Wrestling With God How can we help people reconstruct their faith? BY AIMEE PATTERSON
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ver the past few years, there has been a growing movement of people who are leaving the evangelical church as a result of deconstructing their faith—a process that involves reflecting on which of their beliefs have been shaped by cultural, political or socio-economic values rather than the values of the kingdom of God. Through this process, many find their beliefs no longer align with those of their evangelical churches. In a previous Salvationist article, I examined this “ex-vangelical” movement through the lens of the Psalms, which captures the complexity of the Christian journey in prayers of orientation, disorientation and new orientation. Many ex-vangelicals are not leaving the church because they don’t believe in the good news. Rather, they are reacting to a general drift of evangelicalism toward Christian fundamentalism. They often find community and solidarity among similarly minded people online as they grieve the inadequacy of their churches in supporting them through their process of deconstructing and reconstructing their faith. Without support, many of them do not get to the “reconstructing” phase and simply “deconvert.” Why are these ex-vangelicals not finding adequate support in their evangelical 20 May/June 2022 Salvationist
churches? Most evangelical church leaders see deconstruction and reconstruction as hazardous to both personal faith and church authority. But instead of being defensive, can we recover the biblical tradition of wrestling with God? Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism People looking in from the outside have synonymized evangelicals and fundamentalists. They hear Christians making polarizing claims about politics, science, racialized people and people who are gender or sexually diverse. There may be differences in levels of militancy between evangelicals and fundamentalists. Such differences, however, don’t get covered in the news and on social media platforms. As to the view from the inside, it can be hard to find an evangelical Christian who can describe evangelical Christianity and what makes it distinct as part of the body of Christ. A basic definition of evangelicalism, as described by British historian David Bebbington, includes four features: 1. The Bible is inspired by God. 2. The atoning work of Jesus Christ is central for faith. 3. Salvation involves having a personal relationship with God that leads one away from sin and toward discipleship and holiness. And finally, 4. Christians are called to participate in God’s work by
living in ways that pursue the kingdom of God in creation. This can include partnering with others pursuing social justice who identify as Christian, religious and secular. As they do so, evangelicals share God’s good news. None of this precludes the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction. But fundamentalism does. Fundamentalists understand the Bible as not only inspired by God but also inerrant and infallible. This means biblical criticism (analyzing Scripture in terms of authorship, audience and other contextual factors) is viewed as unnecessary and even threatening to its truth and the Christian faith. So, Christians who want to dig deeper into Scripture’s meaning are also threats. This is only one example of the narrowness of fundamentalist culture. When it comes to participating in God’s work in creation, fundamentalists turn inward, condemning most of what comes from outside their communities. This narrow-mindedness inherent to fundamentalism is creeping into evangelical communities. Perhaps because evangelical Christians don’t have a strong sense of evangelical identity, and perhaps because we live in a time that accepts extremes and rejects nuance, people who identify as evangelical
