Divergent Dad is Retiring
Welcome to Brick By Brick, a historical look at how the church ended up where we find ourselves
For those who have been enjoying Divergent Dad, thank you for reading my work, as haphazard as my publishing schedule has been. Anyone who’s been here for a minute realizes that this publication has morphed a couple times, but mostly has focused on the modern church and things I perceive it is missing the boat on. It has been free, mostly opinion-based, with some of my inevitable historical research thrown in because I am a historian at heart and really couldn’t keep it out if I tried.
That changes as of this moment, for a couple reasons. First, I’ve really come to realize over the last year of this publication, what I’m actually trying to do. It was made MASSIVELY clear to me while reading an article by
today. The article is linked here:
There’s a LOT of great stuff in this article, but the part that helped me to realize what I’m actually trying to do and that led met to change the name of the publication and put parts of it behind the firewall is excerpted from Christy’s book, which you should buy, that’s here: Religious Rebels. I will provide a pull quote from the book in italics below, I’ve read a number of Christy’s posts and am in the early stages of reading the book, I recommend you read her words as they are poignant and eloquent. This excerpt’s title section is “Can we Work on a Better Definition of Deconstruction” and it moved me so much that I decided to adjust my existing Substack after finishing reading them.
“Pretend with me that there was this incredible Lego set. Over the years people added pieces to it—most of them with the best intentions. They were trying to make it look defined, creative, and better designed. But after a while people couldn’t tell what the set originally looked like. It was just a pile of Lego blocks stuck together. This is what has happened with our modern Christianity.”
"I took the blocks apart and separated the pieces. Then I looked at the instructions—which were kind of crumpled and hard to read. I tried to choose the blocks that belonged to the original set and did my best to follow the directions even though they weren’t always easy to decipher. I put the Lego set back together again and threw the extra blocks in my tote. This is my faith deconstruction and reconstruction story."
Reading these words, I recognized this is EXACTLY what I wanted and have been trying to do for myself and what I always HOPED Divergent Dad could become. I want to show you the Lego pieces of the church, the history of how we got to this moment in time, to trace our theology and our faith through it’s many twists and turns. This is what I do for FUN, I’ve read so many books on ‘How We Got the Bible’ and am currently reading books surveying Christian history and the history of Universalism. And it dawned on me, that while I’m trying to work out my own beliefs while reading these books and writing out the process that I’ve been using to get there, what I really want to do is share with YOU the Lego pieces so you can decide for yourself what you believe and why. I think the modern church has become quite similar to the Jewish church of Jesus’ day, and I think we’re doing a disservice to his message due to those similarities. Anyone on here who subscribes and actually knows me, knows I’ve contributed to what I perceive as it’s legalism and judgment.
So, here’s how it’s going to go. I’m switching to paid, and I’d love if you enjoy my work if you’d consider signing up for paid content. There are tiers and founding memberships and all kinds of stuff I still barely comprehend, we’ll figure that out together. But I think this stuff is important and so I am committing that for most of the paid posts, particularly the ones that deal with the history of the church, I will create a free version without all the extensive research and documentation and frankly without what are my favorite parts of writing (all the background research that goes into my historical posts) and reading. As I said, I think these topics are important and even a scaled down, less comprehensive, more ‘basic’ version of these can provide value to readers. I hope that even those who never choose to transition to paid agree.
Regardless, that’s my update. I’m switching my name of the publication, transitioning to paid, and working to provide content that speaks to the history of the church. All the while my agenda remains, to seek and to find the true God of history and to engage with him in a real and vulnerable way. Without the weight of thousands of years of interpretation, of human judgment and church politics, but with the hope that he is greater than we have ever hoped him to be. Thank you for reading Divergent Dad, I hope you choose to stay on and become part of a community of deconstructors, examining our faith through the history of the church brick by brick.