So, how has Flannery O'Connor made me stranger Specifically, how has Flannery O'Connor interrupted my progressive Christianity?Many liberal and progressive Christians struggle with doubts. The forces of secular disenchantment strongly affect liberal and progressive Christians.Consequently, there is this impulse within progressive Christianity to make faith lighter, to believe less and less, to dilute faith.As a progressive Christian, over the years I've contributed my fair share to this impulse, doing my best to sing the praises of doubt. But a few years ago, I began to grow concerned about this trajectory if left unchecked. I began to worry about my spiritual health, as well as the health of many other progressive Christians.I am not the only one who has grown worried. After years of praising doubt and deconstruction, many progressive Christians have begun to speak about the need for a turn, a movement back toward reconstruction and a second naïveté.To be clear, because the label "progressive Christianity" is messy and vague, I'm not speaking of progressive viewpoints, theologically or politically, but about the deconstructing, disenchanting, Enlightenment-driven impulse that runs through much of progressive Christianity. The impulse that keeps diluting faith, where you are believing less and less.Reading Flannery O'Connor finally brought all these worries to a crisis point for me. I think it was Hazel Motes' preaching about the "Church of Christ Without Christ" inthat did it. "The Church of Christ Without Christ" sounded a lot like what I saw going on within progressive Christian circles, a Christianity that gets so watered down and diluted you don't, in the end, believe anything at all.The trouble with the incessant deconstruction at work within progressive Christianity is that, left unchecked, all it tends to produce are agnostic Democrats.This realization hasn't made me conservative. My voting hasn't changed. Especially with Trump in office.The effect hasn't been political. It's metaphysical. I'm simply tired and bored by a progressive Christianity that doesn't believe in anything, at least anything beyond Jesus being a model exemplar of liberal humanism. I'm not angry or disgusted, I'm not rejecting progressive Christianity. Plus, everyone is at a different developmental stage. You might be just starting out on a necessary and vital season of deconstruction, especially from toxic forms of Christianity. You can't be expected to be where I am right now. So for you, friends, I hope what I've written about doubts and deconstruction is a blessing to you as you start your journey.All that to say, I remain very sympathetic to progressive Christianity.But a Christianity that doesn't believe in anything--a Christianity that dilutes and dilutes and dilutes until you have a "Church of Christ Without Christ"--that Christianity just doesn't interest me anymore.I've made a long and hard journey carrying my doubts, and now I'm just bored by them.