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From Amazon.com:
A groundbreaking book on the true nature of faith deconstruction
Alisa and Tim help the reader to deconstruct the deconstructionists and thus to respond to them, both with arguments and with love and sensitivity. This is a timely book! -- Carl Trueman, author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
A movement called ‘deconstruction’ is sweeping through our churches and it is affecting our loved ones. It has disrupted, dismantled, and destroyed the faith of so many, and this book can help you not only understand what’s happening but also stand your ground and respond with clarity and confidence.Some who leave the faith feel wounded by the church. Others feel repressed by some of the moral imperatives found in Scripture. For some, it leads to a custom-made spirituality. For others, deconstructing their faith leads them away from the truth into agnosticism, atheism, the occult, or humanism.
- Maybe you have a loved one who is deconstructing their faith, and you are struggling to know how to respond;
- Maybe you are trying to understand the radical spiritual makeover your friend or family member is going through;
- Maybe your relationship with a loved one has been strained or even cut off because of your “toxic” Christian beliefs and you don’t know what to do;
- Maybe you’re experiencing doubt yourself and facing hard questions about truth, God, the Bible, theology and the gospel.
In this seminal book, Alisa Childers, author of Another Gospel?, and Tim Barnett, creator of Red Pen Logic, will help you understand what deconstruction is, where it comes from, why it is compelling to some, and how it disorients the lives of so many. You will be able to think through the main issues around faith deconstruction and explore wise and loving ways to respond from a biblical worldview.
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up, or does it crumble under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren- I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered where God is in all this mess. This is The Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast, where we'll take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier, feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us. You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers, but you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's gonna take some spiritual-brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Good morning, my friend. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I am so grateful and honored
to be with you today. This is Spiritual Brain Surgery, a brand new podcast.
I've been podcasting since 2014, but we wanted to create a place where all of
the episodes were about spiritual things.
We always talk about on the main podcast about neuroscience and faith and how
they smash together to help us become healthier and feel better and be happier
no matter what happens in our life.
But the foundational thing, the most important thing is to get your faith right,
to get your beliefs right, because guess what?
Life's going to get hard. I hate to be the one to tell you that,
but there's going to be trauma and tragedy and massive things that come along.
And if you get your beliefs right up front, if you prehab your faith,
then you'll know exactly what's going to happen when things get hard.
You'll have a place to fall and a place to land where the bottom holds and you
can stand up with hope and move forward again in your life.
And so we're starting this new podcast, and we went back on Sunday a couple
of days ago and did an introductory episode, and I gave you the breadth of what
we're going to be covering here.
But I'm very excited that the first full-length episode of Spiritual Brain Surgery
is a talk with two very special guests.
Elisa Childers is an author. She was a former Christian singer of Zoe Girl fame
back in the 90s, but now she's a really popular speaker and the author of two books that I love. love.
She's been on the show before to talk about her book, Another Gospel,
and her second book, Live Your Truth and Other Lies.
She's been published all over the place, Gospel Coalition, Crosswalk, The Stream.
And she's a very popular apologist on the lecture circuit now.
And I'm really grateful that Elisa has teamed up with Tim Barnett to write this
new book, The Deconstruction of Christianity.
Tim Barnett is a speaker and apologist. He writes for Stand to Reason.
And during the pandemic, he's a teacher from Canada. And during the pandemic,
when they weren't in school, he started something called Red Pen Logic with Mr. B.
And he helps people, especially young people, assess bad thinking by using good
thinking. And his social media platforms reach millions of people every month.
Proclaim the word and argue for the faith that we have in Jesus Christ.
These two have teamed up to write this important book because deconstruction
is happening. It's a thing, a movement, if you will, is sweeping through our churches.
It's affecting our loved ones. Many of us have loved ones and our families that
have gone through this. It's disrupted, dismantled, and destroyed the faith of many people.
And we need to understand what deconstruction is, why it's so destructive,
and how to respond in love to people who are going through it so we can help
them, but also so to understand what's happening.
It's a great talk. We have three copies of this important book to give away.
The publisher at Tyndale, they're always so great to give us books to give away.
We're so grateful to partner with Tyndale and the wonderful publicists that
they have to get books given out to people.
And we have three copies of The Deconstruction of Christianity here on Spiritual Brain Surgery Today.
If you would like to be considered for one of those books, please send me an
email, lee at drleewarren.com.
Don't forget your name, your mailing address, and your zip code.
They need to go to United States addresses.
We cannot, unfortunately, ship to an international address with these three
books because they're coming directly from the warehouse of the publisher,
and it has to be a U.S. address.
So three copies we have to give away. Your name, mailing address,
and zip code to lee at drleewarren.com will give away three that we will randomly
select within 48 hours of the episode going live.
We are here for spiritual brain surgery to remind you that you can't change
your life until you change your mind.
And the number one thing you need to change your mind about is knowing what
you believe, why you believe it, and how to defend it. And we're gonna get after it right now.
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up or does it crumble
under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren.
I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered
where God is in all this mess.
This is the Spiritual Brain Surgery Podcast, where we'll take a hard look at
what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds
and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier,
feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us.
You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers.
But you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's going to
take some spiritual brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Music.
Welcome to the show, team. Thank you. It's great to be back with you.
Yeah, it's great to meet you. Good.
Lisa was on the show a year ago or so to talk about your second book,
and just appreciate having you back and taking the time.
So let's just for a second introduce yourselves briefly. I've done a bio,
but let's hear it from you. Lisa, start with you.
Yeah, well, I am a mom, a wife.
I've got a couple of new grandbabies, one that's about two and one that was just born.
So we're kind of in baby moon phase
with the new grandbaby, so I'm loving that. that, but it is the best.
Um, so we are, uh, we live in the Nashville area and which I've lived here since 99.
Cause I was in the contemporary Christian music industry for a while before,
I went through a faith crisis that I think I talked about on the show last time.
And, uh, when God rebuilt my faith, it really led me to reach out and try to help others.
So that's when my public ministry in apologetics and theology started.
And so I write books and I I have a podcast, the Elisa Childers podcast.
Excellent, Tim. And yeah, I'm
Tim Barnett. I work as an apologist for a ministry called Stand to Reason.
Before that, I was actually a high school science and math teacher, which I love doing.
But God had other plans. And so for the last eight years, I've been doing the apologist thing.
Although through the pandemic, things shut down, couldn't travel,
couldn't speak. And so we started something called Red Pen Logic with Mr. B.
It's on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and all the places.
And this is a place that we respond to bad thinking by using good thinking.
And we try to have some fun in the process.
And so we're responding to TikToks and memes and, I mean, you name it.
We're trying to respond to it.
And, yeah, so that's kind of a little intro.
I live here in Canada. And so people might notice the accent. I'm Canadian.
I got three little girls at home and a beautiful wife.
That's great. Before we get into a conversation of this depth,
I think we should pray. One or both of you, start us off with prayer.
Sure, I'll pray. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to come together
and to have these discussions.
And I pray that it would be edifying for the body and for anybody who's listening.
We pray that it would minister to those who have friends and loved ones in deconstruction.
And ultimately, that we would glorify you with every word we say in Jesus' name.
Yeah. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Amen.
So just a little background for you, Tim, you've not been on the show before,
but this show started really out of a painful place for us.
We lost a child in 2013 and really came out of trying to help other people get
back to their faith and their feet after massive trauma has happened in their lives.
And I'm a brain surgeon. And so I naturally kind of
integrate the way our brains work and our minds work with how
we can find hope and faith and put those things together and one
of the things that happens when people go through hard things as
most of our listeners today will be is it challenges and
makes you question your faith sometimes so i think it's a perfect conversation
to have with you all about your new book the deconstruction of christianity
what it is why it's destructive and how to respond so so maybe just as we get
started give us a little background on how this book came about how the two
of you began to write together and some of of that inside baseball stuff about this book.
Well, I can, I can start and then I'll get Elisa to kind of tell the rest of the story.
I, um, a couple of years ago was invited to speak at a, a conference.
Um, it was a week long thing. I was doing like the morning Bible study and,
uh, they had asked me to speak on deconstruction because a lot of people were
talking at that time about deconstruction, particularly because of Joshua Harris,
who wrote, I kissed dating goodbye, you know, a bestseller.
And he had recently gone on Instagram, announced that he was divorcing his wife
one week, and then the next week talking about his deconstruction.
Of course, there was other well-known musicians that at that time were coming
out. There was a Marty Sampson from Hillsong.
He came out on Instagram and said, I'm leaving. I'm walking away.
And so they asked me to talk about this issue. And as I put together that research,
I thought, man, there is a lot going on here. and I'm still trying to wrestle through it.
But one of the evenings, I was sitting on a back pew and I thought,
man, there is a connection between deconstruction and progressive Christianity.
In fact, it's kind of the transition or the segue to progressive Christianity.
And of course, when I think of progressive Christianity, I think,
man, this is right up Elisa Childers' alley.
You know, she's written a book on progressive Christianity. So I sent her a
text message asking her, are you writing this book?
This is the prequel to your book, Another Gospel.
And what did you say, Elisa?
Well, at the time, I was hip deep and finishing up Live Your Truth and Other Lies, my second book.
And I had promised myself, and when I'm finished with this book,
I am not going to write another book for two years. Like, I just need a break from writing books.
But when Tim suggested that, and that's what I told him. I just said, I can't. There's no way.
I'm just so busy right now, and I just don't have time to do this.
But I, at the same time, was recognizing what an absolutely important topic
it was for the church because a lot of people were starting to talk about deconstruction.
And frankly, the way a lot of Christians were talking about it was alarming
to me. It was actually very concerning to me because they were talking about
deconstruction like it can be this healthy, good thing.
And I thought, I know that that's not quite right.
But when I would see Tim post about it, I would see him post little snippets
from his talk and talk about it. I was like, man, he really gets it.
I feel like Tim understands what's going on in this movement.
So when he texted that to me, I immediately was like, well, I think I said something
like, well, why don't somebody else write it?
And then Tim suggested maybe we write it together. But when he suggested that
we write it together, I knew instantly, like, this is going to happen.
This is probably going to happen. So I think I said something like, let's talk.
And then we just kept talking and it turned into a book, you know,
signing a book deal together and writing this book.
Incredible how these things, these little nudges from the Lord turn into such good things.
I think before we go too far, just in case there's somebody out there that doesn't
know what deconstruction is, let's get the definitions out on the table.
Because I think one thing that happens, Philip Yancey and I had a conversation
about this, where there's this innocent sort of conversation that we have a
lot of times where what we really mean when we say deconstruction is that we tear down.
Things that we were taught or we believed growing up in light of what scripture
says, and it's a healthy process of sort of making sure that we work out our own salvation, right?
But sometimes that's not what it means, and I think most of the time in this
secular worldview, progressive worldview, it's certainly not what it means.
So let's get the definitions out on the table.
You start the book off early with that, and I think it's well done.
So give us kind of a working lexicon here so we're all on the same page as we
have this conversation.
Well, I think for Tim and I, probably the hardest sentence to write in the book
was our one-sentence definition of deconstruction and how we define it as a
postmodern process of rethinking your faith,
but not regarding Scripture as the standard.
And there are several reasons that we defined it that way, because what you
described a minute ago, where you're rethinking your faith, but you're going
to scripture, you want to have an authentic, biblically based Christian faith.
And so that means you've got to tear some things down. You've got to get rid of some things.
We would say, yes, do that. That is a good and healthy, important part of every
believer's life to grow and mature as a Christian.
But what was concerning to us is that a lot of people were using kind of this
new postmodern word to describe a process that we should all be doing anyway.
And that can't be, it can't be both. Like, I think that's what we were just
thinking about is like, it can't be just a healthy,
you know, discernment and reforming your faith and also a rejection of core
principles of the gospel, which is really what we see happening in the dominant
expression of the word in culture.
So it really was just this pocket of maybe well-meaning evangelicals that were
using the word that way, kind of co-opting it and saying, oh, no, it can be healthy.
And I get it. Like, I get the well-meaning nature of it because nobody wants
to see people walk away from their faith.
And so if you have the opportunity to say, oh, well, if you deconstruct a street,
deconstruct in a healthy way. You know, we even kicked that around in the beginning.
We were like, well, maybe we can kind of present like a healthy version and
then an unhealthy version.
But as we went along, that healthy version was impossible to find,
except among this kind of very small bubble of evangelicals that were talking
about it that way, because everybody else was saying, no, actually,
what they believe, what those evangelicals believe is toxic,
it's harmful, it's abusive, we got to get rid of those beliefs.
And ultimately, what it meant outside of that bubble was, and in broader culture, it means healthy.
Getting rid of like any kind of external authority. So it's really like any
external authority is a power grab in the deconstruction mindset.
So you have to do like you, it's entirely self-led. It's the authority of your
own thoughts and feelings and preferences.
And I don't say that in a pejorative way. It's, um, it's in the mindset of the deconstructionist.
If you have an external authority, you've got to deconstruct that.
And so you have to be the truth maker in it and find out what works for you,
what's helpful to you, what's harmful to you, what's abusive to you,
or what's bringing you wholeness as far as what you feel inside.
Yeah. And I would just add to that, that we wanted to, um, bring clarity to a very confusing issue.
And what we found was when we talked with people, they're confused about this,
because if you ask 10 people to define deconstruction,
you will get 10 different different definitions this kind of
thing so um what we knew when we finally settled on this side this idea deconstruction
is a postmodern process that of rethinking your faith but not requiring scripture
as a standard when we when we came to that kind of conclusion we knew that you
know there would be people on the other side who would not like that we knew people within.
Evangelicalism would like that because we were disagreeing with you know people
like philip Yancey who used the term in a healthy way.
What we're saying is there is that going on what Philip Yancey has done and
many others have done, but we want to call that something else. And that will help.
That'll help bring clarity to this confusing issue. Because if they use a different
word, like, Hey, we're doing reformation, by the way, we have like,
we already had these words.
This is what Christians have been doing for centuries.
I mean, be like the Bereans and and search the scriptures to see if these things are so.
The question is, when we go to the deconstruction online spaces,
when we read their books, when we're looking into what they're saying,
we're not finding that. We're not finding the Berean.
We're finding something else.
We're finding someone who actually has rejected and ignored scripture.
And because that is such a fundamental thing, again, it comes down to authority, comes down to truth.
Because that is such an important divide, we thought, you know what?
Let's not add an adjective healthy versus unhealthy, good versus bad.
That's not helpful enough. What we want to do is say, look, we have terms for
this. We use the word reformation in our book.
Um, that, that is, is what we want people to do.
And so it really comes down to how you're doing it. Forget the,
forget about the word for a minute. What's the methodology? What's the how?
And in our book, we outline how we think Christians should do,
should do this kind of thing.
Wow. It almost feels like we're we're sort of if we weren't talking about the
church here, it could it could be a conversation about the intersectional ideology
and and this sort of what do you call it? Critical theory kind of thing.
We're bringing the bringing power structures down and tearing down leadership
and roles that have always been in existence.
It feels like we're taking the church and making it out of the culture rather
than filtering culture through the lens of the church. Is that accurate?
I think that's actually very accurate because one of the things we discovered
in our research is that that whole kind of power structure, oppressed versus
oppressor, is a very dominant theme in deconstruction.
In fact, it goes under the phrase, you know, decolonize your theology.
You might hear that term. And some deconstructions will even say you have not
deconstructed until you've decolonized your theology.
And what they really mean by that is that you have gotten rid of what they perceive
to be oppressive, the church trying to control people with fear,
which really is an outflow of white supremacy.
And again, I think all of us would be like, well, we don't want to condone white supremacy.
We don't want any theology that is maybe just built up by people that wanted
power or something, of course.
But the problem is, is that in the deconstruction hashtag, really any objective
truth claim that you're going to make about someone like you're a sinner,
you need a savior, Jesus is the judge of the world, there's a real place called hell.
These things are seen as vestiges of that colonization mindset.
So you have to decolonize that. So the wording can sound like they're doing
something good, but when really dig down to.
Oftentimes they're rejecting core doctrines of the faith. Wow.
And so who's the candidate for that? Who do you see typically that falls into
this deconstruction process?
And what are some common sort of characteristics that you see among people who've
had this happen to them or have gone through this process?
That's a really good question. Because what you'll find is you could have two
people who have actually experienced the same kind of maybe church hurt or suffering
or doubt, questions, going through the same thing.
And yet there's a different response to it.
One person deconstructs and one person doesn't deconstruct.
And so what we do in the book is we talk about the importance of your faith foundation.
And then the crisis being this separate event. And depending on what your faith
foundation is, that crisis can have, you know, can send you one way or the other.
And so, you know, we share stories in the book about, you know,
individuals who have gone through kind of incredible church hurt and suffering,
abuse, like real abuse that's out there, and yet can come out on the other side
with an even stronger faith. Now, how is that possible?
Well, one of the things we talk about is foundations.
And of course, Jesus talked about the importance of having a foundation.
He uses this kind of metaphor for or this parable of sowing seed in different soils.
And one of the soils he talks about is the rocky soil. And that rocky soil,
there is root like the roots kind of come out, but it springs up immediately.
And then when the sun comes out, the plant is scorched. And then he tells us
what that means. He says, these are the ones who received the word initially
with joy, and then they endure for a while.
But when persecution or tribulation come on account of the word,
they fall away. That's his term. They fall away.
What's he saying? There was no deep roots there. And I actually think,
man, when you look around our culture,
especially in the church, our kind of Christian culture, what you find is most
Christians don't know what they believe or why they believe it,
especially why they believe it.
They might have a clue on what Christians generally believe,
but even that's not true.
I mean, we, in the book, we cite some studies, you have Ligonier and Lifeway
just in 2022, they found that 40%, actually it was over 40% of people who identify as evangelical.
Okay. This isn't just anybody. These are self-professing evangelicals do not believe Jesus is God.
They think he's just a good teacher. Can you believe that? I mean,
these are people who call themselves evangelical and yet they're not Christians
because I mean, one of the most most essential doctrines in Christianity is the deity of Christ.
You can't reject that and be a Christian. So.
I think we have failed, and I don't want to make it sound like Christianity
is just an intellectual thing, because it's not.
There is a genuine relationship that needs to be there.
That's right. If you do not understand, if you lack knowledge,
and this was one of the things that God and the prophets kind of chastised the Israelites.
They had no love for God because they had no knowledge of God.
They didn't even know who he was. This is what Hosea says.
That's right. And so I think as a church, we need to do a better job equipping,
especially young Christians, so that when the trial comes, when the crisis comes,
they're able to withstand that storm.
And we cite individuals in the book, and probably your listeners know individuals
who have gone through incredible suffering and yet come out on the other side
as a Christian and sometimes even a stronger Christian as a result.
That's right. And you do a good job in the book of going back and showing historically
this isn't the first time or the first era in history when this kind of process happens.
It keeps happening. You mentioned how it's like a rerun on television.
And give us a little bit of the background all the way back philosophically
and why this particular movement is similar to heresies that have sprung up
in the past all the way back to the garden and what Satan did in the garden.
Yeah, and I think what might be helpful is to kind of pull in postmodernism
here, because really that was an important thing to put into our definition.
And of course, postmodernism wasn't around in the garden, but the enemy was
postmodern before anybody was postmodern, which really is, you know,
if you think of it, there's a lot that could be said about postmodernism as a movement in history.
History but it can be hallmarked by a rejection of absolute
truth especially as that could be known when it comes
to religion and morality which leads to a hyper hyper skepticism
of meta narratives and that type of thing um and so back you know in the garden
the the enemy is twisting the word of god right he's did god really say it's
that primordial question that kind of is the root of all heresies but if we
want to trace it uh from a more modern place um you know In the 60s,
postmodern philosophy really started gaining steam with people like Jacques
Derrida, Michel Foucault.
Jacques Derrida didn't believe that words could be pinned down to singular meanings or definitions.
So the meaning of the words, the intent of the author had no more bearing on
the meaning of the words than the interpretation of the hearer.
Now, I think we see that a lot, even now, just as it relates to text.
Because for Derrida, it just had to do with words.
But there was a guy named John Caputo who took the ideas of Jacques Derrida
and applied them to religion. And actually, Caputo's not the only one.
People like Rachel Held Evans were quoting Derrida there in her final book.
And interestingly, with Rachel
Held Evans, she even gave us her reason why she was pulling in Derrida.
She said, because I refuse to believe that the acts that are attributed to God
in the Old Testament are things that God really could have done.
So she basically brings in the deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida and applies it to religion.
But I think it's important for us to understand the relationship between postmodernism
and deconstruction because, like we had mentioned earlier, we would hope that anybody...
And every Christian would reevaluate your beliefs every day,
bust it down to the studs and build it back up.
Make sure what you believe lines up with reality, lines up with scripture,
that you are going to pursue truth wherever it leads.
We say, yes, amen, do that. But in deconstruction, it's not that external authority
of truth that they're looking for because of that postmodern rejection of the
idea that those things could even be known.
So therefore, any kind of objective truth claim a Christian might make is seen
as a power grab. It's seen as just the church trying to control people.
So really it's virtuous in deconstruction to get out from under that influence.
To get out of the fold, to reject that grand meta narrative so that you can
create what works for you.
And that's really the postmodern element. So it's an entirely different process
than what we're talking about when we might say like reformation or discernment
or something like that because of that postmodern philosophy that has so infiltrated our culture.
In fact, Tim mentioned some studies. uh bar
not yeah it was barna and uh impact 360 i
believe that did their gen z study and they discovered
that the primary worldview of gen z is
called moral relativism and basically that's
the idea that we can't know what's objectively right or
wrong or there is no objective right or wrong when it comes to morality so so
it's not a i don't think it's a stretch at all to say that deconstruction is
a post-modern process because it's it's really built upon the back of all of
these philosophies that really ultimately reject objective truth or at least
that that objective truth could be known.
Wow. That's a whole conversation, I think, that could be had about postmodernism
and post-Christianism and Augustine versus Freud and our worldview conversation that's led to,
I think, so much damage in the church, really, where people are valuing feelings
and emotion and what they feel is right or wrong versus what Scripture says.
But what happens in a person, an individual person who is feeling like their
faith needs to be challenged and they start going through this process?
What happens on an individual level that you've seen and how does that play
out in families and in churches and how does an individual person follow this path?
Well, I mean, that's a good question. And I think it looks different with different
people. Um, you know, for some who are genuinely seeking truth,
like real answers, it's going to look totally different.
And again, we wouldn't call that particular thing deconstruction,
but in the book, I talk about going for a coffee with a 14 year old,
actually a friend's son.
And we talked for three hours about the challenges that he was facing.
In fact, um, in the book, I, we outline how, uh, his best friend of five years
came out out of the closet, said, I'm gay.
And this was all over text messages asking, you know, what do you think of that?
Well, this 14 year old, Adam, he kind of gave the Christian view with truth and compassion.
But as a result, the friend took screenshots of their conversation,
shared it with all their friends.
And he basically lost all of his friends at his public school.
And so when he's out with me and he's like, Tim.
I don't want to believe this Christian stuff if it's not actually true.
Like, I'll get my friends back if I don't believe this. But I also want to follow truth.
And so we were able to get the Bible out and talk about exactly and kind of
bolster, you know, the things that he believed actually have reasons behind them.
Okay, so that's one kind of way. But then there's others.
And I think we're seeing this more and more where the doctrines are so offensive
to our feelings that we're not looking for answers.
We say in the book, they're looking for exits.
So is there a way out? out and um
and again when we're just
we're looking at their tiktoks videos and we're
looking at their instagram posts and what
you find is yeah these guys it seems like their faith whatever was there if
there was a faith is very very superficial um it was like maybe a maybe a cultural
thing because they didn't understand the true gospel and uh and that's why we
in like we give many many, many examples,
but there's one example of someone who goes by the deconstruction girl.
And she, she writes the central doctrine of Christianity is child sacrifice.
That's a central doctrine. And I'm thinking, really? That is such a straw man.
That is not even close to what Christians actually believe.
And so what is going on inside that mind? Well, it's like you don't even want
the answer. You don't really care about the answer.
Because this is, I mean, Jesus was, everyone knows he wasn't a baby being offered.
He was a full grown man who willingly went to the cross for our sins.
That is basic, basic stuff. stuff so what
would cause someone to post something like this um
that completely misrepresents what scripture actually
teaches well there's something more going on behind the
scenes this is not someone looking for answers they're looking for a way out
and um and again like i don't want to psychologize all these people or look
at i don't know all their individual motivations i'm just saying generally speaking
this is what we're seeing we're seeing people who actually want to know what's actually true.
And that method looks very different than these other people who it seems like
there's, there's a motivation behind the scenes where they don't want Christianity to be true.
And that's why, by the way, things like gender and sexuality are like number
one reason why people are deconstructing.
They don't, they don't want to align themselves with a view like the scripture
holds where there are just two genders. And there really is a way that God has
designed sex to function.
That is so counter to what they believe.
And so they, they have, they're deconstructing as a result.
So, uh, again, there's a, there's a number of reasons, things going on inside,
but I think that the exits that's, that's, what's really motivating this.
What do you think it does to families and to the people around those individuals
who are going through or have gone through this and, and how should they try to move forward? word.
Yeah, this is actually maybe the most important question we could discuss because,
you know, people might be thinking, well, who cares if it's postmodern or what
it is, but there's a reason it matters.
And the reason it matters is because if this was a process, like Tim was talking
about, where somebody is just pursuing the truth, they understand the gospel,
they want to know what's real and what's true, that would be a totally different
animal than the person who has already decided that what you believe is toxic,
harmful, and abusive. That's an entirely different thing.
So that's the one thing I think people need to understand about how it affects
the families is it's not just like, let's say, an elderly couple who has an adult child.
Who has deconstructed. It's not just that the adult child disagrees with their
parents like, yeah, I was raised in this kind of Christian thing.
I don't buy it, but I love my parents or whatever.
That's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is adult children cutting their
parents off, saying, you're a toxic, unsafe, abusive person.
You abused me by teaching me that I was a sinner.
You were abusive to me by teaching me biblical sexual ethics or something like
that. And so in many cases, people will even receive no contact letters.
I've met many, many people who have received no contact letters from people
in their lives who have deconstructed. In fact, we opened the book with a story
of an elderly couple that came up to me after a conference saying,
you know, we're not allowed to see our grandkids.
What do we do? And really, that story is just representative of many,
many, many couples I've met who, I mean, almost night after night,
who are in the same position.
So it really, really affects the family and the loved ones and the churches
and the pastors of the people who have deconstructed.
Because in many cases, I've even seen, you know, of course, I'm not saying every
pastor is perfect, but the deconstructionist will go on and accuse the pastor
of abuse simply because of what they taught. taught.
Now there is real abuse, absolutely not denying that at all.
There are coverups, there are scandals. And we, along with Jesus,
hate those things and want to see those exposed and corrected and brought into the light, of course.
But there's also this element of saying, just because you taught me what the
Bible says, I've been abused and that's abusive.
And so they'll on social media, call these churches and pastors out for that kind of thing.
So that's the element that I think is really important for people to understand
is you're walking, if you have a loved one in deconstruction,
as we're defining it, you're not just going to be able to have like a coffee
date and fix their theology.
This goes way deeper into where they actually think that you're a harmful person.
And so as far as the how to walk through, we have a whole chapter on advice
on how to walk through this with people that are in your life.
And we give some, what I think might be counterintuitive advice for some Christians
because we are, you know, Christians are truth people.
We want people to be saved. In fact, Tim and I say that in the book,
we don't want people to walk away from their faith.
We're going to be totally open about our agenda here. We want you to be a Christian.
And so I think because of that, sometimes our knee-jerk reaction as Christians
can be to get, you know, to try to argue somebody in or use our apologetics to try to convince them.
But what we have to realize is that because this is such a fragile situation,
it's really okay to step back and just try to stay in your loved one's life.
And not try to change their theology or change their mind, but just try to maintain the relationship.
It's kind of like triage, you know, when there's an accident and people start coming into the ER.
Well, yeah, you know better than anybody.
You have to treat the most urgent thing first. So the guy with the punctured
lung is probably going to get treated before the broken wrist.
And so it's kind of like that. It's do a little triage. And you might just have
a fragile window of opportunity to just try to stay in your loved one's life.
And that could go on for a long time.
But in the meantime, you can pray. You can live the beauty of the gospel out
in front of them. Let them see the peace of Jesus in your life.
And then pray for maybe an opportunity down the road somewhere to be able to open up a conversation.
And I've had so many people tell me, thank you for that advice.
That actually set me free because I just was fretting over feeling the weight
of the responsibility to try to save their loved one.
And what we say in the book is, of course, we want to do what we can when we
can. but you are not the Holy Spirit and you are not God in their life and you
can do what you can, but sometimes it's okay to just try to maintain the relationship.
Yeah, that's, that's well said. You know, I've noticed over the years that oftentimes
when there's in medicine, we've learned a whole language around what we call trauma informed care.
You know, we've learned how to, how to stop saying what's wrong with you and
start saying what happened to you? You know, like look at what happened in the person's life.
So is that a helpful approach sometimes when you're trying to relate to to somebody
that's gone through this is like, like trying to get to those underlying issues
and have conversations about them.
Big time. That's actually something we talk about in the book is just the art of listening.
Tell me where you're coming from. Tell me what happened.
This is such an important piece. I think that as Christians,
we often want to speak first and listen second.
Second and i want to tell you i want to correct
your theology as elisa just said i want to fix you you know
um but that's that's not the right
approach here the right approach is look um let
me hear where you're coming from first and it's only after that that you're
able to make uh an appropriate response um so i remember i think it was sean
mcdowell talking about a story where someone asked about the problem of evil
and he just launched into kind of a philosophical philosophical, you know, response.
And here's, you know, here's all the, he's walking through the logical problem
and the probabilistic thing and all this stuff, very, very intellectual.
But really what was going on behind the scenes was this person was suffering
in the moment and the philosophical stuff just went right past them.
Like that did not register.
And what he says is I should have asked. And now what he does
ask people is how have you experienced evil and suffering in your life so now
i know okay who am i talking to am i talking to the student who is doing their
master's degree in philosophy or am i talking to someone who's just been diagnosed
with cancer and they're wondering where's god in all this.
That's going to change how you how you respond
to the situation it's the same with deconstruction and it's
really important that we find out man is there do they misunderstand doctrines
were they raised in a certain kind of maybe even cultic
kind of christianity that's not not legitimate christianity
we see that i mean we talk about uh ginger duggar
in our in our book in fact she endorsed
the book and what she did what she said i
didn't deconstruct she called it disentangling her
faith so there was a bunch of things that she
had to get rid of false false beliefs false
doctrines um but again doing what the
brains did reforming her faith and so
but it starts with you wouldn't no one would be
able to help ginger in that situation without listening where's she coming from
and uh and so we think that's that's the one of the first steps that's that's
so powerful who's the who's the ideal reader here is this this aimed at people
who are going through it? And is there stuff in the book that can help them?
Or is it aimed at people who are around those or pastors?
Who's going to benefit the most from this book?
Well, we certainly hope that if someone is in deconstruction and they pick up
the book, that they would find something helpful in it. But that's actually not who we wrote it for.
The person we wrote this book, this is not the book that you're going to give
to your friend who's in deconstruction.
This is the book you're going to give to their mom and dad, their pastor,
their brothers and sisters, their spouses.
This book was primarily written to the church and Christians who are experiencing
deconstruction from the outside to help them understand what's going on with
their loved one and to be able to navigate those relationships and minister as best they can.
Powerful. Guys, it's an important work. It's well written.
It's going to help people. We have a few copies we're going to give away.
I'll talk about that in the outro in a minute.
And we're really grateful that you wrote it and the hard work that you're doing.
You are hitting home runs with the work that you're doing in apologetics.
I'm so grateful for you and for the time that you took to be with us today.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.
Wasn't that a great talk? Elisa and Tim did such a great job with this book,
and I'm very grateful that they wrote it. It's going to help.
It's going going to help you. And if you know anybody who's going through this
troubling process of deconstruction, it'll help you speak to them,
to love them, to pray for them more effectively.
It's a great book. I was incredibly grateful to add it to their set of tools
and resources that we have.
Hey, spiritual brain surgery is about understanding what you believe and why
you believe it and how to use your brain and your mind together to be able to
stand up when life gets hard, to hold on to your faith, to deal with doubt effectively,
and to be able to tell other people the hope that you have, and hope this has
been helpful to you. Don't forget, we have three copies of the book to give away.
Send me an email, lee at drleewarren.com, and we will select the winners within 48 hours.
I need your name, your mailing address, and your zip code if you want to be
considered for the book.
Thanks again to Elisa Childers and Tim Barnett. We'll put links to their websites
and to the book in the show notes.
And my friend, remember, you can't change your life until you change your mind.
And I hope that spiritual brain surgery will help you get that done.
And the good news is you can start today.
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Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my
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life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.
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