James Pence

How God is Faithful Through Loss and Adversity

James Pence

The Problem with Buried Questions: They Keep Coming Back.

A Deconstruction Observed It was an innocent question but based on my friend’s reaction you’d have thought I’d denied the Trinity. “If God is eternal and unchangeable,” I posited, “how could he take on human nature? Wouldn’t becoming a man be a fundamental change in God’s nature?” My friend looked horrified, almost as if he expected lightning to strike me at any moment. “You should be careful about asking questions like that!” he cautioned. Yet asking questions had become a major part of my Christian life. The year was 1974. It was my sophomore year of college and I was …

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Reflections on Deconstruction

What is deconstruction? I can describe what it feels like better than I can explain what it is. Deconstruction feels like walking alone through a pitch-black forest. It’s the unsettling feeling you get when the ground you’re walking on becomes unstable…

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265 Words about (Almost Not) Being the Father of the Bride

As I stood outside the door of the room where my daughter and her bridesmaids had just finished dressing, the wedding coordinator cautioned me, “Don’t cry.” She opened the door. I cried. When I saw my daughter in her wedding dress for the first time, I lost it. Charlene looked at the ceiling and fanned her face to keep her makeup from running. The bridesmaids sang silly songs to distract us. I somehow managed to pull myself together and we made it down the aisle with no more tears, although we both had to tell each other, “We don’t need …

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Why I Didn’t Lose My Faith…

A DECONSTRUCTION OBSERVED INTERLUDE : “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5b) Writing the story of my deconstruction/reconstruction is far more challenging than I expected. I am processing more than ten years of experiences. Often as I write, I remember important details that I need to include in the story. And more often than not, as I explore these details others surface. The challenging thing is that many of these either disrupt my carefully planned timeline or they require adjustments to things I’ve already written. In short, at times I need to step back and …

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Why I Value My Charismatic Experience

…and How it Relates to My Deconstruction I completed my deconstruction out of the Charismatic Movement in 1975 with a Bachelor of Theology thesis on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. For some time after that, I took every opportunity to oppose charismatic teachings and even developed a seminar on charismatic theology aimed at refuting those teachings. But over the years my hostility mellowed and softened. Now, nearly fifty years later I look back quite fondly on my charismatic experience. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that I treasure it. Some aspects of my charismatic experience are …

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How I Left the Charismatic Movement (Deconstruction takes Time)

Deconstructing takes Time [Although this part of my story focuses on why I left the Charismatic Movement, it is in no way intended to disparage the beliefs of my charismatic brothers and sisters. These are my experiences to the best of my recollection; they are an early example of my thinking process where deconstruction is concerned and as such are important to understanding my story. I am sharing these recollections as honestly as I can but they don’t necessarily represent my views or feelings now.] I’d heard lots of tongues-speaking, but never anything like this. (See my previous post.) When …

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How to Create with AI Art

You can create original work! Cardinal (Image created by author with Midjourney) Creating original work with AI art apps is a challenge, but it’s not impossible. Of course, it’s much easier to just type in a few words and let the AI produce a finished picture. But for me at least, that’s not satisfying. As an artist I wan’t to be part of the creative process. I want to work with the AI (or have the AI work with me)!  So, how do I do that? Here’s one way! I used the Procreate app and drew this abstract form on …

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Why I No Longer Identify as a Charismatic Christian:

Scared out of the Movement [Although this part of my story focuses on why I left the Charismatic Movement, it is in no way intended to disparage the beliefs of my charismatic brothers and sisters. These are my experiences to the best of my recollection; they were an early example of my thinking process where deconstruction is concerned and as such are important to understanding my story. I am sharing these recollections as honestly as I can but they don’t necessarily represent my views or feelings now.] As I mentioned in my previous post, although the charismatic youth Bible study …

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A Deconstruction Observed: Seeds of Deconstruction

Layers of Beliefs — Seeds of Deconstruction I was deconstructing before deconstruction was cool. That’s assuming you define deconstruction as taking a hard look at what I believe and adjusting when something didn’t measure up. By that definition, I’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing most of my Christian life. It’s impossible to overstate the impact of my entry into the world of the Charismatic Movement. I leaped from a liturgical church full of reverence and awe and quietness to an exuberant faith overflowing with noise, activity, and unabashed joyfulness. (Praise the Lord was my new favorite expression.) I had discovered a …

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