“Can I be honest?” This is the question being asked by one of the most popular songs on Christian radio today — Leanna Crawford’s “Honest.”
“Did I lose my faith? God, do I still trust you?” the lyrics ask. “Is it the heavy of the world, or is it just me?”
These are questions many of us who have deconstructed and left conservative white evangelicalism also have asked.
Crawford reflected in a Facebook post about the song: “God would rather have the real, honest, messy, broken hearted you than a fake smile, hurt on the inside but pretend to have it altogether you. It’s OK to be honest with Him.”
Every time I hear this song, I feel a deep sense of inner conflict. On one hand, it’s a really beautiful song. I love the sentiment of wanting to be honest with God. And it’s encouraging to hear Christians feel freedom to express their honest struggles so openly.
But on the other hand, when I look at the “heavy of the world” around me, so much of it is being caused by these very Christians who are driving around singing along to her song. And as I reflect on my own faith journey by asking if I still have faith or if I still trust God, I can’t get past one simple thought.
“For me to go back to embracing the conservative Christian theology I once celebrated as true and good would be to embrace dishonesty.”
For me to go back to embracing the conservative Christian theology I once celebrated as true and good would be to embrace dishonesty.
The ‘heavy of the world’ is too much
When I led worship in white evangelical churches, the No. 1 critique I would get from my pastors was that I chose too many songs of lament. Instead, they wanted me to focus on celebrating our certainties.
My deconstruction journey began when I was introduced to the idea of self-awareness. When I became aware of my wonders and wounds, I was moved with compassion and love for myself, which eventually overflowed into being moved with compassion and love for my neighbor. And that eventually led to theological consequences for my top-down authoritarian theology.
In the years since, I’ve discovered how much of the wounds our neighbors bear have come from white Christians lording their certainties over them and then threatening them if they don’t submit.
For me to go back to conservative evangelicalism would require being dishonest about the amount of harm I now know that theology has caused.
Promises aren’t good enough
“I just wanna know that you still got this when all I’m holding onto is a promise,” Crawford sings. Then she names promises about God’s presence and kindness.
Of course, promises of presence and kindness would be nice if they are real. But for me to embrace conservative evangelicalism again, I’d have to recognize how God’s presence and kindness were directly connected to our theology.
“How could God’s presence and kindness flow from a theology of justice that requires violent exile and a rejection of empathy?”
How could God’s presence and kindness flow from a theology of justice that requires violent exile and a rejection of empathy? And why would I sing about God being kind, if the image bearers of God are required to be cruel toward those who are different?
For me to sing about God’s presence and kindness among a theologically conservative congregation again, I would need more than promises to hype me up. I’d need to see a through line from the theological seeds of God’s kindness to the fruit of conservative Christian kindness. I’m more than willing to name and celebrate when theological ideas lead to the fruit of kindness. But I can’t get excited anymore over certainties that have no direct connection to the fruit of love.
Power isn’t good enough
“See your power coming through, you bring life to what is dead,” the second verse confesses. “No, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
If God can do anything, and if God’s presence and kindness are with white evangelicals, then why are white evangelicals so cruel? White evangelicals talk about how everyone else is spiritually dead. And yet they are the ones with empathy-drained hearts of stone toward the least of these.
For me to return to them would require being dishonest about God’s power. I no longer can mindlessly sing about God’s power, knowing how white evangelical’s fascination with God’s power becomes embodied in an obsession with their own power. When I hear any mention of power, my natural posture becomes one of lament.
Retributive justice will never heal
When I consider all the harm being caused by white evangelicals living out their theology of retributive justice toward their neighbors while celebrating certainties about concepts that can’t be proved and obsessing over God’s power through their power, I realize the heart of their problem is they have a gospel that can’t fully heal.
“Be my heart when I can’t feel,” Crawford sings. But when the heart of God is violent retribution either through punishing Jesus’ body in penal substitutionary atonement or torturing everyone else’s bodies in eternal conscious torment, then the heart of God is numb to human suffering.
“The heart of their problem is they have a gospel that can’t fully heal.”
Perhaps that’s why so many white evangelicals can’t feel. Their hearts have become numb toward self and neighbor due to the hierarchy and exile their gospel requires them to celebrate as true and good.
“Just one taste of heaven here and now,” Crawford asks God for. But again, when heaven includes having pleasures forevermore while your nonevangelical family and friends experience violent pain forevermore, then tasting that heaven here and now will create the very dynamics we’re seeing in the news today — namely, white evangelicals getting pleasure from their neighbor’s pain.
For me to get excited about that kind of justice as all things being made new would require me to be dishonest.
The story isn’t real
One of the most eye-opening aspects of learning about authoritarian Christian nationalism is when you begin to realize how much conservative white Christians rewrite the origin story of the United States. They want us to think Christopher Columbus was a great guy, the Founders intended us to be a Christian nation, the U.S. Constitution was based on the biblical book of Deuteronomy, white colonizers treated Native Americans relatively fairly, slavery wasn’t really all that bad, no systemic injustice developed after the slaves were freed, and racism is essentially a thing of the past.
But that story isn’t real.
Similarly, a major part of the deconstruction journey for those of us who lived conservative theology is discovering how much of our human origin story turned out to be mythical as well. Despite what the likes of Ken Ham say, there never was a global flood, we didn’t all come from two specially created people, and the universe isn’t 6,000 years old. But the gospel we celebrated depended on that story being literally true.
“I’m completely on board with spiritually exploring and celebrating what is real.”
On the bridge of “Honest,” Crawford asks God, “Show me something real.”
I’m completely on board with spiritually exploring and celebrating what is real.
But for white evangelicals who are overwhelmingly caught up in Donald Trump’s vision of God and the United States, neither their theological nor national origin stories are real.
So for me to live into a political and theological view of reality that isn’t real would be dishonest.
I don’t know
I recently sat down for a conversation with a conservative evangelical complementarian Calvinist, the very type of guy I write about all the time. I walked him through about a half dozen topics, showing him the disconnect between his beliefs and the Bible until he reached wall after wall he didn’t know what to do with. I had the exact same conversation with another conservative evangelical man who wasn’t a Calvinist.
Both men came to the place where they had to admit they didn’t know how to square their beliefs with reality. And yet, every week, they celebrate their beliefs with absolute certainty.
I simply can’t do that. It feels very dishonest to me. If I were to participate in that, I’d feel like I was acting like White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt trying to spin whatever nonsense President Trump was doing that day. It feels like the very fake smiles Crawford said God wouldn’t want. So when I hear her song come on the radio during my drive to the grocery store, it brings up a lot to sit with.
Until white evangelicalism can stop shouting all their certainties that have clearly been demonstrated to be disconnected from reality and cause harm, until they can become OK with the “I don’t know” and then begin to embrace lament, they’re never going to experience a relationship with self, neighbor and God that is honest.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a Master of Arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.