WHO DECIDED WHICH BOOKS TO INCLUDE IN THE BIBLE?

It wasn’t too long ago that I read The Gospel of Truth. I was stunned. Not because it was scandalous. But because it felt like it had been written for people like me.

It didn’t sound like the Jesus I had been taught to follow out of fear of hell or to avoid separation from God. It spoke of a Jesus who came to remind us of how loved we are, right where we are, not how we have list of things to do to re-connect with God. A Jesus who didn’t demand blind belief, but who reminded us of the Light we have always carried within us.

It was emotional and powerful as I read this book. As if I was reading the words of what I’ve felt all along.

And I asked the same question so many of us ask during deconstruction:

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?

The only thing I’d been told is these books are heresy and to steer clear of the books at all costs. So once I was on the road of deconstruction, I began digging into the “lost gospels” like The Gospel of Thomas, Mary, Philip, and Truth, it felt like uncovering an entire side of Christianity that had been buried on purpose. These weren’t crazy or fringe ideas; they were deeply thoughtful, spiritual writings from early followers of Jesus. They just didn’t fit the structure the institutional Church was trying to build. They gave too much room for feeling and inner knowing, when the early Church was focused on building a system of belief.

They didn’t give you a checklist, enforce a hierarchy, make you feel small. They challenged institutional power. They gave you permission to wonder. To listen. To remember who you are. That felt like home to me. Like the piece of the puzzle that has been missing the entire time I was in Evangelicalism.

The Creatives Were Always the First to Feel It

Here’s something I’ve noticed again and again in the deconstruction space: so many of us were deeply involved in the Church before our faith began to unravel.

Worship leaders. Evangelists. Prayer warriors. Artists. Poets. Teachers. We gave everything to it. We didn’t just believe, we created within it. We helped give the Church its voice, its sound, its beauty. We were the heartbeat of the community.

And yet, we were often the first ones to feel the unsettledness about some of the dogmatic and super-structured teachings.

Because when you live from the heart, when you are an empath, you can’t ignore when something doesn’t resonate anymore. When you’re tuned to the language of the Spirit and not just structure, you begin to feel the cracks in the foundation long before it falls apart.

So many of us tried to stay.

We kept showing up. We raised our hands and sang louder, hoping to drown out the questions. But eventually, it caught up with us. And when it did, it wasn’t just our theology that crumbled, it was our voice.

Because the Church didn’t just reject the lost gospels. It rejected the people who spoke like them.

So who decided to not include these books, anyway? A coalition of early bishops, theologians, and political powers who prioritized institutional unity over spiritual diversity, that’s who.

They weren’t evil, they were just trying to stabilize a young and unstructured faith. But in doing so, they chose clarity over complexity, hierarchy over mystery, and control over creativity. And in that process, the mystical, poetic, and soul-centered gospels were quietly pushed out.

It reminds me of when my artistic, photographer son was in public high school and they kept making him take difficult classes to send him into “academic shock” before he went to college, but he was going to art school. The studying was overwhelming for his artistic mind and discouraged him. That’s how I felt in Evangelicalism.

So, what would the church look like today if they kept both voices in the Bible?

When doctrine and tradition took priority over conversation and contemplation, the Church leaned hard into hierarchy, certainty, and black and white thinking (side note: I’ve often said now that I’m deconstructing I see the world in color, not in black and white). Creativity and mysticism were seen as suspicious. Feminine voices were suppressed. The soul became something to manage, not explore.

It’s no wonder the artists, empaths, and question-askers were labeled troublemakers or heretics. It’s no wonder they still are.

They threaten the system, not the sacred.

What We Lost When They Excluded These Texts:

• A more compassionate theology, one that spoke to human complexity instead of demanding perfection.

• A vision of God that could be felt as well as understood.

• A place for people who didn’t fit the mold, but were always part of the story.

What Could’ve Been…

Imagine if worship wasn’t just a performance, but a conversation.
If sermons made space for poetry.
If theology welcomed paradox.
If questions were honored as sacred.
If the table was big enough for both certainty and mystery.

That’s the kind of faith many of us are trying to rebuild now.

Not a faith that throws it all out, but one that makes room for both head and heart, logic and longing, structure and spirit.

The mystical, creative voices may have been silenced then, but slowly many of us are awakening and honoring our journey of reclaiming our faith in a more inclusive, poetic and resonating way for our souls. And I’m here for it!