The House Is On Fire

Part 2: Shock and Denial during spiritual deconstruction

This is part of a series where I examine spiritual deconstruction through the lens of grief. I’ll link the other installments here as they are released: 

Intro | Shock & Denial | Pain & Guilt | Bargaining & Anger | Depression & Testing | Acceptance

My neighbor’s house caught fire last fall. 

It started as a small flame slithering out of a malfunctioning lighter. The back deck caught first, then the home’s west-facing wall, then the roof. It burned so hot and fast that the siding on the neighboring house melted and sloughed off.

Our homey, modest little street butts up against another neighborhood that’s in an entirely different (higher) tax bracket. And I believe no one was hurt because one of the residents from the other community noticed the growing flames and ran headlong down the steep hill that separates us, grown over with infant pines, to bang on every door and window he could reach.  

We weren’t home when it happened. But we could see him on our security cameras. And we could see our neighbors emerging from their homes to see what all the racket was about. You can see the moment they notice the flames stretching almost three stories into the air. They freeze for just a second. Then they run.

This physiological response is officially called the acute stress response. Commonly, it’s called fight-or-flight or sometimes fight-flight-freeze. It’s not unique to humans; a lot of creatures exhibit this behavior, and it’s believed to aid in survival. Age-old threats (like bears and, yeah, housefires) still exist, and it’s crazy to think we’re responding to them the same way that millions of the humans before us have. But in a world where it’s rare for most modern humans to encounter physical it-wants-to-eat-me predators, the situations that most commonly activate our stress responses are social and psychological.  

When the small flame of a question, a doubt, found purchase in my worldview and started to grow, I experienced a similar stress response: though it was completely internalized, I froze, and then I ran away. Shock and denial. The first two stations of grief are the emotional equivalents of the physiological fight-or-flight. 

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In Religious Refugees, Mark Gregory Karris says there are two types of “flames” that can instigate this process¹: the first seeks to burn out previously held beliefs that felt “normal and right” but have become “troublesome and toxic.” 

We struggle to reconcile them with our lived experiences or growing understanding of God and/or the world. Like the fire in a jeweler’s forge, all this flame wants to do is eat away the impurities. But if these impurities are critical to the structural integrity of our house and getting rid of them threatens our social status, relationships, tightly-held political beliefs, and/or tidy boundaries between who is “in” and who is “out,” this flame can be extremely frightening.

Many Jesus-people faced this flame (and continue to face it) with the rise of Christian Nationalism in America. They struggle to hang on to beliefs that used to feel so normal and right. But in the orange glow, they suddenly see how misaligned they might be with the rest of the Evangelical crowd. And, if so, what does this mean for their faith? 

The second type of “flame” seeks not to burn away but to ignite a deepened understanding and capacity for love, mercy, forgiveness, goodness, and truth. Where the first flame caused a “normal” belief to become untenable, this flame illuminates what we thought were untenable beliefs and reveals the new-to-you truth hiding within. This flame can be just as troublesome for the reluctant deconstructionist. It goes right for the foundation of the house, and if it finds anything that’s not true and solid (for example, a belief that we have to earn our salvation and thus our right to exist), it won’t stop until it replaces and expands.

I stared down BOTH of these formidable flames. They started growing incrementally and then accelerated exponentially following a traumatic event that threw them all into stark relief: 

The first flame attacked my understanding of where I stood politically, my dearly held traditional mission trips, how I viewed the conversion process and consequently who is “saved” and who is not, the role of the Church in the local and international community, what is required of us to be Jesus followers, the bulk of my understanding of the Old Testament, how I thought about heaven and hell… I could go on. 

The second worked in tandem with the first, “if/then-ing” me into corners: if the Republican party does not look like Jesus, then should I vote for someone else? If mission trips cause harm and perpetrate a toxic view of conversion, then is there a better way for me to love on people? If I believe that there’s a divine entity that never stops trying to reconcile with us in love, than can I also believe in the concept of that same entity sending people to eternal torment and isolation because they didn’t pray The Prayer™?

In the face of all these flames, is it any wonder that I froze? That I denied their existence for as long as I could? 

I don’t know how long a person can live in this state of slow smoldering, forever fighting off the small but persistent flames. There came a time when I couldn’t take it anymore. And when I finally exited my season of denial (or fight, in the fight-or-flight comparison), I fell hard into shock/flight and ran away as far as I could: from the Church and from broader spirituality. 

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“Why did you leave?” People ask me.

Because the house was on fire.

“You may have left behind heirlooms, a generational legacy, gifts passed down to you.”

Yes, but the house was on fire.

“You could’ve stayed; you could’ve fought through it.”

The house was on fire. 

“You had everything you needed if you’d just tried…”

No, the house was on fire.

“And now you’re talking about it in a public way. Are you trying to get others to walk away?”

If their house is also on fire, I don’t want them to walk away. I want them to run. 

Because the alternative for me (and I suspect for you) was being consumed by contradictions and never finding peace anywhere.

These are the most terrifying of all the stations of grief/deconstruction. It’s sand slipping through your fingers as you desperately try to hold on. It’s seeing first-hand how unbelievably fast fire moves things you thought were solid. No one wants this. No one wants this. 

If you choose to be open with those around you about your deconstruction, they might make you feel like an insurrectionist or a traitor. Like someone trying to dilute the truth or tear down the faith from the inside (whatever faith they happen to hold, this isn’t exclusive to evangelical spaces). 

I’m affirming that I see you, I know how scared you are. I know you didn’t ask for any of this, and I know what it feels like to have your lungs fill with smoke and your skin blister from the inferno raging inside you. Run, baby. 

The story doesn’t end here.

1. He calls them “splinters” and uses a biological/immunologically based analogy.