I changed my mind about deconstruction. After researching this topic, I’ve come to see that deconstruction isn’t merely asking questions or a synonym for doubt. Rather, it’s a process with no correct destination, no ending, and no biblical authority. As a result, I don’t use words like “healthy deconstruction” or “good deconstruction” anymore. For me, that’s an oxymoron. Deconstruction is a fundamentally flawed process, and I don’t think that changes by placing a few positive adjectives in front of the word.

I changed my mind about deconstruction.
When I first began looking into deconstruction, I quickly discovered that people were using the term to mean different things. For instance, when someone says, “I’m deconstructing my faith,” they could mean anything from questioning a tertiary doctrine, like young-earth creation, to leaving the faith altogether.
Attempting to bring clarity to the conversation, I thought adding adjectives to the word deconstruction (like healthy versus unhealthy, or good versus bad) would help. So, for example, I would say that while unhealthy deconstruction rethinks faith without requiring Scripture as a standard, healthy deconstruction corrects mistaken beliefs to make them align with Scripture. Problem solved, I thought. However, this approach assumes deconstruction itself is a neutral process. I don’t believe that anymore.
While writing The Deconstruction of Christianity with Alisa Childers, we discovered some fundamental beliefs that undergird the deconstruction process. Moreover, these ideas are antithetical to the Christian worldview. This helps explain why so many who deconstruct their faith end up leaving the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Here are three reasons why I changed my mind about deconstruction.
No Correct Destination
First, deconstruction has no correct destination.
A defining feature of deconstruction is that there’s no right way to do it and no right destination. For example, Jo Luehmann, author of Decolonizing Traditional Christianity, expounds on this idea in a video titled Our Journey of Faith Deconstruction:
This is the thing with deconstruction that I really think it’s important to understand. Everyone lands wherever they land. There is no right place to land with deconstruction. Some people land away from faith. Some people land in a different type of faith. Some people become agnostic. Some people become a different type of Christian. Some people become atheists. And all of those routes in deconstruction are valid and to be respected.
Luehmann is not alone. “NakedPastor” David Hayward, who regularly creates social media content on faith deconstruction, puts it more concisely: “There isn’t a right way to deconstruct, nor is there a right destination. You do you.”
Why isn’t there a right place to land in deconstruction? The answer is that deconstruction is a postmodern process. What I mean is, deconstruction isn’t about objective truth. It’s about personal happiness. In one sense, the destination of deconstruction is like the destination of a vacation. Whether you end up in Hawaii or Jamaica or somewhere else, it’s all personal preference. It would be silly to say Hawaii is the “right” vacation destination for everyone.
Notice how deconstruction assumes there is no objective truth when it comes to religious beliefs. That’s why it doesn’t matter how you do it or where you end up as long as you’re happy.
Now contrast this with Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
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This article, with all its bearded banter, has nothing negative to say to you. We agree with Shakespeare that “he that hath a beard is more than a youth,” but not when he continues, “and he that hath no beard is less than a man” (Much Ado about Nothing, 2.1). For if you walk according to your God-given and God-matured masculinity, you are a bearded man, whether you have hair on your face or not. To understand that statement, consider the wonder of why God made beards.

Joab’s charge to play the man still endures, immortalized in Scripture. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:13).
Joab, facing enemies from the front and from the rear, took some of his best men and faced the Syrians ahead. The rest of his army would turn with his brother, Abishai, to meet the Ammonites to their back. Here we find the iconic words of Joab to his brother:
If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him. (2 Samuel 10:11–13)
This battle scene, equal to the best of Braveheart, Gladiator, or 300, began, if I may comb things out just slightly, with a man’s beard. Or, to be precise, the beards of several bushy men.
Sheared Like Sheep
David had sent several bearded messengers to meet the newly crowned King Hanun of the Ammonites, who succeeded his father, Nahash. David expressed his condolences for the deceased Nahash by dispatching these warm-chinned chums to “console [Hanun] concerning his father” (2 Samuel 10:2). Nahash had remained loyal to David — the neighboring kings kept the peace between each other. David’s delegates extended, as it were, the right hand of good will to Hanun.
A hand Hanun would not shake.
Led by the folly of suspicious counsel, the princes of the Ammonites convinced Hanun that these servants did not come to comfort but to conquer. “Has not David sent his servants to search the city and spy it out and to overthrow it?” (2 Samuel 10:3). And this is where things get rather hairy for the king. How should he respond?
He decides to shame David’s men and make them a spectacle. “Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Samuel 10:4). He left multiple cheeks exposed.
Like sheep, Hanun sheared these men. These trees lost half their leaves; these lions, half their manes. When David heard of the barber-ous deed, he sent to meet them because they were “greatly ashamed.” The king acknowledged their humiliation and told them, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return” (2 Samuel 10:5).
And what would David do next? Touch a man’s goat, and it’s time for court; touch a man’s beard, and it’s time for war.
Still Waiting in Jericho
In the twenty-first century, we might miss how hostile this act really was, how deeply shaming for an Israelite man in that day. If King Hanun cut off half of our beards today, it would be considered less shameful than strange. Also, not very effective — for each could just shave the other half off and still fit in with society. So why did this razor cut them to the heart? Why wait outside Jerusalem until it grew back? One historical commentary states, “What may seem like a ‘prank’ was in fact a direct challenge to David’s power and authority, and precipitated a war between the two nations” (336).
And beyond its spitting upon David’s outstretched hand of peace, consider the prominence of the beard in Israel.
First, in Israelite culture, the beard served as a sign of mature masculinity. All Israelite men grew beards; God commanded it: “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27).
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His early death meant that he had no real opportunity to form and shape an organization to continue the more Calvinist part of the revival. Yet the power of his preaching to thousands, his proclamation of the new birth, his doctrinal depth and clarity, and his passion for the poor should leave us thankful to God for calling him—one of the defining and foundational leaders of the fires of evangelical Christian revival.

George Whitefield’s first sermon after his ordination, in June 1736, prompted a complaint to the bishop! He later printed the sermon with the title On the Nature and Necessity of Our Regeneration or New Birth. Whitefield was never far from controversy, both with the established church (in England and American) and, sadly, the great John Wesley. Whitefield was a central figure in the evangelical revival of the 18th century and proved absolutely scathing about the condition of pre-revival clergy. Perhaps less organizationally gifted than Wesley, he nevertheless brought the Gospel to both the poorest of British workers as well as the English aristocracy (forming a close bond with the Countess of Huntingdon, whom we will meet later in the series), thus proving to be an extremely influential figure in the development and continuation of the evangelical tradition within the Church of England.
George Whitefield (1714–1770) was born on December 16, 1714, at the Bell Inn, in Gloucester, England. He was the youngest of seven children to Thomas and Elizabeth. His father died when he was just two years old, his mother made an unsuitable remarriage, and the prosperity of the inn declined rapidly. We know the details of Whitefield’s early life from his Journals, including his “A Short Account of God’s Dealings with the Reverend Mr George Whitefield,” although they cover the period only up to 1745 and have the benefit of hindsight.
Just before his 18th birthday, George entered Oxford as a “servitor.” This was the poor man’s way into Oxford. The student was granted free tuition, but the servitor had to serve other students, wear distinctive dress, and was not permitted to receive Holy Communion with the other students. However, it opened the door to a better, and higher, life.
George Whitefield was prime material for the Holy Club, formed at Oxford by, among others, Church of England priest and evangelist John Wesley and his brother Charles. Club members agreed to take Holy Communion every week, fast regularly, and follow the festivals of the church, as well as visit prisoners in jail. Like Wesley, Whitefield constantly experienced the inner conflict and struggle of daily temptation and the desire to live a religious life. Before arriving at Oxford, he was already reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Soon after his arrival he noted in his Journal that “I now began to pray and sing psalms thrice every day.” Whitefield also recorded his admiration for the “Methodists,” those who were “methodical” and disciplined in their personal piety. It was perhaps inevitable that he join them.
Whitefield’s inner struggles continued. He sought counsel from the Wesleys and, after a breakfast with Charles, was recommended Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Scougal was a 17th-century Scottish theologian and minister, and his book was instrumental in turning over Whitefield’s way of thinking. The Life of God, he recounted, introduced him to true religion as union with Christ rather than the discharge of duty. His moment of conversion was near, which he described in his Journal to have occurred around seven weeks after Easter 1735: “I was delivered from the burden that had so heavily oppressed me,” an expression that reflected the classic evangelical conversion narrative.
Whitefield sought ordination—we have already noted the impact of the first sermon—and then, quite possibly under Wesley’s influence, headed for the state of Georgia in early 1738. The American colonies held some fascination for these early revival leaders. The colony of Georgia had been founded in 1732, with Savannah as the main settlement from 1733. Both Wesley and Whitefield and, indeed, others were drawn here owing to the possibility of the conversion of the indigenous population as well as the opportunity to minister to the settlers. What soon became clear was that the impact of disease left many children orphaned, and raising support for a Savannah orphanage became a focal point of ministry in the Americas for Wesley and Whitefield. In his early visits to the state, Whitefield was shocked by the brutality of slavery.
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