An extended review of a 2024 book by Angela Reitsma Bick and Peter Schuurman
Note: Our print issue contains a shorter version of this review. Faith Today welcomes your thoughts on any of our reviews. We also welcome suggestions of other Canadian Christian books to review: Contact us.
New Leaf Press, 2024. 322 pages. $25 (e-book $10)
This is an important book. It touches on issues we all are struggling with in North American churches today.
The authors’ interests in trends reshaping North American churches go back decades. Reitsma Bick has since 2009 been editor-in-chief of Christian Courier, a periodical with Dutch-Canadian roots serving Presbyterian, Reformed and related audiences.
Schuurman directs Global Scholars Canada and is an adjunct faculty in religion and social sciences at Redeemer University, although he is perhaps more widely known as an expert on The Meeting House and its former pastor Bruxy Cavey. (His 2019 book is The Subversive Evangelical: The Ironic Charisma of an Irreligious Megachurch.) The exodus of members from that multisite church after allegations of abusive leadership inform this new book.
Unfortunately, even expert authors make mistakes, and early copies of this book, in describing the commercial aspect of the deconstruction movement, cited a source that published exaggerated estimates of the net worth of several individuals. The publisher removed the estimates in December, so new copies of the book don’t have them. (See FaithToday.ca/Blog for more about that correction process plus an essay on the book by philosopher E. J. Thiessen.)
Reitsma Bick and Schuurman interviewed 28 Canadians who are deconstructing their faith and analyzed 42 testimonies of people describing their deconstruction journeys in the podcast Slow Train to Heck. That makes 70 intriguing stories, excerpts of which are woven throughout the book. The authors have listened carefully; these testimonies comprise the most compelling parts of the book.
What is meant by “undone” and “deconstruction?” The majority of interviewees “left the conservative, evangelical or charismatic church they grew up in.” They describe the journey as a “shift from narrowness and constriction to openness and breadth.” The authors found that “many turn to a broader faith tradition – progressive or mainline denominations,” although the book makes clear that there is not one path or destination.
“We were all in.” Perhaps anticipating that some readers might doubt the sincere faith of people who have left the church they were raised in, “we were all in” comes both at the beginning of the book and as a chapter heading. The authors heard this phrase multiple times. The participants were “committed Christians, deeply invested in their churches. No nominal believers. They were ‘all in.’ ”
And the question becomes why these people deconstructed their faith. What happened? The writers want to “pay attention to the stories of hurt within the Church as a way to understand deconstructing faith.” Consider this one devastating sentence:
“She lost everything but he literally took one week out of the pulpit.” Emily, 42
Many readers will be able to imagine the backstory to Emily’s words. “Many of our interviewees mentioned the horrible behaviour of male clergy – those who perpetrate abuse but also those who fail to listen, speak gently, care, protect, be held accountable, and truly repent – as factors in their deconstruction,” the authors write.
Half of the women interviewed named purity culture as “part of their inheritance of faith that needed deconstructing.” For 45% of their subjects, deconstruction began with the election of President Trump in 2016. The “religious powerhouse to the south” impacts Canadian Christians. This book acknowledges Canada’s cultural influences, and most definitely pays attention to Christianity in a Canadian context. Better references for the statistics cited would have been helpful.
The authors note that all but one of their interviewees were “fairly firm in their allyship with the LGBTQ+ demographic.” The chapter titled Rainbow Battles closes with this paragraph:
“I want to be known as a Christian because of my love, not because of my stance on someone else’s sexual identity,” one man concluded. “I just think it’s a real shame that you ask the average person what they know about Christianity, and they say, ‘Oh, they are the group that is anti-gay.’ Ouch. It’s just a waste. I just can’t reconcile that with God, who wants to reconcile all things to himself.’”
This book begins an important discussion for the Canadian church: Where is the ship (well, the cover image shows a canoe) sailing to? Who is on board? It’s not just churches that are becoming undone; other institutions are seeking the right course in the strong currents of our day as well. In Chapter 8 “Authors Undone” Reitsma Bick and Schuurman share their own stories. I hope other authors continue the conversation.
The book closes with a benediction from one of the Undone:
“May we embrace the doubt-filled believers amongst us and within ourselves. May we love the Lord of Compassion more than organized religion. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer be with us all.” – Clara, 29
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