On Wednesday (September 14), Grammy award winning Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae posted a viral Twitter thread explaining why many Christians are afraid of people deconstructing their faith.
A lot of Christians are afraid of “Deconstruction.” I’ve personally gone thru it and let me give you food for thought.
1. There are 2 types of deconstruction happening in the church. One is healthy the other is dangerous. 🧵— Lecrae (@lecrae) September 14, 2022
Lecrae, who once deconstructed his faith, told ChurchLeaders in an interview earlier this year that the “goal of a healthy deconstruction is reconstruction.”
“You can’t say ‘deconstruction’ without it meaning all of these terrible things that we’re not advocating at all,” Lecrae explained in the interview. “Because people are looking at the worst cases of deconstruction, where people have essentially said, ‘We’re done with Christ, and we’re never coming back.’ And I think that’s what they think a promotion of deconstruction is.”
In his Twitter thread, Lecrae described two different types of deconstruction within today’s church. “One is healthy [and] the other is dangerous,” he said.
“One type of deconstruction actually involves using scriptures to deconstruct unhealthy ideas and practices. Christ himself did this by deconstructing the Pharisees interpretation of scripture,” Lecrae explained, giving the example of Christ’s words, “You have heard it said but I say…” This type of deconstruction uses Scripture to challenge things in a healthy manner, Lecrae said.
Lecrae said that many millennials are using today’s culture to challenge what they read in Scripture, adding, “This often leads to culture taking precedence over scripture and sadly people begin to deconstruct themselves out of the faith.” This type of deconstruction is unhealthy, as one begins to question the Bible “because it doesn’t line up with culture.”
“Nine times out of 10 this type of unhealthy deconstruction begins with Church hurt,” Lecrae argued. “Racism, sexism, abuse of power etc. give way to a need to make sense of things and the last thing people want to do is use scripture to make sense of these failures by ‘church folks.’”
“So people look OUTSIDE of God for answers and find themselves being thrown around by every wind and wave of doctrine. I’ve been here,” he said. “When God and morality are out of the picture you now have license to make decisions that can wreck your marriage, family, mental health, and body.”
There are many believers from generations before us who have deconstructed their faith in a healthy manner. Lecrae said that “we can learn from them versus destroying our life and faith trying to figure it out alone.”
