By Delaney Newhouse | Focus Editor
When I was 12 years old, I had a faith crisis.
It’s not something I usually talk about. My mom is the daughter of two pastors. She is far more likely to consider Christianity something that we simply did, rather than something I should have an opinion about. My dad, a lapsed Catholic, loudly insisted on prayer at every meal and bedtime he was present for. He read to my siblings and me out of a children’s Bible long after he stopped attending Mass.
Christianity, in my childhood, wasn’t a choice. It was simply the truth.
Sure, I had Hindu, Muslim and Jewish friends, but I never quite knew how to square my beliefs with theirs. I remember feeling bad once when I learned that my best friend didn’t celebrate Christmas and wondering if that meant that she wouldn’t go to heaven.
I knew better than to ask out loud.
But when I was 12, the fear finally took over. It had been seeping in for years. It started when my sixth-grade teacher gifted our class books for Christmas in which everyone but Seventh-Day Adventists went to hell. This fear continued as my family moved across the country, isolating me from my entire community.
Slowly but surely, I stopped praying. I suddenly had headaches every Sunday morning. My single attempt at attending youth group at our new church ended with me crying on the stone of our kitchen floor, begging never to return.
I was so terrified of the answers to my questions that I simply stopped asking. How could the Church love gay people but hate that they were gay? Why did the same people who quoted Exodus and Deuteronomy refer to other human beings as “illegals”? Was I actually going to go to hell because my family went to church on Sunday instead of Saturday? If God was good, why was I so alone?
For years, I kept my identity as a Christian intact by refusing to deepen my faith. As long as I didn’t think about it, it couldn’t hurt me.
It wasn’t until I met people who were constantly living out their faith that I realized exactly what damage I had done to myself by locking all of my worries away inside. Slowly but surely, they had hollowed me out. All that was left of my Christian life was a mockery, a cheap imitation.
My friend Paige and I didn’t get the chance to grow close before she left for college, but she was always kind to me. She didn’t mind giving me a ride home from youth group, and when I got brave enough to attend Sunday services again, she always smiled when I sat next to her.
It was with Paige and her friends at a youth group meeting that the questions started to bubble up again. This time, though, things were different.
Our youth leader took the time to admit his own questioning. He talked about the pain and confusion he felt regarding things that seemed contradictory. He explained how his own experiences didn’t always line up with what he had been taught, and how despite it all, he still found solace in his faith.
I don’t think I participated in that discussion at all. I just remember sitting, my mind reeling.
I didn’t realize I was allowed to ask the questions. They didn’t have to tear me apart.
The truth is, the Bible and church history are full of wonderful and fantastic contradictions — there is even a school of rabbinical study dedicated solely to the contradictions in various scriptures. More than that, widening my mind, asking the question that had always been hanging over me like the Sword of Damocles, took the weight off my back.
That’s what deconstruction, as it has been popularly termed, is. It’s genuinely asking if your relationship with God will break if you go to church on Sunday or wear pants. It’s taking a long, hard look at the faith and culture you grew up in and squaring it with the things you learn as you become a full-fledged human. Despite what YouTube pastors say, that’s not a bad thing.
Deconstructing my faith and truly understanding it allowed me to participate fully in the church. Now, instead of sand, my relationship with Christ is built on His rock.
While people say deconstruction leads people to leave their faith behind entirely, I see them only leaving behind a shadowy echo of faith. Unfortunately, so many children supposedly raised in the church are taught a version of Christ that doesn’t exist and a Christianity that only exists in theory, not in action.
Don’t live your life going through the motions, and don’t be afraid of the contradictions. Ask the questions — there might just be an answer.
If there isn’t, go find it for yourself.
