Nobody Orders the Moldy Tomato

There are certain words that elicit a quick reaction in people. Mention the word "deconstruction" to most Christians today, and you'll see what I mean.

I recently posted a video explaining why I don't think people pursue deconstruction as some sort of trendy thing to do. In response, one person commented:

"I'm not a fan of deconstruction. I just want a damn hamburger, not a bunch of ingredients on a plate."

At first glance, this looks like a great burn. Of course, the point of a hamburger is the sum of its ingredients. I can certainly appreciate the magic when I hold a Double-Double in my hands. You could, theoretically, eat each ingredient separately. Bun. Patty. Cheese. Tomato. One solemn component at a time, like a very sad communion. Yet few sane people would choose to do so.

Yet this commenter falls prey to what many outsiders to deconstruction fail to realize: almost nobody chooses to deconstruct for fun. I've certainly never met them if they exist. Those who deconstruct don't look at a perfect hamburger with boredom and apathy and decide to lay out the ingredients because we like the attention.  

Deconstruction tends to happen to you.

I've seen people launch into a journey of deconstruction when they find out one of their kids is gay, or when they realize their theological belief in things like hell actually portrays a problematic view of God, or when they realize that Christians are providing the support for people like Trump to do horrible things, or when they experience something in a church that looks nothing like Jesus, or when they believed things would work out as they'd been told, only to find out that was actually a lie. 

To stick with the analogy, imagine it like this: you are about to take a bite of a hamburger when you notice mold growing on the tomato. You look more closely and find a fuzzy layer of colors on top of your red tomato slice. Would you forge ahead, bite into the burger, and hope for the best?

I suspect not. Instead, you would deconstruct the burger and remove the top bun to see how bad things look. Depending on what you find, you would remove the slice of tomato, replace it with another, or replace the burger entirely.

The arguments against people who have or are currently deconstructing their faith sound a bit like a person being told to eat the burger with the moldy tomato and stop making a big deal about it. It would be a violation of your senses and of logic to proceed in that way. Once you've seen the mold, you can't unsee it.

So we deconstruct the bad parts to get to the good. It may mean no tomato, a new tomato, or a completely different burger. But what most people miss is that it ends with us enjoying a burger, too. It's just that we're looking for a burger without the mold. Nobody orders a burger with a moldy tomato just to join the moldy tomato trend. We order a burger and sometimes find it doesn't match our expectations.

In addition, those who have found mold on their tomato suspect there might be mold on others' tomatoes as well. So you go to the table next to you and try to point this out, telling them what you found on your burger, often to have them tell you that you are being dramatic and there's nothing wrong with any of the burgers. When you show them the mold on your tomato, they might tell you it's an anomaly and that most tomatoes aren't like it. You just got a bad tomato. Which is true, and yet it also suggests that it might affect their tomato, too. 

Many of us have watched helplessly as others settle for something that is not worth eating.

I'm grateful to my random commenter for this analogy. It helps to illustrate what I see happening. What my explanation fails to convey is the loneliness, isolation, and loss of friends and community that often accompany this journey. It doesn't do justice to the gaslighting many experience when they decide to name the painful truth in front of them. While it's easy to see this conversation through the lens of a hamburger, it's hard to feel empathy for those who've walked this road unless you've seen it for yourself.

So if you've wondered why some Christians can't eat the same burger you ordered, I'd encourage you to make space for the reality that they may have seen something you haven't seen yet. You might react just like them if you saw the same thing.

And to those of you who removed the tomato and upended your life forever... keep going. You may never be understood or affirmed in your journey, but a delicious (and fresh) burger awaits you. 

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Photo by Stanley Kustamin on Unsplash