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The more intricate a thing is, the longer it usually takes to build. All the subtle nuances and designs can make it difficult to construct quickly. Once fully created, taking said thing apart can prove even more challenging, especially if one wants to keep certain core elements intact. Constructing and deconstructing one’s religion can therefore be a taxing affair.

“Faith deconstruction” has been around for much longer than the recent trendy attention it has garnered in public media. A quick Google search on faith deconstruction can lead one to various opinions on what deconstruction is and what it is not. Personally, as someone who is a descendant of Black bodies who were enslaved under the messages of Christianity, I find it helpful to think of deconstruction as a process by which someone examines the ideas, beliefs, and actions they were taught about Christianity.

Today, the greatest focus on deconstruction is among ex-evangelicals. Countless social media accounts and group therapy gatherings exist for those who grew up in conservative Christian homes and who are unraveling what they were taught, finding it incongruent with how they now see the world, and at times describing the teachings they received, especially about sexuality and gender, as traumatic. Some want to leave religion behind altogether; others want to find a new way forward that allows them to hold on to some aspects of Christianity even as they chart a new path.

Deconstructing one’s beliefs can be a messy process, and people come to it for vastly different reasons. Some are reeling from church and spiritual abuse. Many have found a distinct lack of nuance in the way the Bible glosses over certain topics, including its misogyny and how people use the Bible to promote homophobia. Others have lingering doubts that haven’t been sufficiently answered. No amount of Sunday school stories can rescue one from the qualms that ensue from a world marked by white supremacy and violence. For others, the ways religion and politics overlap have led them to question what their religious communities teach.

Personally, when I consider deconstruction, I think of my ancestors who questioned the religion of a land that was so dehumanizing, so brutal, and so comfortable with slavery. While many slaves adopted Christianity, incorporating it into their African cosmologies and rituals, they did so knowing that there was a difference in what their slave masters espoused and what they themselves were experiencing. These slaves created spaces for themselves to ponder and pray. In the refuge of hush harbors, slaves could explore prayer and mix their African identities and Christian spirituality in secret—a type of deconstructing space as slaves wrestled with the impact of slaveholding Christianity.

In drawing this distinction between the Christianity he was taught and the Christianity he grew to embrace, Frederick Douglass wrote, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.“

Where others grew up in strict religious communities, I was not raised in the church. I grew up freely questioning, reasoning, musing, and never felt loyal to making the Bible’s depiction of God make sense because it wasn’t my native tongue or dreamscape. As a former Black atheist turned Black Christian, I have had to ask hard questions about the Bible and the people who have interpreted it. The history of my Black ancestors on American soil, especially in terms of slaveholding Christianity, demands that I make friends with questions and doubt.

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Liz Charlotte Grant’s book, Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis after Losing Faith in the Bible, is a refreshing read and one well suited for former evangelicals or anyone who wants to question what they were taught about the Bible without throwing it out entirely. Throughout the book, Grant shares experiences from her own life as she recovers from her own evangelical upbringing. Rooting the book in the Genesis narrative allows for her to take into account how people, especially evangelicals, approach the Bible’s first book as both literal and instructive. Much church doctrine stems from what people believe about the first book of the Bible: the age of the planet, how Earth was formed, how humanity came into being, what God’s relationship is to the rest of creation, and more.

Genesis is full of ideas that some evangelicals purport to be historically and factually accurate. Grant knows how important Genesis is to many Christians, including ex-evangelicals who are not sure what they want to throw out and what they want to keep. She writes that “the central pursuit of humankind is to knock at the sky,” by which she means the process of explaining our world, our lives, and “whatever else is out there.” I have read many books that would lend themselves to the loose category of faith deconstruction, but this is a unique one. “One of one… The only one,” to loosely quote the brilliant Beyoncé.

Grant is a storyteller, a phenomenal one at that. The way that she winds together personal experiences, historical evidence, Jewish midrash, knowledge of art history, and her own theological musings sets the table for 11 chapters of expansive thought on the Bible’s first book. Reading through this book feels like taking a slow walk through a garden with a friend as Grant attempts to muse her way through some commonly shared evangelical beliefs about the Bible. She takes great lengths not to universalize her own experiences, but draws upon her stories and those of others to illustrate broader points.

Grant’s earlier writings, which include this viral article about a once-beloved female evangelical leader and her disturbing third marriage, seem to center around meaningful and thoughtful engagement with how Christianity has been hurtful (and ways that it can be helpful). Her writings offer pathways forward for those who have been harmed by the church, by the Bible, and by people who wield the Bible for their own power.

In Knock at the Sky, Grant lovingly describes the Bible as a work of art. The journey to reconciling this art with the ways Christianity has been a destructive force is complex. For some, especially Black ex-evangelicals, this journey has led them right out of the doors of the church altogether. Grant leaves that possibility open, while also offering new ways to reflect on the biblical text.

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For some, the beginning of their deconstruction journey starts with how they were taught about the Bible. It is one thing to boldly declare, as many evangelicals have, that the Bible was inspired by God, is without error, and has the answers that any human is seeking. It is quite another to survey the world and wonder what the Bible has to do with it. Some are taught that there is one interpretation of Scripture, and that one should avoid reading into the text through the lens of their own understanding. Grant, however, starts her book by exploring in the opposite direction. “I have written this book as an experiment in eisegesis, as in, reading life into biblical text.” She recognizes that trying to find one clear interpretation is futile, and instead, she leans into the beauty of the different ways people come to read the Bible.

Instead of choosing to engage in the debates about the historicity of the Genesis text, how old the Earth is, etc. Grant writes, “The creation poem in Genesis 1 is one way I have come to understand the otherness of God.” She leans into the mystery of creation, pulling in the research of whale song, the vocalized sounds whales use to communicate, in order to spark the imagination about what the beginning of creation sounded like. Imagination can be a powerful tool for those deconstructing their faith. Instead of relying on someone’s teachings about God to be definitive, the mystery that Grant writes about gives alternative ways to construct beliefs and interpretive possibilities.

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Doubt is a nasty word in many evangelical spaces. I suppose this is because doubt introduces a person to complexities that can’t be easily explained. Doctrine is supposed to unite us. “The Bible is clear” and “Do not doubt” are phrases that are drilled into many conservative churchgoers across racial divides as they seek to make sense of reading an ancient text that is far removed from their everyday experience.

But, as Grant points out, there are large portions of the Genesis narrative that don’t make sense to us. For example, the idea that God commanded a group of people to slaughter others in the conquest of the Promised Land is difficult to accept. There are portions of the Bible that, left unattended, begin to unravel in terms of belief and ethical practice. But for Grant, certainty and doubt must coexist in the life of anyone seeking to retain faith. Grant dignifies doubts. She writes that, “The Bible is a fossil, too. It is a flesh and blood memory. It is a collection of ancestral encounters with God.” This statement speaks to what the Bible is rather than what some people make it out to be. Viewing the Bible as a collection of ancestral encounters allows for nuance (something that certain strains of evangelicalism lack) and new interpretation.

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For centuries, people have used the Bible to justify the violence and horror they commit. Grant addresses this in a few ways. For example, she writes that, “Pope Francis only repealed the Doctrine of Discovery decree in March 2023, 530 years after the Spanish pope formally called indigenous Americans less than people.” The Doctrine of Discovery allowed for biblical interpretation to intersect with law in order to excuse Christian conquest. In the name of God, Christians were able to seize Indigenous lands freely. This is further proof that violence and tragedy within the Bible and in the history of the world are brutal realities. Much of that violence has been done in the name of God. Understanding why God either seems to cause or allow horrific things are questions that are not easily answered. Grant doesn’t shy away from addressing tragedy, but instead does justice to the fact that we simply don’t know why God allows certain things.

As someone who has been the victim of various forms of trauma, I am most touched by the tender treatment that Grant gives to the story of Hagar in chapter 8. In Genesis, we are introduced to an Egyptian woman named Hagar, a slave of Abram (Abraham) and Sarai (Sarah). In the biblical text she is forced to carry Abram’s child, Ishmael, and was subsequently mistreated. God doesn’t seem to protect her in the conventional ways that would seem prudent. Instead, God calls Hagar back into slavery for more abuse. Hagar’s story has haunted me for years. I have spent long hours trying to reconcile that God calls Hagar back into slavery to endure cruelty. This Egyptian woman seems to be a footnote within the biblical text, yet Grant illuminates Hagar by telling her story, speaking to the discomfort that this story brings, and allows for others to question this God who doesn’t seem to liberate all at once. Grant doesn’t give concrete answers here, but when she says that “Liberation may delay, but it will not be thwarted,” my heart had a discernible reaction: I know this to be true.

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“Though this book has attempted to wrestle the Bible to the ground, rather than coming to the conclusion that it’s good for nothing, that the book should be dismissed as outmoded or oppressive, I am reenchanted.” – Liz Charlotte Grant

Grant says that “the central pursuit of humankind is to knock at the sky” and I believe that she has given us tools to knock. This persistent ability to knock, reason, and question is at the heart of deconstruction. It can lead to meaningful faith experiences and Grant gives us possibilities to do that. For those of us who have wrestled, and asked questions through tears to God, Grant gives us the gift of knowing that a faith filled with doubt is still a beautiful faith.

Robert Monson is a theoethecist, musician, writer (Substack: Musings from a Broken Heart), Ph.D. student, and public thinker, who does work around Black masculinities, Black Christianities, and disability ethics. Robert is the co-host of the podcasts Three Black Men as well as Black Coffee and Theology.