christianity

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Christians, Now is Not a Time to Celebrate

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Dear fellow Siblings in Christ,

Many of you may think that today with the decision by the United States Supreme Court to overturn the ruling on Roe v. Wade and send the decision of regulating abortion access back to the states is a victory worth celebrating. This cannot be further from what we as self-proclaimed Christians should be doing, and I'm saddened to see so many Christians view this as a victory for Christ and his message. Whenever the topic of abortion comes up, I'm always reminded of this quote from Pastor David Barnhart:

“The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

The Gospel proclaimed and put into practice by Jesus Christ, from whom comes our religion's namesake, was all about "agape" - onconditional love - for God and your neighbor as yourself. Christ demonstrated this love to the point of self-sacrifice and death on the cross so that we all are able to enjoy the gift of eternal life with him in heaven. Jesus calls us to also sacrifice ourselves such as he did - to take up our cross and follow him.

Cheering for the means to the end of abortion in this manner has nothing gospel-centered to it. It involves no self-sacrifice, and in actuality the cheering of this Supreme Court decision celebrates pushing the sacrifice onto the bodies of all women and girls in the United States for the sake of forced-birth dogma. If we are so "pro-life" as we claim, should we not advocate for legislation that supports families, regardless of their parental composition or social status, in the form of healthcare for the mother - prenatal to postpartum and beyond - and including the infancy and growing development of the child? Advocating and cheering for universal bans on abortion is cheering on a measure that lacks compassion for those who face such a horrible decision and, in all respects, is only a treatment of the symptom for the graver diseases of our society: increasing poverty, inadequate healthcare, and lack of wisdom.

We Christians put decades upon decades of effort into the outcome of today, and for what? To say to God "Look how we did good deeds in your name?" I fear the response would be to "Depart for I never knew you." If we as Christians would only put in as much effort to enact change to love our neighbor as ourselves - by establishing programs to uplift struggling families out of poverty as Jesus uplifted the stranger, enact universal healthcare to heal the less fortunate as Jesus healed the sick, and provide wisdom in the form of quality education so our fellow Siblings in Christ can make sound decisions themseslves as Jesus taught and presented wisdom to his followers - think of how many lives (born or unborn) will be saved such as to eliminate even the smallest tempting thought of having an abortion.

For my fellow Siblings in Christ cheering today I'm afraid we're cheering a hollow victory, for today we are doing more damage to our witness of Christ and his body through celebrating malicious enforcement of "God's love" onto others by exploiting governmental authority than actually practicing and demonstrating the unconditional love of our neighbor through self-sacrificial action as Jesus Christ commands us.

Please consider this, examine yourself, and do better.

Sincerely,

~Phil

Phil's Deconstruction Book Recommendations

Recommendations Last Updated: July 16, 2023

Whether you know someone who is exploring this topic or if you need to embark on your own personal deconstruction journey, please see my personal recommendations below.

If you have any book recommendations you believe may be a good fit for this page, please message me on any of the social media platforms found on my links page here.

Please note: like my education on this subject, this page is subject to change and will continue to improve. I will update this post along with the date the books were added as I complete them.

The following is a condensed list of links. For a deeper explanation of my recommendations, please continue further down the page.

Brief Book Listing

Detailed Recommendations

 
 

The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby - This book provides a perspective on the history of the United States specifically to the Church’s complicit role in perpetuating systemic racism. A powerful indictment on the current state of Christianity in America and a must read for Christians.

 
 

Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US by Lenny Duncan - Although the author of this book specifically addresses the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), their pleas and lamentations apply to churches all across the United States.

 
 

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy and American Christianity by Robert P. Jones - An urgent call and challenge to all white Christians to recognize the church's role in the advancement of white supremacy in the United States. The author elagantly pulls from history, case studies, and community reports to encourage white Christians to confront these uncomfortable truths that have taken root with the help of the church.

 
 

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr - A critical look at the culture of patriarchal control and abuse of the Bible that sought to erase women from positions of leadership in the Church.

 
 

UnClobber: Expanded Edition with Study Guide: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality by Colby Martin - A preacher recounts his spiritual walk to becoming the leader of a fully affirming LGBTQ+ church while addressing each of the "clobber" passages (Genesis 19:1-29, Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and 1 Timothy 1:10) with a biblical, cultural, etymological, and historical breakdown of each. Designed with the reader in mind: read the even-numbered chapters for the Unclobbering of the clobber passages, read the odd-numbered chapters for Martin's spiritual walk on the subject, read both for the full story and context. A book I consider as required reading for Christians who are not already fully affirming of our LGBTQ+ siblings. An edition without the study guide may be found here.

 
 

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristen Kobes Du Mez - An account of the white evangelicalism movement since the 1940s to the 2016 election, Du Mez helps illustrate how evangelicals substituted Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of patriarchal toxic masculinity, authoritarian rule, xenophobia, and homophobia. Why did so many Christians gather around to support a man who goes against just about every teaching of the very Jesus they claim to espouse? Du Mez provides a much-needed perspective.

 
 

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell challenges traditional Christian beliefs about heaven, hell, and salvation. Bell argues that a loving God would not condemn people to eternal punishment in hell, and suggests that everyone will eventually be saved. He also questions the notion of a literal interpretation of biblical descriptions of hell and suggests that they may be metaphorical.

 
 

How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That's Great News by Peter Enns - A book that tackles the topic of the Bible as a book of rules versus a book of wisdom. The author further argues how different generations had to "reimagine God" by updating the exile narrative of the people of Isreal to adapt their faith for the time of the author. For example, the distinction between 1 & 2 Kings and how 1 & 2 Chronicles may seem like a direct “retelling” of the same story when placed one right after the other in the Bible, but in context 1 & 2 Chronicles was written centuries after 1 & 2 Kings and was reframed accordingly for the modern generation of that time. The author goes on to argue a similar “reimagining” occurs from the Hebrew Bible to the Christian New Testament. I enjoyed reading this book and it provides great context to the timeframes in which different sections of the Bible were written, and the cultures surrounding each generation. If this blurb either peaked your curiousity or made your neck hairs bristle as potential heresey, it's a good indication you might need to read this book.

 
 

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (NRSV) edited by Michael Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol Newsom, and Pheme Perkins - The Bible used by biblical scholars, seminary programs, and my main biblical reference. Filled with invaluable resources littered throughout its entirety including: maps, introductory sections to each individual book and all main biblical sections (including the Apocrypha), footnotes, and appendices that include essays for textual criticism, biblical interpretation, cultural contexts and more. Out of the several different study Bibles and versions I reference, if you can only choose one to get a deeper understanding of the how Scriptures were written, this would be my definitive recommendation.

 
 

That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, & Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart - The case is laid out in Hart’s combined theological and philosophical arguments for Universalism in that all souls in humanity are redeemed and saved. A read that is not for the faint of heart, but as the authors outlines early on in his book: this is his exhaustive collection of arguments and counterarguments across all conversations resulting from his presentations, scholar papers, and keynotes over his years as an academic scholar designed to be the single source for any and all future discourse on the topic of Universalism, pre-destination, or whether there is a Hell of eternal conscious torment.