Help Stop Deconstruction. Become A Non-anxious Presence.

One of the hardest aspects of my pastorate has been trying to disciple someone experiencing deconstruction. Much of my pastoral effort in the last few years has been devoted to finding and caring for people struggling with severe doubts. In cases I’ve witnessed, deconstruction often, though not always, leads to deconversion. It’s a central topic of discussion for church members and leaders in my context.

That’s why Ian Harber’s Walking Through Deconstruction: How to Be a Companion in a Crisis of Faith is so timely. Harber, marketing manager for the digital ministry Endeavor, has two purposes in this book: to help the reader understand why deconstruction happens and to help the reader “minimize the intensity of someone’s deconstruction” (11). He doesn’t defend the church or answer the specific questions a deconstructor might have. Instead, he helps any believer to understand and stand beside someone experiencing a crisis of faith. This is a book meant to help those who disciple people experiencing deconstruction.

Neither Simple Doubt nor Settled Disbelief

Writing a book about deconstruction is challenging because the term is applied to a vast range of experiences. Harber defines deconstruction as “a crisis of faith that leads to the questioning of core doctrines and untangling of cultural ideologies that settles in a faith that is different from before” (25).

Harber’s definition differs from some versions of the deconstruction movement, where people who sit on Christianity’s fringes, without a particular commitment to any tradition, criticize the church. Sometimes this is done in bad faith. Sometimes it’s the result of deep-seated hurt from a previous church. Sometimes critiques are driven by our “always online” culture’s algorithmic saturation of bad news about Christianity.

In many cases, other Christians respond to attacks from deconstructors with defensiveness, panic, accusations, and sometimes outright hostility. But Harber argues that a Christlike response demands we understand the situation of those in the throes of deconstruction.

When people deconstruct, they are in crisis.

Deconstruction is never pleasant. As Harber points out, “Deconstruction is an experience that happens to you. You don’t make a rational decision to deconstruct your faith. You realize you’re deconstructing after it has already begun” (24).

My life and my pastoral experience corroborate this assertion. When people deconstruct, they’re in crisis. Often they don’t just have questions; they’re losing grip on their spiritual fathers and mothers, their spiritual brothers and sisters, their core identity, and their framework for understanding their place in the world. It’s a crisis, and the deconstructor is the object of that crisis. Recognizing the severity of a deconstructor’s feeling of disintegration can help us show him compassionate, Christlike love.

Trust God with Others’ Souls

In light of this sense of crisis, Harber argues that those assisting deconstructors should be a “non-anxious presence,” a term he borrows from rabbi and therapist Edwin Friedman. A non-anxious presence is a companion that can take the heat, and the heart, of the person deconstructing. He isn’t an opponent but an advocate and support. According to Harber, a non-anxious presence embodies six postures: “prayer, patience, persistence, calm, curiosity, and care” (110).

Notably absent from this list is knowing all the answers. There’s a time to answer doubts with facts, but merely “addressing doubt is like addressing a symptom without looking at the cause” (114). A non-anxious presence helps the deconstructor find the root cause of her doubt.

Harber offers a series of questions that serve as a self-assessment for someone who wants to help a deconstructor:

Do you believe that God saves? Do you believe that God is sovereign? Do you believe that God can handle hard questions? Do you believe that God can handle intense emotions? Do you believe that this whole thing is true, even when it’s held up against critical scrutiny? (109)

Those who can answer yes to these questions can help deconstructors become “confident in who Jesus is, confident in the good news of the gospel, confident that God will bring to completion the work that he started in them” (101). They must be willing to rely on the Spirit’s divine illumination of truth, as 1 Corinthians 2:10–12 describes, rather than trotting out answers that satisfy every wrinkle of rational doubt.

Walking Through Deconstruction is thus not an apologetics book like The Case for Christ. Instead, it’s a guide to help readers trust God’s love for the deconstructor enough to confidently stand by her during her crisis of faith.

Personal and Pastoral Guide

Part of this book’s power is that Harber himself journeyed through a prolonged crisis of faith that he labels his deconstruction (11). He notes, “It took nearly a decade, but eventually my faith reconstructed” (7). His new, stronger faith is different from before, but he’s “still a Christian who adheres to the historic orthodox tradition” (7).

There’s a time to answer doubts with facts. But a non-anxious presence helps the deconstructor find the root cause of her doubt.

By following Harber’s path into doubtful deconstruction and back into a reconstructed faith, this book makes good on its promise to be “brutally honest yet defiantly hopeful” (12). On one hand, Harber acknowledges that a church can create an environment where deconstruction can feel like the only option. But he also provides a map for escaping the pit of perpetual doubt.

In Walking Through Doubt, Harber carefully navigates the minefield of cultural ideologies and exaggerated claims about certainty (for or against) that cause crises of faith for many people. By explaining what can sometimes drive believers toward deconstruction, Harber helps break down the hostility faithful Christians may have toward those in their church facing a faith crisis. This book can help pastors, church leaders, and family members learn how to care for the souls of those wandering through the wilderness of deconstruction as we help them reconstruct their faith instead of heading toward deconversion.