People and Platforms in Deconstruction Spaces

I have spent the last several months really wrestling a couple of big questions: do I want to keep doing this (writing, podcasting, etc) and if the answer is yes, then why? Every time I think I’m capable of walking away I get pulled back in, mostly by fellow content creators who shall remain nameless. These days when I think about how my little corner of Twitter has changed since I first stumbled upon it roughly 5 years ago, I’m overwhelmed with sadness and dread. I know not everything stays the same forever, but what once gave me feelings of hope and courage now sits sort of idle and begs the question, where do we go from here?

So many mutuals are asking the same question. And I don’t think many of us have any answers. In addition to the state of the bird app which I refuse to call by its “new name” (Wtf, Elon, wtf.), there is the current state of the deconstruction & exvangelical community at large to consider, which in and of itself has evolved and morphed into something barely recognizable to many of us who’ve been around awhile. The reasons for that are vast and for lack of a better word… complicated. (I’m not even going to include the Facebook groups in this conversation because that’s beyond my scope.)

Sure, I could attempt to simplify it by reducing it to some sweeping statement like “people who are hurting, hurt people,” but that would be highly dismissive of the work that most leavers have done and continue to do in order to dismantle and untangle their past from their present. As a whole, those who are processing publicly are generally given the benefit of the doubt by those who’ve gone before them. But just as Christianity is not a monolith, neither are the people deconstructing it. Everyone in these spaces brings their own lens, their own grief, their own unique experiences. And while it’s easy to feel camaraderie with someone whose experience sounds similar to your own, it can be much harder to wrestle with the nuances of the abuser/survivor dynamic in a community which houses both at once. 

I’ve tried to tackle that last piece of it so many times and never felt like I could hit publish, not without hurting people I love. When I first started thinking about it, the question that kept popping into my head was “what do we do with all the former pastors?” since so many of the behaviors that harmed us were perpetrated by or on behalf of; pastors. And then the faces of all the former pastors and youth pastors who have become dear, trusted friends over the last 5 years started filling my head-and their partners, spouses, children; and all the ways in which they were actively working to break cycles and make change. As complicated as it is, they are us. We are them. Some of them have had more privilege than others, but just like the rest of us, not all of them wielded it the same. And chances are, they were subject to some unique form of manipulation just like the rest of us.

Gatekeeping is a dangerous game. We learned to play it so well inside evangelical spaces that it’s hard not to default back to that same knee-jerk reaction and call it “setting boundaries.” But what if we had conversations instead of listening to rumors or deciding if any one person held some sort of authority over this outer-rim of misfits we call our people? We talk about things like calling-in vs. calling-out, but what does that look like in practice? Especially on the internet where it’s so easy to hide behind a keyboard and say things we’d often never say face-to-face. It takes so little effort to type that tweet and hit send, and let group-think do the rest. 

I can’t talk about gatekeeping without addressing the other elephant in the room: the fact that pretty much everyone in deconstruction or exvangelical spaces online falls into one of two categories; 1) content creators who are actively making things- authors, podcasters, tiktokers, etc and 2) everyone else. That’s just the way the internet works. But the danger isn’t in admitting this fact, the danger lies in the act of deciding that any one person gets to decide who’s content should be consumed and who’s should not. If someone is using their platform to encourage others to shun or shame another creator, we literally begin repeating the same cycles we left behind. This is a classic move in churches. And it’s not lost on me that a lot of us creating content are former pastors and lay-leaders in the church.

That said, I do believe that creators have a responsibility to each other, to reach out to the other creators directly when we see ethical or moral lines being crossed. Personally, there is zero need to be publicly dragging a fellow content creator, not before reaching out offline (or off timeline, rather) to address the situation with a level of maturity never extended to us by our abusers. I realize I used the R word, and I want to talk about that for a minute. If you create content to be consumed by others, on any platform, I believe you do have a responsibility to your viewers/readers/listeners to maintain a basic level of ethical integrity. That’s just being a good human. What people should not confuse this with, is the A word: Authority. 

See, in the world we came from, those who were allowed a platform were assumed to also have some authority over Truth. And with authority comes power, which a large majority of us have grown to see as a red flag not to be trusted. But the internet is not the church. I repeat, the internet is not the church. Obviously I can’t speak for all of us, but in my experience those of us who create content do not do so because we believe that we have Truth that is more important or authoritative than those who do not create content. We create it because we have the means and (hopefully) the artistic ability to do so. It does not by default make us an authority on anything other than our own story. Now some creators might happen to be scholars, hold advanced degrees, be published authors or public speakers in their field of expertise; but even then they are only one in a sea of voices on the subject and it’s your job as a human with opposable thumbs to determine if they’re worth listening to. 

This brings me back to the question I asked at the beginning of this post: do I want to keep doing this–being a maker of the things? Well, it’s complicated.

Let me begin with this very personal confession: I’ve often held other creators with an air of skepticism. And it’s all because of my own hang-ups around how others perceive me. I’ve spent way too much time wringing my hands over how I’ll be perceived by others if I actually put effort into self-promoting my content. As a result I have questioned other creator’s intent because it is what I was taught to do. Because underneath the enneagram 8 of it all is just a little girl who loves words and books and writing and has a big imagination, and she’s still waiting for someone to give her permission to create things to share with the world–and to know that enjoying the feeling of accomplishment she gets from the praise of others doesn’t make her evil or bad or selfish. This idea that if I’m self-promoting my content (regardless of my intentions) my followers will revile me as an egomaniac; I wasn’t born with that idea. It was put in my head at a very early age by indoctrination. 

I have spent nearly 42 years on this earth doing everything in my power to be seen and heard while trying to prove to everyone around me I don’t want to be. Because what if they reject me when they find out I want to be seen and heard? It’s a bizarre dance my brain has been doing for decades and I am tired. So let me re-introduce myself, my name is Emily and I like being seen & heard and I’m energized by followers who read or listen to my work & tell me it’s helped them feel seen and heard. I like forming words in a way that has a lasting impact on people and causes, and I like being liked. And that’s ok. I like being loved for who I am and what I create. These things can be true while I still care deeply for others and desperately crave meaningful human connection–not just with my audience but with other content creators as well. None of this makes me evil or a bad person. It just makes me, me. And it’s about time I gave that little girl permission to just be who she is, instead of telling her she’s inherently flawed for wanting to be loved.

So yes, I will keep making content. I will keep collaborating with all the ridiculously talented and wise humans I’ve met on this journey. And I look forward to all the friends I haven’t made yet and all the words I haven’t written yet.

There are a lot of us who have things to say in deconstruction spaces, but it’s up to you who you listen to. It’s up to you who you support, who’s book you buy, who you retweet or reach out to. None of us making the things have any say over that. All I can say is that I’m grateful for every download, every click, every listener, every reader–not just because I want to be heard, but because nothing is more fulfilling to me than making someone else feel seen & heard.