The second form (‘creative postmodernism’) is far more healthy, and akin to a deconstruct/reconstruct approach. In this scenario, people engage both head and heart, and are influenced by the thoughts, experiences, dialogue and interaction with others. For me, it is this second stream we should be directing fellow spiritual travellers towards, rather than the mire of hard postmodernism.
Helpfully Gallagher identifies three streams of postmodernity: one being ‘radical’ postmodernity, based on a head-driven philosophical search, the second, sociological search and the third, creative postmodernity, (M P Gallagher, Clashing Symbols, 2003, 106).
Two of these approaches are about Deconstruction (A) and one is Reconstruction (B). To get from (A) to (B) is a painful journey, and one that many in the Emerging church have made, are making or are about to make. It is common knowledge that any fundamental shift in the way we go about life will inevitably involve some pain, and is therefore something that requires the support of those around you.
Jamieson points out the importance of helping people to shift from (A) to (B) where possible, which may take years. Without support people can just lose faith or reject Christianity in favour for more “pic-n-mix” approaches. However, it is hoped that most will make it through!! We in Moot are passionate about helping people through this.
Deconstruction Many who have grown up in Christian families with a strong sense of family and traditional forms of church, hit a crisis in their late teen’s/20s in reaction to family or work crisis, or through study. Upon arrival at this scenario they realise that, up to that point, they have had quite simplistic understandings of faith that were dissonant with our contemporary culture of complexity.
Personally, I believe that these experiences are God-led – as we are challenged to go deeper with God, and to move from immature forms of faith to deeper, more mature ones.
Rightly, people begin to question what they believe and why they believe it. The world becomes less black-and-white, and more grey, as solutions are not as simple as they once seemed.
In Post-modernity, a time of cultural shift, these crises can often be experienced as liminal moments - times of inner conflict that can have positive or negative results. As A Jamieson reports, this is the beginning of a process, which relates to Fowler’s Stages of Faith.
The greatest mistake that people in ‘deconstruction mode’ make, is to stop praying. The reasons given for stopping praying are usually some form of objection to the mechanics and purpose of prayer. Rather than persevering with it or finding alternative methods of prayer, it has become the first casualty of deconstruction. The approach to faith turns into an exercise in philosophical truth claims rather than a relationship to the divine. It has always appeared to me the greatest irony, that at the time people most need to be able to turn to relationship with God, they turn away as if faith is some form of consumer choice or philosophical truth. It is neither of these. Faith is about relationship to God, and prayer - which may be silent, it may be doubting, it may feel awkward or any number of different things. But it is nonetheless vital for those who journey through.
Some doubt that they will ever reconstruct, and this is certainly true if they are not praying; people can get so locked into themselves that their image of God becomes an extension of their own egos and superegos. God will never be acceptable in these terms or criteria. Prayer takes you beyond yourself and your limitations; it enables you to listen and encounter the God that is beyond, and not defined by us.
Deconstruction is vital for us to throw off simplistic understandings of God and the purposes of the divine, to get away from the Disney version of Christianity painted into children’s bibles; nice smiley best-friend Jesus. This is not Christianity, and deconstruction held with prayer can help us hear and encounter the real Jesus and the real Godhead. As our friend Pete Rollins would say and Mesiter Erkhart “God rid me of God”, as these inner projections of God are not God and distort our ability to discern the God beyond.
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