Are Faith Shifts Just a Natural Part of the Faith Journey?

This past week I was at a conference in North Carolina with a bunch of member care workers. You may not be familiar with this group, but they minister to and care for Christian missionaries around the world. One session focused on how this committed group of believers has experienced FAITH SHIFTS over the years. The presenter preferred the term “faith shift” to describe the phenomenon of DECONSTRUCTION, which carries a more negative connotation. They shared results from a lengthy survey of a highly experienced group of global workers.

This group has seen a lot in the field, and as one might expect, their day-to-day interactions in a different culture with a different spiritual ideology would challenge their existing presuppositions. It would be surprising if they didn’t shift to accommodate what they are experiencing. Whether small or large, it’s still a shift. Kinda like an earthquake. On the Richter scale, a tremor is a tremor- whether slight or catastrophic. Here are some areas that stood out to me where they were experiencing some faith shifts (thinking differently than they were originally).

• Roles of women
• Baptism
• Hell/eschatology/end times
• Holy Spirit
• Reality of spiritual warfare/demonic activity
• View of the Bible, particularly from a cultural lens
• LGBTQ issues
• Evangelism and discipleship
• Political theology

This list has a pretty hefty, heady set of topics, so I guess it doesn’t surprise me. Because one should expect to be challenged in many things that involve the commandment to love God, love people, and be involved in His great commission of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Note that the presenter was not saying the shift was good or bad, but that it had evolved. For example, a missionary who had not been exposed much to spiritual warfare and then found themselves face to face with overt demonic activity would obviously have a shift in their practical theology of demonology.

But the term DECONSTRUCTION got me musing. I don’t play in the academic part of the pool much, so some of the ideas bandied around miss me, and I don’t pay attention until they become repeat offenders. This term seems to be one of those, so I paid attention when the speaker was discussing how offensive it was to the surveyed group. They didn’t embrace the idea that their faith had been deconstructed; rather, it had shifted along the way.

Let me redefine some terms that might normalize them (at least in my view). If you’re familiar with these terms, you might find my take fallacious, but they may make sense to those encountering them for the first time.

Construction of the Faith

When I think of the construction of the faith, I think of basic discipleship, where someone shares foundational, orthodox thoughts about what the Bible says on a range of topics (see the muse about Skating on Thin Theology). Through these regular interactions and their personal engagement with the Bible, people new to the faith begin to build an understanding of its basic tenets. So, in some ways, their faith is being CONSTRUCTED. Built up by input from individuals, small-group discussions, and messages from the pulpit, podcast, conference, books, etc., the new believer embraces a belief system that will indeed be challenged as they grow and mature.

This is true not only of faith but life as well. We see it all the time as children grow and mature, then decide what they will embrace and what they will reject from their homes of origin. They evaluate family traditions as they decide how they will live. But there is a difference between deciding which holiday experiences (Ham or Turkey) you will embrace and which beliefs of your faith you will maintain. Family traditions are highly preference-based, whereas the Christian faith rests on the Word of God.

And that brings us to the hot topic of the day: DECONSTRUCTIONISM

Deconstruction of the Faith

Deconstruction in the food industry is the creative art of taking a well-known recipe, breaking it down into ingredients, and reconstructing a new dish using old familiar tastes in a new and wonderful way. For example, the beloved peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Simple ingredients: bread, peanut butter, and jelly (grape is my favorite). What could one do with these elements to elevate and reimagine it? How about a brioche soufflé with peanut-cream ganache, drizzled with grape-jam reduction? Yes please!

But the word deconstruction in the faith industry is quite another thing. The idea seems to float around a bit, particularly with kids who grew up in Christian homes and walk away from their faith. Some discover that their understanding of the faith has never been deeply examined, and they begin to question and deconstruct their faith, trying to reconstruct something new that may or may not resemble the faith they started with. How creative they get determines how concerned their parents and spiritual leaders become.

But it is not only kids. Adults also find themselves examining long-held beliefs. Our missionary group illustrates that, even though they preferred the term ‘faith shifts.’”

But I am not concerned about the deconstruction part if you liken it to cooking, because examining what one’s faith consists of is healthy. But because of shallow theology, many reject key elements, and when they begin to reconstruct, they miss them. Go back to our PB&J example. What would happen if you examined the elements of the sandwich and decided that peanut butter or jelly or bread were unnecessary? When you begin to reconstruct it, you wouldn’t have the basic elements. What you end up with might taste great, but it is not a reconstructed PB&J.

Reconstruction of the Faith

So it is not the examination that bothers me but the reconstruction. What are we leaving out when we come up with our “fresh, exciting new take of the faith”? Throughout the Church’s history, several significant councils have examined the faith to decide what to include and what to exclude. From a wisdom perspective, an individual doesn’t get to make up whatever they want and have it accepted as a legitimate representation of the faith.

I am not talking here about new forms of church life that morph over time. For example, take the function of worship in the church. Pick an era, and you will find a different look for this fundamental part of the church. Functions stay constant. Forms are always changing. Principle stick. Preferences evolve

In this reconstruction discussion, I fear that we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What are some examples of key doctrine that must be held onto even as we decide which wineskins must be used for the new wine of each new generation? Here are a few:

1. The authority of Scripture. The Bible is God’s inspired Word, the standard by which we evaluate our beliefs. We may need to reconsider our interpretation of a passage, but that is different from deciding that Scripture no longer has authority over us. The reconstruction process should bring our thinking under the Word, even when it challenges us. (2 Timothy 3:16–17)
2. The triune nature of God. Christians believe in one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our understanding of the Trinity may deepen, but each generation does not get to reinvent God’s identity. (Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19)
3. The identity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is more than an inspiring teacher, a moral example, or someone whose words we admire. If our reconstructed faith has room for His teachings but no room for His deity, we have left out something essential. (John 1:1, 14; Colossians 2:9)
4. The reality of sin and our need for a Savior. Our problem is deeper than ignorance, difficult circumstances, or low self-esteem. We have sinned against a holy God and cannot make ourselves right with Him. A reconstruction that removes sin may sound comforting, but it removes our understanding of why we need salvation. (Romans 3:23; 6:23)
5. The saving death and bodily resurrection of Jesus. Jesus died for our sins and rose bodily from the grave. These are essential claims about what God has done in history, not merely inspiring symbols. Paul makes the stakes clear: without Christ’s resurrection, our faith is worthless and we remain in our sins. (1 Corinthians 15:3–4, 17)
6. Salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ. We cannot earn God’s favor through good behavior, religious activity, or spiritual enlightenment. Salvation is God’s gift, received through faith in Jesus Christ. Good works belong in the Christian life as the fruit of salvation, not the price of admission. (Ephesians 2:8–10; John 14:6)

This isn’t an exhaustive list; it illustrates the point. We can change the music, rearrange the furniture, and reconsider traditions we once thought were biblical commands. But reconstruction must preserve the truths that make the Christian faith Christian. Back to our sandwich: reimagine the presentation all you want, but you still need the basic ingredients.

The Muse

For me, the muse in this concept is wondering whether this reconstruction is just a normal part of the faith journey. I liken it to the concept of thin theology that I wrote about earlier in this series. Someone can think they are orthodox, but when it is challenged, they may begin to doubt their earlier conclusions. I think this is normal and there is no reason to panic. I guess I view myself as in process in so many areas that I don’t assume that all my conclusions are finished, or even correct. That is why I keep studying. But we must put all the key ingredients back into the re-examined, reconstructed faith; otherwise, we are making faith in our own image and to our own liking. That’s dangerous.

Destruction of the Faith

But what should alarm us is when the reconstruction bears no resemblance to the original. Imagine fried chicken and mashed potatoes as the final product of our PB&J experiment. You can call it whatever you want, but it is something wholly other.

I had a good friend who went on a mission trip to India over 25 years ago with me, and he was overwhelmed by how different his beliefs were from what he was experiencing in the Hindu culture. It made him uncomfortable and really made him question his faith. And that is not bad. But after the examination process, he had to decide what he believed at a foundational level.

What does faith look like after it is put back together? In this case, he examined his faith and walked away (or at least that’s what I observed). He couldn’t come to grips with some of the basic claims of Jesus when we hear Him say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except by Me.” By this, Jesus means He is the way to salvation, that His death on the cross is the payment for sin, and that to access the Father, and thereby heaven, we must believe in Him.

So in this case, this young man’s faith was constructed, and his beliefs were somewhat stable. Then a challenging situation caused him to examine his faith (deconstruction). But as he tried to put it back together (reconstruction), it became overwhelming, and at least for a while he walked away from his faith (destruction).

To be fair, I am not sure of all the details, and I haven’t been able to track where he landed because we moved away and lost touch. I tell this story not to criticize this guy I love, but to illustrate the process in real life.

What concerns me is the DESTRUCTION phase. We do have an enemy who loves to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). He is hell-bent on destroying our faith (especially the young) and our trust in God and His Word and His work. We see that in the earliest of days when he contorted God’s word and made Eve doubt the clear instruction of God and thereby the character of God Himself.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that we need to humbly assume we don’t know everything and keep studying His revelation (General and Special). I think it is okay to examine our faith, but we aren’t allowed the luxury of building our own faith structure. Well, we can, but you can’t call it Christianity. I think the biggest test of the faith life we are building, whether we are in the construction phase, the deconstruction phase, or the reconstruction phase, is whether Jesus recognizes what you are building. Many will come to Him one day, and He will say I never knew you.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:21–23).

Build with care, my friend.

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