As a child, Maro Okiti and her family attended a Pentecostal church and would spend significant time at the church’s camp. She joined her mother in being active in church and started teaching Sunday school at a young age. However, as Okiti, now 21, grew in her faith, so did her doubts and questions. “I always questioned some of the doctrines and it would be shut down by the church. [They’d]say don’t question God or challenge spiritual authority,” she recalls. At that time, she was attending a liberal school, which further fuelled her curiosity. One incident in school that stands out for her was during her A-Levels when she was picked to participate in a debate that posed the question: Is science the new religion? “I was arguing that science is not a new religion. I knew that this debate would cause some controversy,” Okiti says. “I spoke to the reverend [in residence] for some advice and she said that what most people hate to realise is that Christianity is a spectrum. And that was my big eureka moment. That I don’t need certain dogma to follow Jesus Christ.” As Okiti began to think about her faith differently, she shared her beliefs online. “I started deconstructing accidentally actually. I always had unconventional views about Christianity but I had a core fundamental in the two commandments – love thy God and love thy neighbour,” she says. “My Christianity is very affirming. So I started using my Instagram as a platform to share my views on certain aspects of Christianity and one of my friends asked if I was [a] deconstructionist and not knowing what it meant I said yes. “I researched it after, went down this rabbit hole and I realized that’s what I was doing, I just didn’t have the language. There’s a lot of beauty with deconstruction that I’m so in love with. It’s given me a lot of freedom.” Okiti’s journey has led her to other people who, like her, “loved Jesus but rejected dogma.” Among these people was Kamsy Anyachebelu, one of the founders of The Table Community. The virtual group was born in 2021 as a result of the need for a community of people who, according to Anyachebelu, want a safe place for nuanced conversations. “Ore [Eni Ibukun], my co-founder, would always talk about the lack of community and how we only had individual friends we could talk to,” Anyachebelu says. Following a Twitter conversation, the duo decided to start The Table, which was inspired by the writings of Laura Jean Truman, an Atlanta-based queer writer, preacher and former chaplain. “In June of 2021, we sat down in three days, built the website and wrote everything. We went on to our online platforms and invited people we knew were going through the same, and that’s how it started.” Having gone through their deconstruction journeys by themselves, Ibukun and Anyachebelu wanted to create a welcoming place that didn’t exist at the beginning of their journeys. They also wanted to make a home for the people living on the outskirts of acceptance in a highly religious country like Nigeria. “Nigeria is a very religious country so most people are coming out of the trauma of that faith system. So we created a space for that healing,” Anyachebelu says. “Healing in community feels safer.” Nigeria has three main religions: Christianity, Islam and Traditional Religion. Of these, Christianity and Islam are the most popular and everything else, including traditional religion is mostly frowned upon. Last year, Mubarak Bala, a self identified atheist was sentenced to 24 years in prison for “blaspheming Islam” after being in detention since 2020. This harsh blow on religious objection makes the space the Table community provides even more poignant. Today, the online community has about 95 members. Most of the growth has been organic and has come as a result of the connectivity from social media and word-of-mouth referrals. Anyone can join their WhatsApp or Geneva groups through their Instagram account. The community is hosted on these three platforms: Instagram, WhatsApp and Geneva. Each The Table Community member cherishes the community for different reasons but it all cuts across having a space with people who share similar religious experiences and a desire for critical conversations. The community usually holds online gatherings on Sunday evenings of every month on Geneva; there is always a theme for every month, which guides the discussions as people share their experiences. The community is a fellowship where different people with different points of view and different spiritual backgrounds meet to tackle issues important to their moral and spiritual growth. The Table Community is now transitioning to new activities.