Songwriter and worship leader Matt Maher recently gave his thoughts on the trend of faith deconstruction that has been occurring in the American church for the last several years.
The recipient of six GMA Dove Awards and nine Grammy nominations, Maher is known in evangelical churches for popular worship songs such as “Your Grace Is Enough,” “I Will Rise,” “Because He Lives (Amen),” “Christ Is Risen,” and “Lord I Need You,” all of which are frequently used in worship services around the nation.
Maher’s latest album, “The Stories I Tell Myself,” includes songs “The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)” and “Leaning,” which features fellow worship leader Lizzie Morgan.
Maher also recently released a single titled “The In Between,” which draws inspiration from “The Chosen,” the hit drama depicting the life and ministry of Jesus. Specifically, the song was inspired by an episode of the show featuring a dramatized exchange between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
“I was one way, but now I am different; there was a clear change in a holy collision,” the lyrics of the song read. “Who I was, and who I’ll forever be, and he was the in between.”
In a recent interview with Christian Headlines, Maher speculated that younger evangelicals departing from the faith tradition en masse may not have been growing in spiritual maturity prior to their crisis of faith.
The topic of deconstruction has been an object of debate for some time now, as a not inconsiderable number of people who grew up in evangelical churches and homes have been re-examining their beliefs.
This has spawned the “exvangelical” movement, a theologically eclectic community that has thrived online. Though they have a wide array of beliefs on the existence of God and the virtues of the Christian tradition, many of them are bound together in relationship through the common, and often difficult, experiences of growing up in evangelical spaces.
Maher believes that this trend of deconstruction, at least in part, can be attributed to a lack of discipleship among Christians as they grow into adulthood.
“A lot of people are walking away from their faith,” Maher told Christian Headlines. “If you’re looking at God in your 40s the same way you did when you were 10, you have to walk away from that. Because that’s not an adequate faith for a 40-year-old, or a 30-year-old or a 20-year-old.”
