Olivia Jackson's (Un)certain is a difficult read: not because it is poorly written, but because it acts as a harshly honest platform for the true lived experiences of those who have undergone a deconstruction of faith. Each story is imbued with a deep gut-wrenching authenticity that highlights failings in the church.
Jackson's research finds its footing in trauma theology, yet does not attempt to make sweeping theological statements. Instead the semi-autoethnographic style, coupled with the experiences of those interviewed for the study, clearly demonstrates Jackson's aim to establish deconstruction as a natural part of human spiritual experience. For Jackson, deconstruction means an acceptance of the uncertain; it is an intentional examination of an individual’s beliefs (xvi). Jackson maintains a wide scope of topics demonstrating both simplicity and depth; this illustrates the broadness of experiences which deconstruction covers. The approach moves (Un)certain away from simply being a piece of trauma theology.
The book is in three parts; each part has a slightly different structure. Part One, titled ‘Money, Sex and Power’ covers a huge range of topics including Bible reading, sin, worship and politics. Each section is short, but this allows Jackson to demonstrate the huge range of experiences covered in her research. Some areas could have been given a longer focus; the section on worship felt somewhat restrained. I speculate that Jackson could have written an entire chapter on her interviewee’s experiences of worship, but it is Jackson’s choice to emphasise breadth over depth that allows for a variety of experiences to be explored.
Part Two covers a smaller range of topics, but each one acts more as an overarching theme that could cover many different facets of faith deconstruction. A highlight would be the section titled ‘Prayed For: Preyed On’ in which Jackson illustrates how easily an evangelical prayer ethic can slip into spiritual abuse. She points to several experiences of autistic Christians whose understanding of their autistic personhood stood in conflict with their church’s theology of healing and prayer (146–148). Jackson illuminates a complete misunderstanding of mental health that generates harmful prayer practices. At its best, it pushes people to find more inclusive church environments, such as the experience of Katya (146), at its worst, however, a tension emerges where engagement with the spiritual superiority of the institutional church is ‘locked away’ for those whose body-minds function ‘correctly’. In other words, the veil that is torn at Jesus’ death is ad-hoc stitched back together. The presence of God is concealed by the church only to be revealed to those who can act appropriately: deconstruction opposes this spiritual gatekeeping.
Part Three emphasises the strength-through-vulnerability of Jackson's participants. Here, Jackson highlights a positivist approach to deconstruction, Jackson does not seek to simply promote deconstruction as a good thing, but to recognise the validity in those experiences. For some, such as Kathy (193), there is a spiritual renewal through the conscious choice to step away from the church; Jackson illustrates, however, that not a single person she interviewed admitted to a conscious choice to deconstruct (178). The book's final section titled ‘Bittersweet Hope’ is where Jackson recounts how deconstruction allowed her participants to re-emerge freed from the constraints of evangelical Christianity. Like the caterpillar which emerges from its cocoon, Jackson's interviewees are transformed into a new beauty that seemed impossible before with a whole new dimension of explorational freedom. They are no longer crawling on the ground, looking up in hope of something more, now they are flying free and exploring the richness of the unshackled human experience.
Jackson's (Un)certain is not a political piece that demands all people of faith must undergo deconstruction. Nor is she suggesting that the theological positions her interviewees find post-deconstruction are ‘better’ or more ‘accurate’. Rather, the focus concerns the validity of the experiences explored. Jackson argues for a positivist appreciation of the experience she covers; thus she advocates for deconstruction as a naturally occurring part of the human spiritual experience. By rejecting doubt completely, by idolising the faux-reliability of certainty in the face of the uncertain, the authoritative figure, in this case the church leader, takes control of the vulnerable body-mind. Whilst the authority she places on her, and her interviewee’s experiences allow for a convincing argument, one in which I would agree, it is unclear how successful she would be convincing a more critical audience. Jackson assumes her readers will place a similar authority on personal experience, yet this is not a universal claim. Nevertheless, (Un)certain provides a well-researched account of deconstruction that lays a foundation for further practical theological research.