Alternatively Practicing
A Substack for Deconstructing the Faith You Were Handed + Reconstructing Something Better
I began deconstructing my conservative evangelical faith over two decades ago. Back then, there were essentially no resources. The term deconstruction had not yet been coined. There were no communities of ex-vangelicals. It was just called backsliding, falling away from the faith, or losing salvation.
But first, a little about me. I’m originally from Western Washington in the United States. I’ve been living and working abroad since 2010 in South Korea, Thailand, Italy, and now France.
I grew up attending various evangelical and pentecostal denominations: CMA, Baptist, Assemblies of God, and non-denominational. I graduated from Seattle Pacific University, a Methodist school, in 2005 with two degrees in European Studies and Romance Languages (Spanish, French, and Italian).
Growing up, I would often attend youth group up to three times per week. Sunday morning worship services, Wednesday night small groups, and the occasional weekend outreach or overnight student leadership meeting. Then there were the summer camps, weekend retreats, choir tours, and mission trips. Being in the left-leaning Seattle area, things were quite a bit more tame than what you might come across in the Bible Belt, but I still experienced it all at some level. Everything evangelical youth group culture could offer in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
A lot of things led to my deconstruction, some of which I’m still uncovering and processing. But the big three were the emotional and spiritual abuse I witnessed and experienced on a mission trip to Italy in 1999, the enthusiastic support of evangelical Christians during the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, and studying at universities in Spain, France, and Italy between 2002 and 2004.
Upon returning to the US and finishing my degrees, I formally converted to the Catholic faith in 2006 at Saint James Cathedral in Seattle, WA. While I still consider myself Catholic, I have found my own ways to experience and live out this spirituality. Hence the name of this publication: Alternatively Practicing.
It can be a scary thing to begin questioning the faith you’ve always known. But the more I have learned about and explored the diversity of Christianities over the past two millennia, as well as the richness of other global faiths, the more I have realized how narrow White American evangelicalism is. How much it limits the human spirit, the inquisitiveness of the mind, and the imagination of the soul. We can do so much better.
I may dissect some of these in future posts, but I’ve included some of the resources that have helped in my deconstruction process thus far.
BOOKS
A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown (Julia Scheeres)
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (Donald Miller)
The Book of Longings (Sue Monk Kidd)
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (Cynthia Bourgeault)
Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others (Barbara Brown Taylor)
Jesus Land: A Memoir (Julia Scheeres)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (Christopher Moore)
Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (Rob Bell)
The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (Richard Rohr)
Nine Portraits of Jesus: Discovering Jesus Through the Enneagram (Robert J. Nogosek and Suzanne Stabile)
The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (Peter Rollins)
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything (Brian D. McLaren)
The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe (Richard Rohr)
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Rob Bell)
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Reza Aslan)
FILMS
Dogma (1999)
The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1965)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Jésus de Montreal (1989)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Religulous (2009)
Saved! (2004)
SERIES
Doctor Who (1963–1989, 2005-present)
The Good Place (2016–2020)
The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-present)
Lost (2004–2010)
Lucifer (2016–2021)
The Righteous Gemstones (2019-present)
PODCASTS
Ex-vangelical
The Deconstructionists
The Magnificast
Straight White American Jesus
Two Feminists Annotate the Bible
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook groups
Instagram accounts
Medium writers
Substack writers
I also create digital art and graphic design. You can check out the more spiritual/religious pieces on my Gumroad shop: Alternatively Practicing.
