[TW: worship music, evangelical-specific memories and descriptions, suicidal ideation]

I haven’t intentionally listened to worship music in well over three years. Bethel, Hillsong, Maverick City, Upper Room, Elevation, Passion, Jesus Culture, all of it. Considering that music has been a core part of my upbringing, both personally and in church, it was weirdly easy to cut worship music out of my life cold-turkey.

While scrolling through Instagram stories today, I saw someone reference a former Bethel artist. For some reason, that prompted me to search and to see what they were up to now, and consequently, I ended up on a few other former Bethel artists’ pages.

I noticed one had released an album a few months ago, a collection of worship classics from the ’80s and ’90s to memorialize their deceased father. Because it wasn’t produced by Bethel and all the songs were familiar, almost without thinking, I queued it up and headed out for my walk.

Grey clouds. Rainy scent in the air. Feet moving. Press play.

The simple melody of “I Love You Lord” starts playing.

Cue tears.

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A few months ago while invited as a guest on a podcast, the host asked how I’ve navigated my journey outside the evangelical church while still considering myself a Christian. “How do you not throw out the baby with the bathwater?” I hemmed and hawed; I think I said something like it’s okay to throw it all out, if that’s what you need to do, and then proceeded to babble about how I still haven’t gotten to that point. (The podcast episode never got released, by the way. Thank goodness, I was so rambly in it.)

Now that I’ve sat with that question more, I think I’ve figured out how I would answer it.

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[Preface: I love the deconstruction space. This community has met me where I’m at, given me an outlet to share my story and thoughts, and has helped me remember that my voice is welcomed and valued. There is so much good here. I’m not ready to give up on this space because of mismanaged platforms. That is why I’m choosing to bring this up one last time – I have so much hope in all of our stories, experiences, and perspectives. We have the power to change the narrative for so many arenas – the evangelical industry, social advocacy, and how social media navigates difficult conversations and holistic accountability to ensure a space of flourishing community and care. To me, that’s worth fighting for.]

Last November, a photo was posted by a well-platformed deconstruction account, featuring many other well-platformed deconstruction accounts. We don’t need to rehash the whole ordeal; rude responses, gaslighting, tokenism, white fragility, silence. The blog post. My goal is to remove these individuals from the center of the conversation because at the end of the day, they are not the end-all-be-all of the deconstruction space. While their actions have spoken loud and clear, they do not have the final word.

Rather, this turn of events set off a ripple effect that, for better or worse, has established a precedent for how racist and anti-Black rhetoric is addressed and sustained in the deconstruction space. (Fatphobia was also very present in this conversation, and the blog post specifically. For purposes right now, however, I will primarily be focusing on the issues of race.)

And we need to talk about it.

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