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In my last post I talked in a round-about way about reconstruction. My post garnered a few comments from friends saying that reconstruction was a new idea to them, so perhaps it’s worth a few more thoughts.

To be able to talk about what I mean by reconstruction it’s probably best to start by sketching what I mean by deconstruction. The philosophers would tell us that the term properly is about examining the relationship between text and meaning. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me. I’m not a philosopher.

But in ex-evangelical circles, the term deconstruction has been used popularly to describe the disassembly of the rigid belief structure and thought framework that evangelicalism catechizes. Evangelical theologians often stress that questioning one belief or another is a “slippery slope”, and warn that if you remove one piece, the whole framework of belief is likely to come down like a Jengatower. While this warning is usually intended to keep evangelicals aligned with the particulars of fundamental belief, it can end up having the reverse effect. Once a questioner begins to accept, say, that Genesis 1-2 can be understood less than literally, and that the cosmos might actually be older than, say, 10,000 years, the dam has broken, and any number of other scriptural understandings become possible.

The “deconstruction” process of that dam breaking free usually comes with anger, with a sense of being unmoored, with a lot of questions about what even is real and true, about who or what can be trusted. That process is necessary, will look different for everyone, and will take some time. In my own experience, the anger provided the energy I needed to finally take the steps to break away from the system that had been my whole life. Anger as I began to understand how words and texts were manipulated; anger at how complex, nuanced, millennia-long debates were portrayed as simple, settled, “plain” truths; anger realizing how systems had been carefully constructed to protect hypocritical and sinful leaders at the expense of the people in the pews. I believe that anger is righteous, closer to the heart of God for God’s people than any of that fundamentalist teaching. I suspect every deconstructor goes through a “burn it all down” phase. Some for a very long time.

But you can’t really flourish while living in perpetual anger. Sooner or later you need to move on from it. That doesn’t need to mean coming to accept the broken system you left. It might not mean coming back to Christianity at all. But we still have a need for the things that religion typically provides: things like community, an anchor for a system of ethics, a framework to think about the Big Questions of life. And that’s where this idea I think of as reconstruction comes in. Because while I definitely had a phase where I wanted to burn it all down, I don’t want to live in the ash pile forever.

After a lot of thought and reading and study, for me right now this reconstruction is turning out to look like an Episcopalian flavor of Christianity, with a strong dose of Universalism mixed in. I’m still working it out as I go, but in this vein of a faith tradition I have found a community anchored in the strong assurance of God’s love and strongly committed to upholding the dignity of all people by loving them in God’s example and power. Crucially, this community is secure enough in that love that the hard questions are welcome. No one is afraid that pulling on a particular Jenga block of belief is going to bring God’s love tumbling down.

It can be easy for those of us trained in fundamentalism to hold just as rigidly and fundamentalist-ly to our new belief system as our old one. But reconstruction should be dynamic. Once you’re freed from the fear that has maintained that rigid structure, you can breathe, and read, and think, and pray, and discuss, and change. And that should be an ongoing process. My beliefs today aren’t the same as they were 5 years ago, much less 10 years ago. And I hope that 5 years from now I can look back and see that they have continued to evolve. Building on the foundation of God’s love for me and God’s call for me to love my neighbor, reconstruction can be a lifelong creative exploration and delight.