All tagged Deconstruction
Psalm 139:16 “…all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (NIV) This verse clearly says that everything—all of our days—have been pre-scripted for us, right? Hold your horses there. Let’s take a look at what other translations have done with this text and look again at the context to conclude what the intended meaning is.
Some of us may feel like the bastion of certainty that used to be our faith is now riddled with bullet holes. Few walls remain standing. Some may feel that their spiritual life has suffered so many body slams, they aren’t sure if there is any pulse remaining. I read a poignant confession from someone who misses Jesus like she misses an ex. She misses the comfort in knowing that sweet Jesus is with her and looking out for her. She misses praying the prayers that she now no longer believes to be valid prayers. Her confession of post-deconstruction loneliness mirrors the feelings of a widow yearning for a lost lover, or of an amputee having ghost feelings in a lost limb.
God is Renovating the Church. He is Refining his Bride. This is a time to embrace change, not refuse it. A growing number of people identify themselves as those who “love Jesus, but not the church.” Hashtags declare #EmptyThePews and #Exvangelical. Statistics show a drastic decline in church attendance in North America. This is troubling for church leaders, who consider this mass exodus a moral crisis for faith and for Christianity. This series of blog posts (I don’t know how many it will be, yet) will address why church as an institution seems to be dying in the West and why church (as a collection of people) is booming in the Global South and East. What sort of DNA…
