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| Courtesy of Kristina Flour |
Preface
When I began deconstructing and reconstructing my faith, perhaps the biggest change was that I allowed myself to ask off-limits questions and read off-limits content. It was shocking and terrifying to say the least. Long after this change, I began to think a lot about the significance of having off-limits questions and off-limits content in the first place. Is it wise? Is it right? I finally was able to put some of my thoughts together.
Prayer
God, one of the ways we try to keep people in the church is to keep information from them. To be honest this feels yucky. If you are God, I feel like you should be able to stand the test in a contest of ideas. It makes me think about the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. In that story, you were happy to go toe to toe with the then spiritual alternative.
Keeping us all safe
The Evangelical church’s strategy to keep people in the church is to not let them hear any information contrary to their message. For a long time this strategy made complete sense.
When my kids were growing up I tried to protect them from all sorts of inappropriate influences. We home schooled them all until high school. We managed their television and encouraged good friends. This was effective and neither wholly good nor wholly bad. In the short term, they were able to hear a clear world view at a time when they could not process complicated issues. On the down side, it was a bit shocking when other ideas came crashing in once mom and dad could no longer manage all inputs. In our case, we practiced an imperfect gradual release from the Christian bubble, though the transition to public high school was certainly a big, not gradual step. Other Christian families try to shield their kids as completely as possible throughout their childhood, high school, and beyond. I have a friend that tried this approach and it completely severed their relationship with their son though in this case he has continued following Jesus. From my observation, the longer kids are in the bubble the more disruptive is the transition out of the bubble.
I also practiced shielding myself from ideas contrary to my evangelical understanding of the world. I had heard stories throughout my Christian life of people that completely walked away from the faith because they exposed themselves to these dangerous ideas. From many sermons I knew that my faith was tenuous at best and if I opened the door to Satan I would quickly crumble under the weight.
A good example of this teaching was the dollar bill analogy which was oft repeated in evangelical circles. “Do you see this dollar bill? Is it real or counterfeit? Did you know that counterfeit experts never spend time studying all the different types of counterfeit? Oh no! They study the real thing constantly! When you know the real deal, you can always recognize the fake stuff. So don’t consume books, music, podcasts or any content that does not line up with evangelical teaching. Just focus on a plain reading of the Bible and get to know the truth really well!” This and similar ideas were repeated over and over letting everyone know the danger of listening to anything contrary. Strangely at the time I did not feel like information was being hidden from me. I just thought I was being wise given the dangers out there.
Problems Begin
Then in 2015-2016 when my deconstruction really began I went into a death spiral as I began to ask questions I was not supposed to ask and read things I was not supposed to read. I no longer felt protected from evil by the church, I felt like information had been systematically hidden from me and I had been lied to, which was very painful from an organization I was so dedicated to. In particular
- I learned that there were gay, Jesus loving Christian’s that desperately tried but failed to become straight, and that some of them committed suicide
- I learned that not every theologian that disagreed with my church's theology had a malevolent agenda, and that faithful interpreters of the Bible can come up with different interpretations.
- I learned that the scientific explanations of the world make much more sense than I was taught and more sense than a hyper literal reading of the Bible.
- I learned that the Bible doesn’t collapse when you ask it tough questions.
- I learned that there are many modern evangelical beliefs that were simply not part of the Nicene creed or apostles creed.
- I learned there are contradictions in the Bible.
All of these caused big problems for my theology, and the natural next question on my part was, “if all the above list is true what else are they hiding or lying about?”
Information bubbles and hiding information seemingly work great until a small crack opens and the bubble collapses and the strategy back fires.
In the cases where questions are addressed in Christian apologetics, I think they fall short. It appears that they are very ready to accept questionable pseudo science to bolster their arguments. And they are often crafted around the more conservative interpretations of the Bible which in my opinion don’t need to be defended. For example, spending time defending a six day creation is a waste of time because it doesn’t matter to me or most of the people in our country how God made the world. There are more important hills to die on. I remember painfully watching Ken Hamm debating Bill Nye the Science Guy. Nye made a point, and rather than address the point Hamm kept repeating, “I hope some day you will meet Jesus like me.” It was an embarrassment to Christianity and the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling na na na na na na na na.
As I see it then, the problems with age inappropriate information bubbles are:
- When the bubble collapses the rejection and deconstruction can be more powerful than if complicated issues are faced head on when they naturally arise.
- Strong feelings of suspicion are the natural response to having information hidden from you.
- Defending a very conservative interpretation of scripture can prevent a person from embracing a still faithful, more progressive view pushing them all the way to atheism or agnosticism.
- Telling or implying that our youth are not smart enough to engage biblical criticism and big questions minimizes them and hurts their growth and confidence.
The Fear Problem
Finally, it seems that we are primarily motivated by fear and doubt when it comes to bubbles. We doubt that the Christian message can stand up to scrutiny and so we fear that anyone exposed to biblical criticism will lose their faith. This idea is fundamentally contrary to many teachings from the church. We have also been taught things like:
- God is all wise and true
- We can trust Him
- We don’t have to live in fear
- All things work out for the good.
- The Bible is trustworthy
Now What?
If the above is true we should not have to live in fear.
Finally, I fancy myself to be an amateur scholar and I just don’t want to be a part of a religion any more that is terrified of criticism. I want to be part of something that welcomes criticism knowing that there are good reasons for belief. I want to accept that we may have some things wrong and need criticism to help us refine our theology. I don’t ever want others around me thinking there are questions they are not allowed to ask. So let’s do away with age inappropriate bubbles and fears that Jesus and the Bible are two weak for criticism. Then let’s live free of fears willing to work through hard questions confident that God can handle it.
I'm always interested in you thoughts; please comment below.
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