 There is a massive movement going on right now and it's called the Christian deconstructionist movement. Maybe you've heard about it. Maybe you haven't exactly heard about deconstructionism, but more than likely you know some people that are currently doing it. So I want to talk about this movement, dig into why there's a big problem within it, and hopefully give you some help to walk with somebody that's going through this in your own life. Hey, what's up guys? My name is Isaac David and this is The Daily Disciple where I hope you follow Jesus daily. Once again, I'm coming to you in the podcast Daily Disciple Studio in my parent's basement. Once again, thank you to everyone on Patreon who is helping support my ministry and hopefully one day we'll get out of my parent's basement and I'll be able to do this full time. That's the dream, but thank you to everyone on Patreon for making this possible. Now on to the video. So what do I mean by Christian deconstructionist movement? Well, let's just make it really plain and simple. There's a group of people that are deconstructing their faith, the things that they found to be fundamental about the Christian faith and that are fundamental to the Christian faith. They're tearing those things down and evaluating each piece, each kind of like stone or brick in that foundation of Christianity to see if they actually want to believe it. What happens is that when they're deconstructing, and we're going to get into this, is that when they evaluate, hey, do I want to believe in this? If it doesn't coincide with what the culture believes, often it's disposed of. And we're going to go into why people are doing this deconstructionist movement, how to help them, all that kind of thing. So something that turned me on to this whole movement was honestly seeing all the videos on YouTube that said something like my Christian deconstruction or my deconstruction journey. And I proceeded to watch like tens of these videos, literally. I've seen so many of them, especially in preparation for this video, because I wanted to give you guys a good sense of what was going on. I think some of the most popular deconstructionist videos are Rhett and Link, which I have responded to. They were Christians for, I mean, they weren't actually Christians. They were people that verbalized their belief in Christ, but actually there was no transformation of the heart. But as they were kind of deconstructing their own faith, they realized, look, we actually don't believe any of this, really. And so they moved on. And, you know, there's other popular, I mean, semi popular YouTuber, God is Gray, who still calls herself a Christian, but has disposed of a lot of like biblical sexuality and other things. So it's just interesting how certain people, when they deconstruct, they will still hold on to the label Christian. And some other people will choose other labels. And we'll talk about that. So a trend that I've noticed in watching some of these videos is that people often come from, you know, a pretty fundamentalist background. So meaning that, you know, generally, maybe it was like Southern Baptist or, you know, fundamentalist Baptist, it was like maybe no alcohol or like, you know, very strict in the rules department rarely. And it does happen, but rarely does it come from some sort of like seeker friendly, wishy-washy church. It's like, no, these kids were like grew up in a place where the Bible was held in high esteem. And now they're seeing, hey, look, I don't actually believe what's in the Bible. So while the deconstructionist movement tries to portray itself as just people trying to seek the truth, there's definitely other factors at play. One of the reoccurring factors that I've seen in people's deconstructionist stories was this idea of church hurt and abuse. And unfortunately, this is just, this is really sad, honestly, it really is tragic, because a lot of these people have experienced hurt within the church, whether that was from a leader in the church, or just the church being really clicky and excluding them, or somebody in leadership or mentorship, mishandling one of their issues or struggles, or it was just broken trust there. And you can see how that could kind of change your perspective of this club that you're part of, where you're like, whoa, I thought this was like a safe place. And this safe place that I thought was going to help me, it's actually one of the main factors that is hurting me. I mean, not to mention, obviously, and this is just terrible, right, actual, like, emotional or physical abuse going on within the church. And obviously, that's inexcusable. But these are just some of the factors that are kind of leading people to question what they once kind of took for granted. Another factor is hypocrisy. So seeing somebody within the church that they highly respect fall or go against what they teach. And man, we see this all the time in Christianity, like think about Carl Lentz, right, pastor of Hillsong, and I'm not just trying to drag the guy, but it's just an example. This man preached something like of Christ, right? And like, you know, I know people questions about his theology and that kind of thing, but he definitely never, you know, approved of cheating on your wife. But that's what he did. And so I could see like somebody in that situation. And there's other examples of that. I'm not just trying to call him out of somebody that you hold in high regard going against what they believe that could cause you to be like, take a step back and say, okay, wait, you know, is this actually like the thing I want to believe in is actually all true? Another factor is unanswered questions. You know, I see this a lot. Okay, you know, you're getting past high school, you're beginning to, you know, ask real questions, maybe you're going into university and professors are really, you know, going at the Christian faith because a lot of professors are not very sympathetic to the Christian faith. And a lot of questions that you might have shoved down before. And often these these kids and these teens and these young adults aren't aren't in places where they feel comfortable enough to ask questions. Now all of a sudden they're finally letting these questions go out. And the people they're asking them to are people that are have a diametrically opposed worldview to the Christian worldview. And now that's where they're finally asking those questions. So I'll get into how I think we can navigate this and really talk to people that are going through these issues is kind of deconstructionist maybe part of this movement. But first I want to pick up some more identifiers of somebody that is kind of identifies as a deconstructionist or that is beginning to deconstruction their faith, I don't know if that's a word. They pride themselves in not having the answer. This is really common. A lot of these people have grown up in environments, especially a Christian environment where they feel like there is always an answer to everything, right? And we have a we have a set of beliefs, right? And so therefore it's like, there's always an answer, you have an answer for every single thing, there's no need to whatever, you know, right to a degree, like we understand when we have the biblical worldview, God gives us answers to a lot of questions. Of course, there's still mystery. Of course, there's like, we don't always know God's purposes, right? But a lot of people when they have this kind of worldview, right, and now they're switched into these different environments where everyone's questioning things, it's kind of like fun for them. They identify with this idea of like, hey, it's cool not to know the answer. It's cool just to be free. It's almost like a humble thing to not have the answer. Well, actually what they're doing is they're putting their faith in their own beliefs and opinions rather than God. Like it's not being humble to dismiss what God says and just be like, I don't know. No, that's holding your own, your own perspective up to the highest, like, regard and not seeing what God says as important. That's actually pretty prideful. A lot of these deconstructionists also see not being tied down to Christianity as freedom. They want to see Christianity as a lot of rules, right? A lot of rules, a lot of things to follow, a lot of stress, especially within the church, expectations of people and to perform, but now they're just free from it. And so don't be surprised if people start calling themselves hopeful agnostics. This is a common term among deconstructionists because, look, they want to believe in something, you know, good. They want to believe in God, but they just don't want to believe in the God of the Bible. So ultimately, where do we go from here? I think we can all, even if you're Christian like I am, we can all kind of relate to this kind of church hurt that's going on or maybe experiencing the pain of hypocrisy and seeing somebody fall. We can all grasp at that and understand the pain and the hurt of that. And we can even grasp at the fact that there is abuse going on in the church and that is just terrible, right? But ultimately, where we need to be going, and this is what I would encourage you to share with people that are, that are maybe like questioning their faith or whatever. We don't need to be going to other people to like see if Christianity is true or see if this is something we want to believe in. We need to be going to the source that is God. God has given us his word, and we need to evaluate that to see if that is true. If we're actually seeking truth, that's where we need to go. Another factor of this is we need to understand that a lot of truths in the Bible are very difficult to believe. They're challenging. Challenging truth to believe that the majority of people are going to go to hell. That is just the fact, right? That's a challenging truth. It's a challenging truth to believe that not every one of our sexual urges is good. Even if it feels right or it feels good, they're not all God honoring. That's a challenging truth. It's a challenging truth to swallow our pride that we need to humble ourselves before God in submission to him, that we are all sinners and we are all broken people. These are not things that we want to believe. A lot of people see this as an opportunity to just dispose of it because it's not fun. I don't even want to believe in hell. Rhett said one time on one of his deconstructionist podcasts, he's like, I don't even want to believe in hell. It's not even something that I would like to believe in. This is the path that a lot of people take. Let me just get rid of this stuff if I don't like it. Progressive Christians have taken on this deconstructionist movement almost like an erasable Bible where they take some things that fit into the culture, conform with the culture, and then they accept things like, God's about love, almost like hippie Jesus, almost like God's about love and he's about just acceptance and all that kind of thing. Well, indeed, they totally forget about the fact that he preached about repentance as well. Biblical love is based on who God is. It's not your own skewed definition of what love is because love without truth is meaningless. The problem with the deconstructionist movement is that people are creating idols in their own image, an idol that will conform to the culture rather than conform to Christ because that is the most challenging and difficult pill to swallow that we need to conform to Christ, that we need to change basically, right? That's a tough pill to swallow and people don't want to accept that. Somebody that's walking through this, I would definitely have a conversation with them, sit down, ask them probing questions. No need to be accusatory like, why don't you believe the Bible and you need to start believing the good things and that kind of thing? Because you need to understand that's partially what led them to this point, the fact that they were confronted by people that didn't let them ask important questions that we should be asking. I think one of the best things that we can do is say, hey, if you're having questions about your faith, ask the questions. Like we should be a safe space to be able to say, hey, I'm not sure about this. I'm having doubts about this, because otherwise what we're producing is people that are trying their best to fake it, basically fake it till they make it, but they never make it, because in order to make it, you actually need to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, which these people never are transformed by the Holy Spirit. It's all about rules and trying to do enough, you know, and they can never do enough. Ultimately, I want to point people back to the gospel, like forget about all the rules. That's not what it's about. Forget about all the other stuff. Go back to the gospel. The heart of the gospel is that we are all sinners, that we're all broken people, that we need Jesus because he is God and he is our Savior, who has lived the sinless life, a life we could not live to die in the cross, a death we deserve to die for our sins against God, and now he has laid out what he would ask us to do. And now it's our job to joyfully step into those things, not because we have to, because we won't be saved if we're not perfect. No, of course not. It's out of grace. It's by grace we are saved through faith, but we step into these things joyfully. And so instead of trying to pull apart these different, you know, oh, God didn't really say, God didn't really say, because you know who said that? That was the serpent, right? The serpent said that. Satan said that. He was the one questioning what God said and said, did God really say? And that's what I hear a lot from the deconstructionist movement. So on the surface, it might seem, hey, look, this is good. You're asking questions. You're really evaluating what you what you believe. But ultimately, it just turns into this big Bible bashing fest and not in a good way, basically saying the Bible is not the word of God. It's not, you know, important for us to believe what it says. And, you know, God's words can be interpreted differently. And when we start valuing our own opinion above the word of God, we run into real problems, especially as young people. I think for me personally, if I am believing my own opinion or my own desires over what God says, that never turns out well. And, you know, for a time, you know, it may be pleasurable. It might be fun. It might be cool to just be like, whatever, man, I don't have the answers to it. Let's just live life and love people and that kind of thing. But without an actual foundation for your life, man, it's going to be so empty. Because what God is presenting us with is a foundation for not only morality, but also love and also purpose and also meaning in our life beyond ourselves that extends to the eternal, like an eternal destiny that we're called to step into. And that, my friends, is simply beautiful. And so I could talk on and on about the deconstructionist movement. But I'm hoping you're beginning to get a sense that, look, it's not just, you know, it's not healthy just to take apart our faith, just to take it apart and rebuild it every time, try to come up with all the evidences and make sure everything, oh, it fits together perfectly in this moment. It's like, chill out, man. Chill out. Let's go back to the heart of the gospel. And if you have some sincere questions, let's be honest in group community and working through those things in a safe space, as opposed to, you know, don't ask questions about anything. And then they wander on to the atheist book club. And then they bring forth their accusations against God. And they're like, you're right, God is a moral monster that can't be trusted and all that. Like, no, we don't want people going that way. We want to bring them back to the heart of the gospel. Because ultimately, what the issue is, it's not that these people don't have enough evidence or they haven't been given enough arguments about, you know, oh, this is the historicity of the Bible. This is why you should trust it's like, no, you need your heart changed. And that can only happen through Christ. And I firmly believe that. And so I just want to take the pressure off you as if you have somebody like this in your life that's questioning things like, it's not up to you to get them back on the straight and narrow. It's your job to be there for them to help them walk through this to mentor them and to pray for them. But ultimately, it is in God's hands. And so just know that God has things under control. I definitely feel for you if you're going through it. It's a frightening, scary thing. But I just want you to know that God is in control of all this. So just continue to be faithful to him. I hope this video was beneficial to you. And if it was, give it a like down below. Leave a comment of what your thoughts are on all this. And thank you to everyone on Patreon. Once again, thank you so much for contributing to the ministry here. And it is such a blessing. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time. God bless.