(Un)Certain

Olivia Jackson

Description

(Un)Certain: A Collective Memoir of Deconstructing Faith uncovers the courage and vulnerability of over 150 individuals from around the world as they navigate through their unravelling beliefs. Olivia Jackson weaves together stories of deeply committed believers who reached a breaking point with the Christian certainties and doctrines they once held dear. Exploring tales of abuse, exclusionary or harsh theologies, and a slow crumbling of conviction as interviewees share their journey towards a carefully considered expansion of faith, the book offers a glimpse into the nuanced and diverse experiences of those who reached the end of the road and dared to keep walking.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian Church
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334063650
• Langue: English

Extrait

(Un)Certain
A collective memoir of deconstructing faith
Olivia Jackson






© Olivia Jackson 2023
Published in 2023 by SCM Press
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SCM Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd (a registered charity)

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
Olivia Jackson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
Scripture extracts are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-33-406363-6
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd




Contents
Acknowledgements

On Fire
Part 1: Money, Sex and Power
It’s Not a Religion: It’s a Relationship
Breakthrough
All or Nothing
Pressed Down and Shaken Together
Called
Read your Bible, Pray Every Day
Sin Management
Spirit of Rebellion
The Heart is Deceitful
Unoffendable
Worship
Soaking
Warfare
Dodgy
Them and Us
Politics
Saved
Lemon Meringue Pie Gospel
Why didn’t you just leave?
Part 2: Stumbling Blocks
He/Him/God
Chewed Gum
Perfect Design
White Jesus
Prayed For: Preyed On
Heretic
Part 3: Slippery Slope
Pilgrimage
Amazing Grace Revisited
Bittersweet Hope

References
Further Resources




To Annie: thank you for teaching me that the nice girls don’t get the pearls.




Acknowledgements
The contents of this book are primarily based on the results of an in-depth online survey and follow-up interviews: this book could not have happened without the contribution of everyone who filled in the survey and was interviewed. I am grateful to each one of you, whether or not your name appears in the text. Additionally, the support of the Beloved Listeners and the Nomad Podcast hosts, in particular Tim and Joy, has been invaluable. Jojo and Penny spent many hours helping me to create the survey. MJ: thank you for allowing me to use the healing space you have created online to push this project forward.
The Dissident Daughter book group has been a life-giving place of connection and solace, and the Waterebels have provided sanity and distraction at much-needed moments. Tracey, Linzi and Caroline have listened to hours of my rants.
A huge thank you to my cousin, Richard, who believed in this from the start and has provided so much advice and encouragement. Also to Joanna, Annie F. and Naomi, who have been so supportive in the last few years. And to Wendy, Rose and Inky: thank you for being with me every step of the way, for listening, for providing so much input and inspiration and for making me laugh.



On Fire
I am a late-blooming 14-year-old on a week-long Christian summer camp. I am deeply shy, and this is my first introduction to the evangelical world. We’re by the beach, and everyone includes me in the fun. The leaders are charismatic and sure of their faith. I’ve never sung modern worship songs before, never seen people cry or raise their arms as they sing. No one else seems bothered by this, so I go along with it all, swept up. By the end of the week, I have learned three things: Jesus loves me and will fix my life. But I’ll go to hell if I don’t get saved. If I have sex before marriage, I will be impure and no one will marry me.
I am 18, working in Australia after leaving school. I spend a few days with a veterinarian as he travels from one farm to another. As we drive through miles of parched, brown earth I look at the dried-up trees beside the road. Yesterday I had cut branches so the sheep could eat leaves, because there is so little grass left. The vet tells me that the land is getting drier as the climate grows hotter.
‘What d’you reckon?’ he asks. ‘When’s it going to rain?’
I take a deep breath and send up an ‘arrow prayer’. This is my chance to be bold for the Lord: ‘I think this is God’s judgement on Australia. If Australia would turn to Jesus, then God would send rain again.’
There is silence from the veterinarian. I spend the rest of the afternoon helping pregnancy test cows, which involves armpit-length gloves.
I am 23 when, out of nowhere, I am convinced God wants me to go to South Africa and join an international youth mission organization. It’s only meant to be for six months, but it becomes ten years and defines my career and my life for far longer than that.
I am 40, and too many things I’ve been taught are not working in the real world. Reading outside the narrow field of approved evangelical writers has made me reassess gender roles, hell, and whether same-sex relationships really are sinful. I have been told that I am a liberal and a heretic. I study New Testament Greek, and ‘the Bible clearly says’ crumbles irrevocably.

When you start dipping your toe into deconstruction, you’re not just deconstructing one aspect of your life. You are deconstructing the core values of who you are as a person, and that’s a very profound and significant thing. (Ed, UK)

For me, deconstruction fits in a larger spectrum: we’re deconstructing history. We’re deconstructing what truth is and how truth gets made. We’re deconstructing authority. Faith deconstruction fits into that context. A lot of people are noticing that there’s not a simple right and wrong: there’s a spectrum. There are no easy binaries in anything that’s meaningful. Complexity is not an easy message, and conservative churches love an easy message because that works. (Vivian, Netherlands)

I think of deconstruction not as loss or even as evolution of belief, but as a shedding of extra baggage. All these non-negotiable add-ons – evangelicalism, reading the Bible in a particular way, conservative politics – all those had been made as part of the package deal. I grew up on C. S. Lewis, and I often think about Eustace trying to scrape off the dragon skin. (Traynor, USA)
This book is a blend of many voices. While it is made up of courageous individuals who have told their stories, it is not only about individuals or isolated incidences. It’s about patterns, a movement, a reach toward solidarity and community. Through an anonymous online questionnaire, completed nearly 400 times, and 140 follow-up interviews, I have tried to bring together the stories of ordinary, committed people whose Christian faith has undergone a profound shift, an unravelling, an expansion. Where they have landed – for now – is a reflection of the diversity of their stories. A few have stayed, many have found a freer expression of spirituality in or out of church, some have walked away from faith completely. Some have become ministers or pagans or atheists or theologians. While the road is often hard, we are overwhelmingly enjoying the freedom of uncertainty, of living with authenticity and curiosity.
We range in age from 18 to 77, with the majority between 25 and 50. 59% are women, 39% men and 2% non-binary or gender-fluid. We are spread across the globe: while just over half are from the UK and 30% from the USA, 6% are Australian, 4% Canadian, with others from or in Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, India, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Puerto Rico, Sweden and Thailand. Over 70% have spent more than 25 years in church, and 80% have either left altogether or moved to a very different kind of church. One pattern was clear: we are overwhelmingly, although not entirely, white, and of those who are not, all had experienced racism and ethnocentrism in majority-white faith contexts.
Like all those I interviewed and surveyed, I was utterly committed to a very particular form of Christian faith. The majority of us fell into some category of evangelical, be that charismatic or conservative, with a scattering of others, such as a couple of Seventh Day Adventists and a former Catholic nun, as wildcards. This demographic pattern of white evangelicalism in decline is reflected in deconstruction spaces online and in (USA-based) research by the Public Religion Research Institute (Blake, 2021). Many of the same reasons for deconstruction also applied to those who did not identify as evangelical. For most of this book, then, I shall refer to evangelicals, and use the term in a broad sense, while I am aware that not all of us are or were evangelicals, and not all evangelicals recognize some of the paradigms or experiences described.
Evangelicalism is described in various ways, depending on who you ask, and the evangelical churches have become, as a group, defined by far more than theology or denomination: evangelicalism is a culture with its own language, music and celebrities; an industry with its own merch; an all-encompassing way of life. Amanda (USA), a pastor, puts it this way:
Evangelicalism within the historic Church is so young, and it’s not necessarily a theology. It’s just a cultural iteration of the Church. When you actually start digging in and thinking about ‘what do I think about