We’re seeing a lot of people are walking away from the Christian faith. And many aren’t going away quietly. They’re loudly deconstructing it, and justifying their behavior by tearing down the tenets of Christianity.
This is intended to debunk, (or deconstruct) a recent post on deconstruction. I don’t know the author, but his post has been shared by many.
Here is the post, point by point, with my counterpoints in bold print.
As you know, I once was an evangelical megachurch pastor and my pastoral career stretched over many years. Eventually, I could no longer teach Christian doctrine with a good conscience and realized this teaching was not truly changing people’s lives… and so I walked away from the whole enchilada.
Here’s the first problem. Lumping the “whole enchilada” into a category because of some bad teaching.
Below are 15 things that the misguided religious establishment doesn’t want you to know.
Who gets to decide who is “misguided?” Also: Define “religious establishment.” Nobody would admit to this category. Would you? It’s always someone else.
Speaking for myself and my personal experience, I was not able to see or admit these things to myself. I truly got into ministry initially because I wanted to make a difference and help people, and I relied upon the belief-system I learned as the proper framework to achieve this. It took a lot of post-religion reflection to see the ways this belief-system was hurting people.
I push back. I contend the belief wasn’t system hurting people. It was flawed humans.
I offer the below list in hopes that you might disentangle yourself from harmful beliefs and attitudes impacting your life. What follows are 15 things the misguided religious establishment doesn’t want you to know:
Again, be careful of ambiguous name calling, as in “the misguided religious establishment.” Once that starts, we’ve got junior high behavior, or presidential politics, which are often synonymous.
1. Toxic religion is rooted in fear, especially fear about the afterlife. It leverages the false doctrine of hell to win converts and demand holiness.
“False doctrine of hell?” You mean the one from the Bible? Who wrote the “true doctrine of hell”? You?
The fear of God’s disapproval, rejection, abandonment and punishment is hallmark of toxic religion.
I’d advise against labeling every Christian church and believer as “toxic.” They’re sinners saved by grace, same as you!
2. Clergy have no innate authority. Holding a church leadership position or having a theological degree does not imbue a person with special divine authority or superiority.
Surely you wouldn’t suggest any organization institute a policy of “no teachers, leaders, or mentors.” Sounds like chaos!
The terms “anointed”, “called”, or “chosen” or titles such as “pastor”, “priest”, “bishop”, “elder”, “evangelist” or “apostle” do not confer any innate authority on an individual or group.
Would you like to be in charge? Okay. Remove all the titles and take over the reigns. I’ll bet it’s harder than it looks!
3. We hold sacred what we are taught to hold sacred, which is why what is sacred to one community is not sacred to another.
Of course! We’ll never all agree. Suggestion: Read the Bible, pray, and emulate the ways of Jesus. It’s a great starting point with a solid track record.
4. The stories in our sacred books aren’t history, nor were they meant to be. The authors of these books weren’t historians but writers of historical fiction: they used history (or pseudo history) as a context or pretext for their own ideas. Reading sacred texts as history may yield some nuggets of the past, but the real gold is in seeing these stories as myth and parable, and trying to unpack the possible meanings these parables and myths may hold.
I notice a lot of references to “sacred books” and “sacred texts” and “parables.” No mention of Jesus. What do you think about Jesus?
5. Prayer doesn’t work the way you think it does. You can’t bribe God, or change God’s mind through obedience, devotion, or groveling. The underlying theistic premises of prayer are untenable.
If God’s premises of prayer aren’t “tenable,” the human premises of prayer will be despairingly flawed.
6. Anything you claim to know about God, even the notion that there is a God, is a projection of your psyche. What you say about God—who God is, what God cares about, who God rewards, and who God punishes—says nothing about God and everything about you. If you believe in an unconditionally loving God, you probably value unconditional love.
I’ve seen too many people changed for this to be true. Myself included.
If you believe in a God who divides people into chosen and not chosen, believers and infidels, saved and damned, high cast or low caste, etc. you are likely someone who divides people into in–groups and out–groups with you and your group as the quintessential in-group. God may or may not exist, but your idea of God mirrors yourself and your values.
I understand how our personalities can sway our worldview, and I’m a fan of psychology, but it looks to me like you’ve put too much bang into that buck. Trusting in ourselves will only leave us wanting.
7. Nobody is born into the world with a religious belief system imprinted on their soul. People are born human and are slowly conditioned by narratives of culture, race, religion, gender, nationality, which often divide us from one another and masks what makes us one.
You’re right. We are taught by our environment. And you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing others of doing. Dividing us instead of seeing what makes us one. Trusting in Jesus actually makes us one!
8. Theology isn’t the free search for truth, but rather a defense of an already held position. Theology is really apologetics, explaining why a belief is true rather than seeking out the truth in and of itself. All theological reasoning is circular, inevitably “proving” the truth of its own presupposition.
So why can’t we, in your words, “seek out the truth” by faith in Christ? Why would we exclude it?
9. Becoming more religious cannot save us. Religion is a human invention reflecting the best and worst of humanity; becoming more religious will simply allow us to perpetuate compassion and cruelty in the name of religion. Because religion always carries the danger of fanaticism, becoming more religious may only heighten the risk of us becoming more fanatical.
Religion: “Belief in and worship of a superhuman power or Gods.” Yeah, the definition sounds pretty uninteresting. How about the gospels instead? Loving the unlovable! Forgiving enemies! So counter-intuitive! And life-giving!
10. Becoming less religious cannot save us. In fact, being against religion can become it’s own fanaticism. Becoming less religious will simply force us to perpetuate compassion and cruelty in the name of something else. Secular societies that actively suppress religion have proven no more just or compassionate than religious societies that suppress secularism or free thought. This is because neither religion nor the lack of religion solely nullifies our human potential to act out of ego, greed, fear, hostility, and hatred.
So why not counteract ego, greed, fear, hostility, and hatred with the opposite? Selflessness, generosity, grace, mercy, and sacrificial love! And that’s only possible with Jesus!
11. A healthy religion is one that helps us own and integrate the shadow side of human nature for the good of person and planet, something few clergy are trained to do.
How few? Do you have any statistics to back that up? Or are you speaking relatively from your own experience, and perhaps a few of your friends? We hear sad stories about some high visibility preachers, but in my experience the majority of pastors I’ve know are selfless, hard working, God-honoring people.
Clergy are trained to promote the religion they represent.
Why wouldn’t anybody adhere to a religion or mindset they represent?
They are apologists not liberators. If you want to be more just, compassionate, and loving, you must do the personal work within yourself, and free yourself from the conditions that lock you into injustice, cruelty, and hate, and this means you have to free yourself from all your narratives, including those you call “religious.”
Surely you’re not implying pastors intentionally peddle “injustice, cruelty, and hate?” We’re all prone to it. That’s why we turn to God. It sounds like you’re tying to set a standard you can’t keep! Nobody could.
12. Religious leaders claims that their particular understanding and interpretation of their sacred books should be universally accepted. Religious leaders often say, “My authority is the Bible.” It would be more accurate for them to say, “My authority is what they taught me at seminary the Bible means.”
We all choose what to believe. Please don’t blame Christians for holding to their convictions.
People start with flawed or false presuppositions about what the Bible is, such as: the Bible was meant to present a coherent theology about God or is a piece of doctrinal exposition; the Bible is the inerrant, infallible and sole message/”Word” of God to the world; the Bible is a blueprint for daily living. Too often religious leaders make God about having “correct theology.” There are a lot of unhappy, broken, hurting, suffering, depressed, lonely people in church with church-approved theology.
It certainly is a fallen world. Every doctrine or lack thereof has unhappy people in it. The difference is, the Bible gives us hope. And millions have found it to be true. Not a perfect life, but a perfect hope. Isn’t that what we all want?
13. If your livelihood depends on the success of your church as an organization, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that you will mostly define and reward Christianity as participation in church structures and programs. Christian living is mostly a decentralized reality or way of life, not a centralized or program-dependent phenomenon. Church attendance, tithing, membership, service, and devoted participation, become the hallmarks of Christian maturity.
And yet the gospel is shared, and people are helped and healed, with or without money and big buildings. I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but the indisputable truth is an entire population has found help and healing in Jesus. And I’m one of them!
14. Misguided religion teaches that you lack what you need to effectively manage your life morally, meaningfully and fulfillingly. The truth is that you are capable of guiding your own spiritual path from the inside out and don’t need to be told what to do.
The problem is that it only works until you’re faced with life or death. Then we all cry out to God. We skate along just fine thinking about ourselves, but eventually our “spiritual path” dead ends. Sooner or later we all need Jesus.
You naturally have the ability, capacity, tools and skills to guide and direct your life meaningfully, ethically and effectively. Through the use of your fundamental human faculties such as critical thinking, empathy, reason, conscience and intuition, you can capably lead your life. You have the choice to cultivate a spirituality that doesn’t require you to be inadequate, powerless, weak, and lacking, but one that empowers you toward strength, vitality, wholeness, and the fulfillment of your highest potentialities and possibilities.
Our intellect, intuition, and reasoning are gifts from God and could be taken away in an instant. Suddenly we’re not so self sufficient.
15. Misguided religious leaders believe and teach that things are best off run by men. Patriarchal religious systems are characterized by misogyny, and rooted in an inadequate and flawed biblical hermeneutic. These attitudes, beliefs and actions have deeply damaged women, and catastrophically the health and vitality of the church.
These problems are everywhere. Not just the church. So Christians try to make it a better world through a gospel that teaches sacrificial, unconditional love. We don’t always get it right. But that doesn’t make the belief wrong.
Left to our own devices, our limited point of view falls hopelessly short. I don’t want to trust my selfish human nature. Better to trust in One who created all, and knows all. That’s faith. And peace. And joy!
I’ve seen too many lives changed for the good, mine included, to not respond to these finite, human assertions. Church itself isn’t wrong. Perhaps you just need a different church?
Take a hint from the Osmonds. “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch.”