Deconstruction is the act of examining one’s faith or belief to see for themselves if what they believe is really true and if what they believe is something that rings true for themselves or if that belief is something that someone else indoctrinated them with. I had never heard of this term before and at first I thought it had something to do with demolition in construction work or something similar. Evidently, deconstruction is a movement that has been around for a short period of time, though many have been going through this pretty much on their own for a long time.
Recently, when I discovered what deconstruction was I realized this is pretty much what I myself have been doing for over 30 years. Like others, I was a seeker of real Truth, and I didn’t want to be deceived any more. The protective bubble I was in burst, and I began seeing everything in a new light. It was very shocking, because I had been seeing the Truth through the eyes of others, and not relying on my own heart to tell me what the real Truth was and I couldn’t tell the Truth from a lie — or a half truth as so often is the case.
And like others, I threw out everything and started from scratch. I began researching the Bible for myself relying only on God and my own heart to find the real Truth. I threw the baby out with the bath water, so-to-speak, since I really wasn’t sure which was which, but in this case it was impossible to discern the difference between the baby and the bath water.
Truth and Reality of Reincarnation
However, I had one advantage, from the very beginning. One of the very first Truths I received during those desperate days of praying and seeking God to show me what the real Truth was about the Truth and reality of Reincarnation.
One of the very foundational Truths the Church has eliminated is Reincarnation for the very reason that without it it is impossible to understand so many things, and keeping people ignorant is a very easy way to control and manipulate them. So an important doctrine that had been so basic for around 500 years in Christianity was simply cut out of the Bible by the leaders of the Church and the government and made it a curse for anyone to teach it or believe it. Thus, a great darkness fell over the world!
This is how it all began in my personal journey:
One night about 32 years ago, as I was beginning my deconstruction journey, I lay in bed desperately asking God to show me personally the real Truth, claiming verses like,
“Ask and ye shall receive, Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” and
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” and
“Ye shall seek for me and ye shall find me when ye seek me with all your heart”. and
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. (Mat 7:7; Mat 5:6; Jer 29:13; Jn 8:32)
That night I had a dream
I dreamed of many men near a forest chopping wood, working real hard — a normal dream, it seemed. All of the sudden, a giant glowing angelic being full of eyes all over its body, entered into the dream, as though it had come into the dream from outside. All the men in the dream fled from the light filled glowing being, and the dream was over and I woke up — and I know I was awake.
However, the glowing being full of eyes was still there, he wasn’t a dream, he was real! And standing right there in front of me! He was there for a short while, then he slowly disappeared. I couldn’t help but think that this was a sign from God, because of my fervent prayers. But I had no idea what it could possibly mean.
The next day I met up with a private English student of mine (I was an English teacher in Brazil at the time), who just out of the blue, handed me a pamphlet which was kind of like an invite to come to a Spiritist center to learn about Spiritism. Being curious and the fact I couldn’t ignore the obvious connection between the event that happened the night before and the receiving of the pamphlet the next day, I went to the center and learned what Spiritism was about. That was the beginning of the spiritual side of my journey of about 3 years in which I learned about Reincarnation, meditation, healing and many other such things. That was just one phase of my journey which added many things to my understanding and growth — I am no longer involved in that phase.
Growing Up
I was raised in a Southern Baptist church ideology, my father was an ordained minister, but I hated church. I always thought that when I was old enough to not be forced to go to church, I would stop. But I quit long before that. I got a hard spanking for leaving church one time and I refused to cry. So, Daddy told me, if I was big enough to get a spanking without crying, I was big enough to not get spankings anymore. So that was the end of that phase of my “religious” experience.
My religious experience is related in more detail in other articles here, but suffice it to say my whole religious experience was mostly not positive and much of it was extremely painful, especially as a child having horrible nightmares and daymares about falling down an endless fiery pit “designed for the devil and his angels” (Mat 25:41), and throughout my teen age years and young adulthood fearing I had lost my salvation for supposedly “blaspheming the Holy Ghost.” (Mat 21:31,32)
My Mother Taught Me about Reincarnation
My journey with the belief in Reincarnation started when I was a very small child. My mother, being raised in Christianity, evidently didn’t believe in Reincarnation, so the next story has never made much sense to me why, since it was she who taught me about Reincarnation. When I related this story to my sister, she said since my mother has always been the teacher type of person she is, she must have just been teaching me about it, not that she believed in it or that it was a reality. Whatever the case, at that age I took it as a Truth of reality and I always, even throughout my religious journey, I believed in Reincarnation as reality, because of my mother’s teaching.
However, because of my long ride through the Christian phase of my journey, though the belief resided deep in my subconscious, I had some doubts as to the veracity of Reincarnation.
Because of this, at the beginning of my journey through deconstruction, I began reading books on both sides of the argument, being very honest and sincere with myself, because I wanted the real Truth, no matter what. And I didn’t want to be deceived any more.
What happened was, as I opened my eyes sincerely desiring the real Truth, I began to see for myself that Reincarnation was real and factual, and the Christian view that you are born with your spirit from the time of conception and you are only born and die once, is a man-made construct, with no evidence or basis in reality and can only be believed — and never known as a true fact of reality!
Because of this, I began reading the Bible all over through the lens of Reincarnation. Many of the things that were impossible for me to understand, that Christianity had no answers for, all of a sudden became so clear — after many years!
Unanswered Questions
I was a Christian missionary for almost 20 years. I had so many unanswered questions that I believed would some day be answered. But that day NEVER came. I became more and more frustrated and disappointed with Christianity, especially because of the fact that this religion which was supposed to be the only “true” religion in the world, had no answers to some of the most basic questions of life and spirituality.
Christianity, supposedly the only “true” religion in the world, had no answers to some of the most basic questions of life and spirituality.
Moreover, the Bible itself had so many contradictions and nonsensical things contained in it and the explanations for these things from Christian apologists and teachers were illogical, and so subjective, being explanations that could only be believed at face value with no feeling of real Truth and realness to them.
What’s more, many of those things were explained with completely different opinions by Christian apologists — only theirs was right and everybody else was wrong. It was all so unsatisfactory. Obviously, the real Truth wasn’t there, only “their” truth.
To top it off, most people don’t even read their bibles, or know what it really says, much less do they even live what it teaches. They are mean and unkind to those whose believe differently than them, even other Christians.
I began to realize that Jesus’ teaching:
“Except a man be born of the spirit and of water, he can not enter into the kingdom of God”, (Jn 3:5)
was really LITERAL. They interpret it as accepting the belief that Jesus died and rose from the dead, to become a spiritually “new creature”. They believe it means accepting Jesus in one’s heart, and going up to the front of the whole church and announcing they believe in Jesus.
When in reality it simply means being “born again” into a new body to be purified and perfected and to grow into the “creature” that will permitted to enter into the kingdom of God.
They just try to explain it all away
They try to explain away all the verses that Jesus stated as being about righteousness, good works and doing the will of God, as all just things that will get you treasures in heaven, instead of the means of gaining entrance into the kingdom of God. And the way to be saved, according to them, is just believe on Jesus and you’re justified from all your sins, no matter what you did — and you live forever in heaven and never have to come back here to make amends for anything, “you only live once”.
They want you to be completely dependent on them, their religion, their private interpretation and their view of Jesus for your salvation. They don’t want you to think for yourself, or depend on your own behavior. All you need is their interpretation of Jesus and the Church, all you are is dirty, filthy rags in God’s (and their) eyes.
The main purpose here is to get people to think for themselves, depend on themselves and break free from the Church’s mental and spiritual hold on their lives.