enough.
Certainty in my faith that Jesus is the way the truth and the life, comes from the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit, not my own power, Gods spirit testifies to my spirit , my faith is not a work of my own strength , but a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, I boast of God for faith in his Son
Wow a guide to deconstruction, from the perspective of the angel of light… How diabolical.
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN ... BINGO. I GOT BINGO!
Lol if this is what they have for those that are deconstructing, then its no surprise so many are leaving the fath.
Wanting to sin is a bad excuse from apologists, simply remain a Christian and sin your heart out like typical Christians.
A TRUE Christian lives a repentant lifestyle, or comes to that more and more fully over their sanctification journey. A TRUE Christian HATES sin.
@@justin10292000 I'm not sure there are many if any true Christians. Also I know plenty of people who hate their sins but continue to do them out of habit or inability to not act on their desires even though they know the consequences will be bad. Christianity is like the gym, you have Christians at all sorts of levels striving to do better, often for selfish reasons.
You touched on temptations from liberalism (e.g. sexuality), but you omitted sins of the right wing. These days much of Evangelicalism is moving towards totalitarianism in various forms. For example, John MacArthur denies religious liberty (and also supports slavery). Many Southern Baptists are abandoning their historic support for religious liberty and are supporting Christian Nationalism. You should have Russell Moore or David French on as a guest to explain better than I can do in a comment.
Hello, thanks for your comment. We spend an entire chapter in the book addressing your concerns. Without question, one of the main reasons many young evangelical Christians are deconstructing is because of their disappointment with what they see going on in the evangelical world as it relates to the alignment between "Christianity" and politics.
Oh man - yes! David French would be a great guest for Sean!
Christian nationalism is all in how you define it. It is the liberal boogeyman right now, but we need to take time to think about what people mean by that. --and whether you are pro that or not...we need to repent as a church and seek holiness and make disciples.
@han.nah. It's been defined by advocates, for example, Stephen Wolfe's "A Case For Christian Nationalism". A few decades ago it was called "Reconstructionism". It's basically Purtainism, usually based on John Calvin's ideas. That is, tossing out the religious liberty guarantees in the First Amendment and advocating religious rule. Think "Christian" Taliban.
Google "John MacArthur Religious Liberty" for more. He doesn't believe in it.
The real term is called apostasy in some of these cases.