Open Letter to Black Exvangelical Leaders

Dear Tamice, Malynda, Kristian and Ciarra —

This is the 1st draft of this letter. That is mostly a note to self, because I keep thinking of the stutter in terms of one I started to write on April 7th of this year. Similar in tone but to someone completely different. Someone we all know, and anyway, I never finished that letter. I thought this would be a continuation, a spinoff of that, but reading that other draft of that other letter? Ugh. Not only was it for someone I don't speak to anymore, it was from someone I don't speak as anymore. Honestly, I couldn't even finish it. It was embarrassing how gentle it was.

Before reading it, I had a thought that maybe I would go back to one of the last official religious resignation letters I wrote. Maybe the one from nine years ago to the lead pastor of the mega church I was part of, or maybe the open letter from six years ago that kinda catapulted me into this space when I wrote about the evangelical behavior of that pastor when it lost him his job. To see, and, I guess, prove not only how much I've grown, but that I grew up here, in front of y'all, to prove my right to be here, and to say what I'm about to say. To show you all my papers, 'cause that's what we've been conditioned to do as black folks.

But, turned out there was no need for me to go that far back to be cringeworthy.

Daniel and I, as Cat Tetris, are posting something to social media every day in August. He's got the odd days. I got the evens. And today is an even day, so...

We are posting to make ourselves practice a few different visibility skills, including no disclaimers. So we've got a 10 word caption limit. Because there is never a day when I legitimately have nothing to post, but there are infinite times I don't, because I feel like I need to explain what I'm sharing, and I can't, because what's understood doesn't need to be explained. So the fact that I'm constantly expecting to be misunderstood here, that's actually red flag shit, 'cause it didn't used to be this way. I didn't used to feel that way in or about this space.

The whole way I fell in was just speaking my mind and connecting with people who were in the same spiritual and or emotional and or mental place at the same time. And for a while, it was fine. But at some point, we lost the plot, because we stopped following it. We stepped into the space and started just standing around, commiserating instead of conspiring, plodding in circles, instead of plotting and planning. Settling instead of setting off.

One of my best friends just FaceTimed me. I told her I was writing this letter, and that it's a step in my plan to give us free. I know she believed me about this letter. I hope she believed me about the freedom, and I hope I come through.

So I didn't end up looking back at either of those other letters. They don't matter. They were to and for an audience that has aged badly and is looking more and more like its parents.

I'm handwriting this letter. When I finish this draft, I will go back and rewrite all of this, to satisfy the people pleasing part of my brain that likes being known for my handwriting. I'm not going to type it, because typing allows for a certain level of convenience that lends itself to wasting words. But when handwriting, ain't nobody got time for all that. So it helps me stay focused.

I'm leaving the deconstruction space for real and for good this time. I've been trying to leave for the past few years, which is extremely reminiscent of how I left, and how I felt, leaving evangelicalism. There were attempts, and then there, eventually, was a definitive break. This is my definitive break from exvangelicalism, which is literally just new evangelicalism. And y'all are the new tokens.

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