Deconstructionology with Jim Palmer
Newsletter (Digital)
Hi, I’m Jim. This Substack is where I share my thoughts on post-religion spirituality. After a crisis of faith and walking away from my former life as a megachurch superstar pastor, I rebuilt my life and cultivated an authentic and liberating non-religious spirituality.
This publication is named, “Deconstructionology”. Yes, it’s a word I made up. The term deconstruction means to disassemble something into its separate parts in order to understand it more deeply and meaningfully. The lived human experience is filled with all kinds of tensions, contradictions, nuances, lessons and complexities, which may not be apparent on the surface or through the lens through which we most familiarly see the world. Source
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesThe Existential Health White Papers
About the Existential Health White Papers The Existential Health White Papers are a series of foundational publications devoted to the development of existential health as an emerging discipline. Each paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship by clarifying its concepts, defining its object of inquiry, and exploring the implications of understanding human flourishing through the enduring conditions of being human. White Paper No. 1 and White Paper No. 2 were previously published.
Before Tomorrow
For several months I’ve been asking myself a question that has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Why do so many of us spend our lives standing just outside our own lives? I don’t mean that we fail to meet our responsibilities. Most people work extraordinarily hard. They raise children, care for aging parents, build careers, nurture friendships, recover from loss, and carry burdens that previous generations could scarcely have imagined.
Before We Explain Reality
For more than thirty years I immersed myself in theology, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, religious studies, anthropology, and the humanities. Like many scholars before me, I was searching for a deeper understanding of reality itself. Yet over time I began to notice something that none of these disciplines quite seemed to name. They all had much to say about God, matter, consciousness, morality, behavior, and culture. They all had something important to contribute.
Existential Health: The Emergence of a New Field of Human Flourishing
Jim Palmer Founder and Director, Institute for Existential Health Throughout human history, every civilization has sought to understand what it means to live well. Some questions concern physical health. Others explore thought, emotion, and consciousness. Still others arise within the social, cultural, and moral worlds human beings inhabit. Over time, these questions have given rise to distinct disciplines, each illuminating an essential dimension of human flourishing.
Ordinary Mysteries: Stories from an Unfinished Town (Part Five)
Ordinary Mysteries: Stories from an Unfinished Town These are stories about ordinary people in an ordinary town. No one is the hero. No one possesses the answers. They gather in diners, churches, waiting rooms, living rooms, and funeral homes. They fall in love, disappoint one another, bury parents, worry about their children, question old beliefs, laugh unexpectedly, and continue with the difficult work of being human. Their lives overlap. Their stories do not proceed in straight lines.
Week in Review (July 6 - 10)
Every so often there comes a week that feels less like another chapter in an ongoing project and more like the beginning of a new phase. Looking back over the past several days, I have the distinct sense that something has shifted. The individual essays, conversations, and projects certainly matter in their own right, but what has stayed with me most is the growing realization that they are no longer unfolding as separate streams of work.
The Existential Health White Papers
About the Existential Health White Papers The Existential Health White Papers are a series of foundational publications devoted to the development of existential health as an emerging discipline. Each paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship by clarifying its concepts, defining its object of inquiry, and exploring the implications of understanding human flourishing through the enduring conditions of being human. White Paper No. 1 was previously published.
The Existential Health White Papers
Over the past several years I have been writing about existential health as an emerging way of understanding what it means to flourish as a human being. Along the way, it has become increasingly clear to me that existential health is more than a compelling idea or a useful framework. I believe it will become a distinct interdisciplinary field devoted to one of the most neglected dimensions of human life: our relationship with the fundamental realities of being human.
The Creature Civilization Forgot
One of the most remarkable achievements of modern civilization is how thoroughly we have learned to think about ourselves while gradually forgetting what we are. Deconstructionology with Jim Palmer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. We possess an astonishing vocabulary for describing human beings.
Ordinary Mysteries: Stories from an Unfinished Town (Part Four)
Ordinary Mysteries: Stories from an Unfinished Town These are stories about ordinary people in an ordinary town. No one is the hero. No one possesses the answers. They gather in diners, churches, waiting rooms, living rooms, and funeral homes. They fall in love, disappoint one another, bury parents, worry about their children, question old beliefs, laugh unexpectedly, and continue with the difficult work of being human. Their lives overlap. Their stories do not proceed in straight lines.