Scripture and the Church

ACCC 2022 Resolution on Deconstructionism

What is deconstructionism, and why is it dangerous?

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Editor's Note: The 81st Annual Convention of the American Council of Christian Churches met in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from October 25-27, 2022. The convention approved several resolutions on critical issues confronting Christians and the church in our time, including the one below. We present it for the edification and encouragement of God's people. - Dr. Paul Elliott [3]

American Council of Christian Churches
81st Convention, October 25-27, 2022
Faith Chapel, Carlisle, PA
Resolution on Deconstructionism

In Acts 20:29-30, Paul warned the Ephesian elders that "after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." The Apostle therefore "commend[ed the elders] to God, and to the word of his grace," and urged them to be on their guard against predators (vv. 31-32).

Paul's words of wisdom ring true today just as much as they did in the early Church, for a new pack of wolves has entered professing Christianity under the guise of humble reformers. Known as deconstructionists, these false teachers tear apaii every claim to absolute truth as though it were merely a power-grab. As a result, deconstructionists challenge evangelical theology, not by appealing to the authorial intent of Scripture,[1] but by examining the "intersectional power dynamics" of time, space, race, class, and gender in particular evangelicals. By doing so, deconstructionists go beyond trying to remedy the inconsistencies and blind spots within evai1gelicalism, and they instead cause doubt or capitulation on the biblical doctrines of hell, inerrancy, the atonement, human sexuality, complementarianism, the universal depravity of man, and the perspicuity and authority of Scripture.[2]

Evidence of this deconstructionism is seen especially in Jemar Tisby's The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism, Kristin Kobes Du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Beth Allison Barr's The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became the Gospel Truth, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry's Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, and Robert P. Jones' White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.

Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches at its 81st annual convention, October 25-27, 2022, at Faith Chapel, Carlisle, PA resolves to stand against deconstructionism. This philosophy is simply another form of the serpent in the Garden saying, "Hath God said?" (Genesis 3:1). While deconstructionists posture themselves as reformers, they are actually skeptics bent on destroying "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3). Consequently, we exhort all Bible believers to "watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong" (I Corinthians 16:13), knowing that "the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul" (Hebrews 10:38-39).

References:

1. While not commonly associated with deconstructionism, Esau Mccaulley (Wheaton College professor, former student of N. T. Wright, and author of Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope) does much to undermine the authorial intent and perspicuity of Scripture by emphasizing the alleged legitimacy of subjective, multi-cultural interpretations of Scripture. See Deuteronomy 30:11-14, I John 4:1, and the 2018 ACCC "Resolution on Multiculturalism."

2. See also the 2020 ACCC "Resolution on Honoring Heroes of the Faith," the 2019 ACCC "Resolution on Critical Theory," and the 2021 ACCC "Resolution on Women and the Local Church."

3. Dr. Elliott is a member of the ACCC's Executive Committee.

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