EDIT ORIAL
Beyond Deconstruction: Imagining the Next Adventism By Rebecca Barceló
I’ve frequently wondered about the proper way to usher in new ideas, especially when it’s clear the old ones are no longer working. Te first historical option is mass revolution:
swiſt, dramatic, and sometimes effective in the short term but frequently leaving in its wake cultural wreckage—relationships trampled, institutions destabilized, and people harmed along the way. Te second option is slow incrementalism:
patient, dialogical, and humane but oſten painfully sluggish—moving so slowly that people continue to suffer under old harms and arrive at the finish line aſter the moment of opportunity has already passed. For a long time, I assumed those were the
only choices. Ten, in a conversation with one of my
professors, I learned of a third model, one rooted in aesthetic philosophy and adjacent moral and theological traditions. He described the idea that lasting change does not occur through negation, critique, or destruction of an old vision, but through the presentation of a truer, richer, and more compelling vision that renders the old vision obsolete. Tat idea lodged in my imagination and never leſt. In this view, transformation happens less like
demolition and more like growth. Just as many animals outgrow their old skin, watching it slough off only aſter new skin has already formed beneath, it’s oſten the case that humans don’t abandon belief systems wholesale. Instead, we grow new containers of meaning. Or, to borrow biblical language, we find ourselves drawn toward new wineskins, ones that are more capable of
holding what our evolving faith, conscience, and experience now require. In practice, this is how most of us change. Rarely
do we jump ship all at once. More oſten we stand on one part of our beliefs while repairing another part of the raſt, afloat in open water. Ten, we shiſt our weight—relying on what’s been repaired while we tend to the next fracture. It’s an ongoing process of reflecting, rewiring, and restructuring: shedding what no longer serves us because it no longer aligns with our lived experience, our community, or our moral intuition. Adventist Today has long served as a communal
space for that process, particularly for those healing from church hurt within Adventism. For generations of readers, it has been a place to name pain honestly, to question without fear, and to discover that they are not alone, not crazy, and not deserving of the harm they experienced. Tat work still matters deeply. Much of that ministry has necessarily involved
deconstruction. And rightly so. But an unavoidable question now presents itself: what happens aſter deconstruction? What happens in a person’s life once the old
scaffolding has been dismantled? What happens to a generation’s relationship with
the church? What happens to an Adventist movement facing
shrinking congregations, struggling schools, and an increasing inability to retain young pastors and leaders? At this point, denial is no longer a viable
option. Change must come. But once we’ve told the truth about how we got here—and what is not
WWW .A T OD A Y . OR G 3
Once we’ve told the truth about how we got here—and what is not working— what comes next? Who takes up the quieter, riskier, and often less celebrated work of a new construction?
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