Deconstruction Stories

Today's Reading

Read 1 John 2:18-25 carefully. John is writing as an old man, near the end of the first century, to a church wounded by a wave of departures: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." It is one of the most painful sentences in the New Testament.

Read Hebrews 6:4-8 — one of the hardest passages in Scripture: "For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit... and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance." The passage has been read in many ways through the church's history. It refuses easy interpretations.

Read Mark 4:1-20, the parable of the soils. Notice that of the four soils, only one bears lasting fruit. Three out of four hearings of the gospel produce visible response that does not endure. Jesus' realism about his own ministry is sobering.

Finally, 1 Corinthians 10:11-13: "These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall."

Reflection

The phenomenon is not new, but it has been newly intense in our generation. Public Christian leaders, often well-known authors, musicians, pastors, or apologists — people whose books were on our shelves, whose songs we sang, whose interviews we listened to — have, with growing frequency, announced that they no longer believe. Some announce it gradually, in interviews and podcasts. Some announce it abruptly. The reasons given vary: intellectual, moral, emotional, ecclesial. The result is the same: a person who appeared to be inside the household of faith is, by their own testimony, no longer inside it.

For the people who looked up to them, the experience is disorienting. If they could leave, was any of it real for them? Could it happen to me? Was the faith they shaped in me theirs to give in the first place?

The Bible has more to say about this than the discourse does. It is just slower to give us the answers we want.

The first thing to notice is that the New Testament expects this to happen.

Jesus expects it. The parable of the soils is, among other things, a parable about why the gospel does not produce lasting fruit in everyone who initially responds to it. The seed on the rocky ground "immediately receives it with joy" but "endures for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away" (Mark 4:16-17). The seed among thorns is choked by "the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things" (Mark 4:19). Jesus is not surprised by the spectacle of an early enthusiastic response that, ten years later, has not endured. He told us in advance that this is what his ministry would look like.

John expects it. 1 John 2:19 is one of the most pastorally honest verses in the New Testament. The wave of departures from his church has been real. He does not minimize it. He also does not panic. He says, "if they had been of us, they would have continued with us." His framework is that the visible church is always a mixed body, and time, especially time under stress, sorts the wheat from the chaff. He does not enjoy saying it. He says it because it is true.

Hebrews expects it. Hebrews 6:4-8 stands like a warning sign at the edge of every Christian life: a real, sober warning that some who appear to have "tasted the heavenly gift" do, in the end, fall away. Christians have argued for centuries about what exactly Hebrews 6 means — whether it describes those who were truly regenerate, or those who outwardly appeared so without ever being so, or whether it is hypothetical to spur perseverance. Even on the most cautious reading, the passage refuses to let us be casual. Take heed lest you fall is a command of the New Testament, not a mood.

Paul expects it. 1 Corinthians 10:11-12 puts the warning at the center of Christian self-knowledge: "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall."

So the first response to a public deconstruction must not be surprise. The Bible is not surprised. The Christianity that has been cultivated in the West for the last fifty years — frictionless, success-shaped, loosely doctrinal, identity-affirming, allergic to suffering — produces a great many initial responses that do not endure. The shock when those initial responses do not endure is itself a sign of how far we have drifted from a New Testament expectation of what discipleship costs.

But the right Christian responses are not only realism. They are at least four.

Humility — we cannot judge another's heart. John says of the leavers in his congregation, "they were not of us." But notice what he does not say. He does not say "and we know exactly which ones, and we judge each by name." He says it about the phenomenon, not about each individual. The temptation, when a public leader walks away, is to render a verdict on his eternal state. The Bible asks us to render a much smaller verdict: this person, on this day, by their own testimony, is not walking with Christ. Whether they will end the story walking with Christ — by his mercy, in some way we cannot now see — is not in our hands. Calvin observed that final perseverance is the gift of God; presumption is the work of man. We do not know who Christ will, in the end, gather to himself. Our job is the slow tending of our own souls and the prayerful patience that hopes for our friends.

Grief — these were friends. The deconstruction discourse online tends toward two flat affects: triumphant denunciation ("they were never really saved") or triumphant validation ("see, the whole thing was a lie"). Neither is grief. Both are easier than grief. Christian grief over a friend who has walked away is hard work. It costs you the simplicity of a settled judgment and asks you to carry, instead, the weight of a real loss. John's words in 1 John 2 are not gloating. They are weeping.

Self-examination — "let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." The deconstruction of someone you trusted is, among other things, a question to you. Not the cynical question ("is any of this real?") but the right question: what is the actual state of my own faith? Is it a faith I have inherited and never made my own? Is it a faith of borrowed certainties? Is it a faith that has actually weathered the harder questions, or is it a faith that has only ever been comfortable? Are there doubts I am hiding from God instead of bringing to him? Is my life on a trajectory that makes the next twenty years of faithfulness more likely or less? Tim Keller wrote that "a faith without some doubts is like a human body with no antibodies in it." The faith that has actually wrestled with hard questions — in honest prayer, in honest reading, in honest conversation with mature Christians — is the faith more likely to last when stress comes. The faith that has been protected from every hard question is the faith most likely to crumble at the first one.

Renewed commitment — the discipline of one's own faith. Discernment in our generation is not finally about diagnosing other people's collapses. It is about quietly, slowly, building a faith that can endure. The disciplines are not glamorous. Daily Scripture. Honest prayer. A real local church with elders who know your name. The Lord's Supper. Friendships in which you can be told you are wrong. A long view that does not measure spiritual life in viral moments but in decades. Tim Keller often said that Christianity is not the conclusion of an argument you have won but the home in which you have come, slowly, to live — and that those who have only won the argument can lose it later, while those who have come home tend to stay.

There is one more thing worth saying.

The Bible does not treat deconstruction as a one-way door. The prodigal son returns. Peter denies and is restored. Demas leaves and is mourned, but Mark — who once abandoned the missionary journey — returns, and Paul writes from prison that "he is very useful to me for ministry" (2 Timothy 4:11). Some who walk away come home. The right Christian posture toward a friend who has left is therefore not a final verdict but a long, prayerful patience. We do not know which of those we have lost will, by mercy, be returned to us. Our part is to keep the door open, the lamp lit, and our own lives faithful enough that there is something worth coming home to.

The wolves of Matthew 7 are sobering. The deconstructions of 1 John are sobering. Hebrews 6 is sobering. The right response is not panic, and it is not cynicism. It is the humble, grieving, self-examining, persevering Christianity the New Testament has been describing all along. We have been told.

Going Deeper

Bring before God, by name, one person you have known who has walked away from the faith. Resist both temptations: to write them off as never having been real, and to follow them in your heart. Pray for them as a still-loved friend whose final story is not yet written. Then ask honestly: what is one doubt or hard question I have been avoiding in my own life that the experience of their leaving has surfaced? Bring that to God, perhaps with a trusted Christian friend. Faith that does not turn away from honest questions is the faith that lasts.