In 2017, at the end of his first year at Samford University, a private Christian university in Birmingham, Alabama, Nathan Peace realized he’d never “pray the gay away” and he’d never “turn straight”.
Peace had grown up in a “churchy” family in Georgia and attended Southern Baptist services his entire life. In high school, he showed up early for Bible study and participated in group prayers before marching band performances. In the 2016 election, he voted for Donald Trump. It’s what he thought he had to do to be a “faithful” Christian.
But for years Peace had remained closeted, agonizing over his sexuality. As far as he knew, he could be gay or he could be a Christian – but he could never be both.
“When I came out as gay, that was the major faith reckoning, because I grew up in a very conservative context. I did not know gay people,” Peace, now 27, said. “It was in that process that I said, ‘What is my faith? What am I doing? What is left of me after this?’”
Peace had begun deconstructing.
The term deconstruction has risen in popularity in recent years, particularly in evangelical Christian circles. It describes a process in which people strip back and challenge the core of their religious beliefs, often because their values are in conflict with those of their church. Those who deconstruct – sometimes called “exvangelicals” – may be prompted to do so by their church’s treatment of LGBTQ+ people, its tolerance of racism, misogyny and sexual abuse, or its embrace of purity culture.
Deconstruction is not quick or easy. Because religion can be ingrained and habitual, the interfaith minister the Rev Karla Kamstra calls it a “spiritual untangling”. “The main part of that is really learning to understand what it means to let go and release and heal from the things that no longer serve your highest good,” said Kamstra, author of the new book Deconstructing: Leaving Church, Finding Faith.
The number of Americans who identify as Christian is shrinking. According to Pew Research Center, about 28% of US adults now fit the category of religious nones – a group that identifies as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – while the number of adults who identify as Christian has steadily declined since 2007. A third of US adults in their 30s who were raised Christian no longer identify as such.
In today’s changing religious landscape, deconstructing Christians are thoughtfully, deliberately asking themselves: “Can I remain in the church, or will I have to leave the faith altogether?” Discovering the answer can be an emotionally wrenching process.
Unraveling religion
As freshman year came to a close, Peace sent an email to his campus minister, April Robinson: “I just wanted to reach out about something I’ve been struggling with,” he wrote. Robinson’s subsequent guidance was invaluable in the early days of his deconstruction. Together, they created a reading list so Peace could begin learning what other Christians had to say about “same-sex attraction”. Robinson ordered and loaned him books, and assured him that he wasn’t the first to walk this path. Peace hunkered down in his dorm room to read.
Notably, the Bible was not on Peace’s reading list. As he wrestled with his sexuality in his youth, the Bible had seemed oppressive. Once he began deconstructing, he didn’t touch it: it was still meaningful to him, but he wanted space to determine how to ascribe its authority in his life. Instead, he read books like God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines and Changing Our Mind by David Gushee.
Robinson continued following Peace’s lead. When he heard compelling cases about gay-affirming Christians, she connected him with a local pastor who helped him explore where he stood theologically. She also referred him to a therapist.
The Southern Baptist Convention condemns homosexuality and defines marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime”. So when Peace began deconstructing his Southern Baptist background, a world of difficult questions opened. If he was gay, what did that mean for his relationship with God? What did that mean for his politics? Questions about same-sex relationships led to questions about misogyny, which led to questions about gender roles in the Southern Baptist church, like whether women should be allowed to serve as pastors. It was all entangled.
Deconstruction creates a sense of cognitive dissonance, according to Daryl Van Tongeren, professor of psychology at Hope College, and there are two ways to deal with it: “You either get the world to fit according to your views, or you need to change your views to fit the world.”
Religious mentors like Robinson help some navigate these diverging paths. Others find support in online communities. Kamstra, who was raised Southern Baptist, runs a TikTok account with more than 700,000 followers, where she posts about Bible study, prayer and the politics of the Christian right. The massively popular YouTube duo Rhett and Link have posted and podcasted about their “long, grueling, painful” journeys from Christian evangelicalism, becoming something of online figureheads for deconstruction (they say they’re in a “good spot” now). Across comment sections, subreddits and tweet threads, individuals going through deconstruction share frustrating experiences, ask for advice and seek solace.
After deconstructing, some leave the faith entirely. Perhaps that’s why certain Christian leaders see deconstruction as a threat. Matt Chandler, a baptist pastor based in Texas, preached a sermon in 2021 condemning it as a “sexy thing to do” and suggesting that those who deconstructed never had a true faith. Tim Barnett, a Christian speaker, thought it could be healthy but now says it is “antithetical to the Christian worldview”.
Other leaders are more open to it. Before his death in 2023, Dr Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York City, wrote that deconstruction was a chance for Christians to “emerge stronger” if done “constructively”. Some have spoken out about it as a healthy renewal of one’s faith that signals where American Christianity is heading.
Peace was reckoning with his faith and accepting his sexuality while navigating a conservative college campus, and things were growing tense with people in his life.
Deconstruction is fraught with social consequences, said Terry Shoemaker, an associate teaching professor at the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Because religion is closely linked to family and friendships, one risks a loss of community and estrangement from loved ones.
“It interweaves things so tightly that if you pull on one thread, that braid really starts to unravel. All other forms of identity start to come into question, because if this one thing doesn’t match up, well then, maybe other things don’t match up,” Shoemaker said.
One of the threads woven into Peace’s braid was his politics. “Part of my deconstruction was saying, ‘Oh, that’s not the way of Jesus,’” Peace said of his 2016 vote for Trump. He had done what he’d been taught was right, but now realized his politics caused more harm than good. “As a queer person, I don’t know how I could vote for that.”
In the 2020 election, 84% of white evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Aside from Black Christians, practicing Christians lean Republican, and evangelical Christians – including Southern Baptists – are broadly associated with restrictive, conservative stances on issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. But Christians might find the label “evangelical” problematic, particularly with the rise of the evangelical right, and no longer wish to be associated with it. That can be reason enough to begin deconstructing.
“It’s more of a sociopolitical term or moniker than it is a religious one, and so some people leave religion because they don’t like the label,” Van Tongeren said.
Those who land outside of religion after deconstruction have “de-identified”, according to Van Tongeren. But religion is sticky. “We call [it] religious residue, the idea that one’s religious past lingers or continues to have an effect on them long after they’ve de-identified,” he said. This residue can manifest in values, politics, beliefs about God and spending habits. Those who de-identify might seek spiritual meaning outside of organized religion. “So even though people have walked away from religion, religion continues to exert an effect on them.”
Deconstructing left Peace with a sense of grief as he mourned the loss of his church and community. But he was unwilling to walk away from Christianity. In fact, it was this period of deconstruction that helped Peace keep his faith.
“I very much had a desire to take apart my faith but come up with something that was going to be much more life giving,” he said.
This rebuilding of faith is what Van Tongeren calls “reconstruction”.
After his freshman year, Peace spent years reading from Christians with varying beliefs, conversing with friends and mentors, and watching sermons and talks. He attended a progressive Baptist church near campus, but was thinking more long term. Really, he was looking for a place to belong.
So in 2019, at the beginning of his senior year, Peace received a grant from the Forum for Theological Exploration and planned a visit to Washington DC with intentions to visit several Baptist churches in the area. On a whim he ended up at the National Cathedral – a cathedral of the Episcopal church. It was a Sunday.
As he walked through the doors, the late evening sun leaked through stained glass windows, illuminating bleeding reds, vivid sapphire and blazing golds. Images of the throne of God and other scenes from the Book of Revelation were on display.
As he settled into the wooden pews, Peace noticed another young man sitting nearby. He took it as a good sign. The organ rang out through the lofty ceilings, and as the choir’s voices filled the halls, an intense feeling of comfort overcame Peace. A voice, which he identified as the Holy Spirit, whispered to him: “You’re home. This is your home.”
He returned the following Sunday.
Welcomed, not shunned
Today, Peace is a student at Yale Divinity School, studying for his master of divinity degree. When he graduates next year, he hopes to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Finding a home within Christianity didn’t end the deconstruction process for Peace. It freed him to continue.
“I can’t say that among my Episcopal colleagues I have the exact same theological framework,” he said. “But they also don’t have the same theological framework among themselves. It’s a safe place to deconstruct.”
In 1974, the American Episcopal church ordained its first female priests, and in 2003, it elected its first out gay bishop. By 2012, it was the largest US Protestant denomination to officially approve same-sex relationships, and it has since taken up progressive stances on environmental issues, gun rights and immigration. But members still range across the political spectrum – 31% are conservative, 37% are moderate, and 29% are liberal, per Pew.
For Peace, there’s something special about being in community with people who aren’t exactly like him, whom he can learn from and be challenged by. Time away from the Bible has helped him learn to feel welcomed by it, not shunned. He also loves knowing that on any given Sunday, he can walk into an Episcopal church and hear the recitation of the Nicene Creed. He can read and rely on the Book of Common Prayer. In part, this communal confession and clear statement of belief is what drew him to the Episcopal church.
“Belief is not mine and my own. Belief is ours,” Peace said. “If the person next to me can say something with conviction, then somehow, some way, by the spirit of God, that can count for the two of us.”
Now, when he talks about God, the Bible and his faith, Peace brightens. He tearfully explains the kinship he feels to the Apostle Peter in John 6, for he too can imagine his place nowhere but in companionship with Jesus. He laughs when he explains that it’s OK to take issue with biblical passages, like 1 Corinthians and Philemon, both of which he finds concerning. He’s solemn as he describes how seriously he takes prayer. Before deconstruction, it would have been much harder to articulate these feelings.
Peace sometimes wonders if it would have been easier to leave Christianity altogether.
“There are many times when I deal with family, deal with the community that raised me, that I sort of wonder, why didn’t I just get out?” Peace said. “But I can’t. I look at Jesus and I say, ‘Where would I go?’ I don’t know where I would go.”
