Deconstruction does not always arrive with a manifesto, a platform, or a branded online community complete with vision statements and hashtags. More often, it appears quietly; on a single Facebook page, in a steady stream of posts orbiting a handful of selective pet topics the author feels compelled to dismantle or correct. Over time, a pattern emerges. The focus narrows. The tone sharpens. And almost daily, new posts are dropped, designed less to invite reflection than to provoke reaction, to jolt rather than to build.
The topics vary. For some, the conversation never strays far from intramural disputes involving traditions and beliefs tied to a particular flavor of Pentecostalism, or the slow hemorrhaging of old grievances they cannot seem to release. For others, the fixation is on edgy eschatological contrarianism, a reflexive impulse to question, sometimes sneer at, nearly everything their Pentecostal communities once taught. In both cases, the posture is telling. The spirit animating these keyboard warriors is not pastoral concern or sober reexamination, but disdain. They look down upon the poor, unfortunate “deceived” who still believe in things like personal and/or pastoral standards, rapture, hell, tribulation, and the like.
What proves most revealing, however, are the usual suspects. By this I mean the old adage: birds of a feather flock together. I once believed a man should be judged by the circle of friends he keeps. Experience has taught me to refine that instinct. A wiser measure is this: judge a man by what he attracts.
Sure enough, my recent foray down the rabbit hole of one individual publicly deconstructing a constellation of ideas and beliefs revealed—once again—the usual suspects. Almost instinctively, they appeared. Like vultures, they seem to sense decay before it is fully visible. They descend into the comment section, circling, pecking, and squawking—not to restore, but to feed on what they presume is already dying. They relish the controversy, their bellies swollen, mouths belching the remains of yet another sordid feast of online dismantling. Accountable to no one, they peck away day after day—hubris cloaked in the vestiges of “honest inquiry,” yet always managing to find and gather within the familiar circle of fellow deconstructors.
“Avoid them.”
Two words that provoke a feverish—nearly manic—response.
And yet, yes, avoid them. They drink their own Kool-Aid, and I am unsure what is more damning: to be deceived by another, or to be deceived by oneself.