Faith.In.Life

#Deconstruction

The Two Ps of Deconstruction

Politics and purity culture seem someone disconnected from one another, but they both had unique roles in the #Deconstruciton movement.  

Politics:

After the 2016 election, one tweet read “80% of evangelicals supporting Donald Trump was the last straw for me.  I walked out of the church and never went back.”  In 2024, there is a polarity in our culture that may have existed before, but now primarily due to social media has blown up.  Just this past week, Kansas City Chief Kicker, Harrison Butler gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College that has seemingly got everyone’s attention.  The left is calling for the Chiefs to kick him off the team and the NFL has condemned his speech ever trying to disassociate themselves from the content of the speech.  Meanwhile, many conservatives applaud the speech while his jersey sales go through the roof.   I find it incredibly strange that I don’t have to ask anyone what their political persuasion is anymore, I simply can just throughout a name or an event and then be quiet - I will very quickly be able to know a person’s political persuasion, and with it, have a pretty good idea of their view of Christianity.    

At our the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians’ National Gathering this year they named the elephant in the room: we are pastoring our flocks through another election year.  In talking to one of Faith’s own I said I finally figured out what I feel about this year’s election:  The scene in The Princess Bride around poising the wine.  The savior, Wesley, confronts the villain mastermind, Vazzini with a test of the mind where he poisons one of the wine glasses to choose from.  The script reads:

Wesley pours the poison into the glasses. 

W: Alright, where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink and find out who is right and who is dead. 

V: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s? Now a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he is given. I am not a great fool so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must’ve known I was not a great fool, you would’ve counted on it so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me. 

W: You’ve made your decision then? 

V: Not remotely, because Iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely filled with criminals, and criminals are not used to having People not trust them as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. 

W: Truly you have a dizzying intellect. 

V: Wait till I get going! Where was I?

So it is with me as a Christ follower going into the 2024 election saying “I clearly can’t pick either candidate for certain reasons.”  And as either polarity steps up to crucify me, let me clarify.  I am convinced that in our cultural polarity of the right and the left, Christianity actually offers a third way.  I go back to an article that I read in regards to the 2016 Election where Christianity Today had three people write on “Why I Voted For Trump,” “Why I Voted for Hillary,” and “Why I Voted For Neither.”  Form a purely Christian belief stand point, the third article was by far the most biblically centered argument.  

Even if there was a clear candidate to vote for, I have already pointed out that if we look to them as our “King” then we will commit the same sin and mistake that Israel did in asking for a King when God alone is Lord of lords and King of kings.  My conscious has been conflicted, and I have been weighing my options between the two candidates.  Agree or disagree as you like, but if we are to compare either candidate or policy to how the Bible calls us to act and believe they both fall short.  So my prayer is for us to repent and turn back to the Lord.  I am equally convinced that our culture is facing a sort of moment similar to King Josiah.  Largely, Israel had turned away from the Lord following a bad king to false gods.  In King Josiah’s reform, he leads the people back to the commandments of Deuteronomy.  Biblical scholars and archeologists alike believe that the tablets of the Torah were lost at the time, but found during King Josiah’s reign which guided the reformation.  We as a Western culture would do well to return to biblical teaching and the Lord of lords, King of kings.  But even if this doesn’t happen, while I don’t know when Jesus will return, I know we are one day closer than the day before.  When Jesus returns he will make all things new - even politics.

Purity Culture:

I was introduced to Joshua Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye through a girl I was interested in 2001.  Harris’ book was part of a movement that shifted Evangelicalism away from simple abstinence to overall purity.  I remember what the girl I was interested in at the time was saying, and I thought it was pretty far-fetched.  I realize that in hindsight I as a juvenile male was simply trying to bypass any courting process to obtain the thing I treasured most - which was only part of the problem.  I now hold to a lot of what the movement taught but from a very different perspective.  Let me take a moment to clarify:

I grew up in a culture that encouraged lust.  So, when I was a youth leader and I encouraged abstinence and purity the youth would ask me why.  While I most certainly believe that the Bible teaches healthy sexuality, I would equally be able to tell the youth group that I tried finding life down that road, and it had failed me.  I also realized the damage it did to not only myself, but also the women I interacted with.  I failed to identify those women as sisters in Christ to be honored and nurtured, rather than some type of material product to satisfy my needs and to be my next girlfriend.  I hope as you read this you realize that what I was doing was incredibly unhealthy, and something to shy away from.  I was trying to find my meaning in women apart from my meaning in God.

There was equally something odd to purity culture.  In purity culture, it said that basically if something causes you to stumble, get rid of it.  I was encouraged to get rid of any music CDs that I had that essentially if it wasn’t Christian, you should burn it.  From a ministerial perspective, things like the Billy Graham rule came into effect so that men in leadership would not even have the slightest hint of sexual impurity.  Then we somehow lifted up anyone who had any history of sex or even lust to wear that scandalous scarlet letter.  And the list could go on.

To be clear, it was all based on work’s righteousness.  Over time there was grace offered to the sinner to embrace some type of new virginity, but this seemed to come with its contract.  As culture shifted to embracing the spectrum of sexuality that we find now through the LGBTQ+ perspective it was no surprise that initial arguments from Evangelicals quoted texts from Leviticus - and I was one of them.  I was on the front lines to throw the first stone, and in doing so I know I failed to show the grace and love of Jesus.  

Which, as always, is the point:  Jesus.  I often try to talk about our relationship and oneness acts as a type of Triune relationship where we are offered grace by Jesus so that we would be at peace with God and each other.  If we do not first find that unity individually, we will never find it in relationships or in the community.  Furthermore, we can do one of two things with our sexuality:  Either one, we place it on a pedestal that will define every aspect of our being.  But, what happens when that pedestal crumbles?  If you live long enough, you will find that regardless of your sexual preference, ultimately your love interest will let you down.  Whether they change, leave, or die - at some point we realize that the very thing we were finding our meaning in is now gone.  The odd part of this is that Christianity taught this: Just find that one your heart longs for.  Just get married- right?  And your life will somehow be more complete.  Only now that I have been in ministry long enough, I see marriages fail that I thought we were eternally strong.  And then you see the fallout for the person who thought their forever was all they needed, only to realize that even if it lasted a lifetime, it still wasn’t long enough.  

Or two, we avoid the topic altogether.  Even if someone was taught purity culture and was able to live that way for a time, at some point temptation came knocking and the person was not prepared for it.  In some ways, such a culture created sheep amongst wolves.  There is something about our drinking culture that shames underage drinking, but then there used to be things called “Power Hour” where once you turned 21 the challenge was to drink 21 shots in one hour.  So, you take someone who in theory has never had a drink, and then turn on the fire hose - what could go wrong?  In the same way, if you had been told to avoid all forms of sex or maybe you were told to simply find one person and be with them forever - why would anyone be surprised that pornography would be such a huge problem or people would have affairs - or even people would at some point finally experiment?  

Either way, a proper and healthy sexuality was not taught or practiced, and ultimately was not rooted in Christ.  

Joshua Harris is one of the grand audience who deconstructed his faith. In a tweet quoted in an article printed in 2019, Harris talked about his divorce, leaving Christianity, and apologized for his teaching on sexuality.  While Harris’ story sounds similar to Derek Webb’s (the story of two divorces), his repentance comes with the cultures’ shift of welcoming alternative sexuality.  Harris, who seemed to have a firm foundation, still was blown away in the wind of what is popular.  I imagine that it was pretty simple to ride on the wave that was purity culture than to hold onto the root of the Faith when the storms began to rise.  

I seemingly watch this happen fairly regularly.  I recently watched a sermon given by a United Methodist pastor and in my understanding, he was saying that if we disagree with what Scripture is saying, there is a way to work around Scripture.  The logical fallacies he was making were endless.  If you followed his logic from point one through one could ask is the Bible trustworthy or efficacious at all?  I think his answer had to be “No!”  So we exchange the Truth of God for a lie hoping that it will somehow appeal to the masses, but in the end, it will be burned as chaff in the fire.   

Many will reference politics and purity culture as part of the overall beliefs that have helped lead to their deconstruction.  I wonder, though, if it isn’t a broad misunderstanding that has created a different animal entirely.  What I mean is this:  That which has ostracized many from Evangelicalism is not Christianity, but rather nationalism weaponized under the greater umbrella of being “Christian.”  I have always said that Jesus gives much more guidance for us as individuals, how to love one another and outdo others in showing honor rather than talking about politics.  Jesus doesn’t talk a lot about politics from the perspective of the government or the authorities beyond calling his followers to pray for our leaders and pay taxes.  The Old Testament may be a much better place to find how a government or nation should orient themselves to ultimately be founded on the Word of God.  

As to purity culture, the Bible gives us pretty clear guidelines for what our sexuality should look like.  The commandments are largely given based in the logic “if you do this you will surely die.”  They are given because God loves us, not because God is some type of cosmic killjoy.  Culture will tell us to experiment and to push the boundaries even to the point of surgery.  The idea is that we will find life by doing so.  And if the Devil can trick the world into thinking he does not exist, then we will be able to suggest the lie by saying “Did God set that boundary?  You won’t die.  Just try it.”  In following the deceit and the seduction, the world is as anxious and depressed - if not more than - it has ever been.