The End of Deconstruction

Since Christianity Today’s The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill made a surprise trip up the podcast charts in 2021, the rethinking of one’s faith especially in light of trauma — what’s known as deconstruction — has become the topic of countless Twitter threads and think pieces from the online part of the Christian world.

And — surprise! — both of the debate’s flanks are unsatisfying. On one side, the act of deconstruction itself is glorified rather than used to reach a better place. But church people can also fail to reckon with religious trauma, waving away well-founded deconstruction as snowflakey wokespeak.

Kings Kaleidoscope’s new album Baptized Imagination is a breath of fresh air in the stale deconstruction debate.

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, if anyone else thinks he has reason for deconstructing, King’s Kaleidoscope’s lead singer Chad Gardner has more. As a twenty year old, he led worship at Mars Hill, and as he revealed in an episode of The Rise and Fall, he had his first album literally confiscated by the church when he left. Most of Gardner’s original bandmates have left the faith because of Mars Hill. Gardner, who has always been an edgy voice in the Christian music scene, had his set canceled by Creation Fest for using an F-bomb in a song (which he wasn’t even slated to perform, not to mention that the F-bomb in question was tastefully used, in my humble opinion). This is all besides Gardner’s lifelong struggle with anxiety, a major focus of this new record.

The first half of the symmetrical Baptized Imagination sees Gardner wrestling with his faith. Per usual, Gardner jabs his finger directly into the bruise with his lyrics. “Lord I’m begging for something, pray for peace and get nothing,” he mutters on one track. “What have I gained in the long run?,” he croons on another.

Seven tracks into the fourteen-track album, Gardner concludes on “Every Death” that “Maybe the truth is the sweeter life,” and Kings Kaleidoscope begins its sonic journey towards er … un-deconstructing? Reconstructing?

But the back half of the album is underwhelming at first listen. One song is a paltry 26 seconds long. Another track is a two-minute instrumental. The God part of this album doesn’t do much to directly answer the questions and fears raised in the first half.

But maybe that’s kind of the point — even in his most sincere moments of deconstruction on Baptized Imagination, Gardner desperately wants to fall back in love with Jesus.

“I miss behaving,” Gardner puns while questioning whether his baptismal water could’ve been put to better use. “Make me a believer,” he chants over and over on “Look. At. Me,” before begging God, “Tell me what I really want.”

These sorts of lyrics, strewn throughout Baptized Imagination, cry out for a childlike faith. As Gardner tearfully told fans after pausing a  Los Angeles show for a panic attack, the inspiration for the album’s title refers to his bringing from death to life his memory of having a panic attack at six years old. “JOY” interpolates the Sunday School song about having joy down in your heart to stay. And song after song sees Gardner yearning for a return to how things used to be — feeling, in his words, “Nostalgia’s Violence.”

Perhaps this is what the deconstruction debate gets wrong — it’s too jaded, too adult. Deconstructionists and their critics lose the enchantment of the Christian life. To the six year old Gardner, suffocating in fear, God’s embrace didn’t require a thick theological understanding. Kings Kaleidoscope understands we cannot reverse time, but we can at least learn from our childlike selves.

And so Baptized Imagination ends not with triumphant affirmation, but with a plea, like a hurt child calling out to his father: “Will you heal me now?”

Jack Kubinec is the Editor in Chief of Cornell Claritas, an opinion columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun, and a crypto reporter at Blockworks. You can find him on Twitter.