This week’s guest is Megan. Megan grew up in a fundamentalist Catholic home with an irrationally religious mother and an absent father. As a teen, she was invited to an evangelical bible study after school and after some serious “love bombing” by the youth group, she was a part of a community.
“You get ‘loved bombed’ when you walk into a new church or into a new youth group, and they make you feel like you are the most welcome you will ever be and that your community is so indeed of you and your specific experience…”
Evangelical Christianity worked well for Megan for years. She had questions and concerns but nothing that made her leave for good until she knew one of her kids was possibly LGBTQ. That was when she knew she’d have to figure out the religious future of her family.
Now, she is an atheist and has never been more free. She’s living out secular grace, sealing up her boundaries, and being the whole person she’s always needed to be.
Quotes
“The more seriously you take your Christian faith, the more it can morph into these really abusive, bad things that sneak up to destroy parts of your life…”
“Being a human and connecting with other humans is really challenging.”
“In the United States, they never can find priests, so most of the time, when you go to a Catholic church, the priest will be from somewhere in Africa—Kenya, Nigeria…”
“I’m significantly less nice, but that’s good.”
“I’ve always been a curious person. I always question things. I’m always reading everything I can get my hands on and exploring all kinds of different ideas and thoughts.”
“…slept well for the first time in a long time because if there’s no god, and you just die, then there’s no point in having anxiety about whether or not you’re good.”
“I felt so much relief. The joy of living each day with purpose and meaning, knowing there is an end to it, and therefore, the time you are spending has value.”
Recommendations
Jen Hatmaker
Rachel Held Evans
Mindfulness meditation
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Deconversion
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https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/
Attribution
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
David Ames 0:11 This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios Podcast Network. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Thank you to my latest reviewer. Rob. Thank you so much for the kind words, you too can rate and review the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. Remember, we have a merchandise store with all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items. You can find the link in the show notes. If you are going through doubt, deconstruction the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, Arline interviews Megan, Megan grew up in a traditionally Catholic family, there were some mental health elements around her mother. In her teenage years, she went to a youth group and experienced love bombing and felt like that was the place for her she became evangelical. Until later in her life, she began to have doubts and the deconstruction and deconversion began. Today Megan is an atheist and is as free as ever. Here is Arline interviewing, Megan. Arline 1:49 welcome Megan to the graceful atheist podcast. Speaker 2 1:53 I am so excited to be here to share my story and talk to some different people out there that might relate to the sort of weird tangled childhood and then adulthood that came out of this whole, like, pre Christian experience and now atheist life. kind of excited to share. Yeah, Arline 2:14 I'm excited to hear your story. So usually how we begin is just tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in. Speaker 2 2:20 So for like, unlike a lot of listeners, I did not grow up. In a fundamentalist Protestant home, I grew up in a fundamentalist Catholic home. So my parents were, especially my mother was very strict about religion, we never missed a holy day. We never missed Mass on Sunday. And additionally, like my mother's parenting style was very much centrally focused on whether or not we were or weren't being good Christian children, right. But I wouldn't say necessarily in like a rational way, but in a more like, you are not going to get presents on Christmas kind of way. So yeah, so a little bit more background to is that my parents are both from alcoholic families and had trauma in their homes from alcoholism. And then my father was an alcoholic as well. So my mom even though my dad was in the home and they never separated or divorced, she was really a single parent. So like basically what it looked like in our house on a day to day basis is that my dad would get up very very early, like maybe five in the morning and head to work maybe before we even left for school. And then he get home pretty late like six o'clock and immediately drink three to five Manhattan's and fall asleep in his chair. So he was absent. Meanwhile, my mother was basically she was in charge of everything from our clothes to who we hung out with to our spiritual life what we thought about things, but most especially and and unfortunately, I think she was very controlling over how we felt about things. Yes, so one of this is one of the main reasons why I kind of felt like I wanted to come on the podcast and talk with everyone was because I think It's not always talked about how, in a very religious environment, your agency can be kind of taken away from you, using the language and tools of Christianity. So like, when you're having a very real crises, you might, instead be told, you know, you should pray about it, or my mother's favorite was offered up to the Lord. Which is kind of, I mean, in terms of covert abuse, that means your issue is not serious. It's it minimizes the severity. As an adult, looking back on that I had no boundaries at all very porous boundaries. And anytime I were to try to establish a boundary, it was like a cardinal sin. And so, like the Christian element, there was really a tool, like, a sort of a weapon my mother used to sort of keep us in compliance with the level of control that we were under. Arline 6:20 Did it feel like because she didn't have control in her marriage, and maybe in other parts of her life is like, here's the one thing that I can control are my children. Speaker 2 6:31 Yes, I think that was a lot of it. And she very much came from a place of trauma, like she had been abused as a child, most physically by her father, neglected by her mother, and even sexually assaulted by a neighbor at one point. So she had all of this unresolved trauma that I think was dealt with exactly the same way where basically, she was always told that you're just going to have to pray about it, or she wasn't taken seriously and that sort of thing. So she just employed the same tactics that she had grown up with. Not physical abuse, thankfully. But I think sometimes emotional abuse is just as harmful because it's so confusing, and you don't always notice that it's happening to you, right? Yeah. It's Arline 7:27 invisible to other people as well. Like, yes, you don't necessarily know what's happening, especially if it's gaslighting and things like that. But then it's like no one else, notices. Speaker 2 7:47 I didn't realize actually, until I was almost 30 years old, that it was abusive. Wow. Yeah. Because it was partially because I had started to have huge crises all the time in my marriage. And they were related to the fact that I had such porous boundaries from my childhood. And I also had the belief that anybody's emotional experiences were something I had to personally fix. Oh, wow. And that came out of this place where my mom kind of assigned each of us a role in the household kind of not like directly, but just how she behaved towards us. So like, my oldest brother was, like, stand in for dad. He made us our lunches for school for years. And like, he was like, the person that drove me places for a long time when he was a teenager, things like that. And I was like many mom, in fact, my name is actually it means my mother's name in miniature. So my view is kind of ironic. But she treated me like her in home therapist, and she would tell me all about how hard things were going with my dad and how much we needed to pray about it. And she would talk about how a therapist wanted her to get a divorce but that that wasn't okay in a Christian marriage and that it's forever and that women have to support their spouse no matter what even though I'm sure her emotional tank hadn't been filled for like years and years. But like she was telling me all of this while I was like seventh child when a Heidi child so and this was not something she was sharing with my brother's sort of, she treated me like I was her like bestest buddy. Emotional support. A very inappropriate I, I've learned now as an adult, to disclose all of those very deep, difficult things to your kids. And then, you know, on top of that, like if you stepped out of line in any in any tiny little way. Like, if I ever like teased my little brother, she would be like, you have deeply harmed him, and now he's depressed. Like so far past what's rational, right? Arline 10:43 Yeah, making you responsible, like you were saying a minute ago for someone else's emotional state that you don't have. Speaker 2 10:50 And, you know, of course, I grew up feeling like that was normal. Yeah. And everything in my Christian faith, even more. So when I later became an Evangelical, sort of reinforced that belief that we're somehow that we have somehow have some control over how other people feel, and how they interpret the world, and that it is our responsibility to somehow reach other people in that space. So like that reinforcing belief just really kind of trapped me. And I was very serious about it. I think this is true a lot of time where like, the more seriously you take your Christian faith, the more it can morphin to these really abusive, bad things that sneak up to really destroy parts of your life and really unfortunate ways. Arline 11:54 Yes, if you truly believe that hell is real, you know, that should affect your life, that should affect how you interact with other people, because you don't want them to go to hell. If you truly believe that, like, God is the most important thing in your life, you will constantly be thinking about how am I glorifying God? How am I mean? It's just so yes, I think you're right, the more serious we take it, because I know lots of just nominal Christians. They could take it or leave it like that. So you mentioned converting or I don't know what language you'd use to evangelicalism. So how, how did that come about? Or is that too far forward? Do we need to move back some? Speaker 2 12:41 Well, actually, no, I think I was, I was about 14 or 15 years old. Youth? Yeah, actually, I got invited to an after school Bible study at school. And then I just followed the group of teenagers to youth group. And I mean, it was actually kind of a fascinating time really exploratory. I remember, I contacted the Mormons, like ask them to send me a Book of Mormon so that I could like, understand that. It's free. Yeah, I've always been curious about things. So like, it's actually pretty amazing that it took me as long as it did to D convert, it's kind of, it's pretty stunning, actually. But that time period, I was just so excited and interested to feel like so accepted. And I think that that's like a that's probably where a lot of people get kind of hooked, because, uh, first of all, just being a human and connecting with other humans is really challenging. And then second of all, when you have, like neurodivergent tendencies, which I do, ADHD, and you struggle really to understand other people sometimes, and so that, like, just blanket welcome was really pretty amazing. I heard it makes sense. Yeah. Use groups kind of use that kind of cult strategy, which is like, what did they call it? It's, uh, Arline 14:23 but what I was going to say about youth groups is like, at least in my experience, when I was in high school, we were like a motley crew of kids like these for kids that would not have hung out, except we were all thrown together in church. And it worked. It worked well for us. And it was nice, because a lot of us weren't cool. We didn't fit in anywhere else. And then it was like, Oh, look, we belong. And that's, yeah, that's a human need. So go ahead. Speaker 2 14:47 The other thing too, is that if you are cool, and you're in youth group, the shame would be unbearable if you didn't accept the weirdos and the oddballs. It's Arline 14:58 interesting that Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. Yeah, Speaker 2 15:02 I mean, I'm sure that that sometimes those kids do exist. And they are mean to other kids at youth group. They exist everywhere. But you feel like you can be cool. If you aren't cool. And all the other settings when you're accepted, and welcomed love bombing is the word I was looking for. Yeah, so like, you get love bombed when you walk into a new church, or into a new youth group, and they make you feel like you are the most welcome you will ever be. And that your community is so in need of you and your specific experience is the most tremendous feeling. I think human beings in general are looking for that everywhere. And you rarely find it in a genuine way. And I expect, you almost never find it in a genuine way, in a church. That's my theory, because they only seem to care if you are brand new, and and then as soon as you start to become part of that community, you start to see all the ways that you need to change, or you're not quite, quite right. And that sort of this shift happens so subtly. And so a behind, like the curtain over time, where all of a sudden, you now have the responsibility to meet their specifications on like, when you first started in the Netflix experience, or space, which is really kind of what happened, for me is like, anytime I became part of a church was because I was looking for community and acceptance, and belonging. And I often felt really wonderful in those spaces. But the shame that comes with it, in the, when you are a person that was raised with all that emotional abuse, it doesn't take any time at all to recognize that everybody there needs something. And you feel compelled to deliver. And the stress and the feeling of burden and like, it's very incredible overwhelm, like, really hard to cope with. So, I mean, the first go around, when I first got into an evangelical church, I became very rapidly, very involved with all the things. And I eventually became a camp counselor working with all these young teenagers at a super evangelical camp. And then, while we were there, the behind the curtain thing, really through me. Whereas we would have these camp counselor meetings, and they would sit everybody down, who was you know, a counselor and say, okay, so how many kids came to the fire last night? Did we? How many altar calls? How can we bump that up to seven tomorrow or whatever? It was like a factory. Yeah, it had nothing to do with actually helping or meeting the genuine emotional needs of these children. And I had my first real crises of faith. Because I realized, you know, we aren't helping these kids. We're like breaking these kids. And you send them home. And they're back to where they were before. Yes, yeah. Arline 19:10 I remember noticing that I I went to church when I was in high school, but I would not have said I was a Christian. I became a Christian in college. That was my like, little thing and my testimony. But I remember thinking like at the church, we went to Vacation Bible School and camps and all those things were just about so they get add numbers to how many people got baptized. But then after that, there was no you know, at the time I would have said there was no discipleship there. Like you didn't do anything to make sure they like I don't know still love Jesus or cared or what you know, whatever the things you wanted in their lives for to the spirit or whatever you just did. They just went back to school and life went back to normal and, and for the kids who take it seriously. Then it becomes why can't I keep doing this? Why? Why do I keep strong dealing with these things because I want to love Jesus like, and and yeah, it's just so you can add numbers rather than like we really genuinely care about kids. Yeah, for sure. Speaker 2 20:18 One of the other elements to that was true about the type of Christianity I was involved with is they were, I guess, Calvinist, maybe really predestination. And so I remember that there was this one guy, who every single week would talk about how he had back slid last week. And he had done drinking, and he was doing carousing, and he was so sinful, and confessing to these teenagers that he did all these horrible things, and, and how he was so sorry, but he knew that he was forgiven because he was chosen by God. Which I thought was deeply problematic. And then, much later, years later, I was actually sitting through a sermon, and the pastor said something to the effect of, you know, those times when you have doubt, and you don't really feel sure, that probably means that you don't have real faith. And, I mean, I just thought, oh, so I'm connecting the dots here. If you are chosen by God to have faith, but you don't always have strong faith, then you weren't chosen by God, Taffy. So you're not a Christian, and you won't go to heaven, because your faith is not solid is kind of like what he really meant to. So I sat down and had a conversation with him about it. I was like, so you're saying that if people are wobbly in their faith, and they question, that means they're going to hell? And he was kind of like, well, yes. Let me give you a book. Wow. Arline 22:17 Naturally, it's Calvinists in their books. Here is another book, I can't have this conversation with you. But here is a dead guy, or possibly a dead guy who wrote a book and you can, Speaker 2 22:28 I don't remember who the author was, but I read it. And it started out being like, this is a difficult topic. And then it went on and circular language and logic for 200 pages and ended with this is a difficult topic to understand and reckon with, you know, this came back to the point where we started, I was just like, what a waste of time? Yeah, so that was a, I think, actually, generally speaking, the evangelical and more Protestant churches are generally better at that initial love bombing phase and the Catholic Church. And that's probably how I ended up there really. Like, cuz I would go to a Catholic church here and there. And nobody really cares that somebody is new. They just, you know, because so many Catholics are kind of like getting their ticket punched. Yeah, Arline 23:37 I feel like Catholicism is much more you're born into it and or you marry someone who's Catholic. So it's not really like, we're trying to add you. It's just Oh, you happen to be here. Okay. Speaker 2 23:47 Yeah, no, I don't think that they do a whole lot of recruiting. At least they didn't, at least not in the United States. I should rephrase. I mean, I think they work very hard and recruiting people in Arline 24:02 Africa. Okay, that makes a more Evan Jellicle version of Catholicism. That's an act never thought of that. I don't think that Speaker 2 24:11 and I think that they are very much evangelicals. But they target their efforts in places where there's more poverty. So kind of comically in the United States, they never can find any priests. So most of the time, when you go to a Catholic Church, the priest will be from somewhere and in Africa, Kenya or Nigeria. Arline 24:38 Interesting. Yeah. Speaker 2 24:41 So it's been a long time since I went to a Catholic church, and it wasn't a person from another country, an African country. Oh, that's fascinating. Wow. It is kind of fascinating. Arline 24:51 Yeah. At this point, are you in your 20s ish? Speaker 2 24:54 I was. I did it for two summers. I was 16 the first summer and said And to the second. I had a dark night of the soul for about a year after that, because I felt like I want to be part of factory Christianity, I want to be in the real serious place, you know. And so I sort of had like a time off, and ended up meandering back into Catholicism for a few years. And I was very active in college and the Catholic Church, and then emerged out of college and immediately got married. Like one does, because I was at college, at least in my mother's perspective, for the ring before spring experience. Yes, I did go to a secular college. But I still knew I understood from my mother that I should get married. And that I should not work. I was should be a stay at home mother. Because my whole childhood, she said disparaging things about moms who worked. Yeah, so that was basically what I decided to do. And on top of that, I married the first American person that I dated. And so I mean, sort of a trigger warning, really, is that we had anticipated our vows. Right. And I felt at that time. Well, now we have to get married. And that was that. And, you know, fast forward to a whole year later on my wedding day. I didn't barely even like them. We got married anyway. And I don't know. 48 hours later, well, actually, during the wedding, somebody came up to me and said, Are you feeling okay? You look green. I felt like I was going to cast up my accounts the entire time. And the whole wedding was really for my mother anyway, like everything was to her specifications. And she had made the planning of the wedding like a living hell really? Like every time she didn't like something she would be like, I'm not going to come if you don't do it like this. And how can I have my beautiful mother at your wedding? If it's not a full Catholic mass? I can't have that. My mother would be heartbroken. She use that kind of manipulation for everything. But it was really intense with the wedding. Yeah. Arline 28:01 So again, she's making you responsible for someone else's experience in the world. Speaker 2 28:08 Yeah, all the time every day, in and out of every day. That was how our interactions were. So I don't think there is a time that ever wasn't like that. Gotcha. Speaker 2 28:30 So, basically, the wedding was her wedding that I was in marrying a person that I didn't want to marry anymore. But felt I had to, because of the combination of her expectations for me. And my belief that her specific understanding of Christianity was accurate. Right, so 48 hours after the wedding or honeymoon, and I had a full mental breakdown, no ability to really process why I was freaking out or breaking down. But because like I really didn't understand the why behind why took all the the turns I did, and chose to do whatever I did. And I didn't understand what I was really so upset about even so My poor husband who were still married, even now, which is kind of crazy, but I sometimes wonder, but yeah, he's like, what's the matter? I don't understand what's happening. Like, and I was like, I don't have words. I don't know what's happening. All I know is like, I'm in the closet. I'm sobbing, the door is shut and I'm like rocking back and forth like a person who doesn't belong at all. honeymoon but institution being seen by a doctor. And like, there weren't thoughts going on. Like, I wasn't processing specific emotions, I was just absolutely panicking was like very dissociative i. And I don't understand that situation at all, either for years and years. So I mean, it's, it's interesting to me now, because I'm so far along we so we've been married for 14 years. And I have really taken the time to examine what the various things that I experienced in my childhood, what it was like, what the after effects of having a father who was very much absent, and a mother who used those tactics to parent. And what it made me think was normal in life, right. So like, even now, I'm still finding more things like recently discovering that I have very porous boundaries, and it affects me at work. sort of started to understand that my very dysfunctional parents parenting style sneaks into my parenting style. And trying to catch it when I can, but it happens, you know, I'm gonna be super careful never to talk about my emotions with the kids. Probably I take it too far. Arline 31:51 Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Speaker 2 31:53 Yeah, it is. I think it's very important to, to have frank conversations with your kids, like when you do this, I feel like this, that's rational, healthy, relationship, conversation, but not in the crazy way that my mother did it. Like, when you take my favorite shirt, and paint in it, that makes me feel like you violated my boundaries. That's okay. But then when you say something, like, when you don't do the dishes, I know I'm a bad mother. That's, that's not okay. Which is, that's how my mother was. So, I mean, there's a really steep climb between the two. But because I do think people do need to be told when they do something, that you have a feeling but not their action, cause you're feeling it's your reaction to their action that's causing your feeling. I don't know, I'm still trying to work it all out. Even now. You know, that's no, Arline 33:26 that's parenting and, and I think, different parenting things I've seen. You know, it's kind of like, with relational things, it's using I statements, like, I feel like this when this happened. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't say know, you caused it or you're responsible for or it's your, it's just, like, I'm feeling I'm frustrated right now. Because, I don't know, for our family, it's usually math, because we're homeschool family and math is gonna kill us all. But like, like, you know, I'm frustrated or I'm sad or I'm hurt. But yeah, the emotional manipulation that becomes this whole other thing that that's really harmful and, and I have to be responsible for my own self and how to respond to stuff and yeah, and not expect my kids to have any that I also when I have teenagers do not want kids using my favorite shirt when they want to go paint. So there's that. Speaker 2 34:23 Uh huh. Yeah. And yeah, you know, it's it is one of the thing that I find really fascinating about being an atheist now, is that when you take all of that loaded stuff, and you set it to the side, you can look at some of these things a lot more clearly. Like, it's not about whether or not you're sinning or you're, you know, reflecting the love of Jesus in your life. It's about are you respecting other people's some boundaries and needs? And are you maintaining your own boundaries and needs in response? Arline 35:09 Or Speaker 2 35:12 can you have a conversation with somebody else that is back and forth and constructive? Like, the tactics that my mother used, they weren't about having a back and forth, they were about getting compliance. So, you know, all of us were so like, we were like, on our tiptoes, being careful not to upset the very fragile emotional creature that my mother was. And I used to like, joke about it a lot. Like, I'd be like, oh, there was this time that mom came in, and she was upset, and she karate chopped the door and kicked the garbage can and split it in half. And wasn't that the funniest thing that's ever happened? Actually, you know, not very funny when you get back down to, because that was all because I think my dad was 20 minutes late or something. Like the reaction was, it was for show to get everybody to understand that her emotional state was presently upset. You know, and it had nothing to do with anything rational. And it wasn't funny. Arline 36:50 So you mentioned being an atheist now, like, how did you get from Evangelical, nice wife to however you identify now? I mean, I'm sure you're still nice, but Speaker 2 37:04 I'm significantly less Nice. That's good. It's good. Arline 37:10 All right. I understand when you talked about having porous boundaries, like I can empathize with that, like, the number of people that ran over me simply because I couldn't say please don't do this, or please stop or I don't like this like, but go ahead. Speaker 2 37:25 Yeah, no. So I remained very much an Evangelical, either as a Catholic or as a I guess they were Southern Baptists all the way up until 2019, I think. Okay. So it especially came back to full prominence in my life once we had moved down to a more rural Christian community and the the most effective ways to spend time with other mothers was through an organization called Arline 38:06 mops. I signed up for mops paid my $30 went one time and never went back. Okay, go ahead. Tell us moms of preschoolers. Isn't that what it stands for moms are the Speaker 2 38:17 swindlers and it was, you know, really nice to sit in a room with other moms, who were all going through all kinds of things that you experience with preschoolers. Probably not so nice, though, that was all tinged with that stuff that's so closely related to emotional manipulation. Like, there's a lot of shame to be induced in that environment, because there's so much strong feelings in Christian community about how to effectively parent your children. Like, Spare the rod, something the child, the child, Spare the rod, spoil the child Bible verse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the child and so many of those moms were like that. There were a lot of them that were really compelled to do homeschooling, but not because of a rational reason like providing better education to their child or whatever. But more to protect them from the world and the influence of the world. But while I was in mops, my kids were nine and for eight, eight and four and then five and nine. Anyway, my oldest, already by that age started to show this very clearly that they were going to be LGBTQ. Okay. And I started to think about that, and what the environment in church would be like for them. And that started the ball rolling downhill because the church, I was going to bring the kids to said, you must sign this statement of beliefs. And one of the things on there was that marriage is between a man and a woman. And I categorically refuse to sign that because I am so deeply offended by the idea that if you are naturally inclined to marry somebody of the same sex, you should, therefore, suppress that desire, never have a close relationship or a partner in life and certainly not get married. I think that's appalling. And I don't think I could ever condemn my child to a life of aloneness and constant. Implicit shame for their identity. Arline 41:13 Yes, implicit shame. That's a that's an excellent phrase, because you may not explicitly say it Christians may not explicitly, but those kids know exactly what you really, you know, what their parents really think? Yeah, sure. Speaker 2 41:26 But it's, it's every time you're absolutely welcome here in this Christian space, so long as you never express you the reality of who you are, you know. And I was just like, I can't be a part of that. But then finally, the thing that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was this church forced me to be part of their Christian education program, because my kids were going to it. And so I'm in the class with kids, they were, I think, fifth grade or so older than my kids were at the time. And the lesson was based on like that Calvinist principle of faith, right? Do you have doubt? Or is your faith solid? And the lady facilitating the class asked all the children one question after another that I thought were incredibly insensitive and inappropriate, and she expected them to disclose their true experience about these things. And some of the questions were Did you ever lose faith when somebody you love died? Did you ever lose faith because your parents were suffering a financial crises? Did you ever lose faith? Because you're your friends were being mean to you? Did you ever lose faith because your pet died? Arline 43:12 Like these questionably invasive questions? Speaker 2 43:16 Yes, they were. And the lady was absolutely adamant. They all had to answer them. And she wrote their names on the board under yes or no. For each question. My kids weren't in the class. I feel like if they had been, it might have gone a little bit differently. But either way, by the end of the class, I was livid. I was like, steam was coming out of my ears. I was like, How dare you? And if I remember correctly, the kids had sat through the sermon where the pastor was saying, If you doubt, then you're not really chosen. So they're downstairs now being asked if they doubt forced to disclose whether they doubted and so therefore, now everybody knows whether you're chosen. I was just like, No, this is abusive. This is wrong. I'm not. I'm not for this. Anyway. Yeah. So I wrote a letter to the person who is in charge of the children's education program saying this is unacceptable. And received a letter back from the junior pastor who I thought was a friend saying, we all agree that this lesson was perfectly fine. And we don't understand what your problem is. Speaker 2 44:55 Yeah, so I left the church and You'd think that was the nail in the coffin. But it wasn't I started thinking well, well, I gotta find a new church. Arline 45:06 Yes, it was just this specific church. Not all, you know, hashtag Not all churches. Yeah, I am. Speaker 2 45:12 But the nail in the coffin was I didn't leave the church and say anything that anybody that I was leaving it. I did not receive a call visit a text and email from even one person. Not one. Like you really do Arline 45:31 genuinely have these relationships that you think are, you know, slightly solid relationship. Yeah. And then nothing. Yeah. Well, I Speaker 2 45:42 mean, it was like, if that's not true, then is any of it true? Yeah. Like it? Yeah, yeah. No, like, How could any of it be true if they can't even like, call to see if I died? You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And I mean, the truth is that I had, I've always been a curious person. And I always question things. And I'm always like, reading everything I can get my hands on and exploring all kinds of different ideas and thoughts. So I had all of these sort of impulses and thoughts and ideas about the world that were in conflict with Christianity the whole time. But when the community element fails, I think that told me I was finally free. Because if that's, you know, they weren't really genuine. It wasn't true. So yeah. And then, you know, after that, I started listening to like Christopher Hitchens, and things like that. Listen to you Arline 46:57 just, you just jumped. You just jumped right in, like, yeah. Speaker 2 47:03 Well, yeah, because I was afraid before to explore that stuff. Because it meant probably, oh, I don't really have faith. And so I'm probably going to hell, right. But then the community fell through. And I was like, Oh, that's not true. Maybe nothing's true. And I started just, you know, I had a blast. I explored everything that I was terrified of exploring for, like, the next whole year, I tried to do a ritual with assaulted by it, my kitchen. husband walked in, he was like, What are you doing? And he laughed at me, that was embarrassing. So didn't really stay on that. Yeah. But, you know, I just, I researched and enjoyed and, and thought about all kinds of different cultures and ideas and, and slept well, for the first time in a long time. Because if there's no God, and you just die, then there's no point and having anxiety about whether or not you're good. You know, Arline 48:16 you genuinely just do the best that you can with the resources that you have. And then it's like, okay, this feels so much less burdensome. Yeah, back whenever I was a Christian, Speaker 2 48:27 and on top of that, when you do something good, it's because you are genuinely doing something that's good. And not because you're trying to rack up points. And when other people do something good. And you know, that they're not coming from that place, either. It's just because they're genuinely good. Yeah. And so, you know, for the first time I could be like, Oh, what do I really want for my life? How do I really feel about this kind of subject and that kind of thing? And I mean, I felt so much relief ache I mean, the joy of, of living each day with purpose and meaning knowing that there is an end to it, and therefore the time that you are spending has value. Yeah, yes. You know, and then when you do a bad thing, the person that you're hurting first is yourself because you wasted time in that bed space. They, I get asked the question sometimes by people who are still really religious, like, aren't you worried about what's coming next and you Don't you feel like life is lacking purpose and meaning. And I feel the exact opposite. I feel relief. So, I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of magical to never have to worry about that ever again. Arline 50:24 Like I, I don't worry about hill in the same way that when I was a Christian, I didn't worry about whatever happens to people of other religions, like whatever their version of Hill is. So now it's just like I now have that extra thing I don't have to be concerned about. And then as far as, you know, how do you have meaning and purpose, like lots of people in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group and just in conversations, you create it yourself, you get the things that you used to have to fight for your love, because you needed to love God most. Now you can just like love your family, love your hobbies, love your job, love, nature, love, just whatever it is, and let it give your life meaning and purpose and enjoy it. And yeah, it's freeing, so freeing. Speaker 2 51:09 So it really is. And then the other thing, too, is that the church, I was going to I don't know if that's true for every church, but they spent the lion's share of the money on the staff. And then the rest of money that came from tithing they spent on missionaries all over the world, Arline 51:29 right. Southern Baptists, they have the whole Mission Board thing. Speaker 2 51:33 Yeah, yep, exactly. And one time, they had like a financial meeting that I attended, and somebody stood up, and they were like, you know, there's a lot of poverty in our neighborhood. And I really was hoping that we could start doing some more, you know, generous things here in our own town. And the pastor was like, I mean, very, like, firmly opposed, and kind of mean to this lady about that. Now, I mean, we're not giving money to the church, I'm giving it directly to the things that I think really matter. And generally speaking, in my own community, which is also something I feel really good about. Yeah. Arline 52:33 So we have a few more minutes. And again, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that I did not ask about? Speaker 2 52:40 And I think we touched on all of the things except for the last thing, I guess, is that parenting kids free from religion. I mean, it's kind of revelatory to, in my home, my kids are split. 5051 of them is very much an atheist, it's the older of the two and the younger one still wants to believe in God. And, okay, I tell him, that's fine. You can explore all of the things in the world that give you joy and meaning and value. And, for me, I think that's one of the best things that I have experienced post Christianity is that I can encourage my kids to explore the world as well, which is something that I was simply not allowed to do. And so, getting to see my kids sort of explore the world with no shame or the burden of like, am I sinning? Am I pleasing God? Am I Am I, you know, checking all the boxes today? Is it is so inspiring, highly recommend it. Yeah. They'll likely grow up without all of the baggage that I have had to carry. And so that makes me feel really, really grateful. Arline 54:31 Yeah, they'll have plenty of things that they have to figure out and deal with and grow through and struggle, but you're not adding to it by arbitrary rules that somebody made up 1000 years ago. That was for sure. Yes. Recommendations, anything you're loving right now, podcasts, books, anything or things that helped you in your deconversion so Speaker 2 54:59 I'm in the very early days when I was first sort of putting my toes in the water, the thing that really helped me a lot was Jen Hatmaker. And I remember her, and Rachel Held Evans, the two of them. I mean, Rachel, who I mean, I grieved her, like she was my own family member, when she passed away, that was so hard. Her books, taught me how to sort of take all of the things that I had loved in Christianity, and give them space in a healthy way. So you didn't have to throw everything away. There were some things that are genuinely beautiful. And so that was such a gentle way to sort of come to terms with my new reality was Rachel Held Evans and Jen Hatmaker. Collected Works. And then I think, the the other thing, I always feel like it's very helpful, and especially during that early time, when you're just kind of feel a little unsettled, is to start having a practice of like mindfulness meditation. Because it helps you to connect to what is you and sort of sift through the things that don't come from your own feelings and perspective and identify the things that aren't serving you anymore. And slowly let them go. Sort of reconnect you with your body, which is like, I hate terms like that, which are like, sort of woowoo we're just kind of out in space. But that's the reality, right, is that you don't feel like you can trust your thoughts and feelings and intuition when you're a Christian. And so doing mindfulness meditation and starting to identify what are your thoughts and feelings? And what are those beliefs from before that are invading such a beautiful practice? Arline 57:22 Yes, it really is. The language may sound, you know, woowoo, as some people would say, but it's like, there's a lot of science behind just like, letting things go letting your thoughts just go. Because they're just thoughts like Calvinism. I assume you read John Piper or listen to John Piper, it was all about like, fight your sin, fight your standby, your sin. And I found with mindfulness, I started learning that in 2018, I think, and it was like, not fighting it and just being like, that was just a thought. Yeah, it was like my whole nervous system was like, which I didn't have any of this language yet. But my whole nervous system could just be like, okay, you know, it's not evil, sinful, terrible, bad, all that, which just made me anxious all the time, constantly anxious. It was just like, oh, just, I thought it happened. Speaker 2 58:12 Yeah, that's so true. And, and you're right, this science is very compelling that you can fundamentally repair and rebuild the structures in your brain that have been damaged by a long time. of you know, feeling trauma or dissociation or being disconnected from your own intuition. This is like a neuro programming and then Neurofeedback and neuroplasticity can change. And yeah, so you can actually really start to heal. And so yeah, mindfulness meditation is so much top of mind for recommendation for anybody who's, especially if you're dealing with recovering from emotional covert abuse. Because it just adds this extra burden of identifying what's really true. And it's not, it's not an easy road. I'll be trying to recover from it for the rest of time. But I'm better than I was yesterday. And so I'll be probably better tomorrow than I was today. And that's a relief. Arline 59:31 Well, Megan, thank you so much for telling your story. It was lovely having you on today. Speaker 2 59:35 Thanks so much for having me. It was really wonderful to get to share. Arline 59:44 My final thoughts on the episode I really appreciated Megan's transparency about when it came to parenting, and how, like as much as we want to be different than our parents. When they parented us in a way that was really harmful, like that stuff still creeps into our own parenting. And they're scary, and it's sad. But it's also an opportunity for us to apologize to our kids to be open and honest with our kids at developmentally appropriate things, of course, but to just let them know that we're not perfect, we don't have it all figured out. But we do love them, love them so much. Those are things at least I know, for me, not getting an apology from a parent not ever feeling like they could acknowledge that they had done anything wrong or harmful. That's hard. But we can give that to our kids. We can be humble and kind we can be all the things that they tell you, the Holy Spirit will make you. But we don't have to have all that we can just be those things in and of ourselves to our kiddos. Also, your I know meditation is not for everybody. But like just mindfulness, just the idea of paying attention to what's happening right inside our bodies right in front of us. For me, it has been so helpful. It was one of the things that got me out of Christianity, I started realizing how much learning mindfulness was helping me when praying was not praying was making me anxious, because I did not know if God was going to help this time. Whereas mindfulness was like, I can just watch my thoughts float. Well, I guess the image I used was a waterfall ride right off of this waterfall. It wasn't anxiety and stress all the time. So yeah, five stars highly recommend their apps for learning mindfulness. Yeah, Megan, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It was a delightful conversation. I really enjoyed it. David Ames 1:01:52 The secular Grace Thought of the Week is embrace your imperviousness to religious guilt. I was listening to a Christian message recently, and I realized how much it did not apply to me. I could definitely hear the manipulation and the guilt trip within the message. And it was very peaceful to know I was impervious to that guilt trip because it does not apply to me anymore. It doesn't apply to you anymore. Don't let it hurt you affect you. bother you in any way. Next week, another one from Arline. She'll be interviewing Jeff, you do not want to miss that episode. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and the graceful The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast the atheists United studios Podcast Network Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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