Deconstruction, Doubt, and Finding Faith Again — Lisa Gungor and Alisa Childers on the Unbelievable? Podcast w/ Justin Brierley

This past week I was honored to have a conversation with Lisa Gungor on Justin Brierley's Unbelievable Podcast. Here is the synopsis from the Unbelievable website: 

‘Deconstruction’ has become a buzz word for many people questioning Christian faith. But what happens when we try to reconstruct?
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Lisa Gungor and Alisa Childers have both had successful careers in the Christian music industry but both went through profound seasons of doubt and deconstruction. The process of ‘reconstruction’ took them to very different conclusions. They discuss their journeys with Justin and each other.

*CORRECTION* In my conversation with Lisa, I misspoke and stated that I started studying apologetics in 2008/2009, but this is incorrect. 2008/2009 was when we began attending the church that became progressive. But it wasn't until around 2010/2011, following my crisis of faith that I began seriously studying. Sorry for the confusion!

Download the episode here

It sounds like one woman has walked away and knows it and one woman who could have walked away and realized that it would have been an error.

One woman over-analyzes to the point if getting herself stuck in a loop…..One woman understands what "grace" really means….

Hmmmm… which one is which?

In listening to them tell their own stories, it seems like one woman is filled with a lot of anxiety and a desire to control her external world and the other seems like she's done her own inner emotional work and is experiencing a peace without trying to control other people or their ideas.

It sounds like one woman insists on having certitude before she believes anything, and yet insists there is no way to be certain. That gives her permission to believe whatever appeals to her, and also leaves her views impenetrable to criticism, because she accepts no accountability for having coherence and non-contradiction in her beliefs.

The other does not insist on having certitude before she believes anything, and accepts there is no way to be certain. Yet she has faith. All the work she's done intellectually only gives coherence and order to how she thinks about her faith; it supports but does not replace her faith, and it is not the same thing as her faith.

The latter insists on surrendering to truth on its terms; the former will surrender only to what she likes, only on her own terms.

The former's words are mushy, unclear, vague; the latter's are coherent, clear, and organized. I suspect both their inward thoughts are the same way.

Neither came across as anxious to me. I suspect the former is not anxious because she has ceased to care; I suspect the latter is not anxious because she has some sort of peace that surpasses her understanding.

I’m a long time Unbelievable listener and I thought you (Alisa) were a wonderful guest and you represented true Christianity very well with humility and grace. The Gospel is so simple and very clearly explained in the Bible. For people to leave out what Christ did for them and still think they have somehow earned or inherited eternal life amazes me. As you pointed out so eloquently on the show “No one comes to the Father but through Jesus”. I wonder sometimes how many people out there are calling themselves Christians while completely dismissing our primary differentiator from other faiths (Jesus death, burial and resurrection)? Keep up the great work Alisa. I almost wrecked my car when Lisa said “Who is Paul?”

actually, "who is paul?" is quite a legitimate question, when serious and respected scholars such as John Dominic Crossan and others acknowledge, with compelling evidence, there were multiple authors who have been lumped under the general authorship designation of "Paul"

Crossan is a heretic, he denies Jesus Christ as God, and lumps him down along with all the other Biblical characters as just mere human beings doing this or that. Such men in the end do nothing more than make the attempt to elevate themselves by "knowledge and understanding" to be greater than God.

In this comment I am responding to both your comment above and your comment below.

First of all, Gungor was not even remotely referring to that which you are pointing to. She was not calling into question Pauline authorship (although she very well may indeed question Pauline authorship of other books) when she made this assertion, she was simply saying something along the lines of, "What authority does Paul have over me." Go back and listen to the exchange carefully. She goes on to call Paul sexist in order to imply that we have to sort of take the good from Paul while spitting out the bad, a constant refrain from Progressive Christians regarding all of the biblical authors, and many would be so brazen to go that far with Jesus Himself.

Second of all, the exchange was primarily over Paul's words in 1 Cor 15 and almost no one, Crossan included, doubts genuine Pauline authorship of that book. So even if Gungor was asking the question along the lines of what you assert, it still would not have been a good question, but would have only demonstrated her gross ignorance of the scholarly issues. So your attempted defense of her, even on your own terms, falls utterly flat.

Third, Crossan is an excellent scholar, one of the best, when it comes to the brute facts. We can all learn a great deal from him on that front. He rarely makes glaring mistakes on this front that are later corrected by the scholarly community. This cannot be said of many scholars, even some of the better ones. However, his interpretations always reflect his philosophical bias. He ALMOST ALWAYS takes the most skeptical option available. You make it sound like there is absolute consensus regarding the multiple Paul view in all particulars. This is not so. Crossan divides that which is traditionally attributed to Paul into four categories (adding that which is attributed to Paul in Acts) and this is not the case with all scholars, including very liberal ones. One category are those books that some scholars think are Pauline, while many others do not. On this point Crossan takes the most skeptical position that these epistles are in fact not Pauline, and no surprise there. Conservative scholars agree that there are stylistic differences between the three categories of Paul's epistles, but do not believe that this demands multiple authors beyond Paul himself. There are other good explanations for these differences. Now it is true that if we did not have other qualifying evidence that it would probably be a better assumption that not all of these epistles were written by Paul. All things being equal that would be the natural position to take. And this is precisely why almost all non-conservative scholars take this position. But we do have unbelievably strong evidence that the Bible is the word of God and therefore we cannot accept that any of the epistles attributed to Paul are spurious. The fact that non-conservative scholars refuse to accept this evidence primarily on highly subjective philosophical grounds is not our problem. They are unbelievers and so we are not surprised by this posture, but no it does not change the evidence one iota. The lesser evidence, regardless of how strong it may be in and of itself, must always yield to the greater evidence. This is the case in all fields of inquiry and biblical scholarship should be no different.

Fourth, of course the fact that Crossan is a heretic matters. He is an unbeliever. He thinks as an unbeliever, he speaks as an unbeliever, he writes as an unbeliever. His biases as an unbeliever shine forth at every point. Crossan constantly systematically dismisses anything supernatural based on the completely erroneous philosophical assumption that undergirds so much liberal scholarship, namely that historical and scientific investigation simply cannot ever admit the supernatural, that the supernatural is simply beyond its purview. This is rubbish and should be rejected as rubbish by all reasonable people, whether orthodox Christian or not.

I also should have said in response to your comment below, that the vast majority of alleged instances of contradiction between the three categories of Paul, such as the one you provided, are just lame, plain and simple. The stylistic differences are real and cannot simply be brushed aside, although as stated, there are solid explanations for them from a conservative perspective. But so many of the alleged contradictions offered by Crossan and Ehrman are just gross stretches and demonstrate that liberal scholars are not the completely objective free thinkers they and their followers so often assert them as being.

To the one that you offer, Paul never says, not once, that Christians are never to own slaves. I am not in any way advocating for slavery, but Paul and the Bible as a whole do allow for slavery in certain very specific instances such as a punishment for a crime or as a temporary cultural concession that should be eradicated as soon as possible. None of that can be used to defend the American system of slavery that was almost entirely race based. I address this in my book. Paul gives ample evidence that he saw slavery as an intrinsic evil, but he does allow for the slave relationship as a temporary concession in certain instances. Hence, he nowhere condemns all slave owners across the board as you assert. Once again showing that these alleged contradictions are nowhere to be found.

It's a good question. When people denigrate Paul, they are missing the heart of Christianity. There is a reason why Paul is so very important to the Christian faith, and most Christians will go and prioritize the words of Jesus Christ and consider Paul to be nothing but a sideshow. If you throw out Paul and the epistles he wrote, then you might as well be in a cult.

In this instance, and I know this is hard for you to understand, Crossan's Christological views are not relevant, the question is why, among other things, sometimes "Paul" says that Christians may not own slaves, and in other instances he instructs Christians on how to treat them.

I have been following you on Twitter because of your thoughtful posts, and this interview was a beautiful example of giving reasons for the hope within you with gentleness and respect. I couldn't help but notice the clarity and confidence with which you spoke compared to the muddled and hesitant way Lisa Gungor spoke. I do hope that she can work her way through the fog and find some clarity. I really don't want to be harsh, as we should show mercy to those who doubt, and we need to let people know that there is room for (honest) doubt in the church.

Thank you so much for doing this interview! I love the Unbelievable podcast; it is a huge encouragement to me. I seem to be surrounded by people who have walked away from their faith. Several of these dear friends went to Christian universities but became disillusioned after they graduated. Most painfully, my husband walked away from his faith about 7 years ago. All of them would probably say they are agnostic. It’s easy to feel isolated and fall into feeling like my faith is on shaky ground. Your interview helped shore up my faith. Thank you for saying yes to God’s call for your life- you are a huge blessing.

Alisa: Great job on the Unbelievable show. Your observation that "progressive Christianity" does not attract converts, aside from more conservative Christianity, was spot on. More than anything, "progressive Christianity" suffers from a muddled understanding of truth. In this respect, agnosticism or atheism is a lot more consistent position.

That being said, there are just too many forms of evangelical faith that have a shallow theological foundation, and this narrow, pathological view on reality, that tends to entrap people like Lisa, such that if and when people like her go through a "deconstructionist" period, their faith tends to unravel so much, that they become less willing to trust even the good things about genuine Christian faith, that they might have embraced in the past. Let us pray that such trust can be rebuilt in Lisa's life, that her faith can be "reconstructed."

Progressive Chrisianity absoutely attracts converts. Though it may be a feel-good thing for Evangelicals to claim, Alisa didn't provide any evidence to this statistical claim, because, frankly, there is none from which to draw.

Hi Josh, I should have been more precise with my wording. In my experience, with all the progressive books, blogs, and podcasts I've studied, I haven't found any converts from other worldviews. That doesn't mean there aren't any. I'm always pursuing truth, so I would be totally open to being proven wrong on this. Any statistics you can provide showing this to not be the case would be helpful…