Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1112: Understanding Deconstruction: Dr. Sean McDowell

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Sean McDowell (Ph.D.) is a professor at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology. He's also a speaker, YouTuber, and author of many books including his latest one co-authored with John Marriott, called: Set Adrift: How to Deconstruct What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. In this podcast conversation, we talk about all things related to deconstruction: what it is, why people deconstruct, healthy vs. unhealthy forms of deconstruction, the reasons why people deconstruct, the difference between deconstruction and de-conversion. The Pour Over: https://link.chtbl.com/TPOxTITR

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Theology in the Raw. My guest today is my good friend, the one and only Dr. Sean McDowell. He's been on the show several times. He is a professor of theology at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology. He is a speaker and author of many, many books, I think over 10,000 books, not quite, but seems like it. His most recent book is Set Adrift, Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. And that is the topic of our conversation. We talk about all things related to deconstruction and reconstruction and so on and so forth. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. Sean McDowell. All right. Hey, Sean, welcome back to Theology in Raw. What number is this for you? Is this two or three at least? I think it's at least three. Yeah. All right. All right. You're getting up there. You're getting up there. I think Joey Dodson, I think he's got the title so far. I

think he's been on like six or seven times. Of course, I can reach out. If I'm in a pinch, I'm like short on shows. I'm like, Joey, let's just talk about something because I need a show next week. He's like, all right. I was going to say, when it comes to numbers, I look at YouTube subscribers. I look at Instagram followers. I look at how many times I've been on Preston's show. That's the ranking for me. So thanks for having me back, man. Well, it's great to have you back on. And I was commenting offline that it seems like you are cranking out books right and left, and you have a full-time job teaching, and you're killing it on YouTube. I mean, you are a busy guy, or does it look busier on the outside than it is in real life?

There's moments of craziness, but I delegate a lot and I have a team around me. And that's one thing I've learned from Moses' non-delegation where he's trying to do everything himself. And Jethro's like, dude, spread out the wealth. I've learned to delegate and build a team and focus my time and energy on the things that I love to do. That's good. What's your fate between speaking on a stage, teaching in a classroom, research or writing? Which of those four? They overlap, but is there one that you love more than the rest? I think I'm naturally speaking a better speaker.

And maybe I've just seen my dad his whole life. That didn't take a ton of work on my part, even though I've developed my craft. Teaching in the classroom has taken a lot more work to be an in-class teacher for me. It's different. Right? It's totally different on so many levels. Writing is probably the hardest of the four for me. I look at guys like Lee Strobel and I'm like, wow, they can tell a story and craft a narrative.

I've probably had to work on that more than anything else. I really have enjoyed doing YouTube because I love, like you, I'm literally, I'm curious. I ask questions and it's just, it's fun for me and probably getting more feedback on that than anything else I do. Yeah. You're killing it. You have great guests, great conversations. I love the diversity of guests too. You're not afraid to have on a wide range of different people. Do you have one? And we'll get into your... I'm excited to talk about deconstruction, but do you have any that stand out as one of the most interesting conversations or did you ever have a conversation that really went sideways? Well, those are two different questions. I've had a conversation that really went sideways or like, well, those are two different questions.

I've had a couple of conversations that I didn't post because they didn't go as I wanted them to. And I honestly, when I was done was like, thank Lord this wasn't live. And either that was for them or it was for me. So I'll never post those. I'll never mention who those are, but there's been some that have went South. I've taken a few down that I did live that I later looked back and thought I just didn't do a good job vetting and prepping. And, you know, once you start doing a public ministry, you can have impact, but you make mistakes publicly. It's inevitable and you just own it. And it's a separate issue, but I've seen you do that well and admire how you deal with just decisions that we make in different realms. And you got to take a step back.

As far as the most interesting conversation, that is the easiest question anybody has ever asked me in my life. I'm dead serious. I interviewed my dad and I just asked him stories about his life because Preston, I consider my dad a modern day apostle Paul. There are certain things he's seen and experienced that I feel like nobody else on the planet experiences and sees things. And I'm telling you, it's crazy. I get emotional thinking about it, but I see God's hand on my dad's life. And some of these stories, even one quick one is when he was in college at Talbot,

this must've been the nineties. His mom had died years before and was in Santa Monica, literally praying, God, I just have to know if my mom was saved or not. And somebody walks up to him and thinks he's going to jump and commit suicide, which he wasn't even thinking about. And it turns out this person knows my dad's mom from Michigan 50 years earlier, whatever it was, went forward at a crusade to accept Jesus. I mean, crazy, supernatural stuff like that. So I interviewed him and the stories that he shares, really I just did it for my kids and myself, were just amazing. So hands down, that's my favorite. Stories you hadn't heard before?

Some I had heard and some I had. So I had heard that story before, but I knew my kids and grandkids hadn't. So I wanted it recorded. But he also shared some other stories I simply had not heard before. Interesting. Wow. Oh, that's so cool, man. That's awesome.

All right. Let's talk about deconstruction. Your latest book, Set Adrift, Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. You co-wrote this with John Marriott. You were telling me offline that John's done a ton of just like a lot of the data, data research in this topic. I know you probably have done some of that as well, but also you just interact with so many different people. You probably have just loads of experience in talking to people who have deconstructed, are deconstructing, deconstructed and reconstructed, or should have deconstructed and didn't, you know, the whole wide range. I guess let's start, what led you to want to write or co-write this book? Well, in some ways, this is really the book that I wish I could give my younger self.

We all have that kind of book where people say, Preston, 25 years ago, maybe you're in college or whatever. What do you wish you knew? You know now, you wish you knew then kind of thing. And in some ways, that's what this book represents. So it's always been in the back of my mind that I wanted to pass on a guide to young Christians, teens and 20s, trying to make sense of their faith, maybe going through doubt, maybe going through deconstruction. Of course, we have to define what we mean by that. And John approached me and he's written five books on either deconversion or deconstruction. And for about seven years, has studied this academically, kind of from the top down. He's done the deep dive on this and

published some findings. But he's also from the bottom up, like me, just had endless conversations, either when I was speaking or students at Biola, and my own experience, feel like I could weigh into this. So that was really, when he approached me, I literally had to think about it for five minutes and was like, that's a book I want to write. Did you wait, did you have a time when you deconstructed or were toying with it? And I guess we do also need to define what we mean by that term. So I would not have used that term in the 90s because in the 90s, deconstruction meant Derridian postmodern deconstruction where you dismantle a text and you basically show that there's no authority behind it

and it can lead to a kind of relativism. That's one sense of deconstruction. And if I had used that term in the 90s, at least anybody who knew what it was would have been like, why are you into postmodern thinking? So I wouldn't have used the term, but certainly this is, it must've been 95. I think I was, it was my sophomore year. And so I got on the internet and I'm fishing around. This is pre-Google, but it's the first time you could really kind of search, at least that I remember searching blogs. And I don't know, maybe I searched my dad's name or something. And the kind of skeptical, infidel web articles popped up. And I've since learned that a lot of the original kind of atheist movement online began by responding to my dad's book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. doctors and lawyers and historians, really smart people going chapter by chapter through that book. And somehow I came across that and pressed it. I'm sitting in my dorm room at Biola and it rocked me. It was really the first time I remember thinking,

wow, I could be wrong about this. I mean, I know it sounds shallow. I didn't ever word it this way, but if somebody had said, why aren't you a Christian? My response might've been as deep or why is someone not a Christian as deep as, well, they just haven't read my dad's book. That's probably the simplistic level of faith that I had. And all of a sudden I'm sitting there, but in college, you're also, you're away from home. You're trying to build your own identity. There's an emotional component to this. to build your own identity. There's an emotional component to this. And it really unsettled me. And so I first had to answer the question, did I think Christianity was true? And I didn't read all my dad's stuff. This is where people like William Lane Craig and JP Moreland, who fortunately were at Biola at the time, at least JP was, and Craig was heading that direction at Talbot,

really just answered some of the questions on a deeper, sophisticated level that I will forever be indebted to them. But I also had a resident director and his name was, and still is Rob Lone. And he was really, his focus was like spiritual maturity, the spiritual journey. He would read Henry Nowen and Brendan Manning and these kind of guys. And rather than responding apologetically to me, he just listened. He'd say, tell your story. How'd you come to those beliefs? What would happen relationally if you didn't believe this? Why is this creating so much anxiety for you? What do you think faithfulness looks like?

Do you relate to the older son or the younger son of the prodigal son? He just asked me questions, gave me space to wrestle, gave me permission to not feel like I had it all figured out. And you could say just guided me through the season. And so I needed the intellect and I needed the answers apologetically. And I just needed somebody to guide me and not say, Sean, you have to believe all these particular unique doctrines, theologically, politically, historically, to be a Christian, but just kind of broaden my horizons. And I think of the data out of Sticky Faith that says people don't leave because of doubt. They leave because of unexpressed doubt. And for me, as I look back on my journey again, I needed truthful answers, but I also just

needed space to express those doubts and to have somebody come alongside me and journey with me. And so I've written a lot of those apologetic books. This is not an apologetic book. This is us. The metaphor set adrift is somebody who set adrift out on a paddleboard, and then the fog settles in. All of a sudden, they can't see the shore. It's like, how do I get back? In some ways, that's how I felt. It was an unsettling season for me. I thank God that there were answers that Christianity is true, but I thank God for this person who journeyed alongside of me and gave me space to own and work out my faith. You said people don't deconstruct because of doubt, but unexpressed doubt. Can you expand

on that? That really strikes me as accurate. Is there data behind that? Yeah. So let me really carefully phrase the way. I didn't say people don't deconstruct. I said people don't... And we haven't even defined those terms yet, which is fine. I said, people don't leave the faith primarily or solely because of doubt, but because of unexpressed doubt. Now, this is a statement that comes from chap Clark and Kara Powell in their research on sticky faith, which was uniquely on millennials. But I think that's not generation-based. I think that's wider. So minimally what this tells us is

when people have doubts, we've got to answer their questions. We've got to address truth. But a lot of it is like in my own life, I think about it. Do I have models of people who follow Jesus, but have questions and don't have it all figured out and embrace the fact that life is not black and white? Do I have those models? Because you know this and I do. A lot of people who deconstruct to the point of deconversion come from a background of just fundamentalism and certainty, and there's no space for doubt. of just fundamentalism and certainty, and there's no space for doubt. So those kind of examples were just so valuable for me. Let's define deconstruction then. Good idea. Yeah. Okay. So there is some pushback on this and there's people who have let me know that they don't think we should define deconstruction the way that we define it in the book, which is fine. This is a live debate. But one sense of deconstruction is kind of a critical deconstruction

that basically says anything that has to do with an evangelical form of Christianity, by its very nature, needs to be shed. It's a negative, critical approach that more often than not leads to deconversion. That's a kind of deconstruction the way we are tearing down, breaking down Christianity. That's not how we use it. We actually use it in the book and cite Michael Kruger, who has a super helpful article on this. He kind of talks about like a negative, critical deconstructionruction and then what he calls reforming deconstruction. That's actually the adjective that he uses. And we refer to that in the book where he says that kind of reforming is where you look at the faith you've been

inherited and you break down parts that are secondary or culturally based or not essential or not true. You analyze, you disassemble, and you build up a faith more deeply rooted in the person of Jesus as expressed in scripture. So that's what we mean by deconstruction. You could really say it's reforming deconstruction. And part of the difficulty is some people hear deconstruction and they just make it synonymous with deconversion. Deconstruction means deconversion. It means solely critique. But there's many people in my conversations, and I could point towards some public figures, even people as conservative as Michael Kruger, who say, no, this is a kind of reforming deconstruction where D is breaking down, but construct is to build back up. So this book is written not to answer the question, is Christianity true? I say in the first chapter, this is not an apologetics book. So if you know my ministry and you expect an apologetics book, you're going to end up giving me a one-star rating on Amazon and critiquing the

book that I didn't write. This is a book to help people. That would never happen, Sean. That never happens on Amazon reviews. People critiquing a book they either haven't read or critiquing a book that they wish you had written. That makes sense. I, you know, so I, I, I have not read the literature on this topic. So I know there's probably a lot more people who have really engaged on a more philosophical, socio political, even level. Um, for me, whenever people I've never, I've always taken the term as very neutral. Like, what do you think about deconstruction? I'm like, well, if you deconstruct from things that aren't true, then that's great. We should all deconstruct from things we believe that aren't simply true.

And when it comes to our faith, all faith is contextualized. We have a certain upbringing we bring to the table, certain cultural things that are intermingled in our faith, traditions that may or may not be biblical. And so we all should, we used to use the phrase, weed out all the stuff that may not be biblical and so we all should we see the user phrase you know weed out all the stuff that's not actually biblical yeah so deconstruct from you know and i think that this i mean we're in the american context so we you know we often go there but i would say any kind of cultural context is going to require the same kind of thing but in our context yeah i think there is a lot of, you know, Americanism, tradition, whatever cultural, political stuff that has been intertwined with our faith that I think is very healthy to weed out. Some of it might be neutral, where it's not good or bad.

And other things might be more on the side of idolatrous that are actually, you know, we're holding to two competing values, you know, whatever those, those might be. So we often, when I taught at eternity Bible college, we often, we even said, this is before kind of the word deconstruction was really popular, but we would say our first year is designed to deconstruct you. And then years two, two to four is to reconstruct you on what the text actually says, you know? So the first year students come in kind of knowing everything, and then we would just push them to, well, can you defend that from scripture? Give us chapter and verse. And most of the time, they're kind of saying, well, no, this is just true. I'm like, well, if you can't justify it from scripture, then it may or may not be true, actually. The way you're using the term is very similar to the way we use it in the book.

Okay. So here's how we define it. We say, when we use the term deconstruction in a positive way in this book, we mean the following, a process of analysis that Christians who want to follow Jesus engage in because they doubt the faith they've received is the fully refined good that God intends and are seeking to sift out the dross and keep what is most precious. So it's very much in line with what you described there. Now, my co-author is actually from Canada, which is really interesting because people outside the States will see certain things culturally and even politically that sometimes

American evangelicals swim in and don't see. So that made for a very interesting dynamic. But I think one of the things that gives people pause with the way we use it is there's a difference between a professor saying, I want to deconstruct your beliefs, meaning you're bringing some assumptions that are not rooted in scripture, and I want to help you align them with scripture versus some professors and stories we hear of my former students who've gone to evangelical schools and have their students intentionally read books by people of the Jesus Seminar, not to kind of expand their horizon, but to shed their evangelical

conservative views intentionally with kind of an agenda-driven approach, that's what gives people pause, understandably so. And that's not what we're advocating for in this book. I think it would be true that the most popular kind of use... When people think deconstruction, they think of somebody who, like you said, raised very fundamentalist, very conservative, and they kind of start asking hard questions. People say, stop asking those questions, or they start reading books by more left-leaning, maybe Bible scholars and realize that these kind of conservative beliefs that they grew up with aren't the only way to read the scripture. And then they become more,

it just becomes this kind of frustrated journey to where a lot of things they took for granted they see are either debated or not true. Maybe throw in some politics there that they get tired of how right-wing politics are integrated with Christianity. And then they end up kind of deconstructing from what would be considered classic evangelical expressions of Christianity to maybe more, for lack of better terms, progressive forms of Christianity. Oftentimes they don't always stay there. It does kind of drift to more of spiritual but not religious kind of thing or just full on no more faith. Some I know stay in kind of the progressive world for a while. Would that be a kind of a very common narrative? And I guess my other kind of follow-up or sub-question is, it seems so rare that somebody who deconstructed from, well, it seems so common, let me put it positively, so common, so common

that it makes me a little curious that somebody was raised in a very conservative, strict, fundamentalist kind of right-wing only kind of background. And that was the beginning of their deconstruction. I don't know personally anybody, but I'm sure they exist, you know, somebody who was raised in a very healthy, moderate, you know, mixed political church environment, you know, maybe there's some ethnic diversity. They're allowed to ask hard questions. And maybe they still have traditional views on marriage or whatever. They take a more conservative theological stance, but it's not strictly like a fundamentalist environment. It would be what I would consider a very healthy, humble, evangelical environment. I don't know too many people who have deconstructed from

that kind of environment. I'm sure they, I mean, again, I'm just saying personally. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that strict fundamentalist environment seems to almost always be the source of that kind of trajectory of deconstruction. Am I off there? Or is that... So one distinction I would make is between deconstruction and then deconversion. Sometimes deconstruction results in deconversion. Many times it doesn't. And so we're writing this book and we say a few things. We're like, here's some guardrails to help you. We talk about having a healthy faith, a biblical faith, a truthful faith rooted in Jesus being

God, who's Lord of your life and the creeds. Like these are the guardrails that we give. But we say there's a range of ways to live out this kind of faith more diverse than you might realize. I mean, from Calvary Chapel to Anglicans are within the evangelical fold and everywhere in between, et cetera. And so partly what we're doing is trying to expand people's horizons because sometimes when somebody's deconstructing, they don't like a certain version of the faith or they have a bad experience in the faith, they completely chuck the faith. So one response is to give an

apologetic faith response, which again, I'm not giving here. The other is to say, okay, there's other ways to look at this. There's other options to faithfully follow Jesus. Now, I was just in New Zealand recently, and interestingly enough, one of my hosts there told me about a family member who kind of deconstructed to the right. Now, I don't know whether his family was healthy or not, but it kind of moved into certain conspiracy kind of theories. And again, this probably isn't a fair description of the right, because you see him on the right and the left, but went kind of against the larger cultural narrative that you're describing and went to a more maybe fundamentalist kind of position.

That happens sometimes, but the larger narrative is that people have some kind of tension within Scripture. Oftentimes, it's about sexuality. It's questions about the goodness of God. It's the behavior of Christians, and it starts moving what we might say in a leftward kinder of trajectory. And the question, of course, is what do you do with that? How do we respond? Some lead to deconversion.

Others say, okay, I've got to take these questions seriously and reassemble a biblical Jesus-focused faith. What can the church do differently? That's a big question. That's a big, you know, the church, but what can churches, Christians, mentors, leaders, people do differently to prevent people from deconstructing in what I would consider an unhealthy way? Again, challenge of presuppositions, we're reformed and always reforming that kind of deconstruction we said that, you know, we did at the Bible college, I think is a good thing. There's also maybe unhealthy environments that we've created that do foster maybe a more, again, a more unhealthy form of

deconstruction. What can the church do differently? Is it a matter of these unexpressed doubts? Should we allow people more space to express doubts and not be fearful of that? Are we tightening the theological laces a little too tightly on people's shoes sometimes? Or yeah, what are your thoughts? Well, so I love this question, and I guess I would say a couple things. I am first and foremost an apologist, and I was giving a talk just a couple weeks ago on the reliability of Scripture. Sometimes apologists want to be persuasive, so they make the strongest possible case that they can, but leave out certain questions and areas of doubt, things we don't know. So I make a case for the reliability and textual transmission in the New Testament, but say, look,

there's some passages, John 7, 53 through 8, 11, the end of Mark, 1 John 5, 7, Jesus sweating in the garden in Luke, that we really don't know if they're in the original. These are legitimate questions. They don't undermine our confidence in the scriptures as a whole. But when we don't present that and act as if the Bible floated down from heaven in King James English, we're clearly going to set people up for failure and disappointment. Like, you know, I was just responding to Instagram to this guy who's like, he's basically saying, you know, I grew up in the church and was told that Darwin is evil and Darwin's an idiot. Well, if you're told that, you know, like me, I don't buy the Darwinian narrative, neo-Darwinian narrative, but there's

some really smart people that do. And there are some pieces of biology that give me pause that make me think, well, that's in favor of that position, certain things in genetics, even though I'm not convinced by it. We need to present our case in a way that I think is honest and not be afraid of the facts. And I'm trying to do that better. The other thing is we just have to have healthy churches. I mean, time and time again, Preston, it's amazing when I listen to people's stories and just hear them out. There's so often brokenness and there's church hurt and there's so often brokenness and there's church hurt and there's spiritual abuse and there's hypocrisy that unhealthiness at the church i don't know if i could say drives most of it but drives an awful lot of it that it's just having healthy relationships in the churches and that's the

church structure that's the dynamic of power that is not jockeying for position and making it about me or somebody else. That means just kind of living out the Christian faith. And third thing is what you said is Gary Habermas, who again, an apologist, but he's written books on doubt. It's like, you can kind of say you're wrestling with anything in the church, but you say you have doubts and people freak out. And just like in people's minds, I was asked a question by a teacher this past week that said, amidst the challenges today, how do we have the certainty that Christianity is true? And I mean, I hear that all the time.

And as graciously as I could, I said, you can't. Don't equate knowledge with certainty and don't equate doubt with unbelief. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is unbelief. That's why the apostles believed and had doubt. That's why Jude 1.22 says, have mercy on those who doubt. Even things like calling Thomas a doubter. He's not a doubter. Thomas didn't say, well, I'm not really sure. I don't know.

He said, I won't believe. He flat out rejected it. So we're equating doubt with fully rejecting something. And we don't give space for people. So if I could say three things, I would say give space for doubt and questions. Don't be afraid of it. Invite it. Don't feel like you've got to give an instant answer. And this is hard for me because my daughter gave me a mug that says, I don't need Google. My dad knows everything. And it was a fun little jab, like, ha ha ha and i was like okay i get it like i can be that

guy i have to watch that resist giving quick answers listen give space for doubt build healthy churches and make a case truthfully but don't overstate it nothing fully prevents somebody from deconstructing to deconversion. But that's often the thing that's missing. Now, I guess one last thing I would say is I'll tell you, I think this is really interesting. When I talk to a lot of people who have deconstructed to deconversion, I'll ask them not, why did you leave? But tell me the story of when you became a Christian. Tell me the story of when you knew you were a sinner and you cried out to God for his grace. And Preston, I'm telling you, it's the exception when somebody has an experience of God's grace.

Wow. So we've got to preach. Oh, yeah, which tells me, and I'm not going to name names, but a whole lot of profiled people I've had conversations with. Oh, I didn't have an experience of grace, but I knew God was real in nature. I experienced him at a concert. Well, that's not what it means to experience God. We have this over-emotionalism and evangelicalism that when people don't feel on fire for God, they just reject it. Whereas the basis of the Christian faith is experiencing God's grace personally. I have good theology and perfect answers, but I don't know that I really own my faith until I had a real awareness of, holy cow, I haven't done the big sins, but I am worse than a lot of people who do because I think

I'm better than them. I was the older son, not the prodigal son. So that component of grace is the heart of the Christian faith that amazes them. And I could talk about this forever. I think we miss, we put people on stage in churches who are charismatic and likable and talk to students and teach good theology who have never had an experience of grace, and I find that out by simply asking them. With regard to the difference between somebody who deconstructed but is still within

some form of Christianity versus somebody who deconstructed but is still within some form of Christianity versus somebody who completely deconverted? Is one more common than the other? Or is it, do you see, is it hard to kind of... Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. You know, earlier you said, how are people using the term deconstruction? I saw one poll that was like, most people, the majority don't even know what it is. I mean, even a good chunk of pastors aren't really, they're not reading all the books on this and following the nuances. They know kids are questioning their faith. They've heard profile stories, but I don't think most people really understood what is

meant by it anyways. Now, how many go through a period of deconstruction and leave and how many come back? I can't answer that, but I'll tell you, John, John Marriott, my co-host, he said in many ways, I'm sorry, my co-host, I'm seeing this thing here as if I'm leading this YouTube conversation. Sorry if I step in and start leading it. He gave an analogy, my co-author, where he, the way you cut a log, the angle going in is going to determine the entire angle and the way it comes out. And a lot of how a deconstruction process ends is the heart desire and attitude and approach

even going into it, which is settled long before the person starts to actually question their faith. Hey friends, Preston here. I just received the coolest message from a Theology in the Raw listener and I wanted to share it with you. Take a listen to this. I'm Ashlyn and I'm a Theology in the Raw listener. I was listening to a podcast and heard Preston talk a little bit about when you're in ministry and you're teaching scripture, the importance of biblical languages. And I felt really compelled by that. I've always been interested in biblical languages. And I tell my students all the time, like context is key. And so much of that lies within the biblical

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to pick up on it because it is so practical. So if you have been wondering if you should learn the biblical languages, if that's something that you would benefit from, the answer is yes. You will always benefit from gathering more context into the scriptures that shape the entirety of our life and our belief system. And it's not as complicated as I think we can make it out to be or as daunting as we make it out to be. The way that the teachers teach and the way that the class is oriented, the way that the homework is, is it's very practical. It's very digestible. And it's little by little. It's fun, you know, whenever you actually get to see progress so soon, the way that it's wired is

you're not waiting months upon months upon months to grasp a language because this isn't something that you're learning to speak or write necessarily. You're reading and understanding and recognizing. It's a lot more practical than it may come across and it's definitely worth it. You should definitely check it out. It's been a really great decision for me. It's so awesome when we get to bring to you the theology in the raw family resources that actually make a big impact in your life. And Kairos Classroom has quickly become

one of those resources that I hope you'll check out by visiting www.kairosclassroom.com. And don't forget to use our special code TITR. That's kairosclassroom.com with the code TITR. This episode is sponsored by The Pour Over Podcast. Oh my word, I love The Pour Over Podcast. It is a trustworthy news resource guiding people toward eternal hope. It's not Republican, it's not Democrat, it's not conservative, it's not liberal. Instead, it is a Christ-centered summary of the major events going on in politics and in culture. Like most of you, I am so tired of news outlets that are so clearly biased toward the right or to the left.

I want to stay informed with what's going on, but I hate how traditional news outlets shape my heart and try to win me to a certain side. I mean, if you don't believe me, just ask yourself this question. After listening to, say, I don't know, CNN or Fox News for like 30 minutes, am I less or more or more motivated to love my neighbor and my enemy? If the answer is less, then Houston, we have a huge problem, a discipleship problem. This is why I'm so excited about the Pour Over podcast. Each episode is only about seven minutes long, and they just tell you about what's going on in the world. They don't tell you how to interpret the various events or how you should feel about what's going on. Instead, they just let you know

about the facts of what's going on while reminding listeners that our ultimate identity and hope is in Jesus Christ. I've even met some of the people at the Pour Over, and they are super awesome. They're not some like closeted liberal or closeted conservative think tank. They're truly, genuinely just trying to keep us informed while staying focused on Christ. So don't let traditional media outlets steal your affection away from loving people who might vote differently than you. Instead, check out and subscribe to The Pour Over podcast in your favorite podcast app. and subscribe to the Pour Over podcast in your favorite podcast app. Do you feel like you can spot somebody who's deconstructing early on by the tone of their questions, by their emotions, maybe the frustrations they're feeling with their faith?

Like right now, if you went in to a youth group and you just sat in the back and kind of like watched how people interacted or even like a, you know, I mean, you're out of college. So, I mean, I can just make it more real. I mean, in your college, can you tell the kind of student where like, I don't, the manner in which they're going about processing their faith doesn't seem particularly healthy, or maybe they're not in a healthy environment that's going to help them process that. Is that something you can spot early on? And what are some of those, I guess, early signs you might see? Well, you frame that question with you, and that could be general or me.

One thing my wife and I laugh about is she'll observe something in someone else. I'm like, no, you're crazy. And then 99% of the time, she's right. So I'm not the best observer in that sense. I just miss stuff, whatever it is. And so maybe she has this women's intuition or maybe it's personality thing, but there are certain things that are red flags to me. So I think if I see a certain context in which there's just an over-emotionalism, like, are you on fire for Jesus? And I'm on fire for Jesus. That gives me pause because I think, well, I love that your passions are there, but if you're equating following Jesus with a level of emotional fervor, that's dangerous when that fervor is gone. So that's one piece. When I hear people talking about faith with such certainty

and confidence and no room for doubt, assuming you're not talking about a junior hire who just sees life that way anyways, you believe in evolution, you're an idiot. This is how junior hires because of their brain formation maybe sees the world. I think a level of certainty that people talk about things. Honestly, there was the biggest study that I'm aware of a faith transmission. This is by Vern Bengston, who is a sociologist at USC. And they studied for 35 years, 3,500 people, four generations. And they asked the question, statistically speaking, what's the most significant factor in faith transmission? Not just Christianity, any faith transmission.

And you know what it was? A quote, warm relationship with the Father, statistically. A warm relationship with the Father. So for me, when I see relational brokenness, that's a very good sign, not guarantee, but a red flag, so to speak, that that might raise some issues for the person down the line in terms of their faith. What do you mean by warm? I think I can probably guess, but can you tease that out just a little bit? Yeah. So just to hear a sociologist use that kind of term is awesome,

but it just means intimate. Like intimate and close. There's affection that's there. It's not transactional. So the two-parent family matters, but they didn't say it's just somebody with a two parent family. So that is important. They said in the study that divorce rocks a kid's faith. But if I had a choice

for a young person, a warm, loving relationship with a father or a two parent home in which it's lacking, I would take the warm relationship. And this is not saying the mother's unimportant. It's just the mother is more likely to be there. And the father's more of a wild card, I think statistically than the mom is. Is there any connection with God as father that might play into that as well? I think there is. This is a little harder to prove, but I think Paul Witts in his study, The Faith of the Fatherless, a psychologist, I think Paul Witts in his study, The Faith of the Fatherless, a psychologist, he lays this out. He looked at a lot of the classical great atheists, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Camus, Freud, and said that they almost all have something in common, which is a dead, distant, or harsh father. And the point is that we tend to project our earthly father onto our heavenly father. And honestly,

Preston, it's crazy. When I was in college, I didn't realize this, but I really associated what it meant to be a real follower of Jesus with the example of my dad. And it took reading Brennan Manning. I was sitting in the Eagle's nest at Biola and he, and in one of his books, I can't remember if it was the ragamuffin golf gospel. It's been like 25 years. He just said, you know, spiritual maturity looks different for different people. And I laugh at that. I'm like, that's so obvious, but I stopped and I was like, wait a minute. I'm associated. I mean, my dad is so passionate. He's so larger than life. He's motivated. Like I was beating myself up for not having that level of passion. And it was freeing to just say, oh my goodness, God has

wired me differently. The question is what are my unique giftings and my personality? What does it look like to follow the Lord amidst that? that was a very, very freeing thing. So it's hard to prove. I've asked atheists this question, some of them just reject the faith of the Fatherless. So I don't know that that can be proven, but I think it's a very fair question. It's a natural inference that we do tend to project our earthly fathers onto our heavenly Father. And minimally, Christian or not, we should reflect upon that connection. I'm glad you brought up the piece of kind of the dangers of hyper-emotionalism, or not just hyper-emotionalism, but when that becomes part of the foundation of one's faith,

this kind of high energy, high emotion that is just chemically unsustainable. It's similar to marriage, right? If a marriage rests on the chemicals running through your brain, the dopamine you get from the falling in love feeling that physically can't sustain for, what is it, more than, what is it, I'm just saying, like two and a half years or something, or don't call me on that. I heard that it's just this emotionalism that if that becomes the foundation, in and of itself, it's not bad. We're emotional beings. But if that becomes a foundation, then I'm going into marriage because of these emotions

will lead to when these emotions are gone, I need to leave the marriage, which is a big problem. But we see that in the faith too. When the essence of their faith is this high energy, this kind of camp high, that's really dangerous. I see that quite often. I'm interested on a theological level. Are there certain common theological themes that come up in the deconstruction conversation. Obviously, sexuality is going to be there. One that I often or frequently encounter, I don't know if it'd be number one, it probably wouldn't be number one, but would be certain views of science in the Bible. I've met just a lot of people that when they were told that, not that young earth creationism is the best reading of the Bible, is the position we take as a church, is where we end up landing.

But when they're told that if you believe in the Bible and you love Jesus, you will believe in this doctrine, when it's equated with spiritual authority means young earth creationism. And then if they're more scientifically minded or they go take a college class and all of a sudden they're, you know, that. And I've seen people actually come back when they realize that you can be a Christian, believe the Bible, love Jesus, and believe in more of some kind of old earth or whatever, you know. Do you see that one come up much? Or is that kind of more, that might be more of an older? I don you know. Do you see that one come up much or is that kind of more, that might be more of an older, I don't know. Yeah, do you see that one come up and is the sexuality question, is that always kind of number one? Oh, that sexuality is huge because young people are feeling this tension between cultural values and what seemed to be a very clear biblical case that you and I have talked about for hours.

So that's a big one. And we talk about that some in the book. The way we frame it is we say there are theological issues at times, could be the trinity or predestination. There's moral issues, which tend to be big, genocide, slavery, misogyny in the Bible, the treatment of women, slavery, misogyny in the Bible, the treatment of women, those come up a lot. Hell is a huge question. And there's also logical questions. Are there contradictions in the Bible? So yes, there's a range of questions, but one of the biggest things I try to do is there's a proverb, I'm thinking maybe it's 20 verse five, but like you said earlier, don't quote me on that. That says the purposes in a man's heart are deep and a man or a person of wisdom draws it out. One of the things that I found is people will raise certain objections, but when you probe more deeply underneath it, something else is

really at play. And so I've had kids on the issue of LGBTQ. You know, one guy asked me, is homosexuality the worst sin since it's abomination? Well, no surprise. His eyes questions. He was wrestling with his own same sex attraction had never told me about what root that's a theological question, but that's a relational question. I had another friend who asked me, you know who asked me about hell. How can you enjoy hell when you have a loved one? I'm sorry, how can you enjoy heaven when you have a loved one? Let me definitely get this one right.

How can you enjoy heaven when you have a loved one in hell? Well, that's a theological question. But he was thinking about his father who died, as far as he knows, continued to reject God. I had a young person pressing me one time about, about, you know, God just not appearing. And as I listened to him in his life, it was just, there really was clear examples of pride and not wanting to follow Christianity, even if it were true. So yes, questions come up like you're talking about. And sometimes it is that question, but often that question is highlighting or drawing out something deeper that's relational. Sometimes it's moral. Sometimes

it's theological. That's what I want to try to get to the heart of the issue. So for me, I had the apologist answer the questions theologically and philosophically. But then I had my friend Rob, like we try to do in the book, come alongside us and say, okay, how is this affecting you relationally? So for me, when I was looking at questions about my faith, I'm like, wow, would this affect my relationship with my family? Would this affect my career? And those are all a part of going through a deconstruction process. And we miss this. We miss this by launching into responding theologically to these issues

and not realizing that a deconstruction process, whether it leads to deconversion or not, deconstruction process, whether it leads to deconversion or not, it can be painful. It can be hurtful. It can feel lonely for people. And so that emotional, relational, gracious response is as important as anything. That's huge, man. I was going to jump in and say, yeah, behind most, most, almost all, most theological hangups, there's something more personal. There's something beneath the surface that's, I don't want to say that the theological hangup is a mask, like as if it's not a real hangup, but it's just typically not the main issue. It's rooted in something deeper, typically. There was one student we had, yeah, going back to my, you know, at the Attorney Bible College, I don't know if this isn't going to be a good PR, but it is what it is. In our attempt to deconstruct and reconstruct, in most cases, it totally worked.

It was great. By the third year, fourth year, these students, when you ask them their beliefs, the confidence of their beliefs was rooted in how well they can immediately say, here's biblically why I believe this. So most of the time it worked, but we lost a few, you know, there's a few that just flat out deconstructed. And our one student, he was one of the more zealous ones, very smart. And by the second year, I think he fully deconverted. And for him, we spent a lot of time with him. Great kid, too. I mean, before and after, he was a great kid before and after. He was a really great... And I was looking for, all right, how much weed are you smoking?

Who are you sleeping with? And he really had the same almost moral impulse. It was strictly intellectual. I hung out with him for like 10 hours one day and it was you know pro because it was this high you know like there's got to be something to you and for him they're actually as far as i could tell wasn't but that's i say that because that that's really seems to be the exception like the the exception that proves the rule um what about politics are you seeing more of that like i know some people that it has been the, and I, you know, I just such a, it's such a cliche, but you kind of the post Trump world where they saw, you know, kind of somewhat of a disgust of kind of far right wing politics or, you know, maybe Trump in particular.

you know, maybe Trump in particular, and Christians who are kind of wrapped up in that or hunkering down or becoming more committed to a certain political viewpoint. And that seemed to be really challenging to their faith, or at least it caused them to really have just a disdain for evangelicalism. Do you experience that? Do you have any thoughts on that? Is that not, maybe as, is it common or not as common as it may seem? Yeah. John's research would show that that pops up pretty frequently. Okay. And I also hear that a lot in conversations, see it in writing. In fact, I was just reading a book by John Ward called Testimony. And he was a Washington Post and other journalist writing and was just growing up.

And I remember cracking more of a fundamentalist background, but very disillusioned with the church and politics. And so, yeah, this is a big, complex question. Now, the hard part about writing this book is I don't critique or support political candidates. I don't. Lee Strobel doesn't. William Lane Craig doesn't. My father doesn't. And I've taken some heat for that, but I'm an apologist and I'm an evangelist. And that topic doesn't interest me as much. I'm not an expert as much in that.

And frankly, the moment you give political positions, a lot of people are just going to write you off and not hear what the message is. It's not your lane. It's not my lane. That's the best way to put it. So we, in the book, talk about how the rights commitment to Trump has turned off a lot of people. And how do we address this? Now, one way is to say, well, Trump got it right. And you have to support him. This is what a Christian political engagement looks like. And there's some people who

hold that view. We didn't take that approach in the book. We say political issues matter, and you need to think about how your faith applies to them. But there's political idolatry on both sides. There's hypocrisy on both sides. And how we vote is downstream from the larger canopy of the Christian faith that even includes people like the Amish who don't even vote, but they're within the larger Christian framework. So our response to this was kind of saying, if you are looking at the

Christian faith and you're upset by a certain political position, number one, maybe understand where some are coming from and why, because there's a lot of straw men about the positions of people who vote for Trump that come from the narrative and misunderstandings. That's actually real important. I don't hear a lot of people trying to charitably understand they just demonize. Or second, the Christian faith is big and it's not a political party. And the first question is, who is Jesus? Do I love him? And then I can get to what it looks like to engage things politically, which the broad Christian church has been debating for 2000 years. And it's been a vital, but an in-house kind of issue. So yes, I hear that. I get it. And I think we need to process that with this generation to separate positions certain people hold from what maybe Jesus really taught and the range of options for political engagement that Christians can have. With that said, I'm not saying all political views. I'm not being a relativist. I'm just saying within the Christian framework, there's a lot of ways to look at this.

within the Christian framework, there's a lot of ways to look at this. Yeah. It's sad when I see that kind of deconstruction happen and they were so turned off by this kind of right-wing allegiance and Trump and all this stuff. But then I see them just go and do the same thing, only now they're on the left wing. just go and do the same thing only now they're on the left wing you know and it's like it's just oh man you're you're doing the same thing just on a different side now rather than maybe having a healthier view of the church's relationship to national politics as a whole not one of complete disinterest or like none of it matters but one where your christian identity is a political identity that the kingdom of god is in a sense competing with the other kingdoms of of the world um it's just it's hard because so much of the rhetoric too is just the way just algorithms

are rigged and how media bias and or you know how the the sources that we are using to determine our political beliefs are designed to get you to hate the other side. They don't want your vote. They want your heart. And we've seen this in the social dilemma and other whatever, but the whole, I don't want to say the whole system's rigged, but there's so many layers and layers and layers to that whole political

back and forth that I'm just like, let's just step back. Let's take a 30,000 foot level at this whole thing and let's see how just our discipleship, let alone our humanity can just become so easily co-opted by this kind of polarized back and forth.

But anyway, that's a little bit off the topic. But I'm also curious. I don't know if this was in your book or in the data you saw. Are there certain personality types that lend themselves to either deconstruction or deconversion? Or on the flip side, personality types that would be much harder to deconstruct. I'm thinking like, I don't know how you feel about the Enneagram, but like, is an Enneagram five more likely to deconstruct than Enneagram eight or something? I don't even know if that's a question people have ever asked before.

I'm just curious about it. Well, I'm not a huge fan of the Enneagram, but that's a separate conversation. So just whatever personality types in general. I've got to be careful in my lane with this because I'm not a psychologist. I haven't probed into the depths of personality types. I heard you just quoting on one of your other podcasts, this book, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. I've been reading that and he argues that there's, he argues a much more biologically deterministic, although he wouldn't use that word, he leaves room for culture and family even stronger than I would. Barely. Barely. Barely. You're right. His chapter on kids there was like, wow. I agree. It brought me back because I think sometimes we can overly emphasize it's all

about the family you raised in. It's all about the relationship with the father. Well, statistically, that's significant as we saw, but there are certain personalities. So my instinct is just to say yes. I think there's reasons that certain personalities are drawn to certain political parties. I think that's the case. You know, even Prager's like, you know, Dennis Prager said one of the differences broadly between, say, the left and the right and say conservatives and liberals is conservatives tend to focus on justice. Conservatives tend to focus on justice. Liberals tend to focus on compassion. Well, you need both. So if you're wired one way more so than the other, you might be inclined more towards a political party. So I think yes, but I haven't seen a deep dive on deconstruction towards deconversion.

I mean, in my own case, I'm a natural doubter. I just question things. I always have. I've always asked questions. I want to go further. I love the Apostle Thomas. He's like, give me proof. phase and really kind of maybe deconverted for a few months in his life, didn't know what he believed and came back when studying the resurrection, he's got this built-in questioning kind of drive about him. And yet someone like William Lane Craig, a little bit of different temperament, doesn't even seem to have any doubts. So I think maybe there is a certain temperament or spiritual gifting that weighs into this, but I'm not expert enough to tell you how much is biology, how much is family and culture. I can't answer that. Yeah.

And either way, I think it couldn't be a standalone because one personality type raised in a very healthy family, loving, healthy church environment, a warm father would be different than that same personality type in a different environment. So loving, healthy church environment, a warm father would be different than that same personality type in a different environment. So it couldn't be reduced to that. I just think it's, yeah, it'd be, I think, I think that often doesn't come up in a lot of the questions we ask. I mean, I've been thinking about this with like, you know, I get the question. I know you do too. Like, could somebody who is gay flourish living a single life? And again, I don't, you know, people say, well, do you think all gay people should be so? No. I mean, I think there's

one sexual ethic for all people, celibacy and singleness, faithfulness to your spouse and marriage. And that's, that's given to all people. So there's no like specific, you must live this way. Um, like all gay people must live single, but, but a lot of gay people I know that believe in a traditional sexual ethic do choose that route. Um, and I, you know, the pushback I sometimes hear is, well, for some people it's just not possible, you know, like how can somebody, and I, I, you know, I know for some that, you know, people committed to celibacy, it's incredibly challenging. For others, I mean, life's challenging, so I don't want to say it's easy for anybody.

But I mean, for others, it's like, gosh, they're happier than most married people I know. But a lot of it, it's interesting. Some of it kind of is personality types that come in too. Yeah. Or even people that struggle with mental health issues, anxiety, depression, or really battle suicide, suicidality. And so, you know, I don't know the, the non Enneagram equivalent to like an Enneagram four, but like whatever personality type that is, however you want to categorize it, there's just a, there's just this like ongoing battle with,

with just darkness, dark thoughts, dark. And I've been around people in that category and it's just like their mind just works on a level that's just categorically different from somebody who's just a natural born optimist through their... Steven Pinker would say, yeah, there's... But these... I don't know. So here would be my two cents. I think pinker's right that there's certain he calls five characteristics that are completely built into our dna so to speak so that might be whether you're introvert or extrovert i don't think that can change agreeable or disagreeable i think this is written into although can be affected by our environment,

you know, Jordan Peterson would talk about these are built into the kind of beings that we are. Now, if men as a whole tend to be more disagreeable and women are more agreeable as a whole, not in every case, I agree with you, by the way, when you characterize differences between males and females tend to be larger segments of a population, but not black and white every case. And that's true of the agreeability and disagreeability. Then would you see more males if disagreeability is what causes somebody to deconstruct and question their belief than females. I don't have data on that, but there are so many PhD or dissertations somebody could do to decipher some of these things.

So when you mentioned the issue of somebody who's single and celibate, well, maybe, I don't have data on this, but maybe somebody who's introverted, who doesn't need as much relational time, will find that easier than somebody who's extroverted and needs more relational time. I would suspect that there's a connection that's there. Can't prove it, but I would like to see somebody do this data. But you're right. When somebody's deconstructing their faith, a piece of it could just be, deconstructing their faith, a piece of it could just be, what's your temperament? Do you question and doubt other things? Is it unique just to this?

Those kinds of questions can be freeing for somebody. Because for me, Preston, I saw, it's crazy. I have a friend of mine who just has the gift of faith. He was losing his job and he's like, God is going to provide. I'm like, how do you know? Maybe God wants you to suffer. Give me some proof. You don't know. And he just looks at job and he's like, God is going to provide. I'm like, how do you know? Maybe God wants you to suffer. Like, give me some proof. You don't know. And he just looks at me and he's like, Sean, God will provide. And part of me is like, dang, why don't I have that faith? But I realized the way I'm wired as a questioner and a doubter, he doesn't write 300 page doctoral dissertations. He doesn't write 700 books called evidence that demands verdicts.

So my doubt drives me to ask questions. And when people have affirmed that within me, it makes it so much easier to deal with the kind of questioning nature that I have. It just completely shifted my way of thinking where somebody who's just wired towards agreeability, wired towards maybe the gift of faith doesn't even go through that season. Not better or worse, just different. One more question. Is it more males than females deconstructing? Do you have data on that? I feel like that'd be pretty easy to... At some point, you should bring her... I won't tell you what you should do. You could consider bringing John Marriott on because he has done the deep dive on the data here and

could walk through the studies. And that would be super interesting to know. If you do that, that's when I would tune into for sure. Yeah. Anecdotally, I was about to say more men, I don't know. But men more men may come to us than women right that's the stuff you gotta like i don't know there's that and there's also other so many other factors like when women would experience some level of maybe well for sure sexual abuse but also other kinds of abuse maybe at the hands of a male leader you know like so there's all kinds of other male female factors that would be kind of hard to categorize. But I love the, what I'm hearing at the end of the day to kind of bring it home is, I mean, when we think about people who are deconstructing, somebody in their life who's going through this,

or if you're going through this, you know, that, uh, to really kind of interact with this person on a case by case, like what, what are the unique things that they are going through? The unique stories that they're bringing to their faith,

you know? Um, yeah. Rather than having like a one size fits all, you know, like some people, well, they're deconstructing cause I just want to,

you know, live like the devil and live it up and they don't, you know, that might be someone's story, but it might not be somebody else's story. Here's what I'll quickly say. I think we err if we make it cookie cutter, but we also err if we say every story is completely unique. Well, there are some common threads. We're grown up in a common culture that has certain ethical views that come into tension with scripture. And of course, that might be on sexuality, that might be on things like inclusiveness. So there are some unique things to every individual,

but there also are some common threads that we tend to see as people deconstruct. Throughout history, this is nothing new. I've been reading 1 Timothy and Paul talks about, you know, hymenaeus, you know, they bail on the faith in terms of deconversion. So this is, there's some common threads historically, but I think also some common threads in the unique cultural moment in which we find ourselves. Thanks, Sean, for being on the show. The book is Set Adrift, Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith, co-authored with John Marriott. Thanks, Sean, for your friendship, most of all, but also it's great to have you as a partner in crime in the kingdom of God, interacting with so many similar topics.

So thanks for what you do, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, my friend. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hello, friends. I want to let you know about a couple of events that I'm hosting on the LGBTQ conversation in Santa Clarita and then again in San Diego in California. The Santa Clarita event is October 16th and 17th. And the San Diego event is October 19th and 20th. These are two different events. One is an evening conversation where we sort of introduce the LGBTQ conversation, and then the following day in both cities, we do a full day training for church leaders, again, on the LGBTQ conversation. We dig into theology, relationships,

pastoral ministry questions. We hear testimonies from various people. It's a time when we can come together and think deeply, love widely, dig into both truth and grace in what has become some of the most pressing questions facing the church today. To find out more about these two events, you can go to centerforfaith.com, go to the events link, and you can find all the info there. Again, October 16th to the 17th in Santa Clarita, and then the 19th and 20th in San Diego. If you cannot make it out to California, or if you don't live anywhere near these cities, you can also stream these events live online. Again, centerforfaith.com.