On the south side of E-470 near Parker, Colorado, stands a once-impressive office complex. Given the location, I have driven by it many, many times over the past twenty years. Its architecture, location, and bold signage always caught my eye.
But late last spring, I noticed heavy machinery gathered outside. Over the months that followed, I watched as the building came down—section by section, wall by wall. Cranes and bulldozers reduced a functional, beautiful corporate campus to rubble.
A temporary sign soon announced that a medical center would rise in its place, built without regard to the structure that once stood there.
Watching this demolition unfold—like time-lapse photography—I couldn’t help but see a metaphor for another kind of dismantling: the “deconstruction trend” sweeping through many Christian circles.
Many Gen Zers and Millennials are concluding that a wrecking ball is the best way to process their confusion and discontent with faith. Entire curricula even exist to guide this dismantling of Christian belief and practice.
The argument often goes like this: Boomers, particularly Evangelical Boomers, piled on a heavy, legalistic layer of expectations. Now, the next generations feel justified in abandoning orthodox Christianity altogether.
“I still love Jesus, but…” The list that follows the “but” is usually long—and bitter.
| It’s Jesus on my terms. Jesus packaged the way I prefer. Jesus built on my plot of land, reconstructed to my design. As a Boomer parent, I’ll admit—I could draft quite a list of parenting missteps. Many of my peers could too. But do our failures really explain this disconcerting shift away from biblical Christianity? The gospel itself answers: no. Faith is not ours to construct or deconstruct. It never was. Here’s another picture. From my home-office window, I can see Pike’s Peak, about sixty miles away. On a clear day, it’s stunning. Suppose I decide I don’t like the way the mountain looks. Should I drive to Colorado Springs with a shovel—or even hire heavy equipment—and start rearranging rocks? The thought is absurd. Foolish. The Christian faith is not an office building, however substantial, that can be torn down and redesigned. It is Pike’s Peak—and far more. Our faith in God is not a human construction to be tinkered with, but a mountain to reverence and respect. |
| “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9) “Not your own doing.” |
| No bulldozer. No crane. No grand redesign. Faith cannot be deconstructed—because it was never constructed by us. And for that, we give thanks to the rock of our salvation: Jesus himself. |
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