Christian Deconstructionists and the Rise of the Exvangelical

Christianity is remarkably resilient despite the endless attacks against it.  It is noteworthy that the recent election of Pope Leo XIV took place in the midst of the ruins of the mighty, once-thought “eternal” Roman Empire.  Empires rise and fall, but the gospel of Jesus Christ continues.  In the early decades of the 21^st century four prominent atheist writers emerged and began to attack theism in general, and the claims of Christianity in particular.  They were known as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse:  Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Hawkins.  Because they had different expertise – in neuroscience (Harris), biology (Dawkins), philosophy (Dennett / Hitchens) – they were able to confuse a whole generation of Christians who may have grown up in church but were caught in the fog of post-modernity which obscures clear reasoning and any moorings in objective truth.  The result was the rise of the so-called “New Atheism” which contributed to the rise of the “nones,” i.e. millennials who profess no religious belief or faith at all.  But, after more reflection many millennials and Gen Z are starting to realize the paucity of the “New Atheistic” arguments.  (2 million of the 28 million who have left the faith have returned).  The “New Atheists” were famous for setting up “straw men” and then knocking them down with great rhetorical flourish.  Probably the best example of this was Hitchen’s famous “epistemological razor” argument which was one of the central arguments of the New Atheists.  It states, “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”  It allowed New Atheism to simultaneously communicate that there is no evidence for theism (which is not true) and, at the same time, force the conversation to never leave the tiny boundaries of physics. C. S. Lewis famously said that atheism is like someone claiming that they have read every Shakespeare play and never found Shakespeare in any of them, therefore, there is no Shakespeare.  The very definition of God is that he is “beyond” physics, what Aristotle called “meta-physics”- or beyond physics.  Thankfully, the New Atheism wave is beginning to fade as the paucity of their arguments is finally being exposed.   It is remarkable that Richard Dawkins found so many followers who were willing to agree with him that his famous “Flying Spaghetti Monster” was just as credible as the God of Biblical revelation.  As a general rule, whatever attacks on Christianity arise (whether Gnosticism, or Arianism, or Protestant Liberalism or New Atheism) it dissipates in proportion to the number of Christians who actually take time to think through it and respond.   These things gain ground when they find us playing video games rather than doing good theology.

Today, we are experiencing a new wave of attack known as Christian Deconstructionism.  This new movement is driven by people who grew up in church, but found the Christianity on offer wanting.  This is the legacy of the “dumb down” environment of so much of contemporary Christianity, mostly propelled by the so-called “seeker sensitive” churches and all the “health wealth” pablum which fills the airways around the world.  The central idea of the seeker sensitive churches was to make the church look and feel so much like the culture that you would feel “comfortable” and “at home” in church.  The messages were designed to always “put the cookies on the lowest shelf.”  In these environments you would eschew any discussion of theology, or church history, or the grand vision of Christianity, the eschatological marriage of heaven and earth.  Christianity became a kind of self-help movement, but with God as your coach.   It was all about you.  Your style of worship.  Your emotional support to get through life.  You receiving blessings from God, and on and on it went. The “health wealth” so-called gospel is in the same vein, but they don’t hide behind the mask of the Reformation, they are overtly preaching a new gospel.  There is certainly no “deny yourself and take up your cross” in these cheapened versions of Christianity.  It is no wonder the Decontructionists started wondering about the viability of Christianity since they had mostly been exposed to very anemic versions of Christianity.  But, as I used to say to our students at Asbury (quoting my former colleague Peter Kuzmic), “it is wrong to get as many people as possible, to acknowledge as superficially as allowable, a gospel which is theologically unsustainable.”

The “deconstructionists” have emerged as the leading voices in their goal of attacking and discrediting the Christian faith.  They have started Tik Tok Videos and YouTube Channels and podcasts around the hashtags “exangelical” (note the merger of “ex” with “evangelical”).   The term “exvangelical” was coined in 2016 by Blake Chastain who also has a podcast with that same name with millions of views per day.   Many of these “ex” evangelicals are people who were once well known Christian solo artists such as Kevin Max (of D. C Talk), Derek Webb (Caedmon’s Call) or Jon Steingard  (Hawk Nelson).  They had huge followings on social media which has magnified their departure from Christianity.  However, their playbook is very similar to the “New Atheist” playbook: Either create a straw man of Christianity and knock it down or find a fresh way to re-articulate the “problem of evil.”  The straw man is generally some abuse in Christianity (crusades, southern Christian support for slavery in the 19^th century, the disenfranchisement of women, Christian nationalism today, etc….).  Sometimes it hits closer to home by pointing out pastors who were control freaks or unstable or uncaring, or sexual predators, etc.. and then claiming that because the pastor is like this, God must be like this.

The “problem of evil” charge, of course, has a long history in seeking to discredit Christianity.  The problem of evil posits the question, “How can God be all good and all powerful? If he is all good, then there would be no evil in the world, if he is all powerful, he would act to stop it.  Therefore, since evil is in the world, it means that God is either NOT good or NOT all powerful, he cannot be both.”  The force of this charge is that however you respond, God can be put in the dock.  If God does nothing about evil in the world, then he is distant, uncaring, “not good,” or “impotent” and therefore worthy of our rejection.  If God acts and judges the world, then he is a trigger-happy tyrant, void of grace, who at a whim is out to punish people.  I sometimes tell my students that the main difference between Demas in the New Testament (who left the faith) and a podcaster like Derek Webb (who also left the faith) is that Demas didn’t have social media, and today social media can magnify any random person’s unbelief into a following.

But, let’s be clear, these new exvangelicals are not about shifting to a “better theology.”  It is not about “switching beliefs.”  It is about jettisoning beliefs and theology all together and engaging in a personal journey to find your true “authentic” self.  Derek Webb summed this up well when he said, “I’ve stopped trying to “construct”… belief is such a heavy term.  I’m done ‘believing.”   He writes,  Hypothesizing in real-time + permanent uncertainty = a start.   These new exvangelicals are seeking to replace any external authority (scriptures, church, tradition etc..) with personal autonomy.   As Rachael Slick (deconstructionist daughter of apologist Matt Slick) said, “Freedom is my God now, and I love this one a thousand times more than I ever loved the first one.”

It is very likely that you will begin to hear the word “exvangelical” more often. Their mission is to declare evangelicals as nothing more than a group of homophobic, misogynist racists.   The best advice as we prepare for this new wave is to dig into the grand Christian story with even more depth and vigor.  After all, once the latest wave of bluster has died down, Jesus Christ is still the Risen Lord, redeeming the world and ushering in the New Creation.

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