What is Happening to Faith Today
Have you read about or encountered the latest trend in Christian circles – especially found in the liberal Western Church? That is people discovering that what they believe, the focus of their faith, is not sustainable in the light of certain challenges. The most common of these being the fairness of God in relation to His love. Out of this questioning they begin taking their faith apart. They begin to deconstruct their faith.
Deconstructionism
It is the process of disassembling your faith’s core believes, examining them in the new revelation of love and then building them a new on a more enlightened view of God, His love and how he must interact with humans. At the core of this new revelation is the belief that God loves everyone so much that he does not want to see them perish eternally – as John 3:16 tells us. It is a short stretch, reading this verse in isolation, to arrive at a universalist’s belief process – God saves all because he loves all.
For a reconstructionist universalism is a given. The deconstructionist’s thought process is based on the idea that a human is of infinite value just the way they are and that God confirms this through His love – once again John 3:16. A loving God would not want to change me, after all He is essentially responsible for me being the way I am. Anyone telling me that I am not complete, not affirmed, not of infinite value is surely not loving me.
The error that those reconstructing their faith make is born out of two major fallacies. The first is a wrong view of the human condition and the other is a wrong view of God.
Many deconstructionists do not stop with an affirming God, they often take the next step to either deny God as infinite, sovereign and good or to even deny that He exists at all. Meanwhile some retain a redefined, severely distorted belief system. Where has faith failed these people? Those who have confessed Christ and claimed to be saved (and in fact insist they still are saved), who have chosen to completely redefine who God is and what constitutes faith in Him.
What Deconstructionists Get Wrong
The error that those reconstructing their faith make is born out of two major fallacies. The first is a wrong view of the human condition and the other is a wrong view of God. The thought process goes something like this: God is love and love shapes His every other attribute. We are made in God’s image; therefore, He loves us as we are – His image bearers. That kind of love would not condemn us – bible passages that say He would are being misinterpreted.
This dangerous philosophy finds its greatest error in how we see God. There is no doubt that God is love. His word makes this clear. However, God has many other attributes as well. Each of these other attributes are not any less of who He is. To say that another way – let us consider God’s righteousness. God is fully, that is 100%, righteous. That does not minimize His love which we also recognize as fully who He is. We would also say that He is fully just. His Justice is fully consistent with His love, His mercy and His righteousness. This is the same for a dozen more attributes.
We don’t really do the character of God justice to call these attributes. Doing so we find ourselves bound to the human trap of the finite. A.W. Tozer, in his classic work The Knowledge of the Holy posits that we cannot fully comprehend God’s essence through human language, so we refer to different facets of His character—like love, justice, power, and mercy—as “attributes.” God is not a composite being made up of various parts. He is an indivisible, infinite, perfect Spirit. When we talk about His love, justice or sovereignty, we simply acknowledge different ways His single being expresses itself in relation to His creation.
Thus, the error being made by many reconstructions as they remake their faith is that they have reduced God to simply being wholly love to the exclusion of His other attributes. The claim that a loving God cannot condemn people to Hell just because they failed to follow a few simple instructions – this, as they see it, is not loving.
This is not the God that the Bible reveals. The holiness and righteousness of the God, as revealed in His Word, cannot allow Him to wink at our moral failings and simply admit us into paradise despite them. Samuel understood this when given a vision of God – he said “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (1 Samuel 6:5, 1 Samuel 2:2, Psalm 145:1, Habakkuk 1:13)
We are not so Bad, are We?
The second error is almost as bad as the first. That is to elevate man (humans) to the position of pure in spirit and with great goodness inside – a pure and noble heart. We are told by the media that there is good in all of us. This view conflates our being made in the image of God with a basic, intrinsic human good that does not existent. It says that we are someone that God not only loves but fully approves of just as we are. The truth is very different. God tells us that our heart, which is at the very core of our being, is wicked and deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). Our moral character has been corrupted by the fall of man in the garden – an event in history that really happened. We are incapable to true goodness and righteousness. Even the things we do that appear noble are selfishly driven from our pridefulness or desire for personal gain.
It is a hard thing to hear that we are broken, that we are not good enough in and of ourselves to approach God on our own. Many have decided that a loving God never intended for us to hear His message of love like that. They say that if God loves us then His love compels Him to love us just as we are.
We are incapable to true goodness and righteousness. Even the things we do that appear noble are selfishly driven from our pridefulness or desire for personal gain.
This is not what scripture tells us. Scripture tells us that God is not only love, but also just, merciful and right. God’s righteousness is the standard to which we must conform and yet we are completely unable to. The bible says in Isaiah 64:6 that nothing we do on our own is righteous – instead these things are all completely and totally filthy. They are corrupted by our own human touch. By our greed, sin and pride.
Obeying God’s Law is Righteousness
God Himself defines righteousness. It is what divides us from God. He is righteous and we are not. Righteousness was the purpose of God’s law given to Israelite people while they were in the wilderness. In Deuteronomy 6:25 Moses says that “[obeying God’s law] will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.”
The Oxford dictionary defines righteousness as: referring to “the quality of being morally right or justifiable”. David declares God as righteous in Psalm 119:137: “Righteous are you, O Lord, and your rules are just.” And in Isaiah God speaking of Himself declares: “And there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.” (Isaiah 45:21).
No Matter How Hard We Try We Fall Short
We can only conclude from the reading of these verses that God is the standard for all righteousness and that everything we do falls short. Paul made that clear in Romans 3:23 which says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory (righteousness) of God. Can there be any doubt that we have missed the mark?
Is it possible to have a right view of God and still feel that He loves everyone so much that no one will receive eternal judgement? The answer is a resounding NO.
Restoration is Possible
In honesty, my heart breaks for those who are deconstructing their faith. This is not a crisis of faith that has drawn them away from the Lord and His promises – it is the result of poor discipleship. It is a failure of the church body to bring our next generation with solid foundation of faith. We, the leaders and teachers in the church, have not taught the whole and complete truth of God. We have not made sure that a tender faith is anchored in the bedrock of solid doctrine.
I have found that those who have deconstructed are content with where they are in their faith walk. Many are still attending church, some practice their version of faith in private. Typically, a message regarding the true nature of God, and the truth of the human condition no longer resonates with them. But there are exceptions. If you are an exception, if you have deconstructed and find yourself reading this and having some doubts then let me encourage you to seek out who God really is. Find good biblical counsel from a conservative Christian church. I would be happy to discuss your faith journey as well. Contact me.
Your study of the Word of God is critical. I would suggest reading the New Testament Book of Romans with a good commentary handy. The website BibleRef.com has excellent verse by verse commentary on the book of Romans: https://www.bibleref.com/Romans/
Also consider reading one of the following books:
The Reason for God by Tim Keller
The Real God by Chip Ingram – Check out the video series on YouTube
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
