San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Mark Karris on deconstructing and reconstructing one’s faith
MARK GREGORY KARRIS: WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, NOTHING IS STATIC; ALL OF LIFE, INCLUDING OUR THEOLOGY, IS FLUID Life happens. Shift happens. Sometimes life changes with or without our gracious consent.
For inquisitive, status-quo-offending folks like me, being in the church has been like staying in a longterm abusive relationship. The problem is I love the girl so much. At least, I think it’s love. Maybe it’s infatuation. Perhaps it’s Stockholm syndrome. I’m not sure. Anyway, I stayed because I had this stubborn hope she would change. I dreamt of being the valiant hero who came along, swept her off her feet, and dramatically transformed her into the stunning princess she was meant to be. Unfortunately, nothing I did seemed to work. Over the years, things just seemed to get worse.
Time after time she abused me. She verbally assaulted me. She tried to control me. She manipulated me. She gaslighted me. She stabbed me in the heart with a rusty and serrated knife. But like a lovesick idiot, I kept coming back. I thought: “Maybe tomorrow it will be different. Maybe tomorrow she’ll love me for who I am, in all my theological quirkiness.” But she didn’t. And after some reflection, I finally came to the realization we needed a break.
After many years of incessant doubts, deep reflections and inner angst, I finally had enough gusto to depart from my passionate lover: the church. The decision to take a momentary break was made in an instant, but the deconstruction process had been going on for a while. For a long time, I felt like I’d been trudging through a murky pond with alien-looking fish taking nips at my legs while I was stepping around jagged, rusty nails on the pond floor. It is never easy to leave behind what you consider to be a part of your identity, and it certainly wasn’t for me.
To be honest, whether we realize it or not, many of us are in the process of deconstruction. I think most spiritual seekers are. Death and deconstruction make up the water in which we all swim. We suffer the cuts of a thousand deconstructive deaths in our lifetime. And it’s from those cuts that reconstruction, transformation and new life can emerge.
Some of us can masterfully deny death’s deconstructive sting by engaging our superb defense mechanisms. And we can keep the cognitive dissonance at bay through denial, rationalization and busyness. But whether we like it or not, nothing is static. Nothing remains the same. All of life, including our theology, is fluid. We are on the roller coaster of life and death, moving swiftly on tracks that are revealed to us only a few feet at a time.
This season of deconstructing and reconstructing one’s faith and questioning one’s religious beliefs can be excruciatingly painful. I know it was for me. It feels like walking on a wobbly waterbed rather than on solid ground. It feels unsafe and dangerous. It feels lonely and isolating. The fear of rejection from God and from others feels suffocating as emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, anger and sadness take center stage. The consequences of such a prismatic array of emotions are sleepless nights, hiding, pretending, unhealthy addictions, isolating, ruminating and engaging in a whole variety of other coping behaviors.
As a licensed therapist and ordained pastor who has gone through the Deconstruction and Reconstruction (D/R) journey, I want to share something:
If you are experiencing a faith shift, you are not a bitter, prodigal son or daughter who chose to take all the beautiful things you learned, along with your rich inheritance of the Christian faith, only to squander it in some big debauched and satanic soirée. Instead, you have come to realize that certain elements of current religious principles, practices, policies and/or attitudes no longer feel congruent with who you are becoming. Life happens. Shift happens. Sometimes life changes with or without our gracious consent.
The D/R journey can be a season of loss, grief and disorientation. It can be a season of visceral emotional experiences, confusing cognitive struggles and ruptured relationships. But listen. This season, if we allow it, can also be a paradoxical springboard into profound growth and transformation! What feels like a disorienting crisis of faith can become a bright light, enabling transformative insight, leading to a new life of congruence and fresh, life-giving connections.
Karris is a licensed marriage and family therapist, adjunct professor, ordained pastor, husband, writer, recording artist and worship leader. He is the author of “Religious Refugees: (De) constructing Toward Spiritual and Emotional Healing.” Karris and his family live in San Diego.