Preaching to the de-converted

How do you commend the faith to those who consider themselves to be ‘over it’?

They’ve ‘been there, done that, binned the T-shirt.’ The question is especially tricky if your picture of evangelism is to stand outside the front door of the church, as it were, beckoning people in.

This is a fine strategy, but nowadays we are witnessing a prominent movement of people leaving by the back door. Some of them slip out of their Christian faith quietly, some of them slam the door so everyone can hear, and some say they’re just popping out to give the whole structure a once-over – maybe they’ll be back.

‘Deconstruction’ is a much-discussed concept nowadays, with the word carrying different meanings for different people. To some it’s the process of testing their prior assumptions, beliefs and practices and holding onto the good. To some it’s a brick-by-brick dismantling of their Christianity with no plans to rebuild. How should we respond when friends and family – or perhaps we ourselves – are considering ‘deconstruction’?

Genesis or Matthew questioning

The first thing is to explore where these questions are coming from. There is Genesis 3 questioning and Matthew 5 questioning. In Genesis 3 it’s the serpent who asks, ‘Did God really say?’ (v.1). He casts doubt on the word of God, on the character of God, and his goal is destruction (John 8:44). But in Matthew 5 you could imagine Christ using almost identical words to the serpent’s, yet with a diametrically opposed meaning: Did God really say, You should love your neighbour and hate your enemy? (cf. Matt. 5:43).

Matthew 5 might be described as a kind of ‘deconstruction’ and it might sound, superficially, like the serpent’s question. After all, it’s the deconstruction of a tradition that had corrupted the word of God. Christ is challenging deeply held religious convictions and making His hearers doubt. But for those who know their Bibles we understand that the Scriptures never said ‘hate your enemies’. Like a barnacle on the hull of the faith, that foreign addition had remained unchallenged for too long and Christ’s ‘deconstruction’ of it was in the service of God’s truth.

Some kinds of questions are serpentine, and some of them are Christ-like. Some serve the destruction of faith, and some are aimed at its reformation. For Christians in the Protestant tradition we certainly have a category for the challenging of tradition for the sake of a greater faithfulness. And we cannot consider ourselves to have now arrived at a perfect and unchallengeable form of Christianity: reformational Christians are meant to be ‘always reforming’ (semper reformanda for the Latin nerds). But the goal must be a closer clinging to Christ and a deeper grounding in his word.

Here then are two implications for how we consider ‘deconstruction’. First, for Christians engaging with the deconstructing: be curious. Probe the reasons why people are questioning. Ask about the motivations. Try to bring out the standards that are being brought to bear. If old assumptions are being dismantled in favour of new ones, what is the arbiter? Who decides? If the judge is self and the goal is to align with popular opinion then, no matter the protests to the contrary, this is more serpentine than Christ-like. If, though, the judge is God’s word and the goal is a closer walk with Jesus, then here is a conversation from which you might both benefit.

Second, for those who are deconstructing (and perhaps deconverting or deconverted): be consistent. Once again it’s this question of standards that must be brought to the fore. It is almost certain that the standards by which someone has judged Christianity wanting are themselves Christian standards. If the church is thought of as hypocritical, or abusive, or imperialistic, or discriminatory, the criticisms can often – and very painfully! – hit their mark. But what must be pointed out (and we’ll do this more next month) is how decisively and distinctively Christian these criticisms are. Such challenges are founded on the teaching of Christ and are unimaginable without the revolution which bears His name. More next time.

Questioning the faith – or the faith as practiced by our little corner of the Christian world – might not be as anti-Christian as we assume. Both the practice of criticism and the standards by which it’s done can point us back to Jesus. And bringing things back to Jesus is the heart of it all.