“Deconstruction” is an increasingly seen observation among the Christian community. It is when someone who once believed in the faith suddenly has their faith shattered and eventually departs the faith. This is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to open 2022 with this series on what being a Christian means and what it entails. The list of popular musicians, authors, and others leaving the faith is ever growing. It has grieved many pastors. Names whom they loved and trusted, producing works they used, and those whom no one would think would depart the faith are suddenly leaving the faith. The youth are leaving the church in an extreme mass exodus. The stats for the last ten years have indicated 90% +/- of youth raised in the church are not coming back as adults. This is alarming, and churches are looking at every possible answer they can to keep the youth in the church, except for addressing their most basic need: proclamation of the true Gospel and equipping them to handle the objections they face. Most youth get no more than mere “Bible stories” essentially taught as myths and fables with no grounding for reality. As a result, most youth are leaving the church because the church has not offered them anything real or tangible for dealing with life.
I want this blog post to stand as a warning so we can see the signs of what happens when a supposed Christian begins to deconstruct in their faith. One of the motivations for writing this article was a post I saw on Facebook of an ex-Young Earth Creationist citing her reasons why she left the faith. Her reasons were 1) proper science education, 2) evidence, and 3) YEC “liars.” I could spend a post on each of these to show it is not YEC who lied to her but pagan priests of Evolution pretending to be scientists. But a comment to this post really caught my attention. A responder said he was raised in the church that taught YEC, and basically it was what his mother taught him. I hear this line of thinking often, and I think it’s part of the severe problem we are experiencing with “church raised” kids.
It is really interesting how many atheists and current “Progressive Christians” are “ex-Christians.” You know what I don’t see? I don’t see these people being ex-Muslim or ex-Hindu or ex-Buddhist. Most of these people were raised in the church and then left it. So, what’s going on? There is another interesting detail that I have noticed in all these ex-Christian testimonies: the extreme majority of them virtually know very little about the faith they left. If you listen to them talk about their problems with the Bible, I get the impression they have never opened up a Bible and got their information from other unbelievers who also have never opened up a Bible. Yet they boast that they were “just like us.” When I talk with ex-atheists, ex-evolutionists, ex-Muslims, ex-Buddhists, ex-New Agers, etc., they know exactly what it was they used to believe. But ex-Christians (and ex-YEC believers) tend to hardly know a thing about what they left. They know the Sunday school stories they heard growing up and that’s about it.
I will blame two people for this. First, I blame the individual who left the faith because they did not do their homework and investigate before things came crashing down. The individual is still responsible for what he believes and what he rejects. But even more so than this, secondly I blame the pastor, the Sunday School teacher, the youth pastor, and all those church leaders who have not only enabled but aided in causing doubt and confusion and refusing to give answers, especially if they are “divisive.”
As origins is often at the top for reasons why people depart the faith, it is absolutely amazing to me how few pastors and church leaders refuse to do anything about this issue because they say it’s too divisive. If 90% of churches, denominations, and seminaries are teaching Old Earth models, and 90% of the youth are leaving the church citing origins as the prime reason for leaving, then OEC teachers and promoters get the blame. Instead, they try to blame us Young Earthers for believing the Bible and giving the answers that they won’t. Many people have left the faith because their church leaders would not or could not give answers or didn’t even believe what they proclaimed to believe. And it gets worse. When a former musician and friend of our president Jason DeZurik left the faith and decided to divorce and abandon his wife and kids to go live in a homosexual lifestyle, the two pastors who counseled him encouraged him to commit this grievous adulterous act. I’m not being judgmental here, but that’s the kind of thing Jesus said would make millstones around your neck be the merciful way to deal with the judgment.
In the desperate attempt to get people into the church via pragmatic and crowd-pleasing ways, pastors and church leaders abandoned their callings. When people found such antics to be devoid of anything real, they left the church. Good luck bringing them back; when they were lied to once by professing Christians, they aren’t going to easily hear another one. The most these people are hearing about Christianity are the doctrines of the faith found in the creeds, but their faith has no depth nor weight beyond that. Anyone can say, “I believe in the Virgin Birth,” and that is as far as that statement goes. We must have sound and correct theology; however, this faith calls for it to be much more than just intellectual knowledge about statements of doctrine. It requires those doctrines to guide and direct our lives.
Those who have left the faith show evidence it never was their personal faith. It may have been their parents’ faith, it may have been their culture, or they may have been given false promises regarding the teaching that suggests that Jesus will give everyone love, joy, and happiness here in this life with no suffering at all. They weren’t told the truth about what it means or what being a Christian truly entails. While some people’s lives did get better after coming to Christ by abandoning the sin that brought them so low, it has made others’ lives much more miserable. Why? Before Christ, they were comfortable in their life of sin; Satan left them alone, and sin’s bite hadn’t hit yet. After Christ, suddenly they became targets for the enemy. I will simply say that as long as the church continues to give these half-hearted, half-truth, pampered and watered-down messages, it will continue to produce false converts day in and day out. If we instead preach the full truth from the full counsel of Scripture, we will lose the false converts right away, but the ones who remain will be bolder, stronger, and the church will truly be more vibrant. We need to get back to preaching the true Gospel and ALL that comes with it.
I will do two more posts with this series. I’ll address how to test a teaching and movement, and then I’ll conclude this series with the only commands that Jesus truly asks of us: to trust Him and obey Him.
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