I saw yet another story last week about a Christian “celebrity” who announced his “deconstruction,” meaning leaving Christianity, or in his case, re-defining it. This “Grammy-winning vocalist,” Kevin Max, is a member of “the popular Christian band DC Talk.” He calls himself an “#exvangelical,” which is an obvious slam against Evangelicals. Now as an ex-Evangelical he follows “the Universal Christ,” whatever that means. I have a hunch I know, but you can be sure it’s not the Christ of the Bible. That Christ is so regressive, so uptight about sexuality and just doesn’t fit into 21st century postmodern hipster religion. As you read through the piece, you’ll see something typical of these “deconstructionists,” his disdain for conservative Evangelical Christianity. I couldn’t help thinking as I read it how self-righteous and judgmental this guy is. I also thought that his reasons for “deconstructing” are so cliched that they are an insult to clichés!
I’m going to dissect a bit of his “deconstruction, reconstruction,” as he calls it. He’s done this very publicly, so it’s the least I can do. The piece has lyrics to a song he wrote about this “universal Christ,” and in it he references “all the churches abuse,” (note plural not possessive; there are a lot of them) which is typical of ex-Evangelicals. It’s all those lousy, judgmental conservative Christians that drove them away. Abuse is an awfully strong word, but who knows what that actually means. “Many who are ‘deconstructing’ have spoken out about their experiences getting hurt by people inside the Church.” That’s a bummer, and I wish it didn’t happen, but for some reason these deconstructors never seemed to have gotten the message that the church is full of sinners. Saved sinners, but sinners nonetheless.
You wonder if they’ve ever read the apostolic letters in the New Testament. I’m just finishing up writing through James, and all of his warnings imply that even in the church, sinners sin! Why is it always shocking to deconstructors that sinners act like sinners? Probably because they don’t understand biblical anthropology, meaning what man (anthropos in Greek) is in his nature as a fallen creature. We don’t cease to be fallen just because we’re saved, so it shouldn’t surprise us that people act like what they are, sinners. He clearly doesn’t get this because we learn
Max’s album, Radio Teknika, has a song titled, “Jesus I love you but your followers freak me out.”
If you read the lyrics, they are so pathetically judgmental. But of course it’s okay for people who have rejected Christianity, or are in the process of redefining it like he seems to be, to condemn Christians he doesn’t agree with. This doesn’t mean Christians shouldn’t be different, shouldn’t evidence Christ’s transforming power in how they live their lives, only that Christians aren’t perfect. Duh! Another cliché is that conservative Evangelicals are supposedly afraid of questions, which is in a word not much used anymore, pure calumny. Here’s how he puts that: “When you give in to the fear of ‘Oh my gosh, I’m asking questions.’” He also claims there is a “totalitarian fear that’s constant . . . in a lot of evangelical churches.” To put not too fine a point on it, that is smelly bull dung. And a lie. It’s a caricature of a secular culture that hates Christianity and Christians who take the Bible seriously as God’s authoritative word for life, all of it, and Kevin has bought into it. In my 40 plus years of experience in the Church, Christians are exactly the opposite of this.
Last is, of course, sexuality. We read:
Others have cited their rejection of biblical teaching on sexuality as the reason they are disassociating.
In the lyrics he moans, “What do you think when they picket all the gays?” Who exactly is “they”? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met any Christians who “picket all the gays.” Like I said, pathetic. Biblical sexual morality is very clear, so his problem isn’t with these imaginary Christian gay haters, but with God’s word. This gets to the problem with deconstructors: they want to pick-and-choose the bits of the Bible they like, and those they don’t.
The problem with this approach to God’s word is that it can’t escape being completely arbitrary. If the Bible’s inspiration is not plenary (every word divine), then why should any of it be true and authoritative? Good question. And who decides? Better question. If I or other human beings get to judge what in the Bible is the real deal, why this bit over that, or that over this, how can it be anything but completely arbitrary? Best question! Personally, I see no compelling reason why we should accept any human assessment of what is and is not authoritative in the Bible. That means we would have to accept the authority of that person, or group of people, as to exactly what is authoritative. Why should we do that? The most telling question. We shouldn’t! But deconstructors do, and they think that makes them superior to the narrow-minded bigots who believe we shouldn’t sit in judgment on God’s word, but that it should sit in judgment of us.
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