Dear Revolutionaries: A Field Guide for a World beyond the Church

Lenny Duncan

Feb 2023 · Broadleaf Books

About this ebook

When Lenny Duncan wrote Dear Church in 2018, they had a vision for a church that could and would reform itself into something new. After four years, a pandemic, a global uprising for racial equity, and what Duncan describes as "the death of the republic" on January 6, 2021, we now live in a vastly different landscape than the one Duncan wrote about previously.

Lenny now contends that we no longer need a reformation--we need a revolution. Dear Revolutionaries is a handbook for a new generation that sees, clear-eyed, the series of catastrophes we have inherited, the road that lies ahead, and the improbability of victory, yet are still ready to build the tomorrow we so desperately want to be born in this world. The institutional church is concerned with reviving itself. God is concerned with reviving the community within and beyond the walls of the church. Dear Revolutionaries is a book for the community who is ready to rise up and build something new from the ashes.

Casting a vision for a new spiritual future led by the people, Dear Revolutionaries offers a series of peace-building practices that will give readers the tools to build, guide, and care for spiritual community in a world beyond the church.

About the author

Lenny Duncan (they/them) is a writer, speaker, scholar, and media producer working at the forefront of racial justice in America. Lenny is the author of Dear Church and United States of Grace and co-creator of the podcast BlackBerryJams with PRX. A PhD student in historical and cultural studies of religion, Lenny is currently investigating the theft of African spiritual thought by white American Esotericism. Lenny is originally from West Philadelphia, has hitchhiked thousands of miles on American byways, and now makes their home in the Pacific Northwest.