Faith.In.Life

#Deconstruction

Castle in the Sand

Recently there has been quite a bit in the news and in documentaries about this strange process in which Hollywood recruits talent.  They are recruited at a very young age and then thrown into the limelight thinking they can somehow withstand all the pressures and scrutiny that come with being famous.  When I was growing up we learned names like Brittany Spears, Aaron Carter, Amanda Bynes, and Justin Bieber.  Now, as we have watched each celebrity climb to fame and then basically fall from it; we see Brittany as an absolute wreck, Carter having taken his own life, Bynes fallen completely out of the lime light, and Bieber basically admitted to being abused.  I bring this up because Derek Webb himself was only 19 when Caedmon’s Call formed.  Whatever theology the band included in their music was essentially based on whatever their upbringing had taught them.  They wouldn’t have had much time to put their faith into practice, and yet their talent earned them a spot in the lime light were everyone would be watching.  One has to wonder if their upbringing prepared them for such a stage.  Or, in fact, if the stage they were given was one on which they would fall apart and people like me and you would be there to see it happen and even give our opinions about it.  

To which, we might start unpacking the types of things one might hear when people are #deconstructing.  There is something about the movement and process that requires exploration and in the journey you would have to try to be open to new experiences while equally questioning what you thought was true.  And to its credit, I think this is a very good thing.  There is something about attending seminary that is meant to challenge presuppositions you might have all the correct answers or that the way you were brought up is the right way.  While this is not the case at many seminaries, it seems like the hope for any seminary is to actually teach what is true.  That is, if we are basing our belief on what Jesus taught and what the Bible teaches, then we should look to them as our guide with the intention to understand what was really said.  I know for a fact that I had to unlearn a lot of my childish understanding of Christianity at seminary and build something better and more solidified in its place.  I often say that before seminary I didn’t even feel like I had a tool belt to work with, let alone the tools needed to do the work.  But, after seminary I now feel like I have the tool belt, and if I am missing a tool I have the ability to go find it.  In doing so my foundation is very solid to which many of my sermons are written from what I now know rather than having to do much in depth research before ever starting.

This, though, is where many people will go online and find whatever answers they are looking for.  Many of these answers are nowhere close to accurate, but because it might sound clever or like it could be true we run with it.  For instance, in a podcast called #deconstructionist the two hosts were discussing what the Gospel meant.  They suggested that you cannot define the Gospel as easily as Jesus lived, died, and rose again because Jesus himself could not and did not talk about that while he was living.  This then played on the idea that our theology is primarily formed by Paul and not actually formed by Jesus.  If you are any day to day person that might be questioning your faith you might be tempted to nod your head and say something like “Yeah that sounds right.”  

This is where we have lost one of John Calvin’s main pillars of the faith:  discipline or accountability.  When the Bible was originally being shared through the Oral Tradition it would look a little like the following:  Some people are sitting around a fire, and lets say someone starts sharing a story from Genesis.  They might say:

“Remember when God flooded the earth and God saw the entire world as sinful, except for just one:  Jonah.”

The group effectively nods their head until the last name that the person shares.  Everyone in the group has the duty to correct the story, but maybe one person speaks up before the others.  Whoever speaks up would say:  “No, it wasn’t Jonah.  It was Noah, we know this because that is how it actually happened.”  Then everyone around the fire would agree with them and verify the factual and historical account of the event.  

Now, maybe the person telling about the flood narrative made a simple mistake, and they did not intentionally mean to lead anyone astray.  In that case, the person would have maybe said “My mistake, you are right.”  But, in the case of the #deconstructionist podcast, I have to wonder if they are saying something because it sounds good, but may be uninformed.  Or, if they are simply ignoring what is actually true.  If they had done their research they would have found that as early as John 1:29 we read:

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

John, of course, is referring to the pure and spotless lamb needed for the sacrifice to atone or make up for the sin of the community, or the world.  John tells us from the get go who Jesus is.  Then, throughout all of the Gospels Jesus is constantly telling his disciples that he has come not to live, but to ultimately die and rise again on the third day.  Paul, then, builds on this idea because he as Saul believed that Jesus was dead, but when he encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus he sees with his eyes that Jesus is no longer dead - He is alive.  The very name of the first four books of the New Testament is “The Gospel of…Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,” and they all give the same message:  Jesus lived, he died, and the third day he rose again.  

I lift this up as only one example.  So many of these types of podcasts or teachers make blanket claims that sound edgy, right, or good, but they have no backing what so ever.  I once worked with someone who studied apologetics and he pointed out that every church should have a solid apologetics pastor and teaching so that people could be built on the rock.  What he pointed out was that what we are seeing is two fold for people who grow up in the church and then walk away - or deconstruct and deconvert from their faith.  Either way, they are legitimately wounded by the church or they see some inconsistency within the church’s teachings which should make them legitimately question the church.  The problem is, rather than simply questioning the practices of the church, they question their faith.  Or two, they never adopted the faith as their own and when questions or hardships come their way they find that their faith is built in sinking sand.  

In Derek Webb’s case he may have found some popularity through Caedman’s Call by singing a faith that was not his own.  We begin to see Webb start to question and challenge his faith in his solo projects, and then when his divorce happened he left the faith entirely.  One might beg the question how in depth his faith was, or if in fact it was built on sinking sand?  But, then two, there may be something deeper going on, that a faith is broken down through the death of a thousand cuts.