A Deconstruction Observed

A Deconstruction Observed, Pt. 24 “I stood at the edge of eternity and beheld only blackness.” That’s where I was during my darkest times. It wasn’t a pleasant place to be. I had believed in God from the time I was a young child. I’d placed my faith in Jesus when I was a teen. I’d walked with him for most of my life. Now, I felt as if all that stood between me and a plunge into atheism was a prayer: “God, please don’t let go of me. And don’t let me let go of you.” Would it have …

For years as a pastor I’d taught young-earth creationism. Now, as I looked at Andromeda through my binoculars my worldview took a hit.

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 …

…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 …

A Solitary Christian Life is Not Ideal. Note: I intended this to be a fairly short series on deconstruction, based on my own experience. But I’ve found that it’s difficult to explain the process I went through later in life without fully understanding what happened earlier. So, this is probably going to take a bit longer than I’d planned. I hope not to write a memoir-length tome, but I’ve decided just to continue this journey of discovery and let it take me where it will. Thanks for coming along for the ride. — Jim I was a lone-ranger Christian. Hokey …

Why Some Christians Are Deconstructing Their Faith Image generated with Midjourney AI I started a series on faith deconstruction/reconstruction a while back and then got sidetracked by a shiny object (can’t remember what!) and the series ground to a halt. This post is intended to jump start the series and get me back into the writing process. Rather than go back to the beginning, I thought I’d post this Twitter thread I found the other day that pretty much nails the reasons people deconstruct their faith.  You might not be on Twitter (and lately there are a lot of good …

Prophecy, Cults, and Cassettes 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Soooo, what should a new Christian who knows absolutely nothing about the Bible start studying? How about end-times prophecy and religious cults? Yeah, I know. Not a great place to start, but I didn’t know any better. Something had changed in me. I just didn’t understand what it was. What I did know is that I was hungry. I wanted to learn everything I could about my newfound faith. …