A Philosophy of Ministry for the Deconstructing Church Leader

Recently when talking with a friend of mine, who is a vicar in the Church in Wales, he and I discussed the question: “Is it possible to construct a workable philosophy of ministry for a pastor, priest or vicar who has deconstructed his or her faith, yet is still involved in church ministry?”

Several years ago, I was the pastor of a community church just outside of Portland, Oregon, and found myself in exactly this position. After reading a series of books by progressive Christian authors, privately I started to question various aspects of my conservative evangelical views. The further I went down this line, I began to notice that many of my older presuppositions and biases about both the Bible and theology were starting to slough off. They were no longer as critically important as I once believed them to be. Looking back on it now, I can see that this was the start of my journey of the deconstruction of my theological worldview.

Because of these startling new revelations and insights, as a pastor I began to wrestle with this very question raised earlier: was it safe to share aspects of my own journey with my congregation? Could I be open and honest about the changes I was experiencing, and how they were beginning to transform my own life and spirituality? Upon reflection, I couldn’t be entirely certain that it was…