Deconstruction

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

Deconstruction is what it sounds like: taking apart a faith to examine the pieces. Someone raised in — usually — evangelical Christianity begins to question what they were taught: about the Bible, about hell, about who's in and who's out, about sexuality and gender, about politics, about the leaders they trusted. The questions may be triggered by a scandal, by an experience of harm, by learning something in college, by a friend, by a pandemic, or by nothing in particular. The process is slow and often painful; it can take years. It ends in different places: some people leave Christianity; some move to a different tradition (Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, mainline, progressive); some rebuild a version of the faith they had, with the parts that broke removed — that's often called "reconstruction."

"Exvangelical" names those who've left evangelicalism specifically, whatever else they've kept. It's an identity and a community, largely online, and it doesn't mean "ex-Christian" — many exvangelicals are still believers.

Why people say it

People use the word because they need a name for a process that used to happen in silence and shame and now happens in podcasts and group chats. It says: I'm not just drifting, I'm working; I'm not rejecting God, I'm rejecting things that were handed to me as God. Critics inside evangelicalism worry the word dignifies a slide toward unbelief; defenders point out that every honest faith gets examined, that the Psalms are full of it, and that the alternative — never questioning — is how the harm got in.

How to respond

If someone tells you they're deconstructing, they've told you something vulnerable; the wrong responses are alarm, argument, and Bible verses. The right ones are "what's been coming up for you?" and "I'm here." If you're a Christian and a friend is deconstructing, resist the urge to fix it; stay in relationship, be honest about your own questions, and let them set the pace — people remember who stayed. If you're the one deconstructing, know that you're not alone, that the questions are allowed, that some people who asked them found a faith worth keeping and some didn't, and that either way, honesty is not the sin.

If you hear it in different churches

The word belongs to evangelical and non-denominational circles, because that's mostly who's deconstructing and who's writing about it. Catholics and Orthodox have their own vocabulary — "lapsed," "questioning," "reverting" — and their own patterns of leaving and returning, and both traditions have received many exvangelicals looking for something older. Mainline Protestant churches have received others. Reformed and conservative evangelical leaders have written extensively in response, some sympathetic, some sharp. It's a live conversation everywhere Christians are.

Where does “Deconstruction” come from?

The Psalms of lament, Job's protest, and the father's "I believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24) are the biblical warrant for honest doubt, and Christians have always had crises of faith. The word "deconstruction" was borrowed from the philosopher Jacques Derrida and applied to faith in evangelical circles in the 2010s; the hashtag #exvangelical was coined in 2016. High-profile departures — Joshua Harris (2019), the worship leader Marty Sampson (2019), and others — and the abuse scandals, political alignments, and purity-culture reckonings of the 2010s–2020s made deconstruction a named movement. Books, podcasts, and evangelical responses have multiplied since.

Good to know

You might also hear

Common questions