This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 246: The Deconstruction of Christianity: Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett
Jonathan: Today, we have quite a special situation. We have two of my favorite guests that we’ve had in the past, Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. And they have teamed up and havewritten a book together, The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive and How To Respond. Thank you guys so much for taking the time. We’re all across the nation and different nations here. Thank y’all for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.
Alisa: It’s great to be back with you.
Tim: Yeah, it’s good to see you.
Jonathan: Well, I think before we jump in we’ve Alisa and I and Tim and I, we’ve separately had conversations around this area, but I love the way you break down your book into these three parts: Exvangelical, Deconstruction, and Hope. But just again for those who are new to the terminology, let’s define deconstruction and separate it and define exvangelical, and then we’ll talk about the reasons for the writing of the book.
Alisa: Which one you want to take, Tim, exvangelical or deconstruction?
Jonathan: You each get one.
Tim: All right. I’ll start with deconstruction. You know this is a tough definition to nail down. In fact, this took quite some research and quite some time. In fact, I actually changed my mind on how I was using the term. At least initially when I started teaching in deconstruction a few years ago, I thought there was a way that we could use the word deconstruction in a healthy way and there was a way we could use it in an unhealthy way. And we were seeing this kind of thing happening, especially on social media. You’d have people like Lecrae or John Mark Holmer or other notable evangelicals using deconstruction as a healthy way, here’s a good way to do deconstruction.
Tim: That’s right. And on the other hand, there’s a whole lot of this other stuff that’s very unhealthy. That’s how we originally thought until we did serious research into what’s going on in this deconstruction space, especially on social media where we’re seeing a movement or an explosion. And what we saw there was that there isn’t anything healthy. In fact, there are defining characteristics of the deconstruction explosion that are unbiblical and just completely wrongheaded.
So at the end of the day, where we landed on this—and again, we say this is the hardest sentence we wrote in the book, but here’s where we landed on our definition of deconstruction: It’s a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without requiring Scripture as a standard. And all those words are important in that sentence. So it’s a process, but it’s a very specific kind of process. It’s a postmodern process. Whereas where you would think (this is what many claim) is that they are on a search for truth, what we’re finding is that it’s not really about truth—in fact, by postmodern we mean that there isn’t a goal of truth; there’s actually a denial of objective truth, that objective truth cannot be known.
And so there’s that on the one hand. On the other hand, you have this rejection of Scripture as an authority. And so when we put those things together, we think these are the defining characteristics of what deconstruction is all about. And we can kind of go into more detail and give some examples of where we’ve seen that, but that’s a starting point.
Alisa: Right and then the exvangelical hashtag is often used synonymously with and at least in conjunction with that deconstruction hashtag. And it’s a little bit of a tricky hashtag because it doesn’t simply mean, at face value, no longer evangelical. But it’s not like you have people who were raised Presbyterian and they become some kind of more liturgical Anglican or something and they use the ex. They are not using the exvangelical hashtag for that. What we’re seeing with the exvangelical hashtag is that, first of all, it’s very difficult to define what evangelical is. And that’s kind of a word like deconstruction that’s defined in a hundred different ways.
So there’s the Bevington’s Quadrilateral that characterizes the evangelical movement under four pillars of personal conversion, emphasis on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, biblical authority, and evangelism. And yet, if you ask people in the deconstruction hashtag what is evangelical, those beliefs are in the background for sure, but what they primarily see is God, guns and Trump. It’s what is perceived in their minds to be this unholy alliance between evangelicals and the political right. And so it’s all kind of mashed together, along with things like spiritual abuse and purity culture and conservative politics. It’s all kind of this ball that all gets kind of mixed together and then it all gets thrown out as exvangelical.
And so in some cases they’re conflating evangelical with the historic Christian gospel, and in other cases, they might actually be throwing out some cultural things that are Americanized that aren’t necessarily a part of the gospel. And it can be kind of like a mix of both. But it’s important like when Tim talked about the shift of authority, its’ like the only thing that matters for the exvangelical and deconstruction is that they are leaving behind what they perceive to be toxic beliefs. And so as best as I can analyze are it’s any belief outside of yourself that you would be asked to submit to, surrender to, kneel to that is not necessarily something that resonates with you inside.
Jonathan: Interesting. So you’re the ultimate authority, which goes to the deconstruction definition of Scripture being the authority.
Alisa: I do think it boils down to that, yes.
Jonathan: Do you find this is a uniquely American phenomenon? I don’t even know if phenomenon is the right word to use there.
Tim: That’s a really good question. I think that there’s a few reasons why we’re seeing this in particular in North America. It’s happening in Canada, too, not just the U.S. I think that we’re seeing a culture that’s dominated by a philosophy of relativism on the one hand and then on the other you have this kind of explosion of social media within the last decade or so. And I think bringing those two things together in particular—
And then maybe a third thing, and that is the American church and how we have, I think, neglected the life of the Christian mind. We used to say the church teaches what we believe really well but not why we believe it. So us apologists, we’re trying to train up the church in why we believe these things. But to be honest, when you look at the research now that’s coming out in the last couple of years, people who identify as evangelical, I think it was in our book we say 42 or 43 percent of U.S., so Americans, who identify as evangelical do not believe that Jesus is god. They think He’s just a good moral teacher. Hold on a second! So these people identify as evangelical but they’re not Christian. I mean, this is crazy!
So you have, on the one hand, Christians, people who are professing to be Christians because, hey, I was born in America or I was born in Canada. That’s the default, right. It’s like in your genetics or something. Yeah, so you have that on the one hand, so there’s no real understanding or foundation for what real, orthodox Christianity is. Then you have this dominant culture, I mean, it’s coming from every direction, this idea of relativism. It’s literally the water that many of your young people especially are swimming in, and they don’t even know they’re wet.
And then of course you have social media, this platform now, where I have access to, I mean, the world. I have access to memes and TikToks and these, for many, they think these are compelling arguments. I can’t tell you how many times I’m sitting here at my desk and I get a message coming in. It’s a meme or a TikTok video that someone sends me and says, “Hey, can you respond to this? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to respond.”
And I watch the video or I read the meme and I think, Really? This is not a good argument. It’s not even close. Usually, it’s not even an argument. And so when you bring all those things together, I think that makes America susceptible to the deconstruction movement for sure.
Alisa: there’s also the Trump element in the American version of deconstruction. It’s just such a huge part of that that is so uniquely American. But as Tim said, I think deconstruction is happening everywhere. I know progressive Christianity is happening. Even in the Middle East I’ve gotten emails of people wanting my book to be translated into Farsi because it’s even coming into the Middle East. So where there is progressive Christianity, there is dn. But I suppose it’s just taking on maybe a different type of flavor here in America.
Jonathan: Well, and even the Trump effect has ripple effects around the world to where people in foreign nations see Trump and think, Oh, well, he’s their definition of Christian.
Let’s talk about the prevalence. Because I think there are some who think this is just happening out in large cities or this is not affecting everyday people. There can be a disconnect to just how much influence this is having. And it can be people who are watching and consuming these things that aren’t even talking about it with their family because they know how the family will react when there’s genuine questions and doubt. So tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing with the prevalence of both of these concepts entering into homes.
Alisa: Well, I think we’re in a different world now, so this is an interesting anecdotal piece to this. When I go out and speak I’ll often ask an audience, “How many of you have heard the word deconstruction in the context of faith?” And the older the audience, the fewer the people have even heard of it. And yet, when I go speak to students it’s 90 percent. But it blows my mind. Even at women’s conferences where women … the ages are 20 to maybe 60, 70, you might have 20 percent raise their hand that they’ve even heard of the concept.
And so what I mean by we’re in a different world is decades ago you had to get a book deal. There was major exposure with ideas. And so I think that there are some of us who are still living in that world and don’t realize the prevalence of some of these ideas on social media. For example, we have many posts documented in our book where it’s somebody that nobody’s ever heard of an probably never will know their name, but their video has millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and if you think about the reach of that versus somebody that you might have seen on TV decades ago or maybe in a Christian bookstore even or in the catalog that they would send out, that’s a lot of people. But social media can reach so many people with a message where it’s not even necessarily surrounding a particular personality.
And so I think the prevalence of it is on social media, so someone’s exposure to it is probably going to be directly related to what types of social media they have and how often they engaging with it.
Tim: And the other element to this, the older folks who have exposure to it, is because they have a loved one, usually a younger loved one, who is going through it and now we’re just, as we label it, this is what it is, deconstruction, they say—it clicks. Oh, that’s what my nephew is going through, or my grandchild or my son or my daughter or whatever. So it does kind of filter up to that older generation. They’re seeing the aftermath usually. It’s like why is my grandson no longer following the Lord? Well, it turns out they went through a process called deconstruction.
Jonathan: Well, and I imagine some of the reactions can be unhelpful, and that’s why, again, I think it’s important that books like yours are out there and podcasts and stuff that you guys are producing is out there, so that there’s a heightened awareness but also a helpful response. Because we do have a response and a calling, but we need to make sure we’re doing it in a right and biblical way.
I wonder if we could come to the origins of this. I know Carl Lawson writes in the foreword in your book about technically the beginning is, when Demas, who fell in love with the world, abandoned Paul and the ministry and the faith. But I mean in this particular area, is it with social media? Was there a particular person or is it just postmodernism in general? Where do you find your origins to these movements?
Tim: Well, it’s true that we could trace this thing past Demas. We can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, always. But just more recently in the 1960s we see postmodern philosophers like Derrida in particular, who is the father of deconstruction. Now of course, his application of deconstruction was to textbook religion. He argued that objective meaning, objective truth, could not be known, and that there was no actual truth, so the reader could import just as much meaning as an author of a text. And what we traced in our research is we saw there is a connection here.
In fact, we discovered a book by John Caputo, who is a scholar and actually follows Derrida and applies Derrida’s philosophy not just to textbook religion in general, but in fact, to Christianity. And he wants to do this postmodern move even on the words of Jesus. And so he gives application in his book. What would Jesus think about, say, homosexuality today? Well, He would look around the world and see loving, monogamous relationships and He would be affirming. Even though Derrida says, yet, in the first century, no, Paul and Jesus, they had a certain view on this, but we’re going to bring new meaning to the text. In fact, the way Derrida describes this is Derrida says the text actually never arrives at a meaning. In fact, he has this analogy of a postman delivering a letter, and it’s like the letter never arrives at its destination, and in that sense, Christianity has not arrived. There is no set fundamental beliefs that you need to hold to—in fact, they are always changing, never arriving.
So this is kind of the history, and of course there’s lots of people who don’t know who Derrida is, they don’t know who John Caputo is, and yet, they are taking a page out of his playbook. They are thinking in terms of that kind of postmodern philosophy as they look out at religion. It’s not what is actually true corresponds to reality; instead, it’s there is something else going on. Oftentimes, it’s personal preferences are the authority, or maybe they’re looking at the culture and saying, “Yeah, look, the culture is more accepting of sexuality and so we ought to be too.”
Jonathan: Yeah, just like in the days of Noah. Help us understand who are some of the primary voices behind this today? I know we talked about how when you’re on social media it can be a lot of nameless, faceless people who just have an opinion and they want to create an argument or a non-argument that has an effect on people with their emotions. Are there any that are writing or have some influence as, you know, even by way of warning people, hey, be careful of so-and-so because it tends towards this trajectory?
[24:42] Alisa: Well, I would say there’s, in my mind, and Tim might have some others, but in my mind there’s one figure in particular that is, in my view, the most influential, although he’s not primarily promoting quote/unquote “deconstruction,” is Richard Rohr. Richard Rohr, his ideas, his universal Christ worldview, is—Interestingly, when I was researching the coaching and therapy sites, I found all the ones I could find online of people offering services to coach you through deconstruction or even offer you therapy through your deconstruction—and by the way, these therapy and coaching sites are not helping you to remain a Christian; they are not interested in where you land, they just want to help you along your subjective journey.
But even the ones that aren’t claiming to be Christians, there’s always this recommendation—I looked at all the book recommendations, and there is a Richard Rohr book there every single time, even among those that don’t claim to be Christians. And so what Rohr has done, I think, is, especially among people who want to retain the title Christian but might be more spiritual but not religious, or some sort of a New Age-y kind of Jesus is more of a mascot kind of thing, Rohr has really given them a worldview to put in place of what they’ve turned down. And he does talk about deconstruction in his book, Universal Christ, and he says it’s like the process of order, disorder, and then reorder.
Well, that sounds good at face value. You’re taught a certain thing, and then something messes it up and as an adult you have to do some digging and some work and then you reorder. But that’s not exactly what he’s talking about. His order stage is what he calls “private salvation,” your private salvation project. In other words, Rohr doesn’t believe in personal salvation, he believes in universal salvation, he’s a universalist. So he’s saying that’s like the kindergarten version of faith, this kind of Christianity where you have personal faith and you have this God of wrath and judgment. All of that just needs to be disordered so that ultimately you can reorder according to his worldview.
Now I bring up Rohr because he’s so influential. I mean, he makes his way into so many of the deconstruction conversations. But beyond Rohr, it’s tough because there can be platforms that swell up and get really big, and then I’ve seen them shut down after they have maybe 20,000, 30,000 followers, even up to hundreds of thousands of followers. I’ve seen several of these platforms just kind of get burned out and they shut down. So it’s hard to say, but I would say Derek Webb, Caedmon’s Call, is an important voice in there. You’ve got—Well, Jon Steingard was for a while when he ended up shutting down his YouTube, but he was the lead singer of Hawk Nelson. He was commenting for quite a while. Jo Luehmann is pretty influential. Who else, Tim?
Tim: Well, there’s—I put them in different categories.
Alisa: The NakedPastor.
Tim: The NakedPastor for sure. So there’s guys who, and gals who have deconstructed and posted that they’ve deconstructed online. So that would be someone like a Rhett McLaughlin, who 3 million people watched his video four years ago. He’s been keeping people updated every year; they do kind of an anniversary thing. That sparked so many people on their own deconstruction. Now what’s interesting about Rhett is he didn’t necessarily tell you how to
Tim: Yeah. And that was enough for some people to say, “Maybe I should do this too.” Now there’s other platforms out there, and all they do is criticize Christianity, or they mock Christianity. Those are big on TikTok. I mean, there are massive platforms that have half a million followers and millions of views, okay, and I could go down and list some of those for you. But the point is they’re not necessarily talking about deconstruction and the process, but they’re just saying, “Hey, here’s what you guys believe, but here’s my mocking, here’s my criticism.”
Then there’s this other stream, and this is the NakedPastor or Jo Luehmann and others who aren’t just mocking Christianity or criticizing Christianity but they’re trying to advocate for a certain kind of process, okay, and that’s where you’re going to get a little more detail on how this deconstruction thing works out. And so they’ve been, in fact, Jo Luehmann and the NakedPastor, David Hayward, and—
Jonathan: Joshua Harris. Didn’t he do a course through that?
Tim: That’s right. Joshua Harris, when he—again, on Instagram. That blew up. There were like 7,000 comments in response to him just posting, “I’m no longer a Christian.” And you could see the responses, and I’m telling you, there were many who said, “This post is what set me on my deconst
