You’re Not Deconstructing, You’re Growing
Part One: Introduction
I just finished listening to Rachel Held Evans read her audiobook, A Year of Biblical Womanhood and I wept.
It was through those stories that I was introduced to Rachel - can I call her Rachel? - when she spoke at the VAUMC Fall Youth Retreat in 2012. She taught me that it’s okay to grow in our faith and the importance in helping others grow, too.
I had read her other books, but I never picked up this one because I thought I knew it.
Listening to her voice tell her story, I was back in that large hall with a thousand teenagers where she spoke so openly about questioning doctrine - right there - on stage, in the presence of clergy, parents, youth leaders, and youth.
“Are we allowed to do that?” I wondered.
No one stopped her.
Rachel gave voice to a movement that we refer to as “deconstructing faith,” because it asks us to take apart the faith that we inherited, examine it, and reassemble it into something new.
While the language around it makes it sound like a new movement, it isn’t. It is the very essence of Christianity. It is part of the normal process of faith development.
As I’ve been writing out the series on the “https://angelabecek.substack.com/p/part-two-a-certain-christian-civilization”, I realized that something is missing when we talk about “Christianity” as part of the American story.
We often only talk about Christianity as a static state of being. We have some doctrinal ideas in our minds and if people used certain words in their speeches or in their correspondence, we label them Christian, if they did not, then we do not.
We do not take into account the stages of faith that many individuals go through as they mature.
We also fail to consider that following periods of repression, when fear is used to stifle spiritual growth, a large number of people will experience an awakening or an enlightenment at the same time, which often fuels eras of social reform and progress.
This series will explore what it looks like to not just have faith (be a Christian) but to grow in faith (follow Jesus).
I believe that we could be in the midst of a Great Awakening now and that someday, historians will look at the work of people like Rachel Held Evans and call her a woman of valor (see A Year of Biblical Womanhood, chapter 4).
The problem with Awakenings, for some, is that they don’t result in “Christian Civilization,” they appear to destroy it. In reality, I think they allow it to be reformed into something beautiful.
Awakenings ask that we believe that something beyond ourselves is moving, let go of control, and join the movement of the Spirit that moves to set the oppressed free.
Watch for this series on how faith deconstruction is really spiritual growth to publish on Wednesdays, and “Bible and the Plot to Destroy American Democracy” series on Sundays.
For a complete list of sources, see the full bibliography.
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