Introduction
In recent months, I’ve been reading about your evangelicals (and some older ones) deconstructing their faith. This deconstructing is an interesting euphemism for departing the faith. The departing may be a literal, that is, a complete denial of the idea that Christ was crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected to pay the penalty for sin to set believers free and enjoin them into the body of Christ, His church. For many, it is not that radical. For these folks, deconstruction is about aborting the organized church.
This latter group has found that traditional Christianity lacks the personal warmth of community that many crave. They also include the accouterments of vestments, buildings, and church calendars, values not biblically justified, right, and stifling.
Another leading edge to the deconstruction and reconstruction by some young evangelicals, which I’ve also been reading about. This group is what has been called the emerging church.
However, many of those in the deconstruction camp are deconstructing their faith to the point that it is no longer “the faith.”
Amid this reading, I found myself meditating on the book of Galatians for the past two weeks and realizing that Paul found those in this church deconstructing the faith that he had earlier taught on his mission trip into this area of the world. His logical argument in this book is a challenge that all deconstructionists of New Testament Christianity should consider.
This blog does not provide space to delineate the details of Paul’s logical theological instruction to the Galatians. Hence, I shall summarize it. I shall use the inserted chapter divisions as a picture frame for Paul’s presentation.
Chapter One
Paul identifies the problem of deconstruction in the Galatian church. He completes this chapter by certifying the gospel that he has taught them by reminding them of God’s special calling of him to preach the same gospel to the Gentiles, whom they were, as called Peter, to preach it to the Jews.
Chapter Two
In Chapter One, we observed Paul rooting his authority in God’s peculiar supernatural call upon his life. In this chapter, we observe Paul willingly going to Jerusalem to submit his teaching to the Jewish Apostles. Remember, this is no more than thirty years into the development of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, what we have come to call the church age. Jesus had not prescribed an institutional format, though He regularly participated in the institution of the synagogue. He provided a three-year functioning discipleship model. As one reads God’s history of working with His human creatures, the institutional dimension of His Kingdom of Heaven on earth, where He rules in the hearts of men, it is logical that an institutional framework emerges.
Chapter Three
Paul’s open statement begins with a series of questions that will prepare his hearers for the theological body of his defense of faith alone, in Christ alone. With a bit of sanctified imagination, we can watch Paul with our mind’s eye as he poses his first question. Can you see him step out from behind the pulpit, grab attention as he extends his arms and, with a firm voice, says, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified,” as he brings to bear this providential training.
Chapter Four
Paul’s advancement of his argument in this chapter of Galatians depends upon people’s unique ability to reason logically. It requires a knowledge of history, an understanding of the religious system of Israel, the ability to think analogously, and the ability to connect the doubts from the application to the implementation of the application in the hearer’s life. Paul sets forth a series of analogies to demonstrate that the work of Christ has set the Galatians (and us) free. In doing so, he demolishes the need for deconstructing the gospel.
Chapter Five
The crux of this chapter is that they (and we) are free indeed!
However, whenever God has set people free, the former masters quickly attempt to re-enslave. Israel is the classic example. Pharoah quickly mounted his forces to round up Israel to take up their slavery. So, it is with these Galatians. They have been set free by Christ through the Gospel preached by Paul, but the slave master slipped in the back door quickly after Paul’s departure (3:1, 3) to teach the need for circumcision to complete their faith and thereby re-enslave them.
Such is the result of modern deconstructionism. The Devil (see I Peter 5:5-9) quickly slips in the backdoor, and deconstructionists end up making themselves slaves to some man-made rules that displace the freedom of being in Christ.
Chapter Six
Paul guides the Galatians (and us) on applying this freedom in the church community. He concludes with a reminder that it is not circumcision or uncircumcision (replace those words with whatever the frustration of any deconstructionist). It is a matter of being a new creation (16).
Conclusion
Having taught and ministered in a variety of cultures, both stateside and overseas, I have seen that what has developed as Christianity in one situation is different from what it is in another. However, within those culturally conditioned expressions, the sacred core of the Gospel is presented in the New Testament. When I was first converted, we attended a Bible Church where the Reformation and its traditions were deconstructed, but the essentials of the Gospel of the New Testament were vital. The pastor of that church agreed with John Calvin on the essentials of the Gospel. In due time, I was introduced to the rich heritage of the Reformed traditions and found the atmosphere enhanced the sacredness of worship. My former church had not deconstructed the essentials of the Gospel. They were not Galatians but were free indeed as new creations in Christ. Along the way, I introduced some of my friends from those days to the Reformed traditions, and they, as I did, discovered a depth of appreciation for the sacred.
My former associates had left behind these traditions, having associated them with the liberalism deconstruction of the faith that began sweeping the organized church from the 1850s forward.
Beware, deconstructionist, that you don’t commit the error of the Galatians and leave the faith. Jude puts it this way: “Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints.” (Jude 3 NIV).