Criticisms of Christianity, Exploring Deconstruction
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Transcript: Three traps Jesus warned about that have completely ensnared Christians, keeping them from god.
So there were three traps that Jesus warned about that are prolific in the modern Christian church: the love of money, the love of power, and the love of keeping your life.
Jesus said a lot of things about money. He taught that the love of money is the root of all manner of evil. He said it was easier for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of heaven. He urged people to consider the lilies and the sparrows who are cared for and fed. He told parables about men who built barns to hoard wealth but died without ever being generous or truly connecting with what it means to give. Much of the political structure today, particularly in older evangelical generations, revolves around preserving wealth, holding onto assets, and becoming wealthier. This desire for preservation is a major motivator for supporting right-wing politics.
Jesus also warned against the love of power. He taught us not to seek the esteem of others or to build up power for ourselves. Instead, “He must increase, we must decrease.” The problem is not personal empowerment but clinging to positions of control long after their time has passed. In today’s culture, many leaders hold onto power instead of passing the reins. On top of that, Christian organizations have developed a culture of celebrity preachers and politicians. Some people seek power, while others become enthralled by those who hold it, wanting to be near them rather than seeing everyone as equal before God.
The third trap is the preservation of life. There is a super-intense anti-immigration push fueled by fear—fear that immigrants will harm or kill. False narratives of potential violence are hyped, and Christian talk radio often mixes in health fads and ways to live longer. Even in pro-life movements, there is an irony: many who call this world “just a waiting room” or “a vapor” are clinging to life so tightly that they would see others’ lives disrupted through deportations or incarceration. This is all to mitigate a sliver of a risk that an immigrant might harm them—a probability that is minuscule.
The truth is, many Christians are terrified of death. Their faith is not rooted in the love of heaven but in the fear of hell. Deep down, they sense that they have been playing an intellectual game within an intellectual system, while ignoring the still, small voice inside—the divine truth calling them to live differently. That inner conflict creates fear of death. Jesus said, “He who loves his life will lose it.” And today, we see people clinging to comfortable lives—wanting long, secure years with every comfort. But in doing so, they lose what real life is: divine connection. And divine connection cannot coexist with the love of life, money, or power.
Transcript: Jesus expects you to question everything you were taught especially if you were “raised with it.”
My experience with Christianity was of being born into a fundamentalist Christian home where I was raised in an echo chamber of those conservative, fundamentalist Christian teachings. That meant my brain, language, and logic structures were all formed in that environment.
It set up a double bind: I was told that hell was real, that the God of judgment was real, and that it was wrong to question God. I even went to some churches that said there was only one unforgivable sin. If you did it once, you went to hell no matter what happened afterward—and that was the sin against the Holy Spirit. I was taught that God could read my thoughts, that He was listening all the time, and that if I questioned, I would be written off into automatic eternal torment. At least, that’s the situation my psyche found itself in. I’m not saying that’s universal, but I do believe this double bind is very real for a lot of people in church. They aren’t allowed to earnestly question the teachings of the church because they’re afraid of God’s judgment.
When my deconstruction really took off in my early 30s, I was absolutely terrified of what I felt happening in me as I began to question the whole structure. I remember trembling at the keyboard of my computer—I was shaking, it was so scary. I started googling things like “Is the Bible true?” and looking up counterarguments. I had looked at counterarguments before, but never with eyes to see and ears to hear. This time, I was willing to actually listen, not just twist things around to prove I was still right. Instead, I tried to really look objectively at the evidence.
It felt like hanging off a cliff in the dark where I couldn’t see the bottom. I didn’t know if I would plummet 10,000 feet or just two. But I let go anyway. I’m so grateful to have come out the other side of that with an authentic spiritual connection that wasn’t available to me in that belief structure. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
Jesus never taught that we can’t question. He never taught that we can’t examine intellectual concepts or structures. In fact, I think he demonstrated the opposite time and time again. When your world is falling apart, that’s when your spiritual mettle is tested the most.
When Jesus was in Gethsemane, he had already connected with God, communed with Him, and spoken with Him. Yet now his life was ending, he was being falsely accused, and he was dragged through the mud when all he had ever said was, “Love one another.” It was so unfair. Was he wrong? Did he misunderstand? He wrestled with it, sweating bullets in the garden.
Even on the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That was earnest, true questioning. He never felt it wasn’t okay to do that. He didn’t fake it or pretend to be stoic through the whole thing out of fear that God would catch him doubting.
God loves you deeply. He is not going to damn you because you earnestly check out the things you were taught—especially the things you were taught as a child, when you had no other way to evaluate that information and when your brain literally formed around that paradigm. You never had a shot. It’s okay to question. It’s okay to re-examine things with an open mind.
This is tricky, because people in this bind will say, “No, I really do question, I really am open.” But the fear is so great that we deny not only the part of us that’s unsure, but also the part of us that knows about that doubt. It’s like multiple layers of denial. If you sit quietly and say, “I have checked it out, I have with an open mind really checked it out,” and then look inside yourself, you may notice some shenanigans going on. You may realize part of you has bound and gagged another part, pretending it doesn’t exist—hoping that if you aren’t even aware of it, then maybe God won’t be either.
But the truth is, God is completely aware of all parts of you: the parts that believe and the parts that question. He accepts all of it. You don’t have to suppress that part of yourself. It is completely okay to ask questions. You have nothing to lose. If you’re already right, you’ll find that out—and then the part of you you’ve kept bound and gagged can be free, because you’ll have actually gone that route and checked it out.
Transcript: How belief works in Conservative Christianity
Beliefs are ideas that we defend both internally and externally and advocate for their truth. Ideas are thoughts that have a subject–object structure; they are declarative. Thoughts, on the other hand, are simply things running through our neurology inside of our heads, and they can take the form of sensations, language, or images.
For example, an idea might be: “Jesus rose again from the dead in a physical body and walked around on earth for 40 days.” Another idea could be: “Jesus was put in the tomb, but his spirit rose and is part of all of us today, and he lives on in that way.” A third idea might be: “Jesus was buried and that was the end of it—there’s no spiritual aspect, and he didn’t resurrect in any way.” Everybody is aware of these different ideas, but belief is what says, “This is the correct one.” For instance, a conservative Christian will declare the first option to be true with 100% certainty.
Personally, I am a non-Christian, but I do have a deep spiritual connection with Jesus, so I lean toward option two. I hold it with about 98% certainty, while still remaining open to the possibility that Jesus physically rose again. I don’t find that option likely, but I acknowledge the possibility. The point I want to make is that the reasons we hold beliefs strongly are usually not other ideas, even though we may claim they are. A Christian might say they are 100% certain that Jesus rose because of evidence or spiritual experience, but in reality, the belief is enforced by fear—fear of hell and of a judgmental God who is always reading their thoughts. This pressure means they must always choose option one so that it’s never “recorded” that they entertained another option.
There are many beliefs that conservative Christians feel they must hold with 100% certainty in order to avoid hell. Some may argue about which beliefs these are, but even beyond doctrine, there’s an unwritten institutional enforcement. For example, one must believe there is hard evidence and rational reasons to accept Christianity. One must also believe their life is going well, that they are blessed, that they are excited to die and go to heaven, and that they desire nothing more than to worship God forever. These beliefs are defended not because they are freely chosen, but because fear of hell enforces them.
Mechanically, belief enforcement works through thought suppression. Conservative Christians, like everyone, have neural pathways that allow them to consider multiple possibilities, such as “everyone is born sinful” or “not everyone is born sinful.” But when such a thought arises, suppression mechanisms kick in. The brain essentially clamps down, treating the thought as dangerously unacceptable—just as someone might instantly suppress the thought of swerving into oncoming traffic. For Christians, even admitting that these alternatives exist would feel punishable by hell, so they not only suppress the thought but also deny ever considering it.
This makes conversations with conservative Christians difficult. They may claim to be open-minded, but that claim itself is part of the belief system: “We have examined everything, and the evidence clearly shows this is the only possibility.” A useful question to ask is, “Is there even a 1 in 10 chance you’re wrong?” Typically, the answer will be no—even to a 1% chance. Yet in logic and reason, we rarely reach absolute certainty. The fact that such beliefs are held at 100% certainty suggests something else is at work.
Fear plays a major role. Beyond hell, there is fear of abandonment, disappointing caregivers, losing social ties, losing financial stability, losing one’s spouse or children, divorce, or simply fear of the unknown outside the church structure. All of these reinforce belief. Over time, the list of “required” beliefs grows—extending even into political allegiance, where some Christians fear that failing to support certain conservative leaders or policies could displease God and jeopardize their salvation.
Much of this fear is rooted in childhood trauma. Conservative Christians often indoctrinate their children very young. A child may be told that they are inherently sinful, that God can be both loving and violently punishing—like drowning the world in a flood—and that they are always one step away from eternal torment. This is traumatizing for a child of three, four, five, or six years old. Parts of the psyche become trapped in that fear, never maturing beyond it, and spend life pushing the “fear button” to ensure compliance.
To reach people in this state, we must address those fearful, childlike parts within them. Until those parts encounter the true image of God within—one that would never damn anyone—they cannot fully open to other ideas or perspectives. Helping people make that realization is key to freeing them from belief systems enforced by fear.
Transcript: Money corrupts the message of Jesus
Money and fame corrupt the message. I wouldn’t take money to talk about Jesus, and I wouldn’t accept praise or an elevated position for it, because it corrupts my ability to connect with truth and transmit it. I would take money for facilitating a feeding program or any type of humanitarian effort. I would take money for one-on-one individual counseling, parts work, or things like that. But I believe it is wrong for people to take money or to seek and accumulate patriarchal status—even a very subtle byproduct of it—through talking about Jesus and his message.
I have known a lot of pastors in my life and been to many churches. Don’t tell me that the higher tithers don’t have more influence in those churches. And don’t tell me that pastors don’t feel compelled to cater to the desires of those who tithe the most. Often, those who give the most are businesspeople who appreciate conservative tax policies and policies that reduce benefits for the least among us. They tithe heavily, and they let the pastor know they appreciate sermons about how important it is to vote Republican. This inevitably influences and corrupts the message.
When I was younger, I was very excited to become a pastor or a missionary. But I was socially inept, had no financial status, and found the organized religious pecking order incredibly difficult to climb, even though my faith was sincere. I was well read in spiritual texts and fully dedicated in ways that many people in those positions weren’t. The whole system was more about status. That status meant people were adapting what they said and how they connected based on how it affected their position in the organization and the hierarchy.
The truth is, we don’t need dedicated people in society whose job is to talk about Jesus or even the tenets of Christianity. Even if we narrow it down to just talking about Jesus, we don’t need paid people to do that. It’s something we can all do with each other in our free time. The message is not one that requires sitting around philosophizing endlessly. It is a simple message. It’s about what people mean to us and how we connect to spirit. Those of us who feel stuck can be ministered to by those who don’t feel as stuck and who feel more connected to spirit.
This doesn’t require a paid, dedicated person whose need to maintain income, feed their family, and keep their children in school forces them into a bind. They end up having to adapt their message to secure the payments that make their life possible. That dependency becomes the whole system—and it corrupts the heart of the message.
Transcript: My Conservative Christian deconstruction journey.
When I first deconstructed from Christianity about 13 to 15 years ago, it was a bit of a process. People said different things. Some told me I had never been a Christian because, in their theology, it wasn’t possible for someone to leave and come back. Mostly people just said it wasn’t true—that I was going through the desert or a dark night. They didn’t believe it. Others warned me about arrogance and leaning on my own understanding. That became a big part of it, because what actually happens is you learn to trust yourself—not your small, man-made logic frameworks, but the ocean of wisdom and truth that lives inside all of us.
I was often told I was arrogant for believing something different than the men whose authority I was expected to submit to. Another accusation, though less frequent, was that I just wanted to sin. That one always struck me as absurd. As a deconstructed Christian, I have thought more deeply about ethics and morality than I ever did while inside Christianity. I constantly ask myself: Am I treating people well? Am I doing the right thing? And often I find that the “preloaded ethics” handed to me by Christians fall short of what my own conscience and inner sense of God’s word consider ethical. So no, I don’t sin more. I may do things Christians call sin but which are not harmful, and I hurt people far less now than I did when I was a practicing Christian.
The biggest trigger for my deconstruction was the concept of hell. I couldn’t reconcile the idea of a loving God creating people with all their circumstances—family, psychology, place of birth—only to condemn them to eternal torture for failing to accept certain beliefs. I was told it would make sense once I matured or deepened in faith, but that day never came. By my late 20s, after studying Calvinism and other attempts to rationalize it, I realized no one had solved this. Many just accepted it or stuck with it due to sunk costs. I couldn’t, so I left.
Leaving felt like being untethered. My whole life, I thought I knew exactly what was true—who God was, who was in and who was out, what I needed to do. If I didn’t know, I could ask the leaders at church. It was like being a boat tied safely to a pier. When I broke away, it felt like being tossed loose in a stormy sea. But eventually, I realized it was okay. That “pier” had been holding me to just 2% of reality. Breaking free opened me to deeper experiences, relationships, self-knowledge, and connection to God.
This wasn’t about trading one belief system for another. It was about being free. I do believe many sincere people in the church are truly connected to divinity. They may not actually believe in hell or judgment deep down, yet they stay and bring authentic spirituality to their communities. Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and others throughout history found this deeper truth. That path was an option, but not the right one for me.
When I left, I went through a period of angry atheism. I became a hard materialist, furious at having been misled—especially about apologetics and claims of biblical inerrancy. I had taken people at their word when they said the Bible was perfect, but later discovered clear discrepancies. When I pointed them out, people immediately shifted the argument: “Well, the meaning is continuous; those details don’t matter.” That wasn’t what they had originally said. It felt manipulative. In anger, I threw out Jesus along with the doctrines, which in hindsight was a mistake. Now, when I read Jesus, I see that he never said those things, and he consistently pointed toward authentic connection with the divine.
I don’t know much about today’s deconstruction gurus, podcasts, or books. They may be helpful. But the real point is this: you can’t simply trade one earthly teacher for another in the same way you had teachers inside institutional Christianity. Yes, find teachers and communities, but remember—God’s words are written on your heart. You already have the wisdom you need. You can build any kind of life or community for yourself. You don’t need to place yourself under a new institution or authority.
One last thing: Christianity leaves behind psychological wounds—trauma bonds and manipulative frameworks designed to keep you entrenched. Healing those wounds is vital. I highly recommend Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which has been deeply helpful for me. The book Altogether You is an excellent resource—it presents IFS for Christians in their own language, written by someone with a true spiritual connection. As you heal, it’s like moving outward through Russian nesting dolls. Each breakthrough opens you to a larger, richer self, and it never ends.
Deconstruction isn’t about moving to a different institution. It’s about dismantling your dependence on institutionalized systems that serve other interests. It’s about connecting inward and living authentically from your own inner truth.