My Deconstruction Story, Part 4

After discovering the Faith Process and stepping free of many entrapments of modern Christian faith practice, God invited me to step away from the path of comfortable Christianity. It wasn't an expected adventure. I was minding my own business, raising babies, ministering as God gave opportunity, enjoying privileges I didn't recognize that I had. Then, for a training with my ministry organization, I visited the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, in Atlanta. 

Educated, as were most from my generation, about the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, I thought everything was done. We'd addressed the problem of discrimination so it was no longer an issue. My "re-education" began upon entering the building. They have pillars along the front, so vehicles can't crash through the doors. Every visitor goes through a metal detector. Those security measures are in place because they are necessary. In the United States of America, the land of the free and the brave, where our founding fathers said that it was self-evident that all men were created equal, people with lighter skin and darker hearts saw the museum and its message as something to be attacked, even destroyed if possible. That was the beginning of my undoing. Literally, I was overcome with grief. 

The next maybe two hours saw the scales of ignorance stripped from my eyes, the convenience of my privilege wiped away, and the horrors of racial injustice forever burned into my heart. Tears streamed down my face as I walked through one exhibit after another, seeing in real life the horrors that could be concealed in black and white images on the pages of textbooks. Though I loved God and still believed in the Bible. I was undone. 

By God's grace, a bi-racial couple who serve as leaders with my organization came alongside me, helped absorb some of my grief, and agreed to walk with me as I began to learn about the dark side of the country I loved so much. It's been a painful journey, to be sure. In many ways, deconstructing the faith of my childhood, as beautiful as it had seemed, mingled with deconstructing my identity as an American. I still love the United States, and I see so many beautiful things about this "experiment" but not everything done in the name of "freedom" has been beautiful. Even the Declaration of Independence, where on one hand the Founding Fathers acknowledged "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" in the first paragraph, end their complaints with derogatory references to native peoples, now formally recognized as American Indians. 

Probably the biggest difference between my experience in 2014 in Atlanta and my experience in Idaho in 2003 was my understanding of God's character. My faith wasn't dependent on the performance of people. Having learned to meditate on God's Word, and learning to ask how to live in light of the truths of God's Word, I knew that God was still good, but that in many ways, the actions of those who claimed to be His people were not. That added to the grief and heartache I described in my last post. It is another reason I still listen, every night, to the Bible on audio. People are broken, fallible, selfish, even malicious, but God is not. God is good. My faith was not shaken like it might have been, but my eyes were opened. The injustices that had been seen could never be unseen, by God's grace. My life would never be the same again. 

Though I didn't know it at the time, my experience in Atlanta, in a way, set the stage for an experience that would change the entire course of my life. But that wasn't to become apparent for many more years.