Blessed are the Undone

“Never question a man of God.”

That’s how Emily*, 42, summarized the Word of Life church. She was working as a Youth Pastor in her early 20s when the first scandal broke. Her pastor had sexually abused a staff member – was literally caught in the act in his church office – and faced zero consequences. He “took one week out of the pulpit” while the woman “lost everything,” Emily told us. “I have three very specific stories of women who were essentially groomed by various leaders,” she recalled, “and eventually ended up in a sexual relationship. When the relationships came to light, the women were accused of being Jezebels; it was all their fault, with no repercussions for the men.”

An intense loyalty to the pastors, Emily explained, is what fuels this kind of cover-up. “Most of these charismatic churches are independent, and that is a very dangerous place to be.” There’s no accountability for when the pastor’s reputation starts to matter more than anything else.

“I was literally going hungry,” Emily said. “I worked for the church and the church was bouncing my cheques. My child had a fever and I couldn’t afford Tylenol, while the pastor was having his golf membership paid for. I started struggling with depression, then realized it was actually performance anxiety from the church. Now I’m learning how to be OK with asking questions. I started using the word ‘deconstructing’ in 2020, the week before COVID lockdowns.”

For many of the people we talked to, deconstruction was vital. It was life changing. Ultimately it allowed them to reclaim and retrieve (parts of) their Christian faith, as you shall see. Our faith is bound up in culture, and culture is human, and human things are temporal and need to be constantly chastened and transformed in order to be faithful. In that sense, deconstruction is as old as idolatry and reconstruction as old as repentance.

“I was a kid with doubts,” Dennis told us. “I felt like a loser, like a fish out of water. I didn’t have a name for it at the time.” Raised Pentecostal, Dennis graduated from Regent College and was a successful pastor for 18 years at a church that “exploded” in growth to 1,500 people. “Up in front of people, the lights are on – it’s addictive,” he said. Part of the deconstruction process, for him, was critiquing how drawn Christians are to an “attractional model of church, one that provides religious goods and services.” 

“There has to be a serious examination of branding and celebrity,” he added. “Power and privilege does weird things to us.” He decided to resign: “I didn’t like how church was being done. I left the big church and went back to school, went into exile. I kept my circle small,” Dennis said. “My experience was that we need a more simple and nimble ecclesiology.” 

In 2020, Dennis ended up on a beach in August with a few friends, a guitar, and a Bible. “I don’t say this casually,” he added; “I felt the Holy Spirit was at work.” This informal gathering now regularly attracts 150 people, with an unusual liturgy that includes a 15-minute sermon followed by 15 minutes for “questions from the floor – disagreements, stories, and dissent.” Dennis sees deconstruction as a cultural moment and as necessary; he tells his congregation, “don’t go through it alone.”

Crucially, as Dennis noted, deconstruction at its best is not an individual trek. We can see it as an internet-based, disgruntled shake-up of the Western Church, part of the broader movement of dismantling the age of a privileged and compromised Christendom. As the final sentence in Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s long genealogy of the ways evangelicals have betrayed their faith declared: “What was once done might also be undone.” Institutions included. In this lies some critical realism and genuine hope.

Why now?

Empires rise and fall. Key historical shifts receive names in hindsight. Often historians signal significant change with the adjective “great” – like the Great Schism, the Great War, and the Great Depression. In the early 2000s, author and religion expert Phyllis Tickle coined the term “Great Emergence” (a rough equivalent to the postmodern shift) and in 2022 the Principal of St. Stephen’s University, Brad Jersak, wrote about “the Great Deconstruction.” Something seems to be ending, and it’s not clear what is beginning. 

In the widest historical perspective, what has been ending for a while is Christendom – the time of Christian privilege, popularity, and power, usually linked to state institutions. Now, in terms of government, schools, and mass media, Canada is secular. For many, the marriage of religion and politics was always an unholy union, and the recent separation is a welcome change of regime.

“I think religion is needed now more than ever,” Emma told us. “For community, for music, for intergenerational spaces; for relationships; for the meaning of love, unity and forgiveness; for bringing together disparate voices. There is so much religion can offer, if we can just get back to what Jesus showed us.”

In the analogy we have woven throughout this book, it’s time to break camp and portage to a new lake. Not because it’s trendy but because it’s a spiritual imperative. Not to be unorthodox but to embrace more deeply an orthopraxy – right living with the right heart.

It’s time to listen to the voices of Undone Canadians and reflect together on where we are in the history of the Canadian Church. If people you know have lost their bearings, or if you feel like you’re up the creek without a paddle when it comes to church, join us.