“Rebuilding Faith After Deconstruction: Finding God Again” Ep#39

In this episode, we dive into the exhaustion of "merit-based" religion—the constant, uphill climb of building mountains of rules and achievements to prove our worth. We explore the idea that while these structures feel significant, they often become barriers to the very truth we’re seeking. Real spiritual growth isn't about reaching the summit of a religious peak; it’s about having the courage to leave the mountain of merit behind and finally step onto the authentic path waiting for you in the valley.

This episode of “Spiritual Hot Sauce” by Chris Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  

Transcript

Chris Jones 0:07

Welcome. I'm Chris Jones. This is Spiritual Hot Sauce. I don't know if you caught the episode with John Williamson, the host from The Deconstructionist, but we did an episode called Finding God After Religion, and it was a very rich conversation where John shared what he has found after 10 years of not only hosting the podcast, but deep diving in his own faith, challenging himself. Now there was something John said on the episode that has stuck with me ever since he said it. And he said that all of us start on square one. That is the beginning of our faith. And the whole idea is to progress to square two, square three, square four, basically saying that we evolve, we grow, and our faith matures. But if we get stuck in square one and we never move on and we never evolve, and our faith doesn't grow in the way that it should, once we get to a point in life where we are challenging it, it requires what he called deconstruction, which is disassembling our religion so we can get on with our path of whatever that looks like for us in our personal spiritual growth. Well, that stuck with me, like I said, and I've been pondering this and I've come up with some ideas that I want to share with you. And I want to make absolutely clear, these are my thoughts that came from John's square one, square two, and square three. In no way am I implying these are his ideas. So, why do we get stuck on square one? How does this happen? And why is it so prevalent? Why do so many people find themselves having to go through a deconstruction? And why have so many people been traumatized by their experience? These are things I want to dive into today. And when I'm done, I would love to hear back from you of what you think. Am I right? Am I wrong? Do you have insight that I should share? I want to help us. This is about us. And I'm not the one coming down from the mountain. I'm just one of all of us. And I am just exploring, and I'm just wanting you to go with me and let's share ideas as we go through this. So I think a really good place for us to start is kind of here. You've heard me talk about often that the church is not the destination. I don't think it was ever supposed to be the destination. I think it's more about how we come together in community to encourage one another and comfort one another. That's what it's for. I think that's what it's always been for. But when you start making it the destination, it starts changing things. It starts getting in a kind of a weird place. And I think the first thing that happens when you do that, we kind of raise up this image or an idea of God of how we all should see God. And it becomes very one-dimensional. And then we all have to kind of conform to that in that religion. Now, I'm not saying that that's wrong. I think it is ideal that we have a community idea of God and how we serve one another in that community. But I think where our growth is and our progression, like John talked about in steps one, two, three, and four, is outside of that community and how we see God three-dimensionally. You know, this makes me think about the relationship that the disciples had with Jesus. They didn't have a one-dimensional idea or view of Jesus. They all seen Jesus differently. Their personal experience was different. I think when they were together as the 12, there was this imagery or idea they saw of Jesus. But outside of their community individually, they all had different paths. When you think about Peter, Peter was constantly being challenged by Jesus, pretty hard. But that was his path. That's how he grew. Step one, two, three, and four was through this challenging relationship that he had with Jesus, but it got him to the destination. Now, when I think about John the beloved and the relationship he had, he had a very loving, nurturing relationship with Jesus. But that's the relationship he needed. That was his one, two, three, and four, and it got him to his destination. Now, if Jesus would have treated John like he treated Peter, he would have traumatized John. There's no way he could take that kind of challenge. And if Jesus would have treated Peter like he treated John, then Peter would have never grown. He would have just been growing and conforming in a religion or an idea of just trying to get there. It wouldn't have been the right fit for Peter. Now, again, what I want you to hear is John and Peter had the same destination. These aren't two different places they're going to. Their paths of how they got to that destination look very different. Our paths will all look, I think, very differently from one another, but we're going to the same place. And one of the things that stands out to me anyway about how Jesus dealt with the disciples is there's no threat. This isn't about threat. This is about nurturing of however they need to be nurtured. They're all nurtured differently. And this isn't to say that Jesus didn't get rough with them because there's times he did, but it was out of love. It wasn't to threaten to get them to change. And I guess what I mean by that is there's no threat of hell or eternal torment that if you don't get this right, then you'll be eternally tormented. And for those people who believe in eternal torment, I'm not even saying that you shouldn't or you should or anything like that. All I'm saying is Jesus didn't use it to grow or teach. This is all supposed to be out of love. So even if, even if that was true, why we use it is the primary reason to move and shake and sculpt and change people in their faith is a very weird thing to me. Jesus didn't do it. Jesus taught love. His ministry was love. That's what he was about. And he taught his disciples throughout however he did it, through their nurturing, to get them to the place where they could love like he loved. I mean, ultimately, I think that's what it is, is that we continue and carry on Jesus' ministry. And now I think as we come together in community and we see that God in that one-dimensional way, that's very threatening, that it's an or else situation, our religion starts feeling different. Our growth starts looking different. I mean, it starts feeling like we have to earn our way to God. It starts looking like that mountain I talk about that we create to God. And what I mean by creating a mountain, instead of being encouraged to keep moving on our path of whatever that looks like, we start building this mountain on square one. We just keep piling on top of it in a merit-based religion, that in a community that comes together in that way, then a hierarchy is created within the community. And when you create the hierarchy, then you create the idea that there are people that are more important, and that we all should aspire to be like those more important people and earn our way up the mountain to God, which means nobody is on their path. If you know me, you know that I really like James. And I did a deep dive on James chapter one, and I did four segments, the most amount of time I've ever given to any subject. And there's one thing that I really came away with after deep diving James, and that is this. That James had the same posture as Jesus. That although he is the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem, ground zero for Christianity, there is not a hierarchy in it. That James gets down in the ditch with us and gives us insight and help in dealing with suffering in this life, trying to help us out of the ditch and get to a better place. And keep in mind, James could have sat at the top of the mountain on a throne, but chose to be in the ditch with everyone else as a servant. That James presents religion as something that is there to serve us, have a better life, and help us help others have a better life. And I in no way am trying to tell you you absolutely have to see it like I do. But for me, I come away thinking that the idea of creating a hierarchy to God, that one-dimensional God that doesn't allow for the personal relationship, is a very pharasidical one. That's how the Second Temple operated, which created this idea that we need to serve the religion. So I think for me, the reason why we're seeing deconstruction happening is because so many people were taught through culture and community and the church itself that our community is the destination, that by becoming more religious and more indoctrinated and that belief and that denomination, that we are earning our way up the mountain, which kept us on square one growing in a very awkward way. And the other part of this is why is this so prevalent? Now, again, this is just my opinion. This is just me observing what I see, and this is what I have concluded. You don't have to see it like me. This is just food for thought. But something that I have noticed and something I've observed is that we have taken our political ideology and infused it into our faith on both the left and the right side. And some people that are deconstructing are still taking that with them and reconstructing in a very politicized way. And I don't think that leads to a better place. I think we have to figure out how to unlatch our faith from our politics. And I'm not trying to imply that you shouldn't be involved with politics. But from my perspective, and this is just my thinking, when I read Jesus' teachings, and then I put in context who Jesus was speaking to, these people were expecting Jesus to raise up and be this political figure that destroyed their enemy, which was Rome, because they were occupied by Rome, who was horrific. But they was expecting Jesus to become very political. He said, My kingdom isn't here, but the kingdom is within us, that we become the antidote to this poison that is within humanity. That Jesus was saying essentially, I haven't come to create a social construct. I have come to bring a virtue construct that will come through you that serves everyone. And through that we can make this a better place. You know, and I think about what Paul said to Timothy when he said, don't get involved with local things. In other words, don't get involved with politics and the things that go on here. We answer to a higher power, that we are here on a mission of mercy. Our whole job is to fulfill the ministry of Christ and go out and love and help those people that are hurting, not make enemies out of God. We are not here to set a flag for the kingdom of God here on earth. We are here to manifest the kingdom of God through us in this love for everyone. I'm going to use myself as an example. There is things that my faith requires me to do. I have to do them because I feel like it's important. There's other things that I'm not allowed to do because equally as important, it helps me get to a better place. None of what I believe in my faith should impact you. This isn't about me telling you how you need to believe and trying to infuse it into politics. That when I do that, I am getting out of my chair, my placement of just trying to serve how I need to serve. I because I see it as this is what Jesus has given me to do. This is not what Jesus has given for me to do, and then tell you, now you need to do it too. That we sometimes get out of our seat and we get into a seat that doesn't belong to us. And then from that seat, we start commanding and demanding that other people change their behavior and we want the landscape to become more like I want it to be. And now what we have is two political parties that are claiming God and claiming the other side doesn't know God, and don't call yourself a Christian if you both sides are doing it. That's why I say our political ideology and our faith should be separated. Anytime the church can be manipulated into pushing a political agenda, we're in the wrong place. We're here to help people and love people, not through politics, not by creating a different kind of kingdom that we live in. Not that we shouldn't vote, but how we behave and interact with those people in our lives and on social media. I want you to know that no matter what your political beliefs are, I love you. And I want to give one little final bit of food for thought as we leave this subject on this part. Napoleon said, and this is a paraphrase, that without religion we'll have nothing to keep the poor from killing the rich. That historically those who are in power and those who want power have manipulated the religious to get us to behave in the way they want us to. And that's to serve their power. So if I've said something today on this podcast that you really liked, that jumped out to you, what I would like for you to do is go deep dive it yourself. Go read it, go give it time, get one-on-one with God and get into this and figure out how you believe and read it. Don't go listen to a bunch of videos and let that shape how you believe. The last thing we need is a sound bite theology. And what we need is a relationship theology that speaks to us because that's our path. And my path isn't necessarily your path, but our destinations are the same. Guys, thank you so much for allowing me to do this. And I hope what I say benefits you. If there's something you would like me to know or have a question, then email me at spiritualhotsauce at gmail.com. And please remember to follow the show and share the show. And to quote my good friend H.L. Hussmann Remember, it's not me. It's we. We'll dig in next week.