God After Deconstruction by Thomas Jay Oord and Tripp Fuller

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This is a review on the book titled God After Deconstruction by Thomas Jay Oord and Tripp Fuller. 

This review will focus on chapter 1: Causes of Deconstruction and chapter 2: Certainty Crumbles.

The impressions you gather from this review are not intended to deter you from reading the book. I only want to paint a picture of what you should expect. I encourage everyone to still read the book to inform me of any potential mistakes I have made.

Who is Thomas Jay Oord?

Author Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian and philosopher, directing the Center for Open and Relational Theology. Thomas experienced his deconstruction of faith during his days of attending university, a place where many reportedly experience the death of their faith. His pivotal time was prompted by the mandatory engagement with writings from “atheists, agnostics, and sages from other faith traditions” (page 7). His intuitive perceptions about love and the philosophical bedrock of existence led him to a universal source, which compelled him to identify it as God. 

Who is Tripp Fuller?

Tripp Fuller was raised by a Baptist preacher in the South where “it was customary for Baptists to argue about the possibility for women to be clergy, debate the veracity of evolution, and insist that God the Father poured his wrath out on Jesus for our behalf.” His peers’ leading perspective on God during his university attendance contradicted the endearing Jesus he already knew. He was influenced by authors such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Walter Rauschenbusch. His deconstruction was most aggravated by the Church’s “cry for war and retribution” in response to 9/11 (page 8). 

Targeted Audience

Oord and Fuller are writing to anyone whose faith is haunted or destroyed by intellectual doubts, inexplicable evil, church trauma, self-contradictions in the Biblical text, science-deniers, right-wing politics, and LGBTQ+ rights-violations, among other things. 

Chapter 1

At the beginning of chapter 1, Oord and Fuller tell the story of Gary who was “born with ambiguous genitals.” I want to explore what that means, since the book does not elaborate. 

Ambiguous genitalia occurs when a newborn’s outer sexual organs do not fit into a clear description of either male or female. This uncommon developmental disorder can involve an enlarged clitoris resembling a penis, a conjoined labia resembling a scrotum, or the urethral exit point for urine located along, above or beneath the clitoral surface. This disorder can result from a disruption in the baby’s process of inheriting X and Y chromosomes from the parents. See more about it here. 

Oord and Fuller report that Gary’s genetic tests showed he had neither XX nor XY chromosomes. His parents decided to raise him as a boy and hoped that he would accept their decision once he became old enough to make his own decision. 

It is said that he acted like most boys and enjoyed baseball but felt more like a woman in his puberty stages. Hormone testing revealed his levels to resemble female levels. Gary faced unexpected rejection from his church community when he embraced his intersex identity. He was mocked by an uncle who said, “I always knew you were a pussy!” After identifying as Jeannie instead of Gary, Jeannie’s faith deconstructed and was deeply impacted by the loss of her church community and family. 

No citation for that story is available in the book, making me think that maybe Oord and Fuller interviewed Jeannie instead of finding it online or in another book.  

This harrowing story sets the tone for the rest of the book, well, for me, at least. It throws me back into those moments when I had that heart-stopping, paralyzing feeling that my only escape from my faith crisis is to give up believing.

But for Oord and Fuller, apostasy will not give us greater hope. Neither will “conventional theologies.” There must be alternatives to thinking about God and life, and the answer is open and relational theology. The following can be found on Oord’s website: 

“Open and relational thinkers believe God gives and receives in relation to creation. That’s relational. Both God and creatures experientially move into an open future. That’s open. They also stress issues related to God’s love and presence in the universe. And so on.”

In addressing the topic of deconstruction, they define it as the critical investigation of traditional beliefs “about God, the Church, ourselves, and life” with the potential of rejecting those beliefs (page 14). The authors want to ensure we do not confuse this with the deconstruction methods of Jacques Derrida’s 1960’s analysis of language and logic in literary texts. I define deconstruction as a temporary limbo state that could either lead to apostasy or back to God, but the underlying desire and main goal is to heal from toxic beliefs. 

For me, that prompts the question: are traditional Christian beliefs inherently toxic or do they become toxic when weaponized? 

A Detour About Traditional Beliefs

In light of how postmodernism and progressive theology has forced us to realize the subjectivity and flexibility of human interpretation, there is no rule that says we must stick to the ironclad interpretation that traditional theologies must go the way of the dinosaur. We can adjust our interpretations without losing the core elements of our traditional theologies. Therefore, I firmly stand on these fundamentals: 1) mankind's sins and flaws reveal his need for a Savior, 2) Jesus Christ died and resurrected to redeem us of our sins, and 3) the God of the Bible is seeking a relationship with His created humanity.

It has taken me many years to realize that statements affirming Jesus' divinity, in of themselves, do not harm me. If I feel any disgust toward them, I attribute that to the influences of naturalism and the misbehaviors of Christians while promoting those statements. If those statements make me think they are inherently toxic, perhaps I am misled by my perception of the conventional images surrounding them. Whatever the case, my personal interpretation shapes my emotional outcome. How I treat myself and others as a reaction to those statements of faith is a result of how I organized the information in my own brain. The assumption that the statements, in of themselves, have a fixed and predetermined quality/outcome is an assumption undercutting postmodernism’s core claim that no inherent meaning lives inside words. And, in that respect, postmodernism defeats itself in its war against the New Testament's claims on the supernatural.

Deconstructors at Risk

Oord and Fuller report that those who deconstruct are at risk of ostracism from the communities they call home. Those who express doubts are at risk of being labeled “backsliders.” I accept that fact. I have witnessed it in my state of Pennsylvania.

The Bible belt of southeastern and south-central United States has insufficient support groups for helping these doubters wrestle with God and life (page 15). 

Church attendance and belief in God have been on a steady decline every year since the early 2000s, according to the statistics mentioned by Oord and Fuller. Deconstruction is haunting the United States, the UK, and other places. This seems consistent with the idea that the economic prosperity of industrialized nations tend to correlate with apostasy and unbelief, while people of undeveloped nations lean on religious faith to cope with the uncertainties of their economic hardships. Those who are “religiously unaffiliated” now outnumber evangelicals and Catholics (pages 9 & 10). 

Deconstruction can happen to anyone of any demographic, age, sex, gender, ethnicity, race, or economic status. Though the church is a dying institution, people are still holding onto some form of spirituality (pages 10 & 11). 

Chapter 2

My deconstruction story is very similar to Sarah’s in chapter 2. She was raised in a church environment where she said and did all the right things before going to college and encountering people of diverse backgrounds who made her realize the extreme vulnerability of her faith. There, she read the literature she was forbidden to read, which sowed the seeds of intellectual doubt (pages 25 & 26).  

Deconstruction does not always need to be prompted by a tragedy, moral failure, public disgrace, significant political event, peer persuasion, or insincerity from other believers. It can be simply prompted by an intellect that is starved of the evidence it needs for supporting what has been taught (page 26). That was my experience in a prosperous Pennsylvania town during my twenties. It was a long and lonely road returning to the faith in 2022.

Oord and Fuller are apparently familiar with something I have witnessed too many times in faith communities: a person’s deconstruction can be advanced when he/she encounters too many holier-than-thou insiders who appear to have their lives straightened out while offering cliches that invalidate the complex problems that are very real for those who are weary and downtrodden. Deconstruction advances even further when meeting empathetic outsiders who make sense of your pain instead of being consistent with the malicious rumors that are said about outsiders (page 27).   

Toxic church experiences may influence deconstructors to ground their theological points in an emphasis on the framework of experience instead of doctrine. Hence, Oord and Fuller want to encourage their audience to avoid theologies that are toxic. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, want to treat God as a collection of axioms and brute facts superior to all personal experiences. This is why fundamentalists seem to enjoy certainty more than those who are deconstructing away from the claim that there is some kind of “unambiguous knowledge about God” out there (page 28). 

Oord and Fuller give me the impression that open and relational theology finds naivete in fundamentalism’s distrust of experience, since everything we are today traces back to the experiences of the saints and scientists who guided us to our current accomplishments. Human experience is non-negotiable, as axioms and brute facts are non-negotiable. All humans must rely on experience to think, say, or do anything. However, Oord and Fuller admit that experience itself is not flawless but that each experience carries a different weight of meaning and importance (page 29). 

Oord and Fuller admit that believing in God after deconstruction will entail a life of uncertainty but not an abandonment of “the quest for plausibility.” Instead, they advocate for a balance between “absolute certainty” and “blind faith.” They advocate for reason and logic alongside emotions and feelings, which is missing in the fundamentalist churches that hyper-fixate on certainty and simplicity (pages 31 & 32). 

Oord and Fuller make it clear that they want us to become “comfortable with doubt” but not embrace unhealthy skepticism and nihilism. I appreciate that, but still want to caution against what seems to be an overemphasis on the embrace and celebration of doubt. 

I will base my argument on James 1:2-8: 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

Doubt is a term with connotations that differ for each person. Today’s 21st Century equates doubt with intellectual struggles and scholarly concerns of the skeptic. But the author of James’ epistle is not scorning the skeptic in the same way that many might imagine an evangelical standing at a pulpit and scorning people for being genuinely confused and curious seekers. The Greek word for doubt is  διακρινόμενος (diakrinomenos) which means “to separate thoroughly, i.e. to withdraw from, or oppose; figuratively, to discriminate, or hesitate.”

I remember many years of agonizing over James 1:2-8. I often imagined the author of James’ epistle silencing me in his classroom for asking questions. Today, I do not imagine the author trying to suppress people’s questions, in light of the 1st Century Bereans who learned and debated during regular gatherings with each other and teachers at the synagogue.

The disciples who ran to Jesus’ tomb “did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” according to John 20:9. Their lack of understanding could imply they had doubts, yet the New Testament does not mention they were condemned.  

The apostle Thomas in John 20:25 was not condemned for refusing to believe in Jesus’ resurrection until he touched Him. Instead, Jesus appeared to Thomas and told him to touch His wounds and verify the reality of His resurrection. But Jesus also told Thomas to “stop doubting and believe.” Jesus further said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” For many years, I thought these were commands for all believers to be gullible and reject the necessity of evidence during intellectual discussions, otherwise there would be punishment. On the contrary, in fact, now I see this as comfort and encouragement from Jesus.

Those who could believe without seeing were able to enjoy the loving relational bond with Jesus as soon as they heard the report, versus those like Thomas who had to experience the painful distance of being a skeptic, at first. A relationship is more free-flowing when it is doubt-free versus a relationship in which you constantly demand the other person to prove themselves. Hence, blessed are those who can accept God at what He says rather than always demanding He prove Himself.

Our brains can be overloaded with the many different ways to interpret something. Unhealthy skepticism can occur when we obsess over every possible interpretation. Eventually, for the sake of rest and sanity, you must arrive at the conclusion that best fits the evidence. Unfortunately, that can be a long journey for some people. 

The context of James 1:2-8 is about persevering through the trials that test your faith. The refusal of doubt pertains to committing yourself to God’s wisdom on how to become mature in managing your affairs. It is not a command to accept poor arguments in defense of God’s existence and the Christian faith. For me, James 1:2-8 is simply advising us to sincerely ask for God’s help and remain focused on it without allowing obsessive worries to creep in and introduce divided loyalties. That is definitely not easy, and I think that is why James 1:2-8 must be stern about it.

It seems to me that we should accept the fact that doubt will occur, but not accept that we remain mired in doubt. I think that is very difficult for anyone who has been victimized by the church and fears that lending any credence to the church’s claims could make them psychologically vulnerable again. My heart and prayers go out to anyone who is suffering with that. May Christ’s Spirit give you the peace you are longing for.

The author of this blog post is Matthew Sabatine, who was born in the United States and raised as a Christian but left the faith in his early twenties. He returned to the faith midway through 2022. Matthew has some experience in the mental health field as a direct support professional, caring for people with intellectual and development disabilities and people who were in long-term residency/rehabilitation programs. Though Matthew has no formal undergraduate or graduate degree, he has experience co-facilitating therapy groups under the supervision of licensed counselors. Matthew currently works in sales/marketing by day and blogs on his free time at night.

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