Why would anyone want to tear down a perfectly good house? I asked that question when I walked by a home being demolished to make the property ready for something newer. Likely an investor will build something that is more suited to a modern buyer. It can be a wise investment. The new will be bigger and better than the old.
Unfortunately, some people are doing this with God’s house—the church! Jesus said He would build His church, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18, KJV). But new, postmodern theologians are trying to do just that—deconstruct the church and its authority, the Bible, even though the Apostle Paul insisted that the church was the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). This dismantling of the old, they say, makes room for the new—a more avant-garde and flexible institution.
Apologists today refer to this as deconstructionism. It’s the dismantling of tradition as well as traditional faith. This makes way for seeing truth as relative rather than dogmatic and allows for more progressive views such as gender fluidity, homosexual marriage and universalism. Obsessed with making the world accept them, these deconstructionists are willing to tear down a perfectly sound house to build a church devoid of Biblical truth. And devaluation of the truth is exactly the agenda of the deconstructionists.
But why is this happening? What is missing in Christianity that people are either leaving the church or deconstructing what they have learned and believed, some since childhood? As usual, we can find the answer in Scripture. Psalm 34:8 reminds us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Notice two key words: taste and see. They describe the twofold experience of the Christian life: objective and subjective, reasonable and relational. And both are rooted in God’s truth. Subjectively, people experience the love of God through emotions and the will. And objectively, people discover God through reason and careful study of His two “books”: the Word (Bible) and the world (creation). People “taste” and “see” God in both spheres. One can feel and understand at the same time. God’s truth is found in both experience and knowledge.
Let me underscore this: the Christian faith is both reasonable and relational. It can be tasted—experienced like the sweetness of honey on one’s tongue; and tested—through historical evidence, fulfilled prophecy and miracles.
A problem arises in our Christian walk if a person simply identifies with Christ in the same way one might identify with a sports team, a political party or a good cause—without tasting and seeing. To merely relate to Christ superficially, whether just by a feeling or a set of facts, without actually leaning on those facts like a disabled man would lean on a cane, is pointless. Such a person is in far more danger of walking away from the faith (if you can call it faith at that point) than someone who has really tasted and experienced the goodness of God and has come to love God and His ways.
Without a deep, genuine, abiding, personal relationship—one that requires tasting and seeing, we miss the whole picture of what God intends for His people, which is experience based on truth. When one or the other is missing, people start looking to deconstruct what they perceive as “not working for me” and to reconstruct based on what the world is telling them they need.
Think of it this way: We’re not to build our life on feelings, religion, sports, sex, philosophy, fame, money—or any other worldly thing. If there’s anything to deconstruct, it’s the fleeting things of life. Rather, we are to build our life on the One who holds the truth and is the truth: Jesus Christ. Loving Him with the totality of our being—heart, mind, soul, and body—is the only reasonable reaction concerning reality, to “taste” (through experience) and “see” (through evidence) that He is good.
What’s the solution to deconstructionism? The answer is to construct! Don’t tear down God’s house of truth. Don’t pull down what Jesus gave His life to build and uphold. Rather be “building yourselves up on your most holy faith” (Jude 20). By doing so, you are letting Jesus build His church by adding your life and testimony to those faithful saints who have lived before you.
A war is being waged against the truth. Make sure you are on the winning side. Let’s start a revolution—a new revolution, in which we stand on the solid foundation of the Word of God.
We may feel battered by the winds of deconstructionism when we see well-known Christians announce that they no longer believe. But truth has always been under assault. As far back as the Old Testament, Jeremiah knew that many in Israel were attacking God’s inerrant truth. He told them,
Thus says the Lord:
“Stand in the ways and see,
and ask for the old paths, where the good way is,
and walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (Jeremiah 6:16).
There’s the real problem. It’s a matter of our stubborn wills. Though there is so much evidence for the reliability of Scripture, some will not build their lives on it. Don’t make the same mistake. Taste and see!
