What Backtrackers Are NOT

Backsliding or "falling away" is the action of drifting away from God and returning to the sinful life that you had once denounced. This could be a deliberate action of rebellion or just a careless, indifferent one.

Backtracking on the other hand, though also deliberate, is a responsible and analytical action. It isn’t “backing away” from truth but rather identifying what is false and stepping back from it in order to move closer to what is true. So while "backsliding" brings a person further from God, "backtracking" brings them nearer to Him.

Backpedaling is what happens when someone says or does something that sparks unexpected backlash and then scrambles to take it back, soften it, or explain it away because they don’t want to deal with the consequences. And if that doesn’t work, they will often shift the blame, saying things like “That’s not what I meant” or “You misunderstood me”. As if the problem is the listener rather than themselves.

Backtracking is nothing like that. It isn’t about dodging conflict or shifting blame. It requires reflection and a willingness to admit and correct your mistakes, even if it comes at a cost. It is an act of integrity, not the easy way out.

The "Deconstruction" method is about pulling everything apart, even when nothing is wrong, just to see if it can be reinterpreted or reshaped into something new. It often treats truth as subjective; based on personal perspectives, feelings, and experiences rather than on facts or reality. That is not what we are doing.

At Backtrackers, we aren’t dismantling truth or tearing down sound teaching just to reinterpret it or personalize it for ourselves. We only backtrack when the path we are on shows clear problems that leave us feeling concerned. And the very fact that we can even feel concerned proves to us that real, objective truth exists; for if it didn’t, there would be nothing to compare a "right" or "wrong" path to.

So at Backtrackers, we are not about inventing new meanings. We are about pursuing meaning as it actually is, not what we want it to be.

Progressivism, in its modern sense, is the belief that truth and morality should evolve with culture; adapting to social change, personal preference, and popular opinion. Much like deconstructionism, it treats truth as flexible rather than fixed. It also seeks to force its shifting ideals on everyone, even those who don’t share them. And while we agree that some moral customs may change with time, we believe that there are certain moral conditions that are set in stone.

At Backtrackers, we do not accept that truth bends to culture or public opinion. We are committed to seeking what is real and logical. Additionally, we accept that the process to improve a system, method or design is a component of actual progressive thought and attitude, which of course, differs profoundly from the modern misused concepts of progressivism.

In the case of hiking, as with anything that you are trying to make progress in, the feeling of needing to backtrack isn’t typically a happy one. You may feel like you have wasted time, energy or worse, feel like you are weak or a failure, especially if you are with others who want to keep moving forward.

Now, while backtracking is often shamed as being the “quitter’s path”, anyone who has ever successfully backtracked and in doing so, found the right path, will tell you that this is certainly not the case. First off, if backtracking meant quitting or failing, then success in any form could not be achieved. Thus backtracking is not a "giving up", by definition it is a strategy. Because on your way back you would continue looking for the right path and working to try and find what got screwed up. It also means that backtracking is not a weakness, it is something that requires courage, humility, wisdom, discernment and hope, all of which are things that the Bible says are of the Holy Spirit and are the monikers of success.

Then you have the hiker’s creed that says “You will never have a bad outcome from backtracking”. 

Unlike what many other denominations and religions do to grab people's attention we do not "warn" or threaten anyone, as you will see in our "What We Have Learned" page and in our booklets and videos.

At Backtrackers, we encourage people to follow what they believe is the right direction to go, even if that direction is in opposition to the one we've chosen. We do this because ultimately we believe that no one knows the truth, not even the pastors/priests and that Jesus came to save us all, not just the few who happened to be on the right path.

So if you don't agree with us and are happy where you are at, we by all means encourage you to stay and follow what you believe is right. Our goal is not to try to convert you to our way of thinking. Our goal is to try to find and help those who on their own have already started questioning and don't want to give up on the hope of God's existence altogether.