Brad Jersak’s assault on freedom in his book “Out of the Embers”
Originally, when I read Brad Jersak’s book out of the embers, I was appalled by the surface problems in his arguments, the misrepresenting of Plato, the outright slander of Nietzsche, proof-texting, and cherry-picking of facts to validate his preconceived conclusions about faith and Christianity. My goal here is to go deeper than that. I want to potentially expose why Jersak is doing what he is doing by examining his language. I want to add other perspectives to Jersak’s words to reveal how they can harm those who read them. If for no other reason than the New Evangelicals are reading this book as part of their winter book discussion, in essence, the New Evangelicals, my safe space from religious oppression and trauma, are tacitly endorsing this book.
The points of my post from here on out are simple; Primarily, I believe that Jersak’s book (among other things) is an apologetic argument against deconstruction, and secular philosophy, that argues in bad faith against a tool of liberation to preserve his status. Secondly, Jersak’s disparaging of philosophers, skeptics, atheists, liberals, progressives, and deconstructionists is alarming for their radicalization potential by othering, dehumanizing them, instilling false grievances in his readers against them, and advocating for echo chambers that have extreme potential for abuse, oppression, and further radicalization. Thirdly, Jersak’s methods for negating deconstruction, a tool for liberation, is done by using the tools of oppression; and he presents a counterfeit version of deconstruction that does the opposite by focusing its criticism on the self. Fourthly, Jersak’s naivete about the nature and effects of oppression on the oppressed will expose how his form of deconstruction hurts the self and maintains the abusive status quo that favors him and his Religion. The conclusion section will deconstruct why Jersak gives us an alternative version of deconstruction!
Because I want to make this post accessible, I will try to explain the concepts and ideas as we discuss them. I will define Jersak’s words and ideas, and terminology from other philosophers whose perspectives can illuminate Jersak’s motives. Then we can discuss the ramifications of these different perspectives. The drawback of being accessible and thorough is that this post is long. I am sorry for that. For those who do not have the time or patience to read the entire discourse, I present this outline of what the post will be talking about; if you want to see how I validate these claims, read on. But for those interested in discussing this post with me, these are the things I am trying to discuss.
1) Point 1: define deconstruction, what it is, and how it is used.
2) Point 2: examine how deconstruction can be traumatic.
3) Point 3: explore the radicalization potential of Jersak’s rhetoric.
4) Point 4: deconstruct Jersak’s warning against deconstruction.
5) Point 5: define Jersak’s version of deconstruction.
6) Point 6: explore the nature of oppression and Jersak’s deconstruction.
7) Conclusion: Shame is the point (Jersak’s assault on self-worth)
I write the rest of this post because I want people to see and discuss this book’s potential for harm and manipulation. What I want is liberation; if someone is misrepresenting facts, concepts, or people in an effort to preserve something good, even Christianity, a faith I still identify with, then that is a house built on a faulty foundation that will inevitably crumble one day. I seek liberation and freedom for everyone from oppression and abuse. If you disagree, please share evidence and other perspectives I have missed, and we can discuss it. I do not claim to know everything, and I do make mistakes. I am not trying to have a debate necessarily, and I am not trying to argue experiences. Your experiences and beliefs are valid; I am not and will not dispute those; please don’t dispute mine.
POINT 1: WHAT IS DECONSTRUCTION?
In the preface, Jersak gives this definition of deconstruction and credits to its creator; “for Derrida, deconstruction is a strategy for mindfully examining language, exposing (and subverting) the ways we discuss and practice truth and meaning — how we use binary language to smuggle in power dynamics that generate injustice” (Brad Jersak, Out of the Embers, Kindle, p. 25). This definition is important! And I agree with Jersak’s description. The central question posed here is, does Jersak’s version of deconstruction meet his own definition of deconstruction? Further, we will discuss why he wants to give us an alternative version in the first place. Let’s start by exploring Jersak’s definition and what we can intuit from it.
Primarily, deconstruction is about examining language usage to reveal power dynamics to combat injustice. Secondly, deconstruction relies heavily on semiotics, the study of language and meaning. Derrida’s earliest works were treaties on semiotics based on Levi Strauss and others. Historically what took Derrida further than other semioticians is that he combined semiotics with Marxist critiques of power and Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine the broader social contexts that marginalize people through language usage. Working backwards, Derrida uses language and social context to reveal the absurdity of people’s claims through their language constructs and, in so doing, reveal the purpose of the language, to grab power.
Deconstructionists, since Derrida, use semiotics to show how the word choices of the powerful legitimate power their power as justified, divine, natural, and logical, revealing the biases in all language. Semiotics teaches that language is arbitrary, not natural (in short, we made it up), and negotiated the words only mean something if we agree they mean it. Language is not fixed either; it evolves with its users, just go back and read the original English classics like Chaucer, Beowulf, or even Shakespeare to see how we’ve changed our language usage over time. Furthermore, how one social group interprets a word differs from the next. The term “cop” probably means protector in a primarily white community, while more synonymous with oppression in a minority community. From semiotics, we also learn that all language usage has bias baked into it; language cannot be neutral; it must advocate for or against something. And thirdly, language bias belies power; where there is power, there is inequality, and where there is inequality, there is oppression. Oppression is the abuse of power. Thus, deconstruction is about exposing power and abuse through language usage. In short, it is a tool for liberation!
Most importantly, deconstruction requires social context to break down the power dynamics in language. Most leaders in western society identify with some flavor of Christianity and use that identity to gain acceptance from their followers. So, who has the power today in western culture? Arguably, Christianity and straight white males tend to hold the lion’s share of power in the West. Furthermore, most leaders in western-run capitalistic corporations are straight, white, Christian, and male. If you examine the richest top half of society, again, they are mostly white, mostly straight, and predominantly Christian, and they rig the system in favor of other people like them. Circularly, it creates a sense of superiority. If all the rich and powerful look and talk a certain way, then there must be something intrinsically superior in them and or the way they do things. But things are the way they are because they entrench the system to work for them!
So how does Jersak go about deconstruction, and who does he target it against? Who or what is creating injustice in his mind that needs deconstructing? And why is he giving us a new version of deconstruction to replace the old one? Objectively speaking, I doubt that anyone would dispute my reading of Jersak’s book in that it aims to preserve the Christian faith from deconstruction, which he views as a traumatizing assault on it. In other words, his deconstruction is not designed to expose power dynamics in language, abusive institutions, or power structures that oppress, abuse, and suppress. Instead, it is pointed explicitly at oneself and not so implicitly; his rhetoric attacks liberals, skeptics, and atheists as attackers who jeopardize people’s faith with their criticism. But Jersak’s initial charge against deconstruction is that it is traumatizing; thus, he strongly encourages his readers to avoid it altogether. So, let’s start there as we deconstruct Jersak’s charges against deconstruction before breaking down how he goes about his form of deconstruction. And then deconstruct why he is giving us a new version.
POINT 2: WHO GETS TRAUMATIZED BY DECONSTRUCTION?
Compounding matters is that Jersak makes a claim in his book that deconstruction traumatized him, which is one thing in and of itself, but he never explains how or who traumatized him. If he were to qualify his trauma of deconstruction by describing his experience, it might be easier to empathize with his position. But we are left to intuit a few things out because he does not qualify his claims with experience or evidence. And this is where a deconstructionist’s use of social context matters.
Firstly, let’s reiterate; deconstruction is aimed at human actors who use language to legitimize their status over people and, in the process of doing so, end up oppressing, disenfranchising, and abusing the people under them. Deconstruction, therefore, when properly done, should not be traumatizing to the oppressed person using it to liberate themselves!
Deconstruction could be traumatic if one loses the support of their community. A person can be traumatized by the rejection of their family/community because deconstruction exposes an abuse of power by the leadership of that community. The trauma happens because the community chooses to side with the powerful, reject the truth, and excommunicate you instead of the leadership that abused you. But whose fault is the trauma to be blamed on? Is it deconstruction’s fault, or is it the intolerance of the people and leadership who excommunicated you to preserve their status? In Jersak’s words, he did not lose his community, “I was not, in fact, creeping off the end of a flimsy limb. I was climbing down the trunk into the very roots of the historic apostolic [NAR] faith. My biggest changes were deeply anchored, and I had solid support from mentors, friends, and our faith community. My Church didn’t abandon me, betray me, or drive me out. In fact, they blessed my adventures and formed a phalanx of the marginalized from which I launched my boldest sorties” (Jersak, p. 34). So, if Jersak was not traumatized by losing his community, how else could his deconstruction be traumatic?
Deconstruction can be traumatic if it is not consensually engaged in, that is, if it’s forced on you. As in, someone is forcing me to look at the evidence that I do not want to look at, if it breaks my naïve or simplistic view of the world, if it takes away the mystery, if it removes my certainty and forces me out of my comfort zone, and takes my beliefs into the realms of uncertainty. Then deconstruction can be traumatizing. But Jersak only writes that his “freefall — aka meltdown — had begun early in 2008 and climaxed hard by June. I white-knuckled a few hours of work per week through the summer, hardly functioning in my final months as a pastor” (Jersak, p. 33). As a Pastor, Jersak’s conceivable that his deconstruction may not have been entirely consensual. As a spiritual leader, he may have been required to answer questions and examine the evidence he did not want to explore that challenged his faith in an attempt to help members of his flock. But Jersak does not say his deconstruction was non-consensual; he says little other than it happened and when it happened around 2008 (the financial crisis).
Deconstruction can, however, be traumatic to a privileged person it is used on. As Paulo Freire writes, “any restriction on this [privileged] way of life, in the name of the rights of the [privileged] community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights–although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair. For the oppressors, ‘human beings’ refers only to themselves; other people are ‘things’” (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 57). In other words, when the privileged lose power and influence due to deconstruction being used against them, deconstruction becomes the threat. Most critically, it’s contextually important to emphasize that Jersak was a pastor! Pastors are highly privileged individuals in western society, with money, power, and influence. The most important question asked in the history of the world was arguably a Marxist question “Who benefits?” So, who stands to benefit the most from Jersak disparaging his readers from engaging in a toolset of liberation from the powerful?
As a spiritual leader, Jersak was in a privileged position of power. So the question must be speculatively asked; was deconstruction used to liberate himself from oppression and traumatize him in the process, or did his flock use deconstruction to liberate themselves from him, traumatizing him in the process? It’s also only fair to mention that both scenarios could be true. All leaders make mistakes! All power is abused at some point, either a little or a lot; it’s human nature. Power derives from taking more than you give in return; wealth, status, and influence are but a few metrics of that imbalanced exchange rate. But critically, as a person in power, it’s conceivable to speculate that Jersak’s trauma could have stemmed from abusing his position and receiving criticism for it. Jersak may also have received criticism for his application of power over his congregation. There is no evidence to back any of that up from Jersak’s writing alone, and Jersak has many defenders who will swear by his character and good intent. But all sides of this angle are worth mentioning.
My main criticism is that Jersak teaches non-critical thinking that blames the victim for their circumstances and legitimates power/abuse. Furthermore, because of the positions of power he holds, and his status in the social sphere, the fear of losing privilege can be a strong motive for discouraging people away from deconstruction and offering a sanitized, non-critical alternative that potentially paralyzes its practitioners with self-reflection, negating any discussion or reflection, on abuse, oppression, or societal imbalance that could threaten the people of privilege. So, is Jersak writing this book to help the people or to help his social class, pastors, and theologians? The question is worth exploring further.
So, to recap, Jersak’s trauma was not from community rejection, he gives no clue that it was non-consensual, and his deconstruction happened while he was in a place of power and privilege. How, then, was his deconstruction traumatizing?
The closest I can intuit how Jersak can equate deconstruction with trauma comes from a correspondence he has with a person named Nathan, whom he is counseling on page 83 (kindle version. This exchange seems to thematically highlight the trauma of deconstruction found throughout the book. In Jersak’s own words, when he is counseling Nathan, a fellow pastor traumatized by deconstruction, he writes to Nathan, asking, “how did your church tradition fail to facilitate a real encounter? How is this possible and yet so common? How could you not have met him [Jesus] there? OR maybe you did…. Then how is it that, having tasted divine Love, the skeptics could rob you of faith so thoroughly that you have no recollection of an authentic connection with Jesus Christ? Simone Weil regards the uprooting you underwent as the most violent thing that can happen to anyone. Worse than rape. No, it IS a rape” (Jersak, p. 83). In this instance, Jersak equates the trauma a fellow Christian willfully went through by reading the works of a skeptic Bart Ehrman (p. 81). Which Jersak repackages as deconstruction. For further clarification, skepticism of God is not the same as deconstructing language usage to reveal the abuse of power by human actors. Interchanging these two concepts is, at best sloppy scholarship; at worst, this is bad-faith misinformation aimed at disparaging his readers from a tool of liberation that threatens his status in society!
I am left to intuit that Nathan is a proxy stand-in for Jersak. That they were traumatized by deconstruction, framing the experience as the skeptic spiritually “raping” the faith from them (Jersak, p. 83). Specifically, Jersak asserts that Nathan’s consensually learning about “deconstruction” by reading Ehrman’s skepticism “raped” him spiritually of his faith. Because Jersak never goes into personal detail, we can speculate that either deconstruction or skepticism in God potentially challenged his biases, further revealing holes in his knowledge and logic so severely that he feels he was “raped” spiritually. In that case, from a biblical perspective, his faith was built on sand; in an H.P. Lovecraftian sense, the true knowledge of the universe revealed by deconstruction (or skepticism) scared Nathan (and Jersak?) in a way that Nathan was never able to go back to that simpler faith that allows for certainty or faith at all. But who’s really at fault here? Is Jersak blaming the people who taught him and Nathan faulty logic and abused power, or is Jersak blaming the spiritual “rape” on the people, ideas, concepts, and tools used to reveal those faults and abuses?
Should the skeptic or deconstructionist be blamed for people leaving the faith simply for pointing out the lies and abuse done by the people in service to the dominant hegemonic Religion and ideology of a society? More importantly, as a pastor and teacher of the faith, Jersak was in a place of power and privilege and should have been obligated to teach from a position of knowledge and truth. His job was to seek it out, sift it, then present his finding in good faith to his congregation, who should test it and hold their pastor accountable for the results. These points lead me to conclude that, at least for Jersak, the blame for his trauma should have been levied at those who gave him his faulty foundation, those who told him ideological lies, those who fed him false information which he accepted and used on his congregation in good faith. I do not believe that it is fair for Jersak to blame the philosophers and the toolset (that I assume he willfully engaged in) that revealed those faults in his beliefs.
POINT 3: THE RADICALIZATION POTENTIAL OF JERSAK’S RHETORIC
Sadly, Jersak devotes this book at blaming deconstruction as a traumatic force that jeopardizes faith. He uses the biases in his language to steer people away from the toolset, on the assumption that the knowledge revealed by this toolset and the thinkers that developed it are too traumatizing to be experienced directly. For example, Jersak warns his readers of the dangers of reading Nietzsche: “to hear Nietzsche at all is to risk the crucible of examination” (pp. 218–219). In other words, Jersak is effectively trying (intentionally or not) to create an ideological echo chamber to keep Christians sequestered within it, cut off from certain strands of knowledge that, if exposed, will jeopardize their faith. And this point creates a breeding ground for radicalization that needs to be expounded on in detail.
For this discussion, it’s important to clarify what radicalization is and is not. Radicalization is simply the intensification of an opinion, feeling, or belief. The more passionately a person believes in something, the more radicalized they are. There are positive and negative forms of radicalization; not tolerating Nazis or hate speech is a form of positive radicalization. Jersak, I believe, is trying to defend Christianity from deconstruction in a way that pushes them deeper into the faith, or in other words, he is trying to radicalize them.
It is also important to emphasize that radicalization is not synonymous with violence. Even within radicalized communities, only a few individuals will ever act out in violence, and Jersak never makes the step of advocating for violence nor equating existential meaning with violent actions. But his rhetoric can still be radicalizing in negative ways. Negative forms of radicalization have a few components that can be mechanically broken down to show how the process works. These components are; echo chambers, grievances/victimization, and othering language that dehumanizes people. Each will be talked about in turn.
Echo chambers are the cornerstone for how communities get radicalized. An echo chamber is where people get exposed to only one way of thinking that confirms a preexisting bias and filters out all other perspectives. That way of thinking often becomes intolerant to different points of view, and the more radical the view, the more isolated the community becomes. In more toxic echo chambers, outsiders get dehumanized with othering language. Isolated communities also tend to exert extra influence over their members via the threat of expulsion.
Excommunication from a community is an existential threat to a person’s identity, especially when that community presents an oversized presence in a person’s world (family, friends, support structures). When one community forms a person’s whole identity and contains the entirety of their social support structure, ejection from that community isn’t just traumatic; it’s catastrophic. As such, conformity to the community can be a dominating influence on people who fear expulsion due to having nowhere else to go due to their isolation.
Leaving a radicalized and isolated community also has the problem that one can be afraid of leaving out of fear of their views still not being acceptable by new communities due to their radicalized beliefs. They know their radicalized perspective won’t be tolerated on the outside, even though their views are milder than the community that expelled them. In short, radicalized echo chambers are neigh inescapable black holes if one does not have an external support structure to lend them an olive branch into a new community and identity. Terrorist networks and cults often function in this manner because isolation works very well at exerting control over individuals within a community. They bring you in, cut you off from the world, tell you the world is evil, and teach you to say things that outsiders will either not tolerate or question the logic of, to make you recoil into that community further.
What is troubling from Jersak’s counseling of Nathan on page 83 is that he frames the skeptics of spiritually “raping” the faith off of someone. Jersak’s language here is very victimizing and dehumanizing. The core experience of virtually all violent extremists is a grievance, a sense of injustice, or a feeling that someone has wronged them. Within the research on radicalization, there are two crucial facts to know about grievances; first, is that grievances can be real or merely perceived that is felt. Grievances can be purely imagined, divorced from reality, but still felt as real. Second, grievances can be para-social; that is, the grievance can be felt even if it wasn’t done to you. You can feel a grievance in place of someone you know who was directly grieved or for a group you identify with, like Christianity. In short, an attack on one can be felt by all. These two facts about grievances compound what Jersak is saying about liberals, atheists, skeptics, progressives, and others throughout this book.
Furthermore, grievances create an identity in the person feeling grieved as that of a victim. Which in turn causes the grieved to view and discuss their adversary in a dehumanizing way. The most often way we dehumanize our opponents is never to call them by name; we assign them a label. Referring to them by their label robs them of their humanity and, in turn, denies them the right to empathy. Again, Jersak never names anyone specific; his “haters” (p. 100) are liberals, atheists, skeptics, and progressives who are not worth consideration or empathy because he gives them none; they are nameless, faceless things to fear and despise.
Furthermore, we deny ourselves and others the chance for critical reflection by never being explicit about what actions were done and in what context. “Could I have been wrong there” or “could we have done better” will never get discussed if we don’t get into the details. Jersak never naming who wronged him; simply and repeatedly referring to the people with labels like “atheists,” “skeptics,” and “progressives” is denying their humanity. Jersak never explains how he was traumatized or how the people he councils were traumatized by them; in Nathan’s case, all we know is he chose to read a book. Jersak only discusses the surface feelings that resulted after the exchanges; we cannot evaluate or reflect on the exchange, we cannot examine the external and societal conditions that led to the exchange, we cannot see both sides, we only get one side, his side, the grieved side.
As Jersak councils Nathan on page 83, he does so by asking a series of questions on who is to be blamed for his trauma. First, he asks if the Church is to blame for not teaching real faith (what is real faith). Then, he asks if the person should be blamed for not finding Jesus if the Church taught real faith (ouch, that’s traumatizing). Finally, he concludes that no, it’s the skeptic, in this context Bart Erhman (p. 81), that “raped” the faith from Nathan. In this instance, how is Nathan, and by proxy, the reader, being counseled? Jersak tells them that they are victims of spiritual rape. Should a person feel calm, ashamed, or angry by this news? Is Jersak making this person into a victim for willfully engaging with a text? Also, is Jersak instilling a grievance in the person for the other who “spiritually raped” them? Is characterizing the skeptic as a “spiritual rapist” dehumanizing and othering? If one wants a stronger example of victimizing and “dehumanizing” language levied against outsiders, good luck finding it.
Jersak confirms his othering assault on atheists, skeptics, and liberals, a little earlier in the chapter on spiritual mastectomy. He writes, “I’m afraid that many progressives are so focused on the first trauma (bad religion) that they are unaware of or undersell how acutely traumatizing, how shattering, deconstruction itself can be” (Jersak, p. 80). And herein lies the problem, Jersak blames deconstruction as traumatic; he paints virtually all believers who go through it as victims of rape, inciting a grievance, and dehumanizes the intellectuals of deconstruction as the rapists and “an army of haters.” Jersak writes, “but if we’re talking about the family of Christ-followers, then a generalized hatred of 31-plus percent of the people on the planet is pretty…well, hateful, whether or not you identify with them” (Jersak, p. 100). The result of Jersak’s othering, dehumanization of critics, and grievance-inducing language is that he advocates (intentionally or not) for an echo chamber to safeguard believers from these perspectives. Jersak’s rhetoric has real potential for radicalization. It is dangerous!
What is also disappointing to me, as a fellow survivor of the NAR, who was arguably in a lot deeper than I was, is that he does not focus any criticism against religious institutions or leaders in power who lie and abuse their congregations for-profit and affluence.
Jersak does pay lip service to some church abuses. Still, the context of mentioning these abuses has Jersak criticizing deconstruction as nihilistic, theoretical, and devoid of utility in the face of real problems. In one example, Jersak writes that Nietzsche’s philosophy is insufficient as a meaning-making coping mechanism when he writes, “nor does most of humanity for whom the wilderness is not so much a chosen sojourn as an inescapable state of debilitating and demoralizing tragedy and/or injustice. Some imaginary capacity for romantic, mythical heroism may work in classical Greek tragedy — but in the darkness of historical slave galleys or modern genocide, necessity’s cruelty separates faith from thought experiments” (Brad Jersak, Out of the Embers, Kindle, p. 208). What is Jersak criticizing in this passage? What is “necessity’s cruelty” if not a justification of abuse by the powerful? You cannot be cruel without some degree of power over another. Why is cruelty necessary, is that thought even Christian? Is cruelty ever necessary or acceptable? Jersak’s language acknowledges that cruelty is necessary without considering why. In words, cruelty is natural; Jersak does not focus on changing the system that causes it.
Again, Jersak is not critiquing the power structures, ideologies, oppression, or systemic abuses levied against marginalized people like blacks, LGBTQ+, enslaved people, women, and or Jews; if nothing else, he is justifying those institutions by glossing over their abuses, to criticize a dead philosopher. Jersak is critiquing that Nietzsche and secular philosophy are insufficient at helping us make meaning, to cope with harsh realities, or fix injustice, all the while omitting that Religion and Christianity have arguably also failed at these tasks. Jersak purposefully or inadvertently advocates for an echo chamber, a homogenous ideological cul-de-sac of Christianity free from critical discourse.
The dangers in creating grievances, dehumanized othering, and echo chambers are so great that any attempt at making them should be spoken out against, like in this book. While it’s important to highlight that all terrorists justify their activities with grievances, only a small minority of people within any type of group will ever act out on those grievances violently. The potential danger in what Jersak is doing could be that he is inciting a para-social grievance in his readers that ignores reality; that is the context of how the grievance came to be. In doing so, Jersak potentially is creating a para-social victim identity in his readers, framing those causing the grievance in dehumanizing terminology that denies them empathy, which encourages his readers to seek out echo chambers to validate that identity, potentially pushing them into a sequestered echo-chamber situation that’s ripe for further abuse, manipulation, and radicalization. Do I believe Jersak is intentionally doing this? Yes, I believe he is trying to create an echo chamber, but I do not believe he is seeking violence. But other people may interpret his words differently, particularly if they feel the grievances he is inciting acutely.
POINT 4: DECONSTRUCTING JERSAK’S WARNINGS AGAINST DECONSTRUCTION
Jersak, throughout the book, does not hold back his views on the dangers of deconstruction. In his opinion, deconstruction is a hollow counterfeit freedom writing, “why does the glee of spiritual freedom so often devolve into despondency, alienation, or renewed bondage to some ism” (Jersak, p. 102)? The target of Jersak’s qualm with secular deconstruction, the “ism” that he explains particularly in the chapters dedicated to Nietzsche, is Nihilism. Jersak’s view is that deconstruction (from God) leads to Nihilism, saying the danger of deconstruction is “devolving all the way into nonbeing, deconstruction is not the point or telos [destiny] of human flourishing” (Jersak, p. 102). Jersak’s point is that with Christianity and God, humanity has purpose, nay divine purpose. Human purpose is to be with God, to love God, and in turn to be loved by God. Once Christians deconstruct their faith, Jersak warns they lose that divine telos in their lives. Jersak continues, “we’re in an era that is undoing old constructs at breakneck speed. It’s as if all the world has suffered a grade 4 concussion” (Jersak, p. 104). Equating deconstruction with a concussion is a telling metaphor. Jersak is at least consistent in his insistence that secular deconstruction is destructive, writing, “I wouldn’t trust my family’s well-being to those who’ve not thought past the [deconstruction’s] demolition phase” (Jersak, p. 103). The point is that Jersak isn’t using nuance here; in his view, deconstruction deconstructs everything. But does it?
Again, deconstruction is about the usage of human language in service of legitimating power structures to abuse and suppress. Deconstruction rarely targets God because God cannot be proved or disproved, or else we wouldn’t be arguing about Him still. Furthermore, God isn’t the one oppressing people; it’s the wealthy, privileged, and powerful who oppress, abuse and restrict the freedoms of those below them. And if we were being honest, equating deconstruction with an attack on God instead of an attack on institutions of power and privilege feels like a straw-man fallacy aimed at misdirecting people from the main point of the conversation. In other words, we’re talking about deconstructions assault on God rather than deconstructions assault on human language that legitimates and preserves power, privilege, and abuse of the people that speak for God!
Jersak doesn’t seem to understand the nuance that one can criticize an institution of faith, or the linguistic abuse of faith, without targeting the user’s faith specifically. Jersak also seems to liberally interchange skepticism of God with a specific flavor of deconstruction of faith that happens when one is abused by the people who manage that faith, with all forms of deconstruction, most of which target societal issues. These things are not all interchangeable and require nuance and context to understand how, where, why, and on whom they get used. There certainly are some deconstructionists that target God, but many deconstructionists also believe and have faith, but Jersak paints with such a broad brush he erases other points of view, but why? I argue that Jersak’s goal is to keep believers in the institution of faith.
Jersak tries to distinguish true churches by writing, “when God’s people love one another as they loved me, members will choose to stay connected — even if the preaching is mediocre, the services are blasé, and the theology is sketchy… Love and belonging are more important than anything. Regardless of Christianity’s reputation for ugliness, I can tell you I experience that [loving] acceptance in churches all over the world” (Jersak, p. 99). In using such broad universal language, Jersak negates the experience of many people, mainly the vulnerable and marginalized, who get mistreated in the Church. What is egregious about Jersak’s opinion because he is a white male with privilege. When Jersak says “churches all over the world,” the universalization of his words could almost be reduced down to “all (true loving) churches” with a blatant disregard for exceptions. I say disregard because his usage of “regardless” negates others’ experiences in favor of his own. In other words, he has not experienced the ugliness (because of white male privilege); therefore, regardless of others’ experiences, it doesn’t matter; unity is more important than suffering abuse or fixing problems. Jersak’s point is that he would prefer believers should be in Church, even ones that teach “sketchy” theology, rather than be liberated and out on their own, which he views as a nihilistic form of death.
Jersak seems to anticipate the problem of focusing his deconstruction on the self and not on abusers when he attempts to address criticisms of his approach; he writes of his critics as saying, “people in deconstruction have already been spiritually abused by people in authority. You should not give them guidance. You should teach them to trust and follow their own inner voice.” (Jersak, p. 87). His rebuke to this qualm is “if you’re discovering that what you’ve been taught, believed, and lived all your life is a life-threatening mass that demands radical surgery, then all that triumphalism is just another episode of spiritual abuse” (Jersak, p. 88). From the criticism and the rebuke we can learn what Jersak is rejecting. Jersak does not want people to trust their “inner voice.” His metaphorical rebuke implicitly speaks against self-will, and Jersak’s metaphor here is problematic for a few reasons.
Firstly, what is the “life-threatening mass” in Jersak’s context? It’s erroneous teachings, false beliefs, and abuse of power. Secondly, what is the radical (life-saving) surgery? In this context, deconstruction is the tool used to examine, reveal, and excise the abuse. Thirdly, what’s missing from the metaphor? The abusers who abused and implanted faulty theology in their congregants. With this omission, who does Jersak blame for the trauma, the life-threatening mass (abuse and false theology), or the life-saving surgery (deconstruction), the tool that reveals that abuse (and potentially liberates them from that abuse)?
Jersak, I feel, argues unfairly and in bad faith; he blames deconstruction as traumatic rather than casting a critical eye on Christian leaders and institutions that can and do lie, cheat, manipulate, and abuse their congregants for profit and power. And as a Christian leader, former pastor, and current professor and author, a person of power, influence, and privilege, Jersak’s criticism is highly suspect. It’s akin to a Starbucks CEO disparaging its workforce from unionization. Unionization is a threat to the C-suite profits, just as deconstruction is a threat to the influence, wealth, and power of the privileged. As a person of privilege, I feel Jersak is arguing against the thing that threatens his privilege in bad faith, in no small part, by omitting his privilege and bias. So what is his version of deconstruction, what is it targeted at, and why does he offer it?
POINT 5: JERSAK’S VERSION OF DECONSTRUCTION
Jersak explains his process of deconstruction as such “we experience these energies [Holy Spirit], this transforming grace, this indwelling Spirit, through openness in contemplative prayer and by making space via ascetic practice [severe restriction], as the beloved ones who receive her love. In this way, the via negativa [contemplating what God is not, to understand what God is] is, ironically, a deconstructive turn toward God” (Jersak, p. 127). In short, Jersak’s deconstruction involves a few phases, the first phase the “purgative” phase, involves an ascetic (extreme denial of) pleasures or sensations, and refocusing on Christian virtues (Jersak, p.130). The purgative phase gets elaborated on page 131, where Jersak describes the denial of sensation as a dark night of the senses that creates “a deep dissatisfaction, a kind of involuntary detachment, a purging of sensual and egoistic spiritual appetites that sweeps out the temple of our hearts, purifying us of ‘worldliness’” (Jersak, p. 131). In the purgative phase, we shed the things that distract us from God so that when we commune with God through contemplative prayer, “the illuminate” phase, the ascetic denial is so we can receive a clear transmission from God on His Love, plans, and purpose for our lives.
Jersak writes that the purgation “is to reveal how empty we are without God. We find life by seeking God alone. The resolution of this night is a complete willingness and resolve to take up our cross and joyfully follow Jesus wherever he goes” (Jersak, p. 131). Jersak’s view of how empty we are without God is the most straightforward explanation for why he disparages secular deconstruction so hard. If we shed the Church and/or God, we will learn how hollow and incomplete we are without God and be traumatized. If that were true, if existence apart from God were truly hollow and empty, would there be atheists at all? And a better question is that if what Jersak writes is true, did God make us broken if existence apart from Him is devoid of purpose and fulfillment? Lastly, once armed with the illumination of God’s love and plans, we must go through a rigorous application of His marching orders in the “unitive” phase (Jersak, p.130). That is until we lose our focus and repeat the process.
There are a couple of challenges to Jersak’s process, and I want to be careful here. I will not dispute other people’s experiences. I take other people’s word in good faith that they have heard the audible voice of God through prayer. But my experiences are valid too, and I’ve attended Charismatic churches for years; I’ve tried earnestly to speak in tongues, but I can’t, and the times that I did it were because of peer pressure; I faked it to gain acceptance. Am I a skeptic? No, I believe in God and Jesus; I know my Shepherd’s voice, just as I know what my voice is. Contemplative prayer, in my experience, has never been me hearing God’s purpose for me, and more just me wrestling with my own thoughts. Still, I want to acknowledge other people have different experiences, fair enough. Jersak stresses that “while this dense cloud of unknowing is impermeable to the natural mind, it can be pierced — by anyone — with nothing more (or less) than the ‘sharp dart of longing love’! We know God by love. Even a single word uttered in love opens the way to divine intimacy” (Jersak, p. 133). My point is simple, Jersak’s method, at a minimum, doesn’t work for everyone, and that is important to understand.
More serious than the adaptability problem is this problem; what is Jersak’s Christian form of deconstruction aimed at? Let’s reiterate Jersak’s definition of secular deconstruction as a “strategy for mindfully examining language, exposing (and subverting) the ways we discuss and practice truth and meaning — how we use binary language to smuggle in power dynamics that generate injustice” (Jersak, p. 25). Fine, that’s what the secular version is; how about Jersak’s? He explains the goal of his deconstruction as “we must de-construct every un-Christlike conception of “God” so that we don’t overlook the Real Deal when he draws near to us” (Jersak, p. 127). In other words, Jersak’s deconstruction involves asceticism, a form of self-flagellating sensual denial of comfort or entertainment. Jersak wants us to use asceticism to create brokenness. Jersak wants us to live in the cold dark void of our “brokenness” to open one up to hear God through contemplative prayer, to receive His marching orders, and then uncritically obey those orders to the letter. Because if you hear God but don’t obey, then that’s blasphemy.
Deconstruction is a tool that liberates one from abuse! Jersak, I argue, offers a counterfeit version of this tool that jettisons that core concept to defend his faith. Compounding this problem is the sheer body count of lives destroyed and lost by the powerful trying to keep Christianity the dominant Religion and influence of society. When we omit these contexts and jettison the tools of societal liberation for an inwards-only self-flagellating critical reflection, we banish people to suffer under the jackboot of religious oppression. And I am not saying all forms of Religion or Christianity are oppressive. I am still a believer myself; Christianity can be good. However, I am saying that for those under religious oppression, even Christian oppression, Jersak’s deconstruction will probably not help them to see their oppression for what it is and liberate themselves from it!
Jersak’s “deconstructing towards God” doesn’t help you examine the language used against you to reveal the power structures and oppression that you are under. Jersak doesn’t advocate for leaving “sketchy” churches; he argues that we must stay! Again Jersak’s words on those who teach “sketchy theology” he says that “we need to understand these faithful souls rather than ridicule them. Love and belonging are more important than anything” (Jersak, p. 99). Jersak’s method will probably help you learn how you feel; however, it is also unlikely to help you understand why you feel the way you do, much less critically examining the situation that causes those feelings.
To be fair, Jersak does spend a page and a half on the value of getting advice, saying, “don’t do it [deconstruction] yourself” (Jersak, p. 87). Those pages also try to vaguely define who qualifies as “help” as “someone with both training and experience, whether a therapist or spiritual director — which probably means neither a pastor (conflict of interest) nor someone who is still in spiritual freefall (blind leading the blind). And your helper mustn’t be a rescuer… Their role is to serve as quality control while you work through the inner noise to your quiet, clear center” (Jersak, p. 89). While it is essential to give Jersak some credit here by saying that people going through deconstruction should get advice and second opinions, the problem is that when he finally lays out his process for deconstructing ourselves towards God nearly 40 pages later. The language of ascetic “detachment” and “purging” to remove “worldliness” so that contemplative prayer can work implies that his process is a solitary one (Jersak, p. 129–130).
While it’s not unheard of that ascetic detachment and contemplative prayer can be done in a communal setting, Jersak doesn’t stress for a communal setting when he describes his process nearly 40 pages after saying, “don’t do it alone” (Jersak p. 87, 129–131). Jersak never revisits this process of when to involve others in his deconstruction. Jersak’s language never says you and your counselor; instead uses the possessive “we,” as in the author and I will do this together. Speaking of contemplative prayer, the illuminative way, Jersak emphasizes “we’re being purged of attachments” (Jersak, p. 131). Purging and detaching are moves towards less things and people; it is exclusion, not inclusion. And since, in reality, Jersak, for most people using this method, will not be physically present, the translation is that people will do Jersak’s deconstruction in isolation, with his written words filling in as the quality control; he is the second opinion.
But equally problematic is that even with external counseling, what is Jersak’s goal? While I am not arguing for people to leave the faith, I am arguing that they should have a choice in the matter. Jersak, I believe, however, wants us to stay in the faith or go deeper to rid ourselves of sinful practices that cut us off from God. And the qualifications Jersak gives for guiding one through this process, ascetic denial, contemplative prayer, and interpretation of divine revelation, to go to someone with expertise in these concepts will arguably not steer one towards an expert in oppression and abuse. It will more than likely steer one to a church elder/spiritual mentor or Christian counselor, other people whose agenda will be to keep you in their faith; it’s still a “conflict of interest,” they will most likely be partial to the faith, not impartial to your situation. And while it’s important to admit that critical self-reflection can and often is good for an individual to do, substituting contemplative prayer for deconstruction is not worth what is being lost.
The BIG problem is that Jersak’s version does not deconstruct oppression. His method is “a deconstructive turn toward God” (Jersak, p. 127). One can even go so far as to intuit that Jersak’s version has a high probability of setting the conditions for people to blame themselves for their suffering! The first clue to this intuition comes from the asceticism of the purgation phase; Jersak’s “the dark night of the senses [purgative phase] is a deep dissatisfaction, a kind of involuntary detachment, a purging of sensual and egoistic spiritual appetites that sweeps out the temple of our hearts, purifying us of “worldliness” for the illuminative way” (Jersak, p. 131). When one has to remove the comforts, sensations, and pleasures in one’s life because these things and people feed our egos and distract us from God, if not block God out altogether, then we must intuit that our lifestyle is blocking access to God’s voice. Already we are potentially blaming our lifestyle without even touching contemplative prayer yet.
Secondly, in the illumination phase, that dark void of isolation where the goal of one is to realize their inherent incompleteness, how can we describe this initial part of the phase as anything other than suffering? Here is Jersak’s description of the second night (the illuminative phase). Where the first night deprived us of sensation, Jersak’s second dark(er) night of the soul (his metaphor) for contemplative prayer is described as “the mystics use terms such as desolation and no consolation and crushing and abyss to describe the intensity of the trials, temptations, and emptiness that accompany this second night. The function of the second night is to reveal how empty we are without God. We find life by seeking God alone. The resolution of this night is a complete willingness and resolve to take up our cross and joyfully follow Jesus wherever he goes” (Jersak, p. 131). In the void, dark, alone, cut off from the world, comfort, and support, we reflect on God’s nature; we focus on what we are not and inevitably compare ourselves to God’s perfection.
How can we focus on God’s nature, that is, His perfection, without also comparing ourselves to that perfection? How do we measure up next to God? Will the comparison be favorable? This second phase is yet again self-critical. After jettisoning our lifestyle and social commitments out of the airlock, we next throw our character into the crucible. We do this by reflecting on our behavior, that is, all of our mistakes and bad judgments, isolated and alone with no voice to comfort or console, because we deserve to suffer; we are imperfect.
What happens when we fail? In other words, we potentially kick ourselves over and over while waiting for God to intervene. Upon God’s intervention with His Love for us, despite our dubious behavior, we enter the Unity phase with a critical examination of our past for where we can improve our future. Jersak writes of the Unitive phase while quoting Ellen Haroutunian, as saying that “it [unitive phase] does require letting go of much of what is old, and of attachments that hold us back and keep false personas in place” (Jersak, p. 132). Again, we use contemplative prayer to intuit the faults we must change in ourselves, if only to lessen our suffering or, even worse, potentially merit God’s love. So, we strive towards God to be more like Him, to be more perfect, a good-intentioned yet unobtainable goal.
In fairness, this is one albeit harsh interpretation of Jersak’s method. Still, I also think it is fair to assess that his method is a critical reflection almost exclusively leveraged against the self. So, I ask this question; is my interpretation of Jersak’s deconstruction towards God too harsh? Not if you factor in the nature of oppression!
POINT 6: THE NATURE OF OPPRESSION AND JERSAK’S DECONSTRUCTION
Oppression is an insidious thing. It causes the oppressor to look at those they subjugate with contempt for being weaker. The oppressed, in turn, internalize that external contempt with self-hatred. We get these ideas from the Catholic Marxist thinker Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Despite the title signifying it as a treatise on education, Freire’s pedagogy (theory of teaching) is about teaching critical thinking and liberation by educating us on the nature of oppression and its effects on both the oppressor and the oppressed alike.
And it is here that Freire reveals a critical stumbling block to Jersak’s process. Freire writes, “self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them. So often do they hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything–that they are sick, lazy, and unproductive–that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness.” (Freire, p. 63). In Freire’s view, the nature of oppression is that it creates in the oppressed a sense of self-hatred. Jersak’s deconstruction is a method of critical examination levied against the self. If the person doing Jersak’s deconstruction is also under Evangelical/Religious oppression, this is a recipe for intense self-loathing!
Think about it critically for a moment, how does western society describe the poor and homeless? As virtuous hard workers or vice-ridden freeloaders? How has the Church described these people in the past? How often has a conversation of benevolence devolved into a debate on rewarding sin? How does church patriarchy describe women? As intelligent and capable, or as emotional and codependent? How many churches deny women leadership status? How many churches deny the LEGBTQ+ community full participation (leadership, marriage, working with kids)? These things are oppression! What percentage of Christian pastors in western society are White males? How many churches, in the past, have covered up sexual abuse and fraud to preserve their status and income stream at the expense of the abused? How often are these abusers restored back to their position of power by their elder boards a few years or months after the scandal? Too many, and more happen every year. If we remain ignorant of these problems, they will not fix themselves. The powerful have no incentive to change a system that gave them their power in the first place.
And granted, there are many examples of good loving churches that help people, but who are they helping, and who are they not? Usually, there is a bias for who gets help first. When we factor in the number of churches that deny women and LGBTQ+ people equal privileges in church society, namely the potential for leadership, marriage, and working with children’s ministry, then add the churches that have sexually abused their congregants, or support oppressive politicians and policies to further white male power, the conclusion is that Evangelical abuse and oppression in Western society is rampant and everywhere. It may not be chattel slavery, but we must still call it for what it is, oppression.
The point is that the powerful create lies about the people they lord over to legitimate their subjugation; it happens repeatedly. Freire writes, “the oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society, which must therefore adjust these ‘incompetent and lazy’ folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality. The marginals need to be ‘integrated’, ‘incorporated’ into the healthy society that they have ‘forsaken’” (Freire, p. 74). Furthermore, Freire adds that oppression stresses that if only the Oppressed were more like their Oppressors, strong and virtuous, they would not be in their dower states of poverty and subjugation. This oppression mind state instills a self-loathing in the oppressed and a willful desire to be more like their Oppressors.
What’s worse is that Jersak’s disparaging of deconstruction plays into Freire’s notion of ambiguity when Freire writes that ignorance of oppression perpetuates that oppression, saying that as long as “ambiguity [of oppression] persists, the oppressed are reluctant to resist, and totally lack confidence in themselves. They have a diffuse, magical belief in the invulnerability and power of the oppressor” (Freire, p. 64). In other words, because Jersak’s deconstruction is ignorant to oppression, it will not help fix it. Freire continues by saying that “as long as the oppressed remain unaware of the causes of their condition, they fatally ‘accept’ their exploitation. Further, they are apt to react in a passive and alienated manner when confronted with the necessity to struggle for their freedom and self-affirmation” (Freire, p. 64). With Jersak’s only explicit call to action being to fix the self, society will stagnantly remain as it is. If we want to improve society, we must also look for what is wrong with that society and take action!
Freire also talks about the steps needed for liberation, which Jersak’s deconstruction is devoid of. Freire writes, “to achieve this goal [of liberation], the oppressed must confront reality critically, simultaneously objectifying and acting upon that reality. A mere perception of reality not followed by this critical intervention will not lead to a transformation of objective reality–precisely because it is not a true perception” (Freire, p. 52). In other words, to change reality, one must be aware of that reality and then be empowered to take action on that reality. Critical examining of the self, while possibly good, is insufficient without critically examining the social context that the self is in. Without social context, the self has nothing else to blame for its current circumstances.
Jersak’s deconstruction plays into this Oppressed mind state hard by signaling to the believer that they are to be looking for the vices and deficiencies that block their access to God; hence, if Jersak’s system fails to deliver the goods, the fault is in the user, it’s their sin that God was powerless to get through. The onus of Jersak’s criticism targets the self, not the situation. The believer must rid themselves of sin, listen for orders from above, and follow those orders uncritically — a recipe for continuing oppression.
Jersak’s privilege further mars his case precisely because it negates critical examination of the privileged. As Freire puts it, “the oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egotistic pursuit of having as a possessive class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right” (Freire, p. 59). Thinking critically for a moment, how often in society have Evangelicals advocated for their rights at the expense of others? How often does “all lives matter” get shouted out as a negation of “black lives matter”? Jersak, throughout the book, barely acknowledges church abuse, and when he does, he uses that abuse to criticize secular philosophy. Jersak is not criticizing the institutions he has been a part of; he will not bite the hand that fed him, at least not in this book.
CONCLUSION: SHAME IS THE POINT!
So we get back to the perennial question of why? Why is Jersak offering a new version of deconstruction that targets the self exclusively for criticism, not institutions of power and abuse? The answer to this question I propose is this. Shame is the point! Let me explain.
Jersak does not like personal freedom; he makes this point repeatedly in the book. Jersak equates self-will with “the darkness, the shadows, and the chains point to the idols we erect — idols of the self (our egos), the social (our isms), or even the divine (our “gods”)” (Jersak, p. 143). In Jersak’s view, self-will is antithetical to God’s will; even worse, it is an idol, and Jersak’s argument is not unique within Christianity. The whole point of Jersak’s purgation phase involving asceticism is that what I enjoy distracts me from God; therefore, what I want is bad for my spirituality. If enjoying life takes me away from God, we can intuit that to some degree Jersak wants us to suffer as a way to keep us close to God!
At every turn, Jersak highlights the dangers of; freedom, self-deterministic meaning, and independent thought by writing that “enlightenment rationalism cannot deliver the goods of existential meaning, human flourishing, or true freedom, he [Kierkegaard] believes that obedience to the impulses of our passions is not freedom — it is the worst form of slavery. Any addict in recovery can confirm this reality from painful experience” (Jersak, p. 231). From these words, we can determine that Jersak views freedom apart from God as riddled with danger and wants to scare his readers from considering it. Jersak invokes Kierkegaard in a section where he highlights the benefits of spiritual discipline. In the process, he disparages self-determinism to be fruitless, writing that pursuing secular passions leads to addiction and slavery. The logical conclusion for why Jersak pushes the idea of brokenness on us is that if I am complete, I do not need God. Therefore, exercising my will is an exercise in wholeness that takes me away from God. Remember, Jersak rejects the criticism that he “should teach them [people under religious abuse] to trust and follow their own inner voice” because that voice leads away from God, in Jersak’s view (Jersak, p. 87). In other words, Jersak, I believe, does not want you to find meaning by pursuing what you care about; he wants you to find meaning in the Church. Arguably, Jersak wants us to be and remain broken, to need God! Even worse is the idea that his process, the ascetic detachment, can be seen as an attempt by him to push us into a broken state! If Jersak writes that my will is wrong, then we must conclude that he wants some other will imposed on us, most likely the Church. From Freire’s perspective, Jersak can be seen as wanting oppression, albeit in a Christian form!
Furthermore, Jersak presents a warped binary reality that pits self-will, and God’s will against each other, writing that “God’s Spirit is breaking internal attachments — to sin and to self, to our inner “craver” and the demands of the ego.” (Jersak, p. 131). Although God gave us a “will” of our own, that “will” is sinful if it does not align with God, but if our “will” only aligns with God, can it indeed be ours? And if the exercise in the “will” (which God gave us, by the way) is sinful, did God make us to sin? Is the freedom to exercise our own “will” just an exercise in sin? Even worse, if we only ever let God’s “will” dictate our lives, how is this not oppression, benign or not?
I conclude that Jersak does not want freedom; that is the existential freedom to make your own meaning in life, and pursue your dreams, because he feels it can lead you away from God. Jersak even goes so far as to imply heavily that our passions cut us off from God. Freire’s words are an indictment of Jersak’s methods by writing that “in order to dominate, the dominator has no choice but to deny true praxis [practical action] to the people, deny them the right to say their own word and think their own thoughts” (Freire, p. 126). By disparaging other points of view, points that expand awareness and lead to a critical reflection of the social conditions that create one’s reality, Jersak is denying his readers the right to think for themselves!
Furthermore, Jersak’s disparaging of self-will freedom reeks of oppression. Freire writes that oppressions try to instill a fear of freedom in the oppressed to keep them under oppression, noting that “ambiguity [of power and status] makes them [the oppressed] fearful of freedom” (Freire, p. 163). Jersak does not want freedom of thought; he wants Christianity to dominate. And for Christianity to dominate, believers and pagans alike must suppress themselves to be subservient to God’s will, or more accurately, subservient to the will of those who speak for God.
Freire elaborates on the need for critical thinking of social reality as an essential step for freedom by writing that “a critical reflection which increasingly organizes their thinking and this leads them to move from a purely naive knowledge of reality to a higher level of commitment one which enables them to perceive” (Freire, p. 131). Without true knowledge, one that I charge has a diversity of viewpoints; people do not get to decide which points of view they get to agree with. They don’t get to make up their minds. Presenting only one viewpoint serves Jersak’s goals, as Freire charges, “when the oppressed are almost completely submerged in reality, it is unnecessary to manipulate them” (Freire, p. 148). Arguably, this is why Jersak disparages real deconstruction. Without any training in critical thinking, people are easier to dominate. Even worse is that Jersak’s disparaging of freedom leads us to conclude that he is OK with oppression as long as it is Christian oppression. Jersak’s advocation of a Christian echo-chamber is a recipe for oppression.
When it comes to oppression and domination, Freire writes that the purpose of “subjugation [is], to keep them passive” (Freire, p. 139). Freire clarifies this position by noting that “by means of manipulation, the dominant elites tried to conform the masses to their objectives. And the greater the political immaturity of these people (rural or urban) and more easily the latter can be manipulated by those who do not wish to lose their power” (Freire, p. 147). In other words, for God’s will to be triumphant, we must suppress ourselves. My passions, desires, ambitions, hopes, and dreams must be suspended and altered to fit an Evangelical paradigm. For Jersak’s process to work, the people must be passive, and he achieves this passivity inevitably through shame.
Jersak’s whole point of offering a form of deconstruction directed against the self is to inflict shame on the self. Freire again illuminates Jersak’s intentions by writing that the destination point oppressors seek over their oppressed is what Freire calls cultural invasion, where the oppressor’s culture invades and supplants the host culture. Freire explains that “for cultural invasions to succeed, it is essential that those invaded become convinced of their intrinsic inferiority. Since everything has its opposite, if those who are invaded consider themselves inferior, they must necessarily recognize the superiority of the invaders. The values of the latter thereby become the pattern for the former. The more invasion is accentuated and those invaded are unalienated from the Spirit of their own culture and from themselves, the more the latter want to be like the invaders: to walk like them, dress like them, talk like them” (Freire, p. 153). From Freire’s point of view, anytime another person’s values get forced on you, it is akin to cultural invasion; the end result is the same, the suppression of the self, your will, voice, and dreams. In other words, Jersak’s point for creating a system that disparages the self ultimately gets believers to hate themselves. By hating themselves, they will, in turn, want to be like their oppressors and or God.
Based on Freire’s understanding of oppression and its effects on the subjugated, Jersak’s deconstruction is literally dehumanizing because it leads to shame, which insidiously paralyzes the individual into inaction! The paralyzed individual has no choice but to remain where they are; even if they know they are oppressed, why leave? They hate themselves; therefore, they deserve to suffer; they do not deserve better. An individual paralyzed by shame has neither the will nor the desire to seek out tools to liberate themselves. Shame paralyzes you with self-loathing. It heightens your inner critic and kicks you when you are down. Critical reflection of one’s self is a recipe for self-shame if that process does not reflect on the social order that forces one to make bad choices, which is Jersak’s point. Shame makes you hate yourself; it makes you paralyzed. Shame breaks you! Shame allows other wills to take over your will. Shame is useful to Jersak if it leads us to God!
I do not believe God wants to oppress us or shame us; I believe religious leaders like Jersak want that and misuse God for their enrichment. Jersak is disparaging deconstruction because it is a tool of liberation from oppression, and Jersak wants his readers under God’s theocratic oppression, which is the human institution of Religion. Jersak goes about his oppression by disparaging deconstruction as traumatizing and nihilist. Going further, he radicalizes his readers by inciting grievances again straw-men like atheists, liberals, progressives, and skeptics, dehumanizing them in the process. Jersak uses the tools of oppression to advocate for a Christian echo chamber by offering an alternative to deconstruction, one that paradoxically does not bring freedom, it brings shame, and it compels the user to hate themselves. And that shame is paramount to keeping one under oppression.
Thank you for reading; I want to end things here. Again, if you like Jersak’s works, if he has helped you in the past, then know that your experiences are valid. You can keep liking and reading his stuff; I present the dangers his line of thought can go to. These are possibilities. However, this post has grown far too long. If you made it this far, thank you!!! The congratulatory word for completing this post is lemon-drop. For now, what do you think:
What do you think of deconstruction as a tool of liberation vs. Jersak’s deconstruction of one’s self towards God?
Why do you think Jersak views deconstruction as traumatic, and do you agree with him?
Is deconstruction a danger to the Christian faith?
What do you think of Jersak’s rhetoric and its potential for radicalization?
Does Freire’s ideas on oppression alter your perception of Jersak’s disparaging of self-determinism?
Let me know your thoughts.
