The Spirituality of Deconstruction in United States Theological Schools

Abstract

Building on a movement within the sociology of religion to better situate studies of spirituality in relation to contexts, practices, and power relations, the current study examines shifts in spiritual practice associated with “deconstruction” among graduate students within theological education. We rely on new interview data with a cohort of 30 students at time 1 (2020) and follow-ups with 22 of those students at time 2 (2022), comparing students at four different types of schools (Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, and Black Protestant), and oversampling for students of historically minoritized identities. After identifying patterns in the spirituality of deconstruction, including trends toward embodiment, attunement to the natural world, social activism, and syncretism, we examine how these students perceive the responses of their theological schools to students’ deconstructing spirituality. We especially note a pattern of ambivalence, where certain aspects of the institution (especially some individual faculty and administrators, and student affinity groups) support and model deconstruction for their students. We argue that the spirituality of deconstruction may, therefore, function to both challenge and regenerate institutionalized contexts of religion in an overall setting of institutional decline.