"It was a traumatic moment. I just realized, after all the years of biblical studies, that my belief in the inspiration of Scripture was crumbling. It was devastating."

- The NakedPastor | deconstructed pastor and deconstruction advocate

This article is a sincere letter to any of my friends or family who have gone through the pain of deconstructing their faith for various reasons (so if you're a Christian like me reading this, you might find more practical articles somewhere else on my blog.... go ahead and check those out... now. No? Okay. But you may be confused by this one, so don't say I didn't warn you.)

As I write this I think about your posts I've seen on social media and some of the stories I've heard about. Some of you have experienced unfathomable trauma that has led to you leaving your religion. Some of that trauma has included spiritual abuse from church leadership or harm other church members caused you.

For some of you it was growing up in a church culture where you weren't allowed to ask questions about the Bible. Anytime you tried asking your Sunday school teacher how the sun and moon could stand still, their reply would be "I don't know but if the Bible says it, I believe it!". To which your thought to yourself "Then what about when the Bible says to stone someone to death when they pick up sticks on the sabbath?"

I know. I understand where you're coming from. And believe it or not, this article isn't about refuting your reasons for leaving the faith. You probably get enough of that from your Christian friends... or old Sunday school teacher. Like I said, this really is a genuine letter where I want you to know that I hear the pain you've experienced in your deconstruction. I see you trying to make sense of the broken pieces. I hear your stories as you try staying afloat in what probably feels like being at sea during a hurricane.

There are just a few things I wanted to share from my heart - five to be exact (if you read my blog long enough you'll find I like writing in 'fives' for some reason...). Feel free to take each one with a grain of salt, but I hope they encourage you where you're at - even if you it's one grain at a time.

1. I'm here for you in your darkest season in life
I truly mean that.
We may not see eye to eye on Jesus and the Bible, but I still care about you. I know you deeply thought about the repercussions and costs at stake when you began this journey. Many of you lost friendships that were decades old. For some your careers may have been effected. You feel like an outcast when you try connecting with past Christian friends or family. You didn't choose this path for all the hype and glory, that's for sure.

I know you'll be working on building a new community of people similar to your story and belief system now. But I want you to know that as a Christian and fellow human being, I'm here for you. If you need to ask some of those Sunday School questions, yell at God (or what you believed to be God) or simply need someone to listen to your story, I'm here, and I care about what you've had to endure.

2. It's okay to raise concerns and ask questions about your faith
Second, I want to validate the idea that it's okay to question faith (or religion or spirituality, whatever you want to call it.) It's healthy to ask questions about with the intent of discovering the truth. Many lies have been cleverly cloaked in the name of religion. Unfortunately too many people grew up in a church where they were taught to never question their pastor or the Bible. They were conditioned to blindly follow whatever was shared from the pulpit, and if they questioned it, they were divisive trouble makers.

This is how the great Protestant movement came about during the age of the Reformation. The term 'Protestant' literally means 'to protest'. People like Martin Luther protested what the church in his day was teaching. Him and many others challenged and questioned their doctrines and many paid dearly for it. William Tyndale was murdered for translating the Bible into English so the common people could see what it read for themselves. John Bunyan was imprisoned for 12 years for not agreeing with the church in his day. (Yes, the church is responsible for some pretty awful stuff).

I guess what I'm saying is, the faith I have today wouldn't even be available if brave people in the past hadn't questioned their doctrines and beliefs. If you ever had someone try shaming you into not asking questions, I'm so sorry. They were wrong. I've had questions myself. I think I have more unanswered questions than solved ones to be honest. Maybe some day we can get coffee and see who has the most questions.

3. Evaluate your belief system in general
I also validate your process of evaluating your belief system in general. I'm talking about simply asking questions about the things people have told you, from family, teachers, college professors and pastors.

Let me clarify though - I don't meant for you to seep into a constant state of cynicism. That's where you're so suspicious of everything and everyone, it practically paralyzes your emotional and mental mindset. (I mean you can do that if you want - it just seems like a restricted way to live).

I'm talking about implementing a filtering system in your life that simply looks at every thought or belief you've formed and asking the question, "Why do I believe this? Where did this thought come from? Does it have any merit?" That's all.

Some people never take the time to ponder, "Now why do I believe that?" They simply go through life with this passive attitude of "Well, that's how I've also believed...". I think mentally healthy people know how to pause and be honest with their ideas. They know how to take a belief and ask "what evidence exists in my life that supports this belief?" Keep challenging your general belief system about life. I think the moment we believe we have everything all figured out, we've stopped growing.

4. Wrestle with the unresolvable unknown
This is where I might advice you to take this next thought with a grain of salt...
but stay restless in this second season of your life. Stay discontent with the unknown. You're going into a realm where there is no order, no boundaries and no structure. This is the essence of deconstructing: there are no systems to abide by. To loosely quote the NakedPastor from his podcast: "deconstructing is about finding your authentic self without obstacles to hinder our wide open spaces of nothing."

Of course life is full of "somethings", stuff, material. matter. We're not "nothing" and I know he isn't implying that all we are and see are a mirage. Rather, I sense he's saying that all this stuff and matter and feelings and thoughts we have are no longer grounded or rooted in anything factual or absolute. There is no longer any map or blueprints to life. No known rules or laws to the universe.

If that's the case - if that's where your deconstructing journey is leading you (or near something similar tot that), my gentle encouragement is simply this: wrestle with that unknown. Don't be afraid to pose questions that may not have answers. You arrived where you are today because you were courageous enough to ask questions. I respect you for that. Now continue to aim those questions toward the vast, unresolvable mysteries that exist in the universe.

5. Stay curious about the "Why"
This last thing I say might be off the wall - if it is, you have my permission to correct me. I just get the sense that from all the people I've heard from who've deconstructed their faith, their focus tens to move to the 'whos, what's when's where's and how's' of their lives, but they abandoned the 'why'. I've heard them ask a lot of other great questions like:

• Who do I want to become?

• What does my authentic self look like?

• When can I begin this new goal?

• Where do I want to end up in 5 years?

• How do I want to get there?

But for you, don't stop asking the really tough questions - the ones that I'm guessing your new community might not know the answer to, or may simply not worry about asking:

• Why on earth am I here?

• Why does my life matter?

• Why am I able to be conscious of life?

• Why is nature and the universe so perfectly in harmony with each other that it almost forces this odd sense that it was intentionally designed that way?

• Why do evolving discoveries and theories of quantum mechanics seem to raise more questions about our origin of species than provide clarity on why we're here?

I'm not asking you to find the answers.
Just stay brave about asking the questions.
Remember you're not in Sunday School anymore. So stay curious.

Feel like asking more questions?

Isaac here - if you have unanswered questions from your church days that you'd like to ask in a safe, authentic community then Alpha might be your place.

Alpha is a group of people just like you where you can make new friends, enjoy a healthy dinner, and ask the hard questions about God, the Bible, Jesus and more.

Contact me for more details:

cano.philip.isaac@gmail.com