I'm Not Deconstructing... But I Am Decluttering
For the past 5 years, I’ve found myself unpacking my evangelical background, sifting through cultural norms and questioning deep engrained assumptions.
It’s a journey I didn’t ask for. I don’t refer to this process a deconstruction as I feel I’m not so much picking my faith apart, but restoring it to how it should have always been. I am decluttering. I’m taking out the trash and holding onto what is true.
I’ve divorced myself from the label evangelical as that title is loaded with so much judgement, hurt, condescension, arrogance, politicization, and “rules” steeped in tradition but not Christ. I know some view this title as something beautiful and a badge of honour [that’s ok and you do you!], but I think we can all understand why some recoil at the phrase. I will never again be part of a church that pressures people to disregard balance and personal boundaries or further traumatizes people like the LGBT+ community, demonizes people through microagression of other political stripes, socioeconomic status, relationship status and racial backgrounds, enforces misogyny, taking nonsensical, arrogant and ignorant anti-science stances.... basically anything truly unChristlike. No one or no church is perfect, but cruelty and kindness are intentional choices.
However, the one thing I can’t separate myself from is the love of God. Jesus showed radical love and figuratively and literally turned the tables. Jesus is someone worth following. In the midst of heartache and disappointment I feel towards aspects of Church culture and my younger, naive and idealistic self, I know that the Church is a force of good [although not every local church is] and that God never fails.
