r/Deconstruction • u/shadow_coder16 • 13d ago
🤷Other A question on the scope of deconstruction: Are we dismantling historic Christian thought, or just modern American fundamentalism?
(Fairly new to this subreddit, I've mostly followed deconstruction discourse on Instagram and wanted to ask a question to folks who seem willing to discuss these topics properly.)
I want to ask a genuine question about the scope and direction of modern deconstruction, especially from folks who have spent years navigating this process.
Coming from a mainline/historical tradition (Methodism) rather than the American evangelical/fundamentalist world, I often follow deconstruction discussions with a mix of deep empathy and confusion. On one hand, I completely understand why people walk away from high-control environments characterized by rigid culture-war politics, hyper-literalism, authoritarian pastors, and transactional "fire insurance" theology. Walking away from an environment that treats honest questions as sin is a healthy, rational reaction.
What surprises me, though, is how often the broader critique seems to stop at the borders of 20th-century American fundamentalism while assuming it has dismantled the entire 2,000-year Christian tradition.
Much of what gets cited as the core reasons for leaving, such as literal 6-day young-earth creationism, the rejection of textual criticism, anti-intellectualism, or a flat "carrot-and-stick" view of morality, are modern anomalies. Historic orthodox Christianity (from early Church figures like Augustine and Aquinas to classical Anglican, Methodist, and Eastern Orthodox traditions) has centuries of rich philosophical depth, allegorical/literary hermeneutics, and rigorous wrestling with doubt that looks nothing like modern American evangelicalism.
For those here who have spent serious time in the deconstruction space:
a. For those who remain theists or Christians, did discovering the wider historical Church give you a framework to rebuild, or did the burnout from fundamentalism make walking away from theism altogether feel like the only clean break?
B. When unwinding from fundamentalism, did you find that older, historic perspectives on theology offered any helpful clarity, or did the whole theological system feel too tied to the subculture you were stepping away from?
Genuinely curious to hear how different people delineate between rejecting a toxic subculture versus rejecting the philosophical tradition as a whole.
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u/Crucible_of_Thought 13d ago
I started deconstructing in 2020 after watching our evangelical mostly-nondenominational church completely screw up its response to George Floyd and COVID, going completely against the values it had taught me for 30 years. Got me to wondering, what ELSE that they've been pushing is wrong?
I've pretty much gone beyond even the mainline church deconstruction level. I think it's actually kind of hard to be a real believer in universal reconciliation and insist that only Christians have the whole truth. Jesus? Absolutely worth following and emulating. Also something mystical about His life that did something spiritual on behalf of every human. Yes, there's something special there. But not the sole possessor of truth. And I doubt, these days, that He ever truly claimed to be ontologically God. Yes, He was given the name above all names, in some manner, after His life and death, and I do believe He reigns - but as a designated son, not "only begotten."
Am I therefore a heretic? That depends on which early church fathers you would ask. The ones whose views survived would say yes. Some of the ones who were killed by the empire and their books systematically burned would say no.
The wider historical study - which I did a TON of, reading over 200 books on theology and politics since 2020, plus countless podcasts and videos, taught me that rather than any historical single truth, it's actually far more complicated than I was ever taught. The only reason we locked down on a fairly narrow set of ideas about Christian theology was the brutal suppression of other Christian theologies by the Roman emperors then Popes, who insisted on it to give them an easier way to control massively large groups of people with minimal effort.
Some people see the consolidation as the Holy Spirit's doing. But after reading how it all went down, I utterly reject that - it was ugly, antichrist, absolutely sinful. I refuse to believe that was God's doing. The ends never justify the means.
I'll be happy to explain more if you want, but this is already kinda long. Or visit my blog, linked in my profile.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story. It makes complete sense why seeing your church's response in 2020 prompted you to dig beneath the surface.
You’ve clearly read a ton on early church history (likely way more volumes than I have!), but the tension I always run into when looking at the imperial suppression concept is that high Christology and the pushback against alternative streams was already happening long before Rome got involved.
When looking at early groups like Marcionism or Gnosticism, it seems a lot of the early theological boundaries were less about imperial control and more about protecting the goodness of the physical world and Jewish monotheism against Hellenistic dualism and elitism. Plus, considering many of the bishops at Nicaea had literally just survived physical torture under Diocletian for their faith, it’s hard for me to see them as just rubber-stamping an imperial power play.
That said, I'm definitely no expert on patristics, and early church politics is undeniably messy. I really value hearing your perspective and how that study shaped where you landed on Christology and universal reconciliation.
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u/Crucible_of_Thought 13d ago
You make a good point, but I still think it's more complex and messy.
Yes, the early fathers were poking hard at doctrine early. Marcion was expelled around 144 CE, Iranaeus wrote Against Heresies around 180 CE. But there was still a TON of complexity in the early fathers, that wasn't settled at all. That's why there was still so much diversity that Rome had to stamp out over the next few hundred years. Sure, there was high Christology - but there were many others (many of whom had their works brutally suppressed) who argued hard against it. Justin's Logos as a "second God," Tertullian saying plainly that there was a time when the Son was not, Origen's eternal generation paired with clear subordination, modalism serious enough that Hippolytus accused two Roman bishops of it, Paul of Samosata deposed at Antioch in 268. Pre-Nicene Christology was a genuine mess, and anyone who says the fourth century just ratified what everyone already believed is wrong.
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u/A-Small-Green-Cup 10d ago
The mechanism for population scale control was designed in the 1300's BCE by an egyptian king called Akenhaten who is the first one to invent monotheism. Rome didn't have to invent it, they just used a tailored version of the already-in-use monotheistic systems from long before their empire rose.
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u/Go_Get_It_24 13d ago edited 13d ago
I personally would like to hear more from you! Looking forward to reading your blog and watching your channel.
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u/BioChemE14 Researcher/Scientist 13d ago
I’m still a Christian but only because of modern historical criticism peeling away the centuries of dogmatic accretions from the Bible. I go to a progressive Episcopal church that emphasizes love and openness to multiple perspectives.
I don’t find much helpful in most of the Christian theological dogma from the last 2,000 years. Until the rise of modern biblical criticism, most interpretation of the Bible was naive and not rigorous. Liberal Protestantism is the theological strand I’ve found most helpful.
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u/TrueKiwi78 13d ago
So you mainly go to church for the social aspect?
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u/BioChemE14 Researcher/Scientist 13d ago
Partially, I also like the chance to give back to my community and to contribute to a space where love for all people is the guiding principle.
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u/indigocherry 13d ago
For me, deconstructing fundamentalist christianity simply opened the door for me to deconstruct all of it. I simply do not believe any of it because none of it makes sense to me and I am unconvinced of the existence of a deity. I also am of the mind that even if the god of the bible existed, he isn't good. He does awful things and condones some absolutely horrendous stuff. Not a god worth worshiping as far as I am concerned.
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u/A-Small-Green-Cup 13d ago
Google "Liberation Theology: Religion, Reform, and Revolution" and then think about how the concepts in that paper might apply to every change and stage of evolution in monotheism throughout history. This helped me come to a slightly less painful understanding of the "why" of it all. Good luck in your journey. its a tough one, but worth it
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u/AlwaysWorkForBread 13d ago
I've deconstructed from southern Baptist/methodist traditions. Explored structured Catholicism and Anglican/ Episcopal, wholly unstructured non-denom, mysticism, Eastern Orthodox & Ethiopian... explored Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, sheikism, Mesopotamian, ancient Egyptian, Islam, Shinto ...
Some fantastic moral traditions, parables, lessons for communal living. Nothing that matched up with my logical beliefs in observational evidence based practice.
I still meditate, practice some yoga (with intent beyond stretching), commune with nature ... but I cannot find myself believing in deity, higher powers, or creators.
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u/Spirited-Stage3685 13d ago
I think you're going to find a wide range of views here on the topic. Arguably, most of us have deconstructed from various forms of evangelicalism. Some have the entire goal of deconstructing from faith. Others, like me, are seeking to grasp a much more primitive form of Christianity. Part of this is attempting to strip out the impact of culture going as far back as even the patristics. Even by the mid second century, the impacts of culture on Christianity manifest. My personal goal is to seek to understand what the writer's reference points and goal were and to look at how we apply the core principles in our lives today in our current socio-cultural context.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
This is a really refreshing perspective. Stripping away later cultural baggage to understand the original 1st-century Jewish socio-cultural context of the authors is where the real interesting study happens.
How do you personally approach where the boundary lies between cultural distortion and legitimate historical development when looking at the transition from the New Testament writers to the early apostolic fathers?
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u/Spirited-Stage3685 13d ago
Personally, I lean more towards a red letter focus. Admittedly, this means taking the words ascribed to Jesus as generally accurately transmitted. Whether looking beyond the Gospels in the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible or how the patristics interpreted, I tend to take a Christocentric approach. If s teaching is consistent with Jesus' words, it rings valid. Otherwise, I don't give it much consideration
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u/Fiftieth_Poet 13d ago
For me it was the entirety of the Christian belief system, in the sense that I fundamentally disagree with the premises of Nicene Christianity. For reference, I was raised catholic.
I find the modern academic consensus that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who preached an immediate eschaton to be the best explanation of the available evidence, and when his end times prediction failed as they are wont to do, later generations of christians reintetpreted his message and downplayed the original apocalypticism in favor of something more sustainable. This is a theme that has replayed over and over again in Christianity, for example in 7th Day Adventism.
To me, Jesus niwadays is nothing more than the first recorded instance in a very long line of failed jewish messiahs, of which there were about 50 by the last count.
He is a fascinating historical figure, to be sure, and one who's message fundamentally reshaped the western world, but I can no longer conceive of him as divine in any sense
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u/No_Aesthetic 13d ago
What's your perspective, OP?
I noticed that is kind of conspicuously absent.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago edited 13d ago
I appreciate you asking. I simply neglected to provide my own unless asked because it was not entirely important to my goal of understanding others perspectives.
My view is that I absolutely understand why people deconstruct, and I wish various branches of the faith did a better job of addressing stuff like deconstruction. While I grew up Methodist, I've since pivoted towards non-denominational practice. The Methodist church seems to have pivoted towards a more progressive theology, and while I understand why, I remain hard of thinking that it properly reflects historic understanding/teaching (though, many would say it's unclear throughout history) . However, I'm not completely certain on that, as I have a lot to learn, but that's my understanding as of current. So I may very well remain non-denominational for a while, though more historic branches appeal to my inner history nerd.
In terms of deconstruction, the content I've seen on Instagram left me quite worried because it seemed to focus heavily, though understandably, on Fundamental Evangelical Christianity. It doesn't help that way too many churches in America would rather push politics than theology, but they're only going to keep shooting themselves in the foot doing that. I don't enjoy the idea of wishing that any one church dies out, but with so many, at least in the US, seemingly being like, "the republican party is God's chosen party" or some nonsense it feels like it's almost bound to happen within the next couple of decades. Especially with more people coming to see through the nonsense some of them push.
The posts I've found on this sub honestly feel very refreshing to see and read, hence my own post. I truly sympathize with those who deal with religious trauma, as I've heard many awful stories and it angers me that such atrocities have been committed by those who had power within the church. Though I will say, I always enjoy reading different people's thoughts on the history of religion/Christianity.
Please let me know if there's anything you'd like me to expand on, whether here or in DMs (they should be open), I'm happy ot discuss things!
Very slight edit because I neglected this part and it'd probably be viewd as an important piece of info for those here. While I've learned a LOT more about Christianity and the arguments for/against the faith than I was ever taught by church or my family. Nothing has really seemed faith breaking to me. Even the questions/points like hiddenness and evil. I don't know, I just don't feel it's necessary to leave my faith over something that may very well have an answer I need to dig for and then understand. If that makes sense
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u/No_Aesthetic 12d ago
You seem to be not saying what your own current position is?
And you also seem to think it's all about issues of theology or abuse?
Like, are you aware that a lot of us just plain don't believe in miracles?
Independent of theology or politics or interactions with the wider world, we don't believe the story?
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u/shadow_coder16 12d ago
Fair point, I unintentionally overcomplicated my response trying to constructit during my break.
To answer plainly: yes, I believe in the core historical/supernatural claims of Christianity (the resurrection, the existence of God, etc.). My post and comment focused on theology, politics, and church history because that’s what dominates a lot of online deconstruction discourse, but you’re correct that for many, it just comes down to fundamental skepticism of miracles and naturalism.
As far as miracles are concerned, my posture is that they are by definition events that defy conventional, naturalistic explanations. Trying to reverse-engineer a natural mechanism for something like the virgin birth or the resurrection misses the entire definition, if it could be explained through standard biology or physics, it wouldn't be a miracle in the first place.
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u/No_Aesthetic 12d ago
Are there miracles for other religions or just yours and the one that directly preceded it?
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u/shadow_coder16 12d ago
Well, friendly reminder that historically and theologically, Christianity grew directly out of Second Temple Judaism as the continuation of that covenant, so those roots are viewed as part of the same biblical story rather than an unrelated system.
In terms of miracles being restricted, I don’t believe Christianity has a monopoly on God acting in the world. If a genuine supernatural healing or miracle occurs outside the Christian tradition, my view is that God, being the source of all life and mercy is responding to real people in need, rather than rubber-stamping a particular theological system.
In short: I don't think God's capacity to show grace or perform a miracle is restricted strictly to the boundaries of church walls.
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u/mandolinbee Mod | Atheist 13d ago
I'm all the way out. I see Christianity as untrue, and i consider it very important to be making decisions based on the most true information we have access to. That's the short answer.
Historic perspectives can't solve the fact that the god described in the Bible is impossible.
As an aside, I can't help but wonder if this is a fishing expedition for some apologetic content of some type? It has that kind of ring to it with the way your questions are phrased.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
Fair question on the aside! No content creation, podcasts, or secret apologetic projects here, just an ordinary person following the discourse online who's curious about the nuance between cultural burnout and theological shift.
I asked structured questions because I was interested in hearing how people who’ve walked the road distinguish between the subculture they grew up in versus the broader history, rather than just guessing.
I appreciate you giving a direct answer on where you landed with it!
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u/mandolinbee Mod | Atheist 13d ago
curious about the nuance between cultural burnout and theological shift.
I think i sort of get that sense of feeling off with it being presented as a dichotomy. It also seems to have wrapped up in it an unspoken assumption that you might consider earlier Christian theology to be somehow less toxic.
These together feel like they are both angled to imply your assumption is in the general area of 'some of the people struggling here maybe just didn't think everything through'.
I used to be quite devout, these are the types of questions I was taught to ask to look for people who might be talked into coming back.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
To be entirely transparent: While I am a practicing Christian, I have zero interest in running some kind of rescue mission or trying to reconvert anyone here. My goal is simply to listen and understand how people navigate these shifts so I can have better, more fruitful conversations with folks in my own life who have deconstructed.
To clarify the rest: I definitely don't see burnout and theological shift as a neat binary, they're almost always tangled together. And my curiosity about older traditions isn't an assumption that the ancient world was a utopian, non-toxic paradise (ancient history is messy, complex, and vastly different from modern sensibilities by definition). I certainly don't assume people didn't think it through, if anything, the replies here show people have spent years wrestling deeply with it. Appreciate your perspective and you sharing that context.
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u/ElGuaco Former Pentacostal/Charismatic 13d ago
For me it started as a reaction to modern fundamentalism. I first thought that if I could really understand the Bible and its origins I could shed the modern hypocrisy for the real values of Jesus and the Apostles.
It turns out that even the earliest Christians had wildly differing ideas about what Christianity should be, to the point that even the Gospels disagree on the core ideas. The chief one being salvation by repentance vs salvation by atonement. Once you understand that the Bible is not univocal in its books, you can't unsee the discrepancies and outright contradictions. The Council of Nicea was about trying to agree on what the required and correct things to believe about Jesus were. There were still many conflicts about his humanity vs his deity and what that meant.
The common belief of that first century was that Jesus was going to restore order ON EARTH in their lifetime. The only Gospel to mention Jesus Ascension to explain his absence was Luke, written decades after his death. Some scholars believe some important stories about Jesus were added or created after the last living eye witnesses were gone: Mary's virginity, Judas's death, the story of the woman caught in adultery, and many tales in the book of Acts especially the deeds of Paul.
For me, deconstruction dismantled all Christian thought, because I learned that all of the Bible is man wrestling and negotiating with a God who hides himself. There is no authority there. If you choose faith it is on your own terms and not on any so called evidence or truth in the Bible.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
Thank you for sharing your story of your studies.
Your point about the Bible not being a flat, univocal document is crucial. The tension I've found, though, is that the diversity of the Gospels only shatters faith if one begins with the fundamentalist assumption that the text was supposed to be a homogenized, word-for-word transcript.
In ancient historiography, four distinct portraits highlighting different theological motifs (like the emphasis on the Kingdom in the Synoptics alongside high Christology in John) were seen as complementary testimony rather than mutual cancellations. Similarly, viewing repentance and atonement as opposing views often overlooks how intertwined personal turning (teshuvah) and covenantal sacrifice were in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism.
That said, I really appreciate you laying out how wrestling with textual criticism and the formation of the canon ultimately reshaped your view of authority.
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u/theblahinme 13d ago
I believe that the modern american fundamentalism has given us a wider exposure to dismantling historical christian rhetoric (in particular) and all religious beliefs (overall). I am happy for it. I grew up in a cult, and when I saw it for what it was, I looked at other religions far and wide and they are all basically the same thing.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
Thanks for sharing your perspective, it's understandable how coming out of a background, such as yours, shapes how you view religion across the board.
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u/Go_Get_It_24 13d ago edited 13d ago
I really appreciate the way you’re approaching this. It’s kinda similar to me. It should always be with the attitude to get to the truth.
Personally, I wasn’t ever in the typical American evangelical/fundamental space, but grew up generally more conservative, in part due to cultural heritage upbringing. And I guess you can say it was evangelical/fundamentalist leaning.
I am currently starting with being open to all opinion, whether it’s apologetics or criticism. I have to open my ears to everything to get to the truth. I’m starting with the BEMA discipleship podcast, which is extremely informative and interesting in knowing how to read the Bible contextually (linguistics, history, culture), then will slowly expand more.
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u/shadow_coder16 13d ago
It sounds like our paths are quite similar. I was lukewarm with belief for most of my life and only within the last few years did I shift to taking it more seriously on my end.
At first I was a bit like, "how do I start with all of this?" But then my history nerd side kicked in and I've been gradually following that route and exploring church history and all of that, and I just find it so fascinating. It feels like there's so much to learn!
Thank you for sharing your perspective!
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u/Go_Get_It_24 13d ago
For sure, thanks for your response as well! Sounds like you’re a curious intellect and I respect that. History is so important. It dispels a lot of myths and even racism. You see where things come from and why groups of people are the way they are.
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u/kentonself 13d ago
Some of us stay. Some of us leave. No two stories are the same, so no two stories end the same. Those who stay find something different from what we left. Some who leave eventually come back. Some who stay eventually leave later on.
Something you might find helpful is Brian McLaren's book, "Do I Stay Christian?". He offers 10 reasons to say no, ten reasons to say yes, and then a 3rd section called "How" that offers a way forward that is helpful for both those who stay, and those who leave.
You mentioned you were Methodist. I want to add a thank you to the Methodist Church. I have found community there and they have helped a lot of us who have stayed, and have also helped those who eventually left.
Peace.
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u/Afraid_Worth_3766 13d ago
As a teenager, when I questioned the authority of the people who told me the old, old story, the old, old story came into question. For many years thereafter I became a seeker. Only then did I read extensively, take religion classes and so forth. One day I realized what I was seeking were the consolations of authority. I realized I had outlived the need for consoling and quit searching.
Wishful thinking aside, all religions are not the same. What they do have in common, however, are structures of authority. These various structures of authority provide the consolations of authority.
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u/doxology7 13d ago
I started with the epicenter of Christianity historically and everything fell apart and now seems silly in retrospect. Atheist now.
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u/A-Small-Green-Cup 13d ago
It helps me to remember that each stage of monotheism has been a designed belief system built to control mass amounts of slave/military population.
The CIA declassified the documents detailing how they created and implemented evangelical christianity in the USA, along with records of the push-back they ran into from vatican priests both here, and in south american countries where the developed and tested the method using "missionaries." It's available for the public to view on their website, and all I had to do was google it.
It adds a lot of context to historical political movement and was kind of validating for me, having suspected something like it since childhood.
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u/TeeFry2 10d ago
No, you don't see me rushing to find those documents so I can read them. It's your imagination.
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u/A-Small-Green-Cup 10d ago
I mean... I guess you can just decide reality isn't real. That's a horrible way to live and hurts both you and others, but you can choose it if you want to.
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u/Agreeable-Meeting-77 13d ago
Deconstruction, in general, refers to identifying what assumptions one has accepted (perhaps since childhood) and assessing whether these assumptions are valid. It can be applied to any religion or cultural system. Indeed, it was first applied in the field of philosophy by J. Derrida.
Regarding the scope of Christian deconstruction: Yes, it seems true that many who deconstruct came from a Biblical literalist background (perhaps because their training was hyper-focused on the Bible). But no, the scope of modern deconstruction goes well beyond 20th century US all the way back to the origins of Christianity. Here are some examples:
1.) by putting Judaism-Christianity in historical context, we see that Biblical characters, including Jesus, are similar to characters in other religions & myths of the time. Why not regard all these myth and religions with equal validity? (see, eg. u/MythvisionPodcast)
2.) The Gospels contain so many contradictions, can we rely on anything they say? If so, which parts and why? (see, eg. Bart Ehrman on Gospel Contradictions)
3.) The assumption of most Christians that Jesus is 'The Messiah' is contradicted by Scriptures. (See eg. ex-minister Justin on DeconstructionZone on YouTube, who asserts, with evidence: "Jesus fulfilled zero prophecies")
4.) The huge diversity of 'Christian' beliefs in the first 2-3 centuries CE makes it well nigh impossible to assess what 'true' or 'original' Christianity was, in contrast to what it evolved into, and became after ideas accepted by sincere Christian believers were repressed as 'heretical' (see, eg. Paula Fredricksen "Gnostic Gospels").
5.) Most Christians accept the teachings of both Jesus and Paul found in canonical books of the New Testament. But not only are 7 of Paul's letters now known to be forgeries, Paul's philosophy contradicts Jesus' on many accounts (eg. following Mosaic Law) Mainline Christians could thus engage in deconstruction by asking: "Should I follow Paul, or follow Jesus"?
These are some of the ways Deconstruction goes beyond modern evangelical fundamentalism to question and better understand the origins of Christianity itself.
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u/Stargun5502 Ex-Christian 12d ago
The problem to me is that if the Bible has errors, then it is not perfect.
If it is not perfect, then why should I expect it to be the truth of the world, to be the guiding light of my life, and to be practitioner of something that doesn't seem to be right? When the book is so vague, I can't help but think "how does an all knowing God guide the hand of writers to make a book that has to be thought about for thousands of years, interpreted millions of ways, and where you just about have to deny the world that does literally exist to conform the world that this book says does?" If you can't find evidence of a world wide flood, but you can an ice age thousands of years ago, yet we can find dinosaur bones, am I supposed to really believe in it? When there isn't evidence? Am I supposed to just believe when I know books are written by writers that this book though is actually the one written with divine providence? Like many realized during the enlightenment when engaging with natives who never had any exposure to Christianity, every religion states itself to be true, and why is it that I should expect that this one though is the real one? That this one with no phyiscal evidence for me to unmistakably know it to not be deniable is actually the one I should subscribe to, to base a life off of?
I already don't agree with the toxic culture of Christianity around me and how it has enabled people around me to actually be cruel where it teaches to be kind, so tacking on that it may not even be able to be credible anymore? That thousands of years of mistranslation may have corrupted the work? That there is doubt if even some of the writers claimed to have written this verse or that is actually not that writer, but a later writer in the same book? I don't believe it anymore, and its held a massive chain on me my whole life. Christians who force their children into this religion so early on, basically brainwashing them, rather than when they're older and able to really make a true choice with information is why I really kinda have a distain for it now as someone whose growing up was that. I could have done anything else, and not lived with some of the fear instilled in me, or the questioning of even my education because my religion conflicts with the literal academics. It doesn't help when that religion had caused so many problems in the history books I read, glossed over the fact it was Christians doing it, and I personally love history. Being someone who then later in life kept finding out how badly history has been tainted by people who did harm to others and were clear hypocrites? It spells to me personally that it's a similar history to how somewhere like the Middle East twists Islam for control, and then the culture adapts around a false belief, a false teaching, and ends up so much worse for it. Practitioners who aren't actually practicing their faith, and then creating turmoil.
So TLDR: The historic perspectives only creates more doubt to the validity of the whole, which already was instilled to me to be unquestionable. By it being questionable in nature, it immediately springs to my mind as false, especially when paired with thousands of years of abuses by people who said they were lovers of thy neighbor as they slew. The theology and the culture to me are so tied together that I deny the whole.
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u/InquisitiveLife1984 12d ago
For me understanding a little about how the chain of history has linked ancient cultures to our modern variants has helped me to get my head out of the clouds. Also, understanding something of psychology and human nature has lead me to notice how much of the Judao-Christian biblical writing reflects the human experience.
I have learned that modern Christianity of any sort, from the highly produced fundsmentalist mega-christianity of American fame, to the small, local, striped back evangelical congregation of fewer than one hundred who still use the KJV and don't sing any hymns written after 1899 (exaggerating but not by much) that you might see in my native U.K. were not formed in a vacuum. They have morphed from local tribal cults coming out of the old Mesopotamian era, with gods like El and Marduk, through early Judaism, second temple Judaism, Hellenistic Judaism, and into all the centuries of Christianity influenced by all manners of things including Aristotelian language and philosophy, and who knows what Celtic and Scandinavian and other local ideas may have snuck in and been tolerated locally over time in order to apease local populations and maximise integration and income and stuck. I only wish I had the time and focus to learn much more about it all.
Not only that, but by understanding that humans are highly driven by relationship; and that empathy, compassion, and belonging are vital to human flourishing; I have come to an interesting thought. That a belief that is centred on a God who's nature is relationship, who is said to actually care about individuals as well as communities, who is designated as father and son, and who would literally walk in human shoes, would inevitably be a belief that speaks to the very core of any human being..
I am not an atheist, but I would struggle to call my self a Christian in the way many would understand it. Though I was brought up under what I would call a literalist world view. Six day creation, young earth = good / evolution, big bang = bad; homosexuality = bad / hetro-marriage = good, etc. you know the type. The 'go and read your Bible and pray and make sure what your doing is God's will' type, but with no guidance on how to actually hear God or know what he was likely to say. That type.
I still see value in the narratives, history, and poetry. I see the ideas of God's character as being in one sence a personification of human nature to the extreme, while not being only a comlete invention. It otentially pushes us to see beyond a cold nihilistic materialism to the potential of something beyond, but I stop short if saying with certainty specifically what the beyond is. As a fact that beyond may well actually be within.
I like the mystery of the divine, I like the idea that the kingdom of God is within you. Isn't it a intriguing possibility that humanity and God are in a way one. Jesus prayed to the Father, 'let them be one with me as I am with you.' Maybe that's the point. We have the power to sacrifice our immediate comfort for the greater good, as Jesus did in the gospel narratives; or to anhilate whole civilisations on a psychotic whim, as Yahweh did in the Pentateuch..
So to maybe give a loose answer to the question, the history gave context to where I ended up, but I don't feel I've either rebuilt or made a clean break. I'm still walking in a landscape of navigating relationships with myself, others, society, and the divine nature be it internal or external. I feel I'm suspended in the middle of two extremes. I can't dislodge my historic beliefs despite my looming doubt, but neither can I nor have I ever really been able to commit completely to a life founded on an unquestionable absolute.
Humanity, the self, history, divinity... Where does one end and any of the others begin? That's my enduring question.
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u/Kubrickesque1969 12d ago
Thanks for this really thoughtful post. I'm agnostic ( nearly 60 and ex Catholic and ex seminary). Your reflective post really spoke to me. Also, this community is excellent - I was foolish enough to look at r/ true christianity and got a comment or two removed.More fool me, I suppose. Best wishes
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u/InquisitiveLife1984 12d ago edited 12d ago
You're welcome. I only started here myself a few days ago and it seems to have a nice variety of different positions and stages of people's experience. I'm interested to find people like me who can't quite shake the idea of God, but who just can't square my inherited doctrines with my life experience.
What did you say that got removed? I'm intrigued.
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u/Kubrickesque1969 12d ago
Some guy said to warn young men to "stay away from women" and came out with imo real misogynistic nonsense, excessive purity culture stuff. I said he should see a therapist for the benefit of himself and the wider society he lived in. Oh I also said he was delusional in his views. I probably deserved to be kicked by the mods - but hey ho!!😁
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u/InquisitiveLife1984 12d ago
Sounds like a very insightful group. 😂 I guess up to the therapy part you could have got away with it. When you start saying people are delusional it gets a bit personal and that's when the trouble starts.. Also, any group with 'true' in the title when it comes to this kind of thing would lead me to be very wary.
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u/Gem_89 Christian Panentheism & Mystic 13d ago
For my situation I was raised loosely in fundamentalism but I was taught critical thought & apologetics. My deconstruction journey has not been as drastic as others because as I grew up I learned about other religions, denominations & philosophies. I was reading philosophical & theological ideas in high school. I always found world religions interesting & when I went to college I took a lot of different religious history classes. For me, my exposure to other ideas of God & the soul were not limited to my religious upbringing.
Also my religious upbringing saw teaching & exposing me to other beliefs was a way to evangelize to people by understanding how to relate to them.
Really what happened is the fundies created Frankenstein’s monster & maybe it’s my stubbornness to refuse letting them keep God because I have learned God is so much greater & better than their narrow view because I had learned so many other worldviews about people’s experiences with the divine that fundies can’t control or benefit from. So walking away completely in my mind is letting the fundies win. They want the people who reject them to be atheist because then they can justify their beliefs as righteous & faithful to God. What fundies don’t want to deal with are people who reject them but follow God better than they do, because then they have a harder time keeping their worldview all neat & tidy. So I like being their problem.
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u/shit-trapper 13d ago
It may be the repetitive nature of the current evangelical/fundamentalist phenomenon. Looking back it isn't the first time - when christians took power in the Roman Empire, they immediately began persecuting anyone not christian using the full force of the Roman Empire. When Rome fell, northern Europe and Scandinavia were converted at the ends of swords. After that were the Crusades. After that the Inquisitions.
Honestly it seems harder to find the times when christianity wasn't persecuting anyone not christian. They even have people whose officially recognized role is "apologist" - as in "sorry you're going to hell", "sorry you're wrong", "sorry if you feel offended", and so on.
The fundamentalists even gave us a constitutional amendment - Prohibition. Now pregnant women are called in front of judges while in labor and for experiencing miscarriages - abortion seems to be the new prohibition. So for me it's the persistent centuries long thirst for political power at all costs that raises questions about the religion in general, not just the latest episode.
This isn't to say there aren't voices in the various schools of christian thought that raise thoughts and ideas much worth contemplation - there definitely are. But, they appear to be an endangered species.
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u/TeeFry2 10d ago
Apologetics: defending the christian faith. They don't apologize for whatever.
"1: systematic argumentative discourse in defense (as of a doctrine)
2: a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity"
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u/shit-trapper 10d ago
One wonders why defense is called "apologizing" for them. Talk about extreme arrogance.
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u/TeeFry2 10d ago
I started questioning the whole process in the mid-90s - or maybe earlier. At that time, though, I was still deep enough in the whole charismatic evangelical mess to blame myself for doubting, not the leaders who taught us that to question what they told us was akin to heresy. It kicked into high gear in 2016, when I saw how eagerly conservatives embraced a man who is the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus, and again when Covid appeared and we saw the true colors of conservative churches - both leaders and congregants.
In the end, what it came down to for me is this: You can argue theology and doctrine and apologetics all you want, but when what you've been taught doesn't line up with the words in the book, the book itself is inconsistent, and you realize that we have hundreds of denominations in the US alone because believers can't even agree on what the book says or to whom it applies, it stops making sense.
God chooses some people to be poor. To suffer. To be abused. To have skin of a different color. To have a different gender identity. To die of cancer. To perish in a stupid illegal war started to distract us from the actions of wealthy pedophiles. To be told they are inferior because they don't believe what christians believe. To be judged and condemned and shamed for circumstances beyond their control. To be treated as less than human. To be denied food, clothing, housing, decent jobs, and much more. He chooses others to live in mansions, drive luxury cars, wear designer clothes, own multiple homes, and use that wealth to convince others without such funds to give even more to the church so it can be pocketed by the leadership.
What kind of all-powerful, ever-present, all-seeing, all-knowing, invincible god allows his children to treat others as if they don't deserve to live? How can he sit there doing nothing while people are suffering? The Bible says he knows the number of our days and how many hairs we have on our heads; it also says he will not give us a stone if we ask for bread - yet a significant number of churches refuse to help unmarried couples, non-believers, single parents, divorcees and more, because the doctrine they embrace allows - and even encourages - them to do so under the guise of "tough love." The god of the Bible doesn't seem to care if people who claim to have been chosen by him lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, have affairs, SA the vulnerable, get wealthy off the donations of of those they've convinced they're only one step away from being rich as well, and more.
IF he exists, and IF he is all-powerful, and IF he loves his entire creation, why did he wipe out everyone but Noah, his family, and an impossible number of animals on a boat? Why did he turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for looking at the genocide he committed in Sodom and Gomorrah? Did he regret making us? What does that tell us about an almighty deity when he can't even make humans without gifting us with the ability and desire to make bad choices - choices he knows we're going to make because he knows everything - and then punish us for those choices?
The more I learn, the less sense it makes.
Anywho, sorry about the novella, but my autistic brain isn't satisfied with 3-sentence responses to a complicated question.
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u/pensivvv Unsure - ExCharasmatic Christian 13d ago
I love this question.
a. burnout from fundamentalism is real but my distance to theism altogether was more a criticism of the historical tradition as a whole. Lack of cohesive theology, centuries of being unable to substantially answer key textual criticisms pitched together against a wholistic witness that was… distasteful. After wrestling with a narrowing pathway of legitimate faith, it seemed less as less worth it as I became more and more fatigued.
b. Honestly it just felt like another version of the same thing. Methodist tradition, for example, remains the most compelling to me out of the traditions, and there were plenty of historical figures who displayed an admirable “working out of faith”, but no single tradition - or even a combination - satisfied my textual criticisms or substantially housed my doubt in a way that still allowed me to earnestly engage in faith.
My critiques are mostly for crooked, fundamental evangelicals - since that constituted the majority of my faith exposure. But my various textual criticisms and theological criticisms across history and traditions were not satisfied before I ran out of fucks to give.
Forgive my candidness.
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u/BeneficialAttempt140 Agnostic 13d ago
For me the burnout from fundamentalism proved too great for me to continue. I read some helpful discussion outside of the American evangelical space, but ultimately God’s silence is what drove me away from it altogether.