Mini Pro­file: Joshua Har­ris

This mini pro­file was made as part of our look at the “2024 Exiles in Baby­lon Con­fer­ence” and Max Lucado’s involve­ment in that con­fer­ence. Click here for the main arti­cle on that sto­ry.

Joshua Har­ris rose to promi­nence in Evan­gel­i­cal cir­cles in the late 90’s and ear­ly 2000’s, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ed for his advo­ca­cy on puri­ty before mar­riage and his book “I Kissed Dat­ing Good­bye.” How­ev­er, in 2019, he divorced his wife, left the faith, and has been turn­ing towards “woke” ide­olo­gies. It is worth ask­ing why he’s This quick pro­file high­lights a few aspects of Har­ris’ jour­ney from a preach­er to a woke influ­encer:

1. Renun­ci­a­tion of Chris­t­ian Faith:
   • In July 2019, Joshua Har­ris announced his depar­ture from Chris­tian­i­ty, describ­ing a process of “decon­struc­tion” that led him away from his faith. This was a piv­otal moment where he exchanged foun­da­tion­al Chris­t­ian beliefs for a lib­er­al, woke out­look.
   • Har­ris said, “I have under­gone a mas­sive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus,” and “The pop­u­lar phrase for this is ‘decon­struc­tion,’ the bib­li­cal phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the mea­sure­ments that I have for defin­ing a Chris­t­ian, I am not a Chris­t­ian.”
2. Divorce and Rejec­tion of Past Teach­ings:
   • Short­ly before renounc­ing his faith, Har­ris divorced his wife, Shan­non Bone, con­tra­dict­ing the Bib­li­cal Chris­t­ian teach­ing regard­ing the sanc­ti­ty of mar­riage.
   • More­over, he dis­avowed his famous book “I Kissed Dat­ing Good­bye,” which had been a cor­ner­stone in pro­mot­ing Chris­t­ian val­ues con­cern­ing dat­ing and mar­riage. This rejec­tion not only sig­naled a per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion but also an era­sure of his past advo­ca­cy for Chris­t­ian moral stan­dards.
3. Embrace of LGBTQ+ Advo­ca­cy:
   • Since becom­ing apos­tate, Har­ris became an advo­cate for the “LGBTQ” com­mu­ni­ty, bet­ter known as sup­port­ing sex­u­al sin. March­ing in pride parades and apol­o­giz­ing for ever hold­ing the Bib­li­cal view of mar­riage and sex­u­al­i­ty events fur­ther estab­lished his align­ment with the woke ide­ol­o­gy, which is com­plete­ly con­trary to Chris­tian­i­ty and Bib­li­cal val­ues.
4. Pub­licly Express­ing Regrets:
   • Har­ris has been vocal about his regrets con­cern­ing his past teach­ings and the “harm” they might have caused. This apol­o­giz­ing goes beyond his book, and into his oth­er teach­ing and preach­ing. In the end he is apol­o­giz­ing for ever being “Chris­t­ian.”
   • These expres­sions of regret serve to fur­ther align him with a decon­struc­tion­ist, woke nar­ra­tive that cri­tiques faith until there is not faith left.
5. Cre­at­ed a Course on How to Decon­struct Your Faith:
   • Fol­low­ing his apos­ta­sy, Joshua Har­ris launched a course aimed at “help­ing” indi­vid­u­als decon­struct their faith, this course was titled “Reframe Your Sto­ry”.
   • The course ini­tial­ly includ­ed a “Decon­struc­tion Starter Pack” and was mar­ket­ed for $275, though it was offered for free to any­one harmed by puri­ty cul­ture or his books. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing wide­spread crit­i­cism, Har­ris decid­ed to pull the course​.

Joshua Har­ris’ apos­ta­sy is emblem­at­ic of a broad­er cul­tur­al shift, where tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian val­ues are often ques­tioned and replaced with woke, lib­er­al ide­olo­gies. His fail­ure serves as a cau­tion­ary tale for Chris­tians, illus­trat­ing the pro­found impact that the mod­ern woke move­ment can have on indi­vid­u­als and their faith. Why is this man teach­ing Chris­tians about decon­struc­tion?