I grew up unsafe in church. Here’s how I learned to deconstruct my faith.

I care about what they hear from the authorities they’ve chosen in their lives. I care about the messages they receive from the pulpits of the institutions where they hold membership. I care about how the messages they hear influence their choices.

I care about how people see God and whether they are capable of seeing the divine within, or if their divine is more like a Sky Daddy — some far-off, angry, vindictive and mysterious dictator in the sky.

It is this care that has influenced much of my ministry work. It is this care that led me to seminary in the first place.

People saw something in me that I couldn’t see

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

When I applied to enroll in the Master of Divinity program at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, I had very real questions.

I was working on the breaking news desk of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and wrestling with who and how I wanted to be in the world.

Many people around me kept speaking to something they saw in me that I hadn’t quite seen in myself — a call to ministry. People have been calling me “Bishop” since the spring of 2012, but I’d avoided that moniker and my call at all costs for decades.

Why? I was conditioned to believe that because of my identity as a same-gender-loving man, God didn’t hear my prayers. Even though, at the time, I was attending a church considered to be an “affirming ministry” that welcomed and embraced LGBTQ people, the idea of God using me wasn’t one I could easily digest.

I’d been used to running.

I left the church of my upbringing — the very place where my great aunt served as church secretary and my grandfather (and eventually my father) were eulogized. As a teenager, I knew it wasn’t safe for me. I’d heard preachers and pastors refer to anyone who identified like me as an abomination. Like Hagar, the Egyptian servant to Abraham’s wife, Sarah, I decided to take my chances in the wilderness rather than stay in a space that refused to honor my humanity.

I began engaging the questions I’d silently and privately pondered more explicitly. And eventually, the first time I said publicly that I believed Jesus’ humanity was more important than his divinity, I was encouraged to “go to seminary.”

You can embrace your faith and reject religious abuse

My book “Faith Deconstruction For Dummies” is informed by my questions and my experiences. It is also informed by my care for people and my understanding of the power and dangers of harmful theology rooted in Christian nationalism and fundamentalism; theology that has historically run rampant in many of our churches, whether they were “Black churches,” affirming in nature, or not.

Faith deconstruction isn’t anything new.

It’s as old as humanity itself. In faith deconstruction, one reexamines the lessons, doctrines, traditions and harmful theology they’ve been subjected to. Bishop Carlton Pearson, a name some of you reading may have heard before, can easily be considered one of the biggest names in faith deconstruction. Some people, like my friend Kristian A. Smith, like to say that Jesus was also a deconstructionist. I don’t disagree.

For generations, there have been those whose work centered around pushing back against the harms of religious abuse, manipulation, indoctrination and persecution, asking questions and providing a different perspective than what we’ve been conditioned to believe.

Religion isn’t all bad. It’s the people who have made it so harmful.

What “Faith Deconstruction For Dummies” seeks to do is give people permission to do the things they haven’t been afforded to do — ask questions, investigate and determine for themselves what they consider to be not just truth but purpose. What I’m not trying to do is take anyone’s faith away. I made it clear that wasn’t my intent when I was approached to do this book, and that’s still true today.

People’s faith is dear to them, and I honor that. Religion is something completely different. Religion creates a level of space for certainty that I believe should not be there, because the beauty of faith is that things are not certain.

The Rev. Mashaun D. Simon (he/him/they) is a preacher/public speaker, award-winning journalist, author, lecturer and thought leader. A native of metro Atlanta, he seeks to curate authentic spaces of belonging and empower others to achieve personal freedom and fulfillment. His book, “Faith Deconstruction For Dummies,” is available wherever books are sold.