Reasons why Christians deconstruct. What is deconstruction? It's a Christian phenomenon
where people begin to unpack, rethink and examine their belief systems. This leads to dropping
people's faith altogether or some people actually get a stronger faith but in a lot of cases,
it's actually a polite word for Christian or biblical or evangelical demolition replacing
uncomfortable beliefs with culturally popular ideas. In 2016, Blake Chastain coined a popular
#ex-evangelical encouraging people to share their stories who transitioned or left their
Christian faith. The scripture commands each one of us to scrutinize and to examine themselves,
to fact check themselves, to have a thoughtful preparation, to have a reasonable skepticism,
to cooperate with others, to have multiple perspectives and an appreciation for all that
God has shown in His creation yet what we see happening in the modern deconstruction movement
is not that. Pastors who lost their faith in Jesus recently and I remember this like
yesterday some of them for example like Joshua Harris when I was younger and a youth pastor,
I read his best-selling book, 'I Kissed Dating Goodbye' in 1997 this guy wrote the book and then
he wrote a book on courting and it was actually a very powerful book that revolutionized and kind of
challenged me to live pure and to not embrace the cultural view on dating. Then he became a
pastor and turns out that he divorces his wife of 20 years in 2019 and in the same year, he disowns
Jesus and on July 25th, he made an announcement that I am no longer a Christian. Another person
that a lot of people would remember is a singer from Hillsong, Marty Sampson said, 'Christianity
is just another religion.' I remember when I was younger also listening to this guy's songs
singing on Hillsong albums and he is one of the other people who influenced a lot of young people
who came out to say, Hey I'm not a Christian. I'm taking a break. I'm losing my faith and it doesn't
bother me. Recently it was somebody who is Paul Maxwell said, I'm no longer a Christian. He's a
former Desiring God writer who announced that he is no longer associated with Christianity.
He actually was a high profile preacher with a PhD in Theology and BA in biblical language from
Moody and after writing several Christian books, he announced in 2021 on his Instagram that he's
no longer Christian and he feels really really happy about it. What are some of the reasons why
people are losing their faith? Why they are deconstructing? Why they are transitioning
from Christian faith and exploring this cultural phenomena. According to gravity leadership, they
list five common reasons. First one is evangelical trauma and spiritual abuse. Christian nationalism,
evangelical hypocrisy, racism and white supremacy, patriarchy and misogyny and then he pretty much
explained how it happens is that people have deconstruction and they're leaving their church,
then they're changing denominations and they're leaving the church and they are deconversion
meaning, it's just a slope from questioning things and then all the way to completely forsaking
their Christian faith. Recently, I came up on a short video on Instagram that I believe is gonna
challenge your view on deconstruction whether you are considering doubting Christianity or
you are a solid Christian this will help you and John Mark Comer shared this on Next-Gen Summit.
Let's watch. Five major reasons that I see people deconstruct their faith and you deal with each
one differently. So the five would be this. One, this would be the main one I see people who've
had a traumatic or wounding or bad experience in the church or in their family of origin. Most of
the time in a conservative church, almost always a conservative church. They had some kind of a bad
experience. I just found out I won't say his name, one of the most famous Christian who's publicly
deconstructed their faith in recent years. I just found out that his dad was a pastor who was
sleeping with their babysitter and then his pastor had an affair and then the pastor replaced him,
had an affair so like that screws you up and I just have viewed this person as like an enemy
of the faith and I think this person is. But that just gave me compassion like oh man, I mean what
would that have done to me. If I'm like a 15 year old kid and my pastor dad is sleeping with my,
that's screwed up you know. So, so many people have had a bad and people that have had a bad,
everybody's had a bad experience in the church because part of the role of the church is to bring
sin to the surface. That's a whole other thing but people that have had a wounding experience.
Second reason would be poor teaching. The church has a teaching function and when people grow up
under poor teaching that can be a massive turn off because what people are actually rejecting, they
think they're rejecting Christianity or Orthodoxy or Jesus, they're actually rejecting like a really
bad version of Christianity. So you know when people are brought up without, I don't want to
get into a theological thing but maybe some of the furthest extremes of Calvinism, when people
are taught that you know you were raped for the glory of God and for your good which I think is a
false teaching or when people are taught that some people are created by God to burn in hell forever
in conscious torment to God's glory. I'm like whoa you know you grew up or just people are given
really just shoddy theology. People will often react against that because like I don't want to be
a part of that. That doesn't, that's not you know and are we standing in moral judgment against God,
is that actually what scripture teaches but when you're taught no, that's what scripture teaches.
Then it's hard not to reject scripture you know. Third reason would be what you just said,
one of the things you said. Many good things you said would be that some people just want to sin.
I don't know like a nicer way to say that but if you look at you know the number of people
that deconstruct and then it comes out like you know this is an older person example but
like they are divorcing their spouse or they're actually in an open marriage or they're living
with their girlfriend or boyfriend. It's like oh I wonder if those things go together you know.
So some people just want an excuse to sin without guilt.
Four would be what's the fourth one, sorry I'm tired. I'm West Coast time, still kind of sort
of. Four would be there is overwhelming social pressure to be cool. Yeah and if you either are in
any kind of a progressive environment, if you work for a progressive corporation whether it's Nike or
Delta or whatever you know as as progressive ideas as entered a lot of corporate America
or if you just do internet work as I'm guessing a lot of you do. Then there is massive social
pressure on you to fit in with all the leftist ideologies and to not or even to be silent,
not even to take a stand against that, just to not post certain things or say certain things is like
you're gonna, it's not a false perception that it will hurt your career, it will hurt your career.
So Jesus you know spoke about the Pharisees who actually loved Him and believed Him but He
said that they love but wouldn't acknowledge Him and He said they loved the praise of men more than
the praise of God. Yeah so some people especially you know not to enneagram people or whatever but
certain people for whom like the approval of others is deeply connected to their emotional
well-being, find it incredibly difficult to stay Orthodox when their co-workers or their boss or
people on the internet are, what you know will say horrible things about you so what you're a bigot,
so what you hate gay people or so what you think people burn in hell or whatever nonsense
you know people say and then the final reason that isn't talked about as much as I think,
there's like a satanic demonic thing behind it and you know Jesus said to Peter, Satan has desired to
sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. So some people go through
seasons of demonic assault where there's some kind of a full-on demonic pressure against their faith
that is trying to rob them of any and they might experience it as doubt, it might experience it as
as lies coming to them as deconstruction. It's the wrong friends as an attack on the internet
but some of that can be demonic like some people are demonic. I went through a season where I felt,
I almost lost my faith. I came really close and in hindsight, it was a combination of poor teaching.
I was reacting against some of the evangelicalism that I grew up with and thank God for NT Wright
and a couple other really good writers that honestly kind of saved my faith and it was full-on
demonic and so I felt that. I felt that scripture come to me, Satan has desire you know but I pray
for you that your faith may not fail and I just persevered through it and by the grace of
God I'm still here and I deeply love Jesus and my favorite part of my day is prayer in the morning.
So not because I'm virtuous just because Jesus is really beautiful and if you don't know that yet,
please get up in the morning and put your phone away and just sit and let Jesus love you
and it's really beautiful. Come on. So wonderful. These five reasons are so good to kind of remember
in the conclusion, I want to remind you Jesus did promise that some will be overcome by pleasure,
others by pressure. In Matthew 13, the famous parable of the sower. He did mention that not
all seed is going to find a soil that will bear fruit and sometimes when we look at people who
believe for the moment but they don't have a root in themselves, we immediately say, oh must be bad
churches. It must be you know bad this and bad that. Some people really just don't have that
commitment. They're not either born again and they get overcome by the pressure to be cool and yes,
sometimes it's bad teaching. Sometimes it's demonic assault. Another thing that we need
to remind each one of you today is that Jesus actually had some people leave His ministry when
they heard the message. Some people were offended. I mean leaving Jesus's teaching. Some people say
if only Jesus would have been my pastor, I would have never left His church. Well people have left
Jesus's church and actually it was His disciples. It wasn't just like nobody. It was His disciples.
So the idea that if I could only have Jesus, loving Savior, miracle, signs and wonders; I'll
never leave my faith. Not really true. There's demonic forces. There's your own flesh and there's
a pressure from culture, from this world, to walk away from sound teaching. Apostle Paul warned us
that in the last days people will turn away from sound teaching and have itching ears. Paul did
also tell us some people will actually heed the doctrines of demons and that they will also heed
deceiving spirits so and Paul had people, some of his close disciples leave him, leave Christian
faith and follow the trend. Follow the culture. Follow the ideas that were popular and one of
them was Demas. We see this in the scripture but something that I want to encourage you with in
the conclusion, you know Christians we believe in examining ourselves. We believe that our faith is
not built on our feelings. It's not just build on our experiences. It's built on facts. It's built
on God's word and it's okay to have doubt as long as those doubts lead you to Christ. Thomas had
doubts and Jesus helped him with those doubts and he became one of the disciples of Jesus Christ who
gave his life for Jesus. Doubt is not the same as unbelief. Doubt is not the absence of faith. Doubt
is the questioning of faith and faith built on Jesus, built on holy scriptures on what He did on
the cross can endure and persevere and withstand seasons of trial, tribulation and even doubt. Now,
doubt and unbelief are different. Doubt is questioning what you believe. Unbelief is
a determined refusal to believe. Doubt is a struggle faced by the believer. Unbelief is
the condition of the unbeliever. Doubt says, 'I can't believe. I need more proof.' Unbelief says,
'I won't believe in spite of evidence.' Doubt is honest; unbelief is stubborn. Doubt is
looking for the light; unbelief is content with darkness. Doubt is being born out of a troubled
mind and a broken heart; unbelief is an act of stubborn will. If you fall into unbelief,
you need deep repentance and help from God because it's a state where God almost like lets you do
what you do. Doubt is different because people in unbelief, don't even want to seek evidence, truth
and God and help and questions in the presence of God. No with unbelief people just like nope,
I made up my mind. I don't believe. With doubt, you run to Jesus and He helps you. So if you are
doubting your faith, if you are struggling right now maybe you have unanswered prayers,
you have certain unmet expectations perhaps you got hurt at the church or maybe you went
to church that had really bad teaching or maybe you have had Christians who gave you very bad
experience and today you're considering throwing your Christian faith away. I want to encourage
you to dig deep into the scripture. I want to encourage you to come to Jesus with your doubt,
with your hurts, with your unanswered prayers and unmet expectations. He loves you. He died
for you. You have an eternal soul. There's more to life than just getting all of your questions
answered here on this earth. You will live forever and you don't want a bad experience,
a bad pastor. You don't want the enemy's lies to keep you away from heaven and keep you away
from Jesus. It's not worth it. Give your life to Jesus today. Come back to Him. You
can experience Him, it'll be so wonderful. It's so beautiful and He will change your life. You
can touch His scars today. His hands today and see that He loves you. He will never leave you
and He will never forsake you and that's all the proof that you really need is to encounter His
love. Encounter His word to persevere through faith. Those of us who have Christian faith,
it's not because we've never encountered disappointment. It's not because we've never
encountered crazy stuff. It's not because we've never had bad things happen to us. It's that what
Jesus did on the cross and His love for us and the scripture means so much and the help of the
Holy Spirit helps us to go through all of that. Our faith is not blind. It's anchored in facts
of history. The facts of God's love but it does require trust and we're willing to overcome that
doubt by trusting in His unfailing love for us and I hope that you will do that today. Thank you for
watching this video. I hope that you're not only learned something but your faith will strengthen
and for those of you who may be doubter, I hope that I brought you a little bit closer to the
light of God's word and if you are in unbelief, I pray to God, God will open your eyes before it's
too late. We love you. I love you and I pray for you to meet Jesus and to have new birth experience
that many of us have experienced and saw our life be transformed. Don't forget to hit like,
subscribe and share this with somebody. Share this on your youth group maybe or with the group of
friends so that they can also be encouraged to follow Jesus and overcome their doubts.