A trendy, new hashtag tempts Christians to look wise in the world’s eyes. “There are 293,026 posts on Instagram utilizing the hashtag #deconstruction,” reported apologetics writer Alisa Childers earlier this year. “The vast majority are from people who’ve deconverted from Christianity, become progressive Christians, embraced same-sex marriage and relationships, rejected core historic doctrines of the faith, or are on a mission to crush the white Christian patriarchy.” The deconstruction movement recruits from the ranks of Christian celebrities, musicians, and young, impressionable evangelicals. “Deconstruction is not sound. Deconstruction will ultimately lead to destruction itself,” said Dr. Owen Strachan, Senior Fellow with FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview.
Not everyone agrees. For its defenders, Strachan explained deconstruction means the process of “challenging what you have been taught” with the goal of establishing “an authentic faith” — although this slippery term means nearly all things to all men.
Despite the innocuous-sounding definition, “deconstruction gives you license to doubt the Christian faith, to doubt the Word of God, and to turn your back on your parents’ generation… and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ more broadly,” warned Strachan. It “often ends up being… an onramp to Leftism” and “takes its cues from the LGBTQ Revolution.” Deconstruction has 20th Century roots in philosophers like Foucault and Derrida, founders of queer theory and post-modernism, respectively.
None of this means that Christianity prohibits honest questions, doubts, and fears. The difference is what we do with them. Deconstruction “encourages you to become the arbiter of what is true” and “the master of your faith,” said Strachan. It denies the authority of God and his Word and promotes Self to the godlike task of curating your own personal religion, just as you do your smartphone. Genuine Christian faith, by contrast, brings challenges and struggles before “the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). It cries with the father, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
The difference carries over from belief to practice. “Any church worth its salt is going to teach you that you need to not conform to yourself or to the world, but you need to conform to the Scripture and specifically to the image of Jesus Christ…. That’s what every Christian is seeking to do by the grace of God,” said Strachan. “Deconstruction sounds similar, but what it actually executes is something quite different.” Most deconstructors embrace the culture, approving sexual anarchy, then denying hell, then embracing universalism, and eventually becoming functional atheists.
The results speak for themselves. By the grace of God, a few genuine Christians have survived their attempts at deconstruction — and have returned to “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). But far more have “made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Timothy 1:19). They are seeds sown on rocky ground, which “has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matthew 13:21).
Christians don’t need to embrace “deconstruction” to grow in godliness. We have the perfectly true Word of God, interpreted by the infallible Spirit of God, who has sealed us in Jesus Christ. These weapons of our warfare are invincible, if we will only make use of them. “The market [price] for truth has never been higher,” said Strachan.
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Dr. Owen Strachan further insisted that the “deconstruction” movement is in stark contrast to Bible instructions, like those given in Acts 17:11.
“[Deconstruction] encourages you not so much to be conformed to the image of Christ but to be conformed to the image of your own self-chosen faith. You become the master of your faith. It encourages you to become the arbiter of what is true and what you think is best about the Christian faith,” he added. “We should always be seeking to think about our lives and our beliefs in light of Scripture. In Acts 17:11, that’s what the Bereans did. They heard of the apostles and considered them according to Scripture. That’s Biblical deconstruction.”
In the time prior to the return of Christ, the Bible warns about an incredible rise in apostate, lukewarm churches. The apostle Paul wrote two separate letters to Timothy in which he addressed this future shunning of truth by so-called “Christians.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV – “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
1 Timothy 4:1-2 KJV – “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”
The Bible also states that Believers in Jesus must die to themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. This duty is described by Paul as our “reasonable service” to the Lord.
Romans 12:1-2 KJV – “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
