Light In the Dark: Real-World Advice on Helping Others Through Doubt and Deconstruction

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Nicholas McDonald
Thank you. Yeah, this is my first ever women’s conference I’ve attended, so it’s fun. It’s been good. A little time to get away, just go to the men’s restroom and made a little prayer sanctuary in there. It’s nice. Actually, I was thinking it’s Friday afternoon, you’ve, you’ve heard a lot of words, so I’m impressed that you’re here. I was actually thinking of maybe the hardest sermon gig I ever received was for an Eagle Scout ceremony, which is fine, but when I showed up, I realized that I was the last person to speak in the program, and I was supposed to give a sermon, so that was one realization. The other realization was that not only was I speaking, but every Eagle Scout parent had prepared about 20 to 30 minutes of content about their student. So, after hour one, I’m just crossing things off. After hour two, I’m crossing more off. After hour three, I’m crossing more off, and after hour four, not even kidding you, they’re like, all right, come preach a sermon to us, which was basically, hey guys, you’re all sinners, but Jesus loves you, now go home, you know that, that’s pretty much it. So we’re gonna get a little bit more in depth this afternoon, because I think this is a topic where, if you’re here, you really care about this. 20 million people over the last decade have left the church, that is more people than people who came to faith in the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and the Billy Graham Crusades combined, and my guess is, if you’re here, you know one of those people, or you’re related to one of those people, or maybe you even are one of those people, and you’ve got one foot out the door. So this is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. I’m sure it’s near and dear to your heart. And what we’re going to do is, I’m going to ask myself two questions that I know the answer to, and then you’re going to ask me questions that I don’t know the answer to. Okay, so let me pray for us, and then we’re going to do that. Lord, thank you so much for every single person who’s in this room. Thank you for so many hearts that have compassion and that ache for people who have wandered and gone astray. We pray, Lord, that you would fill us with your spirit, fill us with your word, help us to be people who embody the spirit of Jesus and who speak the words of Jesus to those who are lost to bring them back into the fold. And we ask for this in Jesus’ name. Amen. So the first question I want to ask, we’re going to dispense with pretty quickly, but I think it’s an important one, and it’s this: is it possible to help somebody who is deconstructing, and that might seem silly, because you’re here and you’re like, well, obviously I think it is, but I don’t think it’s so obvious, because I think oftentimes our discourse about people who are deconstructing assumes that they are, there’s no help for them. It assumes that they’re, they’re hopeless, though. We just, the way we talk about people deconstructing is, it’s the, it’s if they’re already lost. So I think scripture speaks very differently about people who are going astray from the faith. So I just want to look at a few passages with you about what the New Testament says about people who are wandering from the faith. This is from Galatians, chapter six, verses one to two. Paul writes, “If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. And so we are commanded, if somebody’s in a transgression, we are commanded to go and seek them out and seek their restoration. In fact, I think Jesus entices us. He tries to entice us into doing that. Listen to the words of James, James chapter five, verses 19 to 20.

Nicholas McDonald
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover a multitude of sins, it’s like James is saying, don’t you want to be part of this person’s healing? Don’t you want to be part of that story? You could be part of bringing this person back into healing and faith. And finally, what I think is most encouraging of all is the way that the New Testament talks about who Jesus is and what Jesus does, so this is the book of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews is talking about Jesus as our high priest, and the author writes He, Jesus is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since He Himself is subject to weakness. Jesus is competent in this area. It’s kind of what He does. It’s sort of what He does to go after people who have gone astray and bring them back into the fold. And so, when we are in that space, Jesus is present with us, and He is working in our lives. Do you believe that? Okay, it’s true. Second question is going to take a little longer to answer, so I’m going to tell you why we’re asking it. I first started thinking about deconstruction in 2016 This is the year when I first became a college minister at the University of Missouri through Reformed University Fellowship. 2016 rough year to be a pastor, so the first election of Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, Me Too movement, lots of opinions flying around. Here’s what people don’t tell you: lots of conservative students were deconstructing their faith in that moment, but what I don’t hear very often is this: I also was working with lots of students from progressive churches, theologically liberal churches, who were deconstructing their faith during that time, both of them actually had the exact same critique, and it wasn’t as much about their political opinions or the issues of the day, it was that I could just hear from their stories, it was that they were seeing that the generation before them was just as angry as anxious as cynical as judgmental as self-protective and as insecure as anybody else they knew, maybe even more so. I probably worked with more progressive students who made that critique, believe it or not. And what I did for the first couple of years, maybe three years, is I did a poor job working with these students. They would bring to me some of their angst about the church, but they would also bring me lots of questions, classic apologetic questions about is scripture really authoritative, what do we do with the Christian sexual ethic, what do we do with evil in the world and God’s existence, those are all things that I had good answers to, and I answered all of their questions, and I think I did a pretty good job. Like, I would still look back, and I would say, “Yeah, those were good answers to the questions, but I could tell when I was giving those answers to my students, I could see it in their eyes, it just wasn’t landing, and I didn’t know why. Like, that was the right answer. You should be changing, you know, but there just, it just wasn’t landing, and I couldn’t figure out what I was missing, and it really wasn’t until I answered this second question that things started to change for me, and I did start to see many college students become open to the gospel, to orthodoxy, to the authority of scripture, and since then I’m a pastor downtown here in Indianapolis. I’ve seen 20 somethings, people my age, people older, who have turned around and have sought Jesus and have sought faith again. But it really wasn’t until I answered the second question, which is this: Why is it when people talk about deconstructing their faith, when all of my students talked about deconstructing their faith, did they talk about it as though it were something that was happening to them? Why was that? It’s like all of them would say this is happening to me. None of them described it as a choice, none of them described it as a rational decision.

Nicholas McDonald
It was all like getting a hernia or being summoned to jury duty, or finding a mouse in your basement. It was like this thing is happening to me. I don’t know what to do. Deconstruction is happening. My friend Ian Harbor, who has written, I think, one of the unfortunately few very helpful books on deconstruction, called Walking Through Deconstruction, puts it this way, people don’t wake up one day with the conscious thought, I guess I should deconstruct my faith. What’s the healthiest way to do that? The person who is deconstructing did not choose to deconstruct. You don’t make a rational decision to deconstruct your faith. You realize you’re deconstructing after it has already begun, so here’s just a little, a little freebie, a tip. I think one of the least helpful things we do when we talk about deconstructors is we say, well, they’re deconstructing because it’s a fad, they’re deconstructing because it’s a trend, because they saw somebody else doing it, and it’s cool. We say six seven because it’s a trend. We don’t upend everything we hold dear. The framework that’s controlled our life for 20 to 30 years, our hope in life after death, at the risk of alienation and anger and cancelation from our closest friends and family, because it’s trending. We don’t do that because Abraham Piper did it, or because Joshua Harris did it, or because Rhett and Link did it. We don’t do it for that reason. There’s actually a very different reason why I think those voices are resonating with younger people. We’re going to get to that in. Second, and what we have to understand, if we’re going to understand this crowd, is we have to understand the answer to this question. Why, why do they describe it like something that’s happening to them? And here is the answer. And I’m going to use my wife, Brenna, she’s here with me this weekend, and she sort of gave me permission to do this, so we, so Brenna went to Disney World as a high schooler, and she never wants to go back, which is not common, you know. I was homeschooled, I never left my house. I’m still excited to go to Disney World someday. Some of you have been to Disney World, and you still go to Disney World. You’re called Disney Adults. I learned that for.. and if you don’t know that phrase, as soon as I say Disney Adult, I bet somebody comes to mind for you, right? They’re just always inexplicably at Disney World. We don’t know why this is a safe space for you. If that’s you, by the way, it’s fine. It’s cool. You probably could save money going to counseling, but that’s fine. That’s right. Deal with your trauma your way. So it’s great. So this is not Brandon’s story. She didn’t. She does not want to go back to Disney World, and there’s a reason why. Okay, when you go to Disney World, the way you’re supposed to experience Disney World is through the entrance, right? You go through the entrance, you see the beautiful vistas, you smell the delicious smells, you meet the wonderful Disney princesses. That is not the way Brenna experienced Disney World, because she was a show choir girl, and as a show choir girl, you go through the back, and when you go through the back, you see long roads where they’re transporting construction materials, you see large stinky dumpsters, you see lots of plywood that is propping up what is made to appear like a large place, but it’s actually not that big. You see the characters taking smoke breaks, they’ve got ham sandwiches stuck between their teeth, looking at wide-eyed young high school girls like, please don’t talk to me. That was her experience. Now, can you imagine? Do you think she doesn’t want to go to Disney World because she came in with this jaded anti-Disney perspective? No, can you imagine though, if I were to say to her now, Brenda, could you tell me why did you choose to start deconstructing your experience of Disney World. She would look at me like, I don’t.. what are you asking me? I just.. I had an experience, and I saw through it. The experience that I’m describing is an experience called disillusionment.

Nicholas McDonald
And here’s what I realized after pounding my head against the wall with college students for three years, nine times out of 10, I’ll just say 10 times out of 10, the students that I was working with, who were going through a deconstruction process, that process was preceded by an experience of disillusionment, and that’s why they described the whole thing like something that was happening to them. It could have been disillusionment with a leader they trusted, a pastor, a youth pastor, some online voice that they trusted. It could have been disillusionment with an idea, maybe it was given to them in a simple package, and they tried to bring it out into the real world, and they realized, oh, the world is actually more complicated than that, and this idea either needs to grow up or die. And sometimes, and I think this happens much more often than we’re told, people became disillusioned with themselves. I thought, as a Christian, I was going to be like this, and I’m not like that. What do I do now? That experience of disillusionment, I’m telling you, is step one. A legitimate experience of disillusionment is what led to the de legitimate deconstructive criticism of Christianity. Okay, and once I realized that the way I started to work with students totally changed. So, imagine this. Imagine this. Imagine if I said to Brenda, “Hey, I really want to go to Disney World. She said, “I’m not interested, and I became angry and defensive. Don’t you know that Disney World is from the most successful corporations in the world? Don’t you know that they’ve produced movies that delight children all over the world. Don’t you know that if you walk into the park, there’s there’s wonderful food, and Disney princesses and dwarves. I don’t know, I’ve never been. Sorry, are there dwarves? I don’t know. Whatever’s on Disney World, it’s great. Can you imagine if I just angrily defended that institution? What is she going to think immediately? She’s going to think you don’t understand my experience, you’re not interested in understanding my experience. I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust anything you’re. Saying, can you see where we’re going with this? So often, when my students would bring their deconstruction experience to people they loved and trusted, that was the reaction: anger, defensiveness. Let me tell you why you’re wrong, and that caused distrust, and it actually accelerated the process of deconstruction in my students’ lives. Okay, and what I think that is, it’s just a failure of understanding that that deconstruction that’s illegitimate comes from a legitimate experience of disillusionment. So, how could it look different? How did I change the way that I started to talk to students who were deconstructing, and then later on adults. Well, here’s what I realized I had to do. If this was true, if disillusionment preceded deconstruction, then I had to deal with a disillusionment before I could deal with the deconstruction. I had to address before I could get to the head problems, and there was a lot of head problems. I had to talk to them about their heart pain. The pain preceded the problems. Okay, in fact, I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people deconstructing since I’ve written this book. And do you want to know what the number one emotion is attached to deconstruction? I mean, by far the number one emotion attached to people who start to deconstruct, you know what it is, grief. Maybe if they’re much more emotionally intelligent than most people who write me, but it’s terror. They’re terrified. I don’t want to, I don’t want to deconstruct what’s happening, and if someone terrified comes to you with some questions and issues, and you react with anxiety and anger and defensiveness. Do you think they’re going to come back to you? No, they’re gonna say, “Okay, this is not a safe place to process this. There are two things people who are deconstructing need, okay, and I mean both of these things maximally, people. who are deconstructing do need a prophetic word. They need some pushback. They need some correction. Okay, they need to look at the scripture and say, “No, here’s what it says. They need that, but just as much they need a priestly ministry.

Nicholas McDonald
They need a priestly ministry that can meet them in that place of disillusionment with gentleness, with patience, with understanding, saying, “Hey, okay, tell me more about that experience. Oh man, that, that’s really painful. I totally understand how you became disillusioned. I get that. Can’t you just tell how that would change the conversation, and I think that’s exactly what those verses we’re looking at say. They actually include both of those things. Look at Galatians chapter six, verses one to two. It says, if anyone is caught in any transgression, okay, there’s some correction to be done. You’re going on the wrong path. You need to change. You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Word, gentleness is a beautiful Greek word, prous. It’s the description of somebody who is a social inferior. So, what Paul is saying is, if you come to this person who’s deconstructing and going astray, and you come to them in aspirins, a posture of superiority, you come to them with a posture of arrogance, anxiety, anger, they’re not going to listen to you, you need to come to them in a posture of inferiority, gentleness, humbleness, compassion, respect, curiosity. Okay. that other verse we looked at is kind of amazing. It’s describing Jesus, the high priest, and it says, Hebrews chapter five verse two. Why is Jesus such a great high priest to people who are going astray? Because he’s God, yes, because he’s man. Yes, but specifically notice what the author of Hebrews names, it’s because he is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, because he himself was subject to weakness. That’s what makes him so good in the space. He’s able to come to people as though he were their inferior and say, okay, let me meet you where you are, in your weakness and in your pain. Jude, everybody’s favorite New Testament book. Can’t wait for Jude next year at TGC. That’ll be an interesting one. When it talks about those who doubt, it gives us Jude gives us a single command: be merciful to those who doubt. It’s the word for compassion. There’s some some, there’s some prophetic stuff to do there. Okay, you’ve gone astray, you’re ignorant. There’s some teaching to go that goes there, but the prophetic content has to come in a priestly context. We have to meet people in their deconstruction. By first giving them a priestly heart toward their disillusionment, so that they’re ready to hear the prophetic word from Jesus. And once I realized this, it changed the way that I dealt with people deconstructing completely. Once I realized that my students needed a priestly ministry for their disillusionment before they received my prophetic word about their deconstruction rather than beginning with answers to their questions. Even if somebody brought me a question, I might give them a little bit of an answer. Say, when did you start thinking about this? Tell me about that. Whoa, that’s a crazy experience. That sounds really disorienting, and you could just hear, I mean, you just see, okay, all right, and you could just tell. As I started to understand their stories and meet them with that priestly ministry, it was like, instead of just dead eyes at me, it was like, okay, well, what do you have to say about this? You see, the prophetic word had to come in a priestly context. In fact, I made it my goal with every single person I was working with to be able to get to the point where I could say to them, man, if I were you, I’d feel disillusioned too, and mean it. If I went through that experience, I would be totally confused, and if I could say it and I could mean it, then we could have a conversation about the ideas you with me? Okay, I’m gonna tell you one story, and then we’ll come to a close. Here, I’m gonna tell the story of Luke, because his wife is here, and she can verify this. Luke was a college student I met at the University of Missouri. He had deconstructed his more progressive church background, wasn’t really part of the church didn’t have a clear understanding of the gospel. We started a freshman Bible study that Luke came to, and I’m telling you, Luke – Luke is a very social person, he’s good with people.

Nicholas McDonald
My other freshmen are very biblical, very, very biblical, and yeah, yeah, that’s true, and we, so we had our little freshman Bible study, and we went through it for a while, talked about justification and sanctification. Luke started coming to a large group and hearing the preaching of the word and the gospel, and then I, at some point in the semester, I said, guys, it’s super cool that we do a Bible study together, like, really, really cool, but it’s also cool to hang out and be friends. I know that’s a little bit different for you, but, like, let’s.. we could do that, and they’re like, “Where does the Bible say that? You know, like, I could show you. So, alright, so I will coordinate it. You all come to my house, we’ll do a make your own pizza party. So everyone came over, Luke came over as well. He’s like thinking about big questions, doesn’t really have an answer to where he is in faith. And the party at our house went terribly. It was terrible. Nobody was talking to each other. We’re making pizzas. Well, that’s not true. There’s a couple students talking to each other about science for a long time. Yeah, I remember that, and then one guy was in the corner talking to my dog, and Luke was there, he was talking, so I just thought Luke will never become a Christian, his story is over. Well, Luke did actually, in a pretty profound way, like confess faith in Jesus later that year, and he is a lover of the church. He’s actually volunteering in my youth group now, which is super cool. But after his four years, I asked Luke, “Hey, could you tell me, like, what was the thing for you that made you interested in Jesus? And, like, I’m in, and I was thinking, it’s probably a great sermon I preach, it’s probably an apologetic conversation we had is probably that Bible study, and he said, “Hmm, this is a pizza night. I was like, “No, I’m sorry, you misunderstood the question. What made you want to become a Christian? He’s like, “No, legitimately it was that night at your house, and it just felt like, yeah, this is a lot of interesting people here, but, but, like, it was just safe. It was just like you’re just going to be with us wherever we are, you know? Just however long it takes us, no matter how many questions we have. I could just tell it was, it was fine. And it was that moment, of course. There were other sermons where he heard the gospel, but it was that moment that unlocked it for him. The prophetic content had a priestly context. Okay, and this is what deconstructors need. So, why did I write another book on deconstruction? Because all the books that I was reading, and I read all the books on deconstruction, I would not hand any of them to my students, I just wouldn’t. There were the books that I agreed with that were written by evangelicals like me, all prophetic content. Here’s why you’re wrong. Here’s why I’m wrong. Here’s why I’m wrong. And I knew that if I were to hand that to a student, it would send them right out the door. In fact, I was having a conversation with Mark Ryan, who is a professor at Covenant. Seminary, the PCA seminary. He has done over 600 interviews with people who have deconstructed their faith. And when I handed him my manuscript, I said, “Mark, this is a book about deconstruction, and he said, “Oh, I’ve never read a helpful book on deconstruction. It’s like, “Oh, thanks, Mark, perfect. It’s like, I would never – any book I’ve seen a parent or grandparent hand to their student, I would try with all of my might to stop them from handing them that book, because that’s not what they need, and so.. and I found that to be true. In fact, I shouldn’t say that. Okay, I want to say that they weren’t helpful.

Nicholas McDonald
The only other problem was the rest of the books, which were written by people who had abandoned the gospel and abandoned the church, and said, let’s burn it all down, let’s make it all in our image, let’s conform Christianity to our cultural moment, but you know what those books did really well, priestly ministry, I get you, I’ve had that experience, I’ve been there too. So, who do you think all of my students were listening to, the heretics, that’s who they’re listening to. And what I felt like was, who’s the voice that’s going to meet people in their deconstruction, say, “I get that, I’ve had that experience, I understand that, but also to say, “This is not the right path. Trust me, this is not the path you want to go down to the what you are actually looking for is the full gospel, the full church. You are looking for Jesus. Okay, and so that is why I wrote my book. And let me just say one last thing before I get into Q and A. If you are here and you are deconstructing, or you’re somewhere in that process, your story does not have to end with deconstruction, you know why, because Jesus is a really good high priest, and he understands where you’re at, and he knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, and he knows what it’s like to be mistreated, and he knows what it’s like to be abused by leaders, and on the other side of all of that mistreatment and abuse, the cross, there was resurrection, and Jesus has got your story in his hands, and so you can trust him with the place you’re at right now.