Matthew Taylor: Why We Podcast

David Ames 0:11
This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheists podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Remember, we have a merchandise store on T public, you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there, the link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of 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 I want to take a moment to celebrate this is the 200th episode of the graceful atheist podcast. A huge shout out to Mike t for all the editing work over the years. And a huge shout out to Arline who's single handedly carried the podcast over the last couple of months. I'll talk a little bit more in the final thoughts section about where the podcast goes from here. But celebrate with me that we have gotten to this huge mile marker. onto today's show. My returning guest today is Matthew Taylor. Matthew was on the show in 2019. Matthew is the co host of the steal unbelievable podcast. He and his colleagues, Andrew and David originally wrote a book in response to Justin Brierley. He's unbelievable book. And both the book and the podcast are kind of a response to that. Matthew has been a good friend over the years, and I was really glad to have him back here for the 200th episode. And today we discuss why we podcast what it is that drives us to do what we do and what we hope that the community gets out of it. Here's my conversation with Matthew Taylor.

Matthew Taylor, welcome back to the graceful atheist podcast.

Matthew Taylor 2:22
Hello, David. Fabulous to chat again with you who really is it's been a while we've just been talking Off mic about that. It's it's great to actually to see each other again as well and not just hear the voice.

David Ames 2:33
Yeah, absolutely. Just to set some context for everyone else. You are the co host of still unbelievable podcast that is in many ways a response to Justin Brierley is unbelievable podcast. You've written a book on that same subject, you've done a bunch of things I'd like to hear just from your words. You know, some of the projects that you've been involved in? Yes,

Matthew Taylor 2:54
quite few. So the whole thing all started with still unbelievable the book which came out a year after Justin brollies, unbelievable book came out. And we that's not where my story starts. But that's where this story starts. And so that came in, I jumped on board with that project made some great friends as part of that project. And out of that project was born the podcast still unbelievable, which I know most of we've, in the last few months passed through 100 episodes, which is great, but such episodes about for almost five years. So we're not as regular as other podcasts which we could mention David. And but so that came out. And we we did try a couple of podcasts. Actually, I did also do the asking at centers podcast for a while. And we we merged into that, but It rapidly became very obvious that we're trying to juggle similar content on two different feeds. And it made no sense whatsoever. And so asking atheist, anything in the proscenium feed, which it merged into, just quietly got dropped, because it just made no sense to carry on with that. I'm very happy with the decision that we made. We weren't going to get there. Like we weren't going to let go of the still unbelievable name because we like we like the brand still unbelievable. We like that it's a throwback to just embroideries, unbelievable podcasts, which anybody who talks in this space knows about so we feel that it was a good thing to keep on to that brand. And that brand has got us onto the radar of a couple of publishing houses. So it means that we do occasionally get an email from a publishing house saying, here is a book that we think you guys might like, which is a wonderful place to be we've had this past year 2023, enter and I have featured three authors on still unbelievable. Each one of those was a fabulous conversation, that conversation which I appreciated. I learned lots from each of those conversations. I'm really glad to be able to feature those kinds of people. And I don't pay for a book which for me is a double When. So I'm putting a lot of effort into still unbelievable. But we're we're not really a network, but we're part of a community of podcasts. You obviously one of them. David, who was part of the still unbelievable book project everyone's skeptics and seekers, we feature him and we're very tightly involved with him because Andrew and David Andrew, my co host, still unbelievable for those who don't know. So we're all we we are talking regularly and featuring each other regularly. Then there's Clint Haycock and ex American pastor here in the UK. On the mind shift podcast, I really like, Clint, I really like the way he thinks I really like the way he produces his podcast. So I've been on that for a while. But you know, yours and his podcasts were both right at the early days when I was featured on them. Early Days of lockdown. In fact, when I was, we didn't even know what COVID was when I was on your podcast. So the world has changed, and it's changed. Yeah. And what I've liked about that interim period is there's been an explosion of really good community groups, lots of Facebook groups, all around the kinds of space that that we talk in, people helping each other some UK centric ones, which is beautiful to see, as well. Because if no one can tell from my accent, I am based in the UK. And it's really good to see those. So I've joined quite a few of those. I'm not very active on them, because I am literally so busy. But it is really nice to see the communities building there and people helping people. And it's great, great to see that. And I like to think that these voices, though to verbal on all these podcasts are helping to facilitate that. Because when I was deconstructing podcasts weren't a thing. It was blogs. And I found a small blogging community when I was doing my deconstruction. And those guys really helped me being able to blog through some of my thoughts, and to be able to read other people's thoughts and us comment on each other's posts and help each other and support each other. I love that community. And those people I know I've moved out of that community, I'm now into podcasting. But I still look back fondly on those time because I needed people I needed people who understood me, I needed people who understood my fears in a visceral way, which nobody I knew we skin could comprehend. And those people at the other end of that keyboard, those people at the other end of those monitor screens, I never, I didn't need to hear their voice, I didn't need to see their faces, I just needed to read their words and their words were full of compassion, their words are full of love, their words are full of understanding. And I needed those people while I was going through that process. And technology is allowed much more dynamic ways of providing that. And I love the podcasting community that is doing that, or the various podcasts that have sprung up talking about that. And I love all the various Facebook groups, which provides some really, really good support to people. And it's wonderful to see that happen.

David Ames 8:11
So both of us have gone back and listened to your, your first episode on this podcast. That was in 2019. And a couple things that that just struck me about it. One is, you know, you can hear, I think both of us, but me in particular, you know, trying to figure out what is it that we do here? And the other is just what you just said that, you know, we weren't interested in bashing Christians. What we were interested in is finding community for people who were having doubts, deconstructing de converting what have you, and you in particular, were expressing that compassion for people going through that process? Yes,

Matthew Taylor 8:50
I was quite surprised that see how much that came across in the episode that recorded because I do need to give a health warning still unbelievable, can be a difficult place to be for people who are still sympathetic towards Christianity. I make no excuses for that I self described as spiky. Yes, graceful doesn't apply to me. And I'm glad that you do what you do, because I couldn't right. And so we are very different in that way. But our end goal and our desires for those who are in the place that we were both in however many years ago, it was, is necessary. And I do occasionally get emails from people saying that still unbelievable has helped them because it's helped them to frame their thinking. And that's what I tried to offer we still unbelievable. I critique Christianity in very particular ways in some of our episodes. And I think that's helped to frame some people in terms of how they think about Christianity and how they think about their experiences and how to frame the doubts that they are experiencing. and how to put words and logic and even science to some of those doubts. So just to put a little bit of a caveat Yes, I am for supporting the Deconstructor but there will be some spiking us on still unbelievable. So be aware of that I don't try to be a friendly place for Christians

David Ames 10:22
understand, and I think I think you also expressed the support for truth. And I think you said it by saying you wanted to stand up against inaccuracy. Yes, wherever that was. So I think both of those themes came across in your your earlier. Yes.

Matthew Taylor 10:37
Although having said that, I do try to treat my Christian guests as well as I possibly can. And some of the authors that we featured are Christian guests. And I don't know when this episode is going to go live, David, but and I spoil it for you. And in case this comes out before January next year, I have gotten the ken an episode that which I'm partway through recording where Andrew and I have interviewed the pastor in the US who's written a book on help. And the book is called Holy hell a case against eternal damnation. And the pastor who's written this book is a Universalist. And he gives a very strong case for universalism, and for a loving God, not being a god of eternal damnation, a loving God not being a god of eternal torment, loving God's being a god where everybody is brought to himself. And he produces a very what I think is a very powerful case for that, and we have a delightful conversation. For the first time in my life, I've uttered the words, I enjoyed reading a book about how, and I never thought I would ever, ever say that. But that is how I feel about this book. And I do know from what I've read in some of the various forums, hell is a problem. Hell is a problem for people in our position, how creates significant issues for people who are deconstructing, and I genuinely recommend this book, I don't care where you are on the deconversion spectrum, whether you intend to D convert or not. Whether you just want to deconstruct something and retain a faith, faith, or whether you are completely anti Christianity completely. If you're at all interested in the subject of how like genuinely recommend this book is called Holy hell a case against eternal damnation. It will be coming out in February next year 2024 hour episode with the author will come out at some point in January, the tail end of January next year, highly recommend it. It's going to be a beautiful episode, we enjoyed the conversation. And there are Christians out there who are fighting for us. No fighting for a loving experience of that kind of conversation.

David Ames 12:56
I actually want to ask you about your experience going on to Justin Brierley, these podcasts so and all of those work that you've done, that was a bit of a response to his work. And then you were on his podcast, which for anybody who might not know, for the three people who don't, you know, this is probably the one of the biggest, definitely focused on apologetics Christian podcasts in the world. And and so this was kind of a big deal. Absolutely.

Matthew Taylor 13:24
If somebody like me is going to be on any Christian podcast, unbelievable is one again going to be although, I should point out that within a few weeks of Justin then being on my show, because he was on my show immediately after me being on his. He then announced that he was leaving unbelievable. I mean, maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm definitely gonna milk that as much as I possibly can. And so, but yes, so Justin been doing that over 17 years, he'd be doing that. So I've now got a target for still unbelievable. They that's, that's the target that I'm aiming for. For still unbelievable. Actually, I am not going anywhere. So hang around. So I genuinely didn't think I would ever get on to unbelievable. I had been a regular listener for a very long time. And I had written just in on numerous times. And then out of the blue, I got an email with a book, LinkedIn into it. And I was copied in with a couple of other people. And Justin said to these people, I've got an author here. Here's a book. We need the layperson to have a conversation with him. Is anybody up for it? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So, so I had to chat with Mike De Virgilio and his book. What was it called an invented his hypothesis is the stories in the Bible read in such a way that they couldn't possibly be invented. I don't know how to describe that premise without breaking any kind of swear filters.

David Ames 14:54
You're fine. You can express yourself. It's bullshit.

Matthew Taylor 14:57
Frankly, it really is. It's It's utter utter bullshit. And to, to quote David from skeptics and seekers who is an ex pastor, and he is a philosopher as reader, he said to me offline, afterwards, he says, is read a lot of Christian books. And that one was, by a long way, the worst one that he'd ever read. So that was quite something coming from David. So I read this book on. And I think chapter two, he talks about something in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he makes a very specific claim about the quality of the texts in the decks, Dead Sea Scrolls. Great. Something I can fact check, because that's one thing I like to do a fact check. And anybody who listens to steal unbelievable, you should know that my show notes are always full of links from anything that it's fact checkable. In any episode that goes out, there'll be a link to it, if I can find it in the show notes. So always check the show notes if you're listening to still unbelievable, because they will be jam packed full of notes, and links and references to things to mentioned in the episode. So anyway, so I went along, and I tried to fact check this claim that he made about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the accuracy is, and it was rubbish, is claim was falsified. The first thing I found out about Dead Sea Scrolls is the book, I think he mentioned specifically the book of Isaiah, if it wasn't Isaiah, it was one of the Prophet books, and the information that I found out about this book and Dead Sea Scrolls, that most people think it actually has two authors, two different people who've written it, and there's evidence of copying between the two. And in the various copies that were found in those caves, there are differences. So this entire claim that he'd made was completely falsified by literally 10 minutes of Google search, I didn't need to go deep. It was there really quickly. And I brought brought this up on that episode, and it was just roundly ignored. And he didn't even try to defend it and moved on. And that was deeply frustrating. But and the book was like that all the way through there was any everything that I could fact check was difficult. They basically failed. And most of it was based on what he called verisimilitude, which was, it sounds like it's too good to be true. Therefore, it must be too good to be true. It's it's such a, it really is such a weak thing on which to base base, any kind of case on that. And so my concern going on to unbelievable was once I got to be able to keep my call. I was genuinely concerned that I would just lose it and go off on a rant. And if I'm going to go on to anything high profile, that is the last thing that I need to do. Yeah. But I managed it, I managed to get through and Justin did say to me afterwards, he thought I did fairly well. And I got some really positive feedback from people still unbelievable. Got to notice for jumping the listeners, following that, that going out. So thank you to anybody who's listening to this and listened to that and join. So unbelievable. I really did appreciate the positive comments. But yeah, I'd have liked to have had a better quality conversation if I'm really honest. But it was quite an experience doing that on Justin show. I'm doing something so big.

David Ames 18:27
This is actually a topic that I want to explore just for a minute. I think in the early days of this podcast, you know, I thought, oh, I want to talk to more Christians. And in my mind, I thought of apologists. And for those of my listeners who don't pay attention to apologetics, my apologies. But that's what we are going to look at here. And I found the same thing. It didn't matter really who it was, I've interviewed probably, I don't know, three or four apologists like professional apologists. And my experience was that you, you know, you bring up a point that, you know, is kind of a fact. And they just walk around it. Right? Yeah, that was never the direct addressing of the point that you were making. And the better the apologist, the less they actually address the point that you're making. So I'm wondering, you know, after so many years of doing the podcast and talking to various different Christian authors, apologists, that kind of thing. How has that changed for you at all? Like how you approach a conversation like that? Possibly,

Matthew Taylor 19:30
I'm less forgiving of bad arguments. And I've noticed that over the years, I've definitely, and because I've seen so many bad ones. And when I first started interacting, I definitely took the attitude of I don't want to sell the typical stereotype of the angry atheist. I want to be thoughtful and I want to be considerate and because I understand Christianity, I want to at least to show to the Christian, a Christian attitude. But I've had so many bad responses in that kind of space, that I lose patience for that. And I'm, I'm not so keen and not so quick to go for the softly approach now, because I've tried it so many times where I've tried to gently feed and say, No, that's not quite that you didn't answer my question. And just try and rephrase it, rephrase it in a nice way, etc. And like you've just said, there's just no appetite to actually address it directly. So I've given up playing nice around that, and just go straight forward and call it out. I I'm wasting everybody's time. If I if I do that, let's go back to Justin. Because after that, I was on unbelievable. And then Justin came on to us. And we talked a little bit around because one of Justin's narratives and he comes, I think it comes out in the new book that's been I've not read it yet. I will, it was on my project list for 2024 is the book. He tries to push the thing about Christianity, being a global good being the source of all the great things that we have in society. And Andrew and I pushed him back on that, and we pushed him back quite firmly, and he just wouldn't budge. It was really, that conversation was really frustrating for Andrew, myself. And we ended up just moving on. And I had feedback after the episode from several people saying that they really didn't appreciate how hard Justin pushed on the Christianity has been a global good in these areas. And that particular subject is probably the biggest single subject that Andrew and I have had direct feedback on to an episode, people really did not appreciate the way that he was pushing that narrative. Too many people saw straight through it didn't like it. And so because Justin was a big name, and he and I both wanted to be polite, we didn't push it as hard as we could have. And I think if I was to repeat it, I probably be rude or pure, purely because I think this point needs to be made very strongly. And I think there's a danger. It's a balance, David, it genuinely is a balance in how we respond to prominent Christians, because there's this Christian narrative of, oh, they're an atheist, they're going to be rude, and they're going to be rude and angry is because they're a bitter atheist. Now I can write off everything they say. So we're under pressure to be on good behavior. Because the second we let that slip, oh, it's just atheists are going through, you know, they now you see their true colors, whereas a Christian is actually granted space to lose it. They're actually given grace, if they lose it. And there's this disparity there in expectation and judgment, of behavior. And I'm getting a little bit tired of that. So some of the episodes I've done also unbelievable. They've been solo episodes, where I've reviewed a Christian podcast, and I just go for it on those episodes, I ramp up the sarcasm, I'll put in appropriate sound effects for things now now raise my voice. And I'll really hit it because I think people need to hear an emotional response. Sometimes these I don't think it works all the time, to have this kind of thing. So I think if I was to have thing, have that again, and if I ever managed to tempt Justin, don't listen to this. If I ever tend to just him back onto still unbelievable. Again, I think I'll be less calm. And I think I'll push back a lot harder, because I think I think these narratives need to be pushed back more. Maybe we're going to get a new dawn of the new atheist and that kind of polemic. That's me, does that give you the answer you're expecting?

David Ames 23:50
No, I think that's a good answer. I think where I landed was about consistency. Oh, I'm

Matthew Taylor 23:56
not consistent. You're you're consistently graceful. I couldn't hold it up. Other episodes too little.

David Ames 24:05
Ya know, what I mean is when I'm when I'm interacting with particularly an apologist, right, for example, your author makes the argument about verisimilitude. It sounds too good to be true. So it must be true that I would respond. So the, you know, the Muslim says that it's a miracle that the Quran exists, right. So that is the exact same arguments, and so you have to be consistent, both of those things would have to be true. So are they both true or using a bad argument? And, and I don't think that that changes their mind at all. I still think they just go around it but but for me, the way that I've communicated these days is to say, I need to be consistent. And so if you are going to lower the bar of evidence required for something that lowers it everywhere, not just for your particular religious claim. Yes.

So part of what we wanted to talk about here is why we podcast. Yeah. And so I'd like to hear first, we've talked about a little bit but what why you started why you and Andrew began this process. And then maybe a little bit about why you continue to do that. Yes,

Matthew Taylor 25:17
there's some some good points were made there. So as I mentioned, when I was first on, it wasn't on my radar to podcast. And then Andrew and David off the back of still unbelief for the book thought well, that this brand, this momentum needs to continue. And they were right. So and podcasting is taking off? No, there's a deconstruction space that needs voices. Let's do it. So we started a small number of podcasts asking atheists anything we've talked about which has gone by the wayside although the episodes I believe are still available, if you there are some interesting episodes. If people want to look that up and listen to them. I will be gradually going through the back catalogue of that and picking off some of the best ones and rebroadcasting them on to still unbelievable, because we've got new listeners who might appreciate them. Yeah, so but it was never on my my radar to do it. And then probably David bless him everything is David's fault over at skeptic. It seems like everybody I know called David is responsible for something happening in my life. So David said, David F. Skeptics and seekers, yes. David Johnson Oh, from skeptics and seekers. And his guy I respect immensely. He helped me find my writing voice is complimented me immensely on my own writing. And he said, Matthew, I think you'll have a good voice for podcasting. Plus English accent, you know, what's what, what's to lose? And I genuinely I've loved it. And when I started was a little bit of a shaky start. I don't listen to some of our first couple of episodes I'm sure I would shivering, embarrassment. But we got it going, we managed to capture a couple of interesting guests. So we pick Greczyn momentum carried on and then we start getting some really interesting guests, people I really enjoyed speaking to I think my first high profile on was John Stein guard, I, I stalked him after he was on unbelievable. It took me a couple of months to find him. I eventually managed to find him on Instagram, I think and sent her a message. And he responded very positively. We had a joyful conversation with John Stein guard, which who I believe you had a conversation with John, as well. Fabulous, fabulous individual. And now suddenly, you say I'm a podcast, suddenly starts to open doors. And I've managed to reach out and I reached out to Joshua sama Das, who's a Christian apologist has written a book on the called the genealogical Adam and Eve. Interesting scientifically, I'm not entirely sure some of the things he says are safe, in terms of the conclusions he's come to. But definitely, if you're that way inclined, it's potentially an interesting book. There's lots of references, very technical, enjoyed the conversation there. And I've really enjoyed those kinds of conversations. And conversations are where it sets really have having good quality conversations, because you can show to each other when you're doing it across the table, having a conversation which is productive, and friendly, which I've managed to have, despite what I've said about spikey, and all that helps to see the other person as a human. And that helps conversation, I think, humanizing the opponent having an actual conversation with them. Lotter not a text based conversation, but actual conversation, has done wonders for my attitude towards Christian individuals. And I hope has done the same the other direction, because those kinds of things I've enjoyed the most. And like say Earthman said, the publisher have contacted me twice now with a Christian author. And we've had that conversation. The second one is one I just told you about. About the Hell yeah, if people don't see value in some of those conversations, they're not going to reach out and say, here's a book I think you should read. Here's an author, I think you'd enjoy a conversation with no, that must surely be a risk for somebody to push a Christian author on to a podcast like still unbelievable and say, I think this is the conversation you're you're like, because the gamble that they're taking is engineers, atheists will a pan the book, and then be continued to pan the book, and they've seen the panic with extra venom, you know, and then D continue to talk about it for the rest of the year about how awful that bloody book was. That's the risk that they take. And both times that I've had that contact, I've had a fabulous experience reading the book and and the fabulous conversation so I think it pays dividends to actually reach out and So I've reached out I said, I reached out to Joshua sama Das, I've reached out to Steve Chalke, who's the big name in the UK people outside the UK might not be familiar with the name. But certainly Christian people who from the Christian tradition in the UK will know the name, Steve Chalke fabulous conversation, it's sometimes it's worth making that reach out to somebody you never know, who you'll catch. And I think humanizing other people and having those lovely, pleasant conversations, actually is better than being spiky. Really, honestly, when it gets down to the bottom of it. It's worth it. And also, I think the reason why it's worth having those conversations across the aisle like that is look as on regardless of where they are, whether they're transitioning from one side to the other, or whether they're just hovering in the murky ground in the middle, will probably appreciate those conversations as well. And it probably just helps them to focus some of the thinking that they have some spiky people as well, let's Let's aim for the pleasant conversations because I get so much more out of those pleasant conversations I mentioned earlier about, sometimes I do those really snarky episodes, I actually get more pleasure. I got a lot more pleasure out of that conversation that I've just told you about. With Derek about his holy hell book I got so much more pleasure out of that. I do out of three episodes where I rip apart a Christian podcast talking about stuff I don't like.

David Ames 31:32
What do you get out of it? So you basically have been saying that you know, that these conversations I think are meaningful for you? Is that part of why you continue to podcast?

Matthew Taylor 31:40
Yes, definitely. Definitely. It is. And one of the big question marks over the whole deconversion deconstruction experiences, purpose and meaning you I grew up in a Christian condition where I was taught from a very young age and went into adulthood, God has a purpose for you, God has a plan for you, you know, part of what you need to do is find out what God wants you to do in your life. And one of the things that I experienced as a young 20 year old was, you're going to chuckle at this, I promise you. I was at a big evangelical meeting. And there was also it was it was a weekend and there was teaching and seminars and stuff like that. And at one of these big meetings, somebody came in, says, I've got a prophet here with us. And he's going to look around the room. And then at one point, he's going to walk around the room, and he's going to see if God's telling him about any of the people that so he did this, and this guy did this, walk this round the room, and then they came back in the couple of words, etc, etc. And then next thing I know, me, I was literally I was in the back row of this meeting. Literally, I got singled out from the front. And he pointed me out. And I said what mean, I pointed the person next to me said no, no, no, no, no. You said that guy there. He's going to have an apostolic ministry. And of course, my knees buckled under me, I sat down, you know, this was an emotional thing that I simply struggled to cope with. And yeah, I that weighed on my mind for quite some time. You know, and I was given some words of wisdom and advice about that. Because being singled out to be an apostle is quite a big thing. This wasn't just somebody who had a good teaching ministry, or was somebody who was going to bless the people, you know, this is somebody who's going to have an apostolic ministry, you know, it was, it was a big, big thing. So that weighed on me for years. And so how do I fulfill this prophecy? You know, when you come from a Christian tradition, where, you know, part of what you're supposed to be doing is looking for what God wants for you literally looking for God's purpose in your life, that creates an awful lot of stress. And I've seen people struggle with that very idea. How do I know if this thing that I'm doing is part of God's purpose in life? How do I know if buying this house is part of God's purpose for my life? How do I know if marrying this person is part of God's purpose? For my life? I don't feel like I've got a purpose in my life. And here I am just merrily having a family and going to church, you know, shouldn't I be doing something really great. And the I've seen so many people hurts by this very idea. And then you of course, when you deconstruct and you leave Christianity, this question doesn't go away you go, okay. Now what do I do about purpose because it's now embedded into life after decades of teaching, that you need to find a purpose for your life, your life has a purpose. You just need to find it. You know, it's this this whole thing you know, for sit on a mat and look to the dawn and why not just do what you love. If some thing gives you pleasure, do it and enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, it will be purposeful. Yeah, it's and make it as simple as that. And that took someone learning for me. And podcasting, this conversation that having you is actually energizing me, David, I'm loving, I'm really enjoying. And when I have conversations like this on still unbelievable, it energizes me. And sometimes I can come away from the microphone, it can be half past 10 At night, there'll be buzzing. And I have to go grab a hot chocolate, do my old man thing sits in bed, what's on what's on the crime genre and watch something because I need an hour to wind down. And then I get up at six o'clock the next morning to go and do a day's work.

David Ames 35:48
I would definitely say that it's very similar for me. And I was more explicit about this in the early days that I was doing it selfishly, I needed to be able to talk to people about what I was going through, as well. And then this podcast fell into, you know, more of the deconversion stories as the main theme. And that in those early days was just still very important for me to be able to talk about what I was going through as well. And I felt like I got more out of it than the people I was interviewing.

Matthew Taylor 36:21
Yes, I like it when we have an episode. Like that. And I like getting feedback, you know, underneath No, sometimes we have a little ego there that needs a little scratch. So guys, send feedback, do reviews on Amazon, and Spotify and iTunes, do all that kind of thing, because it genuinely scratches us. And it helps us produce content content that you guys like listening to. So please, reviews, reviews, reviews that let's do. That's really great. I love having feedback. It's really good to have had feed feedback from people in various scenarios. And it's even more strange to occasionally get feedback from a Christian saying, Can I have a conversation with you guys? Having an email like that just kind of, does he listen to my back catalogue? Does he?

David Ames 37:12
Yes, yeah.

Matthew Taylor 37:14
So that's why I continue to do it because I find that it motivates me and yeah, I am a busy guy. I do work more than my contracted hours because I'm in a very busy job. And on top of doing this, I do community theater as well. And for anybody who knows what it's like to do amateur dramatics, you know, when it comes up to, to doing a show, you get end up with a very, very busy couple of weeks with rehearsals and technical recur called rehearsals into dress rehearsals and then show it comes along and you literally don't sleep the entire week. Yeah, it's, it's hard, and it wipes me out. Yeah, and I do two shows a year, sometimes three or four shows a year. And that can completely wipe me out. This year I was in wasn't quite in two shows, I was doing front of house for one show, which is a busy job in itself, you know, talking to the community, making sure everybody's got their seats, making sure everybody's got their tickets and all this kind of thing, sorting out any issues that that come up. And that kind of thing is a very different role. Very busy role, very stressful role. And then two weeks after that was in the show. So as you know, it's it can get very, very busy doing that kind of thing. And I'm doing that on while also trying to schedule guests for a podcast, while also doing a full time job. And then, as you've heard a couple of times, I'm still trying to recover from a code that I had when I was on playing when you get over that magical 50 sore throats hang around for a ridiculously long period of time. And it's really, really frustrating.

David Ames 38:57
We've talked a bit about how it affects us. I'm curious how you think our podcasting podcasting in general in the secular world affects the community. And just as a bit of context, when I started I was I was responding to there were lots of angry atheists. There were lots of mostly debates, mostly hostile interactions, and I was interested in having human conversations more more person to person, you know, again, as to use your words, respecting the other person's humanity. And that felt new at that moment. Yeah. And in between then and now. The whole deconstruction movement took place, right? We were kind of at the tail end of the atheist kind of movement and then became this deconstruction movement as it were. And so I'm just curious how you think your podcasts what you and Andrew were doing and are doing has had an impact on that that community?

Matthew Taylor 39:55
Well, let's start with you. I guess we've touched base twins. The 19 must was it was it was it was it 2018 We first exchanged emails, it was around about that period anyway.

David Ames 40:05
Yeah. 2019 Yeah.

Matthew Taylor 40:06
And I've loved listening to your podcast growing in popularity, and I wished if your podcast had existed, when I was deconstructing it would have been an enormous help for me. So I think what your podcast does what the rest of atheist podcast does, is immensely valuable. And I hope it never goes away. Yes, I've heard you say it as well. And yes, not everybody wants to listen to a new deconversion story every week, for some people is a period of time in which it's really helpful. And then then they move on. And I've seen this in the community, some people come, and then they go, No, they've now they've shed their burden. They don't want to dwell in it anymore. And they need to move on.

David Ames 40:56
Yeah, I describe it as either aging out or maturing out. Yeah, it's no longer necessary for that person.

Matthew Taylor 41:01
Let me make it personal for a bit. I'm the eldest of three brothers. We all grew up in the same environment. We all suffered the same traumatic divorce of our parents in Zambia, we're all very familiar with the Zambian missionary environment. Listeners, you're going to have to listen to my original episode where I give more context this, but my two brothers do not talk daily about their past Christian faith. It's not relevant to them. It's not important to them. Yeah, I even talked with my youngest brother, I'm actually going up to see him tomorrow morning to have spent a couple of days with and helping out with this house. I'm really looking forward to a long weekend weekend with him. Yeah. Brothers, we bond. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that time with him. But I did say to him one day, I said, you know, maybe you and I could do a good episode on some belief or talk about our experiences, I'm sure we appreciate it. And he said, you know, they're not interested do not do nothing. And for some people, that's fine. You know, I'm not going to raise the subject, again, is we know, we've had that conversation. Fine. You know, it's, it's pointless me pushing it. Yeah. And because all I do is force him to rethink things that he doesn't care to think about. We've got better brotherly things to talk about which we'll both appreciate. And that's perfectly fine. You know, let's just lay that out there. No, wait, once you come in, and you join this community, you're not bound to it, you know, there, there are no pointy fingers. If you decide that it's not for you anymore, you know, we're not going to continue on condemn you to atheist hell for your turn or torture. Because you, you feel that this isn't serving you anymore. So for some people, the service that our content provides is, is temporary. But for other people, they want to hang around. And for those that hang around, you know, there can be a new role. And the role is holding hands with the newcomers, because there's always people coming in. And that's the one thing I've noticed, is being part of these deconversion deconstruction groups, and watching your podcasts specifically, grow. I'm not going to hint about any kind of jealousy about your podcast becoming really, really popular. I'm not gonna say through any kind of gritted teeth, whatsoever, but I'm really glad that your stories and there are others as well. I can't remember the tales of deconversion. Is that what it's called, or something like

David Ames 43:39
voices of deconversion? Like, which Steve hilliker Like I give him a lot of credit for you know, I'm basically ripping him off and doing what he did.

Matthew Taylor 43:48
But yeah, and it's a necessary thing. And it's nice to see people getting something new out of every episode. And it's nice to see people hang around to help those. But yeah, can you imagine how busy the space would be if every single D converter hung around town to welcoming all the new ones, it will become crowded and it will become untenable. It's perfectly appropriate for those. They've sorted out their deconstruction, grief, they've got to a comfortable place with any trauma they carry. It's time for them to move on because it's no longer good for them. Move on, is there are plenty of people around I think that's why I hang around. Because I've seen a lot of pain. I've experienced a lot of pain. And even now I still learn about things which shocked me and surprised me. So I still want to be around to be a voice for others. And every now and then they'll see somebody will ask a question in one of the deconstruction posts and I'll see some of the replies here and now. Add on saying yes I wouldn't say it was right. That's really good advice or so. Like, you guys have just had the most religious holiday in the United States, your Thanksgiving, weekend. And

David Ames 45:13
tongue in cheek? Yeah.

Matthew Taylor 45:16
What what happens when I noticed it when Thanksgiving comes up, is the deconstruction groups always say, there will be somebody will say help. I've got a parent coming round for the weekend, there's going to be this, there's going to be that, how do I handle this I need, I need something, etc, that's going to happen every single year. And there'll be somebody new every single year with that trauma with that panic. And it needs people to hang around to go, Yeah, I've been there, or your home your rules, you know, you're perfectly entitled to say to the parent, this is my house, you're an adult now. Because some people have a complex relationship with their parents, I've, I've still got I mentioned in that discussion, I still got a complex relationship with my father, I came out to my dad fulcrums, eight years ago now, I think it was atheists in a conversation. I didn't intend to, but the conversation went went into a particular direction. I just went low. We're not going there. I'm atheist. Now that's not happening. And he's not spoken to me about that particular subject again. But I've heard from my brother that he wants to, that he wants to talk me out of my atheism. Right. My brother just said, don't just just don't do it, you know, that will not end well do not have that conversation with Matthew. And my brother was a barrier. But you see, he had that conversation with my brother because he couldn't have it with me. And so even me, and I'm a very confident atheist, I can stand my ground and I will stand my ground if I need to, even to the overbearing parent, I just won't hold back and I will do it. Not everybody has got that confidence. Not everybody is secure to be able to do that. And so they need these forums, they need these groups to say, Help. Has anyone been in this situation? And half a dozen people go? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And they'll give their experiences. So we need those people to hang around, and to pass on the advice. And for those who feel comfortable hanging around, post deconversion. To be to be as part of the hands holding crowd. God bless you people, you are wonderful. You are here to say God bless. unicon bless you wonderful people. You are an asset to this community. Yeah, I did do that on purpose, obviously, David.

David Ames 47:58
So another thing that we share, that's definitely not unique. But it is interesting is that we have believing wives.

Matthew Taylor 48:06
Yes. How did that happen? David, we couldn't invent that. It's, um, it was quite peculiar to find out that we had that in common. And I'm wondering what it is about the spouse of a believer the form that they end up in doing this, what we're doing, isn't that scenario motivation to not do this?

David Ames 48:30
Yeah, it's definitely interesting. Let me address that question in just a second. I want you to talk about your wife and whatever generics or specifics that you want to get into. But my wife is a deep believer, right? If she never put foot in a church again, for the rest of her life, she's probably still going to be a believer. Right. It's internal for her on a super deep level. And I respect her faith, even though I think she's mistaken. All right. Yeah. So like I want to convey like it is about as opposite as you could be. The one thing that we do have going for us is I think politically, we're more aligned. And the two of us really care about people. Yeah. And we both do and in our various different ways. Try to help people and I think it's that shared values that is enabled us to get through what was a pretty rocky period of time going through this transition. When I said I had no longer believed in regards to what makes somebody motivated for this. You know, I think it's, it's in spite of that, like, my biggest concern, when I started was, I didn't want to hurt my wife. I didn't want her to feel attacked or abused. And yet, I had to talk about this stuff I had to because it was killing me. And so, you know, we've come to an uneasy detente, right. I can't say that she's happy about it, but she accepts that this is something that I do, right. Yeah. So I'm curious what your experience has been like. My

Matthew Taylor 50:00
wife would probably echo exactly the same things that you've said about your own. So we are very much aligned. And yes, it would kill me not shut up, I am very much a dog with a bone kind of personality. I wouldn't say that I was necessarily intellectual, but I like intellectual challenge. I like I like consuming scientific content. And I like discourse. And I like challenge. And doing still unbelievable and doing it with Andrew fulfills so much of that. And I love it. And I love listening to the other various atheist and some Christian podcast as well. I really enjoy consuming that content as well as creative. But all the things here, yes, it's uncomfortable as well. And my deconstruction was marred with fear. I genuinely believed that my deconversion at the point where I got to the point where I was fairly sure it was inevitable. I genuinely believed that would spell the end to marriage that I didn't want to end. And that, despite everything else, ignoring everything else, that little snip it in on itself is traumatizing, and fear inducing, and even paralyzing. Yeah. And when you go and read blog, after blog after blog of somebody in the same situation, and every single one of them is the marriages have failed. The attrition rate of marriages in this space is frighteningly high. You and I have gone against the odds, let's be open and honest about that. And yes, part of it is my wife and I are politically aligned. Politics has shifted over the last 20 years, and it's shifted in the same direction. We are very much aligned on an awful lot of things. And my wife's job is for a charity here in this part of the UK, which coordinates mentoring. So adults mentoring, usually teenagers who are in a problematic scenario and helping those teenagers to develop and foster a mature relationship with an adult, somebody they can confide in, who they can trust, who can give them adult advice, who has got the backing of professionals, if there should be anything problematic. And she finds that immensely fulfilling. And we talk about that actually tells me about a job an awful lot. And I'm interested in the job. And I'm interested in the technicalities and the things that are achieved in that job and off the back of doing that job she's doing. She's done one degree in child psychology, she's just started a second. And, you know, that is massively for funding for end, we are both on the same page with regards to the need for that. And I'm quite happy with whatever way I can to support her in doing that, so there is much for us to celebrate together. We don't she might. She might disagree, but we don't inverted commas need Christianity to in order to create a successful marriage. And I think that's why we've managed, it's not been easy. It's not been smooth sailing. And in the past 10 years. I'm obviously not going to go detail on these specifics. I'm not going to say anything about my wife that might later regret. But the conversation of separation did come up at some point during there. And we did talk it through and discern it didn't go didn't progress very far. We decided it was really nothing that either of us particularly wanted to stomach. Neither of us was in a mindset where it was something we wanted to seriously progress. And so it just really didn't go anywhere. It was a very short conversation, not to be brought up again. So don't read so this this please don't read too much into I've probably talked more about this than we actually talked about it. Don't Don't read too much into that. But I would like to say that for the Christian spouse of somebody who leaves. Life can be hard life can be difficult. I remember as a 20 something or going to church and knowing women at church whose husbands weren't believers, and they would come to church and they will come to church events and the husband was never there. Now remember, pitying those women and there is no better description of the patronizing attitude we took to those women then to at them, you know, why couldn't we treat them as individuals are their own rights? You know, they they don't they don't exist for their husband to be there with them. They are a person, they're an individual in their own right. Why couldn't we have treated them as persons and individuals in their own right? Why did we look at them as if they were incomplete? Because her husband wasn't coming to church? Now? What a shocking way to look at it. But my experience my decision for lack of a better word, although,

you know, we could talk about that I, it wasn't a decision, but let's just call it a decision. For the time being,

my decision has forced my wife into that scenario. Right. And she doesn't enjoy it. Let's be honest about that. She has responsibilities and church, she occasionally preaches a church, but she is that woman at church without a spouse? Yeah. And if people in the church pair up in couples to go out and socialize, she suddenly finds that she's intentionally or otherwise excluded, possibly because she's overlooked. Or if there'll be a conversation with somebody, and it's happened on more than one occasion, she will be talking with somebody at church who's relatively new. And they'll have seen Sarah up at the front of the church, either preaching or doing some other parts of the service. And they'll say to her, they said Mr. Taylor, yeah. And then chesco Now what what answer do I give now, you know, how much detail is safe to give to this individual? Yeah. And it creates a hell in church, for for those spouses. It's not pleasant for them. And, but I can't set foot in a church on a weekly basis, it's, it's not something that's pleasant for me. I've got other things I'd rather be doing. I'm usually editing a podcast when she's at church on on Sunday morning. And, and so it creates this, this, this inner conflict within each of us, I know that I've condemned her to this. And she knows that sometimes she'll have a less than pleasant experience at church purely because there isn't a man by her side. And for many, many spouses of the converted person, this is the hell of going to church. And I don't have an answer to that particular, maybe it's not mine to solve, maybe it's churches need to find a way to solve that. So, you know, sometimes in the deconstruction space, we can talk about us, and our trauma of deconversion. And our fear of leaving. But there are casualties that we cause as part of that journey as well. It's not our fault, I want to be very quick on that. It isn't our fault, that there are casualties now, and those people are wrong to blame us for what's happened. But that is sometimes how they feel. And that is the side effect of that. And we need to have compassion for those Christians in our lives. And Sarah and I are still navigating that. Incidentally, I need to say this, I went on to the grateful atheist YouTube channel. And because I was on it in 2019, and then my wife in beginning of 2020, she's got more than three times the number of views of her YouTube is something this is not a good place to be. If you've got an ego, that's just putting

David Ames 58:38
you know, we are quite entangled. So I did interview your wife, I thought that was really good conversation. I thought that she was really courageous to come on to the podcast, that was a brave thing to do. And then my wife listened to your wife's episode is maybe the only episode she's listened to. And then I had my wife on in I think it was late 2020. I don't think she'll ever do it again. Yeah, but it was interesting, like that interact, interaction, her hearing, Sarah story was part of that.

Matthew Taylor 59:08
I would love to have a conversation with a spouse of a D converted, unbelieving spouse of a D converted person. It doesn't have to be your wife. But if you if you or any listener has any context to a believing partner, who would love to, I would love to flesh out the things that I've just been talking about, about the experience of the Christian. I think Sarah is very much have the same mindset as your wife. Yeah, it's, I'm too close. I'm, I'm too personal. It would be inappropriate for me to even ask Sarah, to have that conversation with me live on air. This is something that's personal between us. I would never ask and I wouldn't I probably wouldn't even want it if I'm honest. But if somebody does have believing spouse, gender is unimportant, to talk through this kind of experience to see where how They judge what I've just said, and how we navigate this kind of thing. But it's it's a difficult situation. And so many people come into these deconversion groups with a believing partner. And some of the stories have genuinely moved me to tears, you know, marriages disintegrating in deeply unpleasant tones. And it's horrific to read and watch. That pain that must happen. It just touches the fears that I had 10 years ago, 10 plus years ago. And yes, those those experiences are still very real for people and those people. We need to work out a way to love people through that particular trauma. Because it's got to be the worst part of this kind of experience.

David Ames 1:00:46
Yeah, I would be interested in talking to more spouses, as well, or partners of any kind. But to hear their perspective also.

Matthew Taylor 1:00:55
Maybe we could probably do it as a duo. Actually, David, I think that would probably work really well. You could be my Andrew for a day, and I'm sure. Very pleasant. So Jay, this is a genuine request to people listening to this. If you know somebody who could be there, please get in touch with David via all the contact details that he gives. On your show, I think it'd be a genuinely worthwhile conversation.

David Ames 1:01:18
Matthew, I think we could keep talking for a long time, but actually want to end on this note, because I think what we've just talked about was just really important. But I do want to give you a moment to again, plug your podcasts and how can people get in touch with you? Wow,

Matthew Taylor 1:01:31
okay. Yeah, so still unbelievable is where to find me any other podcasts associated with my name is, is probably unsafe to search for because they might not exist anymore. So search, still unbelievable or recent press dot there. Matthew Taylor is a depressingly common name. So try not to search Matthew Taylor on the internet, you'll find all sorts of other people. I had a very strange experience listening to to one podcast and it was a new evangelicals podcast, and introduced a guest Dr. Matthew Taylor talking about something to do with deconversion. I'm gonna say, Okay, it's not me from when I certainly don't have a doctorate. So that's the best place or recent press@gmail.com is the email address to use, or friendly mail or hate mail if necessary. You can contact me using that way. I love being in this space. I love having feedback. I love having the conversations with people. So but yeah, so I listened to a ridiculous number of various podcasts of all stripes and things to to create the content that I do for still unbelievable. Thank

David Ames 1:02:45
you, Matthew for being back on the podcast. It was amazing to get back in touch. Really appreciate it.

Matthew Taylor 1:02:50
Thank you, David always

David Ames 1:02:58
final thoughts on the episode. As Matthew points out, still unbelievable. And the work that he has done has really been an anti apologetics perspective. He calls himself spiky. But one of the things I loved about re listening to our conversation from 2018. And this conversation is just how much Matthew cares about people and that just comes out in in particular people who are in the middle of the deconstruction process, and the empathy that he has for that process having gone through it himself. One of the most important topics that we discussed is being married to believers, and how much we respect our spouses. I know that many of you are in unequally yoked relationships in one form or another. And that is a very, very difficult topic. A shout out again to Matthew's wife, Sarah, who did come on the podcast that was amazing. My wife who came on the podcast as well, even though I know that was incredibly difficult. I want to thank Matthew for being on the podcast on this 200th Podcast. I really appreciate Matthew's perspective. And he has been a fantastic friend. Thank you so much, Matthew. For the secular grace, thoughts of the podcast, it is about humanism. This podcast has been from day one about humanism, being human, embracing our own humanity, embracing the humanity of others. And part of that is recognizing my personal humanity. As I mentioned a few months back between work and family life, all of these are good things. I've had less and less time for the podcast. So it is time for a break. That break will be for an indeterminate amount of time, and not sure how long but I know that I'll come back For this, I know that this is not the end, this is not goodbye. This is until we hear each other next time. I have loved doing this podcast, we've done it for almost five years. Now, as we mentioned earlier, the 200th episode, could not have done it without Mike T, doing all the editing without Arline, doing interviews, managing the community, and 1000 other things. And most of all, has been amazing talking to you. As I said, in my conversation with Matthew, I started this for selfish reasons, I needed to talk about it myself. And I just hope that somebody else might be interested. And I cannot believe to this day, how many of you have listened over the years. And also, as we mentioned in the conversation, how many of you have grown out of it? That's fantastic. That's a best case scenario. And I'm really, really grateful for all of that. So I have some ideas about when I come back, I want to reset just a bit back to a focus on humanism. I'll talk about this more in the next episode, which again, indeterminate amount of time when that will be. I also believe that the podcast will go into seasons, rather than being year long, doing maybe three months sessions, spring and fall, something like that something that's maintainable and not quite as exhausting. But I have a number of ideas for future episodes already kind of planning those in my head. And when I feel invigorated again, to do them, you will hear them here. For those of you who are Patreon supporters, again, I 100% give you the freedom to cancel that support. I cannot promise how often episodes will come out going forward. And those were not the original terms in which you began supporting the podcast. If you do stick around if you do decide that you'd like to continue to support the podcast, that's fantastic. I will use that will continue to do the zoom for the community, as well as future production value for the podcast itself. As a year end to 2023 and the hiatus and break for the podcast I just want to say thank you to you the listeners for being here participating being a part of the community. That is why I podcast. Until next time, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human. The beat is called waves by MCI beats. 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 part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Sara: Christian Humanism

Bloggers, Deconstruction, ExVangelical, Humanism, Mental Health, Podcast, Religious Humanist, Spiritual But Not Religious

This week’s guest is Sara. Sara grew up in a Canadian Mennonite community and embraced it wholeheartedly. She was surrounded by evangelical Christianity and she thrived.

As a young adult, she married and followed her husband into ministry. While he led, she helped as was expected of her. It didn’t occur to her until years later how little her own leadership skills had to be set aside.

Sara’s husband started deconstructing his beliefs before she did, but as he was learning, she was also learning. Years later, she knew he’d become an atheist before he did.

It wasn’t easy, but they made space for one another to learn and grow and move down their own paths. Today, Sara is a spiritual director for others and doesn’t have a specific label for herself, and it works just fine.

“There’s a whole host of ways of being in the world…”

Links

Sara’s website
https://prairiethistle.ca/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/prairiethistle

Recommendations

Richard Rohr

Carl Jung

Kathleen Norris

Thomas Keating

Thomas Merton

Interact

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
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 a graceful atheist. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. We have a merchandise store on T public, you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there, the link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of 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 this week's guest Sarah. Sarah grew up in Canada in a Mennonite community that also had a lot of evangelical influence. Her and her husband were both deeply committed Christians, her husband deconstructed and D converted first. And Sarah began to deconstruct her faith. Sarah is still a spiritual person, and does not care for labels. But what she is describing is a Christian or a spiritual humanism. Here is Arline interviewing Sarah.

Arline 1:50
Right. Welcome to the graceful atheists.

Sara 1:53
Thank you. Good to be here.

Arline 1:55
You and I have chatted, we're both in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group. You are the lovely spouse of one of our former guests. And yeah, I'm just excited I get to talk to you.

Sara 2:07
I'll take it. I'll take it.

Arline 2:10
Okay, so we usually just start tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in.

Sara 2:16
Sure. So I grew up in small town, Manitoba, Canada, and that is a cold place. But it was full of warm hearted people. For me, growing up growing up Evangelical, Mennonite, Christian, so I'm not sure who's all familiar with Mennonite people out there. But a lot of people in the States could think of Amish people for a first comparison. We still have people groups in that tradition up here with the bonnet and and the old fashioned dress, the modest dress, but mostly progressive communities. So modern communities, full of evangelical based Mennonite Christians. So that's how I grew up, was just being ushered into the faith. So I've learned the term cradle Christian. And that definitely applies to me. So I remember I remember being told that I said the center's prayer around age four. So you know, in in smack at the age of innocence, just reciting, reciting to my parents at bedtime, the sinners prayer and thus becoming a Christian. And my parents describe to me, our faith, our family history as culturally, we came from Mennonites, but our faith was more progressive. So we did attend a non denominational church in our community, which of course was full of evangelicals. So non denomination or not, that's that's what I grew up in and really embraced wholeheartedly. The faith. And so for me that looks like let's see if I can age myself. Date. give you guys a date reference in the 90s. Growing up as a teenager, a little bit of purity culture, a lot of the youth rallies, evangelical, mainstream musicians and concerts. A lot of the culture that I was involved in was all Christian so from morning to sundown, was Christian media and Christian teaching. You did not go to Christian school, we had public school, but really was not exposed to other ways of life or other faiths or other cultures. I'm really just, what's the word one tone, just a uniform tone in our in our small town at least. And I guess you could say I, I wasn't popular, growing up, but I was good. And in the Christian circles that made one feel pretty secure and the affirmation of elders and peers was something that I enjoyed and sought and was rewarded with, because of being good. And I, I was really good at being a Christian and enjoyed it. And I do, I would say, I was lucky that we did grow up, I would say more progressive. And the purity culture, stuff that that did come around indoctrinated a lot of the younger teenagers younger than me at the time. And I didn't get hit with with too much of that guilt messaging. But as a grew up into young adulthood, I, I took the opportunity, of course, and to take the next step from being a good Christian in my small town to being a good Christian in a small college, a small Christian College. So our community has Christian College, about seven minutes away from the town. And so that was my big leap forward out of high school, into the big wide, wide world, seven minutes down the gravel road, away from my house where I grew up my whole youth. And at this school, I would say I did receive, again, a more progressive Christian evangelical education. So in that way, continued to avoid some of the more the pitfalls, some of the more abusive messaging, I would say that the messaging I received was, stay on the straight and narrow and listen to your elders. And, and really, the the messaging Other than that, was, you know, that, that women were submissive to men. But that was never really something that that was something that I struggled with. And it was never rammed down our throats, maybe because nobody questioned it. So regardless of why the messaging didn't seem that traumatic for me. It did enable me to keep mostly an open mindset, I guess. So it was at this Christian College, that I would say, I continue to learn a more open minded and open hearted way of being a person of faith.

I did go on to to take a marketing degree, somewhere else and return to work at this college. And the the marketing challenge that I was presented with when I worked there was very interesting to me because the school was transitioning from I'm not sure what they would have been called beforehand, but they were embracing what was called a liberal arts, education. And so the liberal arts in our area of Canada, all people heard was the word liberal. And they thought this, this college was off the rails and that that was it. However, how I understood it then, and how I understand it now is liberal arts is just a wide range of studies. It's a broad spectrum, education, that's what they were seeking to provide. So I would contrast that with other colleges where the religious messaging is heavy handed and inescapable, and in as much as this college wasn't perfect, they did present as far as I understood it a more open way of being. So as I transitioned from attending the college to You know, ending up working there, I met my husband there. And he was, you guessed it a very good Christian. At the time, we were well matched, both of us wanting to be not just good Christians, but leaders in our community. So leading, as someone who worked at the college, was what I was fully embracing. And my husband eventually ended up working in ministry. We were volunteering at our church multiple times per week, he was volunteering and working full time with youth. And that was always interesting to me, as well as he was fully whose full time employed in ministry. And I was expected to come and help. And this was a fully unpaid understanding was that I would be there to support and help but also lead and teach teenage girls and be a mentor to them. And I didn't quest question it, I enjoyed it. I felt that there was room for me as a strong, outspoken woman to have leadership skills. It wasn't until later that I would realize that in all of that, the ability to fully use my voice, my intellect, was still completely under the the leadership of others, especially under the leadership of men. So from there, we had started a family, we had a young family, and I would say, a catalyst to our growth. My husband and I would be when we did start a family, one of the things about having children having a baby, what is the the expression, having your heart, on the outside, walking around in the world, having having your heart outside of you walking around in the world, we both experienced that intense vulnerability that comes with realizing we're not in control. We leave, pray to and believe in and trust in this big, omnipotent God. And yet, there is there suffering in the world, and there are things that can happen to your loved ones. So the problem of, of pain, the problem of suffering, the fear of not being in control, or wondering why there's a God that would allow suffering, we did have few intense health scares with our first with our first child. So that really prompted both of us this question of what kind of god is this, that we believe and we started to question a little deeper? Hey, what's up with?

The questioning, I would say lead to my husband D converting first. So the deconversion of one spouse when the other isn't ready or hasn't made the same types of growth or the same direction of growth. That's something that we confronted early on, I would say my husband found it difficult to tell me what he was going through for fear of what I would say, and just not necessarily fear, but the the intense, honest discomfort that comes with realizing your spouse and you are, are different and growing differently. And my husband at the time was studying Christian psychology and pursuing his master's in Christian counseling. A lot of the benefit of being a spouse of a student is that you you learn a little bit alongside with them, definitely not to the same extent that he was learning, receiving the training directly, but watching and watching the books that he'd bring home and hearing him talk about what he was learning did benefit me as well. And, and I knew he was questioning and and I did question. A lot of the things I was told from the Bible as well, when one of the areas that we immediately agreed on was the area of the Bible as a book, a literature book, and for context, how it was put together and who wrote it and when and why and learning about the different types of literature contained within this book. Being open to the Bible as Miss being open to portions of the Bible as poetry, and art. We eventually realize that the Bible being the be all and end all, it, it didn't strike us the same way as it used to, using the Bible as a rule book. Using the Bible as law at more than just as a place to find messaging about values, just using it as the foundation for everything for all sources of thought, was not something that we could both condone. I was, I would say, I was very at peace. With that, as you could probably tell. Living in the headspace and questioning and learning and embracing my intellect is not something that I would say that I naturally gravitate toward. That's not me. I, I was always the one who would say I have the gift of faith. I don't question I just believe I, I just know. And even as we were growing and changing, it didn't seem very unrestful to me, because we were still good Christians. We were still going to church, we were still leading in the community. And we also experienced some freedom in what my husband was doing in his ministry, where we were learning about evangelicalism as relational. Instead of, we called it we call it relational instead of vacuum cleaner salesman, evangelicalism. So instead of saying, you know, upfront, hey, we're here were Christian, you should be to Why aren't you one? Here's how you can be one Why aren't you and yet very heavy handed salesmanship. We embrace relationship. First, I, I would describe this as an immature way of knowing that love is more important than law. And we wouldn't have had the words for it then. But we were thankfully supported to continue to do ministry. Without being heavy handed. Or I would use the word abusive now we we were able to be loving in as much as providing religious propaganda in central rural, small town Manitoba can be loving. So I would say, my I knew my husband had become atheists before he did. I remember that conversation on our, on our hosts, we're both are on our coach. We're both night owls. We were staying up way too late having one of our discussions like we do. And maybe I wasn't being the most loving at the time. But, but I remember telling him after he he'd told me for a few years, he was agnostic Christian, which then I had to look that up and make sure that I knew what that meant. And at the time, I could say, okay, yeah, I understand agnosticism, and being able to say that I hold a view of God or what is out there and I don't know for sure. And there are there are more learned and technical definitions than that. The way I understood it very simply was this is what I think I believe, but I may be wrong and I hold that opinion loosely.

So for him to tell me for years, he was agnostic, Christian, I was fine with. And I looked at him one night and I said, you're not you're not agnostic, Christian, you're agnostic atheist. And that that term that's a laden term. So for anyone, and I think I know your audience pretty well, there's probably a lot of people out there who for a long time, that term atheist was so laden with guilt and fear and condemnation. And it was probably the worst thing that could happen to someone was who they've turned into an atheist. And so for me at the time, even though our, our growth as people our development as people was heading in that direction, it definitely scared me. And I think more so than the label was just the implication for our partnership. And the questions that that would raise, how would we raise our kids? How would we celebrate the holidays, the really practical ins and outs of having partnership between two people where their faiths are so different. And for the next year or two after that, I would say my growth continued. But I wouldn't say necessarily the same direction. And now, this is probably where it might get interesting. Because as much as I could look at what I believed and and see that the term agnostic fit with me as well agnostic Christian, I couldn't quite embrace the term atheist. And, and so that's kind of where we parked for a long time. As we both continued to grow, my husband getting more and more comfortable with the term agnostic atheist, eventually found his way to community Bihu humanist Canada, the community of humans Canada, and, and so for him to announce to me that he had become a humanist. That was the next step in in his growth and I still felt I still felt a little left behind, I still felt a little bit like, that wasn't the right direction for me. I did look into humanism for a while and try it on the label of Christian humanist. And I wrote a few essays, developing the idea and, and show making a case for Christian humanism, which I believe there is a case for that type of belief. But along along the way, of my, my studying on my own, not professionally, just casually, I'm pursuing my own topics and books that that kind of served me on my growth path. I realized that I didn't like any of this anymore. Any of these labels. I didn't like the Christian label. I didn't fit the atheist label. I didn't fit the humanist label. I didn't fit the deist label, see theist label. I every label that that someone suggested to me or put on me, I just there was always something that didn't quite fit about it, and portions of it would fit and others wouldn't. And I struggled with feeling about, you know, where did that leave me? What type of community did that leave me with? And then COVID Hit COVID I feel like that's every single story these days or every single interview. There's the point in their history and then COVID. So, the loss of community was happening for me before COVID And the first year of COVID in our small town, cemented my husband and I are shared need to be out to be out of the church. or there was not really a path forward for us that continued to see us. In the church, I was working in communications at the time, I was actually a small town journalist, small town journalism at the beginning of COVID, when all of our governments were doing what they were doing and doing what they could, what they thought they needed to do during the beginning of COVID. And, and I was also on the communications team for our church, and realize that I needed distance from the church, and COVID eventually became a gift. The, the quarantining the bubbling, the distance from the community became a space to breathe. And I know it's cliche. But there's people who would say, there's more people now that would say, they're not a Christian, they're still a Jesus follower. And that's where I saw myself, Jesus follower for a while. And eventually, I wouldn't say that that part has necessarily fallen off. But I started to find other ways of finding information and finding community and finding teaching, outside of Christianity outside of the Christology that I had grown up with. That just made sense. And once you find things that just make sense, you can't go back.

What I deconstructed from is easier to define evangelical Christianity is what I deconstructed from. And I would definitely say D converted from. And we haven't found our way back to a church, there's no plans in the future to return to a church. That's not a healthy environment. For us. It's not where we find that there's life giving activity for us. And what I've reconstructed to is harder to define. So I think I'll leave it there, as far as giving you a history of where I've come from and where I where I'm at. So

Arline 28:05
I have a few questions. Yes. You said there were. There were other ways that you found. I'm not sure the words that you use, but like other ways of thinking about things that you found, what do you have any examples of some of the the no longer Christian things that you were finding that were helpful to you?

Sara 28:27
Yes, there were some big ones that ended up being my non negotiables. One of the first ones that I had to turn away from was the term would be complementarianism. The idea that the genders the idea, first of all, that there's two genders, and that one is subordinate to the other. That became a no fly zone for me in a no go zone. It just did not add up. And the way I rebuilt from that was finding, first of all, a healthy dose of feminist theology. Once I immersed myself in feminist theology, and knew that it wasn't wrong, it was biblically supported. And more than that, it was holistically healthy for women to be seen as equals and operate in the world as equals. I could not subscribe to a church or faith tradition that views women as less than men. So I've constructed the, the author that that helped me the most, I would say would be Rosemary Radford rather. And she's a medical All Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever labels can we give to her? Eco eco theologian, feminist theologian. She passed away just a few years ago, after a lengthy career in writing and pursuing theology and teaching. And of course, it can't remember the the Catholic school she was at. Come on brain. But she she her writing very technically heavy, theologically textbook key. It gripped me and provided for me something to set my back against, so that I didn't need to just say I don't think that it's correct that women are subordinate to men. Now I have some theology that made sense to me now, now that I've come to where I am. I wish I could say I've picked up a lot more non religious feminism. There's no authors for me to name drop there. And that's on my list of things to continue pursuing.

The idea of health? No, that was. So the idea of health as an eternal place of torment became something I could no longer believing, and turning toward more progressive ideas of universal universalism became a way for me to stay as a Christian. And as I continue to grow, the idea that everyone is loved. It's an idea that transcends religion, it transcends Christianity. And the Universalist theology made sense to me. But just a mindset of love and acceptance. You don't need a textbook to flesh that idea out. So the idea that we're all connected and all okay, and loved. That was something that kept me growing. And interestingly enough, I would say the idea of time. And now now's where, you know, I don't put my foot in my mouth over this issue. But I started to find issues representative in science, physics, the study of matter and energy became extremely fascinating to me. And realizing that a, a spiritual being attached to a concept of time that we as humans could possibly begin to understand was, it became evident to me that in my tradition of Christian evangelicalism, the concept of linear time had to be upheld in order for the concept of morality and goodness and final judgment. To make those concepts possible, you had to hold up this linear version of time. And I didn't like that it didn't sit well with me.

Arline 34:09
Interesting. I thought of that. But yeah, that makes sense. There has to be an end. And then a hell. Yeah, well, yeah.

Sara 34:17
So to realize that our universe is growing and expanding, and that the Christian God doesn't fit with science. That became something that I needed to dig into my husband being the more intellectual one and challenged me in that regard. A lot. And it became kind of fun because we would often read articles or or read books. He had read the whole thing, I would just read portions of it. But who did we enjoy Carl Sagan? Neil deGrasse Tyson. There's more I try to remember who else we've read. And I'm not so good with names all the time. At Anyway, the game that we would play between the two of us was that he would read article based on physics and say, See, there is no God. And I would read the same article, and I would say, See, God is so much bigger than how we understood.

Arline 35:35
That's amazing. I love that chocolate have that conversation. And it's fascinating to watch. Two people read the same thing. And yes, the interpretation, the takeaway, the inferences are different. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So when you say earlier, you said, like, we're all we're all okay. And we're loved. I don't I don't even know how to ask this question like, is it a by whom? Or is it just like an inherent worthiness? Or is there a god? Little G quotation marks? Or is it still like up in the air because you don't have to have integers and all that good stuff.

Sara 36:15
For me, it's still up in the air I like for someone who I would describe myself and others, of course, would would agree with me, and call me an all or nothing person for someone who was an all or nothing person. Faith for me has not become an all or nothing. Zone. And I guess what I'm trying to say is, I still use the term God. But what I'm talking about what I believe in, is not what Christians the way I understand them, I would say 99.99% of the Christians I grew up with, they would not understand if I just use the word God. Rosemary Radford brother suggests, for the sake of egalitarianism, of course, she suggests using on paper anyway, it doesn't translate very well to, to spoken word, but she recommends using the term Gods slash depths. So capital God slash d s, s, to represent both genders of God.

Arline 37:34
Okay, got it. Okay, I

Sara 37:36
see it. Yeah, I enjoy that. But also, I don't view God as both male and female. And I don't view God as a God is gender less. That is another way of looking at God, I don't, that doesn't resonate with me, I finally landed on God being gender full. So as the spectrum of gender becomes something that science and the Western society as we understand, it begins to wrap their heads around, realizing that if one believes in God, I believe God is gender full. And I started creating a document for myself as a writer, as a researcher, I've started creating a document for myself to collect names for God, I'm not happy with any of them. And there are some that I like more than others. So in when you dig into the different traditions, surrounding God, capital God is, is what Christians are comfortable with. Jewish tradition, not writing the name of God and seeing the name of God as being holy, and not even capturable. In in a written form that intrigues me terms like the, the great mystery, the divine, the source of all being the ground of all being the most ancient parents. There's some poetical language and some scientific language for God that really resonates with me. And I think that's indicative of, you know, again, not needing to be fully in or fully out. So The way I see God is that source of love, that connection, the the embodiment of the whole way of approaching and enacting and being part of love. To me, that's God.

Arline 40:20
I have a hard time separating the word God from the stuff that I was taught, I have enjoyed or liked to see, when I was on my way out and didn't know I was on my way out. But I was just reading different books, I was reading Anne Lamott squirt, like her more explicitly Christian stuff. And she always talked about God, and called her. And she. And that was fun for me, that just little experience of the feminine pronouns for what I had always thought of as masculine God. And again, I didn't know I was on my way out. But that was, that was a nice little change. Eventually, it shifted. And I liked the idea of goddesses until I read about a bunch of the goddesses and I like, they're all heifers, I don't like any of them. Like, they're all just terrible. And for me, I don't believe in gods and goddesses and things like that. And at the same time, I like the idea of just some kind of whatever the reason is that love seems to be so important for humans, for primates for animals, to to exist well, for our species to keep going like this. It does as well, when we cooperate and are kind and loving, and all these kinds of things. So I love that I'm like, prepare for that.

You in Your un hubs. He's his ADSL. And you are your unlabeled, wonderful self. How did how are the conversations these days? Do you guys just let one another? Do whatever works for you? Is there any conflict? How did you decide about raising kids and holidays? And all those things you mentioned earlier? Once you guys just are have to figure that out? Or are you still figuring it out?

Sara 42:19
Yeah, we're still figuring it out. There's, there's no right or wrong way to do this. So we do feel a lot of freedom. In that regard. A lot of our conflict has dissipated, I think the confusion or fear about what each other believes, or why or how it's going to impact us a lot of that has just dissipated with with time when you're in it, it's scary. And when you've been in it a long time, it's not scary anymore. And we, for how strong willed both of us are, we did find a way to let each other be ourselves and let each other grow, how we would grow. And for me that ended up looking like after experiencing the loss of community, I didn't want to stop growing, I didn't want to stop trying to find people who were like minded. One of the authors that I had picked up earlier in my deconstruction was Kathleen Norris. And for someone coming out of an evangelical tradition, just to be exposed to a writer, for me who represented feminism and an open minded, open hearted way of being but someone who had been an atheist and came back into the church and why was very interesting to me. How she seemed to retain an intellectual integrity and open her heart up to what ways what ways she could grow as a human. And so her book. The cloister walk was one of the first ones that I read, and in her frustration with the church community that she was just kind of finding her way back into. Those were the same frustrations that I had found were leading me out of the church, and I thought both trajectories were AOK Kay. And that that felt good. That amount of acceptance, felt good frustration, vocalized healthily can lead to making healthy steps and choices, away from away from abusive situations away from dogmatic theology away from confinement into more open minded ways of experiencing the world. And from there, she helped introduce me to the Benedictine way of living, which to me was a delightful way of incorporating spirituality. Without the heavy handedness of what I'd experienced in evangelicalism, which is so funny because you think about monks, living in community with rigid rules and expectations. And how could that be a place of more freedom than the modern church, and without judgment, I just say that that's, that's a mirror for the Western Church to be looking at themselves through, that's for sure. When a life of a status ism, become becomes the, the way of freedom. It just ended up fascinating me what I ended up doing to continue to pursue studies and growth while my husband was finishing, not a counseling, Master's in Counseling in a Christian school, he was finishing a Master's of Science in, in a secular university. While he was finishing that I ended up looking into taking courses and studies in what I would eventually know as spiritual direction. So through the Benedictine community, close to where I live, they offered a two year certificate in spiritual direction. But what interested me most what fascinated me about what they offered was the open handed way of offering what they knew with a take it or leave it, gentle kind of way of offering spiritual study. So the program ended up being something that I couldn't take until COVID hit and it could be fully operational online, and suddenly became something that fit into our lifestyle. And what I was able to make work was my schedule. And the the program itself being open to anyone from any faith from any spiritual tradition became something that was very important to me. So I didn't want more Christian education. I wanted spiritual education. I wanted to know if I'm not a Christian, what else is there? What can I still be? And for me, that program really helped to answer a lot of those questions. But more importantly, it showed me which questions served me and which questions didn't. Questions that resulted in closed thinking or closed loop answers. Let's just say the Benedictines are not great at those questions. They're good at the kind of questions that leave you asking more questions.

Arline 49:37
And

Sara 49:39
to me, yeah, to me that represented the freedom to arrive where you're going to arrive in your spiritual journey, whether that is to remain a Christian or not. And whether that's to be a humanist or not, or an eight atheist as long as the way of being in the world is loving and open. That seemed to be okay. And, and I liked that. Yeah,

Arline 50:17
like love and kindness and the things that are mostly universal. I don't know if they are fully universal, but that most society see as very important and very necessary yet again for us to thrive. They're not inherently Christian, they're not owned by Christianity like, and even within Christianity. There's so many different versions of it, we're exposed to this one. Very Evan Jellicle. White, I would say North American in the nine different countries, North American version of Christianity, Western, I guess. And like you were talking about the Benedictines and then there are there's Orthodox churches, and I mean, just Christianity looks very different in different places, and spirituality looks different. And I love that you've been able to figure out like, what feels best and is right for you. And knowing that we have that kind of freedom and relief, the more constricting Hi, what's the word? Hi something religions, high demand religion?

Is there anything I should have asked, we have a few more minutes or anything I should have asked but that you want to talk about.

Sara 51:47
Just trying to think if there's any more pieces of the puzzle that would lend any clarity. If if I would just name another author that helped me on my journey. Anyone looking for further reading. If there if, if any of your listeners are, are still deconstructing still in the process of D converting, because as I mentioned, I'm, I'm not a black and white thinker anymore. It's not a switch that gets flipped. I'm a Christian, and then flip the switch. Now I'm not the spectrum of faith is wide. And Thomas Keating, helped me on my way, as far as presenting an open minded theology that insisted that science be involved, and included and important in a holistic way of being in a way of being a spiritual human. There's no conflict with looking at the way the world is made and coming up with new ways to think about it and new language to talk about it. Thomas Merton, another Thomas, from from Thomas Merton's righteous anger, in the 60s, and his writing. And just one of his final lectures, admonishing people, encouraging people exhorting people to be open to language to learning about, you know, why do we say the things that we do about God? And why is it written that way? And where did that come from? And hey, doesn't this tradition in Christian meditation mirror that in Eastern religions and, and from there, I talked myself into some Buddhist studies for a while, and, and from from, you know, realizing the practices of Buddhism, the commitment to lessening the suffering of others, and how that's not in conflict with, with Christianity with, with how I want to live, and realizing that truth is truth. I know that's a loaded word these days, that everyone claiming to have the capital are real, capital T truth. And realizing that, even though it's subjective, you'll know it and you'll know with whom you share your definition of God, you'll know with whom you share your definition of love, you'll know with whom you share your diff admission of truth if you hold that openly and yeah,

Arline 55:08
leave it there. Yes, that's a lovely place to end. Sarah Thank you so much for being on the podcast I would ask for recommendations for girl you name drop. So many fantastic authors and books that people can find who are still, who still Christians like Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, Richard Richard Rohr.

Sara 55:31
Richard roars in there, anyone with a psychotherapy bent or psychology bent? Carl Jung Jung, in fact, psychology has been really formative for me as well. And yeah, just realizing that there's a whole host of authors, there's a whole host of ways of being in the world that aren't Christian, as in it, you know, being pegged being in the box it and it's okay, and it's scary at first. But once you're out there, it's wide, open and wonderful.

Arline 56:11
How can people find you online? If you're doing the spiritual direction? Is there a way people can find you?

Sara 56:17
Yeah, I do spiritual direction. I also just write my own reflections on life and the world and deconstruction. So I have a website called the prairie thistle, tours that are really hard to spell it. I don't know why I picked them, but just spell check, and you'll find it WWW dot prairie fissile.ca.ca. Because I'm in Canada. So yeah, okay.

Arline 56:41
Well, we'll put we'll put all the links in the show notes so people can find it. And thank you again, for being on the podcast here. This is lovely. Thank you, Arline.

My final thoughts on the episode. So when I've already talked to someone and gotten to know them, I get really excited when I get to speak with them on the podcast, because I just know they're lovely and wonderful. And I get excited. And Sarah was no exception. It was such a great conversation. She's so kind and gentle spoken and I just, I could listen to her forever. Go, you need to narrate some books. There you go. There's your future job. My final thoughts on the episode. There are so many, I don't know to call them universal truths, because I'm sure there are places where this things are not absolutely true. But like, it seems for humans to survive as a species and for us to survive interstitially with other animals and plants, fungi, the whole earth, like love, kindness, cooperation, empathy, like there's so many things that seem to be integral for us. No matter where we live, like Christianity does not have a hold on humility, kindness, gentleness, whatever the fruit of the Spirit, whatever they were, these are just good things to have. And she kept using the word openness, like if we can be open to things, and I can't cite the science, but I've heard on plenty of podcasts. 10%, happier podcast talks about a lot. And I don't know where else. But when we stay open to things, and we're not judgmental about things and we're not closed to whether or not we could be wrong. It's just good for us, our mental health is better. Our nervous system is less activated. When we stay open to things when we are willing to be wrong when we're willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when we're willing to hear new information and not be closed off to it. Like it's just it's just good for us. And so staying open, being loving, not at the expense of our boundaries and our own personal well being but loving others, because Christianity will teach you to love others, and it'll just burn you out. And that is not that's not good. Last thing, she also talked about having children and the problem of pain and suffering. Like when she when they had children, she and her husband realized like, she didn't say this explicitly, but I've heard it from a few different places. And this was true when my husband D converted. It's like, we should not feel like we are better parents to our children because we treat them better than God treats his kids. That doesn't seem like we should be more moral, or ethical, more kind and loving than God is. And, yeah, there's so much suffering in the world, trying to square up the god we're taught is in the Bible with what we actually see in the world and what we actually see in the Bible. That takes a lot of gymnastics, lot of mental gymnastics, and it's just not worth it. It's not worth it at all. Sara, thank you again for being on the podcast. It was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. And

David Ames 1:00:03
the secular Grace Thought of the Week is humanism. This podcast has from day one been about humanism. And what that means to me is caring for people. I believe in people. With hindsight, I recognize that I had been a religious humanist and after deconversion it was a natural move to being a secular humanist. But really, my core values of caring for people did not change. Maybe my reasons did, but it did not change. I legitimately do not care if people are spiritual and not religious, or Christian or Muslim or Jewish, if they care about people, if they recognize that relationship with other human beings is the most important thing in the universe. Until next time, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human being. The beat is called waves by MCI beats. Do 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, a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Beth: Deconstruction from the Moral Majority

Deconstruction, Dones, End Times, ExVangelical, Podcast, Politics, Spiritual But Not Religious

This week’s guest is Beth. Beth grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home that revered James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and all those who created the “Moral Majority.” Her father was a pastor whose sermons centered on the End Times and protecting their families from the “shifting culture,” (read: all the movements happening in the 60’s and 70’s).

As a teen, she lived a double life, keeping plenty of secrets from her parents. However, as a young adult, followed all the rules with the expectation that the “umbrella of God’s protection” would take care of her. It didn’t.

It took decades of trying to do what was “right” and watching the promises of the Church come to naught before she finally took the leap out of Christianity. She now identifies as SBNR—spiritual but not religious. Beth is now able to trust her own judgment and make decisions that are best for her. No “umbrella of protection” needed.

Recommendations

Podcasts

Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle

Indoctrination

Trust Me

A Little Bit Culty

Straight White American Jesus

Books

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winnell

Any book by Anne Lamott

Shameless by Nadia Bolz Weber

You are Your Own by Jamie Lee Finch

Interact

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
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 are trying to be the graceful atheist. Please consider reading and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. We have our merchandise store on T public where you can get your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items. The link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of 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, or lean interviews, today's guest Beth Beth grew up during the time of the Moral Majority. She was a PK. She went through a quote unquote rebellious period during her youth, but came back to the church to try to do everything right. It wasn't until decades later that she was able to deconstruct her faith and experience the freedom on the other side. Here is our Lean interviewing Beth.

Unknown Speaker 1:43
Beth, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.

Beth 1:46
Thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here. Yes,

Arline 1:49
I'm excited to hear your story. You and I've chatted a little bit through the deconversion anonymous Facebook group. And yeah, I'm glad to get to hear your whole story. So we usually begin, just tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in. Okay,

Beth 2:05
well, I was born into a pastor's home and independent fundamental Baptist pastor's home. Oh, wow. And so it's all I ever really knew. And I'm the third of four children. I'm very extroverted came to the planet very curious, asking lots and lots of questions. I was born in a small town in central Florida. But in 1959, my dad took a pastoral calling to an Independent Baptist Church in the Atlanta area. Okay, so he was the pastor of that church, if you can believe it in this day and age, for 44 years. Wow. It relocated three different times in the Atlanta area. But it was always in that area. So the landscape of my childhood was just centered on the church, and our version of Christianity. My dad networked with other Independent Baptist pastors in the Atlanta area in the 1960s. Most of those people were Bob Jones University graduates. And quite frankly, anyone who had any connection to BJ you was just considered auto approved. That was the that was just the gold standard for the fundamental Baptists at that time. And so he basically took his cues on the way we should all be living our lives on the sermons he preached from Bob Jones University from Jerry Falwell, who kind of came to prominence in the 70s. And you know, he eventually started the Moral Majority. And then James Dobson came out with his, you know, parenting books, strong willed child, which I was considered to be, and I'm sure my parents were not wrong about that. Just to be honest, but in his preaching, the sermons were a lot about protecting your families from the shifting culture, and you know, kind of railing about things in politics. And there were a lot of sermons on Hell, the evils of rock and roll communism and the Red Scare, teaching about in times, you know, lots of scary sermons from the book of Revelation. And we were taught that the second coming of Christ would be at any moment. So the most important thing that you could do was to speak to every single person you encountered whether you they were a total stranger or not, and say to them, if you died tonight, do you know if you would go to heaven? And if not, I'll tell you how you can be sure if that and that was the way people in my church were taught to be. And even though I was extroverted and loved people, I always felt embarrassed to do that it felt really intrusive to me. It was difficult for me to get on board with that. And, you know, I questioned everything. And it really was not appreciated. I was in public schools up through the seventh grade before our parents started putting us in private Christian schools. So in our home, and in our church, you know, there were very strict rules around our behavior, the way we could talk, that way we could dress the media we could consume, and we were never really taught any type of boundaries, or self awareness, other than the fact that be aware, you're very simple. That, you know, yeah, that that's what the self awareness was, was all I'm focused on. So I was saved, and baptized by the age of five. So I guess I had a really long list of sins by that. I

Arline 6:04
know, right? Like little children have no concept of Oh, my heavens.

Beth 6:09
Yeah. Yeah, you know, like talking back to your mothering, and having to get a spanking, those were the deep sins from those times. And that Independent Baptist church movement was really growing in the southeast at the time. And that was also during the rise of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the anti war movements. And so because of all those things, being in the news, we did as a church and a family, a lot of othering of people who just weren't like us. And the whole tone of that really lacked compassion, and you know, just about for anyone who was different than us. And for me, I was just fascinated by other people who weren't like us. You know, so like, occasionally in elementary school, if that got to go to a friend's home, or go to a sleepover or something like that, with a family that wasn't like ours, I was just fascinated, and love to see that, oh, they don't go to church. But wow, they're the nicest sweetest people. And that was just very curious to me. I thought that's very, very interesting. And then when in when I got into the 70s, and became a teenager, all of those strict rules were harder and harder to deal with.

Beth 7:28
Yes, I imagine you were there, my dad was so big on trying to keep us from watching the wrong things on TV, that back then when my mother would go get the weekly groceries, she would buy that little TV Guide magazine. And it would tell you a little synopsis of all the shows that are going to be on the major networks for the next week. And she would hand it to him when she got home from the grocery store. He would take out a ballpoint pen, sit down, flip through it, read every synopsis and write the word no, very large. The process. And that's how we knew when we turned on the TV and we picked up the TV Guide. What we could and mostly could not watch.

Arline 8:14
I was gonna say he picks no instead of like, here are the things you can watch. It's here the lot. Yeah,

Beth 8:21
exactly. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely all about that. That's for sure. And also to there was this pressure that because we weren't a preacher's children, then we were being watched by everyone in the church. And you know, when you're an adolescent, that is just the worst. Feeling, you know, it's you must be a good testimony. You know, you can't embarrass your dad, you can't embarrass the church.

So we're along the way. And they're Bill Gothard. You know, he came to the fore, and his first conferences in those early 70s. It wasn't called IBLP. Yet, it was called the Institute in basic youth conflicts. That's what it started as, uh huh. And he came to Atlanta, and he did these big conferences, I think down at the Civic Center, if I recall correctly, so there were lots and lots of conservative churches in the area that came to hear him speak and I was made to go to two of those conferences as a teenager. And, and the the main thing I remember was all that emphasis on the authority structure of the umbrella protection. Yes, yeah, that's covered in shiny happy people on Amazon Prime about the IBLP called, so everything about that was authoritarian. It was misogynistic and It just reiterated, like the conditioning I had from birth that as a female, because I was female, it was just my place to submit and, and stay in my place. And then I would be safe and all would be well in my world. So I was never prepared for anything else. As as a female, my sister and I were not taught how to manage finances. We were not taught to be ambitious about anything, you know, hopes and dreams, because that was already laid out for us in the Bible as to what our place was going to be. We were told that if we did go to college, the only purpose would be to find a husband and you didn't even have to worry about graduating. It's just all about finding someone to marry. Because it's that person's job to take care of you. Yes. You know that you don't really need your own agency. That that's that's just a bridge too far. Oh, wow. Yeah. So basically, I did what a lot of teenagers do, and oppressive situations, I just lived a double life. You know, I sang in the choir on Sundays and top children's church, but I was sneaking out of my parents house in the middle of the night to be with my friends. I was looking for all kinds of ways to get around the rules. I basically took the list of things they told me I could not do and I just made it my to do list. Yeah, and I basically checked off every box before I was 18. All right, there you go. Hey, they they put it on a list?

Arline 11:32
Yeah. And that's the thing. That's the whole thing with like, the forbidden fruit when you literally say here, here is a church tree that I'm going to sit in the middle of a garden and then tell you not to eat that tree. That's like parenting 101. You don't? You don't do that. Yeah, that's right.

Beth 11:47
That's right. So as a result of that, when I was 17, and in between my junior and senior years of high school, I got kicked out of my Christian high school. Oh, wow. I remember along with, along with, with two boys that I had actually run away with to Colorado one summer. Oh, wow. Yeah. While my parents were ironically, at a youth ministry, preaching to teenagers. Oh, wow. Yes. Yes. And yes, it did get their attention. I imagine it did. Yeah. And when when we were found, and I was retrieved, you know, wasn't 18 yet. And because I, I messed up my senior year of high school, I basically was told that, you know, they had to watch me all the time. I had to finish my senior year of high school through back then, you know, there was no online thing. So you had to do that through like, a through the snail mail, correspondence school. Take your classes. So I did that. So I finished my senior year in three months in the fall of 1973. So my parents told me that because I was going to graduate by Christmas time that I had to go to a Christian college in January of 74. And they first said, our first choice for you is Bob Jones. And I busted out laughing and said, I won't last three days. And, and they and they knew it. They knew that. And then my dad found out about this very small, independent Bible believing College in Florida, that a pastor friend of his was on the board of and he asked me if I would be willing to go there. And I said, Yes, because I was just in anywhere but here mode. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I did. And honestly, it was just so good to be away from all of that drama and scandal that I had caused. And, and and so, you know, I really did enjoy my time in college. I really did. Yeah, yeah, I did enjoy that. I did actually graduate. But I also did meet my first husband there. And yeah, he he kind of like you. He didn't grow up as a Christian. But he did come to faith when he was in college living overseas, and so that's why he came to a Christian college.

So we ended up getting married and starting her family. You know, we had three children born very close together in the early 80s. So they were super busy years and my husband was actually working at our alma mater at that Christian college while he was getting advanced degrees, a masters and a PhD and And, and because I was running a household and have three little kids, I just did part time jobs as I could. And I shuffled them around and ran the home, and we were very active in the church, and you know, how you want your kids in the program since that, so that becomes your social life, you know, becomes your whole life. And, and so we did that, where he worked, they did not pay well at all. So we, we really struggled financially, and it was just a constant source of stress. And, you know, I was always praying, you know, and doubling down on all of that, you know, that, Oh, I knew God would take care of us all of that, but it was just so hard. And as he added to his education, you know, you should make more money based on that. Right. And it just was not happening to the level that it would have, you know, outside of it being a small ministry. And, you know, as our children get a little older, you know, our, in our marriage, we started having conflicts over our parenting styles. And in his work environment, at that Christian College, which it no longer exists, the school went out of business several years ago. The leadership had changed over. And a couple of I call them Bo Joe's Bob Jones students. Were running it. And yeah, there was some, yeah, it just the way that they work, they were just harsh. They were harsh. And, and they didn't seem to care that much about how little all these people with young families were getting paid. And but that was somehow supposed to be spiritual, because this was God's work, and all your rewards will be in another life. There

Arline 16:49
you go. They don't have to tell you a whole lot, because this isn't what this is about. This is about serving the kingdom. And yeah, yep.

Beth 16:57
Yep, that's exactly what it was like. And so you know, I just kept thinking, well, we're doing this for God. And you know, so it's almost like a magical thinking is going on. After a while in your brain. You know, that you think that prayer, and just, oh, maybe I just need to go to another Bible study. read another book. Yeah.

Arline 17:15
All of that. I mean, what are their options? They don't give you any other options. It's just getting the word pray, being community, getting the word pray and being community. There's they don't give you anything else. Fasting? Sometimes. Yeah.

Beth 17:28
Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it was. And then when the early 2000s, rolled around, he left his job there. And he got a very well deserved position in a secular college. And I was so glad to see that. And with our kids who were now all living away at college, I thought we might be able to reset our relationship, you know, just have a different time. But that was not going to be, which was such a shock to me. Oh, no. And I was absolutely stunned, you know, by the fact that he told me that he just didn't want to be married anymore. And I'm sorry, you know, at a time when you know, and so it was just really shocking. And, you know, the fight flight, freeze fawn reactions to trauma. I'm a freezer. Yeah. And I just stand when it comes to trauma. And yeah, I was just stunned because I didn't know how I was going to live my life. Because, you know, I thought there was this story that I can see the end of Yep. Of how things were going to go. Now, he did agree to go with me to a Christian therapist. Honestly, I think that therapists let it let us go to therapy too long. Like, I think he probably could tell in the first few sessions that there was no way we were staying together. Yeah. But, but part of it too, was me digging in. I just would not accept the D word. You know, I just It wouldn't go inside my brain. And there was in the Christian circles we were in that was a huge shame to go through a divorce, man. That was considered a big deal. So anyway, unanswered prayers again, right. So these were the cognitive dissonances. Right, that were happening along the way. And, and probably the biggest thing about me for the divorce at the time, because of the circles we were in, I just felt like a failure. And I felt like a cliche, you know, the midlife crisis happened. Ah, I say, yeah, right. Right. Cuz I was around 48. At that time, I should say we were

we did divorce. And I found myself on my own was something I'd never thought would happen to me. And, you know, I was just grieving I was facing You know, oh, it's up to me what I do next? Oh, wait a minute, God, God, I'm sure God's gonna be in there with me. And we're gonna do this together, you know. And so, I stayed in church, you know, I mean, I had doubts about all of this, but it was just all inside of me, you know, that I was holding inside. And we had been a really visible family in our church, there was a church of about 1500 people. And I thought I had 1500 friends, you know. But basically, what I found out was that I have maybe five left from that church. It was so weird to come to that realization about that. Yeah, that if everything's going great. Yes, you're, you're, you're in the in crowd. Right? That is definitely the way it felt to me. So I started looking for another church. And I found this little Presbyterian Church USA, in our town. And I slipped in there one Sunday on the back row. And the the service was, it was a progressive Church, which I wasn't used to, but the whole service was so refreshing. And I thought to myself, Oh, I'll never be in leadership in church again, because I've got the big D up on the shoulder, you know. But as I kept going and meeting people, I found out that the current interim pastor had been divorced. And I'm like, say what? Oh, wow. Yeah. Rebels? Oh, oh, oh, yeah. I mean, I was just and then women were behind the pulpit to participating. And it was such a shock to my system. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. So as that got to know people, and they found out my background, they were like, you know, you should be tapped to be an elder and the short story is they, they really kind of put me up on spiritual crutches. Really lovely people. And they did, you know, affirm my gifts and, and I decided to become an elder in the Presbyterian Church, USA. And I did that, and it just felt good to me. All of that was good to me. And, you know, nobody there saw me as damaged. You know, yeah, the way that I did the way that I had felt they were wonderful. And I wished I had stayed there. But what happened was some, some college friends of mine told me that a new church had started in the area. It was a P with a PC, a pastor. So the Presbyterian Church in America is a much more conservative. They're a break off from the PC.

Arline 22:40
Yeah, we were part of that. And we learned, because we were PCA. You had to learn how the bad PCUSA people had had gone rogue and believed all this crazy stuff. But we were the true church. And the conservative. Oh, yeah. So I'm familiar with the, a little bit of that.

Beth 22:57
Yeah. Yeah. So that's really, really, yeah, it was interesting. And I really was taken with the new young pastor of that church, I got really involved. And I actually ended up leaving my PCUSA church to go be a part of that little Turk. So that was kind of interesting. But I did meet lovely people there. It was an interesting experience. But I think it kind of held me back from broadening my horizons, because I made that decision.

Over time, you know, after I helped my youngest child who had graduated from from college to move to San Francisco to start her career, when I came home, from that trip, you know, I was just feeling very alone, you know, in spite of the fact that I was working, and I have my church friends, and you know, and then kind of a perfect storm started to form that I completely misread. So basically, what happened was an old friend from my Christian High School, contacted me and said, Oh, do you remember this mutual friend of ours from high school? Well, he's also divorced. Would you like me to connect? You know, you too. And the short story is, I said, Yes, sure. Why not? You know, so I started talking to that guy, and emailing and then talking on the phone, and then he came to see me and we started dating and our relationship moved very, very quickly. And we seemed very, very compatible. And instead of doing my due diligence about him, I really rushed into it because I'm thinking, God's answer my prayers. He's open this door, and it's my turn for happiness. And of course now I know that's just you know, all those chemicals in you that high you get from a new

Arline 24:54
love relationship in a new relationship energy. Yep, exactly.

Beth 24:58
That's exactly what it was some apart, but I kept thinking, you know, like, he seemed to be so compatible spiritually. We were praying together. We were reading Scripture together, we, because we had known each other when we were younger, we remembered each other's families, he didn't seem to be a stranger. You know, it's that kind of situation. And so I married him with, you know, after not, not a lot of time, just few months. And, like, for six years, I was with someone who actually had very serious mental health issues. And, and they presented very gradually. And so there were like, lows, you know, and then highs, and the lows, and then highs. And so I thought the highs were from my prayers, those were my answer prayers, when things when things would get better along the way. And, you know, he had a lot of things he had been hiding from me about his past. And so I would get information in a slow drip. Sometimes it was things that would come in the mail to him, or some phone call he got where he kind of had to tell me stuff. And it took a while to figure it out. But I discovered he had a he had a criminal past for domestic violence. Oh. And it was just such a shock. And I so I felt very embarrassed. I felt stupid, I felt ashamed. You know, that I gone into this marriage that I had rushed in. And then I'm thinking, oh, wait a minute, God, this was supposed to be a God thing. What's going on here? And so I did what I usually do when I feel traumatized, I kind of froze, I kind of felt paralyzed. And I just doubled down on my prayer. Like, I thought that would be a shield. That was, you know, going to protect me, you know, from it. And, you know, it ended after a very threatening encounter with him, where for my own safety, I had to sneak out and stay with some friends. But while I was did that a couple of days later, he died in our home by suicide. Oh, oh, gosh. Yeah. So you talk about wondering where God was? Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Arline 27:19
Like all all the praying and the waiting and the wandering, and then a traumatic event like that happening. And it's all the questions, you have all the questions. Yeah.

Beth 27:29
And then, of course, I stayed in freeze, because that was a whole new level. It was, it was such, it was such a shock. It was so awful to deal with, it happened in the home we shared. Thankfully, I was with friends. So I wasn't the person who actually discovered, you know, him. It was my friend who told me to go outside when he discovered him. And so it was really, really tough. And, you know, I did get to have some therapy sessions after that about grief and so forth. But I mainly just did what I usually do and just kept going, working. I'm very task oriented. You know, just trying to get my bearings again, in life after going through all of that, and just also was questioning myself like, How in the world did I get here? How to get this situation? Yeah. Yeah, it was really rough. And then I started having strange physical symptoms of a almost feeling paralyzed. I actually landed me in an ER when I got to where I currently stand. And basically, it was my body holding trauma. Yeah, unprocessed trauma. And thankfully, the emergency room I went to it didn't take that long for the doctors and nurses to figure that out. That that's what was going on with me. So, a real a real beginning of healing came for me when I stopped attending church entirely. And I realized, Sunday's Sundays are wonderful, right? I had spent literally my entire life never having just a Sunday for how I wanted to spend it. And so I just got back into my body is what I did, I rested a lot. I went to yoga, all the more I started meditating, you know, I started to then not feel as slowly because I was like, Oh, I'm here for me. Oh, I started enjoying my own company. Yes. And I realized that the relationship that I had neglected my entire life was the one with me.

Arline 29:46
Because you're taught from the time that you're a little bit, especially as a female, you need a man to take care of you and do this for you and do that for you. And, and there's no relationship with yourself. I haven't thought of it that way. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah,

Beth 30:01
yeah, I'm like, I'm actually a person with her own thoughts, needs, wants all of that. And I just started feeling more alive with that realization, and realizing that I had my own inner wisdom, that I've always been intuitive. And, you know, that's why I kind of identify as spiritual because I've always gotten vibes about other people. But I wasn't that great with knowing what my own vibes were. Yeah, which was, which was kind of interesting. But I was just grateful to be alive and to be able to feel safe again. And so I just embraced the personal agency over my life, and felt so free. So I prioritize the relationship with me and I have vowed to never abandon her again. Oh, yeah. And it's, it's been amazing. And I've also had just learned how to set boundaries, because I cannot make that vow to myself if I don't set boundaries.

So I realized I had a dream I had filed way in my brain that someday I wanted to move to Northern California, and live near my daughter in her family. And so I realized, why not? Yeah, so I relocated here six and a half years ago, and I absolutely love it. I haven't, I've never looked back. I've never regretted it. I'm far away from all the rest of my, my family, who all live in the east, but, but this is a place I belong. And I think about it every day, there's so much natural beauty, I love hiking. I love walking I love. I mean, there's such diversity out here among people, people from all over the world. And it's so fun to hear people's stories and build relationships. It's just really an incredible joy. So I'm grateful for my three great kids and my grandchildren. I also have a really good relationship with my first husband. Oh, good. So I don't like to call him my ex, I actually refer to him as my husband. And, you know, he and I are really good friends. I mean, we have a lot of history, right? That goes back to our, our 20s. And we share children and grandchildren. So I'm very grateful that you know, in that sense, we are still a family. It took a lot of doing to get there in my heart, but I got there. And it's been a good thing for our whole family. And then the online communities have been great between podcasts. And like, I'm not a person who posts a lot online. But I'm more stalking on Facebook, even in our deconversion group. I do more reading, they're responding. And I love that I love that opportunity to do that. And so I would say my, my deconstruction could be described as death by 1000 cuts. You know, over time it came became very clear to me that you know, very little in life can be reduced to the binary of any kite that's good or bad, right or wrong. Instead, everything is nuanced and complex, right? Yeah, I mean, so curiosity and ambiguity and just observing, I mean, and letting things be what they are. It's a much more peaceful way to live. And so I'm much less anxious than I used to be. And just more open, and the stories of other people endlessly fascinate me, which is why I absolutely love podcasts like gap, for sure. So I get, you know, I don't like labels, but I guess I am an SB nr spiritual but not religious. Yeah, I don't attend church, although I work for one. I work for a very progressive PCUSA church support staff. And I actually love what they do in social justice, and in the communities out here. They're great, very, very inclusive in every way. It's just a joy to watch that. I have very supportive and loving relationships with some of my nieces and nephews who have D converted. And I treasure our conversations because I can have different conversations with them than they can have with other family

Arline 34:35
members. That makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Beth 34:39
And so my other my siblings are all still, you know, practicing Christianity. And so it's just not a topic any of us ever talks about with one another. Although I'm sure they all talk about me because I've always been in the one in the family who thought otherwise. So like, like when Sharon announced at the age of 60, she was moving to California, I'm sure they all rolled their eyes and said, and who else would do that? And our family? Just staying on brand. I love it. I love it. Yes. So I do want to say that I can't help realizing that over the past few years, it's become super obvious to me, that those that are bent on destroying our democracy, and forcing Christian beliefs on all people are actually a product of the past two generations of evangelicals, especially those of the fundamentalist tight. Yeah, that makes sense. And as I've seen that happening, and unfolding, you know, I didn't see that one coming. I really didn't. Because, you know, back then it seemed fringe. And now it's moved into the mainstream. And so I just thought it would say that, because it's, it's quite startling to me, that that is happening right now. And that it's related to how I was raised.

Arline 35:58
Yeah. Right. Because before the internet, yeah. You know, well, I grew up a generation below you. And it's like, I didn't grow up in the church. So I didn't see all of that. Now, I did still see that because I grew up in the south of the United States. I saw that just cultural version of, you know, patriarchy, white supremacy, all those kinds of things. Like it was just part of our culture. But yeah, seeing now, like, the House of Representatives, like just different people that are that have so much power, so much power, that a long time ago, long time ago, I would have thought, okay, these people are just crazy people that go to my parents to my cousin's church, my parents church, and now it's like, no, these are their children, or these are those same people. And they have power and money and in very, very, they can harm entire groups of people. And it's yeah, it's scary. And like you said, it's a product of those generations. Many generations. It

Beth 37:01
is. Yeah, I mean, they found out that if they played the long game, it was gonna pay off some day. And that's this is this is what's happened. It was the long them playing the long game, and hanging in there and digging in and and indoctrinating their children and the next generation indoctrinating their children.

I wanted to mention a couple of quotes that I really love. One of them is from the late David, Boeing. Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who've already been there.

Arline 37:44
Oh, that's interesting. I like that. I have mixed emotions about the word spirituality, but I can see what he's saying. Yeah,

Beth 37:52
yeah. Yeah. I find it. I mean, that was very resonant. For me. It was something I read online, and I went, wow. And then I know that you and I both. I know you love Mary Oliver. Yes. As do I. And of course, I do love the question. What will you do with your one wild and precious life? Because this is it. This is all we get? Yeah, it's our shot. Yeah. And I believe that and so I want to make the most of it,

Arline 38:20
right. Yes. So yeah, so what does spirituality look for look like for you? Like, what does that look for? For you?

Beth 38:28
For me, it looks like loving kindness. It looks like being open and listening to others and just sitting with being holding space for people to hear their stories. I love it. Yeah, I and, you know, I mean, I I delved a little bit. I mean, I'm, I'm a little hippie dippie. You know, yeah, she's got white sage, she burned some times and crystals that I just love looking at and holding in my hand. Yeah, I don't really think they have powers, but they are of the earth and we are of the earth. So

Arline 39:05
who knows, it's all connected. We're all connected in some kind of, it doesn't have to be supernatural way. But like, I don't know how to, I don't know, science well enough to articulate things like that. But it's like, if, if bad things happen to the insects, us way up here thinking we're above all the rest of the animals will be affected. Like if stuff happens to the soil and stuff happen. I mean, we're just, we're so much more connected than we realize. And you have scientists who make it sound very intellectual. And that's awesome. Please be intellectual. And then you have people that that are called, like, woowoo. But it's like, I don't want to say they're saying the same things. Because you're not saying the same things. And at the same time, we're still all interconnected. And like, I don't know, I don't know. I can't articulate it very well. But, but I understand what you're saying. Yeah, we

Beth 39:56
came from the earth and we're going back to it nobody just getting out of here alive. That just that yeah, that is that is just a fact. And so, you know, I've obviously got more runway behind me than I have ahead of me. So I want to make the most of, of all that is ahead of me. And, and I'm just very grateful to be you know where I am at this point on my journey. Yeah, it's been an interesting one. Yeah. So thank you so much. Yes.

Arline 40:30
Thank you for being willing to tell your story. I have a couple more questions. You mentioned hiking and walking and being able to nature how what any other things that just bring all and wonder and those kinds of experiences for you?

Beth 40:46
Well, I absolutely love reading. And I love documentaries, you know? Oh, yes. Yes. It's really kind of a weird spectrum with me, because I like for example, I can really get into true crime. But then I can switch over to stand up comedy and enjoy it. I can't I love it very, very much as it is. Well, it's well, and also to it's all storytelling, right? Yeah, yeah. We're storytelling, meaning making people. That's what humans are. Yeah. And so I do love that too. I really, you know, I've always enjoyed music very, very much is what my degree was in years and years ago, you know, back in the day, but yeah, I mean, I'm just really well, I can tell you some authors, I'm kind of taken

Arline 41:37
by but I was gonna ask, do you have recommendations, podcasts, books, music, anything that was valuable to you while you're deconstructing or? Yeah, that you just want to share? I'm here for any recommendations.

Beth 41:48
Yeah, it was some of the podcasts that I'm really into right now or we can do hard things which is Conan Doyle's with her wife Abby and her sister Amanda. In fact, she had Nadia bolts Webber on

Arline 42:00
today. I haven't

Beth 42:01
listened to the episode. Is that to get up stone such good episode, and I love one called indoctrination, because it's by a psychologist named Rachel Bernstein. So she has most most of her guests have been in cults of sorts. But she also has included a lot of evangelical Christians in store. She even had Marlene when Nell from leaving the fold, you know, on there, and marlenas book was very helpful to me. Then there's one called trust me, which is also about being in cults. And the two hosts of that one of them was raised in an evangelical group. And then there's one called a little bit culty. Yes.

Arline 42:40
Is that Amanda monto? No, that's,

Beth 42:43
that's Sarah Edmonds and Nikki Russell who were in Nexium. Okay, they live in Atlanta. Oh, okay. Yeah, and then straight white American Jesus. They just do such a good job with that weekly roundup of connecting the dots back to evangelical Christianity with all the all the things happening in the world. I find that really interesting. So a loved one and Doyle and untamed in particular, I I've read all her books, okay. In fact, the first one I read was when she was still a Christian.

Arline 43:19
Oh, it's some love book. I felt like she had a book about love whenever she was where

Beth 43:23
she had one about, about marriage. Yeah, about marriage. And then that was just for her marriage ballparks. Right?

Arline 43:29
I've only read untamed I, I have confession. I don't love memoirs. Like I like podcasts where someone's telling their story, but I don't want to read 500 pages of their story. But somehow I read untamed and I loved it. I was like, this. Yes. It was spoke to me. I guess that's the phrase people use.

Beth 43:49
Yeah. Oh, but it really I mean, it's so affirming. Yes. So women. Yes. Yeah. So that really? I mean, that's kind of how I was born was untamed, I guess, in anything by Annie Lamott. Anne Lamott, girl,

Arline 44:03
oh, she's just I've read, I've read all of her books as well. And she, yes. All things in the mind. Go ahead.

Beth 44:11
Yeah, I mean, I reread her books. I've read every one as well. And I, I agree, read them. I mean, she's just incredible. And she lives like 30 minutes from where I live. I would love to see her someday. That's on my list.

Arline 44:24
I know, she still goes to church, just show up at our church and be like, hey, oh,

Beth 44:28
yeah. Yeah, that's tricky to do. Yeah. And then Nadia Bolz Weber I love her. Now her book on I think it was called shame about sex. It's really, really good. Big. Yeah, because she really wrote it for those raised in purity culture. And even though nobody called it purity culture. When I was a teenager, it was still purity culture. It was this. There was a lot of taboo around sex. Yeah. You know, outside of marriage, for sure. And then a Jamie Lee Finch wrote a book called you are your own. And that was really a helpful book for me too. Super, super encouraging. And I really, she used to have a podcast that I listened to, I don't think her podcast is still going on. But those were all things. I mean, there's a lot, but I did try to curate down a few to share, thank you for sharing, but I just appreciate so much, you know, the format of this podcast, and, you know, the the spirit that it is done in because it's not about us and them.

Arline 45:40
No, it's just people's stories. It's about

Beth 45:43
stories. So that's the best. And I really, really love that. So I really appreciate the opportunity. I feel very honored. So thank you.

Arline 45:53
I'm honored that you one of the most beautiful things about doing podcasts like this is people honor you with their stories like, and so thank you for doing this. Thank you for being willing to tell your story. And I know, people will relate to it. And you'll find information in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group because people already know you're gonna be like, yay. So yeah, thank you so much, Beth, for telling your story. Yeah,

Beth 46:17
thank you, Arline. I really appreciate it.

Arline 46:25
My final thoughts on the episode. I love hearing people's stories that span multiple decades, like people who've, I don't know, it just shows no matter how long you've lived. What you've been convinced is true. For however long like things can change. People can stay open to changing when there's new information. Beth tried for years and years and years to make the God thing work. And it didn't work. She did all the right things. She said all the right prayers. She participated in the right activities. She was super conservative. She was super liberal. And just all the cognitive dissonance little thing after a little thing like she said death by 1000 cuts. Over time you just realized like it doesn't work. And she was willing to be okay with that and deal with whatever grief or sadness or loss of community that came out of that. And now she's in a place where she knows her own thoughts. She knows her own desires, hopes, dreams. She's living in embodied life. She has her Sunday's free like there's just so much freedom. So much joy and happiness that she's been able to find without religion without God. And her spirituality is good for her. And it's good for others. Loving Kindness, inner connectedness and holding space for people to exist without judgment. Like those are all good things. Oh, good things to bear. Thank you again for being on the podcast. I really appreciate your your authenticity, and your willingness to like, just tell so much of your story. I appreciate it.

David Ames 48:18
The secular Grace Thought of the Week is pluralism. Best story reminded me and and current headlines have reinforced how much we need pluralism. Contra, what Mike Johnson current speaker of the House says the separation of church and state is both good for the church and good for the state. And whenever those two things begin to mix with one another, bad things happen. I grew up in the 80s and saw the Moral Majority begin to acquire political power. At the time, it seemed somewhat innocuous. Today I have a completely different view. The Christian nationalism that is apparent within the politics of government is dangerous and needs to be called out. pluralism is hard though, pluralism means we do accept other people's voices. But we run into the problem of the paradox of tolerance. The only thing we cannot tolerate is intolerance. Until next time, my name is David and I'm trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and graceful human. 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 eight This podcast part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Andrew: Dino Dad Reviews

Atheism, Autonomy, Deconversion, Naturalism, Podcast, Purity Culture, Scholarship

Arline interviews this week’s guest, Andrew. Andrew is a self-named atheist “paleo-nerd.” He grew up home-schooled in a fundamentalist church in southern California. His whole schooling was religious and that included Young Earth Creationism.

In high school, Andrew struggled with his shy nature and some depressive episodes. The church didn’t seem to have room for people like him. As a young adult, finally making his own decisions and living a life without fundamentalism everywhere, Andrew saw how much he could accomplish on his own. He had had the resources inside him but hadn’t known it.

Now, as an atheist, he’s figuring out what life looks like for himself. It includes a wife and kids, online friends, lots of dinosaurs, and a happiness that isn’t perfect or perpetual but is enough.

Links

Dino Dad Reviews
https://dinodadreviews.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/dinodadreviews/

Recommendations

Paulogia on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@Paulogia

Strong non-religious community

Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Interact

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
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. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. We have a merch store on T public you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there The link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of 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 our guest, Andrew Andrew describes himself as an atheist paleo nerd that comes out in his website dyno dad reviews and you can also find him all across social media under the moniker dyno dad reviews. Andrew grew up in a fundamentalist environment that held to young earth creationism, which is very difficult if you're a bright young person with an interest in paleontology. As an introvert, it was difficult with the expectations for evangelism and various other things. And now he reviews books about paleontology for children and adults. And you can again find him at dyno dad reviews. Here is our lien interviewing Andrew.

Arline 2:03
Hey, Andrew, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.

Andrew 2:06
Hey, good to be here.

Arline 2:07
So you and I connected shortly after the deconversion anonymous Facebook group started. And I count you among my friends. So I'm really excited because I, I talk to you on the regular and now I get to hear your full story.

Andrew 2:21
Yeah, I'm excited for this as well, for the same reasons. Great chatting with you and everybody else. Yes,

Arline 2:30
I have built some really good friendships in the group and getting to meet some people in real life. Just a few, but it's been really nice. So we usually begin, tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in. Okay,

Andrew 2:42
well, I grew up in pretty strong religious background. I feel like I kind of have to pull all these different threads together a little bit because they're very much is this kind of family tradition. On my dad's side, my grandpa was one of the founding members of the church I grew up in. And on my mom's side, we have this big extended family that's still relatively close, despite its size, and lots of them are missionaries and things like that. And we always took everything fairly seriously. Yeah, I grew up going to Sunday school every Sunday. And we often did the whole Wednesday night thing as well. I would say he, we grew up in Southern California. So there's, there's only so conservative you can go there. I feel like but for Southern California, it was pretty fundamentalists conservative, and all that.

Arline 3:57
What kind of church was it? Like what denomination is a

Andrew 4:01
independent nondenominational church? But all of those tend to be vaguely Baptist in their beliefs. So that's

Arline 4:12
true. I found in the few places we've lived. There'll be the big, mega church looking church in town. But they're, they're Baptist. They just don't have it in their name. They're part of the SBC usually. Yeah.

Andrew 4:28
And actually, our church did technically fall into the megachurch category. We had maybe about 1000 members and the worship center had space for even more, but I think they got a little overly optimistic when they built it because it was never super full. But they had very robust Kids program. I still have fond memories of growing up and that most of my friends were actually through church group and stuff like that, because I was actually homeschooled growing up Okay, education, I think is another aspect of my religious background too. I mean, I'm sure there were academic reasons, like, you know, purely academic reasons. As far as like general test scores and things like that, that my parents decided to homeschool me, but we were also a little bit of the be apart from the world sort of mentality. Yeah. Not even an extreme way, because we would still watch movies if there wasn't too much swearing and stuff like that. But there was definitely that suspicion of secular education and stuff like that.

Arline 5:45
So I imagine you're like your curricula. That was all Christian.

Andrew 5:53
And each of my siblings tried out homeschooling for a year, but then they all ended up going to the private school that my church actually ran. instead. I'm the oldest in the family. And then my,

Arline 6:09
I was gonna ask where you have in the lineup? Yeah.

Andrew 6:13
My second brother, I think my parents decided that a more traditional environment would just genuinely be best for him. But by the time my second two siblings were getting into schoolwork, I think it may have been more just, my parents didn't necessarily feel like doing that at that point. And so they got to the same school as well. But by then I was relatively self sufficient. And my mom could just put me in front of an assignment sheet, and I'd power through it and get it done, usually by noon, and then I would just hang out and read or watch TV or things like that. Even though all my siblings started traditional school around. First or second grade. I was homeschooled K through eight. Okay. So just kind of in my own little bubble there.

Arline 7:09
Yeah. Now where you're part of coops to sports teams, any kind of math club, any kind of thing? Yeah,

Andrew 7:17
my mom always had me on the swim team. And we did we got our homeschooling curriculum through this sort of co op thing. They didn't really do classes, except for like, specialist, rare, like special art events where you could come and do stuff like that. They would do the organized, standardized testing, and report our grades to the government and do all the paperwork stuff so that we wouldn't have to. And they also organized field trips and stuff like that. So okay, I knew a few kids through that, but it wasn't any sort of, you know, regular interaction. So all my friends were through my youth group, basically, at least in my early childhood anyway.

Arline 8:23
So then high school youth group, college youth group or not youth group, I guess, young adult. Are you still involved there?

Andrew 8:30
Yeah. High school was quite a shift. But

Arline 8:35
oh, because you went K through eighth. And then where you just,

Andrew 8:39
you just school jumped into public school? Not even not even like a private Christian with anything. So Wow. I was definitely nervous.

Arline 8:46
I bet how, yeah, how was that

Andrew 8:49
adjusted better than I would have expected? And I think a big part of it was finding one of my friends from youth group there. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. Name was Tyler. And I just kind of latched on to him for dear life. Yeah, he was kind of my lifeline to getting plugged in there. And most of my high school friends were, I met through him because I was still very involved in youth group at church and started doing the various summer camps and even a couple mission trips, although I was never super into that. I felt like I should be doing things like that. And there was this sense that the best Christians would become missionaries, you know, but I could never get myself to get in other people's faces. Not just to the witnessing part too, but uh, For a lot of these trips they wanted you to, like get friends and family to pay for. Yes, whatever, whatever expenses you incurred, whether it was just like weekend lodgings or for some of the bigger ones travel expenses. I say travel expenses, but it was like, you know, driving the church van, a few states over or something like that usually. But you know, I couldn't even handle that part really. I was just like, why am I bothering these people for this?

Arline 10:36
Yes, I hated that part of things. Because my family we were mostly a nominal Christians. And so they didn't care if the church was doing a mission trip, and they didn't want to give money to something they didn't care about. And it's just awkward to like, be a kid and have to ask a bunch of grown ups from like, it's Yeah, yeah, that's a weird experience right there. Yeah,

Andrew 10:59
although, in my family, we were always very supportive of missionaries, obviously, because I've first second third cousins who are in the field even now. So there was this strong family identity that was kind of tied to all that. Oh, wow. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So my hesitance was also very much a point of shame for me too. Because it that was that was more just kind of my personality getting in the way or so I thought, you know, and I've always kind of been shy and hesitant to do anything that makes me feel like I'm forcing myself upon other people. You know,

Arline 11:49
I can understand that and the church doesn't. Maybe today it's different. I don't know. But when we were young, like the church values the very outgoing the very go get them the in people's face. And those of us who are like could you just go we just have like a one on one conversation that we've already planned and everyone is on board and everyone's consented. Yeah, I don't understand. Yeah,

Andrew 12:13
that disconnect between my personality and the at least the perceived expectations of the church shins everything that goes with it was kind of a major source of well, it was always it was always emotionally uncomfortable for most of my life, but it got pretty unhealthy as time went on, especially in high school and college. You know, I'm very much aware that I'm, you know, just a very middle class white boy and I don't have the biggest problems in the world. But you know, the church does kind of build up these expectations that you be not like important but you're gonna go on and do great things for God and yes, and for me, like not only am I not living up to that, but it feels like it's it's not just happenstance that I'm not living up to it but like my personality isn't like a good match for that and so I began pathologizing parts of myself that were just normal and then you know, once you throw purity culture into that as well then that becomes a whole thing. I was in high school like around when all that was kind of at its peak. And so you know, again, as a male I didn't definitely didn't get it as bad as maybe the girls did. But you know, the don't look at porn don't masturbate message was very thoroughly hammered down. Like in high school. We were like reading these little self help books about, you know, avoiding lust and temptation and all that. Yeah, I very much absorbed that messaging. And all this kind of came to a head and college which started off pretty well. You know, I was excited and whatnot in my freshman year.

The expect statement of being in a new place and feeling like things are moving forward sustainably for a little while, but as time went on the negative groundwork that had already been laid started Just raring up again. And I went to the campus therapy, I went to the campus therapist at one point. And after talking for several weeks with them, I more or less got the diagnosis that I was suffering from depression, and that I had actually had those tendencies for most of my life most likely had

Arline 15:38
your family had any. My dad was never a Christian. So he had the vocabulary, like the psychology, vocabulary of depression or anxiety, things like that. But I became a Christian as an adult, and we'd never had that vocabulary. Did your family have any of that vocabulary as far as

Andrew 15:57
a little bit? Cuz there's seems to be this general acknowledgement, that it's kind of a family illness on my mom's side, okay. At least a few of the people in that group that I've talked to, it seems to have been something that My great grandpa dealt with, and as well as my grandma, okay. And I actually had an aunt who ended her own life in college due to depression at one point. And that was before I was born even. So, there's this general awareness of it. But it's not really talked about much. So I didn't, yeah, I never really got much education on it, I guess you could say.

Arline 17:02
So like, what did you do with that information? When you found out, it was possibly a depression?

Andrew 17:06
Well, I briefly tried medication. But I did not establish a proper, like, support network or anything. And so when I was frustrated that it didn't seem to be working, I just kind of quit. And I think it I don't even tried it for like a week or something at that point. So if I had had the proper, you know, ongoing evaluation, then? I don't know. Maybe I would have maybe I should have stayed on that. But, you know, yeah, there wasn't really any ongoing discussion that I was having about it. And so I mostly just kind of fell back on the general Christianese as my way of coping with it, just like, oh, just trust God harder, and pray more, and maybe he'll take it away. And you know, even even seeing it as like a selfish disease. You know, like, Oh, you're so focused on yourself. Like, why don't you just think about God more? Yeah. So that kind of spiraled. And by the end of junior year, and all throughout my senior year of high school, I was in a very deep depression. And I was trying to rely more and more on God to fix it. But just to no avail. You know, I literally every Sunday ended with me. hiding in the back of the worship center, crying in the corner, just in tears, praying for anything really, like sometimes I would be praying to make the depression go away. Sometimes I would be praying just, you know. Oh, I'm just a terrible selfish person anyway, so just hollow me out and make me a puppet. And just, yeah, at least make me worth something, you know. Yeah, that was a major blow to me. It kind of I felt like it kind of derailed everything. But then kind of also forced me to confront the fact that I wasn't necessarily going much of anywhere in the first place. Cuz I feel like I'd sort of been doing this Christian sleepwalk. For Maya have teenage and young adult life where I was just like, well, I'm trying to follow God and the chips will fall where they made the it'll just work out, you know, I'm sure he has a plan or something. Okay. And so I began to realize I didn't really do the work that I should have to figure out where I went to college, or what I wanted to do with my life. Because, you know, that suspicion my family had for secular education kind of, I absorbed that, and I never took any secular college as a serious option. And so really only ever, seriously considered about five Christian schools and only even applied to two of them. The one that I did, which was Baylor University, I honestly selected that one because they had found a woolly mammoth skeleton on campus while building one of the dorms. But in fact, they had, yeah, that they had a program that was closest to my interests, which was also involved in excavating that mammoth, because Biola happens to be one of the two Christian colleges that has very, a very robust anthropology program, which includes archaeology. I had always been interested in paleontology. And if you had asked me, as I was going into college, that's what I wanted to do, really. But, you know, I didn't want to go to one of those secular schools, yes, where they actually offered that car. So I figured, archeology, especially if they were practicing their field methods on the mammoth skeleton was the next best thing. So I did that. And I thought, you know, maybe if I get myself a solid Christian base, I'll be a strong enough Christian that I can go to a secular school later. But again, I just kind of got swept up by that sense of, Well, I didn't even have much of a sense of purpose, but I figured there must be purpose somewhere that was going to work itself out. So I didn't really think about where I was going too hard. But anyway, you know, as I was in the depths of my depression, and I did at least still continue going to the campus therapist, off and on. And, you know, at one point, I kind of realized the situation I had gotten myself into, and, you know, my grades were suffering and everything. And so, I don't know, the basically Long story short, I feel like I kind of only technically graduated, as I put it sometimes because I have a degree and everything. But it's not really in something that I actually had that much interest in doing. And I struggled so much the last couple of years, when, you know, all the serious classes were being taught that I feel like I didn't even necessarily get the full benefit of the degree that I do have. So, you know, now here I am graduated with not really much to show for it. And so I kind of spent the next year now feeling kind of emotionally postapocalyptic, you know, just kind of sitting around and not getting much done. You know, oftentimes, I think my friends would call me wanting to hang out and they would just let it go to voicemail and it just kind of became a little bit of a recluse for a bit. I did actually somehow meet and fall in love with and mutually attract my wife to be at this point as well. Not entirely sure what she saw me through all this but we met in college and started dating and eventually I did get just kind of a basic nine to five sort of job. So I was starting to save up money along with her and we got married about a year after that, or no year after she graduated because I was on a four year check and she was on a five year track.

So it was at this point that I was starting to realize that my religious assumptions weren't getting me much of anywhere. And that it was, in fact, while sometimes secular solutions and sometimes just, you know, letting go and not having anything to do with it in general, that was the real solution not

Arline 25:31
having anything to do with, like, Christianity in general or Yeah. Cuz,

Andrew 25:36
you know, well, the job that I got wasn't anything to do with my degree, working did to give me some sense of, at least I'm competent enough to hold down a job. And, obviously, getting married to my wife was a big emotional boost as well. And so, you know, as I was just kind of struck by the fact that, you know, through all these years of praying, and begging, and all that, you know, I never got any mystical sense of healing, or never really felt the presence of God or anything like that. But then just doing these very mundane, normal things, helped me feel much better than any of that ever did. And so, not long after that, not only not only did I, you know, kind of make a conscious decision to stop praying for myself, having having found that being married, didn't necessarily cure what I would have considered lust. I also made the decision to just stop beating myself up over that, and, you know, not worrying about it anymore.

I was realizing that praying for healing from my depression wasn't working. And I was still experiencing what I would consider lustful thoughts, despite now being married. And so clearly, prayer wasn't helping, and my religious assumptions were getting me nowhere. So I made the conscious decision to stop praying around them. And I also basically gave myself free rein to just not control my sexual thoughts or anything like that. And you know, it, both of those things suddenly got better. Nope. Because I wasn't constantly, you know, well, you know, in one sense, they didn't get better, because my impression, all things being equal was still at a roughly equivalent level to what it had been. But I wasn't constantly praying for it to be taken away. And so all that time that I would be praying and thinking about it, you know, had the potential to be something else. So if nothing else, that was 111 Less occasion on which I was thinking about my depression. And so and, you know, thinking about it just always would spiral into actually, you know, getting into a depressive funk. And so, you know, when I stopped praying that happens that much less often and I was generally and then when I stopped concerning myself about porn or anything like that, we now that the maybe it's as simple as just now that the forbidden part of it wasn't there. Suddenly, it was less interesting. And so now I was doing that list to

Arline 29:19
know things. I had a similar experience when I decided mine. I don't I never was formally diagnosed. So I don't know but it was there was like, what they call mom rage, where it was like, I was so angry and me like it was a scary whole scary thing for my kid. Like it was really bad. And I just kept you know, you're praying about it. You're asking like, God, please help me like you're, you're supposed to be. You wouldn't use the word magical but like you're supposed to have power to like, help fix these things. And when I when I when I did, I did. Similarly, I consciously was like, I'm not going to pray about this anymore. All it does is stress me out because I don't know if God's gonna help or not. So I have more anxiety about the thing. And it was like my brain cleared up in a way that I didn't know, my brain could clear up. It wasn't perfect, you know, but it just it took away that extra layer of anxiety. And then my husband and I, he d converted first. And I went on my own journey. And one night we were talking about pornography. And it was like, like, you know, because we're taught that it's all inherently bad. It's all evil. It's exploitation. It's lust. It's this all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I don't know what I think about it. I don't know. But when it became for him when I was like, Well, if we decide to watch something, okay, like, we'll be okay, that's fine. This will be like a thing that we can try and see. For him, because he had the more compulsive like, wanted to what he was like, it became less interesting. Because now it's a possibility. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. And it was, yeah, that it being the forbidden fruit. I like the way you said that made it way more interesting when it was like, Oh, this is just like a piece of candy I can have if I want it, okay. Then it's just like in the pantry, and you don't even think about it. And also,

Andrew 31:14
there's the whole like, don't think about porn, don't think about porn, don't think about porn. But I'm thinking about it by telling myself not to think about it. Since these knots that it ties you into. Yes.

Arline 31:26
And when Jesus said, like your thought life is evil, and sinful and bad. And like all that. It's just, I have nothing. But you know, we have some bizarre thoughts that go through our minds. And it's like, if that means it's reality, or that means that it's true, then I am a horrible person. And it's Oh, my heavens. Okay. Continue. Yeah.

Andrew 31:53
But yeah, you'd think that this might be where the deconversion happens. But, you know, I was still, I still tried to make it work in some fashion or other or another for the next few years.

It was around this time that I also realized what a bogus conspiracy theory that creationism was, began to accept evolution. Then I also found a group of theistic evolutionists as awkward as that sounds to say on Facebook, and that's actually where I met a mutual friend of you and me, large gain. So we slowly became friends through that. But I think accepting evolution actually briefly saved me that's interesting. For a time. Yeah, yeah. Because some of the things I was starting to notice in the Bible, like, you know, God ordering the genocide of the Canaanites, and stuff like that, I was starting to get the cognitive dissonance about all that. And so once I accepted evolution, I was like, well, either the Bible itself evolves, or if we want to take it somewhat literally, maybe God Himself was just trying to do a selective breeding program on people and trying to make them more trying to make us more spiritual or something like that. But that was an interesting intellectual period,

Arline 33:47
I was trying to make all that work.

Andrew 33:50
But one of the funny results of that was that I told myself, I didn't want to give Ken Ham the satisfaction of being correct in that evolution leads to atheism. So I was like, well, whatever else happens, I'm still going to be a Christian. So I honestly think that's kind of what sustained me for the next few years,

Arline 34:14
you should write Ken Ham and let him know hey, there for a little while, I stayed a Christian, because he wanted to prove you wrong. But you know, things change. But I did want to let you know you had that time period of my life. Yeah. So you said the cognitive dissonance. Evolution you're fine with evolution is trying to make it work.

Andrew 34:37
But the cognitive dissonance still kept growing and despite the distance I had put between myself and God for my own mental health that still wore on me a bit. Because yeah, like you're saying if If there's such a thing as thought crimes and Christianity, then you know, there truly can be nobody righteous, which, you know, Jesus is supposed to save us from. But it's also supposed to, essentially be your thoughts that save you. Because you're supposed to say in your heart, like, oh, I accept you, and I'll follow you. Oh,

Arline 35:23
that's interesting. Yeah, that's where the belief is, and all that, huh? Yeah. I haven't thought about that. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew 35:30
But, you know, if the heart of man is, above all things, and I can't trust my own thoughts and my own reason, then how can I be sure that I was, you know, serious when I became a Christian? And how do I know that? You know, each little thoughtcrime isn't just proof that I'm not really a Christian. And

Arline 35:58
yeah, it can spiral so fast, if you

Andrew 36:01
think about Yeah, yeah. And I think that whole thing, that was the final bit of rot, that really ate away the remains of my faith. Because I just couldn't accept that I couldn't be secure in my faith. I don't I don't know that I was necessarily seeing the deconversion stories that were coming out around then. But I just had this, I still already knew the general Christian response of, well, they were never really Christians anyway. Like, I still had that in the back of my head. And so I was like, Well, if you can have somebody that seems so Christian, that's never really was what anyway, then there's no reason to think that I ever was one. So despite everything that I've done, to try to appeal to God and everything, and so if all these little thought crimes are potentially enough to indicate that I never really was a real question, well, you know, I'm might as well be damned for stealing a chicken as an egg, you know. And so if being in the church, there's a possibility that I'm not a real Christian, then why continue? And I think the final nail in the coffin was me discovering atheist YouTube. And finally having the words for all these things that I was feeling. I think I'm pretty sure it was actually introduced me to that through RM ra attending Tetsu con in 2018. So this is a whole thing that goes down my nerdier side. So I had been involved in online paleontology nerd circles for a long time now. I had already started making a few friends through there.

There's this one paleontologist in particular that I follow named Darren Naish, who has a blog and a podcast called tetrapod zoology, where he talks not just about paleontology, but any vertebrate animals living or dead. And so he's actually amassed quite a following. And you could make the case that a significant amount of the online paleontology world kind of revolves around him to a certain extent, like he's kind of okay. He's kind of become a bit of a hub that a lot of people can relate to. And so he actually felt that he had enough of a following that he could do his own little convention. Oh, wow. You're on his blog. Yeah. And so this year will actually be the 10th anniversary of that. Oh, but anyway, if the 2018 one, our an RA was one of the speakers there, and he was presenting on his phylogeny project that he's doing phylogeny being fancy scientific term for just the evolutionary family tree. Okay,

Arline 39:31
I was going to ask, not everyone would have any, including myself knows what that word means. I've no idea. Okay, now we know.

Andrew 39:37
And so I started watching his YouTube series on that project. But then, of course, I also was seeing his other videos on atheist content. Now that he was in my feed you to begin recommending all the other people to me as well. And I think it was particularly finding apology. Uh, okay. Yeah, that was a big turning point for me because he was in a vaguely similar position. To myself. Well, I mean, other than all the specific details about his life being completely different, but But it had a similar religious upbringing similarly believe in creationism at one point and was now an atheist. And but he was very much the opposite of the caricature of the angry atheist had kind of dominated YouTube up until then. And so I think, particularly seeing this more thoughtful community that develops, also gave me the space to be more comfortable with adopting that label. And so I don't know that there was a specific moment that I decided I had D converted, but you know, essentially, from about 2018 on, I've been more or less officially an atheist since then.

Arline 41:09
And so now, you know, we're told that there is no, there's no joy, happiness and purpose, meaning any of those things whenever you leave Christianity

How do you find those things now? Now, I will say your face lit up. As soon as you start, y'all can't see it, because we're on podcast. But as soon as you started talking about paleontology, it was like, a whole new injury, it was about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But so yeah, how do you find meaning and purpose and all the things we were told we can't have? Well,

Andrew 41:48
as been throwing myself into the Paleo world much more thoroughly than I ever had been before. I actually started my own little blog called dyno dad reviews.

Arline 42:01
Yes, it's fantastic. Great children's books available on there if you're interested.

Andrew 42:07
Yes. The I mostly review children's books on paleontology, although I do do the odd book aimed at adults every so often. And occasionally, TV shows and museums as well. But yeah, I've had a lot of fun with that. And I've gotten more connected with people in the Paleo sphere, as we call it through that.

Arline 42:33
I love it too much.

Andrew 42:34
Yeah, yeah, I've been having lots of fun with that. It's been great. I do miss the idea of church in some ways, because I have yet to find a strong real life replacement for it. I've got these great online communities with you and our friends in the deconversion anonymous group. And while my friends in the Paleo sphere, but you know, if you're just to look at me going about my daily life, I very much look like a bit of a recluse. Yeah. And through both my depression and purity culture, and all that I definitely suppressed this over time. But I do think I am sort of a I think physical touch and or just physical presence, I think is one of my love languages. And so I have felt kind of stunted in that regard for the last few years. And I even still have been going with my family to church. Oh, just kind of in the hopes that I could still connect with some kind of community, but that hasn't really been working out very well. There's a couple people that I like that I see sometimes, but you know, church still isn't really hasn't really felt like a community since I left youth group. Oh,

Arline 44:17
wow. Yeah, it's Yeah. It's like this strange experience when becoming an adult, all of a sudden, everything so much harder to build friendships in real life. I don't. And I don't know the like, I've seen memes that are like, I'll wear a t shirt that says I would like to be your friend to the park for playdates, like Are any of the other moms or dads one of the Yeah, it's it's strange. I don't I don't have the answers or know why it gets weird. But yeah,

Andrew 44:48
I mean, I also have my own internal issues help that don't help me in that

Arline 44:56
regard. Understand, like I

Andrew 44:59
said, I have a very strong aversion to doing anything that feels like I'm forcing myself on other people. And so I think, in some ways, that's possibly why I have more online friends than real life friends at the moment because it feels, to me it feels like an online friend always has much more of a chance to back out if they want to.

Arline 45:24
Oh, that's interesting. But

Andrew 45:25
when you're in real, when you're like, face to face with someone and talking to them, you know, it's harder to politely get away from that. So I think I am just kind of, I just kind of have a bit of social anxiety in that regard, I guess.

Arline 45:43
And like, with online friends, at least, what I found is, well, I hope there's this freedom, because I've been living in this freedom. So I hope it actually exists of like, not having to get back soon, every single time. You know, like, there's this amount of distance where it's like, if I don't have whatever energy, I need to like, chat right now. It's okay. Like, I'll get back when I can. But then there's also this like, I don't know, it feels like there's more freedom to, like, we'll, we'll chat. And then we can have space, and then we can chat and have space. And when I say that I have you and I are in a group thread. And I am always, always late, like I don't have a clue. That's what's happening by the time I get to it. So I don't know if that's good or not good. You know, having that space and taking it.

Andrew 46:33
You also have the advantage of casting a wider net and have having a greater chance of finding people that actually

Arline 46:41
click well with you. Yes, if I were bound by geography, I would have a lot fewer acquaintances and friends and

so here you are a heathen and atheists. Paleo nerd. I love it. What recommendations do you have for people who are D converting or have already D converted? Well,

Andrew 47:11
I would definitely recommend apology, like I said before, Paul appname pa ULOGIA. So it's upon on apologetics. Which, funnily enough, apologists somehow never seem to catch. Because, really, unless he was so happy, really. I know, right? But literally every apologist response video to him I've ever seen. They're like, so there's this guy, like, pollutes Paulo, Jia? Wow. On your profession, that's fine. To be doing this on purpose.

Arline 47:52
Oh, my gosh, we'll have it all in the show notes. So don't worry about how it's spelled, like he's, we'll have him in the shed

Andrew 47:58
anyway. But he's always super kind and grace, gracious and everything he's just a pleasure to listen to. And then, I don't know, I would almost say the YouTube algorithm can take it from there. Just the people that he associated with, but, you know, I would also obviously recommend this podcast. And like the our Facebook group and other online communities like that, I also find that a strong, non religious community is also helpful as well. It's just good to have some sort of community of mutual interest that you're involved in that is not tied to the church or anything like that. Yes. For me, it was the online paleo community, and just being able to talk with joy about things that we love that are just there don't have moral implications on our lives. It's just something you love. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just very, very healthy activity. Yes.

Arline 49:15
Yes.

Andrew 49:15
You know, that's, that's something you can't neglect and all this because I think there there can be a tendency to spiral in different ways once you come out of religion and take mentally unhealthy tracks. And I think that's where the whole, you know, early 2000s angry atheist YouTube culture came from. It's just these people who D converted but then never quite answered the now what?

Arline 49:47
Yeah, like what do we do now? That isn't just being against something the whole time? Well, Andrew, thank you so much for doing this. This was such a lovely conversation. I really appreciate you Big nine.

Andrew 50:00
Yeah, I was nervous that I wouldn't have anything interesting to talk about. But this has been

Arline 50:13
my final thoughts on the episode, I've had a few other opportunities to interview people that I've become friends with online that this was my first time with someone like that I talked to not every single day but pretty close very often. And so this just made my heart so happy getting to talk to Andrew and hear his full story. Your wish this had been YouTube's you could see him light up, it was like a completely different person, like telling the the beautiful but difficult story of his deconversion. And then when he started talking about his paleo nerd friends circle conference, it was just he lit up. So I guess one of my big takeaways is y'all find that thing that lights you up that makes you one of those things where you just talk about our something you love so much that just makes your heart happy and makes you excited and makes you want to just tell the whole world about it. That's one of the things we're told in Christianity is that this is the most important thing, Jesus is most important, you should care about this. But they just should all over us about something that may or may not be super interesting to us. And then they want us to tell the whole world about the thing that's not super interesting, and it just doesn't, it just doesn't work. So y'all find the things that just light you up, whether it's your family, or paleontology, or some other ology, or for me, it's children's books and kids, the options are endless. We may not be able to make money off of it. But like we can love it and do it and enjoy it. So find those things. The Facebook group, like I've built some great friendships there, if possible, if you're interested, we will have links in the show notes. deconversion anonymous Facebook group, come to some of the events come to the Tuesday night podcast discussions or our weekend social. That's once a month. And y'all meet some people. They're fabulous. We're fabulous. Andrew, thank you again for being on the podcast. It was so lovely.

David Ames 52:22
The secular Grace Thought of the Week inspired by Andrew is except your personality. There are many ways that you may not fit in, in church. But one of the difficult ones is being a precocious intelligent kid, who is an introvert, growing up in the church. The expectations to be demonstrative to be evangelistic. To be out front and in leadership in one way or another is absolutely a huge burden on such a person. I want to be clear here that there are lots of difficulties for kids who are outgoing and extroverted as well. So it's not just about introversion here. But the message that a child takes in is that there's something wrong with them because they are not matching up with the expectation on this side of deconstruction and deconversion. You can accept your personality, who you are, you can lean into the strengths of your personality. If you're an introvert who likes to study and focus on details, or an extrovert who is a people person who brings people together and is a hub of community. whatever your thing is, you can lean into that and accept it and whatever is a perceived weakness. There's no pressure anymore. No one's asking you to be something that you are not you get to be yourself. Until next time, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be 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 a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai