What is
deconstruction? Well, in the
physical world, we are all familiar with construction as meaning “the
act or process of building something.” Similarly, deconstruction means the
selective dismantlement of building components as opposed to demolition. It is
construction in reverse.
Then there is the
related word reconstruction, that is, “the act or process of
building again something that was damaged or destroyed.” (Of course, Reconstruction
was the term used for the turbulent era from 1865 to 1877 as the Confederate
states were reintegrated into the United States.)
For quite some
time, though, deconstruction has been used as a philosophical or literary
term. In philosophy, it refers to the endeavor to understand the
relationship between a text and its meaning. Philosopher Jacques Derrida
(1930~2004) introduced that concept of deconstruction.
Somewhat
surprisingly, since Derrida described himself as Jewish “without being Jewish,”
his ideas about deconstruction have been influential among evangelical Christians,
and especially among those who have become “progressive.”
Consider the construction, deconstruction,
reconstruction process. Everyone acquires
a constructed worldview, which for most people is linked to religious beliefs. The
worldview or basic beliefs of children are constructed primarily by their parents
and/or teachers (such as Sunday School teachers).
Most people grow up accepting what they
have been taught without question—until they don’t. Some never change or veer very
much from their other-constructed worldview or religious faith. Those who
remain rooted in family and community structures into which they were born often
make little change.
However, because of life experiences,
critical thinking, and/or contact with different worldviews, most people who
leave their birth “cocoon” begin the often rather painful process of
deconstruction. That is true now for most Christian believers, of course.
According to Claude, in such cases, deconstruction
for Christians
refers to a critical examination and dismantling of traditional religious beliefs, practices, and interpretations of scripture. This process involves questioning long-held assumptions about faith, doctrine, and biblical interpretation to uncover underlying power structures, cultural biases, and historical influences that may have shaped Christian understanding.*1
The final paragraph of Claude’s response
to my question states, “The ultimate goal for many deconstructive theologians
is not destruction but reconstruction—building a more authentic, inclusive,
and contextually relevant understanding of Christian faith.” Touché!
Is deconstruction good or bad (beneficial
or harmful)? In the past, I
have written how “unexamined faith is not worth having,” and posted blog articles
about “Growing
in the Faith” (2/28/17) and about the importance of expanding one’s worldview
(7/30/24).*2
From a Christian point of view, I think
it is harmful when deconstruction ends up destroying one’s Christian faith, as
it sometimes does. However, it is certainly beneficial when it leads to growth,
an expanded worldview, and a faith strong enough to meet contemporary challenges
to a Christian worldview.
The reconstructed faith may differ from
the institutional Christianity to which one was formerly linked, but it may, in
fact, be more closely linked to the real message of Jesus Christ.
Two examples of the latter are Martin Thielen
and Jim Palmer, both former pastors and both now outside of organized
Christianity as a religion but still Jesus-followers, it seems to me.
Thielen is a former Baptist and Methodist
pastor. He elucidates the deconstruction and reconstruction of his Christian
faith in “My Long Farewell to Traditional Religion (and What Remains),” posted
on his Doubter’s Parish website.
Palmer is an M.Div. graduate of Trinity
Divinity School and served many years as a Christian pastor before leaving the ministry
in 2000. He started the online Center for Non-Religious Spirituality in 2021, creating
a community for people to explore spirituality apart from the core beliefs of
traditional religion.
Palmer, who writes extensively, also has
a Substack newsletter titled “deconstructionology.” Some of you might like to
read “What if …”, his
June 27 post, which lists “17 ways to transform candidates for the
hereafter into lovers of the world.”*3
Best wishes to all of you who are
currently working on deconstruction and reconstruction—and I encourage any of
you who may still need to begin deconstruction to start that process soon.
____
*1 Claude is now my AI chatbot
of choice, and it (he?) gave an excellent response to my inquiry, “What does
deconstruction mean for Christian theologians?” The words cited above is the
first of six paragraphs produced in just a few seconds. (You can find an
introduction to Claude here.)
*2 The former was the title of
my
June 20, 2018, blog post and also of the 17th chapter in my book
Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2019). Then, in
connection with the latter blog article, in my
8/20/24 post I wrote about deconstruction for the first time.
*3 While Palmer now identifies
as non-religious, much of what he posted in his June 27 newsletter is not much
different from what Pastor Jarrett Banks posted in his June
25 Substack blog article.
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In some ways the "construction, deconstruction, reconstruction process" you're talking about is not new since transformations of world-and-religious views have been a constant in human history. What seems particularly important about deconstruction as understood today is the movement away from authoritarian structures of belief. I see this particularly in Jim Palmer's work, which I admire. I've gone through several major transformations in my own faith journey, to the extent that I can hardly tolerate hearing a sermon today operating in any traditional theological paradigm, especially those of evangelicalism or neo-orthodoxy (aka neo-reformed), the latter of which tries to have it both ways. The most refreshing experience I've had in preaching is that that I've done in Unitarian-Universalist churches where the claims of a sermon cannot be grounded on the Bible or church doctrine or the metaphysics of any traditional theology.
ReplyDeleteRelated to the issue here are some challenging questions for humanity (if there is a future for humanity): What does non-authoritarian faith look like? And most important, how can humanity create the social structures necessary for an emancipated (i.e., non-authoritarian) world of truly free individuals?
Anton, I fully agree that the deconstruction process has gone on for a very long time, but the terminology is fairly new for most people and not understood by many, it seems to me.
DeleteThanks for sharing your own deconstruction process--or perhaps I should say "processes." After I wrote the article it dawned on me that deconstruction/reconstruction often needs to be more than just one time.
Thanks also for introducing me to Jim Palmer. I may have seen his name before you mentioned him to me several months ago, but I began to pay more attention to him because of you. As you would expect, he says some things with which I disagree, but I find what he writes to be thoughtworthy and often helpful.
Here are comments from Don Wilson, another local Thinking Friend:
ReplyDelete"Thank you for today's blog post. Your reference to Thielen caught my eye, as I have been following his writings for two or three years. I appreciate Anton Jacobs' response as well. Keep the good stuff coming! Thanks for your excellent work!"
Thanks for your affirming comments, Don. -- You may (and most will not) know that Thielen earned his master of divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (my alma mater) in Louisville and a doctor of ministry degree from Midwestern Seminary here in Kansas City. (I don't yet know when he completed his work on those degrees.)
DeleteAnd now I am sharing the following excellent comments by Vern Barnet, a third local Thinking Friend.
ReplyDelete"Deconstruction of a personal religious religious framework is inadequate. The Western perspective itself (and where it has infected other traditions) needs social deconstruction. The emphasis on propositional truth, from hateful men like Tertullian and Irenaeus and the Nicene bishops, made worse by many Reformation leaders and made dominant by the Enlightenment, has corrupted the religious impulse, the unitive experience of awe and enchantment, and led to a civilization alienated from nature and befuddled by expectations of progress and growth with the wickedness of exploitation. Deconstruction of the oppressive power structures generated by normative Christian thought and reconstruction from experiences of transcendence may be a path to loving, humane life on this fragile planet."
I had never heard the terms "deconstruction reconstruction" used in an ecclesiastical theological sense until maybe five years ago, maybe not that long. But I have been in theological deconstruction/reconstruction for more that 60 years. And the process continues, even at 91+ years of age. And I am thankful for it. It means I don't have to throw away the Bible.
ReplyDeleteI did most of my Christian deconstruction years ago. More recently I have mostly been focusing my deconstruction on politicians, economists, and war. So much bad faith to deconstruct, so little energy to keep doing it, yet I trudge on.
ReplyDeleteStill, I just read a little book, "The Minds of the Bible" by Rabbi James Cohn (2013). He uses the bicameral breakdown model of consciousness proposed in the last century by Princeton Professor of Psychology Julian Jaynes. His deconstruction involves starting with the bicameral mind of Amos, whom he believes heard "the voice of God" from his right brain, and then proceeds to show the increasing faith distress as that voice fades for later writers, until we are left with a more modern viewpoint in the wisdom literature. He then theorizes that Judaism and Christianity dealt with the further development of introspection in parallel although different ways as Judaism finally produced the Talmud while Christianity produced the very introspective New Testament. He even gets into translation issues, showing how the King James Version inserted modern viewpoints into ancient Hebrew texts such as the use of past and future tense.
Now Cohn's work is quite deconstructive, because he was trying to illustrate his basic argument. I think there is room for a new style of reconstruction that could build on his work, but in a way that clarified the deep meaning of the text for modern readers. For instance, the story of the garden of Eden really lights up when examined through the filter of emerging introspection. Adam and Eve do not know the difference between good and bad, or even that they are naked. Possibly, they did not even know they were in a garden, surrounded by an outside. Somehow that conversation with the serpent really opens their eyes. God says an odd thing in response, that they have become like God. Why is that a big thing? Well, if the voice of God was actually just the right brain, then both sides of the brain were having a revelation. Definitions of life, death, time, and identity are forming. There is a lot there to unpack. Reconstruction begins when we begin to reconstruct a modern relationship with God. If God can be the creator of not just stars but also countless galaxies so spread through time and space that even Psalm 90 strains, what do we think? Yet, how can it be that Psalm 90 even exist? How could it have the power to inspire Isaac Watts to leap from "a thousand years" to "a thousand ages" over two centuries before Darwin was born, over 400 years before we discovered how vast the universe really is? Perhaps we have not lost the Bible, but rather have received an opportunity to read it again for the first time.