You Can’t Unhitch if You Were Never Hitched
As heartbreaking as it is, I’m actually not super surprised by the major uptick in faith deconstruction we’ve been seeing. As a man who went down that road up to the very edge of the cliff before coming back (by the grace of God), I now see a deep correlation between how our generation was raised in church and the foundation of faith and practice that was laid for us as kids.
Maybe some of you can resonate with this, but the extent of my Bible knowledge growing up was basically this: Creation happened, Adam and Eve disobeyed, then the flood and Noah’s Ark, Moses and the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho, David and Goliath, Jonah, and then…Jesus. He did some miracles, was crucified, rose again, and then the story is over. We just believe it and go to church. And that was about it.
To me, pretty much all the way through high school and even college, it was all just a group of disconnected stories of amazingly miraculous happenings. Of course it mattered to a degree, but I never actually knew the WHY outside the fact that God was powerful and did stuff. I embraced the Jesus part as far as I understood it relating to my eternity, but I had no idea how it all connected or why it mattered. I battled deep doubt my entire life until my 30’s, and I think this is where so many in my generation have fallen off the wagon.
This is why I believe teachings like Andy Stanley’s unhitching ourselves from the Old Testament is so much more of a poison pill than we realize. To him, the stories of the OT are a cumbersome obstacle for people to get on board with the gospel, but if we aren’t careful, a neutered gospel that is void of God-given context and clarity can in and of itself become a means by which people just do religion. Here’s what I mean:
Even though the gospel alone is the power of God unto salvation, if we aren’t raising people in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord though preaching and teaching the full counsel of God from His Word, “the gospel” can become nothing more than the entry point into a religious community and system. I was in one. I grew up in a Christian school and went to a Christian college. The number of people I saw profess Christ, cry, dance around at revivals, get A’s in Bible classes, and memorize scripture that are now no longer in the faith at all is staggering. How could this happen?
I believe it’s because as we pass down truth to other generations, we make too many assumptions. We assume people will read the Bible. We assume because kids are in youth group that they know the Word. We assume that even though the Gospel is the only thing that matters in terms of salvation, that it’s the only thing that matters at all and so we don’t teach anything else. I believe these are all profound mistakes.
It’s like telling somebody I’m married vs giving somebody the rich history of how we met, how we struggled, and the insurmountable obstacles we faced and overcame together. It gives meaning and richness to the plain fact that we’re married. When you know our story, our marriage is all that much more meaningful. The point of the story is still that we’re married, but how we got there gives life and meaning to the point of the story. Same with the Bible.
God gave us His Word for a reason. The Old Testament - the whole thing - points to Christ. The depths of who God has revealed Himself to be serves to clarify and bring endless flavor to the truth of Christ. Like how people obsess over small details of connection in their favorite movie franchises, the Bible is an absolute MASTER CLASS in the hat-tip, mind-blowing connection that span thousands of years. Without all that, and with an emphasis on just what saves, we lose all the rich color and truth that doesn’t just hold us in a religious system, but actually makes us wise for salvation and brings lifelong assurance and confidence in the true person of Jesus. The whole counsel of God makes the gospel the forefront in all its meaning!
