Deconstructing Christianity

I saw a video on atheists quoting scripture when they are in hard times which made me laugh harder than it should’ve but it reminded me of something else I’d seen in the past month.

Someone asked why deconstructing is only loud when it comes to Christianity and a creator I really enjoy—Gloria Elendu—made a video about it. She mentioned that Christianity is a relational religion and so everything seems personal and is heightened. Which then reminded me of a sermon I listened to this week about how fellowship is integral to our walk with God but it takes discipline and patience and repentance and all other virtues that we don’t want to have so we try to bypass the system through pastors that lay hands, ministers that bless and prophets that speak words of our future.

But, I digress (as always)

The takeaway for me was that she said we treat suffering like a unique injustice not as a universal experience. It’s easier to leave the church and the faith because you think God has wronged you and has personally used his might and power to cause you this heart-shattering pain.

Christianity has boasted of a personal relationship with God and so deconstructing most times is not really about if there’s a God, I think anyone who is being truthful knows there’s a God but it’s about whether God is who we’ve believed Him to be. I always say that we hold God’s shirt over promises He didn’t make.

All this to say, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding because sometimes the prayer will be answered, healing will come, you will get the job, that relative will be returned safely but sometimes all of this will not happen. And when it doesn’t we have the tendency to see it as a personal evil done to us, we then turn to our works and say God is punishing us for not praying enough or not giving enough. We forget so often that He died just so we could have this relationship we try hard to run from.

“Our theology must accommodate pain and suffering for it to be complete”

Even if He doesn’t, He is good.