It was during high school in the 1990s that my doubts about the Christian message I’d grown up hearing crumbled. My parents let me leave the church I had grown up in to find my path, but the one rule was that I had to attend a church of some kind. My friends and I didn’t really like church, though. We liked hiding warm beer in a hollowed-out section of my friend’s bathroom cabinet. Then we’d pour it over ice and drive our trucks into the woods and party. We also enjoyed attending concerts, where we would raise our hands in the sign of the horns as we moshed to music. We dated different girls and tried to get lucky in the beds of our trucks.

So while we called ourselves Christians, because that was all we’d known, we didn’t care about living it. Plus, no one we knew cared to live their faith either, except for the weird effeminate ones at our school who made Jesus into their boyfriend.

My friends and I just weren’t into singing songs about wanting to climb up into Jesus’s lap and nuzzle Him. That was weird. Plus, none of us could tell you why we believed in the faith, except for the fact that we’d repeated some weird incantation where we asked Jesus to live in our hearts. It was fire insurance more than anything, and since everyone claimed to be a Christian, that’s what you told everyone you were. I think most of us somewhat bought into the faith we were being marketed because if you were a good person and had enough faith, God might give you a Maserati and a sweet life.

The church I started attending — when I wasn’t lying about attending or too hungover to attend — was led by a charismatic young preacher who’d been popular in Christian television circuits. His charisma and charm attracted a lot of new people, and the church rapidly expanded. When this happens, there’s always a capital campaign to build a bigger building costing millions.

I never put two and two together when he talked about the swanky home and new Chevy Camaro God gave him, but as an adult, I realized these goodies came from the offerings each week. I legitimately thought God magically dropped a car on his doorstep through a generous donor or some supernatural means.

Most of his sermons also seemed to reiterate a think-and-grow-rich mentality; one sermon in particular stands out because it was the only time I took notes. The topic revolved around “six ways not to have a loser mentality.” It pressed on all my core wounds of being rejected as a goth kid, so I paid attention. Never once did I wonder why I was getting a motivational talk from a Tony Robbins wannabe instead of spiritual guidance from a pastor about the nature of God. Instead, the takeaway was that I was a loser because I thought like a loser, but that God didn’t want me to be a loser.

Throughout all my years in the Christian church, no one even broached the hard questions. Questions like, “If God is good and controls everything, why is there evil and suffering in this world? Does He just not care?” And “How come decent people go to Hell?” or “Why is it that in the Old Testament God sets the liar and murderer on fire, but in the New Testament He hangs out with them?”

Instead, most every topic revolved around how to have a better life, finances, career, or marriage. Each sermon topic read like chapter titles from self-improvement books: Seven steps for better sex! How your mindset is blocking God’s promises! Grow prosperous through the Word of God! One only needed to read the New Testament to quickly discover all twelve of the apostles were tortured in horrific ways, with only one surviving member who got exiled to an island. But sure, I’m certain the Apostle Peter was hoping you would get that Maserati when he was crucified upside down.

Once I learned the pastor was embezzling funds and screwing his secretary, I realized the Christian church was a sham and left.

I wouldn’t return until I was twenty-eight years old.

The disconnect

Recently, there’s been a surge in men and women questioning the faith they grew up in or were introduced to. Some have left the faith permanently, while others have wandered for years in a spiritual desert until they discovered a new and vibrant expression of their beliefs. This process has become known as “deconstruction,” and with it, a variety of positive and negative connotations. Pastors across America have chimed in with their two cents, but most are so tone deaf to the pain and suffering of those questioning that they’ve done more harm than good.

Matt Chandler, a mega-church pastor in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, made Twitter come unhinged when he claimed we live in a “day and age where deconstruction and the turning away from and leaving the faith has become some sort of sexy thing to do.” Other pastors have reiterated similar responses where they either take a hard-line stance and assume deconstruction is evil, or where they accept it as a season of life, but make backhanded comments about “not staying there long.” But deconstruction is neither “sexy” nor does it have a timeline.

What many fail to realize is that deconstruction does not mean de-conversion necessarily. Instead, the reason this process has become prevalent is that people are now questioning the spoonfuls of dogmatic nonsense pastors have forced them to eat. Within my journey to faith, one of the largest issues I couldn’t reconcile was how there could be a good God while evil and suffering existed, especially after what I witnessed in combat. The pat answers I received only made me angry, and as I explained earlier, most of the topics I grew up around focused on behavioral modification in order to live a better life. To be fair to Matt Chandler, that was a danger he addressed. However, Chandler himself has been a lightning rod regarding people leaving the faith because of his hardline teachings (like disciplining a woman from his church who divorced her husband for pedophilia).

I think a major reason many are deconstructing has to do with the disconnect between Christianity and what’s being taught from a pulpit.

“I just don’t know why my pastor needs a mansion overlooking the Rocky Mountains when there are urban poor in our congregation,” one twenty-something told me.

Indeed. Many young people are readily noticing a Jesus who gives their pastors wealth and blessings from the church coffers as opposed to the one who walked in humility and spent time among the outcasts of society. Those who are questioning their faith typically have grown up in environments of extremes, too. They’re either given a message about being worthless sinners or believe in a Tinkerbell god who makes life grand. This was why creeds and sacraments (like marriage and communion) were such a focal point in the historic church. They combated extremes and false doctrine. Church wasn’t about getting butts in seats either, but a place to come experience reverence and awe. Anymore, it’s a laser light festival where Tony Robbin’s speeches could easily be re-packaged by peppering in the word “Jesus.”

I find it odd then that we have the audacity to ask why men and women are deconstructing when the answer is in front of our face.

Dismantle. Repair.

A close friend once shared how he’d been sexually assaulted by his pastor.

Because of the abuse, power structures of toxic leaders, and false teachings, he dove head first into addiction. I encouraged and helped pay for him to go to rehab when he hit rock bottom, and I’m happy to report he came out a new person. But damage remained from the church, pastors, and bigoted teachings he’d endured. Despite the healing he found in rehab, he didn’t understand how to make heads or tails of his faith anymore.

For many who knew me growing up, it’s been hard for them to hear that I was never a Christian as a child and teenager. Honestly, it was just this thing I did, much like an after school extra curricular activity. I didn’t tell anyone and merely played the game.

When you grow up in the buckle of the Bible belt and renounce your faith or have serious doubts, you get the hellfire and damnation talks, which revolve around you burning for eternity. Not that they give you much of an option anyway because the way it works is either (A) believe as I do and come to your senses or (B) have Satan torture your butthole for all eternity. So I stayed silent, stopped attending church, and began looking for a way to escape my hometown. I suppose from that moment on, I began a long process of deconstructing.

When my friend explained he was in a process of deconstruction after rehab, I reflected on my journey. Throughout my years of wandering, I didn’t just deconstruct Christianity, I dismantled everything. I deconstructed politics, Buddhism, philosophy, karma, Islam, life, relationships, and money. I’m unbelievably thankful for that time, because it made me search for answers to hard questions, and made me merciful to those who doubt, wrestle, and hurt too.

Knowing this, I knew my friend’s time of wrestling would produce results. I didn’t need to push him to read his Bible, pray more, or “just believe.” Instead, I walked beside him and encouraged him to “seek God as he understood him” like the 12-Step model teaches. When you’ve been in systems of theology that wound as opposed to producing vibrant faith, humility, and perseverance, the last thing you need is a pep talk. What you need are people to walk through the ditch with you without judgement. Throughout his years of searching, I reiterated to my friend that I was proud of his progress. A few years later, he ended up on staff at church, having found a dynamic expression of his faith. When I asked what he learned, he shared:

”The most beautiful lesson in my deconstruction was the freedom to know and be the man God created me to be. I was no longer bound to rigid laws and doctrine, but could move through the boundaries of grace and wisdom. When I came to believe that I am exactly as God created me to be — fearfully and wonderfully made — then I could come to faith from a place of genuine love for myself, others, and God.”

What many fail to recognize is that we are all in a process of deconstruction daily. There are going to be false narratives and manipulation we’ve endured throughout our lives, either by the hands of the media, our parents, clergy, or politicians. If we can’t critically examine ourselves and grow, then we’ll remain childish in our beliefs, and that especially extends to those within the Christian faith.

There are ideals I used to hold close to the chest that I’ve now realized aren’t anywhere within the teachings of Christ. The more I’ve learned about my faith, the more I realize I know nothing. If Christians aren’t deconstructing and growing, then they’re simply stagnating.

For me, that’s the genuine beauty of deconstruction. It must be daily, weekly, and yearly. It means that the Jesus I read about doesn’t look like me at all, nor does he hold similar beliefs. The more I deconstruct, the more I get to see my faith grow. The more I walk alongside others in their hurt, the more I get to look like Christ instead of a talking head.

And that’s my hope for everyone else dismantling their beliefs — that they’d find answers, live humbly, help others, and deconstruct daily.