Deconstructing your faith? Feeling deeply hurt by the church? Read “Death to Deconstruction” by Joshua S. Porter by Mark Legg for Denison Forum
Sometimes book titles obscure their interior message. An attention-grabbing, provocative title might wrap around a rote interior of boring, uninsightful ideas.
But Death to Deconstruction: Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion by Joshua S. Porter delivers, with chapters like “Cocaine meltdown somewhere in middle America,” detailing the high-octane lifestyle of the author when he toured with his punk rock band. Or how about, “My father was a racist and I loved him,” where he recounts growing up in a racist church in Georgia?
Porter’s band Show Bread was no joke. Playing gigs meant donning eyeshadow, spitting fake blood, and using fire in creative ways (in addition to the indispensable screaming and shredding). He grew up as a Christian and even used his experimental band to spread the gospel. Eventually, however, the faith of Show Bread’s band members frayed. Porter tore himself from the church, experiencing all the darkness and hurt that came with leaving the faith of his childhood.
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So, how did he end up as a teaching pastor in Portland?
Death to Deconstruction is personal and poignant
Death to Deconstruction gives a glaringly honest account of Porter’s personal deconstruction of the Christian faith, including his suicidal thoughts, how American culture made him despise the church, and his dark grapple with God.
Where did Porter’s road of deconstruction lead? You probably wouldn’t predict the answer: Orthodoxy. By the end of Death to Deconstruction, he writes affectionately of liturgical readings of the Apostolic Creed in his church.
Porter’s beautiful writing delivers gut punches. Make no mistake, something in this book will offend you. Like me, you will probably bristle at his jabs against patriotic American Christians that supported the war in Iraq (Porter is a pacifist). While I disagree with him about pacifism, his writing forces readers to a reckoning with painful irony, humor, and depth.
