Come Ye Doubters and Deconstructors

Resisting the urge to engage in "churchsplaining"

Photo by Askar Abayev from Pexels

(A five-minute read)

I’m slowly making my way through A. J. Swoboda’s book After Doubt: How To Question Your Faith Without Losing It, which is a reflection on the act of deconstruction, providing thoughtful advice on how to do so without making total shipwreck of one’s faith. There’s a lot to commend about this book, highlighting a compassionate call to provide space for those who may not feel completely settled in their religious commitments. “Part of the reason so many young people deconstruct their faith so radically after leaving home,” Swoboda thus offers, “is that they were never given a chance to differentiate in their earlier years.” Indeed, quite often they “were never given agency as people” and thus find themselves questioning everything when they get on their own.

As good as many parts of the book are, however, there have been times when I’ve felt an underlying feeling of uneasiness. Even though Swoboda on the one hand offers a sympathetic tone to those who might be questioning their faith, there still seems to be a subtle air of condescension toward those who might want to question their faith outside the strict boundaries of his project. “Not all acts of deconstruction inevitably lead to bitterness, cynicism, and a critical spirit,” he reluctantly admits, “but our current intoxication with deconstruction is creating a community of deconstructors with theological tar, feathers, and pitchforks at the ready.”

This underlying narrative is woven throughout the book, taking umbrage with people who don’t deconstruct in quite the way he thinks it should be done. And it makes me feel uneasy.

That’s because, whether right or wrong, I’ve gotten to the place where I’d rather err on the side of giving doubters and deconstructors too much rope rather than not enough. Criticizing those deconstructing their faith, even if they seemingly wander way too far off the reservation, and trying to set the parameters of proper deconstruction, feels like an act of gas-lighting or “churchsplaining.” It feels somewhat like a husband who abuses his wife and then lectures her on the appropriate way to respond to his abuse. It’s just one more way the church tries to control the narrative and control people’s religious journey.

To be clear, I’m not singling Swoboda out on this, or even attributing all this to him. His book just contributes to this larger narrative I’ve felt, where many church-people, instead of engaging in considerable self-reflection in response to those deconstructing their faith, lash out and basically prove the very thing deconstructors are reacting to.

It’s funny, though, because as I’ve wrestled with this dynamic, it’s made me realize that my theological framework has led me to perhaps exhibit a greater sympathy for these doubters and deconstructors than what is present within other Christian circles. I don’t write this to brag or sound arrogant; I’m actually pointing to the theological paradigm of my faith community, which, when properly understood, lends itself to a more compassionate attitude for those who are troubled by the church’s faults. Indeed, I’d say that Seventh-day Adventists—perhaps uniquely—stand with the doubters and deconstructors and say, “You ought to deconstruct your faith, because there are significant problems with what you’ve inherited.”

I say this for three reasons:

1. In the Seventh-day Adventist reading of Scripture, we have gleaned that the overarching meta-narrative is a “misapprehension of God” in the world (this is a line from one of our founders, Ellen White). We believe that evil forces have maligned and misrepresented God, clouding people’s perception of who he is. This has gone on from the beginning and continues with great intensity, even while God has been increasingly clarifying the truth about himself in tandem with this misapprehension.

2. More significantly, we believe that the vehicle of this misapprehension has largely been, not secular and non-religious forces, but religion itself—and more specifically (and seriously), the church itself. In this way, we are classically “Protestant,” believing that the church has so frighteningly misrepresented God, ascribing to him all manner of deplorable teachings, fundamentally contradicting the gospel.

Just as soberingly, the church has not only taught and promoted ugly and deplorable teachings about God, it has carried out such incredibly heinous acts in the name of God—from the various Inquisitions and Crusades, to sex abuse scandals, to promoting slavery and Jim Crow laws, to sitting by silently as the Nazis carried out perhaps the world’s most dreadful genocide against the Jews (to name but a woeful few). In light of just how utterly deplorable church-people have represented God, both in deed and in doctrine, is it any wonder that many have decided to deconstruct their faith?

Indeed, it’s actually a wonder, and perhaps a testimony to the grace of God, that more people haven’t done so (though I think we’re finally starting to see the proverbial “chickens coming home to roost” in the increasingly-secular West).

3. Lest members of my faith community start to feel smug and self-righteous about our own position, however, the church has also pointed to itself as sitting in a rather dubious position. Historically, Seventh-day Adventists have identified themselves as being the church of Laodicea in Revelation, the Bible’s last book. This is not an envious position. There, according to John, Christ assesses the church of Laodicea and finds it wanting, claiming the church is “lukewarm,” thinking it’s doing better than it really is. Most notable in this exchange is that Christ explains to the Laodiceans that he wants to spit them out of his mouth. That’s quite an image! And quite a sobering evaluation.

It just tells me that if Christ is so troubled by the church, to the point where he actually threatens to reject it, why should I expect my fellow human beings, mortal and finite in wisdom as they are, to somehow respond any better to the lukewarmness and toxicity that characterize the church?

This actually reminds me of something Ellen White, a pivotal figure in my faith community, once said in advising a group of young people who were struggling with their relation to the church. “There is a little hope in one direction,” she surprisingly offered. “Take the young men and women, and place them where they will come as little in contact with our churches as possible, that the low grade of piety which is current in this day shall not leaven their ideas of what it means to be a Christian.”

In other words, Ellen White fully supported deconstruction and even encouraged young people to steer clear of religious organizations that were misrepresenting God.

It is for these reasons that I find myself giving great latitude to people who may be struggling with the church, determining that life outside of it is safer than life inside of it. I blame the church, of which I’m a leader, when someone leaves rather than blaming the person who leaves. (There are no doubt rare exceptions, of course.) While I still believe there are redeeming qualities about the church, I do not at all begrudge anyone for whom those redeeming qualities are greatly overshadowed by the ways in which the church has left a bad taste, sometimes violently so, thus concluding that faith deconstruction and even religious detachment are necessary steps.

And instead of trying to set the parameters for people who are questioning their faith, telling them they can only question according to my tightly-controlled criteria, I choose to lead with empathy and understanding, saying, “Come ye doubters and deconstructors, there’s always room at the table for you. Questions and all.”

---

Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.