Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1048 ｜ Deconstruction： Where It’s from & How to Stop It ｜ Guest： Alisa Childers

00:00:01.000 Deconstruction. What is it? Why are so many people in your life doing it? Today we've got

00:00:07.860 Elisa Childers. She is an author and an apologist. We love having her as a guest. She is going to

00:00:13.480 break down exactly what deconstruction is and how you can push back against it. Also,

00:00:19.060 how can you lovingly speak the truth to people in your life who are deconstructing their faith?

00:00:26.560 Such an encouraging and educational conversation for me. I know it will be for you, too. This

00:00:32.220 episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code

00:00:35.740 Allie at checkout. GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie.

00:00:48.520 Elisa, thanks so much for taking the time to join us again.

00:00:52.520 Oh, man. It's so great to be back with you and in person this time, which is fun.

00:00:56.240 Yes. First time meeting in person, which is sometimes hard to believe. It's sometimes hard

00:01:00.020 to remember when I've crossed paths with someone so much, whether we've met in person or not. But

00:01:05.420 finally, in the flesh. Okay. I know that probably everyone listening to this, watching this knows

00:01:11.340 exactly who you are. But just in case, can you give everyone a short bio?

00:01:15.880 Yeah. Yes. So I do worldview speaking and I write books, but I never thought that that was going to

00:01:22.580 be my vocation because I was always in music. So I spent about seven or eight years in the

00:01:27.400 contemporary Christian music industry as a part of the group. I almost said Spice Girls, but it's

00:01:32.440 Zoe Girl. That would be amazing. That was like a slip. I am talking to a Spice Girl about how she is

00:01:38.660 now a Christian apologist. That should tell you what type of a group we were because we really were

00:01:42.900 like the Christian Spice Girls in 2000. So yeah, I loved Jesus my whole life. Always been a Christian,

00:01:48.880 very deeply devoted to Christ my whole life. But then as a result of going through a class at a

00:01:54.020 progressive Christian church that I didn't know was progressive at the time, my faith was really

00:01:58.260 rocked. I mean, this was like in my 30s after I was married and had kids. And it really brought me to

00:02:04.240 the edge of agnosticism. I was so just confused about what I had believed all my life. And because

00:02:12.520 the beliefs in this class were deconstructed, they were explained away that it just propelled me into

00:02:17.360 a faith crisis that was indescribably painful, agonizing, disorienting. But God in his faithfulness

00:02:24.000 led me to study. So I studied for years and God rebuilt my faith and I made course corrections along

00:02:29.680 the way. But that's really ultimately what led me to start a podcast and a blog and write books to

00:02:34.980 help other people who might be seeing some of these things in culture and they might not have language

00:02:39.520 for it. But hopefully I can help them kind of make sense of some of the crazy that we see now.

00:02:46.520 Yes. And you've read or written rather. I'm sure you've read plenty too, but written several books

00:02:51.140 on this. Another Gospel was released in 2020. Your most recent book, The Deconstruction of

00:02:56.980 Christianity, What It Is, Why It's Destructive, and How to Respond. All of that is important. But that 1.00

00:03:03.860 last part, I get a lot of questions about what do you say to this? My cousin said this. My spouse said

00:03:11.680 this. This random post on Instagram said this. How do I respond to this? Is that why you wrote this book

00:03:21.940 because of questions you were receiving like that?

00:03:24.720 Yeah. I would say that's a huge reason because I've been speaking about deconstruction and

00:03:29.800 progressive Christianity for years. And it never really occurred to me to address that part of it.

00:03:34.320 Like now, how do you take this information and apply it? Because I was always just like, well,

00:03:38.340 here's what's going on. The house is on fire. Everybody pay attention over here. And yet the number

00:03:43.280 one question I would get when I go speak is, what do I specifically do in my specific relationship or my

00:03:50.160 specific situation? And so we did dedicate a third of the book to that question. We wanted to give

00:03:55.720 people a really practical way forward to think about how can we befriend somebody who is in

00:04:02.440 deconstruction, especially when they think we're toxic and unhealthy and unsafe? How do we do that

00:04:07.940 sort of a thing? But I would say the second big reason that my co-author Tim and I wanted to write this

00:04:12.960 book is because we just thought the way that a lot of evangelicals were talking about deconstruction

00:04:18.540 was not helpful. So I've been watching this movement for probably about 14 years since that's

00:04:24.300 about when my faith crisis happened. And I actually thought that what happened to me was deconstruction.

00:04:28.600 In fact, in my first book, Another Gospel, I actually used that word to describe my journey.

00:04:34.240 It's the best word I had at the time. It's what I thought happened to me because it was a really

00:04:37.760 awful experience. And I always saw deconstruction as a negative thing. But then in the past three to

00:04:44.120 five years, I started to see well-meaning evangelicals talk about deconstruction as if it can be a positive,

00:04:50.600 healthy, good thing. And I thought, man, that's very confusing because if you go online and you go

00:04:56.360 into that hashtag, which is primarily where the movement is taking place, there's nobody in that

00:05:02.520 movement that's saying, hey, keep the Bible in the forefront. Make sure objective truth

00:05:07.600 is what you're going for. Make sure you're searching for truth. So I actually changed my

00:05:11.840 mind on what happened to me. I don't use the word deconstruction anymore because even though

00:05:17.160 it was years long, it was agonizing, it was painful, it was a crisis. I was always searching

00:05:22.160 for truth outside of myself. I didn't want to just go with what I personally felt was healthy

00:05:28.240 or unhealthy, liberating or oppressive, toxic or helpful or whatever those words are. I wanted to

00:05:35.120 know first what's true because I don't think we can know what is toxic unless we first know what's

00:05:39.640 true. Right. So that's the distinction between what you went through. And again, just to summarize,

00:05:46.320 you were part of a church. You didn't realize it was progressive at the time, but it started kind of

00:05:50.160 attacking the central tenets of Christianity of like, is the Bible true, the definition of holy 0.98

00:05:57.280 sexuality, marriage, and all of that. The atonement, resurrection, all of that.

00:06:01.980 And had you questioning those things that you hadn't questioned before, but in that you still

00:06:06.620 realized that there was an authority that was higher than you and you wanted to get closer to

00:06:11.340 that. That's right. Whereas deconstruction says, even if it doesn't start this way, it ends this way

00:06:17.720 with, I am the ultimate authority. I am the prism through which all theology has to travel. And

00:06:25.140 whatever comes out, as you said, whatever I deem not toxic, whatever I deem good for me making me

00:06:32.220 happy, that is what truth is. And my truth starts to overtake the truth. That's what happens in

00:06:39.000 deconstruction, right? Yeah, that's very well put. Yeah. And then how does it start though? Like how

00:06:44.740 does deconstruction, real deconstruction, not just what you did of questioning, how does real

00:06:50.640 deconstruction typically start in someone's faith? Yeah. Well, it can start with simply

00:06:55.000 questioning. It can start with somebody maybe questioning, why do we believe that Jesus was

00:07:00.100 resurrected? Or how do we know we have the right books of the Bible? How do we know the people

00:07:03.580 we think wrote the Bible really wrote it? How do we know they told the truth and that they, you know,

00:07:08.060 the things they talk about really happened? Good questions. And those are great questions. In fact,

00:07:12.420 in the book, we're really careful to say those are really good questions. And I think every Christian

00:07:16.340 should be asking those questions. So it can start with that. And maybe it just kind of

00:07:21.660 goes from there into other types of questions and questioning biblical sexual ethics. But one thing

00:07:28.020 we point out in the book is it's not just questioning, it's a particular way people question.

00:07:33.440 So if you think about you and me, I would suspect are similar that when we ask a question, we're wanting

00:07:38.820 to get to the answer. We want to know the answer. And we know that not every single question we're

00:07:43.480 going to ask has a clear answer. Granted, that's, that's great. We know that, but we're hoping to

00:07:48.180 find the answer if, if it's there, if it's there to know. But in deconstruction and in progressive

00:07:53.100 Christianity, the question kind of becomes the point. It becomes the, the most virtuous way to

00:07:59.560 live would be to find the next question. And you don't want to land. In fact, many people in the

00:08:03.440 deconstruction hashtag will tell you, don't form new beliefs. If you do that, you'll just have to

00:08:08.060 deconstruct those, which has to be pointed out. That's a belief, but you know, we'll put that aside

00:08:12.420 for a second. So, so it's a particular way of questioning. And that's why I think certain

00:08:17.920 kinds of questioning can lead to a deconstruction. If you're searching for truth and you're like,

00:08:23.300 I want to dig into the evidence, I'm going to read some good scholarship. Yeah, that's great.

00:08:27.200 But in deconstruction, that's typically not the, the way that it's done. It's not that they're not

00:08:33.340 reading scholarship, but they're reading a particular type of scholarship, the more liberal and skeptical

00:08:36.920 scholarship. And they're going to be led down that path that ultimately is going to line up with their

00:08:41.980 own personal thoughts and feelings. So that can be one way. Another thing that can trigger a

00:08:47.580 deconstruction is abuse. Abuse is a huge conversation in the church right now. And I think that it's very

00:08:53.660 confusing conversation in the deconstruction movement, because you might have one person who

00:08:59.080 has legitimately been abused by a spiritual leader and they are confused and they don't know where to

00:09:03.660 turn. They don't feel safe in church. And that person has all of my compassion and empathy. And I want

00:09:09.160 to help that person and get them to a safe place and hold the leaders accountable, all of that.

00:09:14.260 So you have everything from that to what's a very common narrative in deconstruction, which is that

00:09:20.640 being told you're a sinner is abusive, being told that Jesus died on the cross in a sacrificial,

00:09:26.820 atoning death, a bloody cross, you know, for my sins, that's abusive. To be told that hell is a real

00:09:33.180 place of punishment in the afterlife that is considered abusive. So the assumption in the

00:09:38.960 deconstruction movement is that the church is wrong about hell and sexuality and the atonement and the

00:09:45.760 nature of human beings. And so because we're telling people they're sinners, that's just by nature

00:09:51.160 abusive. So there's a lot of knots that have to be untied in that movement, because like I said,

00:09:56.700 you might have somebody with some legitimate abuse, but then somebody who's just feels personally harmed

00:10:01.680 by doctrines that I personally think are very life-giving.

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00:11:25.660 It seems to me that a common thread is LGBTQ. That, I don't know if I could say that's the common

00:11:34.040 starting place, but it seems to be either the starting place or where a lot of deconstructors

00:11:41.760 end up. That that is the most evil part of Christianity that they could never subscribe 0.96

00:11:49.020 to. That homosexuality is simple. That there is a real biological dichotomy of male and female 0.99

00:11:58.780 that is not flexible, is not changeable. And you hear language like, my God would never,

00:12:05.820 or I could never worship a God who fill in the blank. And it is usually that that would call this

00:12:14.620 sin. And within that is the big conflation between love and the affirmation of sin.

00:12:23.760 And they confuse those things, I don't know, intentionally, unintentionally a lot. That if

00:12:28.960 God really is love, and if I'm called to love my neighbor, then of course I'm going to affirm

00:12:33.540 someone's so-called orientation or desire or identity, that seems to be the assumption of a

00:12:41.580 lot of people who deconstruct and maybe even is like the keystone of their deconstruction in a lot

00:12:49.040 of cases. Is that true? I think that's a very fair statement. In fact, I've said before, and I've

00:12:54.860 gotten a lot of criticism for this, but I think it's true. I don't think I've ever heard or read or

00:13:02.020 witnessed a deconstruction story where that topic didn't at least play a part. Like you said,

00:13:08.960 it's not necessarily the starting point for everybody. And it's not even everybody who

00:13:13.460 deconstructs maybe struggles with that, but it's going to play a part. And I think it has so much

00:13:18.200 to do with the way culture defines identity. And it's so much has to do with identity because in

00:13:24.060 the deconstruction movement and in culture at large, people have bought into this idea that you

00:13:28.680 are your feelings, that you are who you're attracted to, you are your desires. And so as you've pointed

00:13:35.060 out many times in your books and on your podcast, this idea that we're just supposed to dig down

00:13:39.580 inside of ourselves and identify our deepest desires and then name those things, live them out,

00:13:43.540 and then cause other people or expect other people to affirm those things about us because

00:13:48.220 the assumption is that what you're going to find down there is good. And so it's the theological

00:13:53.720 building blocks of the gospel, starting with, you know, of course, creation and God putting Adam and

00:13:59.420 Eve in the garden, giving them the opportunity to do things his way or their way. Of course,

00:14:02.680 they chose their way, which we have right there at the beginning, this sort of idea of the fall

00:14:08.080 where humans are sinful, we're broken, there's something wrong with us. And right then and there,

00:14:12.880 I think is where the disagreement begins. And so in deconstruction, they've adopted this cultural 0.74

00:14:18.700 idea that you shouldn't let anybody tell you that you're broken or that you're sinful or that your

00:14:24.120 feelings in some way would be wrong. And so there's this affirmation. And of course, this is going to

00:14:29.320 play right into the LGBTQ scenario that we see playing out in culture today, that you are your

00:14:35.940 sexuality. And of course, this comes something that Freud really promoted and got a bunch of people to buy

00:14:41.440 into. And there's other people along the way that contributed to this. But that's where we're at in

00:14:45.920 our culture is that you really are your sexuality. That's your core identity. So for the deconstructionist,

00:14:51.540 when the Christian says homosexuality is sinful or homosexuality is forbidden, what they hear is 0.74

00:14:58.140 I'm forbidden. Right. And that and that I see why that could be confusing. But what Christianity is 0.54

00:15:04.040 saying is it's requiring the same thing of everyone. Everyone has the same invitation to lay down our

00:15:09.580 lives, deny ourselves, pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus. And there's no sin biblically that

00:15:15.220 is special when it comes to that, where we would sanctify it in some way or make it our identity.

00:15:21.280 And yet that's a very unpopular thing to say in our culture today. And so in deconstruction,

00:15:26.640 I do think that LGBTQ piece is, I mean, I think you would call it a pillar. I don't think you could 1.00

00:15:32.080 be accepted in that world if you hadn't left behind that quote unquote toxic theology, because that's a

00:15:38.760 huge theme in deconstruction as well. And so teaching that homosexuality is sinful or that,

00:15:44.360 like you said, sex is determined biologically. These are quote unquote toxic beliefs that really hurt

00:15:50.740 people. Yeah. And someone who gives way on that, I find they typically end up giving way on everything

00:16:01.760 else. Like I often say that I haven't met the person who starts by denying Genesis 127 and doesn't end by

00:16:12.160 denying John 14, 6. Like those things tend to go hand in hand, which is interesting. I mean,

00:16:19.680 I guess it goes back to the garden. It's a did God really say kind of situation. And people don't see

00:16:25.900 sexuality in marriage as a central tenet of Christianity, but it is. I mean, the Bible starts

00:16:32.380 with the marriage and ends with the marriage. We see the reality of male and female and the definition 0.62

00:16:36.620 of marriage reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Jesus. And I think that's why kind

00:16:42.840 of when you pull that block out, the whole edifice kind of starts to fall over.

00:16:50.140 Well, think about the creation mandate. So our purpose for being here is to be fruitful and

00:16:55.420 multiply. That's what God told us to do. He created male and female, instituted marriage and said,

00:17:00.420 be fruitful and multiply. So if you are the enemy of God, if you're the enemy of people,

00:17:06.640 if you're the devil, you're going to go after that. You're going to try to do everything you

00:17:10.560 can do to undermine that, erase that, abolish that, get people to be confused about that.

00:17:16.180 And I do think that's what we see because even the poison of modern feminism telling women 0.90

00:17:21.420 that having children is an afterthought or being married is oppressive to have this idea of a male

00:17:27.420 being the head of the home or the idea of submission. All of these things are all tied

00:17:31.500 together. It's not like these are just separate topics that don't relate. They relate quite a bit

00:17:36.420 and it all goes back to Genesis. Deconstruction. I mean, theological progressivism and political

00:17:44.060 progressivism really go hand in hand and function in much the same way, if not the exact same way.

00:17:50.340 Whereas I see political progressives as simply wanting to tear down the institutions that exist

00:17:55.280 pretty indiscriminately. And now it's kind of under this umbrella of the like cis hetero white

00:18:00.700 patriarchy, whatever that is, taking down the definition of marriage, family, conflating all

00:18:08.680 kinds of spheres of authority, open borders. I see it as an ideology of chaos. I see it also as a

00:18:17.120 theology of chaos, of taking apart and taking down everything that God has implemented for good.

00:18:24.200 I heard this amazing quote and I can't remember who said it over the weekend because we talk a lot

00:18:29.700 about how God is a God of order. He has created order for our good on earth. And someone said

00:18:36.280 something that emphasizes this so well. And they said, God placed us in a garden, not a jungle.

00:18:41.840 I never thought about that before. A garden, not a jungle. Like a garden is orderly. It is cultivated.

00:18:48.720 So right from the very beginning, he creates an order for things, not just between male and female,

00:18:54.480 male or man and animals, but like even in the place where he put man and woman in a garden. And

00:19:02.280 I see really progressivism in all its forms as the antithesis of order. So I guess my question for you is,

00:19:11.560 as people are deconstructing and tearing down order and tearing down these institutions that God has created

00:19:19.600 for our good and these boundaries and parameters, like what are they trying to build? What are they trying to

00:19:27.560 build back up? Are they trying to create a new order or is the point just to lay waste to everything?

00:19:34.960 That's a great question. I would say in my research and my experience with the movement, it seems that

00:19:41.580 authority itself, which, you know, is sort of referred to as this hegemonic discourse, right? This idea that

00:19:48.540 anyone could claim to know the grand metanarrative of reality. This is seen as just a power play. And this is where

00:19:56.320 postmodernism comes in, right? So we are living in a culture that has, you know, most people don't walk around as if

00:20:02.820 truth is relative, which is, you know, a hallmark of postmodernism. Most people don't walk around as if

00:20:07.680 relativism is true in every area, right? They go to the bank, they expect their money to be there, they

00:20:11.560 obey the traffic lights, they'll appeal to the law. In fact, we've seen signs pop up on lawns where

00:20:16.620 people are appealing to science and, you know, certain types of facts and things. So it's not like

00:20:21.760 they don't believe that truth can't be known in all areas. But they've sort of said what we should do

00:20:28.160 and shouldn't do morally and religion. Those two categories have been moved into the opinion

00:20:32.960 category. So much like, you know, the style of clothing you'd like to wear or your favorite color

00:20:37.820 or something like that. And so because of that, when the Christian comes along claiming to know what 0.96

00:20:42.420 certain truths are, like humans are sinful, hell is a real place, you know, marriages between one man 1.00

00:20:47.200 and one woman, they see that not as a question of, is that true? Because they don't even think that can

00:20:51.960 be known in a postmodern culture. And this is very influential in deconstruction. But it's more like,

00:20:56.820 why would the person be saying that? Well, they must be trying to protect their power.

00:21:00.440 So the idea in deconstruction is that for the Christian to tell someone they're sinners,

00:21:04.500 or to tell them that hell is a real place, that you can't even know those things. So the church is

00:21:09.520 just trying to protect its power. It's trying to control people with fear. This is why I'm sure

00:21:13.560 many of our viewers right now have probably experienced this, where you go on social media,

00:21:17.180 maybe you put up a Bible verse or something, and then someone comes on and says, oh, the church just

00:21:21.420 invented the doctrine of hell to control people with fear. I mean, the church just tells you you're a

00:21:25.820 sinner, because that's what abusive people do. They knock you down a peg, they want you to be

00:21:29.840 dependent on them, so that they can control and manipulate you. And there's this assumption

00:21:34.580 that the reason the church would be saying these things is because they're trying to oppress you

00:21:39.240 and maintain their power. And that's the thing that just blows my mind. Like when people push back

00:21:44.620 on Tim and my book, one of the most common pushbacks is like, you guys are teaching oppressive

00:21:51.040 it's oppressive to tell people that hell is a real place. And I'm thinking, well, only if it's not

00:21:55.360 true. Because if hell really is a real place, that is a potential destination for someone,

00:22:01.140 it would actually be very unloving and very unkind to not let them know about that. You know,

00:22:05.860 if somebody is about to step into oncoming traffic, it would be unloving to just be like,

00:22:11.280 well, you know, I don't know, maybe that bus isn't really coming at 60 miles an hour,

00:22:15.100 you know, it would be very unloving to not intervene in any way you could. But it all

00:22:19.900 depends on truth, which is largely what is denied in deconstruction is that there is an objective

00:22:25.200 truth that could be known with religion. Okay, I've got another way for you to align your purchases

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00:23:23.740 With a lot of people who say they're deconstructing or who have deconstructed,

00:23:28.140 they will, I find, simultaneously say that we can't really know what parts of the Bible are

00:23:34.640 authoritative. They obviously don't believe that it's infallible and inerrant, but that it was just

00:23:41.160 kind of a bunch of men's interpretation of what they think God meant by certain things. Or even maybe

00:23:51.000 they might ascribe to them, like you said, desire to have control or have power over women and

00:24:02.720 subjugate people. And that's why they wrote the parts of the Bible that they did. So they'll

00:24:07.060 simultaneously say that, but they will appeal to parts of scripture to support their views. Like,

00:24:13.320 for example, they'll say, well, you know, in Exodus, Israel was called to love the foreigner,

00:24:18.240 and therefore we might need liberal border policy or even open borders. Or 1 John 4, 8 says God is love,

00:24:26.680 so I use that scripture to justify my position on X. Or Jesus said to love your neighbor or the early

00:24:34.280 church. They were communist. Like, we hear these claims a lot. Of course, we don't agree at all with

00:24:39.140 their interpretation or application, but they will appeal to scripture as an authority, even as they

00:24:46.400 try to subvert the authority of scripture. So like you said, they do believe in authority,

00:24:51.480 but only sometimes. And I guess I'm trying to understand the formula behind that.

00:24:55.800 Well, that's a tough question because the problem with trying to analyze the deconstruction movement

00:25:01.500 is that there are so many different paths within the movement. So you, in fact, we just call it an

00:25:07.340 explosion in the book because there's really not much in common once somebody leaves whatever they

00:25:14.900 think evangelicalism is, right? So that ex-evangelical hashtag. The whole point of deconstruction is to

00:25:20.720 leave the evangelical church and leave behind these kind of toxic doctrines, this toxic theology.

00:25:27.400 So you might have somebody that just immediately goes, I'm throwing the Bible out completely. Like,

00:25:32.320 this is just a just big hegemonic discourse. This, I don't need this at all. And then maybe they become

00:25:38.020 a secular humanist. You might have somebody who for a while might change their interpretation of

00:25:43.740 scripture and go, gosh, like you said, you know, I read about Amos and doing justice. And then of

00:25:50.380 course, they're defining justice in a cultural flowing out of potentially a Marxist way. And

00:25:55.660 they're saying, well, we should be doing that. And they're redefining words and then applying

00:25:59.720 that to scripture and kind of playing fast and loose with it. And then there's others who might

00:26:03.420 say, well, you know, I actually value the Bible a lot, but I think it's more of a human book about

00:26:08.400 God. So really nothing in it is really authoritative, but maybe there are some things I can learn from

00:26:13.040 it when people have maybe figured out something that is good about it. But of course, that's,

00:26:16.840 you're still making yourself the authority in those cases. So it's really tough to pin down

00:26:22.240 a common way of approaching scripture. But one thing I do think that they all have in common

00:26:27.280 is that if whatever path they're taking will refute the toxic theology that they've already decided is

00:26:34.040 toxic, they'll go with it. So like you might even have a secular humanist who watches a, you know,

00:26:38.600 a story from somebody who still claims to be a progressive Christian and the progressive Christian

00:26:42.960 says, oh, the Bible says this, therefore we should be doing this. And the secular humanists will go,

00:26:47.100 oh yeah, sure, absolutely. Because they're united in their sort of preconceived ideas of what is toxic

00:26:52.780 and healthy theologically.

00:26:54.360 Yeah. It really seems to me, you know, I typically say that our politics flow from our theology. What

00:27:02.440 we think about God will determine what we think about culture. What we think about culture will

00:27:06.720 determine what we think about theology. But as I'm hearing you talk, and I'm seeing so many parallels,

00:27:11.920 again, between progressive theology and progressive political ideology, I'm actually wondering if

00:27:18.800 people's politics, if they allow their politics to end up affecting and fundamentally changing their

00:27:24.840 theology. Because in 2020, I saw a lot of people who may even identify themselves as conservative

00:27:31.920 Christians jumping on the BLM bandwagon, saying things about justice that are just not biblical, 0.85

00:27:39.020 that actually push partiality, starting with the truth that we are all made in God's image,

00:27:45.500 we all have dignity, and we all deserve the rights that flow from that dignity. But very often,

00:27:53.140 when I see people latch on to social justice rather than biblical justice, it seems like it's just a

00:27:59.200 matter of time before they also compromise on the LGBTQ issue. And so what parallels do you see

00:28:07.140 between the politics of progressivism and the theology of progressivism? In my mind,

00:28:14.180 they are inextricably intertwined.

00:28:17.620 Right. So a few years ago, I would have only been speculating. I would have said,

00:28:22.140 it's my best guess that progressive Christians are starting with politics, and then their theology is

00:28:28.200 kind of flowing out of that, and starting with this critical social justice definition of words like

00:28:33.160 love and justice. But I can actually definitively say there has been some research done on this now.

00:28:38.280 So there's a sociologist named George Yancey who released a book called One Faith No Longer.

00:28:42.760 And in that book, he assessed the religious and political views of conservative Christians and

00:28:48.740 progressive Christians. And how he defined those was conservative Christians were people who believe

00:28:53.880 the Bible is the Word of God, and progressive Christians don't believe the Bible is the Word of God.

00:28:57.800 So that was his way of delineating the two groups. And there was a lot of really interesting conclusions

00:29:03.080 that came out of that research. But one was that what he realized in his research was that conservative

00:29:09.420 Christians who believe the Bible is the Word of God, just like you said, start with their theology, 0.96

00:29:14.320 and then their political views are going to flow downstream from their theology. So they're going to make

00:29:18.540 their political views based on what they think about God and this study of God. Whereas with progressive

00:29:25.160 Christians, they start with their politics, that's kind of the baseline that it starts with. 0.94

00:29:30.560 And then their theological views are going to actually flow downstream from their politics.

00:29:35.520 And so in some ways, now this is me talking, I don't think George said this in his book, but

00:29:39.780 it seems to me like the narrative is that the conservatives are the political ones. You know,

00:29:44.540 that's what we hear all the time. But it would seem to me that the research bears out that it's

00:29:49.180 actually progressive Christians that are more political. And there's a lot of hypocrisy on this too, 0.85

00:29:54.500 because, you know, there's all this talk about Christian nationalism, which I do think is a

00:29:59.200 real thing. I think there are certain groups who are sort of working that out and saying, advocating

00:30:04.640 maybe for something that I might be concerned about. But for the most part, it seems like if you're even

00:30:09.520 conservative politically at all, you're going to be called a Christian nationalist. You're going to

00:30:13.240 be, you know, called all the names, right? And yet it seems to me that there's a lot of hypocrisy

00:30:20.340 because you have progressive churches that will bring politicians in as long as they're liberal

00:30:24.520 politicians, Democrat politicians to advocate for particular policies. And so, yeah, it's one of

00:30:31.360 those conversations that's very interesting. Another thing that came out in that research was that

00:30:37.460 progressive Christians actually feel more affinity with and more affection for people of other worldviews

00:30:43.540 like Buddhists, Muslims, even atheists, than they do conservative Christians. The conservative

00:30:47.540 Christians were very much the other in their mindset. And I think those are things I think 1.00

00:30:52.920 we've all observed. It's not like it's a bombshell or anything, but it is interesting that real

00:30:58.600 sociological research has borne that out.

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00:32:23.340 I think understanding critical theory is really helpful. It was really helpful for me in understanding

00:32:31.500 deconstruction and so-called progressive Christianity because in 2020, when we were talking so much,

00:32:39.660 about queer theory and especially critical race theory, I realized in reading their own material,

00:32:46.640 not just their commentary on their material, but that this really is its separate worldview. It's not

00:32:51.220 a tool by which you can understand the world and Christianity and the Bible. It's its separate 0.96

00:32:56.260 worldview because it has its own view of good and evil, of what sin versus righteousness is,

00:33:02.620 what human nature is, what human nature is, where we come from, where the rules of nature come from,

00:33:08.300 right and wrong, true and false. It has its own salvation theory. I mean, if you look at like the theology

00:33:15.820 of James Cone, liberation theology, it's got its own view of what redemption is, what sacrifice is,

00:33:24.380 even what Jesus' death and resurrection really represented. They see it more as a metaphor of

00:33:30.080 liberation. And then its own eschatology, even. They have this utopia that they imagine will happen

00:33:41.860 once we've been liberated from the hegemony, theological hegemony, the political hegemony,

00:33:50.460 which they see at the helm of that is like the white, straight, male Christian. And so that's why

00:33:59.120 like it really goes hand in hand. And they're not, I don't think, as concerned about like the new

00:34:03.700 heaven and the new earth and sharing the gospel as they are releasing people from political oppression,

00:34:10.540 which then will advance the kingdom here on earth. That's what they see. They think that

00:34:17.300 the kingdom will be political, that they will be able to usher it in through progressive policy and

00:34:24.500 progressive ideology, which is really just to tear down all institutions and all definitions and all

00:34:31.920 parameters and all boundaries. Once everyone is a global kind of communistic citizen, then we will

00:34:38.580 have heaven here on earth. It's its own theology. It's its own worldview. And that's why I think they

00:34:45.820 are intertwined. I don't even know if deconstructionists realize that, but that's,

00:34:50.480 I think, why they end up going the path that they do. Well, it's interesting you would say that because

00:34:54.260 sometimes I think I'm kind of naive. You know, when I first got out of that progressive church,

00:35:00.860 I mean, this was like 14 years ago, I didn't, all of my progressive friends that were sort of

00:35:06.100 embracing gay marriage, for example, I didn't dream that they would also embrace the trans ideology,

00:35:12.620 but that happened very quickly. In fact, the church that I left within weeks of their sort of

00:35:20.480 rebrand. So a few years after I left the church, they rebranded themselves as a progressive Christian

00:35:24.880 community, became LGBTQ affirming. You knew. I'm so thankful for the Holy Spirit just giving you

00:35:31.520 discernment. Me too. Well, and I'm thankful for my husband because I was staying in that class because

00:35:36.420 people were baby Christians. And I was, before my faith really became unraveled, I was trying to

00:35:43.180 refute the pastor for the baby Christians in the class. But my husband was like, we're done. We're

00:35:48.120 leaving. And I was like, thank you. I'm so thankful for that. But yeah, I was so surprised when they,

00:35:53.220 within weeks of that, had makeup classes for trans people that needed to learn how to put on makeup.

00:35:59.680 And I'm going-

00:36:00.420 14 years ago.

00:36:00.920 This, well, this would have been maybe, well, 14 years ago was when my faith crisis happened. So

00:36:05.360 this would have been more like six years ago, seven years ago when they rebranded. So it was

00:36:10.060 a long time after I left that they actually admitted what they were. But yeah, so they were

00:36:15.280 doing that. And then I'm seeing even progressive Christians that I'm thinking there's no way they'll 0.51

00:36:20.080 go anti-Israel. And then I'm seeing Queers for Palestine on their pages. I think I'm just eternally

00:36:26.300 naive, but you're right. It's because it's a whole worldview. I think back in 2020 when

00:36:31.080 a lot of evangelicals thought that we were just talking about race and they didn't realize that

00:36:36.820 the critical theories, that critical race theory is just one strand of the critical race carpet or

00:36:42.880 whatever you want to call it. It's like just one little part of it that's all interconnected and

00:36:46.560 intertwined with all sorts of different identity categories like age, ability, gender, all of that

00:36:52.100 stuff. And I don't think they realized that when they were kind of leaning into critical theory,

00:36:57.520 when it just comes to race, you can't leave it at just race, which is why we are now seeing

00:37:02.120 LGBTQ ideology come in because you can't have critical race theory without critical queer theory 0.77

00:37:08.780 and without all of the other critical theories that are all sort of held together in tension in

00:37:13.900 this oppressed versus oppressor narrative. Yeah. And it is a worldview based on

00:37:18.500 shifting power dynamics or perceived power dynamics because they see like the white straight Christian 0.69

00:37:25.260 male is having, you mentioned intersectionality, the top of the intersectional totem poles of having

00:37:30.920 all the power. And they claim to want to shift the power to the oppressed and the marginalized,

00:37:35.900 which is everyone else to a varying degree. And they do see that as part of a Christian

00:37:44.680 Christ-like mission while simultaneously. I mean, that is like a political revolution we're talking

00:37:51.380 about. But simultaneously, as you said, saying that Christian conservatives are the ones who just by

00:37:57.360 saying something like, well, you know, all people are made in God's image, so I'm not going to be for

00:38:01.560 abortion and I'm going to be for protecting the dignity of unborn children. Yes, of course, even in the law,

00:38:07.100 they see that as an example of Christian nationalism and fascism and theocracy, but not their own

00:38:17.300 political agenda. And I've heard this term empire. Have you heard that used? Empire for the description.

00:38:25.920 Oh, yeah. Theologically to kind of shame conservative Christians because they're for the empire. Yeah. 0.97

00:38:30.580 Yeah. Well, I am not exactly sure what that means, except for I think it's just claiming that basically

00:38:35.920 all Christians that allow our politics to flow out of our biblical worldview are trying to build power 0.66

00:38:41.920 for ourselves. Yeah. That we are trying to build some kind of theocratic empire. But when they allow

00:38:49.100 their worldview to dictate how they vote, the curriculum, the policies that are implemented,

00:38:54.860 it's apparently not about power for them, even though their ideology right now is the one that is

00:39:01.900 leading to consequences like kids being taken out of their parents' custody because they think they're

00:39:06.540 the opposite sex and their parents won't go along with it. I mean, talk about power. 1.00

00:39:10.180 Well, and in my view, the most oppressive policies, I mean, if you think about the two greatest

00:39:15.820 humanitarian crises right now, which is abortion and transing kids, you know, transitioning kids, 0.94

00:39:21.260 and you're thinking, how is that not oppressive? Right now?

00:39:25.500 No, they actually see it as liberating because when autonomy and authenticity are there, those are the

00:39:33.220 highest two values of the God of self. And they can't, those two things can be good when they are in

00:39:38.400 submissive, in submission to the God of scripture. But when they're your highest values, autonomy, you use that

00:39:45.720 to justify anything, even the sacrifice of your own child. When authenticity is your highest value, you use that

00:39:50.840 to justify anything, even switching your gender, because you're just being authentic, you're just exercising

00:39:55.620 your bodily autonomy. Both of those things can be good when they're in submission to God's law. But when they're only

00:40:02.580 in submission to what you want, they justify all kinds of atrocities. So they actually see abortion and gender

00:40:08.260 ideology as liberating you.

00:40:11.260 Reproductive rights is what it's been rebranded as.

00:40:14.320 Yes, absolutely.

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00:41:15.220 How can someone spot, if they are in a church or they're talking with a friend,

00:41:20.680 how can they spot the kinds of, I don't know, signifiers of deconstruction that maybe my church,

00:41:28.000 maybe my friend, maybe my family member is going in the wrong direction?

00:41:30.800 That's a good question. And it's really important to understand the nature of what's happening to

00:41:36.740 your friend or your loved one, because a lot of Christians think, oh, they'll talk to me if

00:41:42.100 they're in deconstruction. They'll tell me, and then we can just have these great conversations.

00:41:45.040 But what you have to realize is that if somebody's in real deconstruction, as it's manifesting in

00:41:48.800 culture and how it's connected to its postmodern roots, they're probably not talking to you about

00:41:53.420 it. That's why if a kid comes home from camp and maybe they read one of those well-meaning books and

00:41:58.460 they say, oh, I'm deconstructing, a great first question is, well, what do you mean by that?

00:42:02.140 Because they might just think that means making my faith my own, asking hard questions, engaging my

00:42:07.320 doubts, which of course we would all say that's all good and healthy to do. But true deconstruction,

00:42:13.280 as we see it manifesting, it's a worldview, right? It's really built upon those critical theories.

00:42:20.160 And so they've already seen you as the toxic person, the unsafe person. So the impetus for the

00:42:26.240 person in deconstruction to disconnect from their church family. And sadly, sometimes their biological

00:42:32.160 families is very strong. I meet Allie, night after night after night, I meet parents who come to me

00:42:37.600 with tears in their eyes, sometimes two or three couples who say, my adult child has deconstructed.

00:42:43.420 I don't know what happened. They tell me I'm toxic and they're not talking to me. Some have even

00:42:49.040 received no contact letters. And so it's really important to understand the nature of what's

00:42:53.580 happening to your loved ones. So the signs you're going to look for is, this is a very social media

00:42:59.720 driven, I believe it's a social contagion, just like the kind of the increase of transitioning 1.00

00:43:05.060 that's affecting young girls primarily now. It's very social media driven. So taking a look at the

00:43:10.640 social media is always a good place to start to see if there are signs of that. But you're going to be

00:43:15.660 looking for people talking about the Bible, like as if it's not the word of God, like, well, it's just,

00:43:22.120 you know, a human book about God, not a divine book written for humans. So that's going to be a

00:43:28.780 sign. Maybe a drift more into those critical theories is a sign. There can be so many different

00:43:35.300 signs, but just look for the basic theology of the gospel. If that's being undermined, if the sin and

00:43:41.140 redemption story is being replaced with a social justice story, if there's wavering on marriage and

00:43:47.760 sexual ethics, these are all things you're going to be looking for in that movement. But you know,

00:43:52.700 I know this word is so overused now, but wokeness is sort of the driving force. And that's the critical

00:43:59.280 theories, but the kind of the wokeness that we see in the wild now, be looking for those things. But

00:44:04.120 the how of how to navigate those relationships, I wish that we could just give a formula in the book

00:44:10.180 and say, just do these, you know, A, B, and C, and it'll all be fine. But we really say every

00:44:14.880 deconstruction story is different. The triggers that caused it are different. The emphases of

00:44:20.040 the person's particular journey are going to be different. The wounds are going to be different.

00:44:24.360 And so it's going to require a lot of wisdom, but thankfully the Bible promises in James to give us

00:44:28.960 wisdom when we ask for it. And so the general advice that we give to people is that if you have

00:44:34.980 someone in your life who's in deconstruction and there's tension in that relationship, it's kind of

00:44:40.320 like triage, you know, when you go to the emergency room and there's a big accident and all these people

00:44:45.360 start coming in and the doctors do triage, they figure out what's the most urgent need that needs

00:44:49.960 to be treated first. And so that's something we have to do too. And in some cases, just trying to

00:44:54.820 maintain that relationship is the most urgent need. Maybe that's not the time to try to fix the

00:44:59.640 theology. I know this is counterintuitive for us as Christians, because we want to fix the theology

00:45:03.700 over coffee. But to maybe back off a little bit with that and the most urgent need might just be

00:45:09.500 to maintain that relationship or keep that relationship as best you can. And maybe you

00:45:13.700 won't be able to. Maybe they're demanding compromise of view that you can't compromise. And so there may

00:45:20.000 be a severed relationship for a while. But in that case, we can take that time to pray for our loved

00:45:27.020 one and as best we can live the beauty of the gospel out in front of them. Because Allie, I truly believe

00:45:33.700 that we're sort of on this cresting wave of deconstruction, but that wave is going to crash

00:45:38.000 because there's no, like you said, it's just a tearing down. There's nothing really meaningful

00:45:42.320 that they're building up. It's a very dark place. In my opinion, it's a very toxic place. It operates

00:45:47.980 very cultish. There's a lot of propaganda, very like a brainwashing kind of situation that we see

00:45:54.300 with the social contagion. So when people get to the bottom of that rainbow and they find out there's

00:45:59.640 no pot of gold there, I'm hoping that maybe we'll have maintained those relationships so that they

00:46:04.900 will come back. And that's our prayer for our loved ones is that they will have the freedom

00:46:10.000 and deep abiding joy of knowing and walking with Christ because that is truly our purpose here on

00:46:16.760 earth is to know God, to worship Him. We were created to worship Him. And when we're not living

00:46:22.860 according to our purpose, we aren't going to be fully fulfilled. And I think people are going to

00:46:27.640 start realizing that. And I'm praying that God will bring a lot of people back to Him,

00:46:32.540 that He will bring a lot of people to Him for the first time that may have grown up in church,

00:46:36.140 but maybe they hadn't trusted in Christ for themselves. And so I have a lot of hope actually

00:46:41.020 with this deconstruction. I think it's God's mercy and His sovereignty to, you know, there could be

00:46:46.540 otherwise people growing up in church, liking the culture, kind of thinking they're Christians.

00:46:52.420 They could die not even knowing they're not Christians. But when you deconstruct, 0.96

00:46:55.400 you know you're not a Christian, or at least you know you're not this. And I'm praying that 1.00

00:46:59.940 we'll see a lot of people come to the Lord out of this.

00:47:02.360 Yeah. And God can use their story and everything that they have learned in their deconstruction for

00:47:08.780 such redemptive purposes. I think that there are, you know, when people are in church and

00:47:14.780 they're maybe sensing a drift in their pastor, you know, they can listen to terms like, they can hear for

00:47:24.340 terms like nuance on things that aren't nuanced, pretending that things are gray that aren't really

00:47:31.700 gray, being wishy-washy on issues that are actually very clear in scripture, like marriage, like sexuality,

00:47:39.000 like abortion, like heaven, like hell, like sin. Not that there's no good faith discussion to be had about

00:47:45.240 these things. But when you hear the overuse of these gray terms, like nuanced, confusion, and all of that,

00:47:54.580 that's typically a good indicator that a pastor is becoming a little more political and less biblical.

00:48:03.740 And as you said, like there is so much promise and hope in the assurance that God will give us wisdom

00:48:13.060 and that he will keep his flock and he will keep his church and that, you know, God's work doesn't

00:48:20.960 always make headlines, but God is adding to his church every day through the common faith and

00:48:28.720 obedience of the everyday believer. And the other piece of good news, as you said, is like, 0.87

00:48:35.680 I don't know if it was Chesterton who said this, but that truth is like a lion. You don't defend it.

00:48:41.560 You let it out and allow it to defend itself. And that is like the beautiful relief that we get as

00:48:48.520 Christians is that we get to tell people, go to the source. You don't have to believe me. You don't 0.98

00:48:53.860 have to like me. And that is actually like a key indicator that someone is not in a cult that you're

00:48:59.480 like, no, I want you to know everything. I want you to know the full truth. I want you to test it.

00:49:04.580 I don't like it would be one thing if we were like, yeah, I built this chair, but please don't sit in

00:49:08.980 it. We're like, no, jump on it. Sit on it. Throw it against the wall. Like I truly believe that it's

00:49:13.560 well made. And that's just like that is such the privilege that we have as Christians that we get to

00:49:19.560 just point people to the God that is perfect. Okay. Your book, where can people find it? How

00:49:25.480 can they follow you if they don't already? Well, thanks. And I'm so grateful for your

00:49:29.360 ministry, Allie. Just so grateful for your clarity of thought and your dedication to Christ. What a

00:49:33.660 great example for young women all out there. I'm just thankful for you. So the book is available

00:49:40.480 everywhere. Amazon. You can go to my website, alisachilders.com. There's also a curriculum that

00:49:45.060 we just released. It's a six-week small group study curriculum that has six videos. And then

00:49:49.360 everybody gets a participant guide. You can find that on Amazon, also on tindale.com.

00:49:53.680 And I host the Alisa Childers podcast, which you've been on a time or two. And we just kind

00:49:58.960 of talk long form about all of these things every week. And that's also on YouTube. So

00:50:05.020 alisachilders.com to find all the places. Awesome. Thank you so much, Alisa. I really

00:50:09.000 appreciate it. Oh, I loved it. Thanks.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 08, 2024

Ep 1048 ｜ Deconstruction： Where It’s from & How to Stop It ｜ Guest： Alisa Childers

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