I originally posted this as a Twitter thread, which can be viewed here.

In response to Lecrae's recent thread about deconstruction, and how there is a "healthy" form and a "dangerous" form:

A lot of Christians are afraid of “Deconstruction.” I’ve personally gone thru it and let me give you food for thought.
1. There are 2 types of deconstruction happening in the church. One is healthy the other is dangerous. 🧵

— Lecrae (@lecrae) September 14, 2022

This is just bad framing at best.

Obviously, if you believe that the scripture is the inerrant word of God and aren’t willing to let go of that belief, you are likely to stay in the faith. But then, you aren’t deconstructing.

There are people who skip all the questioning and processing trauma and attempting to reconcile the church’s harms. They just don’t like the church’s vibes, and leave. And honestly, I hear that. Deconstruction is hard. But that isn’t deconstruction.

However, Lecrae’s tweets make it seem like those who end up leaving the church just stopped caring about the Bible and decided to succumb to cultural messages. But…that’s just plain false.

At the heart of my deconstruction was lev shomea. 1 Kings 3:9.

When King Solomon was asked by God what he wanted, he asked God for lev shomea, in order to be a better king.

Rough translation is “listening heart.”

I was really starting to struggle when I first read this. I’d witnessed so much abuse, sexism, xenophobia, and people’s sense of worth absolutely demolished by the church.

But I still wanted to try to be a part of it; to “reconstruct,” as Lecrae says in his thread.

When I read Solomon’s plea to God for a listening heart, and that God was pleased, I felt relief. I saw myself in Solomon’s struggle.I felt called to continue listening to others’ pain (and, in some part, my own), and lead through that.

And I tried. I really did.

I volunteered at churches, went to Bible studies, and when I still struggled, met with various religious leaders. The theme, throughout all of it, mirrors Lecrae’s advice. Let the Bible come first. Then reconstruct. But how do you do that when the people who can help, don’t?

I took religious studies at a public college. I wanted to be a youth pastor, and I thought having a more broad frame of reference of religion, and applying myself to learning, would help me reconstruct. Instead, it just unraveled more complicated religious trauma.

What’s more, is that as I applied myself to listen for truth, and not just culture, the people I respected stopped listening.

I learned so much about religion and history and the Bible, and so many times, I thought, “This is it. This is how I can help move forward and reconstruct.” I could barely get two sentences out, before people I respected became visibly uncomfortable and said, “No, you’re wrong, you need to go back.”

People were happy to text "God's Not Dead" when that horrible movie came out, but no one even entertained a conversation about religion.

It didn’t matter how much I studied. How much I listened. People didn’t want to see the scripture as anything other than what they grew up knowing it as: the inerrant, verbatim word of the God who reigns over us now.

Which, to be clear, in the history of humanity, that is recent idea.

I flunked out of some of the final religious studies classes because they unraveled a lot of religious trauma. I stopped going to church because it only triggered PTSD.

And yet I still read scripture, and still prayed for God to make himself known. For years, I still held on to the belief that amidst all of the toxicity and pain I had seen around the church, there was still a loving God. And that he, in some fashion, informed scripture.

And yes, part of my motivation for holding on was because I knew that otherwise, everyone would ghost me and my family wouldn’t respect me.

My religion now is basically, it is absolute bullshit that I was right.

What’s frustrating for all of this is that Lecrae was very much a part of this journey for me.

His music kept me going. The vulnerability and bravery in his lyrics made me feel like I, too, could reconstruct the walls that were falling down around me.

So to read his thread…is frustrating.

For him to say that deconstruction that ends with not trusting the scripture, clearly didn’t start with trusting the scripture…it’s just a shallow way of looking at people’s struggles.

And to be clear: Lecrae says he found the other side, reconstructed his faith, and now it’s stronger than ever? I am genuinely glad. That’s all I wanted for myself, and I’m glad he found it. I’ll never say his faith is wrong.

But he is wrong here.

Writing this thread is making me incredibly anxious because I have yet to work through a lot of this trauma.

But I still need to tweet it [edit: and then post it to my blog, I guess] because Lecrae’s thread is actively contributing to the shame I still feel around my deconstruction, and I know it will for others.

I know no one will read this. It’s long and wordy and I’ve isolated myself so much from people. But it still needs to be said, because I am only now starting to internalize it:

You do NOT have to reconstruct in any specific way.

If you realize that the building you’re living in is falling down around you, and causing you and others harm, it’s okay to leave - to deconstruct.

And it’s okay to go back. It’s also okay to…not. To build something that hardly resembles the building you have known for so long.

In other words, it’s okay to reconstruct whenever and however, as long as you are doing the work and honestly believe that it is right.

It’s okay to be a Christian. It’s okay to not be a Christian. It’s okay to be a Christian in a way that challenges the definition of Christian.

It’s okay if you just build yourself a tiny life raft to float in for a little while. I think that’s where I’m at.

No one can make you feel shame for reconstructing in a way that doesn’t match their definition of right.