Entry #5
This series was originally published on my socials in 2021. My beliefs and opinions have changed in some ways since then, but these words are still meaningful and relevant to who I am and what I believe today.
I started reading the Bible from beginning to end about four years ago. The plan was to finish in a year. I started Revelation last week. #iblamethekids
I’ve gone to church for thirty-five years and I’m just finishing the story of my faith, completely, for the first time ever. That is not an indictment of the church. I’ve just always been too lazy to do it, which is embarrassing.
I’d always known the flannel graph bible stories, the memorization verses, the proof texts, the gospel, the go-to verses for evangelism … but the arc? The themes? The progression? The why? The purpose? The connectedness?
The irony is that my feelings of unease began, at least in part, during the act of “reading my bible” —the very thing people keep telling me to do.
It’s in reading my bible—not doing a bible study or a devotional, but just sitting and reading it word for word and doing my best to understand—that I have been like, “WHAT?!” or “That’s been used out of context A LOT,” or “I wonder if there are other ways of interpreting that – oh yes, there are.”
Who knew?
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Last weekend while I was talking through a bunch of my questions and concerns with some friend,s they informed me I was “deconstructing” just to help me name the process. I’d heard the term but definitely wasn't aware of the "movement." The exact problem was that I felt alone and didn't think there were others.
Turn out, “deconstruction” is trendy. News to me.
But just because something is popular, that doesn't mean it's inherently bad or untrustworthy or silly. Sometimes trends are cultural fads that we end up rolling our eyes at and other times they are indicators that something is actually wrong—that more and more people are noticing the issues and it's time to reevaluate.
I’m sure at one point anti-slavery and women's suffrage seemed “trendy” too.
I honestly don't care if it's trendy or not ... just that I'm on the right side of it.
