Confessions of a Deconstruction-Minded Christian
Phil Miglioratti
"Deconstructing."
Sounds like a painful process.
Sounds like a painful process.
And, it is, whether it applies to demolishing a building or taking apart a system of belief “in order to expose biases, flaws or inconsistencies,” which is precisely what is taking place all across the evangelical spectrum.
Sadly, many church members who have become disillusioned with their evangelical church experience or disappointed by an evangelical leader are simply throwing the baby out with the dirty bath water. Some take that literally by renouncing faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. A growing number of "nones" ("people who answer a question about their religion by saying they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”) are now labeled "exvangelical."
This recently appearing and rapidly growing movement has promoted me to ponder my own theology, which has led to a series of articles/essays on how our beliefs are affected (and sometimes infected) by our worldview (or philosophy of life), blindspots, pharisaical justification, eisegesis (how we translate and interpret Scripture, and syncretism (a fancy word I learned in seminary).
The journey, still in process, has revealed a simple but essential reality. Knowing the One who is the way, the truth, and the life, does not guarantee my views always point to the correct way, my beliefs are the whole truth or nothing but the truth, and my way of life is the perfect example of Christianity. Holy Scripture is inspired. Me and my version, not so much.
This realization should have taken root long ago. My discipleship should have included a Spirit-led, Scripture-fed "deconstruction" much earlier in the process. No fear of questions; rather a pursuit. But, not unlike every other perspective on the teachings of Christianity, I truly believed our version was the most accurate, insightful, devoted, statement of orthodoxy possible. And that resulted in a quest for biblical knowledge that did not include an evaluation of other viewpoints or a questioning analysis of my own.
Until now.
- Deconstruction is simply "unlearning;" a willingness to be wrong (in order to become more accurate) and a willingness to change (the Word of God "will not pass away" (Matthew 24:35) but my theology, though based on the Word of God, is not the Word of God; it is my words about the Word of God)
- Deconstruction is not the prime motivation nor an end in itself
- Deconstruction is necessary because it is impossible to compose a theology that is not impacted by one's worldview or influenced by one's culture, shaped by experiences or swayed by others
“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
- Deconstruction must be a prelude to Reconstruction; reviewing, revising (when necessary), toward a reviving
- Reconstruction cannot simply be a "revised standard version" ... just the next version that we assume is a "100% correct" system of beliefs or life applications
- Reconstruction must include humility (2 Chronicles 7:14: promises God's favor to those who humble themselves; Proverbs 11:2: with humility comes wisdom; James 4:6: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble) - lack of humility is what caused the need for deconstruction in the first place!
- Deconstruction & Reconstruction must both be a Spirit-led, Scripture-fed process that allows the mind of Christ to be discovered in the views and values of other fully devoted, truth-seeking, Christians
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GUEST~POST: American Churches Desperately Need In-Depth Discipleship Training
By Freddy Davis
So just how bad is the lack of understanding of Christian beliefs in America? Well, according to Christian pollster George Barna, way worse than you might imagine.
Barna polls diligently to get his finger on the pulse of American society, particularly as it relates to religious beliefs. Over the last several years, he has documented how currently only 68% of Americans even claim to be Christians. But that is not the worst of it. While 68% claim to be Christians, only 6% actually hold a biblical worldview. The implication of that is that even the huge majority of those who claim to be Christians do not hold beliefs that are fully consistent with what is taught in the Bible.
Recently, Barna broke this down state by state to see how all of this plays out around the country. In looking at the statistics, there are a couple of things that immediately jump out. First, just the sheer number of people who don’t hold a biblical worldview is staggering. But more importantly, there is not a place in America where biblical worldview beliefs are strong.
I would never be one to actually judge how many people personally know Christ. There are, obviously, a lot of people who are Christians, but who have come to believe some things that do not correspond to what is taught in the Bible. God is the only one able to judge peoples’ salvation, as only He can see their hearts. That said, the amount of ignorance of biblical beliefs, even among those who claim to be Christians, is staggering.
According to Barna’s polling, the state with the highest percentage of people who hold a biblical worldview is Alabama – and there, it only rises to 12.6% of the population. On the other end of the spectrum is Rhode Island. They come in at a paltry .25%. (See the charts at the end of this article to see where the top and bottom 10 states fare.)
On an individual level, this should make every Christian take a deep look inside and evaluate where they fit. (Can they clearly share their biblical worldview beliefs or not?) Odds are, most would not be able to do it – even those who self-identify as Christians. In fact, if someone were to ask you to identify your worldview beliefs, would you be able to do it?
This gets even scarier when thinking on a church level. Based on Barna’s findings, a massive number of church members, even very faithful participants in church, do not hold a biblical worldview – or at the very least have hybridized their beliefs in such a way as to hold certain beliefs that do not correspond to the teachings of the Bible.
Why Worldview Understanding is Important
What these statistics show is that there is a massive need for Christians individually, and churches corporately, to get up to speed in this area. While most Christians never really think that deeply about this subject, not being clear about biblical worldview beliefs causes them to incorporate beliefs and act in ways that are contrary to God’s will.
When we see people spouting off beliefs and acting in ways that seem so anti-Christian, it is tempting to think that they just have a different “opinion” than we do. But that is not accurate. A person’s worldview actually expresses the way they view reality. So when you come across those people (either in person or even on the nightly news), they are not merely expressing a contrary opinion, they are expressing an entirely different way of understanding the structure of reality. In other words, their beliefs and actions seem like fantasy to you, and your beliefs come across as fantasy to them. Unless there is some way to bridge that gap, even basic communication is impossible.
So, if you are a Christian and would like to share Christ with someone who holds a worldview different from yours, it becomes quite difficult for them to understand your message unless you can figure out a way to build a conceptual bridge from your Christian beliefs to their non-Christian beliefs.
Building a Worldview Bridge is Difficult Until ...
Building a conceptual bridge from one worldview to another can certainly be difficult – that is until you know how to do it. Once you have that knowledge, everything falls into place nicely.
In a nutshell, creating that bridge is done by sharing with the person you are trying to communicate with a comparison of their and your worldview beliefs. Once they are able to see the beliefs side by side, it becomes immediately clear where the differences are and what is necessary to bridge the communication gap.
What Has to Be Communicated?
First, let’s define a worldview. It is the assumptions people make about the nature of reality. This means simply that they are beliefs that people assume to be true to the extent that they cannot imagine that other people could reasonably believe anything else.
Well, it’s one thing to know a definition, but how do we actually get at a person’s worldview beliefs? It’s not difficult at all, really. All you have to do is answer three simple questions based on a person’s authority source (the ultimate source of their beliefs). That ultimate authority source will be either human reason, history and tradition, human experience, or revelation. The three questions are:
1. What is the nature of ultimate reality?
2. What is a human being?
3. What is the ultimate a person can get out of this life?
How Christians Answer the Three Worldview Questions
1. Ultimate reality exists in the way it is expressed in the Bible.
2. Human beings are persons made in the image of God, but fallen.
3. Life’s ultimate is to know a personal relationship with God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
How Naturalists Answer the Three Worldview Questions
1. Ultimate reality consists only of the natural universe operating by natural laws.
2. Human beings are naturally evolved animal creatures.
3. Life’s ultimate is survival and personal fulfillment.
How Animists Answer the Three Worldview Questions
1. Ultimate reality consists of one reality divided into spirit and physical parts that interact with each other in a symbiotic relationship.
2. Human beings are physical beings that have a spiritual core.
3. Life’s ultimate is to keep the gods/spirits happy so they won’t cause bad to happen.
How Far Eastern Pantheists Answer the Three Worldview Questions
1. Ultimate reality a the transcendent, impersonal, immaterial life force.
2. Human beings are illusory material expressions of the life force that have been reincarnated to the human level based on the process of karma.
3. Life’s ultimate is to progress through successive lives and ultimately escape the suffering of material reality by rejoining the transcendent life force.
How Non-Christian Theists Answer the Three Worldview Questions
1. Ultimate reality is defined by the authority source of a non-Christian Theist’s particular belief system.
2. Human beings are creatures created by the God of the particular belief system they acknowledge to be true.
3. Life’s ultimate is defined by the authority source of the belief system a non-Christian Theist acknowledges to be true.
Putting All of this Together
The descriptions above are, by necessity, only skeleton descriptions of the differences between different worldview beliefs. To understand the full impact of these differences, a deeper study needs to be engaged. Along with that, an understanding of the relationship between worldview systems and beliefs systems, and a grasp of the fact that there are numerous belief systems that fit within each worldview category are other key concepts that need to be understood.
The explanations shared above of how the different worldviews answer the essential worldview questions, though, is enough to show how radically different the various worldview possibilities are. They also give a basis for how two different worldview systems can be compared and contrasted side by side to help a person grasp how their beliefs differ from biblical beliefs. This process creates a bridge for sharing the gospel across worldview barriers that is extremely difficult without that cross-worldview tool.
Not Just for the Professionals
Many Christians, even regular church attenders, are content to allow the Christian professionals to carry the responsibility of sharing the gospel message with the world – pastors, missionaries, church staff members, evangelists, seminary professors, etc. They are the ones, after all, who have been trained to do that sort of thing, right?
But the Bible is quite clear that carrying the gospel out into the world is the responsibility of every Christian. And the skill set for doing that is found in worldview literacy.
Honestly, though, worldview literacy is not something that is a part of the tradition of most American churches. Traditionally, that kind of training was limited to missionaries who were preparing to go to other countries that are dominated by some non-Christian worldview. In past times, it was not really needed in American society.
But American society has radically changed. Whereas it used to be dominated by Christian worldview beliefs, Naturalism is now the worldview system that dominates virtually every institution of modern society. In addition to that, over the last several decades, massive immigration has brought in people from all of the other worldview categories. It used to be that American Christians could simply share the simple gospel message and people understood what they were talking about. Now, in many cases, before it is even possible to cross that gospel bridge, we must also cross the worldview bridge.
It is at this point where churches need to up their Christian discipleship game. And it is a desperate need. Faithful Christians need the tools to effectively share the gospel in the societal environment that exists in modern society, and most churches are not providing that. In fact, most don’t even realize what tools need to be provided.
Well, the need definitely exists for worldview tools to be accessed by every Christian. It is beyond time for Christian leaders in churches to provide a systematic means for their people to get this kind of discipleship training.
Top Ten States in Christian Worldview Literacy
State - % Holding a Biblical Worldview
1. Alabama - 12.6
2. Mississippi - 12.5
3. South Carolina - 9.8
4. Arkansas - 9.0
5. Montana - 8.0
6. Virginia - 7.1
7. Idaho - 7.0
T-8. Oklahoma - 6.7
T-8. Tennessee - 6.7
10. North Carolina - 6.3
Bottom Ten States in Christian Worldview Literacy
State % Holding a Biblical Worldview
41. New York - 3.2
42. Louisiana - 2.8
43. New Hampshire - 2.6
44. New Mexico - 2.2
45. Connecticut - 1.9
T-46. Massachusetts - 1.8
T-46. New Jersey - 1.8
48. Nebraska - 1.5
49. Maine - 1.1
50. Rhode Island - Less than .25
[You can read the entire report at: https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/AWVI-2025_Report07-State-by-State-Analysis-of-Worldview-Incidence.pdf]
MarketFaith Ministries has developed a special worldview training that is able to lay the kind of foundation for your church that will put your people in a position to express their faith in any worldview environment. E-mail us at info@marketfaith.org and let's explore the possibilities for bringing this to your church or Christian organization. (see below)
GUEST~POST by Scot McKnight
I want to take a look at a new book by someone I have known for about fifteen years, maybe more. The book is by Paul T. Penley. The title is here and you can get it at the link: What Jesus Meant: How Ancient Conversations Redefine Jesus’ M....
The cover’s starkness (see bottom of this page) sends a message to Christians about the stark images they use of Jesus.
“When our religious tradition, cultural lens, or personal approach to interpreting the Bible distorts what Jesus meant, our faith becomes a fantasy. We end up following a misimagination of Jesus. We start doing things he didn't recommend and believing unreliable promises he didn't make.”
He continues with “When our fabrication of Jesus turns out to be an untrustworthy and irrelevant fiction, we become disillusioned–before we even understand what Jesus is all about! The fake Jesus disappoints us, and the most sensible response is to discard the whole deal. It's why ‘deconstruction’ of misinformed Christian doctrine has become a growing epidemic. But it can be avoided.”
He’s not done with this hard-hitting introduction, continuing with this: “The reason we misunderstand what Jesus meant?” Simply put, “our assumptions. We assume Jesus taught universal truths to a timeless audience which can be instantly understood regardless of our culture or language today.” This, he says, “blinds us to our own self-deception.”
There’s a bit of the old approach that says they got it wrong but I’m going to set the record straight on Jesus. At times Penley reminds of the famous line of Geza Vermes, who wrote that “it should not be beyond the capabilities of an educated man [sic] to sit down with and with a mind empty of prejudice read the accounts of Mark, Matthew and Luke as though for the first time” (Jesus the Jew, 21). Yet, Penley’s self-consciousness of his own bias is at work throughout the book, a bias none of us can shake entirely.
The theme of Penley’s book is this: “Jesus entered into lively ancient conversations when he taught. The words he used had already been defined by the discussions people began before he appeared. He wasn't the first one to weigh in on the subject.” Which means, “If we do not hear the other voices in the conversation, we will not understand what Jesus taught. Why? Because Jesus was not making points. He was making counterpoints.” In this book, while the chps have a Jesus vs. XYZ, the term “counterpoints” does not mean contradiction and anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism, but instead “Jesus in conversation with his Jewish contemporaries,” and Penley concentrates on those conversations where Jesus comes out with something more distinctive, thus leading to the kingdom network Jesus formed within Judaism.
Since words don’t control their own meaning, to understand the words of Jesus requires understanding his context. Jesus was not a 21st Century American, evangelical, Protestant, mainline, Democrat, Republican, and neither was he a European. He was a Galilean, born in Judea, and in constant conversation in the synagogue and in public with his contemporaries, many of whom are stereotyped, even at times in our Gospels. When he sounds too much like one of the above, he’s becomes the fiction and fantasy Penley points out.
“The good news is: ancient texts have become more accessible today than ever before. We can actually hear what other people were saying about the same issues Jesus addressed. We can reconstruct the world that shaped Jesus’ words and feel the intended impact of his original assertion.”
As I write this Substack, behind me is a bookshelf with almost nothing but ancient texts, floor to ceiling. Penley’s right. We have access. And much of this access is digital. Do you know about Sefaria?
Penley’s book comes out of twenty-five years of study, speaking, professoring, preaching, teaching, leading, and writing, and he knows what many readers of this Substack know: “I have repeatedly discovered Jesus' message to be shaped more by OUR attractions than HIS intentions.” His concern is “myside bias”: “Myside bias kicks in when we ignore contradictory evidence that does not agree with our pre-existing opinion.” Of course, “None of us wants to endure the uncomfortable notion we have been creating God in our own image all along. We would prefer to inject the bible's meaning with our personal interest in therapeutic self-care, or theologically justified escapism, or the American dream. We would prefer Jesus speak to the things important to us rather than us get on board with what's important to him.”
Some of you will know that years ago I used a test of sorts with undergraduates. The test was called “Images of Jesus,” and it was designed in the United Kingdom to be used in public schools to determine how much Jesus influenced students. The result of the study was that students wanted to be like Jesus, whether they were Christian or not, but it worked far too much one direction: the evidence showed they made Jesus like themselves. Their basic personality score and the personality score they assigned to Jesus were too much alike for this to be a case of becoming formed into the image of Christ. Instead Christ was being formed in their own image. You can see this test in an appendix to my book, The Blue Parakeet.
Ok, today’s Substack not only puts a major idea on the table – how our views shape our view of Jesus – but it sets up an outline of Penley’s chapter topics:
Jesus’s conversations with the rabbis, the wealthy, the separatists, the revolutionaries, the temple, the apocalypticists, and the Greek gods.
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