After more than ten years of conversations about faith, doubt, theology, identity, and the questions that reshape us, The Deconstructionists is entering its final chapter.
In this special update, John reflects on how the show began, the philosophy that guided it, what has changed in the deconstruction space over the past decade, and why the time feels right to bring the weekly podcast to a close at the end of 2026.
But this isn’t goodbye just yet.
There are still new guests and conversations ahead, the full archive will remain available, and the door will always be open for future special episodes.
John also introduces what comes next: Who We Become, a new podcast exploring the moments that divide our lives into before and after — and the people we become on the other side.
Learn more and join the mailing list at thisiswhowebecome.com.
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00:01 --> 00:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, John here.
00:02 --> 00:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the episodes we have coming over the next several months, I wanted to take a little time and talk directly to you about the future of the deconstructionist.
00:12 --> 00:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose the easiest way to say it is just a sad.
00:16 --> 00:23 [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of this year, after a little more than 10 years, the deconstructionist podcast will be coming to an end.
00:23 --> 00:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to immediately clarify what I mean by that.
00:26 --> 00:27 [SPEAKER_00]: We are not done today.
00:28 --> 00:35 [SPEAKER_00]: We still have some really wonderful conversations coming over the next few months and there will absolutely be a proper goodbye when we get to the end.
00:36 --> 00:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't the final episode.
00:38 --> 00:43 [SPEAKER_00]: This is really just me letting you know where things are headed and more importantly what comes next.
00:44 --> 00:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I've been thinking about this for quite a while.
00:47 --> 00:53 [SPEAKER_00]: When Adam and I started the podcast in my basement back in late 2015, we really had no idea what we were doing.
00:54 --> 01:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Podcasting was a very different landscape then, and there were only a handful of shows having the kinds of conversations that we wanted to have.
01:02 --> 01:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Conversations about faith, doubt, theology, certainty, church, identity, and what happens when the framework you inherited no longer seems big enough for the questions you're asking.
01:15 --> 01:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And from the very beginning, one thing was really important to us.
01:18 --> 01:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We never wanted the podcast to be about us.
01:21 --> 01:25 [SPEAKER_00]: We weren't interested in positioning ourselves as gurus.
01:25 --> 01:29 [SPEAKER_00]: We weren't theologians arriving with a new system that everybody needed to adopt.
01:30 --> 01:36 [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't want to replace one set of unquestionable answers with another set of unquestionable answers.
01:37 --> 01:47 [SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to curate conversations with people whose ideas we found interesting, challenging or helpful in our own journeys, and then invite you into those conversations with us.
01:48 --> 01:48 [SPEAKER_00]: That was really it.
01:49 --> 01:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where one of the unofficial mantras of this show came from.
01:53 --> 01:58 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to agree with everything someone says to agree with something they say.
01:59 --> 02:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And that idea has always been incredibly important to me.
02:03 --> 02:10 [SPEAKER_00]: because one of the habits many of us inherited from fundamentalism was this tendency to divide people into categories.
02:11 --> 02:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Say for dangerous, right or wrong, Orthodox or heretical.
02:15 --> 02:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone was either somebody you could trust completely or somebody you shouldn't listen to at all.
02:22 --> 02:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted to push against that.
02:24 --> 02:28 [SPEAKER_00]: You might listen to a guest on the show and disagree with 40% of what they say.
02:29 --> 02:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's fine.
02:31 --> 02:34 [SPEAKER_00]: You might disagree with 90%, that's also fine.
02:35 --> 02:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe somewhere inside that other 10% is an idea that makes you stop.
02:40 --> 02:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it gives you language for something you hadn't been able to articulate.
02:45 --> 02:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it challenges and assumption.
02:48 --> 02:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it sends you down a rabbit hole of your own research.
02:51 --> 02:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it becomes something you wrestle with for the next six months.
02:56 --> 03:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you listen to somebody and decide, nope, this person just isn't for me, that's okay too.
03:02 --> 03:04 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll have somebody completely different next week.
03:05 --> 03:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And that was always the point.
03:07 --> 03:09 [SPEAKER_00]: We weren't trying to tell people what to think.
03:10 --> 03:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, we were encouraging people to keep thinking, to ask questions, to read, to research, to challenge us, to challenge our guests, to challenge themselves.
03:21 --> 03:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe most importantly, to become a little more comfortable with not having everything neatly resolved.
03:28 --> 03:31 [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that we've accomplished some of that over the past 10 years.
03:32 --> 03:35 [SPEAKER_00]: because we've covered an extraordinary amount of ground together.
03:36 --> 03:51 [SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about the Bible, Hell, Atonement, Sexuality, Church History, mysticism, politics, science, doubt, grief, spirituality, justice, fundamentalism, and a thousand things somewhere in between.
03:52 --> 03:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And after 10 years, I've increasingly found myself feeling like we've said much of what I wanted this particular show to say.
04:00 --> 04:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Not everything.
04:02 --> 04:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you ever finish asking questions about these things, but enough that I've started to feel something shifting creatively.
04:10 --> 04:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The world around these conversations has changed too.
04:14 --> 04:18 [SPEAKER_00]: When we started, there were only a few podcasts doing this kind of work.
04:20 --> 04:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not inherently a bad thing.
04:23 --> 04:28 [SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, it's evidence of just how many people are questioning the systems and assumptions they inherited.
04:29 --> 04:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But I also don't necessarily connect with every approach the deconstruction world has taken.
04:35 --> 04:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I think we've created some of the exact patterns we were trying to escape.
04:40 --> 04:47 [SPEAKER_00]: We've always been a culture that loves experts, heroes, celebrity pastors, people with the answers.
04:48 --> 04:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And occasionally I look at parts of the deconstruction space and wonder whether we've simply changed the old experts for new ones.
04:56 --> 04:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The old certainty for a new certainty.
04:59 --> 05:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The old fundamentalism for slightly different fundamentalism.
05:03 --> 05:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Different conclusions, same architecture.
05:07 --> 05:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that's particularly healthy either.
05:10 --> 05:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want anybody listening to this podcast because they believe I have the answers.
05:16 --> 05:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't.
05:19 --> 05:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And if there's anything 10 years of doing this show has convinced me of, it's probably that anyone who claims to have all of this figured out should make us a little nervous.
05:30 --> 05:34 [SPEAKER_00]: There are also parts of this ecosystem that have become incredibly commercialized.
05:35 --> 05:38 [SPEAKER_00]: That's inevitable to some degree, people need to make a living.
05:38 --> 05:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Producing media costs money.
05:41 --> 05:49 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's a difference between supporting thoughtful work and turning people's uncertainty, pain, or spiritual disorientation into a product.
05:50 --> 05:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I've always wanted to be careful about that distinction.
05:54 --> 06:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Because the point was never to create another tribe around the deconstructionists, the point was to create a space where ideas could collide, where curiosity could survive certainty, where you could hear something uncomfortable without immediately deciding whether it belonged
06:11 --> 06:14 [SPEAKER_00]: and where you could ultimately decide for yourself what you thought.
06:15 --> 06:25 [SPEAKER_00]: So after 10 years, rather than trying to keep the deconstruction is going simply because it's been successful or because it's familiar, I think I'd rather let it be what it was.
06:26 --> 06:34 [SPEAKER_00]: A conversation that mattered deeply to me for a particular season of my life, and hopefully one that mattered to some of you too.
06:35 --> 06:41 [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the part I'm really excited about, because ending this show isn't me stepping away from these kinds of conversations.
06:42 --> 06:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And a strange way, I think I'm actually expanding them.
06:46 --> 06:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the last couple of years, I found myself increasingly fascinated by a much bigger question.
06:52 --> 06:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Not simply, what happens when your beliefs change, but what happens when your life changes?
06:59 --> 07:06 [SPEAKER_00]: What happens when somebody experiences a moment that divides their entire existence into before and after?
07:06 --> 07:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The diagnosis, a discovery, an accident, a loss, a survival story, a war, an expedition, a crime, a scientific breakthrough, an act of extraordinary courage.
07:22 --> 07:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these moments happen to us, sometimes we choose them, sometimes they're
07:29 --> 07:30 [SPEAKER_00]: sometimes they're devastating.
07:31 --> 07:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But afterward, something is different.
07:35 --> 07:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And I've become fascinated not only by what happened, but by the person who emerged from it.
07:41 --> 07:42 [SPEAKER_00]: What changed?
07:43 --> 07:45 [SPEAKER_00]: What mattered afterward that hadn't mattered before?
07:46 --> 07:47 [SPEAKER_00]: What stopped mattering?
07:48 --> 07:50 [SPEAKER_00]: What did they learn about themselves?
07:50 --> 07:51 [SPEAKER_00]: What did they lose?
07:52 --> 07:53 [SPEAKER_00]: What did they discover?
07:54 --> 07:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Who did they become?
07:56 --> 08:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the idea behind the new podcast I've been quietly building.
08:01 --> 08:02 [SPEAKER_00]: It's called Who We Become.
08:04 --> 08:08 [SPEAKER_00]: The tagline is, every life has a before, every life has an after.
08:10 --> 08:17 [SPEAKER_00]: In each episode, I'm going to sit down with someone who has experienced one of those extraordinary moments and talk about both sides of it.
08:17 --> 08:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The event itself and everything that came afterward.
08:22 --> 08:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of ways, this feels like the natural evolution of the deconstructionists.
08:27 --> 08:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Because underneath all the theology and doubt and church conversations we've had over the years, I think we've really been talking about transformation all along.
08:36 --> 08:45 [SPEAKER_00]: But the stories we inherit, the stories that fall apart, the stories we rewrite, and the people we become in the process.
08:46 --> 08:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Who we become simply opens that question up much wider?
08:50 --> 08:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theology, into the full, weird, devastating, beautiful range of human experience.
08:59 --> 09:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm incredibly excited about the conversations we're already lining up.
09:04 --> 09:06 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be telling you much more about that soon.
09:06 --> 09:11 [SPEAKER_00]: For now, if you'd like to follow along from the very beginning, I'd love to have you.
09:12 --> 09:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I've set up a website at this is whowebecome.com.
09:16 --> 09:18 [SPEAKER_00]: You can join the mailing list there?
09:18 --> 09:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we have a mailing list.
09:20 --> 09:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be the first to know when the trailer drops.
09:22 --> 09:26 [SPEAKER_00]: When the first guests are announced and when the show officially launches.
09:27 --> 09:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you've been listening to the deconstruction as for years, thank you.
09:31 --> 09:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I really hope you'll come with me.
09:33 --> 09:35 [SPEAKER_00]: But again, we're not saying goodbye yet.
09:36 --> 09:37 [SPEAKER_00]: We still have several months together.
09:38 --> 09:39 [SPEAKER_00]: There are more conversations coming.
09:40 --> 09:45 [SPEAKER_00]: There are people I've wanted to talk to for a long time that I'm finally getting the chance to sit down with.
09:46 --> 09:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And when we reach the end of the year, we'll take some time to properly look back at what this strange little podcast became.
09:53 --> 09:57 [SPEAKER_00]: After Adam and I sat down to my basement with microphones 10 years ago.
09:58 --> 10:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And I also don't want to make some dramatic declaration that the deconstructionists will never exist again.
10:04 --> 10:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The archive is staying exactly where it is.
10:07 --> 10:11 [SPEAKER_00]: I want people to continue discovering these conversations years from now.
10:11 --> 10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Then who knows?
10:13 --> 10:20 [SPEAKER_00]: If something happens down the road that I really feel needs to be discussed here, maybe I'll dust off the feed and we'll talk about it.
10:20 --> 10:23 [SPEAKER_00]: I've learned not to make absolute statements about the future.
10:24 --> 10:27 [SPEAKER_00]: That feels appropriately on-brand for this show.
10:28 --> 10:31 [SPEAKER_00]: But the weekly journey we've been on together is approaching its conclusion.
10:32 --> 10:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And another one is beginning.
10:34 --> 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll say the proper goodbye when the time comes.
10:37 --> 10:40 [SPEAKER_00]: For now, I just wanted you to hear it from me first.
10:41 --> 10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
10:42 --> 10:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for questioning.
10:44 --> 10:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for disagreeing.
10:46 --> 10:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for thinking.
10:48 --> 10:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for giving us 10 years to have these conversations with you.
10:52 --> 10:53 [SPEAKER_00]: They're still more to come.
10:54 --> 10:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And after that, we'll see who we become.