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It’s entirely possible that this whole thing becomes a train wreck and I dodder off into the aether drooling and talking to myself. Or, it could be really awesome. Either way, if you subscribe to my website you’ll never miss an update and you can watch as one of those two courses of action occurs.
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You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox. I will write well-researched, detailed, historically-informed pieces showing you points along the pathway to our modern church for paid subscribers with a more free-flowy, less dense, more ‘writing from the hip’ version for free subscribers. You certainly don’t have to subscribe to the ‘good stuff’ in the paywalled portion, and I’m always going to try and keep a 1:1 relationship between a paid and free article. The decision to switch to paying subscribers reflects the fact that when I write with an expectation of payment, I spend a lot of time researching, writing, and preparing it and would like to be compensated for that time for those willing to do so.
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I have been disillusioned with the modern church. And that disillusionment has led me down a path I never expected. This Southern Baptist, conservative, card-carrying member of the church has questions that I no longer find satisfactory answers to in pews of churches I used to sit comfortably in. While this lack of satisfaction is certainly impacted by my own life experiences, particulary the years from 2022 forward, what I am experiencing goes deeper and has persisted longer than a few bad years of personal experience. There are things that I cannot unsee as I look around at the modern church. And that seeing has led me on a path.
Some call the path I’m on deconstruction, others might describe it as walking away, maybe some would even call it ‘backsliding’. I subscribe to a well-written description of the process that likened deconstruction to taking apart a beautiful, well-intentioned, Lego creation to see how it got to what you see in front of you. So, I reached out to the author and gained her permission to re-name my blog after this moving description because it spoke so strongly to me and made me realize that all my earlier writing ultimately was about how/when/why/where the church made the decisions that led it to it’s current state.
I doubt you’ll agree with some of what I write here, but I’m a historian by schooling and I’ll back it all up with research. You may not agree with the conclusions I make from that research, or you may think my research is flawed or perhaps that history has nothing to tell us about the ‘work of the Holy Spirit’. I disagree, and though I’m less interested in (necessarily) telling you what to believe, I passionately intend to inform you where my historical research leads me to assess the church is today. Ultimately, I’d prefer you disagree with what I think I’ve found and I’d like to build a community of genuinely curious people who can feel free to ask what they want, say what they want, and come to their own conclusions. Much of what I write here is going to be on my thoughts on the history of faith, and I’d be absolutely gobsmacked if any of it influenced your own religious perspective in some way. Whether it does or doesn’t, this will be a place where genuine questioning is celebrated.
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