Deconstruction & EXvangelicalism

INTRO: do you ever just blindly follow your GPS and not check the route before taking off? (The Office moment). Deconstruction is a lot like that.

In the past few years, there’s been a new kind of challenge—an implosion of sorts. More and more people are questioning and doubting their faith. Now, questioning and doubting aren’t new. But what’s new is that it’s become a trend. It’s viral. It’s popular. From hashtags to podcasts to bestselling books, “deconstruction” has become exceedingly popular.

(PPT) When we talk about “deconstruction,” here’s what we mean: “Faith deconstruction is a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without regarding Scripture as a standard.”

It’s old thinking dressed in trendy language. Some might say, “So just preach about apostasy and falling away.” But no—that’s not enough. It’s worth discussing because it’s currently a movement like it hasn’t been before. Since it’s an actual movement, and we need to be equipped to recognize it. We’re hearing this language from our kids and grandkids because of influencers, authors, podcasters, and speakers who are actively trying to convince people to remove Christianity from their lives.

They’re not loud, angry debaters. Often, they’re gentle and kind, inviting you into “safe spaces” and offering to COACH you through the process! But these spaces are often orchestrated to foster doubt and unbelief. These are people who kindly invite you in to “de-convert” you. Like an anti-evangelism campaign.

But since there is no objective truth standard people don’t always land in the same place. It’s more like an explosion, blasting out in all directions. Some end up in atheist, some in progressive Christianity, anywhere and everywhere.

How big is this movement?(PPT)

Several different podcasts on deconstruction have over a million views each.

Over 1,000,000 books sold in the past 5 years

Memes, videos, and images are shared daily under hashtags like #deconstruction and #exvangelical.

On Instagram, #deconstruction has 340,000 posts.

On TikTok, videos with the deconstruction hashtag have accumulated 714 million views.

Much of the “exvangelical” and deconstruction content on social media is about making converts. That’s strikingly similar to evangelistic outreach—but with one crucial difference: they don’t care what you believe, as long as it’s not God’s Word as the standard of truth.

One YouTuber pushing deconstruction said: “I’m not here to tell people where they should end up—I’m just here to hang out with them on the journey.”

Illustration: That’s like a GPS app saying, “I’m not here to tell you where to go. I’m just here to keep you company while you drive—even if you end up lost in the middle of nowhere.”

New Name, Old Problems

(PPT)Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?””

(PPT) Step 1 - Satan QUESTIONS God’s word.

Questions aren’t bad — but what is the motive? Not all questions are HONEST questions. What is the goal of the questions being asked?

When it comes to faith, some questions seek answers—and some questions seek exits.

Some people genuinely want to know the truth. Others are looking for a reason to leave. Some questions are designed to make the Christian position look foolish. That’s what the Pharisees tried to do with Jesus:

Mark 12:13–14 “And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?””

It sounded like a sincere question—but it wasn’t. Jesus saw right through it and asked, “Why put me to the test?” (v. 15). Their goal was not truth—it was entrapment.

Questions can be good.

Questions help people come to conclusions on their own, which can lead to changed minds. People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they themselves discovered than by those that are just spoon fed to them.

Satan sought to deceive Eve by questioning God’s word in a negative way. And his tactics haven’t changed! He’s asking similar questions for our current day and age:

Did God really say...marriage is between one man and woman for life? Murder of innocent life like abortion is wrong? That guilty people will go to hell for their sin? That Jesus is the ONLY way to be saved? That there are only two genders?”

(PPT) Step 2 - Satan moves to DENYING God’s word.

Genesis 3:4 “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.”

Satan doesn’t try to even convince that God doesn’t exist, he’s craftier than that. Instead he UNDERMINES what God has said so he can replace a truth with a lie.

Romans 1:25 “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

The lie Satan is trying to convince you of is actually about God Himself!! That’s the next point.

(PPT) Step 3 - Satan DECONSTRUCTS truths about God by questioning and replacing.

Genesis 3:4–6 “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

(PPT) Satan has “deconstructed” the idea that God is LOVING.

After all - how could a loving God withhold something that appears so pleasing to the eyes and would make me wise? Surely a loving God wouldn’t forbid something they desired...

The lie that’s trying to take root is that God is NOT loving. He tries to persuade them and us that God must not care that much about them, that God must like keeping things from us for no reason so that means He’s oppressing and sometimes cruel because of that!

(PPT) Satan also tries to break down the truth that God is actually TRUTHFUL!

The father of lies, John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” He convinces them to believe God was being deceptive about the consequences of disobeying His commands. God said “if you do this you will die”, and Satan comes along and says “No that’s not true” which is him saying that God is a liar.

(PPT) And finally, Satan deconstructs the idea that God is SUFFICIENT.

Adam and Eve begin to believe they are responsible for taking care of themselves, they are the providers, without fully realizing they are saying God isn’t ENOUGH for them and they know better and are better on their own....

After they’ve deconstructed who God is - from not loving, not truthful, and not being enough - they rebel. Self-rule replaced God’s rule.

Don’t we see how questions from a wrong motive can sow seed of deeper deception?

This is a tale old as time, the idea of this is not new. It’s been relabeled with a pseudo-intellectual language and title (the appearance of knowledge but really shallow and superficial).

Like them in the Garden, when we ignore or reject God’s word we cut ourselves off from the primary source of truth about what God is like, about who He really is, and then we’re opening ourselves to lies being substituted and information that doesn’t come from the standard of truth but instead from within us or around us.

(PPT) What Is Truth?

Truth!

There is objective truth and there is subjectivity and relativism.

(PPT) Objective truth

Example: “my Bible is on the pulpit”. Is that true? Yes! How do you know? You can see it and verify the evidence that it is in fact true.

Truth is what corresponds to reality.

Truth is independent of anyone’s beliefs and desires.

You may not BELIEVE my Bible is there, but that doesn’t change reality.

You may not LIKE that my Bible is there, but that doesn’t change the truth.

A persons’ belief and preferences are IRRELIVENT to the truth.

(PPT) Relativism/Subjectivism is based on beliefs, or preference.

It’s to say “what’s true for you may not be true for me or someone else”. They say Christianity may be true for YOU but not true for ME.

The problem is that something is either true FOR EVERYONE, or it’s not true for anyone.

To say “all truth is relative” is a self defeating statement, if that is the case then NOTHING can be true.

BUT we can look into our world and certainly identify things that are true and the evidence of them.

When we say Christianity is true, we’re not just saying that its true for “me” or that “it works for me”!

I’m not a Christian because it works for me. But I’m a Christian because of all the overwhelming evidence that points to the fact that there is a God, that Jesus is the son of God, and that the Bible is the Word of God!

My high regard for truth leaves 0 alternatives.

The Word of God is divinely revealed and inspired. The Bible is the STANDARD of truth. It’s ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

That means it’s sufficient, that means that its perfect, its everything that we need, and anything that isn’t included in it is not part of God’s will or truth! Since it is perfect truth, it negates everything else!

Christians who don’t hold to that and aren’t willing to put “self” aside, wants and preferences out of the picture.... those individuals won’t be lifelong followers, can’t understand God deeper, and will be unable to overcome the spiritual battles Satan wages against them.

God’s word is the tether of truth that explains all of reality, and subsequently all my responsibilities in it.

(PPT) THE Faith is the objective standard of truth in God’s Word.

Jude 3 “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

You can KNOW what the truth that is The Faith is because we are told to CONTEND for it. It can be identified!

Contend for it, same words used as a gladiator going into contend in the arena. Fight for it like your life depends on it because it does.

Learn what the truth is, contend for what the faith is.

Our personal faith grows out of THE Faith. Faith isn’t just whatever you want it to be.

Faith is not blind belief or belief against evidence. Faith is evidentially supported and grounded in reason. It’s not a blind hope or wishful thinking.

Why does all this matter for us Christians? You’ve got to be sure of your foundation! Think of thin ice. One moment, you’re standing on what feels solid and before you know if you fall through without anticipating it. And then, you’re fighting for your life. Many Christians today are on spiritually thin ice. Their faith isn’t strong enough to support them in the middle of crisis, confusion, suffering, or spiritual abuse.

Again - why are you telling us this preacher? Because those that “deconstruct” USUALLY start due to a crisis of some sort, and do so without any basis of truth in the world and certainly not with the Word — they make determinations of what stays and goes based purely off of what comes from within them.

(PPT) Healthy Examination vs. Deconstruction

(PPT)It’s important to understand that thinking critically and examining your beliefs is healthy. 1 John 4:1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Don’t just take anyone’s word for it, don’t just say “its what I was taught growing up” and leave it there — do your own diligence to make sure God’s word says it!

Healthy evaluation vs. “deconstruction”....its not even a good term. Think of the prefix “de-.” Words like dehydrate, deactivate, destabilize all mean the opposite of the original action. When you dehydrate a fruit you’re removing water. Likewise, at its core, deconstruct means “to do the opposite of construct.” The emphasis is on tearing down, not building up.

Illustration: It’d be like inspecting a house and seeing a chip in the paint on the wall, and deciding to tear down the whole house. Illogical!

Instead of deconstructing our faith, we should seek to reform, recover, restore, and rebuild. That’s the biblical way. When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in Mark 3:1-6, He told him, “Stretch out your hand.” The man’s hand wasn’t torn down—it was restored to what God intended it to be. Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

It’s always easier to destroy than to rebuild. Anybody can swing a wrecking ball. But it takes a carpenter to build—or rebuild.

And we don’t rebuild on just anything. The Word of God must be our foundation/standard we’re tethered to for truth. Remember the Bereans:

(PPT) Acts 17:11 “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

The Bereans didn’t accept Paul’s teaching blindly. They didn’t test it against their feelings or pre-conceived notions. They tested it against Scripture, the standard of truth! That’s healthy examination.

So rather than tearing down our faith, let’s examine it, test it, and rebuild it—always on the solid foundation of God’s Word.

Dealing with Questions & Doubts

(PPT) We shouldn’t suppress our doubts—or the doubts of others. Instead, bring doubts into the light. Doubts left hidden can drive someone into despair and abandon it all together because of that.

Some people feel ashamed to admit they have doubts, especially if they’ve been Christians for a long time. Don’t keep your doubts to yourself. Reach out. Seek answers! You’ll find many answers—but not every question has a tidy solution. And that’s not unique to Christianity. Every worldview has unanswered questions.

So, how do we help someone going through this process?

Scripture calls us to balance compassion with conviction. The same Bible that tells us to (Jude 22) “And have mercy on those who doubt;” also instructs us to (Titus 1:9) “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

That’s a command—not a suggestion. Ask yourself: Are you a person others can share their doubts with?

Release Yourself from Guilt

Maybe you’re feeling guilt or shame over someone you love who has abandoned the faith.... Maybe you think:

“If I had said more…”

“If I had been a better example…”

“If I had studied harder…”

Let me say this gently but firmly: You are not anyone’s Savior. You’re not Jesus. You’re not the Holy Spirit. You are not God.

My failures, my gaps in knowledge, my imperfect words—these are not the reason someone deconstructs or abandons faith. Ultimately, every person makes their own choice.

Conclusion:

So:

Stand firm in seeking objective truth!

Build your faith on the solid rock of God’s Word. John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Be a safe place for questions and seek to answer the hard questions you yourself have.

There is so much evidence that points to the fact that Jesus did raise from the dead. That means He is in fact the son of God, which means it’s 100% that as He said in John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” You may doubt and have all kinds of questions at times — and you may never fully understand some things. But what we can understand is that I can fully rely on Jesus and we will be more than ok if we do so. We will be eternally secure with Him, if I will just make the decision to trust and follow Him.