Did God Really Say...?

Did God Really Say...? By Rebekka Hansel

Have you ever had that thought? Have you ever heard these words whispered in your ear? 

There’s an insidious trend snaking its way (pun intended) into the Church these days. You’ve probably heard of at least one high profile Christian who has spoken publicly about the process of “deconstructing” their faith. Maybe you even have a friend or relative who is on a similar journey. 

If you do a cursory internet search on this topic of faith deconstruction, many sources will suggest that this is a relatively new phenomenon. It has it’s roots in French philosophy and has been embraced by theologians and progressive Christians who (rightly) see many things wrong with how Christianity is practiced today and have (wrongly) concluded that the solution is to pick apart everything they believe, piece by piece, as if the Gospel was a LEGO set with a booklet of questionable instructions that needs to be tossed in favor of a more creative approach. 

Also….it’s not exactly new. Way back in Genesis 3, we see Eve, the very first deconstructionist, deceived by the serpent into thinking that the truth that she had been given wasn’t, in fact, true at all. Eve’s first step on the path to Original Sin was asking a question.

Did God really say…?

Let me start off by saying that God is not afraid of your questions. The Psalms are full of David and others asking lots of questions of God. The book of Job, too, follows a man’s faith into the depths of despair….and back again.

The problem with modern “deconstruction” is that it may begin with honest questions, but it rarely ends, as the book of Job does, with a revival of faith. In fact, Job repents for doubting even though Job’s questions were not explicitly answered. Job says, in Job 42:3, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand…..” God answered Job’s questions by revealing His (God’s) character, NOT by giving Job the information he was seeking.

You may be saying, at this point….”But what if I have wrong beliefs about God or the Bible or what I was taught to believe?” Shouldn’t I “deconstruct” that bad theology or doctrine and rebuild my belief system back so that it’s in line with Scripture?

In other words…. “Did God really say…?”

I’d like to suggest that “deconstruction”, in its most generally understood context, is one of Satan’s biggest attempts at gaslighting in recent decades. And the sad thing is, it’s working. 

If you’re not familiar with the term, “gaslighting” refers to “a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in the victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.” (https://www.newportinstitute.com/resources/mental-health/what_is_gaslighting_abuse/) This behavior is typically seen in abusive relationships, where the abuser basically convinces their victim that they’re crazy. That what they believe is true is false. Up is down. Right is wrong.

The truth is that many of us do, in fact, have wrong thinking, bad theology, incorrect beliefs about God….the list could go on. The apostle Paul repeatedly addressed false teaching in his epistles to the early church.  However, Paul’s solution to the threats to these new churches’ foundation of faith was not for them to break down everything they believed, decide which tenets were true, and ditch the rest….no. In fact over and over again in the New Testament, Paul and other writers exhort the early church to build up, increase, and strengthen their faith.

No, Paul knew exactly where the wrong thinking and harmful belief systems came from. In his second letter to the Corinthians, he says:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5, NIV)

We are not called to deconstruct. We are called to demolish. This, I believe, is Satan’s Big Lie of deconstruction. Instead of us focusing on what we ARE supposed to break down (his “strongholds”), he convinces us to tear down everything AROUND them, which ultimately leaves the lie standing with our faith in pieces around it.

Strongholds can be anything from bad habits to bad thought processes that Satan uses to hold us back in our faith walk. If you think of literal ancient strongholds, these were tall towers that were essentially impenetrable. Nothing was getting past them. They were protective of what they held inside and preventive towards anything coming at them from the outside.

In the same way, spiritual strongholds can appear to be impenetrable. But our weapons are not the weapons of the world. They have DIVINE POWER. WE have divine power. But we have to use it.

We will always have questions in this life. Tearing down our faith to look for answers among the pieces is not the solution. The solution is to use God’s Word to demolish the thoughts and behaviors that are truly hindering our faith, leaving the lies to be destroyed, and our faith intact.