“If you take my son, we’re done!” Drew screamed as he sobbed into the steering wheel of his car in the hospital parking lot. Drew had just come from the neonatal intensive care unit, where his son, Linden, lay in his mother’s arms. Linden had been born prematurely and unable to breathe on his own. After further testing, doctors discovered he had multiple holes in his heart and some brain bleeding. Linden later required a feeding tube for his daily nutrition. Throughout this process, Linden saw a dozen specialists, but Drew and his wife, Jane, were still left with more questions than answers. Doctors chalked up Linden’s developmental delay to a “failure to thrive,” but there was no clear diagnosis. So finally, in a moment of desperation, Drew asked the doctors to level with him: “We’re tired of all the question marks. What does Linden’s future look like?” The doctors said they didn’t have those answers. They didn’t know if Linden would ever be capable of living on his own. They didn’t know if they would bury their son. They just didn’t know. This news brought Drew to the brink. Sitting in his car, feeling frustrated, tired, hurt, and confused, trying to process every parent’s worst nightmare, he was left feeling abandoned by God and wondered if he should walk away.
It might surprise you to learn that Drew isn’t some lukewarm Christian.
He isn’t Christian in name only. Drew is a young pastor of a thriving church plant in San Antonio, Texas, and a talented Christian illusionist. But Drew encountered a profound moment of doubt when his son’s life was at stake. In an interview, he said, “Doubt drives you in one of two directions. It either pushes you to run away from God, or it pushes you to run toward God.” That day, in the car, Drew said it felt like God “was bear-hugging me as I pounded on his chest.”2
We’d love to tell you that Linden has been completely healed, but that hasn’t happened. There’s no big red bow on this story. Linden continues to develop slowly, and Drew and Jane celebrate each new milestone. But they are still in it—living in the midst of suffering. They have experienced unanswered prayer, unexpected suffering, and unwanted hardship—all of which could lead someone to doubt the goodness of God and even his existence. This crisis made Drew a good candidate for deconstruction. One deconstruction resource describes suffering as one of the pillars that cause people’s faith to crumble, pointing out that this is the number one reason many people begin to deconstruct.3
But it doesn’t have to be.
Drew and Jane have firsthand experience with suffering and the doubts that result from it. But rather than leading them to deconstruct their faith, this experience has allowed them to experience the love of God like never before. Drew ended the interview by saying, “Over the last year, here’s what I’ve learned: No matter what happens to my son, God is still good. If there’s a miracle and he heals him, he’s good. And if he doesn’t, he’s still good.”
When reading about Drew challenging God regarding his son, you might be thinking, But pastors aren’t supposed to talk like that, are they? One of the beautiful realities we find in Scripture is that we have permission to be real with God—even when that means expressing our frustrations, our worries, and our doubts. Just read Psalm 13. David finds himself surrounded by his enemies, and he begins to wonder where God is or why he is allowing this to happen. In deep despair, David writes, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (verse 1). But there is something telling about David’s prayer. As he honestly questions God and pours out his heart, David draws closer to God. Before he receives his answer, he ends with praise: “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (verse 6). It’s no surprise that both the Old and New Testaments refer to David as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22).
Jinger Duggar Vuolo, the sixth child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, approached her doubts in this way. America watched Jinger and her siblings grow up on the popular TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting. The family were devout followers of now-disgraced minister Bill Gothard. who founded the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). The IBLP is an ultraconservative organization that teaches women to shun birth control; to avoid wearing pants, shorts, tank tops, or any other clothing deemed by the organization to be immodest; and to be totally subservient to their husbands. Popular culture was generally to be avoided while the authoritative role of Gothard himself was emphasized. Jinger described these teachings as “cult-like,” and told People magazine, “The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the outside world.”4 Although Gothard never married or had children, his teachings on family, modesty, and women in particular are extreme and unbiblical, even being described by Jinger as “superstition.”5 Gothard was accused of sexual misconduct by over thirty women in 2014 and resigned from IBLP, though his profile and resources are still featured on the website.
Jinger began to doubt what she had been taught all her life but she did not deconstruct. In her memoir, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear, she noted that the Christianity she grew up with was a mix of truth and false teaching tangled together: “Instead of deconstruction, my faith journey is one of disentanglement. . . . I’ve spent eight years unthreading my faith: separating truth from error.”6 Jinger rejected the urge to turn to herself as the authority for truth or to reject Christianity altogether.
There are many examples throughout Scripture of God’s people pouring out their hearts to him, asking the tough questions, expressing doubt over his goodness and sovereignty, and even despairing of life. Every doubter eventually comes to a crossroads where they must decide whether to continue to move toward God or to move away from him. Jesus can handle our doubts. There is evidence of God’s existence and the truthfulness of Christianity all around us. We can fall back on this evidence when it feels as if God is silent. We can trust him even when there are situations that seem overwhelming or when we have been harmed by those who claim to be representatives of Christ. Deconstruction isn’t inevitable.
2. Drew said this to me, (Tim) in an interview on stage at the Reality Student Apologetics Conference in Seattle. This was recorded, though the video is not public.
3. Keith Giles, “The 6 Pillars of Religious Deconstruction,” Patheos, August 27, 2019, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/2019/08/the-6-pillars-of-religious-deconstruction/.
4. Emily Strohm, “Jinger Duggar Vuolo on Growing Up under ‘Cult-Like’ Religious Beliefs: ‘I Was Terrified of the Outside World,” January 18, 2023, People, https://people.com/tv/jinger-duggar-vuolo-on-growing-up-following-cult-like-religious-beliefs/.
5. Jinger Duggar Vuolo, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear (Nashville: W Publishing, 2023), 93.
6. Vuolo, Becoming Free Indeed, 9.
Adapted from The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. Copyright © 2024. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
Alisa Childers is a wife, mom, author, and speaker. She was a member of the award-winning CCM recording group ZOEgirl. She is a popular speaker at apologetics and Christian worldview conferences. She is the author of Another Gospel? and Live Your Truth and Other Lies. She has been published at the Gospel Coalition, Crosswalk, the Stream, For Every Mom, Decision Magazine, and the Christian Post.
Tim Barnett
