Ep 1048 ｜ Deconstruction： Where It’s from & How to Stop It ｜ Guest： Alisa Childers
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Summary
Elisa Childers is an author and an apologist. She is going to break down exactly what deconstruction is and how you can push back against it. Also, how can you lovingly speak the truth to people in your life who are deconstructing their faith?
Transcript
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Deconstruction. What is it? Why are so many people in your life doing it? Today we've got
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Elisa Childers. She is an author and an apologist. We love having her as a guest. She is going to
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break down exactly what deconstruction is and how you can push back against it. Also,
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how can you lovingly speak the truth to people in your life who are deconstructing their faith?
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Such an encouraging and educational conversation for me. I know it will be for you, too. This
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episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code
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Allie at checkout. GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie.
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Elisa, thanks so much for taking the time to join us again.
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Oh, man. It's so great to be back with you and in person this time, which is fun.
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Yes. First time meeting in person, which is sometimes hard to believe. It's sometimes hard
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to remember when I've crossed paths with someone so much, whether we've met in person or not. But
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finally, in the flesh. Okay. I know that probably everyone listening to this, watching this knows
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exactly who you are. But just in case, can you give everyone a short bio?
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Yeah. Yes. So I do worldview speaking and I write books, but I never thought that that was going to
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be my vocation because I was always in music. So I spent about seven or eight years in the
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contemporary Christian music industry as a part of the group. I almost said Spice Girls, but it's
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Zoe Girl. That would be amazing. That was like a slip. I am talking to a Spice Girl about how she is
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now a Christian apologist. That should tell you what type of a group we were because we really were
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like the Christian Spice Girls in 2000. So yeah, I loved Jesus my whole life. Always been a Christian,
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very deeply devoted to Christ my whole life. But then as a result of going through a class at a
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progressive Christian church that I didn't know was progressive at the time, my faith was really
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rocked. I mean, this was like in my 30s after I was married and had kids. And it really brought me to
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the edge of agnosticism. I was so just confused about what I had believed all my life. And because
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the beliefs in this class were deconstructed, they were explained away that it just propelled me into
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a faith crisis that was indescribably painful, agonizing, disorienting. But God in his faithfulness
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led me to study. So I studied for years and God rebuilt my faith and I made course corrections along
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the way. But that's really ultimately what led me to start a podcast and a blog and write books to
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help other people who might be seeing some of these things in culture and they might not have language
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for it. But hopefully I can help them kind of make sense of some of the crazy that we see now.
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Yes. And you've read or written rather. I'm sure you've read plenty too, but written several books
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on this. Another Gospel was released in 2020. Your most recent book, The Deconstruction of
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Christianity, What It Is, Why It's Destructive, and How to Respond. All of that is important. But that
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last part, I get a lot of questions about what do you say to this? My cousin said this. My spouse said
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this. This random post on Instagram said this. How do I respond to this? Is that why you wrote this book
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because of questions you were receiving like that?
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Yeah. I would say that's a huge reason because I've been speaking about deconstruction and
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progressive Christianity for years. And it never really occurred to me to address that part of it.
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Like now, how do you take this information and apply it? Because I was always just like, well,
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here's what's going on. The house is on fire. Everybody pay attention over here. And yet the number
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one question I would get when I go speak is, what do I specifically do in my specific relationship or my
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specific situation? And so we did dedicate a third of the book to that question. We wanted to give
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people a really practical way forward to think about how can we befriend somebody who is in
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deconstruction, especially when they think we're toxic and unhealthy and unsafe? How do we do that
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sort of a thing? But I would say the second big reason that my co-author Tim and I wanted to write this
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book is because we just thought the way that a lot of evangelicals were talking about deconstruction
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was not helpful. So I've been watching this movement for probably about 14 years since that's
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about when my faith crisis happened. And I actually thought that what happened to me was deconstruction.
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In fact, in my first book, Another Gospel, I actually used that word to describe my journey.
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It's the best word I had at the time. It's what I thought happened to me because it was a really
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awful experience. And I always saw deconstruction as a negative thing. But then in the past three to
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five years, I started to see well-meaning evangelicals talk about deconstruction as if it can be a positive,
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healthy, good thing. And I thought, man, that's very confusing because if you go online and you go
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into that hashtag, which is primarily where the movement is taking place, there's nobody in that
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movement that's saying, hey, keep the Bible in the forefront. Make sure objective truth
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is what you're going for. Make sure you're searching for truth. So I actually changed my
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mind on what happened to me. I don't use the word deconstruction anymore because even though
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it was years long, it was agonizing, it was painful, it was a crisis. I was always searching
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for truth outside of myself. I didn't want to just go with what I personally felt was healthy
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or unhealthy, liberating or oppressive, toxic or helpful or whatever those words are. I wanted to
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know first what's true because I don't think we can know what is toxic unless we first know what's
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true. Right. So that's the distinction between what you went through. And again, just to summarize,
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you were part of a church. You didn't realize it was progressive at the time, but it started kind of
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attacking the central tenets of Christianity of like, is the Bible true, the definition of holy
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sexuality, marriage, and all of that. The atonement, resurrection, all of that.
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And had you questioning those things that you hadn't questioned before, but in that you still
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realized that there was an authority that was higher than you and you wanted to get closer to
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that. That's right. Whereas deconstruction says, even if it doesn't start this way, it ends this way
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with, I am the ultimate authority. I am the prism through which all theology has to travel. And
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whatever comes out, as you said, whatever I deem not toxic, whatever I deem good for me making me
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happy, that is what truth is. And my truth starts to overtake the truth. That's what happens in
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deconstruction, right? Yeah, that's very well put. Yeah. And then how does it start though? Like how
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does deconstruction, real deconstruction, not just what you did of questioning, how does real
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deconstruction typically start in someone's faith? Yeah. Well, it can start with simply
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questioning. It can start with somebody maybe questioning, why do we believe that Jesus was
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resurrected? Or how do we know we have the right books of the Bible? How do we know the people
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we think wrote the Bible really wrote it? How do we know they told the truth and that they, you know,
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the things they talk about really happened? Good questions. And those are great questions. In fact,
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in the book, we're really careful to say those are really good questions. And I think every Christian
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should be asking those questions. So it can start with that. And maybe it just kind of
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goes from there into other types of questions and questioning biblical sexual ethics. But one thing
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we point out in the book is it's not just questioning, it's a particular way people question.
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So if you think about you and me, I would suspect are similar that when we ask a question, we're wanting
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to get to the answer. We want to know the answer. And we know that not every single question we're
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going to ask has a clear answer. Granted, that's, that's great. We know that, but we're hoping to
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find the answer if, if it's there, if it's there to know. But in deconstruction and in progressive
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Christianity, the question kind of becomes the point. It becomes the, the most virtuous way to
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live would be to find the next question. And you don't want to land. In fact, many people in the
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deconstruction hashtag will tell you, don't form new beliefs. If you do that, you'll just have to
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deconstruct those, which has to be pointed out. That's a belief, but you know, we'll put that aside
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for a second. So, so it's a particular way of questioning. And that's why I think certain
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kinds of questioning can lead to a deconstruction. If you're searching for truth and you're like,
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I want to dig into the evidence, I'm going to read some good scholarship. Yeah, that's great.
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But in deconstruction, that's typically not the, the way that it's done. It's not that they're not
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reading scholarship, but they're reading a particular type of scholarship, the more liberal and skeptical
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scholarship. And they're going to be led down that path that ultimately is going to line up with their
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own personal thoughts and feelings. So that can be one way. Another thing that can trigger a
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deconstruction is abuse. Abuse is a huge conversation in the church right now. And I think that it's very
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confusing conversation in the deconstruction movement, because you might have one person who
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has legitimately been abused by a spiritual leader and they are confused and they don't know where to
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turn. They don't feel safe in church. And that person has all of my compassion and empathy. And I want
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to help that person and get them to a safe place and hold the leaders accountable, all of that.
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So you have everything from that to what's a very common narrative in deconstruction, which is that
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being told you're a sinner is abusive, being told that Jesus died on the cross in a sacrificial,
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atoning death, a bloody cross, you know, for my sins, that's abusive. To be told that hell is a real
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place of punishment in the afterlife that is considered abusive. So the assumption in the
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deconstruction movement is that the church is wrong about hell and sexuality and the atonement and the
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nature of human beings. And so because we're telling people they're sinners, that's just by nature
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abusive. So there's a lot of knots that have to be untied in that movement, because like I said,
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you might have somebody with some legitimate abuse, but then somebody who's just feels personally harmed
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It seems to me that a common thread is LGBTQ. That, I don't know if I could say that's the common
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starting place, but it seems to be either the starting place or where a lot of deconstructors
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end up. That that is the most evil part of Christianity that they could never subscribe
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to. That homosexuality is simple. That there is a real biological dichotomy of male and female
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that is not flexible, is not changeable. And you hear language like, my God would never,
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or I could never worship a God who fill in the blank. And it is usually that that would call this
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sin. And within that is the big conflation between love and the affirmation of sin.
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And they confuse those things, I don't know, intentionally, unintentionally a lot. That if
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God really is love, and if I'm called to love my neighbor, then of course I'm going to affirm
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someone's so-called orientation or desire or identity, that seems to be the assumption of a
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lot of people who deconstruct and maybe even is like the keystone of their deconstruction in a lot
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of cases. Is that true? I think that's a very fair statement. In fact, I've said before, and I've
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gotten a lot of criticism for this, but I think it's true. I don't think I've ever heard or read or
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witnessed a deconstruction story where that topic didn't at least play a part. Like you said,
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it's not necessarily the starting point for everybody. And it's not even everybody who
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deconstructs maybe struggles with that, but it's going to play a part. And I think it has so much
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to do with the way culture defines identity. And it's so much has to do with identity because in
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the deconstruction movement and in culture at large, people have bought into this idea that you
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are your feelings, that you are who you're attracted to, you are your desires. And so as you've pointed
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out many times in your books and on your podcast, this idea that we're just supposed to dig down
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inside of ourselves and identify our deepest desires and then name those things, live them out,
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and then cause other people or expect other people to affirm those things about us because
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the assumption is that what you're going to find down there is good. And so it's the theological
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building blocks of the gospel, starting with, you know, of course, creation and God putting Adam and
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Eve in the garden, giving them the opportunity to do things his way or their way. Of course,
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they chose their way, which we have right there at the beginning, this sort of idea of the fall
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where humans are sinful, we're broken, there's something wrong with us. And right then and there,
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I think is where the disagreement begins. And so in deconstruction, they've adopted this cultural
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idea that you shouldn't let anybody tell you that you're broken or that you're sinful or that your
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feelings in some way would be wrong. And so there's this affirmation. And of course, this is going to
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play right into the LGBTQ scenario that we see playing out in culture today, that you are your
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sexuality. And of course, this comes something that Freud really promoted and got a bunch of people to buy
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into. And there's other people along the way that contributed to this. But that's where we're at in
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our culture is that you really are your sexuality. That's your core identity. So for the deconstructionist,
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when the Christian says homosexuality is sinful or homosexuality is forbidden, what they hear is
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I'm forbidden. Right. And that and that I see why that could be confusing. But what Christianity is
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saying is it's requiring the same thing of everyone. Everyone has the same invitation to lay down our
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lives, deny ourselves, pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus. And there's no sin biblically that
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is special when it comes to that, where we would sanctify it in some way or make it our identity.
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And yet that's a very unpopular thing to say in our culture today. And so in deconstruction,
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I do think that LGBTQ piece is, I mean, I think you would call it a pillar. I don't think you could
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be accepted in that world if you hadn't left behind that quote unquote toxic theology, because that's a
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huge theme in deconstruction as well. And so teaching that homosexuality is sinful or that,
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like you said, sex is determined biologically. These are quote unquote toxic beliefs that really hurt
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people. Yeah. And someone who gives way on that, I find they typically end up giving way on everything
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else. Like I often say that I haven't met the person who starts by denying Genesis 127 and doesn't end by
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denying John 14, 6. Like those things tend to go hand in hand, which is interesting. I mean,
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I guess it goes back to the garden. It's a did God really say kind of situation. And people don't see
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sexuality in marriage as a central tenet of Christianity, but it is. I mean, the Bible starts
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with the marriage and ends with the marriage. We see the reality of male and female and the definition
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of marriage reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Jesus. And I think that's why kind
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of when you pull that block out, the whole edifice kind of starts to fall over.
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Well, think about the creation mandate. So our purpose for being here is to be fruitful and
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multiply. That's what God told us to do. He created male and female, instituted marriage and said,
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be fruitful and multiply. So if you are the enemy of God, if you're the enemy of people,
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if you're the devil, you're going to go after that. You're going to try to do everything you
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can do to undermine that, erase that, abolish that, get people to be confused about that.
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And I do think that's what we see because even the poison of modern feminism telling women
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that having children is an afterthought or being married is oppressive to have this idea of a male
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being the head of the home or the idea of submission. All of these things are all tied
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together. It's not like these are just separate topics that don't relate. They relate quite a bit
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and it all goes back to Genesis. Deconstruction. I mean, theological progressivism and political
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progressivism really go hand in hand and function in much the same way, if not the exact same way.
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Whereas I see political progressives as simply wanting to tear down the institutions that exist
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pretty indiscriminately. And now it's kind of under this umbrella of the like cis hetero white
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patriarchy, whatever that is, taking down the definition of marriage, family, conflating all
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kinds of spheres of authority, open borders. I see it as an ideology of chaos. I see it also as a
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theology of chaos, of taking apart and taking down everything that God has implemented for good.
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I heard this amazing quote and I can't remember who said it over the weekend because we talk a lot
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about how God is a God of order. He has created order for our good on earth. And someone said
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something that emphasizes this so well. And they said, God placed us in a garden, not a jungle.
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I never thought about that before. A garden, not a jungle. Like a garden is orderly. It is cultivated.
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So right from the very beginning, he creates an order for things, not just between male and female,
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male or man and animals, but like even in the place where he put man and woman in a garden. And
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I see really progressivism in all its forms as the antithesis of order. So I guess my question for you is,
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as people are deconstructing and tearing down order and tearing down these institutions that God has created
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for our good and these boundaries and parameters, like what are they trying to build? What are they trying to
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build back up? Are they trying to create a new order or is the point just to lay waste to everything?
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That's a great question. I would say in my research and my experience with the movement, it seems that
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authority itself, which, you know, is sort of referred to as this hegemonic discourse, right? This idea that
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anyone could claim to know the grand metanarrative of reality. This is seen as just a power play. And this is where
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postmodernism comes in, right? So we are living in a culture that has, you know, most people don't walk around as if
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truth is relative, which is, you know, a hallmark of postmodernism. Most people don't walk around as if
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relativism is true in every area, right? They go to the bank, they expect their money to be there, they
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obey the traffic lights, they'll appeal to the law. In fact, we've seen signs pop up on lawns where
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people are appealing to science and, you know, certain types of facts and things. So it's not like
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they don't believe that truth can't be known in all areas. But they've sort of said what we should do
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and shouldn't do morally and religion. Those two categories have been moved into the opinion
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category. So much like, you know, the style of clothing you'd like to wear or your favorite color
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or something like that. And so because of that, when the Christian comes along claiming to know what
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certain truths are, like humans are sinful, hell is a real place, you know, marriages between one man
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and one woman, they see that not as a question of, is that true? Because they don't even think that can
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be known in a postmodern culture. And this is very influential in deconstruction. But it's more like,
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why would the person be saying that? Well, they must be trying to protect their power.
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So the idea in deconstruction is that for the Christian to tell someone they're sinners,
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or to tell them that hell is a real place, that you can't even know those things. So the church is
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just trying to protect its power. It's trying to control people with fear. This is why I'm sure
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many of our viewers right now have probably experienced this, where you go on social media,
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maybe you put up a Bible verse or something, and then someone comes on and says, oh, the church just
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invented the doctrine of hell to control people with fear. I mean, the church just tells you you're a
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sinner, because that's what abusive people do. They knock you down a peg, they want you to be
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dependent on them, so that they can control and manipulate you. And there's this assumption
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that the reason the church would be saying these things is because they're trying to oppress you
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and maintain their power. And that's the thing that just blows my mind. Like when people push back
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on Tim and my book, one of the most common pushbacks is like, you guys are teaching oppressive
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it's oppressive to tell people that hell is a real place. And I'm thinking, well, only if it's not
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true. Because if hell really is a real place, that is a potential destination for someone,
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it would actually be very unloving and very unkind to not let them know about that. You know,
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if somebody is about to step into oncoming traffic, it would be unloving to just be like,
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well, you know, I don't know, maybe that bus isn't really coming at 60 miles an hour,
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you know, it would be very unloving to not intervene in any way you could. But it all
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depends on truth, which is largely what is denied in deconstruction is that there is an objective
00:22:25.200
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With a lot of people who say they're deconstructing or who have deconstructed,
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they will, I find, simultaneously say that we can't really know what parts of the Bible are
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authoritative. They obviously don't believe that it's infallible and inerrant, but that it was just
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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
00:26:54.360
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,
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,
00:28:17.620
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,
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.
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,
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
00:30:52.920
we've all observed. It's not like it's a bombshell or anything, but it is interesting that real
00:31:04.380
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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
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.
00:36:00.920
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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,
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
00:40:11.260
Reproductive rights is what it's been rebranded as.
00:40:19.820
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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
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,
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
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,
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
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