Nurcholish Madjid (1939-2005) is an icon for reform of Islamic thought. He is the champion of the so-called, Islamic neo-modernism thought. His claim that the universality and transcendency of his thought inclines to negate the understanding of the other and puts his own on a higher level. Thus, his religious discourse becomes totalitarian and hegemonic leading to a one dimension understanding. It functions as a rule to justify the legitimacy of the other. Many attempts have been made to overide his authority but they have not shaken it; on the contrary, those criticisms have been considered immature and amature as well. Based on this concern, this study seeks to use Nurcholishs own work to dethrone his authority from its ivory tower by employing deconstructive criticism because of its assumption that a text is heterograph. This study focuses on Nurcholishs three major themes: secularization, masyarakat madani (Islamic civil society), and pluralism.