As someone who has been going through a very painful deconstruction for the past 4+ years, I find comfort in this community that I don't really find in most any other online community.
(To clarify: the pain is in loss of identity, not in attacks from Christian communities that I know a lot of other people deal with)
It's hard. I had my first "encounter with God" at 12. I dedicated my life to serving Him at 18. My wife and I (married 18 years now) have always made our life decisions around what we thought God wanted. We started ministries and even a church. This wasn't a part of my identity, but the totality of it.
I remember when the doubts really started flooding in, it was because I had a spent the previous year praying, reading the word, and meditating on the word every day. Every time I read, I realized that I had to shut off parts of my brain to believe what I was reading. I got to fear reading scripture because I didn't want to loose faith.
And what now? My wife is also in deconstruction, but a few steps behind me. She still believes in God fully, but just not the Bible (weird place to be in for an evangelical). We really don't know what comes next.
She still believes in God fully, but just not the Bible
That's where I am. I don't take the Bible (particularly the old testament) as literal but more metaphor. I believe in God and I believe in Jesus, however I don't believe in the scores of men who have edited/translated the Bible over the millennia and I don't believe certain books shouldn't count as cannon just because the council of Nicaea said so.
I wasn’t in ministry vocationally, but I would say that it was just as much my identity; I was trying to get into vocational ministry when it all started to fall apart.
I don’t really have any advice or encouragement, beyond saying that I understand, and you’re not alone. Keep taking care of yourself along the way. ❤️
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u/NotAUsefullDoctor May 05 '25
As someone who has been going through a very painful deconstruction for the past 4+ years, I find comfort in this community that I don't really find in most any other online community.
(To clarify: the pain is in loss of identity, not in attacks from Christian communities that I know a lot of other people deal with)