Consider this informational.

Deconstructing is the process by which people who have experienced religious persecution and abuse learn to better understand faith, themselves, and God – all to be healthier and happier. It’s about finding peace in the harm caused by God’s people.

People who are deconstructed are unwelcome in ministry and Christian communities.

Why?

Because why would you want the people in your community who prove that what you teach can lead to harm, have learned better, and are willing to be graceful and respectful in their attempts to help others come to a better place? Why would you need this?

Some people see this as “You’re needing them to believe what you do,” and maybe that’s true. Maybe I want them to believe there’s a better way than what they’ve been doing.

But consider that’s not it.

Consider it’s that I need to know my value as a person goes beyond my personal experiences and willingness to speak up against harmful behavior. Maybe it’s more about it’s part of my story, and my story is every bit as valuable as anyone else’s.

Would you say to someone experiencing racism, “You’re just needing them to believe what you do” when they’re crying that they’re being bullied for their skin color or cultural identity? Would you shut down their story because it makes you feel guilty and bad?

I sure hope not. But I know it happens. And it shouldn’t. And it is not acceptable to many people, in many contexts. And people will often be forced to admit they were wrong.

At least the decent ones will admit they were in the wrong for doing this.

But with religion, it seems more accepted. It seems acceptable to guilt the person for asking to have a chance to share their story with you. It’s acceptable to deny them the space to share who they are in favor of “protecting yourself” (not feeling guilty).

You may then go to a counselor and cry that you feel like you are still stuck feeling that you can’t be accepted for your trauma in being religiously persecuted and abused. But she may then respond by saying that you are responding defensively. That could be true.

And maybe I can ask if this was the intent. And maybe she was trying to help me with the issue of, “How do I better handle when my trauma shows up in group settings?”

But also, someone not skilled in handling someone with religious trauma is someone who needs to read this post and learn about deconstruction. Because some people don’t really understand what religious trauma and abuse means, and some people do.

If you think deconstruction was delightful, it was not. It was perhaps then the most painful experience of my life. I had already been raped and had it invalidated by an entire medical system. The experience of rejection from the church was worse.

Deconstructing happened out of force.

It happened because of bad responses.

Bad responses couched in theology and doctrine have always been harmful. Christians refer to apologetics to defend this. I think it misses the point still about why theological doctrine is not perfect. Defending the question, “Why does the church harm people and not care?” with “It’s the church’s job to unapologetically share the Bible” is tone deaf.

Religious spaces are stuck on the fact that the Bible is “God breathed” and refuse to see that maybe there are components that aren’t perfect. Even in how it’s shared.

I pull my linguistics card and literary analysis card out and say, but what about the multiple translations and the way that we often say every book is a different writing style and the fact that these are authored by people, who the Bible also says are fallible and sinful? And that’s not heard. Dare I say, it’s even fought and attacked and ridiculed.

Because I’m a little too accurate.

It’s not that I’m wrong. I am the furtherest from wrong.

The pastors prove my assertion in their response.

I immediately get attacked for being a woman (weird), openly queer (expected), intelligent (so irrelvant), and then for being angry at people for hurting me who were just people (which is true, but dodges my point while also making light of my point).

They wouldn’t be this angry if I were wrong. Trust me on this.

I get the impression that they don’t like the fact that I’m willing to take them up on their offer to hear my concerns. I get the impression that they don’t want to hear that my concerns are valid, and are so bothered by it because it means that perhaps they aren’t doing enough to make their church healthy. I see that they are hurt that they hurt me.

This is because I am the person they want.

I get told this by a lot of leaders. I am the kind of person their church desires.

The girl who openly is friends with addicts and queer people and people who have religious beliefs and convictions that aren’t Christian. They want me in their church.

They love hearing about my love for others transcending the differences.

They want to support the girl in her ministry to love and respect and care about the people rejected by the church. But supporting the girl by allowing her people into her church? That’s too much. That’s almost where they draw the line. It’s easy to love her. But to love her enough to accept her completely and allow her friends in? That’s too far.

The reasons I got into those conversations with pastors were because I was respected and well liked, often because I had strong faith and convictions. My theology was accurate and accepted by many people, even the views that sometimes were a little too extreme. I was respectful. I didn’t tell people they couldn’t disagree. I understood them.

They asked me why I didn’t bring my friends.

I told them why. I gave them accurate and honest details.

I began by stating why my friends were not interested in their church, and how the church was not interested in them. They were listening. They seemed intrigued.

But when they realized I was on the side of the oppressed and not the church, they got mad. How could this faithfu woman have so much negativity toward God’s people? They began pulling away from me when they realized I was asking them to do better.

I deconstructed because of that. (Among many other instances of similar behavior.)

A faith whose main guy (Jesus) spoke up for the oppressed but who hates the oppressed is a faith that I screamed at God for. I cursed at God for months, crying that His church was full of people who loved him but missed his ministry. They loved His Bible but not what was in it, specifically ignoring what Jesus came to say. It was my point of contention.

Deconstructing is the process of making sense of religious people by separating them from religion. It is painful and uncomfortable. I would not wish it on anyone.

It’s the process of figuring out what God means to you and realizing that you are not alone in your struggle to feel accepted by God’s people. It’s the process of figuring out which elements of yourself you stick to and which ones you are okay being a little more quiet in proclaiming. It is beautiful at the end, and painful still sometimes, too.

Because faith often asks us to be someone that we aren’t comfortable being.

Deconstructing is finding out how to be comfortable in our own skin while also maintaining our faith (if we choose). And if you don’t, the church writes you off as being a sinful creature who rejected God, rather than owning that they rejected you first.

It’s painful and awful. It creates intense levels of trauma.

And I would hate to go through it alone.

I would hate to see people who don’t know what that means trying to be kind in their faithfulness accidentally triggering us who have religious abuse in our past. They often mean very well and don’t know what our faith is. Deconstructed faith isn’t lesser.

Often deconstructed faith is bigger. And saying that is scary to many.

It to me it is allowing Jesus to be a member of our church and call out the church itself, as well as the people who are called out. Deconstructing is about fighting the idea that the church is untouchable. We have to deconstruct churches from sovereignty, as the church was created by fallible humans and sinful humans. There are mistakes in ministry.

It is often met with contempt by church leaders.

Church leaders see it as an affront to what Christianity stands for.

They told me, “We see that you are a faithful believer of Jesus, and we are worried that your beliefs [the aforementioned “faithful”] are going to be seen as harmful by other members of the community,” when I asked to volunteer in children’s ministry.

Which is funny to me.

Because wouldn’t you want to protect the people being like Jesus?

But rather, they want to protect people from having their values and worldview challenged and shaken. They don’t want people to see a faithful believer of Jesus Christ teaching their children. Because they don’t want them to get to know her and learn that she’s friends with addicts and queer communities and loves them and wants to make spaces for them to belong. They don’t want others to hear how she sees the likenesses.

Deconstruction is the painful process of learning when it’s ok to step back.

Because not all communities hate open doors.

But the ones who have been religiously abusive scare those of us who aren’t accustomed to being told that who we are is more important than our identity in Christ.

Deconstruction is learning to define religious abuse.

Religious abuse is often when religion is used to control a person’s actions by utilizing scripture, theology, or other means of religion to convince a person that they need to conform or hide themselves. Religious abuse often leads to religious trauma. Religious trauma occurs when a person’s religious experience is stressful, degrading, dangerous, abusive, or damaging. Traumatic religious experiences may harm or threaten to harm someone’s physical, emotional, mental, sexual, or spiritual health and safety.

And sometimes it makes us too hyperaware of the ways it comes up.

To me, it’s being hyperaware of how religious abuse creates a space to and allows people to abuse mentally ill people. I know many of the victim-blaming things said in faith circles.

I know the ways that abusers will use faith language to cover up violence.

I have seen abuse happen in religious contexts and outside of religous contexts.

Not all religious people are abusive. Abusive people who use religion are religiously abusive and their victims become survivors. And often, when they stay in faith, they are deconstructed believers. They have a healthier view. One that allows for flexibility of how to use scripture and when to recommend taking the high road or tough it out.

Some of us have religious trauma because we were victims of abusive systems. They told us that we should expect to be rejected. They told us that it was our job to change and if we didn’t, we should force ourselves to accept being homeless in faith. God would love us, sure, but we’d have to accept that his people never could – and didn’t have to, either.

Deconstructing is calling out how harmful that is.

Deconstructing is calling out that it shouldn’t matter if it’s allowed by doctrine or tradition to denounce specific groups from the faith. It’s more important to allow the faith to include everyone who wants Jesus. Because isn’t the goal to allow everyone in?

Deconstructing is accepting that being more accepting is viewed as seeing the Bible as more cherry-picking than not. People have told me that I cherry-pick too many verses by standing up for offering up alternative commentaries or interpretations, as well as providing socio-cultural context to supplement just the theological background.

To me, deconstruction is making the Bible a living document.

Maybe that’s too hopeful.

And if it’s too hopeful, I’l have hope for enough of us.

Because just like we cannot allow people to be kicked out of a church for not looking like us, we cannot allow people to be kicked out because they are hurting or experiencing life in a different way than we are used to. Deconstruction helped me see that God is so much bigger than just one faith community can allow Him to be. And that’s hard to see.

Because saying we’re deconstructed is scary.

Saying we have been through religious abuse is scary.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s worth telling those who love us.

I wish you all the best in discovering what faith is to you.

And if it’s not this, that’s ok, too.

XOXO,

Dorothy B.