Deconstruction

Every Christian faces moments where faith doesn’t seem to meet the demands of life. This may be in response to suffering, a difficult question, or a failing of the Church. These moments can be very challenging, and are also opportunities to reimagine faith.

We might recognise these moments when the Psalmist asked God to “search me and know me” (Psalm 139.1), Job faced suffering, Martha encountered Jesus (Luke 10.38-42), Jesus sweated blood (Luke 22.44), St. Thomas sought assurance (John 20.24-9), or St. Paul encountered Jesus (Acts 9.1-19). Christians throughout history have experienced times of questioning, perhaps most clearly seen in the questions leading to new denominations, and in the lives of mystics such as… These experiences can be called deconstruction, as our faith feels under the microscope, in the hope of reconstruction as we walk the questions with Jesus. 

We offer some resources below which may help provide a vocabulary and community for these moments. As always we seek to offer a variety of views and traditions, which might help make sense of wherever you are on the journey

Further resources

Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts
Sarah Held Evans, Searching for Sunday
Brian McLaren, Faith after Doubt

As a useful sense check if you’re not sure about a particular church, we can recommend CultWatch