My guest this week is Troy Moore-Heart. Troy grew up in an Evangelical family in Texas and described his childhood self as a “true-believing born-again Christian” who was baptized by his father at 6 in his grandmother’s church. Troy experienced religious trauma, the natural childhood fears given the purported reality of a spiritual realm all around him. Later in life, when he acknowledged his sexuality he “fervently believed [he] was going to hell.” When he eventually came out to his family he needed to put up healthy boundaries.
It’s hard to be in relationships with people who think you’re going to Hell.
Troy started to call himself an agnostic and not an atheist for fear of losing his relationship with his family. After marrying as an adult, he came to terms with his religious trauma and anti-queer shame. He discovered secular humanism as “an ideological and moral home.”
We don’t need to believe in any supernatural deity or god or interventionist all powerful being to believe that we must be kind and moral.
Today, troy calls himself a progressive humanist, and he is focused on transformative justice. He is becoming a humanist celebrant. He supports projects like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Y’all Means All and the Trevor Project. Troy also supports the thriving secular therapy community that is growing around trauma-informed therapy, including the Religious Trauma Institute and the Reclamation Collective.
My personal motto is: Do no harm but take no shit and work for peace and justice. For me that is humanism.
Troy requests that you consider signing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Y’all Means All” pledge. “It’s become a galvanizing slogan to promote LGBTQ inclusion and advocacy in rural Southern communities.”
My guest this week is Suandria Hall. Suandria is a trauma informed counselor specializing in faith transitions. Her practice, My Choice My Power, is online and she offers mental health counseling to residents in Colorado and life coaching sessions online, by phone, and email for anyone.
What is more important to me than anything is being honest and being authentic about who I am and who I choose to be in this world. While pretending for a moment seemed easy. I really had no concept about how much I was about to unravel. Once I make this choice to say this out loud that I don’t believe this any more. What does that even mean? But I took a leap and I started to say out loud that I don’t believe this any more.
Suandria tells her story of being groomed for ministry in a very Charismatic community with rigorous honesty. In her early adulthood she began to question and eventually deconverted. She had a positive experience with a therapist who “held space” for her shifting faith positions. She then went on to become a secular counselor to help others through the same process.
What they are looking for is someone who doesn’t force any type of spirituality in the practice. They just want to show up and say let me just talk through some stuff.
We talk about the power of parents to influence children. And the damage that can occur when parents pass that responsibility on to an invisible god.
The child learns that the love the adoration the loyalty the devotion that a mother and a child would share with each other is now shifted. So now god becomes the number one.
Her approach to counseling is trauma informed and acknowledges Adverse Religious Experiences and religious trauma. She helps people going through the process of deconstruction and deconversion while being open to all faith positions.
Trauma is when our bodies our systems becomes overwhelmed, flooded with emotions, flooded with bodily sensations. It gets stuck.
“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. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. As always, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast in the Apple podcast store and telling your friends about the podcast. I know a number of you have sent in questions for the episode with my wife and I we have actually now recorded that. I do suspect that it will come out a little bit later, probably in December. It was a compelling conversation for both of us. I think it was intense and pretty raw and honest. So I'm hoping that it comes across when we share this in December. I also have done just a number of interviews that I am excited to share with you. So you can look forward to some really interesting conversations over the next few weeks. onto today's show. My guest today is Suandria Hall. Sindri is a psychologist. She's a nationally certified counselor, a Board Certified tele mental health counselor and also a life coach. She's based out of Denver. Cynthia has a counseling practice called my choice, my power and you can find her at my choice, my power.com she grew up a preacher's kid and went through a deconversion process in her early adulthood. She has just a really powerful story that I think you're going to find compelling. I'll also recommend here, Suandria's Instagram account, my choice, my power counseling. on her Instagram account. She has a number of pearls of wisdom, just things to keep in mind and the craziness of 2020 to keep your mental health and I think it's well worth while checking that out. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Suandria Hall.
Suandria Hall, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Suandria Hall 2:10
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
David Ames 2:12
Thank you for saying yes. And come in and chat with me. Yeah. So I want to go over just a little bit about your credentials, the work that you do. I'll let you fill in the details here. But you are a national certified counselor, you're a board certified tele mental health counselor. And you do a lot of online work as well. But you're you're focused in in Denver, is that correct?
Suandria Hall 2:34
Yep, I'm home based in Denver. But my practice is virtual. So I see clients actually all over the world. In addition to being a clinical practitioner here in Colorado, I'm also a life coach. So that kind of broadens the scope. And yeah, it makes it makes for a very diverse group of clients, I can imagine.
David Ames 2:56
Yeah. And the name of your, your practices, my choice, my power. I wonder if you would talk about that just a little bit like that name.
Suandria Hall 3:07
Sure. So I focused on life transitions, religious trauma, and I do a lot of work with women. So the name of my practice, my choice, my power came from me been a preacher's kid, and experiencing how the power of choice became powerful for me. And I mean, it's a little bit corny, but it's, it's the truth. I couldn't think of anything else that was be fitting and I wanted that to resonate with my clients as much as it does for me.
David Ames 3:40
Right. So that is a good segue. I want to hear about your story. Let's start with what was your faith experience, like?
Suandria Hall 3:49
Sure. So I'm a preacher's kid from the south. Huge family. I didn't identify as a black woman. And long line of preachers, my father, uncles, aunts, my mother's like a prayer warrior and my brother. And like, that was life for us. Right? I was. I was introduced as a child actually, my parents. They're from a really small town in Alabama. I'm from a small town. They're from an even smaller town. Okay. And this tent revival came through eons ago, saw does floors and all of that came to their little town and it was led by a black couple. The woman was actually the main preacher. husband was the pastor but she was the main preacher and charismatic, gorgeous, confident strong, and this is like this 60s In the rural south, so can you imagine the impact? Yeah, she had on these at that. My parents were teenagers, right? So she came through preaching the word and it's amazing music and change their lives. When you when you come to a group of people who maybe don't have so much, and you see someone that represents wow, I can be that I can be there financially, I could be that in my level of competence and experience and exposure that was really life changing for my parents, and they were all in right and later married and gave birth to me. And I was raised in that environment myself, my brother and my sister.
David Ames 5:34
Wow, the first thing that just popped into my head there is that it almost seems like the church and I mean, this in the broad sense has gone backwards. We had some fairly dynamic female preachers, evangelists, thinking of Aimee Semple McPherson of the Foursquare fame. Somebody like you're describing there, it feels like, it's interesting. Where are those preachers and evangelists today?
Suandria Hall 5:59
That's such a good question. I visited my mom a couple of months ago, and we were talking about just everything that's going on in the world right now, specifically in America, and how the Church used to be like home base for these movements. And it wasn't so much about, you know, getting money and building these huge mega churches and filling up space. But it was, you know, the work of the community. And I asked you that same question like, what's, what's happening? What's going on? I think there's just been, you know, this inward, turn, like, make us better make us grow, but not so much in the community. And it's disheartening. Yeah, sure.
David Ames 6:44
We're going to talk a bit about community and your work here a little bit, but I want to focus in on again, your personal experience, that you feel like you had a personal relationship with God, that was something that was a phrase it this way, what was your experience of God?
Suandria Hall 7:00
So like I said, I was born into this Pentecostal Holiness environment. And it was like, I didn't know anything different. Yeah, right. No other ways of thinking and being. But it wasn't until I was about I think, 25 When I got for real estate. I had moved from my small town in Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia. And one of my cousins, like I said, might use our family. We were just about that life. My cousin introduced me to a church there. mega church, a black minister. He and his wife, again, were just amazing. They took the experience that my parents had with that phenomenal, charismatic woman, pastor to the next level. Right, right. And I thought, wow, I can be sold out for Jesus, I can be rich. Yeah, like God's a party that big, too. And they really changed that experience. For me. I like real estate and, you know, just dived into this spirit led environment.
David Ames 8:13
Yeah. It strikes me again, this was the point you were making with your parents. And now here as well, that just having representatives, somebody that looks like you somebody that you can identify with who is showing some success showing, like you say, confidence, ability, talent there are putting on display, and that must be really profoundly impacting.
Suandria Hall 8:36
Absolutely. I mean, I was groomed for it. Yeah, sure. For sure. But that was definitely the warmth on the hook, because they looked like me. Yeah. And it was an easy transition to really just dive in and follow that church that that ministry those those leaders, for sure, right.
David Ames 8:58
Well, you and I wouldn't be talking if that was the end of the story. So describe a little bit about when and how did things start to fall apart? Or was it sudden was it did it take a long time? What were some of the doubts that you experienced?
Suandria Hall 9:13
So I just started to question things. I've always been a reader, my dad had, you know, tons of books in his reading space, and I would thumb through those. So it was important to read, although with Jesus in the Bible, I didn't read in the way of questioning, right? I just read what was given to me. In any other, you know, author that kind of supported these thoughts. I kind of stayed in there. But I started to read more and more and just question some of the teachings that were given at that church and I, I've always had a little bit of a rebellious streak. Um, so So I will push that envelope and say, you know, this sounds like another way to get money from us, you know, that was a big part of it. Tons of things. There were things around, you know, sexuality. Yeah. Things around who I am as a woman, right that was defined by this book and by these men, and it didn't really sit well with me. And it's just like I said, I started to question I started to read, and it slowly just started to crumble. Okay, what used to be life for me, like I said, something that I could just I was grown for, I could easily step in, just started to crumble fall apart, I started to see the cracks. And then I started to study religion in general. Like, okay, all I know, is pushing me. Let's see what else is out there. And you see this
David Ames 10:50
thread? Interesting. Yes, I'm
Suandria Hall 10:53
familiar stories and concepts. It's like, well, who owns this stuff? From? And I tell you read enough books, and you start to expand your circle of influence, right? Because everyone around me was Christian. Whether you live in you know, that super clean Christian or not,
David Ames 11:12
yes, yes. ostensively. Christian, yes.
Suandria Hall 11:17
But But that's where we were right. But when you start to introduce other people here, have your thoughts. It's like, oh, wait a minute. I don't, I don't think I believe this anymore. Yeah.
David Ames 11:29
I did listen to a couple of interviews you've done on podcasts previously. And one statement that you made that really, really struck me was that you had a moment of contemplating pretending kind of staying staying in? Can you expand on that?
Suandria Hall 11:45
Yeah, um, so you start to question right, you start to doubt. it crumbles even further. And then you get to a place where you have to make that decision. It was I felt like I had to make a decision on is this what I believe? Or is it not? What's more important to me than anything is being honest, and being authentic about who I am and who I choose to be in this world. And while pretending for a moment seemed easy, because I really had no concept of how much I was about to unravel. Right, right. Once I made this choice to really say out loud that I don't believe this anymore. What does that even mean? Right. So so that was the struggle. But I took the leap. And, and I started to say that out loud, that I don't believe this anymore. I didn't know what I believed in that moment. But I knew what was happening right now. Is something very real for me. And I needed to give myself the space and the time and the energy, the courtesy, right, to explore it and figure it out.
David Ames 12:59
Wow, I relate to so many things you've said there. The first of which is, you know, you read the Bible with a particular filter on. And I talk a lot about in my deconversion story that did another read through of the Bible about a year before I no longer believe. And I was angry. I was like, my wife was pointing out to me, like, why are you why are you angry? Yeah. And I was completely unaware of this, right. But I would, you know, be for at that, you know, after reading. And it was that the rose colored glasses had started to fall. And I was really just reading the text as it is. And then just kind of being fed, how it ought to be interpreted a little bit, and always seeing things within that lens. Let's talk some about your your work. So what led you to decide to pursue psychology and then to what extent is deconstruction, loss of faith a part of your work?
Suandria Hall 13:57
Sure. So you know, like I said, I raised in a family of ministers, and, you know, I saw them do beautiful things in our community. I watched my mom and dad take people in and just always helping people to this day. That's, that's who my family is. So I think there's just this natural part of me that wants to help people. So so that was an easy part of my decision to become a therapist, but with religion starting to just unravel. I saw a therapist when I was going through this. And I saw a few actually. I finally met one that just held space for me, right? She was a Christian as well. She didn't quite understand what was happening and where I would land and all of that. She just held space. But what I learned in that journey was that wow, what would it have been like to have someone Walk me through that in a very specific way, again, not to tell me who to be how to be. But the right question. So the right context, kind of validate these feelings that I was having. And why can't that be me?
David Ames 15:21
Absolutely. What I find interesting is there's people like Brian pack, and the religious trauma Institute and those that group of people, but it seems like such a small group of people. And this seems to me like a huge growth opportunity for counselors that, you know, we have the, the era of the nuns, the N O N. E. 's, the people who Mark none of the above. Like, there's a lot of people out there who are going to need to walk through that process.
Suandria Hall 15:51
Absolutely. Yeah, the religious trauma Institute is doing some really great work. Brian is actually a friend of mine. We Yeah, we do some work together as well. And, you know, I think we share that we know that this is a niche, and but it's needed. You know, the moment I started to say it out loud, that I was a secular therapist, it was on one hand terrifying. But on the other hand, like, this is this is necessary, I need to say that I need that to be distinguished, right? So that people can find me again, I thought about me, and my journey, just wanted to really make that available. So my clients, it's a wide range, I still see believers. So I have believers, and then I have atheists and everything in between. Yeah, you know, what they're looking for is someone that doesn't force any type of spirituality. In practice, they just want to show up and say, let me just talk through some stuff.
David Ames 16:52
Yeah. You have a an Instagram page, that is just a wealth of wisdom, I recommend everyone go and read your posts. And one of them kind of addresses this, you talked about, initially, after your deconstruction, deconversion process, you had some anger? Yeah, that it's important as a counselor that you do your own work, and you don't bring that to the counseling session? Do you want to expound on that?
Suandria Hall 17:18
Sure, um, you know, that's, that's part of, you know, our education is we're learning about theories and people and communities and all of that. But you're, you're challenged often to dig within your own heart, your own mind, to see what is happening so that you can show up, healed, it gives you a level of experience that's very personal and very real. asked that empathy that you can have with people. So I start with development, right? When we think about counseling, in general, we know how important development is our caregivers, our parents, this is where we learn love and safety and what it means to be nurtured in connection. These are fundamentals who are growth, right. So to put that in the context of this religious deconversion, or adverse religious experience, so parents are that powerful, right? It's a gift. But then that parent gives that power away to God, to religious, strict religious teachings to charismatic leaders. And so then the child learns that, Oh, okay. So the love the adoration, the loyalty, the devotion, that maybe a mother and a child would share with each other is now shifted. Hmm, interesting. Yeah. So now God becomes the number one. But here's this being that is to be our source of love. Right? But can't be touched. Right, can't be held, can't hold you remains distant, and then has all these requirements, right? requirements to be loved, and to be blessed and to be to be safe and protected. There's a list of requirements. Yeah. And back to me being a therapist that can help clients walk through this. We're in America, where 90% of the population believes in God, some form, and that bleeds over into the counseling world, right? So it really does make a difference when you walk into a room. So while we understand as the counseling community, how important these foundational relationships are, we miss that shift when all of that power, all of that influence is now God's Right,
David Ames 19:54
right. You have in a way, a deeper insight into the people who you are working with then maybe a religious counselor? They would?
Suandria Hall 20:04
Yes. Yeah, there are things I'm going to say yes. That a religious counselor might not or might not be able to validate or it may be extremely uncomfortable, right. So in essence, what we're talking about here is, is trauma. And I'll tell you why. So trauma, it's when our bodies our system becomes overwhelmed, flooded with emotions, flooded physically, like in our bodily sensations and things like that. So it gets stuck, right, and we're unable to move through it. Okay. And here's, and someone will say, Well, what does that mean? As it relates to religious trauma? So we have these strict religious teachings, right? And they're given to us. So a natural development, a child is able to explore, to be curious to learn by experience, it's a beautiful thing happening. Yeah. But when these young children are, as soon as they can think, told who they are, who to be, how to be your man, you're this way, you're a woman this way. These are your roles. This is what we do. This is what we believe. That natural process is stolen. Emotions are stifled. Learning is stifled. We don't see it that way. We think we're doing the best. I know, my parents who didn't have much to give this was the best they had to give. It was their way, right? of giving us a better life. So I understand it from that perspective. But having gone through this transformation, it's like, Oh, I miss, I miss some stuff. And I understand why now as an adult, having left religion, I'm struggling with things that are very seemingly very fundamental and and basic, it's like an Arrested Development. Yes.
David Ames 22:02
And it strikes me like you say, the curiosity that children are incredibly attuned to the reactions from their parents, they want to make their parents smile, they want to have a sense of being proud of them. And so if their curiosity is asking questions that hit those boundaries that are start to be uncomfortable, they get that clear message, you don't get to ask those questions, and that definitely would stifle their their growth.
Suandria Hall 22:28
No, there's a scripture that says, and, you know, it's been a while, but I'm sure I hear
David Ames 22:36
I'm a bit rusty, don't worry.
Suandria Hall 22:39
To pass on thoughts and everything that that exalts itself against the knowledge of the Word of God. Right. Right. Like you're literally taught to not allow any other thought in unless it's, quote unquote, biblical, and then you have all kinds of interpretations. So even that's, you know, muddy. Yeah. But so anything that doesn't fall in line with the Scripture, you can't even receive it. Yeah. Talk about your education, your experience being limited, you have to find a scripture that validates, right? Or invalidates this new information. And that's how you receive there's a constant filter on
David Ames 23:21
Yeah. You know, I think, as I've done a lot of interviews with people on a by hear stories, as they get to tell them, I've seen a very striking difference between people who grow up in the church, particularly some form of fundamentalist theology, and people who have some conversion experience later in life. So I happen to be in the latter category, I was about 1617 years old. So I always had kind of a slightly external perspective. And so it wasn't maybe as traumatic for me in the process. But man, for the kids that grew up with hell leaning over them, as much as we as the church talks about grace is very clearly communicated that this love that you're describing is, is conditional. If not these requirements, then that love isn't there. And like what what that does to somebody, I just see my heartbreaks for the challenges that people going through that process who grew up in the church have to deal with
Suandria Hall 24:25
for sure it's, it's now in the scriptures are coming back to me and when I think about our emotions, right, natural part of the human experience, but again, when you when you look at what is for me and my interpretation, and many of my clients, scriptures, like you know, cast down fear, right? Don't even be afraid, right? Like you can't even again you're told to resist, to resist to deny, and these are natural parts of the human experience that we really need. And when people experience traumatic situations, be it child abuse and domestic violence, the tragedy of 911 what we're experiencing right now, yeah, 2020 Yeah, I won't even go down the list 2020 It's, it's psychology one on one, when we treat these people who have had traumatic experiences, the point of it is to be reconnected with what's happening in our bodies, what's happening in our emotions, what we're thinking, like, part of healing from a traumatic experience and coping while we're going through a traumatic experience is being connected with ourselves, allowing ourselves to feel allowing ourselves to let those emotions rise and fall. This is a natural part of, again, the human experience. What religion says is no, you're not going to do that we're going to stifle those emotions, we're going to cut them off. And, you know, I remember, when we do confessions, in the church I was in, I mean, screaming at the top of your lungs. And, you know, again, the casting down, and this is what I want to devil want to do this, like all of this stuff, again, you're pushing down, down, down and away what you're actually experiencing, right. And here's the thing, when we do that, we silenced the parts of our brains that, yeah, tell us about fear, alert us to fear and danger. But we also silence those parts that tell us about joy, and love, and hope. So in in my work with my religious trauma clients, we're trying to bring all those parts back together. And it's it can be very scary and uncomfortable, because with that becomes the fear, rage, the anger. But we have to open that door to receive the love and the joy and the peace and the feel safe. Yeah. within ourselves that get in our emotions again,
David Ames 27:03
yeah. For me, something I've been focusing on a lot in my description of humanism, something I call secular grace, is a lot about just embracing my own humanity, which includes all that the you know, net real imperfections here, I'm not referring to sin, just you know, we are, we are prone to error, we make mistakes, you know, and just being able to be super honest with myself about when I make a mistake, when I when I do something wrong, right? When I do something good when something is, like you say joyful, something meaningful, and just embracing the humanity for myself and embracing the humanity of others. And it seems like in many ways, that religion Christianity specifically seems to kind of try to wipe away that humanity to, you know, we have to be victorious, or, you know, like, there's almost constant living in a false reality.
Suandria Hall 28:02
Yeah. And there's so much to learn in our mistakes. Right? And not just having them but being able to truly connect with them. This is what I did. This is what I said, this is how it made me feel. This is how it made another person feel. But when you have that religion, again, that religious filter, the answers are there. People can hold so tightly to their release, and cause you extreme pain. But if they feel like God said, To do this, they don't even care. They're not even connecting to that part of humanity that says I should, I should probably care about how I'm making another human being feel right now. But again, I have this validation from God. Right? I said, it's okay to do this.
David Ames 28:50
I'm literally on a mission from God. Yes,
Suandria Hall 28:53
yes. Yeah. I was reading the study. And it looked at the well being of people in religious dominant countries, versus secular dominant countries. And what it found was that religious people in religious dominant countries fared well. They felt happy, and connected and secure. They just they just fared better. Right. And then religious people in secular countries did it. They struggled. So it wasn't about whether or not their faith was giving them the sense of well being. It was about the community, the social structure, it was about what's around that really supported what they believe or did it? Yeah. Right.
David Ames 29:53
Yeah. I mean, I really want to expound on community here. I think in particular for the black church. arch that seems like is such a central part of the black experience in America is to be connected to a church community. And then to expand beyond that to say that I often say the magic of Christianity or religion is the people is the community and that we can actually acknowledge that it's the people, you know, be able to walk into a room and have 12 People say, Oh, I missed you. I love you. You know, I'd like that we need that we're hardwired for that kind of connectivity. And but there's nothing supernatural going on there. That is, people, humans to humans loving each other. You know?
Suandria Hall 30:37
Yeah, yeah. We've attributed to supernatural though, right? Right. I remember those high high emotions of being in charge. My dad's a musician, was he passed away a couple years ago.
David Ames 30:50
Sorry,
Suandria Hall 30:51
thank you. He's a musician. So music was always in our house. We had it at church. And it was like, magnificent. And any kind of music, if you're into it, your emotions aren't there. Right. But if it's in charge, we call it spiritual, the Holy Spirit, this is why we dance. This is why we do all these things. So that love that force, that energy that we get from just connecting with other human beings, celebrating with other human beings, greeting with other human beings, that's available to us all the time. But we've we've said that that's only in church. And to find it outside of church, I will admit that's, that's a difficult one, because it's just not readily available, where you find a group of people coming together at the same time, every week for this purpose, right? It's a plug and play thing here. But again, as you start to unravel all of this religious doctrine and these rules and start to walk in your own identity, you start to expand social circles and groups, and you start to create those for yourself. And you can find people that you can spend this time with inexperienced, that kind of love. I mean, me and my friends will dance will dance on Marco Polo, it's similar to like, yeah, like, wherever we can find it. We connect that way. So it's available. It's different. Yeah, it's different, but it's available.
David Ames 32:21
Yeah, I'm not sure if I've told this story on my before but you know, my family are they're still believers. Everybody's a believer still. And just recently, my daughter and I, we were like cleaning the kitchen or seven. We had Snoop Dogg's gospel album. You know, I don't know for listeners if you're into gospel or not, but I mean, it's a beautiful album, just like if you'd like gospel, beautiful, just dancing. You know, like, I was, like, I stopped at one point and said, you know, your atheist dad is dancing. And just kind of the absurdity of the moment and yet, we were having so much joy, we were connecting to each other. And, you know, just was a real moment was really deep, profound moment. Really.
Suandria Hall 33:03
Yeah, I still listen to some of it. It's beautiful music and it's moving it some of it, it's very uplifting, like I did is nothing wrong with that. No, in in, in healing trauma. You know, one of the things that really helps clients to move through that hung up emotion and that hung up those sensations in our body is to move. Yeah, right. So it you know, I think about these, as I've learned is I just, it really helps me reflect on my experience in a different way. And we were dancers, are you going to a black church and we're going to tear the church and it feels good. Yeah, it feels good to let that go to release that way. And you go home from like, whoa, I'm healed. I got it. Yeah, well, we know that religion acts more like an ointment right just a little something on top of the scar that temporarily keeps it from getting dirty again temporarily keeps it from getting infected but the real work requires that inner deep emotional hard look at what you're really experiencing. And that's the part we miss. So sure, listen to your music dance. Like I said, I have clients that are you know, wide range people are still there. I'm just like how do we get you to a place where you feel more confident in yourself? Right Well, you haven't given away all of your power your ability to critically think your ability to enjoy sex Yeah. To you know, just live
David Ames 34:43
right. I again from some other interviews view you talked about your you will often do a walk and talk before then the before times. You strike me what you say is very true. Just the motion itself. Have Yes, in some ways allows us to connect to our inner life in a way that maybe just sitting at a desk or sitting across from somebody doesn't do. So how's that a part of your work?
Suandria Hall 35:11
Yeah. So, you know, talk therapy helps, right? But it's the intent. And it's the words that we use. And it's, it's the focus that we're bringing forward in those sessions. And part of it is the sensations in the body. Again, trauma is all of that being hung up is stuck somewhere. It's almost like it stamps that moment in time your body does. So. It's not just what you think about it. It's not even just what you feel about it, the emotions, happy, sad anger. But it's also how your body is reacting. The headaches, the tense shoulders, the stomach aches like these are also happening as we experience things in life. And through this work with trauma, we're giving language we're giving words to what has been unspeakable. Oh, right. So again, you've been silenced, right? You've been told how to be who to be when to feel what to think all of that. So there's so much silence going on. So as clients start to reconnect, it helps to loosen up the body move around a little bit. What are you feeling? What are you feeling? I'm always asking, What are you feeling? Not just emotion? Where do you feel it in your body? Let's talk about that. When we when we when we talk about that experience with that pastor? And someone kind of gets a, it's okay, where is that right now for you? Where is that we I'm very intentional on helping clients see that. And that helps to release that and you can move forward through it and move forward. Yeah.
David Ames 36:50
And I think, you know, just some form of exercise as well is important. Like, whether that's yoga. In my case, I'm a runner, and I feel like that is my meditation. I'm working stuff out. You know, I'm like, There's something about those endorphins you get from just moving your body around. And I think it's actually really beneficial.
Suandria Hall 37:12
Absolutely. For me, it's hiking. Yeah, that's my go to I can go from miles. And I enjoy the movement, the sounds, the trees, the wind, the sun, all of it. Yeah.
David Ames 37:25
And the experience in nature, just stuff all there is to recognize that, like you said earlier that all isn't that just doesn't happen in church alone. Yes, it happens in many places.
Suandria Hall 37:38
Oh, I love that the ah, yeah. Yes, that's so real. And to give ourselves the permission to do that, you know, we laugh at people and call, you know, tree huggers. I have some friends who call me a tree arbor. It's like, Yeah, I do. Magnificent. Yes.
David Ames 37:56
Yeah, I point out, like, you know, I experienced a lot, you know, in the mountains, on the river and the ocean. And it's like, these things are quite literally bigger than ourselves. And there's something very powerful about just recognizing that that is the human experience of being next to something that is more powerful than you are and just literally experiencing humility, and that again, we don't need any supernatural elements for that to be true.
Suandria Hall 38:23
Absolutely. And I like that you said that experiencing something that's greater than you also experiencing something that's the same as you. Yeah. Because again, in charge, there's so many hierarchies. Yeah. Right. And we're all serving up and worshipping up. I think one of the biggest influences on me being able to go deeper. And love is my daughter, right? She's a tiny little thing. She's four. And I'm in awe of her every day. i I'm humbled by her presence, I'm humbled by, you know, she gets this freedom to explore that I didn't have and just watching that. It's just like, oh my gosh, oh, my gosh, it's beautiful. So yeah, I'm in awe every day. Yeah.
David Ames 39:11
They're autonomous human beings that I think I was, you know, Mike, my kids are teenagers now. And it's that whole process of just watching them. Each different developmental stage as they took more autonomy on for themselves is just it's it's, it's shocking. It's humbling. It's an amazing process to watch.
Suandria Hall 39:30
It is. It's nothing like it and, and so be a part of that. Again, again, with all the humility that you're required to walk in inside of religion because nothing can belong to you, right? Yeah. If it's good as Gods if it's bad as the devil you just get to skate through and not having any responsibility. Yes, but yeah, just owning the fact that I had a part in creating her Yeah, it's it's, it's flooring to me. And I don't give that to anyone except for father. But we did that, and I get to feel the weight of that gift, but also to the weight of that responsibility. It's, it's I don't give that away. Right. It's mine, and it helps really guide me on being an intentional parent.
David Ames 40:26
Yeah, yeah. And I'm certain that your daughter will grow up syncing your ownership of that responsibility and wait.
Suandria Hall 40:34
It's I sure hope so. I sure hope so. And I give her hers like No, honey, this is yours. You get to make this choice. You feel that?
David Ames 40:43
Yeah, yeah. So I'm asking this a bit out of order. I probably should have started with this. But you've mentioned a couple of different semi technical terms religious trauma or trauma informed and adverse religious experience. Can you talk about what those are? What do they mean? And then how do they apply to the work that you do?
Suandria Hall 41:02
So like I said, trauma is it can be a one time experience, it could be something that's happened over the years or things that multiple kinds of experiences that at one time over the years things that are passed down. So we're all of us have probably had some kind of experience that was difficult, but not everyone has trauma. Right. So that's kind of the thing that you're trying to work through and an adverse religious experience. I like that term that came from the religious trauma Institute. Yeah, yeah. I like that. Because I'm not anti religion. Right. You know, in a, again, because my experience, I have beautiful memories of my time in church, specifically, when I was a little girl, just, like I said, the music and my family was there. It was wonderful. It's like no family reunion every week. So I understand what people can get from it. That can be helpful, right. But I also know the realities of adverse religious experience the pain that it can cause the sometimes intentional hurt, and sometimes they didn't know, I know, for a fact, my mother would never intentionally hurt me. Right? Right, that that wasn't her intent, her my father's intent and introducing me to Jesus and Christianity, but it happens. So I think it's important to make that distinguishment between, you know, are you anti religion? Or are you I'm pro people.
David Ames 42:38
Exactly. This is something I've really been trying to communicate a lot lately, again, this idea of embracing the human beings within humanism and saying, yes, human beings are prone to answers that may not have lots of evidence. If you call yourself an atheist, you can say you, oh, well, they're being illogical or what have you, but we aren't Vulcans. We're human beings. And so embracing that is to care about the whole person, which may include religious beliefs, or what have you, and just being able to talk to that person and actually not see them as dysfunctional in some way or another. Right,
Suandria Hall 43:17
right. Right. What is what does it do for you? How is it serving you like, those are important questions that I have. With my clients. It's we're not, you know, pulling the rug from under people, like you have to work this stuff out piece by piece, and you want people to feel safe and ready to move through this process. And like I said, for some, they remain just in a different way. Some develop this new sense of spirituality. Some leave it all together, it's you know, that's, I didn't leave, you know, all this knocking on people's doors, proselytizing, for Christianity, to take on a new version of that. Right. I'm not telling you that I have the answer for your life. I believe that you have the answer for your life. Yeah, maybe you're not sure what that is just yet. Because of all of this trauma that's happened, all the silencing that's happened. But it's nothing like you getting there and feeling that and owning that and it walking in power in your life, right?
David Ames 44:19
Yeah, both the most terrifying aspect and the most joyful freeing aspect is that you suddenly realize that you're responsible for yourself for your own ethics for what you do. It can be scary, but it's also very freeing.
Suandria Hall 44:35
Oh my gosh, that is that is high on the list, like, Okay, so now that I hold all the cards, what do I do and how do I trust myself? And like I said, it's, it's a bit of Arrested Development. We're now oftentimes, these are adults who are going through this transformation. And they're like, oh my gosh, I've never done this before. I've never had to do this for myself, I have women that have been so committed to their faith into their husbands that they don't know how to live on their own. They don't own their bodies, they don't own their finances. They don't own their thoughts. They barely on their own, but have an influence in their children's like, everything's been given away. Right? So you get here, and it's like, oh, wait, it's up to me. And it's terrifying. Yeah, it's terrifying. It's a, it's a little by little unraveling a little by little build of your, your new value system or an edit that everyone doesn't throw everything away. And competence and seeing yourself and knowing yourself and becoming reacquainted or meeting for the first time, the real Yoo
David Ames 45:49
hoo, I love that. I wanted to talk a little bit about the process, from your perspective, from a psychology perspective of changing one's mind. So when I describe my deconversion, the immediate aftermath was, you know, this sense of the cognitive dissonance being gone. I was unaware of it. I was oblivious to the fatigue inducing cognitive dissonance. You know, I personally had a fairly sudden admission or recognition, and just this immediate sense of laying some burden down that I didn't know I was carrying. Is that common? Do you do when you when you are working with people? Do they suddenly become aware? Or? Or is it often a very long process? But how do you work with people that, especially when you can recognize they're carrying some cognitive dissonance?
Suandria Hall 46:45
Yeah, usually, if they come to me, and they reach out to this secular therapy, yeah. Okay. They probably work through. Yeah, quite a bit of that, or at least maybe that top layer, and then it just becomes these pieces, right? Yeah. Thinking for myself or my sexuality. What do I do with my money? What about mortality, like, it becomes like section by section, they're starting to work through these things. And we do some good old fashioned CBT we do some challenging of thoughts. We look at what's reality and what's not, you know, a part of healing trauma, trauma is to be able to see experience, observe the world and yourself and be able to label things as this is real. And this
David Ames 47:32
isn't interesting. Yes. Yeah. Right.
Suandria Hall 47:35
And I mean, the mere fact that we're talking about religion and God or gods, yeah, there's there's the struggle, which is, again, why some clinicians who aren't ready for religious trauma work, that can be difficult, because if you believe it's all real, you have someone that's not part of their healing. They need to be able to differentiate, right? what's real and what's not. Yeah.
David Ames 47:58
It's interesting. I'm sorry, this is a bit tangential. But so I grew up my dad passed away. When I was very young, it was very likely suicide. It was very likely mental health induced part of how that presented was him becoming very, very religious, knocking on doors, that kind of thing. And I remember just growing up, people talking about well, he was probably a part of a cult. Yeah. And not knowing like, how, how is this a cult? And this isn't quite being able to define that. And I find now on this side of the opposite side of faith. That's because it isn't definable. Right? If it's, if you can't point to it and show some evidence, or tangibly touch it or have something real, like you say the difference between things that are real and things that are Yeah, if you can't actually call that out, there is no way to define this as a cult. And this isn't.
Suandria Hall 48:55
Hmm. And that's the struggle in our field. Right? We are in a like I said it predominantly, God. Culture. Yeah. So it's a very thin line on what people want to say is real and not real. Right? We have people that hear voices and they're told to do things, and depends on whose name that is in Yes. You know, what I'm saying? Like, is, is this okay? You know, or is it not? It's, it's a very touchy subjects, it adds to the work that me and my colleagues are doing to bring awareness to speak truth, to validate these experiences that people are having, and not push them away. Because some people are totally returned to God. Maybe you just experienced God in a different way, a wrong way, a bad way.
David Ames 49:50
You just have the wrong version of God,
Suandria Hall 49:52
you have the wrong version and and I feel like the only you know the institutions that encourage people To return to abusers, our religion, and family, right, because these are pillars of our community. And that's when your caregiver is both your source of love and validation, but also pain and abuse, that creates some turmoil inside of a human being.
David Ames 50:21
Wow, I love that just going through the process of recognizing what is real and what isn't. Because so much of the religious experience is saying, Look at how beautiful the Emperor's clothes are. That's really kind of a daily experience and being able to let that go. Must be Yeah.
Suandria Hall 50:38
Yeah. I mean, like we talked about a minute ago, just part of the human experience. And we make mistakes, we do bad things, wrong things, painful things. And that's part of it. But when you're an experience that doesn't allow that to be attributed to God, or the belief or the teachings, you're constantly again, you're pushing it down, pushing it down, pushing it down. I remember my condolences to you, Dad.
David Ames 51:06
Thank you. Yeah.
Suandria Hall 51:08
When my dad died, he battled cancer for a number of years. And when he finally died, I remember sitting at his funeral. The preacher was saying, we knew God would heal him. Get this, we knew God would heal him on this side or the other. Right. But we can never write we can never be mad at God. Right?
David Ames 51:35
Yeah, right. Right. When you're probably experiencing rage. Yeah, I don't know if we were bleeding at the time. But yeah, just, you know, the the loss actually, sorry, I'll send you the I lost my mom to about about eight months after my deconversion and I talked about that. That was both very hard, but also super freeing, because I could truly grieve her, there was nothing, I wasn't having to say, I get to see her again, I could experience the full weight of that loss. And say goodbye, and let go. And, you know, again, not an easy process. You know, going through it I was, you know, reminiscent of or nostalgic for a time when I could believe you know, I get to see her again. But I feel like that grief was more thorough. Yes. Was was more real was more raw, more honest. Because I could could recognize reality that she was no longer with me.
Suandria Hall 52:38
Yeah, I, I totally get that and remind that that I was long gone. was a long guy, okay. But the grief was very, very different. I knew that it was final. Right. And something about that just gave me a real sense of closure. And I really clean to the memories of him in a different way than our experienced grief when I was inside of religion, right? Those memories mean everything to me, I giggle about them. You know what I mean? They just live with you in a different way.
David Ames 53:13
Yeah. Yeah. And you feel the, my mom lives on and me, right, my job is to tell to my kids, and I'll be like, ah, your grandmother would have loved that, you know, like that lives on because she's in my memory. And, and that is the way that humanity has dealt with death for time immemorial, regardless of how we contextualized it.
Suandria Hall 53:33
Yes, yeah. You know, I was thinking about so my daughter, and I could talk about her all the time. But you know, her she doesn't have a concept of death, not for real for it's, it's insects and worms die. Right. That's, that's the extent of her concept of death. But you know, as her parent, I know, there's gonna come a day when she's going to ask me about death. Yeah, you know, and what and what that means. And it's, you know, it's probably easier on a parent to be able to say, Oh, you're just gonna go to sleep and go to this beautiful place, and then I'll see you there one day, or you'll see me like, we're gonna all be together. Like, I get why that seems like a good choice.
David Ames 54:18
Yeah, in the moment, it seems like a totally rational thing to do. Yeah,
Suandria Hall 54:22
absolutely. But the other side of that is only if you're a good person, because if you're not, yes, yes, one or both of us will be in hell for the rest of our life. And we, we miss the part about how important right now is, yeah, right, because we're living to make it to heaven, escape hell, but we miss the value, the depth, the gifts and connection and now and what we do and how we treat people. You know, again, it's about shirking responsibility. Sometimes it's, I don't have to worry about as long as I do what God said I'm going to have it Yeah, care what you people are doing. But when you don't have that your hope is right here and right now. It changes how you work how you live, how you treat people, your social engagement, all of it you just it reshapes your life.
David Ames 55:16
And every moment with your daughter is rich with meaning and joy, even in the bad times, even when I'm arguing with my, my teenagers, you know, like, I am able to step back and say this is precious time that I have with them. Because time is the thing that we have no control over.
Suandria Hall 55:35
Yes, it is the hottest commodity. Yes.
David Ames 55:42
sundry I don't want to let you go without talking about just the the kind of the moment and time we live in 2020 has been hard. And that is the understatement of the year, just literally before you and I began chatting, my best friend and I were texting each other and he said, Hey, how you doing? And I said, Oh, I'm doing good. And then I texted back about two minutes later. I was like, really? I should just say I'm coping? Because it's been hard. Yeah, I know, this is kind of impossible question. But do you have any advice for those of us who are just trying to survive? Everything that is going on right now?
Suandria Hall 56:14
Yeah, you know, I wish I had an answer that would fix everything for everybody. But I don't, what I offer, like we said a minute ago, that time is all we have right now and how we treat people and how we treat ourselves and what we're honest about. And I think it's important to lean into that to be truthful, about what we care about what we're scared of, and why it's such a, this time gives us an opportunity. Talk about challenge thinking like, if I feel this way about a person or group of people, or about what I'm hearing from, you know, this politician or that one. What about it makes me hold on to it so quickly, or resistant so quickly? Yeah. Right, because and I think about that, again, in that religious context, we've grown for certain things, we can be grown for horrible things, right. And like I said, I think this is a time that we can really dig out some of that and really see some real healing in our individual lives and our families, our communities and in our nation. But it doesn't happen without pain. And I think we're just smack dab in the middle of it. But again, opportunity for healing opportunity for connection and care and love for one another that we otherwise wouldn't experience. So I try to look at it that way doesn't make it less painful and heavy. But I find purpose. Not necessarily in it. But in this moment.
David Ames 57:56
Yeah. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yeah, we have each other. That's what we have. Yes. And let's make a plug here too. For, you know, people, you need a little more help contacting Cynthia or someone else that are like the secular therapy project or the religious drama Institute, getting somebody who is going to dedicate time to just listen to you be able to tell what you're feeling is super valuable. And that was looked down upon in some churches looked down upon as like, you know, maybe you're weak or your faith isn't strong enough. But on this side of faith, we can say, hey, I need some help.
Suandria Hall 58:36
Yeah, absolutely. I in this is just real quickly, I did part of my internship at a church. Oh, wow. Okay, I did. And I was intentional about that, because I wanted to work with everybody. You know, I'm not about this exclusion stuff on any level. So. So I was intentional about working at a church, it happened to be a church that they believe Jesus saved you. But you have to do some work to get cleaned up, and I was like, alright, so they had a program there for therapists. Okay. And it was interesting. So I had people from the church and people from the community, and it was just a magnificent experience. So yeah, like, if you want help, it's available, and it's available in different ways. But this work is very specific. And you know, I'm intentional about what I say what I share, because I want that to be clear about the work I'm doing Yeah.
David Ames 59:37
Well, that's a good segue. How can people get in touch with you and your work?
Suandria Hall 59:41
Website is my choice, my power.com and you can follow me on Instagram at my choice, my power counseling.
David Ames 59:51
Excellent. And I highly recommend the Instagram is just like an oasis of hope and 2020 Thank you. I will have links in the show notes for those So, Suandria, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom here. Oh, you're welcome.
Suandria Hall 1:00:04
Thank you for having me.
David Ames 1:00:12
Final thoughts on the episode? Wow, I need to send a check to Suandria for that counseling session that got deepened a number of times. I really appreciate Suandria for talking about grief in such a real way allowing me to talk about grief in a real way. It's something that I don't think we address very often. So Suandria has such a very real way of communicating the process that she's gone through, you can tell that she would be completely fair, for people who are still believers who would engage with her. I want to make just a plug in general for secular counseling and sundry specifically that so many I think, have been in a church environment where counseling was off limits, and especially during 2020. If you need someone to reach out to, I definitely can recommend centria, her counseling practices at my choice, my power.com. And you can find her there also, again, I'll recommend her Instagram account, my choice, my power counseling. I want to thanks, Suandria, for being so honest and so raw and telling her story. I particularly was moved by the discussion of representation, as well as her acknowledgement of being groomed for ministry, and realizing later in life that that wasn't for her. She had too many questions. I appreciate her kindness in the way she sees her former faith community. I really appreciated our conversation about all talking about being parents and being in awe of our children. So thank you again, Xandria. For being on the show. I'm going to hint just a bit about the upcoming episodes that I have. I have had the opportunity to talk with Ian Mills, who we discussed in my conversation with Randall rouser on the topic of metaphysical naturalism, but also his expertise is in second century New Testament and the way that the New Testament was put together. It's an incredibly honest conversation been incredibly well informed, and to be totally honest, academic discussion, where Ian was talking way over my head a whole lot, but I still think it's a really valuable conversation. I'm also about to do an interview with Barrett Evans, the author of the contemplative skeptic. Barrett is very much a naturalist. He may call himself an agnostic. I'm not exactly sure, I'll have to interview him on that point. But he has written a book that is kind of a devotional that looks at kind of the deep questions of life and the answers that various philosophers and religious thinkers and secularists have come up with over the years. And anyway, it's an incredibly fair and balanced look very nuanced. Look at what it means to be secularly spiritual, however you want to define that. So that's upcoming. And then the most exciting thing for me to say is that Michelle and I did in fact, record the episode for our discussion about being unequally yoked. It was an intense conversation, I think it will be incredibly valuable. Look for that to come in December. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me and be graceful human beings. Time for some footnotes. The song is a track called waves by mkhaya beats, please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast, here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows by word of mouth. If you found it useful, or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith transition? You want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on? Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing? Please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show. If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist or you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can Tweet at me at graceful atheist or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well, this has been the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you
this has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
My guest this week is Dr. Anthony Pinn. Dr. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities, the Professor of Religious Studies. the Founding Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning Rice University, and the Director of Research of the Institute for Humanist Studies. Dr. Pinn has written a number of books on the intersection of humanism and race. In this episode, we discuss his book, When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer.
We spend so much of our time making fun of and belittling theists. That’s not very productive. You don’t transform the world that way.
I learned quite a lot from Dr. Pinn. Both about humanism and the experience of black humanists. Ultimately I was challenged to change my behavior, to “do my homework,” and to understand that it will take dismantling of white supremacy in humanist communities in order to gain the great benefits that diversity brings.
This sort of fundamental change this movement towards diversity and equity means giving up comfort. You cannot request comfort and say you are interested in change.
Throughout his book(s) and in the interview Dr. Pinn calls on our humanist values to be less ignorant, to include black and other historically disparaged voices, and to develop our own vocabulary and ways of experiencing awe without calling on theistic traditions. “We can do better.”
[Our] goal should not be removing religion … Religion is really simply a way of naming our effort to come to grips with who what when and why we are … But it seems to me, the larger more compelling goal is decreasing the harm that we do in the world.
“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. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be a graceful atheist. First off, I just want to thank my newest monthly supporters. Again, I want to say the caveat that in a time of COVID-19, and the economic problems that we are facing, unless you happen to have literally expendable cash on hand, I'm not asking for you to support but it does help, we will go back into the podcast. Anyway, I want to thank new supporters, Libby n. And James T, along with Joel Wu and John G. Thank you for your support. The first thing I'm going to do with the money that comes in is to pay MCI beats for the rights to the waves track. It is currently being used as a creative commons. I will be purchasing that so that MCI receives some support as well. If you find the podcast useful or helpful, I would ask that you please rate and review it in the Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I have a bit of exciting news. My wife Michelle and I have been talking about deconstruction lately. I don't want to get too excited to hear that I don't think that she's changing her mind in any way. But she rightly points out that after we went to Bible college together, the two of us went our separate ways. And when we came back together and eventually got married, we had both gone through ministry a bit of burnout, and ultimately, what she now calls deconstruction. And she's right. We've also recently been listening to the Michelle Obama podcast and one of the first episodes is Michelle Obama and Barak talking with one another. And I commented about how cool their rapport is with one another. And I jokingly said, We should do that some day. And it was her idea, my wife, Michelle, to do an episode, and it was also her idea to request questions from you, the audience. So I know that there are many of us out there that are in relationships where one partner has either D converted or deconstructed in some way and the other partner is still very much a believer. We jokingly sometimes call this the unequally yoked club from Captain Cassidy's blog role to disbelief. If that's your experience, I would ask that you would send me and my wife in some questions about our relationship how we are or not making it work. And you can do so either via email graceful atheist@gmail.com Or you can send me a voicemail on the anchor app or through any recording device and send it in through email. Michelle and I will answer those questions on the episode that she and I are going to record shortly. On today's show. My guest today is Dr. Anthony Pinn. Dr. Pinn's resume is a thing to behold but I'll hit the highlights here on his website. He is the Agnes Colin Arnold professor of humanities at Rice University. He's the professor of religious studies. He's the founding director of the Center of engaged research and collaborative learning at Rice University and the director of research at the Institute for humanist studies. Beyond that Dr. Pinn has written a tremendous body of work on humanism and race. Today, he and I discussed the book when colorblindness isn't the answer, humanism and the challenge of race, and we will have links in the show notes for Dr. Anthony Pinn's books. I learned a tremendous amount from this book, not just about the issues that black humanists face, but about humanism itself. Obviously, the most challenging part of the book is on the issues of race. And what Dr. Pinn does brilliantly in the book is The uses the very values that we humanists say we hold dear to point out where we have fallen down where we have been hypocritical, where we have not applied those values when it comes to the topic of race. I cannot do justice to the full argument that Dr. Pinn puts forth. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Anthony.
Dr. Anthony Pinn. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Anthony Pinn 4:50
Thanks for having me.
David Ames 4:52
Dr. Pan I'm very excited to have you on I feel like I can't quite do justice to your CV but some of The titles that you have in your bio, the Agnes Colin Arnold professor of humanities, the professor of religious studies, the founding director of the Center for Engaged research and collaborative learning at Rice University, and Director of Research of the Institute for humanist studies. Does that do you justice at all?
Anthony Pinn 5:17
Yeah, that's fine. Thank
David Ames 5:19
you. And you've written just a, an enormous body of work, a number of books that began with a book entitled, Why Lord, suffering and evil and Black Theology. You've written a book with your with your mom, as I understand it, the fortress introduction to black church history. And then the book that we'll be discussing today is when colorblindness isn't the answer, humanism and the challenge of race. What I'd like to begin with is your experience of faith and maybe what gets you from growing up in a religious household to writing a book like, Why Lord, not suffering?
Anthony Pinn 5:56
Well, I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and a portion of my family was deeply religious, my mother's side of the family. So church was part of our week. We started out attending a Baptist church in Lackawanna, it's outside of Buffalo. Bethlehem Steel was the anchor for Lackawanna. Okay. My grandfather was a deacon in this small Baptist Church. And that's the church we attended. My mother eventually decided that was not the place for us. And so we started attending a non denominational church, maybe five minutes from our home in Buffalo. That church was very small, so small that the senior minister was also my Sunday school teacher. One Sunday, we're sitting in a circle in his office, and he asked a question, and what do you want to be when you grow up? And so you heard the typical things while your Doctor President, when he got to me, I said a minister. And I wasn't quite certain wise that it perhaps it had something to do with the kind of status that ministers have in the community, right, that there was something about the minister that marked out future that marked out visibility, importance, and I claimed it and his response was, okay, we start next week. Yes. And so as a little kid, might I'm lining the hymns, offering prayers, opening the doors of the church. And this goes on for a while. And eventually, I'm ordained a deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, oldest black denomination in the country. And as a deacon, I can marry Barry and baptize, right, went to college in New York City, in part because I wanted to get out of Buffalo. I just didn't think I could be myself my best self, and buffalo. There was just something about it that that wasn't to my liking, right. And so I went to New York, and park to get away from Buffalo, but also because the person who had been the pastor of this church, it was a fairly new pastor, young guy was also moving to Brooklyn, he'd been given a large church in Brooklyn, and I'm in New York, I'm working at this church, and I'm in college. And my assumption was, I'm going to change Colombia for the Lord, right that yeah, power of the Lord is going to transform this place. But these people didn't believe as I believed, for the most part, and they weren't nervous about it. Right? I'm thinking they're going to hell. And they're thinking, what should we do this weekend? Right, that they're, that just weren't fearful of hellfire. And something that was particularly troubling for me as these folks who did not claim belief in Christ often treated me better than people who did say, they loved the Lord and they were leading they were living in accordance with the Lord's will right often treated me better than those folks. I'm working in Bedford Stuyvesant at this church, and if this is the early ad, so crack cocaine, gang gaming, a hold on Big City Life, right. And so I'm encountering young people who are having a easier time planning out their demise and thinking in terms of a bright future, and nothing that I had in my theological bag made any difference. So over the course of time in New York, it became increasingly difficult to preach this faith to believe this space, when it seemed to make no substantive difference in life that I was answering the questions people didn't ask and condemned questions that they did. Hold here, right. And so my, my sense of faith, my sense of God is radically changed. Changing. But I needed to get out of New York after college because people needed Reverend Pinn to have answers, not questions, right. And I didn't have answers. I was finding it extremely difficult to hold on to this faith. Still interested in ministry, but a very different form of ministry. It was a form of ministry that understood the church as an occasion to make change in the physical lives of people, right to make a difference in daily life that this church was the occasion for that it wasn't about personal salvation, it was about social transformation. I went off to seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, still interested in church, but a very different sense of church. I'm working at a church in Roxbury, and that's Roxbury, late 80s Not Roxbury, 2020. It's not a highly place, it's the place struggling, okay. And I'm encountering again, kids who are having an easier time thinking about their demise than their future who understand wearing the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood could result in death for whom Economic Opportunity revolved around selling crack on the corner, not college. Yeah, right. And the faith had nothing that was on this. And so it reached a point, I'm finished the Master of Divinity program, I'm moving into the Ph. D. program. And it reached a point where I had to make a decision, I could not continue to participate in an institution that I did not think that any worldly good, I could not preach a theology that I no longer believed. I could not invite people to be close to a God that I wasn't convinced was there. And so I was willing to be a lot of things, but I was not going to be a hypocrite. So I decided I needed a different way to be of service. I contacted the minister in charge of the church and told him I would not be returning, I contacted my bishop to surrender my ordination. And I left. Wow. And for a while I wasn't quite certain what to call myself. I knew what I wasn't. Right, Christian. But for me, it wasn't simply that Christianity was faulty. From my vantage point, theism was faulty. So it wasn't a matter of moving from Christianity to a different theistic tradition, none of it, I thought had any substantive ability to make a difference in the world. But with time, I came to call myself a humanist in terms of what I do, and an atheist in terms of what I no longer hold to be true.
David Ames 12:34
Wow, so much is there I think what is really interesting is you're describing the failure of theistic traditions to meet real world problems, to meet people where they're actually out. And the flip side of this, and I see this definitely in your work, and it's something that I'm constantly trying to get across as well is that I want humanism to be blood, sweat, and tears boots on the ground, something that is living and breathing and actually touches people's lives. And you've touched on on this already, and we'll talk about it from your book, but you differentiate between religion and theism. Could you expound on that a little bit?
Anthony Pinn 13:14
Yeah, theism is the belief in God or gods. Religion is something different from my vantage point, religion is a kind of quest for a complex subjectivity. That is to say, religion is a wrestling with the who, what, when, where and why we are questions, you don't need God or gods for that. You just need to be committed to a desire for meaning, right? And I get a lot of resistance from from some humanists and a lot of atheists when it comes to issues of, of meaning, right? That we are not seeking meaning we are not ritually driven. But of course, we are right. Folks who go to the American Atheist meeting every year, sit and listen to talk, have a certain procedure for listening to talks are involved in ritual. You don't have to have God rituals, repeated activity and founded space. Atheists have ritual. Humanists have ritual. And so my argument is, ism is one thing, but religion is really simply a way of naming our effort to come to grips with who, what, when, where and why we are.
David Ames 14:21
I love that because, you know, I think ironically, sometimes theists will say that atheism or humanism is a religion and I think, yeah, and like it's, you know, we often as as particularly the atheist community will respond with, you know, horror at that statement. And yet, really, just as you've described as a way of organizing people to come together to seek meaning with one another. That's not a bad thing necessarily.
Anthony Pinn 14:45
No. I think my from my vantage point, I think humanists and atheists surrender language too quickly. Right, simply because theists have claimed terminology doesn't mean they own terminology. Right? Right, and that there may be some elements of the vocabulary, that grammar that is still useful for us that allows us to explain and explore the all we feel when we encounter the world, that sense of wonder, is it restricted to theist? Right? The atheist and humanist ought to be able to understand themselves in relationship to something that is much more profound and bigger. And that might simply be a larger arrangement of life. Right? A larger sense of community doesn't have anything to do with God or gods. Right.
David Ames 15:39
As I mentioned to you Off mic, you know, I use this term secular grace. And what I mean by that is that the thing that we need most the thing I think, that is just hardwired as a human being, is to feel known to be understood to be loved to be accepted. And we actually get that from one another. It's my having conversations like this, it's my deep friendships, it's my significant others relationships. It's, it's our interaction with one another that we derive meaning from. And that's really what I'm trying to do with this idea of secular grace and again, sounds exactly like what you're describing. The book we're going to discuss today is how colorblindness isn't the answer, and humanism and the challenge of race. Clearly, this moment in time, after the killing of George Floyd, the number of black Americans who have died at the hands of police, Breanna Taylor, the list is so long that it's ludicrous. And one thing that I am definitely concerned about is how humanism can participate in Black Lives Matter and be again, boots on the ground and something real, something meaningful. And when I asked you which book I should read in preparation for this, this is this the book that you suggested, and boy, it is it's a profound moving book, it is challenging on every level, we'll get into that a little bit, what I'd like to do is just, I want to tell a little bit about my experience of reading the book, and then we will go through the questions that you pose throughout it. My feeling of the book is that the first half of the book is questions you've been asked 1000 times that out of exhaustion, you finally wrote these down to say, read the manual. I'm from the tech world, we do things called frequently asked questions and RTFM means I spent the time to put this down on paper, please go look at that rather than wasting time. Maybe that's unfair. But it strikes me as the exhaustion of black people in general being asked to explain what should be abundantly obvious to everyone. That was my experience of the first half. The second half I think you are posing, or suggesting to humanist in particular, the questions we ought to be asking ourselves the questions that would provide a meaningful change or a meaningful interaction to help black people in America. So maybe we could go through some of those questions. And you can explain just a little bit about about each of those. Sure. So in that first section, where we're these are kind of the questions you probably have been asked 1000 times and in some ways they they reveal an ignorance maybe of the questioner. But at the same time, you're you're gentle in suggesting that you understand why, particularly white humanists might ask these questions. But So beginning with, why does your community embrace religious traditions that have been used to do harm?
Anthony Pinn 18:44
Well, what we need is a much more complex understanding of how let's take Christianity, for example, how it is functioning within the context of black communities, that on some level, sure, blacks embracing it, are embracing strategies that were meant to dehumanize. But you cannot explain a Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser or Denmark vz, that way, who argued that this same religion required them to physically fight for their freedom, and if folks had to die in the process, so be it right. So here is a kind of revolutionary stand that this same Bible, the same doctrines motivated them to make change. Can't think of the civil rights movement and have such a narrow understanding of how religion has functioned within African American communities, regardless of how one might think about it. Religion was a factor. And it wasn't passive. Right. So religion, on one level, used to harm blacks, but there are also ways in which blacks have actively tried to reshape the Stockman so as to provide a sense of their own humanities. It's a complex story, right? But it seems to me coming from humanists and atheists the better question in this is this, why hasn't humanism been more attractive? Rather than blaming victims? Let's look at this orientation and figure out why it hasn't been more attractive, in part because humanists and atheists spend so much time dogging out religion and the religious and not as much time offering people a safe place to land, right. And if you're talking about African Americans, you are talking about a population that already faces double jeopardy, at least double jeopardy. And so to claim humanism, or atheism is to add another way in which you are despised, and what do they get for their effort? Nothing other than a critique of the churches they've
David Ames 20:59
left, right?
Anthony Pinn 21:02
And it requestion is about their culture. Right, so the question is, why hasn't humanism been more attractive?
David Ames 21:10
Right? I wanted to touch on just a couple of things that you bring up in this section. I love the way that you describe I use the word earthy several times and you're describing a humanism as earthy and I love that you used the Blues as an example almost of anti spiritual is kind of the the opposite of spirituals. And, you know, I, you mentioned Willie Dixon's coochie coochie man, and my all time favorite is muddy waters mannish boy, which is also a reference to Bo Diddley's. I'm a man which is a part of it. It's a reference to Willie Dixon's. And I've never thought of those as manifestos of humanism. But as soon as you said it, it clicked. Like, it is the opposite. It's it's a breaking away from the religious constraints.
Anthony Pinn 22:01
Yeah, right. And so in the same way, you have folks who use Christianity as a way to counter Christianity, think think in terms of Ida B. Wells, who was deeply religious, deeply Christian, and extremely critical of violence against African Americans, right. She provides a profound critique of lynching and terms of the blues you have someone like Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, who celebrates black bodies that are otherwise despised, that celebrates the pleasures that black bodies give other bodies, and a larger society where these black bodies are demonized, despise, and destroyed. Right? So you get on one hand, the blues, critiquing theism, but on the other hand, you have the blues, critiquing anti black racism and dehumanization through a celebration of black life.
David Ames 22:57
And, in fact, the mannish boy is about saying, I'm a man. Very famous pictures from the civil rights movements of black men with signboard saying, I'm a man to say, I'm a human being I exist in this world, I'm embodied here,
Anthony Pinn 23:13
rightfully occupying time and space.
David Ames 23:16
Absolutely. Yeah. The other other thing that I think that this touches on with the the blues, and obviously has been a part of the black culture of the black experience is kind of outsmarting the white culture around them that all the way back into slavery of being able to have the songs where they're passing on information, passing on hope, what have you, in a way that is coded such that the white people around them are not getting that and it strikes me that the blues isn't anyways, is that as well, during that civil rights time period?
Anthony Pinn 23:50
Yeah, there's something deeply poetic about it, you have a population, using the language forced upon them. Right, a language that was initially used to belittle them to dehumanize them, right to construct them as something that as as other and here you have the them using it to critique that very system to celebrate themselves to critique that very system, and why it's not even recognizing what's taking place.
David Ames 24:21
So let's go on to the second again, this is a question that just are not a question, but a statement that sometimes people make that again, may reveal some ignorance. And the idea is humanism is driven by reason and logic. So it doesn't see race as a biological reality, that should determine any significant dimension of life. And yet it does, correct.
Anthony Pinn 24:42
Right? It is not a biological fact. But it is a social fact. And it's a social fact that can be deadly. And so humanists and atheists don't gain ground by simply saying, it isn't biologically real. It isn't about us and simply pointing the finger at the religious right, pointing the finger at theists saying, Well, if we didn't have religion, we wouldn't have these problems, which is just it's not true, right? It is not true, that we can turn to the enlightenment that so many humanists and atheists uncritically embrace, and you find a deep anti black racism from folks who are not claiming church, they're claiming reason,
David Ames 25:25
right?
Anthony Pinn 25:27
And so there's, you know, we have to move away from the assumption that humanism and atheism are prophylactic against nonsense. This is not the case that humanists and atheists can be just as racist, as fundamentalist Christians can be.
David Ames 25:44
Right. Yeah, it's interesting, I think, the experience of deconversion of having had a faith, a theistic faith and then becoming a humanist. I feel like that what one of the things I bring from that experience is some humility. I've had the experience in my life over and over again, of being wrong, deeply wrong, profoundly wrong about the most important questions in life. And I think that one of the great criticisms of the atheist community is that they are blinded by their own sense of the power of their own reason. And I think that what we need as a community and Titan, the entirety is some humility, about recognizing that our reasoning didn't go haywire. It can lead to, you know, undergirding racism, rather than defeating racism, it can lead to terrible atrocities, if you think of the time of Eugenics and things of that nature. So you know, reason can go terribly, terribly wrong. And we need a quite a bit of humility as we come to this, to have other people challenge our own reason and be willing to say, I might be wrong.
Anthony Pinn 26:57
And I think humanists and atheists often have a misguided and go, mind that the end goal for too many is the dismantling and removal of traditional forms of religion, right, getting rid of this stuff. It seems to me a better end goal is radically decreasing the harm that theists and non theists do in the world. Right? Right, that the end goal ought to be the development of ways of living that are more nurturing and healthy for the larger web of life. And if folks want to continue to go gather for worship services on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so be it. But it seems to me the larger more compelling goal is decreasing the harm that we do in the world.
David Ames 27:47
Couldn't agree more, again, just alleviating suffering, providing the environment for people to thrive. That should be the goal of humanism. I've loved the way you much throughout the book, you kind of speak to humanist ideals or thinking and turn them in such a way that particularly white humanists are forced to look at themselves. One of the ways that you do that, as you describe how we humanists, or atheists will long for spaces in which they can talk about the atheist bias within the world. And then you point out the need for cultural spaces for black Americans, black humanists to have the same, right that they the exact same way that we need to have a space where we feel safe and comfortable, we can talk to one another. And we're understood, we don't we're not going to be misconstrued that black humanists need exactly the same,
Anthony Pinn 28:43
right, right. A space in which we can catch our breath space in which we don't have to explain why we're angry.
David Ames 28:55
The third question that people might ask human is would be of great benefit to your community, wouldn't it if only we could get more of you involved?
Anthony Pinn 29:04
And the question again, one, why isn't it more appealing? Yeah. And secondly, when I get that question, for me, the answer is a question. More of us for what reason, right, that often what humanist organizations, humanist communities want, are more shades of the same. That is to say they want African Americans to come but don't change anything. Right? Right, just fit in, don't change anything. And it seems to me if we're really serious about diversity, it means fundamental structural change, right? So organizations have to then reinvent themselves so that they are compelling with respect to this range of participants, radically rethinking leadership and leadership structures, radically, reimagining communities of concern, radically rethinking our vocabulary and our grammar, right that this requires a tremendous amount of change. And it seems to me that what humanists and atheists have to become aware of is this, that this sort of fundamental change this movement towards diversity and equity means giving up comfort. You cannot request comfort, and say you're interested in change,
David Ames 30:29
right. And, as has been commented on in a number of contexts, the feeling of bringing a subjugated group up to equity can sometimes feel by the group that's in power as a loss of something a loss of power or what have you. And we have to be willing to include a diverse group of voices, including in leadership roles, including in a being voices for our movement, that includes a wide variety of perspectives.
Anthony Pinn 31:03
It means recognizing and wrestling with something that so many would rather ignore white privilege, right, that this has to be acknowledged and dismantled, that all of this has been set up for the benefit of a certain population that has to be rethought and rearranged. And that can't be done, if the demand is to remain comfortable.
David Ames 31:28
That's a good segue, the second half of your book you are suggesting to the humanist the questions that we ought to be asking ourselves, and the first one is about the nature of privilege. The idea here is an end, let me quote here, white privilege isn't about having wealth. No, it's about the positive assumptions that follow and inform the life of white Americans. It's the often unspoken and unrecognized access to the workings of social life that come with a membership card of whiteness. What of this privilege, are you, me, US willing to surrender in order to promote equality, and justice and what is gained by doing the right thing regarding the negative effects of privilege, I want to linger here just a little bit, and just mention a bit of personal story. I have a slightly complex relationship with race in that my father's side of the family, I have a Mexican American grandfather and Spanish American grandmother, which makes me you know, genetically three quarters white. And yet my father's side of family is very culturally Mexican American, very, you know, they were Catholic. They were Gatos, they were you know, cowboys, really. So me and several of my cousins, you know, when whenever we get back together, we talk about how it what it's like to have to be wise we are, I mean, in all ways I pass as white, but to also have this part of part of our lives and, and I sometimes think of it that I haven't experienced racism myself, but I feel like maybe through a dim glass darkly, I have a sense of something that's out there. And I say all that to say this, that. Even with that dim perspective, the events of the last year, including up to including your book, were revelatory in breaking down my naivete. By a twist of fate. My last name is very Anglo, and not Mexican sounding, understanding. And so I know how many times I've had the benefit of the doubt that the career that I have now, you know, I worked my butt off, but I absolutely understand how many points along the way. Privilege played a role in allowing me to be where I am today. So again, just to set that all up to say, I think that white America, in 2020 is going through, as you mentioned, uncomfortable, but a process of learning of recognizing, in a new way that the modern day suffering that black Americans are going through in a way that we were probably trying to lie to ourselves to hide, to minimize to rationalize to, to ignore. And now we are unable to ignore it is in our faces and it must be addressed.
Anthony Pinn 34:38
Yeah. And it's not about purity, right. I mean, that doesn't exist. And so it's not simply a question of lineage. It's a question of social perception. How is one perceived socially, right? That makes a world of difference how one is perceived socially can be deaf clearly. How to the relative Those of George Floyd, right and this word we're clear on. And so we make a mistake when we assume that white privilege is synonymous with economic advantage. That is not the case. But even how economic struggle gets mapped out and articulated, differs. So it's often the case for African Americans are struggling economically, the popular conversation is they just don't want. They're unwilling to work to get. But for whites, it's a matter of the system being unfair, right? So they are not understood as being inherently flawed, right. Whereas African Americans based upon white privilege and anti black racism are understood as embodying the problem. For whites, the problem is external to them. And we often and there's an added dilemma there, that we often try to get at this through the individual. And that doesn't work. Right? We're not talking about Jim Smith over here, versus Robert Jones over there. It's systemic, as a group, whites have done so much better than any other group. And there is privilege in place unspoken social privilege in place that makes that the case. So it's not a one, one, it's not the end of it. We're not talking about this on the level of the individual. We're talking about this on the level of communities.
David Ames 36:37
I think that's the word systemic is the revelation that feels like White America is experiencing right now is, and let me be clear, black people have been saying this forever. It's not. And we're gonna get to that we have no no excuse, right? There is no ignorance is not an excuse. But that the visceral experience of seeing the system work against black people, black bodies, black lives, is again, unendurable at this moment in time. It should be. Yeah, yes,
Anthony Pinn 37:15
it should be. But it's, it's surprising the number of people for whom this isn't a turning point.
David Ames 37:24
I feel the burden of having now read your book. Again, you don't give any space for ignorance as an excuse. But even having read your book, it feels like I am more compelled now. To be more vocal to be more outspoken. Again, I feel guilty about all that, that it takes. It takes something like this, but I'm trying to be honest here to bring out what it feels like this experience of trying to learn to try to be less ignorant. In this chapter, you you make one provocative statement that I'd like you to expand upon, you say that the term people of color is not helpful. Why do you say that?
Anthony Pinn 38:08
It isn't helpful, because when we use that phrase, we mean everyone other than white people. Right, so what it does, from my vantage point, is allow whiteness to remain normative. Because then there's whiteness, and everything else that has been othered. Right? So it allows whiteness to remain normative. It also suggests that white people are not raced. When every population is raced, the difference is some populations are raised to their disadvantage, and others are raised to their advantage. And so this idea of people of color, again, allows whiteness to remain normative, that allows whiteness to go unchallenged, and allows whites to remain invisible when it's convenient. And it renders everyone else hyper visible. And so it seems to me more authentic to our history, to say people of a despised color. Or we can do what's even better than that. And that is to recognize how bulky and awkward our language is, and specify groups
David Ames 39:28
to enumerate them to list them out to call them out by notice that you in many times do you refer to the Native Americans as well in your book that as also a despised group that has been deeply affected by white supremacy deeply hurt deeply affected,
Anthony Pinn 39:46
and in ways that we we have often been rendered invisible, right. We don't often talk in terms of the land we occupy. And how we got that land right Even so even despise populations existing within geographies that were violently ripped away from others, right. So there's this animosity, this racism, this anger, this violence is layered, right. And we often fail to acknowledge that.
David Ames 40:25
And it's interesting the way that we the education system as well that we just gloss over. Even the way we teach about slavery, the way we talk about states rights, quote, unquote, the way we talk about Manifest Destiny, the way we are taught these things is whitewashed. To begin with, I'm definitely more and more aware of that as time goes on of the simplicity, in the way that we we talk about our history without acknowledging deep problems.
Anthony Pinn 40:57
Yeah, yeah.
David Ames 41:00
So again, another of your your posed questions, setting that up, knowledge is a certain form of power. And humanists read and study, they work based on logic. And with much energy they suggest that theists do likewise, logic and reason rule the day, the question is, how much of this call for knowledge information is applied to the issue of race, and racism. And again, this is where I've mentioned that, you know, this book was uncomfortable, every time my inclination was to squirm a bit and to look for excuses or to find a way out, you very effectively stop that from occurring. But again, I love the way that you are using the humanist ideals to say, you need to face this truth, if you say that knowledge and study and and understandings important than race has to be at the near the top of that list.
Anthony Pinn 41:52
Yeah, the number of humanists and atheists who believe that ignorance on this issue is okay, right, that ignorance should stop the conversation? Well, I just don't really know anything about this. That is unacceptable from a population that understands itself to be deeply committed to reason, logic and learning that learn something about this, right and stop assuming that African American humanists and atheists have some obligation to teach on this. Right, if that is the case, if we have to deal with these with toxic attitudes, toxic understandings toxics arrangement, then we ought to receive hazard pay. Yes, it seems to be humanists and atheists rather than saying, I don't know, and patting themselves on the back, or to say, I don't know, and start reading. The materials are easy to find so many of them on our New York Times bestsellers list, you define, exactly. Get them read them learn. Yeah. Because humanist communities cannot say they are taking seriously African Americans, for example, and learn nothing about us.
David Ames 43:18
Using the idea that the value of education and saying that we have no excuse that the information is available, and that should be a top priority of humanist organizations is providing or pointing to black humanist voices to learn.
Anthony Pinn 43:37
Yeah, and I think, in addition to that, we've reached a point where white humanists have to take some accountability and responsibility for this, because black humanist didn't create the problem, we suffer from it. And it seems to me that white humanist have to also start talking about the need for change and addressing strategies. So we ought to be able to go to these large gatherings of humanists and atheists and have more than the usual suspects talking about racism. The population that benefits from it should be publicly trying to dismantle it.
David Ames 44:21
There are lots of parallels to the deconversion experience of the systemic part of systemic racism means that it is so culturally ingrained. It's like asking a fish what is wet feel like? We as humanists should be better at recognizing when we have failed to see the wetness to see the systemic racism and yet, that is just as pervasive within humanist organizations as it might be envious or just secular environments.
Anthony Pinn 44:53
Again, we have a commitment to learning. Right? We have a commitment to discovery we have have a commitment to critical engagement. So we ought to be able to get our thinking on this, right?
David Ames 45:07
Absolutely. I think one of the notes that I took reading this chapter was Do your homework. Just yeah, to the to the overachieving kid, you know, do your homework. We know what we need to go learn and where it find it. We just need to do it. Yeah, yeah. On to the next section here, you describe difference as an opportunity. And you say that quotes, more shades of the same end quote, is a comforting strategy, because it highlights the familiar while giving the pretense of difference. Its natural, but unproductive default position when racist the topic or the challenge? And the question, what kind of racial justice work? Might you find and promote if differences understood differently?
Anthony Pinn 45:55
My understanding is the way in which US society is framed, the way it is constructed, it's very logic is premised upon a sense of difference as a problem to solve, right, that we've got to move from all these different things to one unified thing. And that is just poor thinking, right? It seems to me, we really ought to reach a point within humanist circles in which we understand the value of difference the way in which different gives us opportunity to adjust and to rethink our assumptions that it provides a certain type of strength that provides opportunities that don't emerge, if everything and everyone is the same. Yes. So just in terms of practical elements, so rather than bringing in African American Humanist into our organizations, and assuming they should just blend in, recognize that in bringing in African American humanists, we're called to change our organizations, that their presence provides an opportunity to rethink what we've been doing.
David Ames 47:04
Yes. And it occurs to me that we often talk about diversity as almost like a checkbox, like we need to have diversity, check whether it's done or it's not done. And yet, what you're making a compelling argument for is the the benefit of diversity. And it strikes me that there's a strong parallel between the ethos of the scientific method, which kind of relies on almost antagonistic skepticism, in order to better come to closer to the truth, a closer approximation to reality. And in a similar analogous way, the diversity and competing ideas, computing, cultural perspectives, competing life experiences, can help a group come to a better understanding of how to live life to thrive, to be human in this world. Yeah. The last section, and I love this, this was so this was so much fun for me learning from unlikely sources. So you talk about hip hop culture and the built in diversity that's within the hip hop culture. You say that, you know, some people can come to the hip hop culture and say, Well, why is it violent? Why is it so materialistic, that kind of thing, but you say, a better question is, what can we learn from hip hop?
Anthony Pinn 48:27
You know, I mean, because to to raise the question of why is it so violent? Right? Why is it so antagonistic? Why is it so committed to dollars? doesn't distinguish hip hop from the larger arrangements of economic life in the United States? Right? What's the difference? Right? Can we say the same thing about so many other organizations and development, right, that that doesn't make Hip Hop unique? And so I bring up hip hop for a couple of reasons, one, to reinforce the necessity of discomfort, right that this is not a population that humanists and atheists necessarily turn to, although we share quite a bit so for example, hip hop culture, develops within a context of black and brown despised young people trying to come to grips with the world. Humanists and atheists understand themselves as being despised disliked within us society. Yeah, right. So we share that, right. But whereas hip hop has grown from that point, to become internationally, influential Hip Hop shapes, popular imagination, it shapes our vocabulary and grammar, it shapes our aesthetics. It seems to me rather than getting on board with a traditional critique of hip hop, we humanists and atheists who are also despised might want to ask the question, what are they doing right that we're doing wrong? Right and just look systematically and strategically at how hip hop culture has grown. So for example, one of the things that hip hop culture has done that we have not effectively done is develop a vocabulary and grammar that is organic. That speaks from and to us. We've not really done that night. So hip hop culture has developed a way of naming and communicating the world that is organic. And in part, what they've done is highly poetic. And by that I mean, they have destroyed language in order to free to express a different reality. Right? We have not effectively done that. Right. So again, my argument is simply we need models of successful transformation. And Hip Hop culture provides one of those models it has done over the course of a relatively short period of time, what we have been unable to accomplish in almost 200 years.
David Ames 51:04
Along the lines of the point, you were just making you say this, that humans are still playing by the rules offered by theists. And that there's almost a sense of the humanist is asking to be liked, please like me. And so we're still using the theists language, we're still defining ourselves in opposition to the essence. So I think what you're trying to say is, we need to be creative and create our own vocabulary, our own way of talking about the world and about ourselves. That is not just within the confines of the theists game,
Anthony Pinn 51:37
we need to be proactive rather than reactive, that we spend so much of our time together, making fun of and belittling theist, right. That's not very productive.
David Ames 51:51
Yes, no, it is not.
Anthony Pinn 51:54
You don't transform the world that way.
David Ames 51:58
Some of the points that you draw from the hip hop community, we'll just touch on them and ask you to expand on them this idea of thick diversity. What did you mean by that?
Anthony Pinn 52:09
Well, within hip hop, it seems to me you have a significant appreciation for a range of beings a range of expression, a range of ways to occupy time and space. Right? There isn't one way there is all of this, all of these possibilities, these conflicting and competing ways that all constitute an element of hip hop culture. Right? Well, it seems to me humanists and atheists have been too preoccupied with trying to boil things down to one way of being right that atheists do this. They're concerned with church and state, not gay rights, right? They're concerned with this. They're not concerned with that humanists are concerned with these issues, not those issues. Humanists talk this way they conduct themselves this way they think about ritual this way, we need a greater sense of diversity, and difference, right, a greater sense of what our culture has the capacity to hold.
David Ames 53:15
Right. Another thing that you point out is the significance of the ordinary and live this I'd like to but please expand upon it.
Anthony Pinn 53:23
And it seems to me one of the things you get in hip hop is a profound appreciation for the ordinary, the mundane markers of life, the mundane elements of pleasure, and engagement. And I think that sort of appreciation would give humanists and atheists a different way of valuing ritual, and the production of meaning. Right, that none of this is lost on hip hop culture. And so it seems to me it provides humanists and atheists with a way of gaining greater clarity concerning the web of life, and the role we can play and nurturing that.
David Ames 54:13
Again, to maybe play off of the theist for a second, the what's interesting about this is that theism in many ways is the denial of our humanity. It is saying that our natural passions are wrong, that it's trying to make us less human in some ways. And I think this idea of significance of the ordinary is to embrace one's humaneness. Right, and to, to revel in some ways in that that earthiness to use that internal use.
Anthony Pinn 54:44
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's a denial of our humanity. I would say it's a distrust of our humanity. Okay. Right. It's the assumption that it's the assumption that we have necessity are going to do the wrong thing that we start out Behind, right. And in that thinking there is a preoccupation with rejecting anything that might constitute an opportunity for sin, this kind of distrust of ourselves anything that might lead us down the wrong path. It seems to me that what we have with hip hop is what we have with the blues, a celebration and an appreciation for connection, togetherness for the messy nature of life, right that both of them the hip, hip hop, and the Blues have a deep appreciation for the messy arrangements, the messy nature of life.
David Ames 55:40
Right. One of the last things you mentioned here is and I love the way that you frame this call it measured realism. Can you expand on that for me?
Anthony Pinn 55:51
Yeah, it seems to me that, I'd argue it makes sense for theists to be hyper optimistic, radically optimistic in terms of possibility. Because from their vantage point, they don't wrestle alone, right there. They're not trying to change the world alone. There is a cosmic force that shapes the universe that is on their side, so they can be highly optimistic, right? That is not the case. For humanist and atheist, it's just us. And history demonstrates, we are likely to get it wrong. But it also demonstrates we have the capacity to start over to try to get it right. And so what I'm calling for is a sense of that messiness, the way in which we are prone to get it wrong, that all we have is human accountability and responsibility, and that alone won't win the day. Right. So I one of my favorite thinkers is Albert Kumu. And I like witty, I like the way in which he frames the myth of Sisyphus that he argues that Sisyphus is not defeated by this ongoing chore given to him by the gods, right, he's going to be responsible for rolling this rock up the hill forever. And this was supposed to break him for commu. He says, No, he is not broken by this he reaches a point of lucidity of awareness, he becomes better he develops a better understanding of his circumstances. And that alone is the when one must imagine Sisyphus happy. And so what you get from Kung Fu, and I think this is absolutely right, is a need to understand that our struggle is perpetual. That we will find ways to do harm. Our struggle is perpetual. And so I want this measured realism is a move away from outcome driven strategies.
David Ames 57:46
Right, I want you to expand on that as well. Yeah. So rather
Anthony Pinn 57:49
than so what would you get with the civil rights movement, for example, and even more recent conversation 2020 conversations is, if we get our actions, right, if we think properly, and we act properly, we can transform the world. I don't know that that's the case. So rather than the kind of hope that that generate, I'd much prefer to think in terms of persistence. Right? I don't know that we will fundamentally change any of this. But we do this work, not because we know we will, when I leave that a theist, we do this work, because it's the last best option. Regardless of whether or not it wins the day, it's what we can do, that perhaps the best we can do is to generate a loud and persistent no to injustice, and measure our success by the persistence and the volume of that no perpetual rebellion. I don't think humanists and atheists ought to be talking about transformation the way he is talking about it, right? Because we're not working with the same tools, right?
David Ames 58:59
Because I want to hear criticisms of the things that I hold, dear. I think one of the criticisms that is out there from secularists about humanism is that there's some implicit teleology that there's something that's drawn from Christianity. And what I find interesting is that that is not what I think at all, I think it's precisely because we don't know that everything is going to turn out okay. That we must feel compelled to do something to do the right thing. Because there's no teleology, nothing is driving the moral arc of the universe in the right direction. We have to go out there and try to bend it to be a part of that process to be a one of those voices.
Anthony Pinn 59:43
Yeah, we don't. Yeah. I don't think that it's teleological in nature and that we don't assume that there is purpose behind any of this. Right, right. The universe has no particular purpose for us. I alberca. Mu is correct. We ask the universe questions and answer with silence, right, it is not here for us. It has not generated some sort of purpose driven existence for us. From my vantage point, what we have is an unreasonable level of optimism that history should demonstrate this level of optimism with respect to human activity. And human capacity for change isn't reasonable?
David Ames 1:00:28
Yes, history is painful when it's looked at unfiltered. Absolutely. If
Anthony Pinn 1:00:33
anyone, if we just look at the the history of this country, there is no justification for that high level optimism. We have continuously gotten it wrong. And we move from Obama to Trump. We have continuously gotten it wrong. Yeah.
David Ames 1:00:53
So I think we've gotten through your book at this point, I have a handful of questions that I legitimately just want your take on the question that I brought to the table before reading the book that might also be naive. And we've answered it to some degree is the broader question of why why humanism has failed to capture hearts and minds in general, not just the black community. But then to frame that just a little bit. I went through the this, you know, loss of faith experience. And the first things that you find are, you know, the four horsemen, you find debate culture, you find hostility towards Christianity, which is justified, don't get me wrong, it's all that is justified. And I felt all that and, but it took a while to find kind of humanist voices talking about what do we do now? So okay, you know, we we now understand what we don't believe, what do we believe? And and what do we value? What do we find out? What do we do about it? And I find like that those voices, they're all out there that people like yourself, there are lots of podcasts. There's lots of tons of books. But those aren't the first things that people find. So how is it that we have failed to be compelling to the nuns? Let's say that
Anthony Pinn 1:02:07
NES? I think, because we by and large, had we offered little that is constructive. Right? When we tried to develop a language of life when we try to develop community and, and rituals of meaning, we often strayed into something that is fear, some light think in terms of ethical culture, or the UAE, right, that we haven't developed ways of thinking of speaking and doing that are uniquely us, we do so much of this by negation. Why would that be compelling?
David Ames 1:02:45
Yeah, I think we have a lot of work to do. You point out in the book, the humanist tendency to look uncritically at particularly Enlightenment thinkers, particularly when we look at the founding of America and slave owners who wrote our founding documents. I'm also reading at the same time, Daniel Allen's our declaration and finding the beauty of the egalitarian nature of that document. And we're also in the moment in time in which Hamilton just came out on on Disney plus. And so I think it's on everyone's minds, how ought we to look back at what there are some very humanist ideas built into some of the America's founding documents? How should we be looking at those?
Anthony Pinn 1:03:36
Right, so here's the example I often give that I don't know very many humanists, or atheists or free thinkers or skeptics who don't have deep appreciation for Thomas Jefferson. And while they should, embracing Thomas Jefferson, bringing him into our various movements, also brings in sexual violence and anti black racism. Right, so we have to have a kind of critical and informed appreciation for these figures, right, what we often do is shift into a kind of celebration that ignores shortcomings. And so it seems to me and embracing these figures. We are then held accountable to do two things. Recognize the anti black shortcomings within our our movement, our thought, the gender bias within our thought, right, and do better. But we have to get to that point, right. But we It seems to me to many humanists, and atheists still want to think about our movement outside of the confines of anti black racism and other forms of social injustice. Not recognizing that these things are deeply embedded in a humanist understanding of the world, whether one's thinking about David Hume or, or Thomas Jefferson or the list goes on, right, it is deeply embedded, and we have an obligation to wrestle with that.
David Ames 1:05:15
Right. And even the Constitution itself has amendments, we can do better. We can rethink, and better.
Anthony Pinn 1:05:22
Yeah, because it My attitude is the constitution in and of itself is a fantastic document. It celebrates a wonderful experiment. It just didn't include everyone. Right? And then moving to include everyone requires not just a shift in the language of that document, but it requires structural change in the country to accommodate those new ideas.
David Ames 1:05:50
One last question that I have for you. And again, this is me being a bit vulnerable. I think, my hesitancy to address the topic of race is a balance of not wanting to be performatively woke, and to not make it about me, which I know I'm guilty of that in this conversation. I'm still learning. And I, you know, I want to know how to be a better ally how to participate, how to be a voice that supports black lives, and yet doesn't make it about me doesn't make make it about Yeah, my wokeness my, yeah, my experience. What advice do you have for me or people like me,
Anthony Pinn 1:06:38
I think there are several things that are important here. One is to be in conversation with the community of concern. Ask that community of concern, how you can be helpful, what you should be doing, get your marching orders, and be quiet. And by that I mean to say, you don't get to lead anything here. Right, right. If you're committed to addressing anti black racism, find an organization find a community, ask what you can do. And don't assume you get to be in charge of anything. Right. That's how that's one way. You keep it from being about you. Because you're just you're getting your instructions, and you're doing what this community says would be helpful, and you're leaving it at that. I'd also say finally, it requires avoiding the litany of what folks have done, right? Right. So don't don't ask to be a part of a movement. Don't ask to be an ally, and then rehearse all of the wonderful things you've done to make a difference,
David Ames 1:07:48
right? Absolutely. Well, thank you, Dr. Pinn. You have been incredibly gracious with your time. Oh, my pleasure sharing your wisdom. Can you tell people how they can get in touch with you and your work?
Anthony Pinn 1:08:01
Yeah, you can. Most of my stuff is available on my website. It's just Anthony pen.com. Or you can follow me on Twitter that's at Anthony underscore pen. Those are probably the best two ways to reach me.
David Ames 1:08:16
Fantastic. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it so much.
Anthony Pinn 1:08:19
Thank you. Thank you.
David Ames 1:08:27
My thoughts on the episode, some of the conversations that I get to have change me, this is very much one of those conversations, I cannot unsee the arguments that Dr. Pinn has made both in his book, and in our conversation. I hope you can hear during our conversation I was attempting to be honest. I also realized that in many ways, I was also making it about me and the exact way that I was trying not to do but I hope if you happen to be a white humanists that you could hear what needs to change what needs to be learned, what excuses that we would tend to move towards no longer apply, based on the argument that Dr. Penn is making. I want to thank Dr. Penn for his graciousness in giving of his time, sharing of his wisdom and being patient with yet another white person talking to him in ignorance. I am a little less ignorant. Having had this conversation you haven't read this book I highly recommend not only the book when colorblindness isn't the answer, but all of Dr. Pinn's work. I am profoundly changed even in the way that I understand humanism in general, not just specifically about race. In talking with Dr. Penn. I'll highlight here the distinction between religion and theism. The point that Dr. Pinn is making is what we actually want as humaneness is to come together and community and to find meaning and purpose and wonder together. And that kind of is a definition of religion. So it isn't religion that we have a problem with it is the supernaturalism it is theism it is believing in something that doesn't have evidence. I'm also fascinated by his discussion of using the theists vocabulary and the desire for some in the atheists or humanist community to be liked. It's almost like we are we're trying to get the theists to not agree with us, but to like us somehow. And in that sense, we are using their vocabulary and we are playing by their rules. I'm inspired by Dr. Pinn to see how we can have a humanism that is boots on the ground that develops its own language that develops its own way of speaking about its own way of reaching out to the world and effecting actual real change of alleviating suffering, of making the world a better place without referring to theistic or teleological frameworks. Lastly, I'll just say that we as humanists, and those of us who are not a member of a historically disparaged group or race, need to do our homework, we know where that information can be found. And we need to go do that we need to have empathy to recognize someone's experience that is not our own. The history of black people telling the white community about the systemic racism that they were experiencing that horrific tragedies that they have faced, throughout at least all of American history, if not well beyond that. And the unfortunate truth is that the white community has typically ignored this 2020 has made that impossible. My naivete over the last 16 years or so watching the election of President Obama and then the violent response to that has broken down that naivete on a daily basis, to the point where I think how could it possibly be worse, and yet, every day something new occurs? Even just recently, there was a discussion on Twitter, it was a philosophical discussion that really isn't pertinent. A black mathematician, chose to share the memes of hatred and racism that in his direct messages from people, I just horrified and knew I couldn't believe it. If this killing of George Floyd hasn't shocked us, I don't know what will. So my secular Grace Thought of the Week is do your homework, go find a book from a black author from a disenfranchised, disparage group, read it, empathize with it, try to put yourself in that person's shoes. Try to understand why they might be angry, try to understand why people might riot people might be so mad that they go to the streets, what drives a person to be angry. We should recognize this above all other people as atheists and humanists, the entire x Evangelical community is about the anger that is felt having grown up in an oppressive culture. We should understand this more than anyone else. And yet, we often don't apply that when it comes to race. Do your homework. As I mentioned in the intro, I'll be talking with my wife, Michelle, about our relationship on mic coming shortly. And if you have any questions that you'd like to pose to one or both of us, I'd ask that you please send that in, either as a voice message or as just an email at graceful atheist@gmail.com. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me and being a graceful human being.
Time for some footnotes. The song has a track called waves by mkhaya beats please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows it by word of mouth. If you found it useful or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith trend? position you want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on. Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or a blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing, please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show. If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist where you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can tweet at me at graceful atheist or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well, this has been the graceful atheist podcast My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
This has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
My guest this week is Bart Campolo. Bart is the host of the Humanize Me Podcast. He is the author of “Why I Left, Why I Stayed.” Along with his famous Evangelical father, Tony Campolo, Bart is the subject of John Wright’s documentary: Leaving my Father’s Faith. If that is not enough, Bart is also the Humanist Chaplain at the University of Cincinnati.
Bart and I discuss graceful ways of talking with people with whom we disagree, having conversations that are difficult that touch on religion, race and politics and changing one’s mind. I point out that Bart has been particularly public with some of these conversations, including a book and documentary with his dad, Tony Campolo, a podcast episode with his son, Roman, where they disagree on the hope or lack thereof for our species and a recent podcast episode on race. In short, Bart wears his heart on his sleeve and lives his life out loud with humility, honesty and grace.
We discuss humanism and the burden of being hopeful. Bart pushes back on my assertion that everyone needs awe, belonging and community. According to Bart different people need different amounts of each of those things. At the same time, Bart is facilitating a healthy secular community in Cincinnati providing just those things for the lucky few who attend. They put it this way:
Commitment to loving relationships
Making things better for other people
Cultivating gratitude and wonder in life
Worldview humility
I normally have a few quotes from the episode, but as I was writing them down it became a transcript. Bart is eminently quotable. Listen to the show to find out. I will leave you with just one which you will need to listen to the show to understand:
Show your work!
Be sure to listen to the end for a funny story I tell that relates to Bart’s father, Tony Campolo, during my time at bible college.
“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. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. As always, I'm going to ask if you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review. In the apple podcast store or wherever you listen to this podcast. It helps others find the show. On today's show, my guest today needs no introduction. But I'll attempt one anyway. Bart Campolo is the son of the famous evangelical preacher Tony Campolo. He is the podcast host of the humanize me podcast. He is an author of the why I left and why I stayed book, he is the subject along with His Father in John rights, leaving my father's faith documentary that's available on Amazon Prime. He is also the humanist chaplain at the University of Cincinnati. As you're going to hear, BART has had quite an influence on me personally, finding his voice post deconversion was really important. I've talked a lot about the debate culture that's out there, the pure rationality, the ivory tower perspective of many atheists, and how unsatisfying that is after about 15 minutes. So finding someone who was talking about a humanism that was boots on the ground, loving people, real blood, sweat, and tears, humanity was really important. And that does have a deep and profound impact on what you hear here on this podcast. It's also hard to overstate the impact of finding the son of Tony Campolo, to have D converted, I don't waste much time in my conversation with Bart bringing this subject up. But for those of you who maybe have been atheists all your life, Tony Campolo is huge in the evangelical community. And so finding Bart Campbell, oh, his son had D converted and was a humanist, was just like finding an oasis in the middle of a desert. Suffice to say, this is one of my favorite conversations that I have had so far. One of the great things about doing this podcast is I get to speak with people that I have a great deal of respect for, and Bart is certainly in that category. I'll stop fanboying out here. Now, I do want to point out that a couple of humanized me podcast episodes will inform this episode, they are almost assumed knowledge in our conversation, and so I'll just highlight them here. One is an episode a few months back where Bart Sun Roman really challenged Bart on a previous podcast episode that he had done in which he was a little less than hopeful about the continuation of the species of human beings. Roman really laid into him on this. And what's important about this is that BART allowed this to take place in public. As I've stated before, many times, the ethos of this podcast is about brutal self honesty. One of the subjects that BART and I discussed is having our minds changed, having our minds changed by other people. And the second episode that you should probably listen to is the June 15 episode on facing up to collective trauma in which he discusses Black Lives Matter and ways that BART himself needs to change his mind. And finally, a third episode, the July 1 episode with Leah Helbling, who by the way, is the podcast host of women beyond faith, which is excellent. But in that Leah and Bart discuss the Cincinnati humanist group, there are four ideals that that tried to live up to. And that is a commitment to loving relationships, making things better for other people, cultivating gratitude and wonder in their lives and world view humility, and that's the one that BART talks about in this episode, but never uses that term. And so it might be a little confusing. Whether you listen to those before you listen to this podcast episode, or afterwards, they will help to bring in the context of what we discussed. I often write down quotes from people during an episode and I found myself basically doing a transcript this episode. It is target rich for quote, mining, if that is your thing. BART has just some amazing turns of phrase here that I think are really important. I want you to pay attention. I want you to listen to this Episode more than once it is that good. I need to add one more thing. I also have learned that the day after BARTON I recorded this session, Bart's father, Tony Campolo had a stroke. I just want to wish him well. And the family well salutes to you all hope a speedy recovery for Tony Campolo. Please also stay to the end of the episode in my final thoughts area, I'm going to tell a funny story that I had in Bible college that relates to Tony Campo. Without further ado, I give you marched Campbell.
Hello, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Bart Campolo 5:47
Well, thank you, David. It's nice to be here.
David Ames 5:49
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. You bet. So for the one or two people in the universe who listen to this podcast who don't know who you are, you are the humanist chaplain at the University of Cincinnati. You are the podcast host of the humanize me podcast. You're an author of why I left and why I stayed and you were part of the documentary with your dad, leaving my father's face, which is on amazon prime these days. Is that correct?
Bart Campolo 6:17
All of those things are true. Yes.
David Ames 6:18
So one of the things that I've noticed, I've only been doing this for, you know, a couple of years, but you start to hear people say things back to you that you've said before. So the first thing I wanted to say to you is you're probably going to hear a lot of things that are your way of saying things. Because if anything, this podcast is an homage to your work.
Bart Campolo 6:37
Oh, what a nice thing to say. Thank you so much.
David Ames 6:40
I really, really appreciate it. So you had suggested a possible topic. And that kind of has not on me overnight. So let's start with that. And that is this idea of gracefully, talking to people with whom you have serious disagreements. And just recently, you've had a number of conversations that have been really interesting, of course, your book and the Amazon Prime story is with your dad, which must have been a very difficult conversation in the beginning. And then recently, you had a conversation with your son, where you had some disagreements. So talk to me a little bit on the on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, on the podcast. So talk to me a little bit about how you approach talking to people with whom you disagree?
Bart Campolo 7:26
Well, you know, this is a strange moment in our world, and in our country. Like, you can't, there's no way to overstate that. This is a weird, weird moment. And, and I think what's happening is, is that unexperienced that I've had a lot around spirituality, which is like, how do you talk to somebody who really sees the world differently in such a way that it's almost like they're, they're in a different universe than you are? Like, they have a different set of rules, and a different kind of worldview? I think like that's happening in this country to everybody politically, that it used to be that Democrats and Republicans were sort of different flavors of the same coffee, you know, and there was a sort of an understanding like, oh, yeah, like, we share the same goals. But we have different sort of intuitions about how to get there. But it's now so polarized that it's sort of like, if you don't see the world the way I do, I think you're bad. Yeah. And I'm afraid of you. And, and our media is such that we have not only different worldviews, but different facts, like, literally, we get our information from different sources, and it looks very different, you know, and now now around race. Yeah, there's this conversation that's happening about race. And what I'm finding is, is that in this kind of a setting, it is really hard to have a speculative conversation with somebody. And by that, I mean, where you go, like, Hey, I think it might be this way. And the other person was like, oh, no, I think you're really missing this point. But like, they sort of assume that you want to be corrected, and that you're a good person who, who maybe has a different has a wrong angle, rather than you racist, or you fascist or you know, you person that hates America, or, you know, there's a sense in which it's very hard to have a conversation right now, where you can float an idea without fear of being judged, you know, where you can go like, right now I'm seeing it this way. And then also where you can listen to the other person and go like, Oh, that makes sense. Okay, and change your mind. Right? And I feel like I got a head start on those conversations because When I left the Christian faith, you know, all the most significant people in my life, were still in it. And so I had to figure out a way to talk with those people. And it wasn't an option to go like, well, we just won't talk about Christianity, or we just won't talk about faith, yes, because like, that was the center of their lives. And that is the center of many of their lives. And my pursuit of goodness on the other side of faith is at the center of my life. Like it's not, for me pursuing loving kindness as a way of life. That's not like a peripheral issue. For me. It's the center of everything. Exactly. And so we're not going to talk about our spiritual lives, if you will, even though my spirituality is secular. If we're not going to talk about that, we're not going to be very close.
David Ames 10:47
Yeah, you would lack an intimacy with the people that you love, if you weren't talking about these things.
Bart Campolo 10:52
So in some ways, it's a little bit like that with like, I live in a black neighborhood. And if we're not going to talk about race, then we're not going to be very close. Yeah. And so we have to find a way to talk about this thing, even though it's really fraught, and it's really painful. And I need to be open to changing my mind. And I think that that's the thing, that if there's anything I've learned, over the last 10 years, since I left the faith, it's been about what are some of the rules of engagement for that kind of conversation?
David Ames 11:35
Yeah, very interesting. So just a topic or an idea that is a part of this podcast is what I call secular grace. And it's this idea that I observed while I was a Christian, that what we really needed was Grace with each other with human to human. And then through the deconversion process, I realized that well, actually, yes, that's really critically important. We need to be not only loved but accepted by one another without feeling judged. And it really does feel like that is something that we need for this moment in time. The thing that I find interesting about you and your work is that you tend to do this very publicly. So again, I mentioned the conversation you had with Roman, but also just recently, you did, but you're on your podcast about Black Lives Matter and the ways that you need to learn. And so it's approaching it with humility, from your own side to be willing to recognize that, yes, I'm probably wrong in some areas, and I need to learn. And at the same time, being loving or having a loving conversation in which everyone can participate.
Bart Campolo 12:45
You know, I think, I think one of the crucial moments for me, and this is back in my Christian days, but like, I was working with three or four friends on a big youth project, we were organizing, we got a huge grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, and we were trying to put together this program, and we had put it together and the guys, these guys that were buddies of mine, were working on this one part, I was working on another part of it. And at one point, they came to me and they said, Listen, you need to let us go, we need to take this money, what's left of it. And we've got the thing going and, and the thing that you're doing isn't like we need to separate. And I was furious. I felt like they were so ungrateful. I had gotten this grant, I had hired them all on, and now they wanted to kick me to the curb. And, and we went down, and we were in this huge argument about it. And, you know, what was funny was like, there was race involved in this one of them was black, one of them was Hispanic. And they were the strongest voices. And there was a sense in which they were saying, like, you know, this is a program for inner city, young people, like we know what we're doing you what you're doing is a whole different thing. And it's taking away from the project. And now, the short is we're in this huge knockdown drag out argument. And the good news for me is I hold all the cards. I'm the one in control of the money. And, like they're asking me for something or demanding something, but like, I can fire them all. I can do whatever I want. Yeah. But in the middle of the meeting, like as they're as they're arguing, I sort of almost yell back at them. So what you're saying is, and I repeat their arguments, I mean, you're saying this, because of this, because of this, and they and one of them goes, That's right.
David Ames 14:32
Yes, yeah.
Bart Campolo 14:35
And all of a sudden, it hit me. They were right. Like, I put it together. Like, in my own words coming out of my mouth. I was like, Wait, that's true that oh, my gosh. And I sat there for a long second. I looked him I said, Oh, I get it. Oh, so you're saying this, right. And he goes, Yeah, that's what he said. And I said, Oh, that makes sense. And one of them looked at me and said, like, what are you trying to do here? What's the game? I was like, no, no, I get it now. You're right. And you let it go. And one of the guys in the room, I still remember this friend of mine named Chris Rock looked at me and he said, I've never seen this happen in my life. And I said, What? He said, I've never actually watched somebody changed their mind in real life, in real time. Yeah. But you just changed your mind.
David Ames 15:35
It is incredibly rare and publicly.
Bart Campolo 15:38
But what was weird about it was, is that all the flood of love that flowed into that room? Like those guys loved me in that moment. And if state like they would all they're all loyal to a fault to me now. Yeah. And there was such an exhilaration of going like, Oh, I was wrong. And like, changing my mind meant I took a step closer to being right, or to being good to being in the truth. And for the life of me, David, I don't understand why we don't teach kids when we beat them in an argument to go like, how does it feel to be truer than you were? Or like, when we win an argument, I don't know why we don't stop. And instead of going like, Haha, I beat you go like, Oh, my gosh, you did it. Yeah, you did it. Because changing my mind, or having my mind changed for me by the evidence or by somebody else's better argument, to me is like the ultimate expression of my human potential. Like every human advancement, every bit of progress, everything good that's happened in our species, has been the result of somebody going like, I was wrong.
David Ames 17:03
Yes, exactly.
Bart Campolo 17:06
Like, oh, wait, so all the punches don't revolve around the earth? Or, oh, my gosh, you mean, all this differentiation of species like, complexity grows out of simplicity, not the other way around? You go like, this is a mate. It's all about changing your mind. Yeah. And so for me, what I found in that moment, and it found subsequent to that, is that the ultimate, like, in a sense, what strengthens us, what makes us feel powerful, is not when we have the ability to, to manipulate or to change other people to bend them to our well. But when we have the ability to change ourselves, yes. And so for me, I guess early on in the game, I sort of figured out like, Oh, this is real power. And this is real security. And this is also like, very selfishly, you want to get people to like you let them change your mind. Yeah. Like be open to them changing your mind. And what's interesting, too, is is and then they become more open to you change in their mind.
David Ames 18:21
Right, you've built some trust.
Bart Campolo 18:24
So for me, that's the key. I have this wonderful quote from Alan Alda, where he says, like, I have this radical idea that if I'm not open to letting you change my mind, I'm not really listening to you. Hmm. And I think so much of the conversation I see going on right now is one person's talking the other person not even listening. They're only listening to try to craft what they're going to say in response, but like, there's no openness to having their mind change. They're just, they're just looking for like, how do I return to this? Nobody's listening?
David Ames 18:54
Yeah. Ironically, we, as the converts have the experience of discovering that we were mistaken, discovering that we were wrong on something deeply fundamental. In some ways, we have a leg up to have that kind of humility when we go into a conversation.
Bart Campolo 19:15
Some of us do. I mean, one of the big questions when somebody loses their faith or deconstructs or however you want to describe the process, whether it's passive or active, and because in many ways, you know, my mind changed, I didn't change it. Right. You know, if I could have stopped the process halfway through, I probably would have it would have saved me a lot of time and trouble
David Ames 19:41
and money. Yeah. And so you know, and so
Bart Campolo 19:43
somebody's people are feel very betrayed by you when you leave the faith. And you know, I'm always at great pains to say like, Hey, like, I'm really sorry that this is hurting you but like, it wasn't my choice. This happened to me right now. I have to figure out how to make the most of it, but like, it's not that I won't Believe in God, or I refuse to believe in God. I can't I don't, you know, and I'm unable to. But the real question is, when that happens to you, some of us end up that ends up being a liberation into a new kind of in enthusiasm and a new kind of opportunity to live in, because we replace that worldview with another one that sort of inspires us to want to keep growing and to keep loving, and to keep building connections, like, we create a new religion in place of the old one. And for some people, it's just, it's just a loss. And so I think that having your mind changed, feels really different. If it gets changed from something into something else, and that something else is freer, and more vibrant, and fits better. And I think it's very different. When you have your worldview gets broken. And you, you just sit there with the broken pieces, trying to figure out how to get back what you've lost. Yeah. And so you know, that's why I'm very, very cautious about undermining somebody's Christianity, because there's no guarantee that if you undermine their faith in God, that they will then turn into a vibrant, enthusiastic humanist, there's a very real chance that they will just be broken.
David Ames 21:33
Yeah, and that is actually something that I say, on this podcast, often that I just have no desire to try to take away the faith, particularly from the people that I love, who I perceive aren't ready, they would be asking questions if they were ready. And so I have all the patience in the world, with the people that I love and their faith,
Bart Campolo 21:55
unless they're hurting people with it, or unless they're hurting themselves with it, you sometimes see that, like, there are people for whom I'm like, Listen, you know, that's, that's hurting you, baby. Yes, you know, people for whom that narrative always cast them in the loser light. And in the, in the failure light. And so there's another way of looking at the world. There's another way of of living. But yeah, when you see somebody who's sort of bearing fruit in that Christian world, and you'd like, Yeah, but it's, it's, it's insanity that none of it makes sense. There's no evidence for it. Okay. But be careful, because you take away their illusion, they may not be able to piece together a reality that works for them. Yeah. In this moment, I think the essence of the big thing is there are a bunch of us that have changed our minds for the better, or have experienced sort of like, the thrill of going like, Oh, I was wrong. And the sort of sense of power and the security that it gives you because you go like, Oh, what that means is like, maybe if I'm wrong about something else, like I'll figure that out, too. Or maybe, maybe there's a way in which this bad relationship that I'm in hate. Some of it might be my fault, or maybe that terrible conversation that we had. If it's all about them, I have no control. But like, if I have a part to play, maybe I can make it better. Yeah. And so once you have that experience, like there's almost like a giddiness that says, Please help me understand, like, what am I doing in this conversation that's making me so angry. And I think that that's for me, the key to the whole thing is, is that when I fight like it when you talk about like, there was this episode that I did with this guy, Michael Dowd. And it was about kind of what's going on in the world and sort of collapse Aryan thinking, and Michael Dowd, and I got going on that stuff, and I can get going on that stuff. And my son called me the next week, he's like, I hated that, that it was a horrible thing. And like, I ended up bringing him on the podcast, and he just rip me to shreds on this podcast. Yeah. And the thing is, is if you listen carefully to the podcast, what you'll see is, is that we're arguing about the thing. But we're also having a meta conversation about how we're talking to each other. And that's the thing is that like, even when he and I are really on the opposite side of the issues, say my dad, like, this is like a thing that we've learned is that you still need to have a conversation that says, Listen, when you use that really calm voice, it really bothers me, like, could you just or, you know, like, you're not letting me finish my sentences. And I need like, you gotta let me finish here. And so then we're not talking about the collapse of the world or about global warming, then we're talking about how are you talking to me? And how am I talking to you, right? And on that conversation. Roman and I are both committed to like, oh, we want to have a good conversation. And so like, if I'm messing up the conversation, tell me and that's the first place where you can give ground and get easy. If somebody says, I don't like the way you're too talking to me like, Oh, I'm sorry.
David Ames 25:02
Yeah, that's, that's easy to change. It's an
Bart Campolo 25:05
easy place to give ground. But that's also the place where you demonstrate you, my friend, are more important than winning this conversation, you may not be more important than the issue that we're talking about. But you're more important than this conversation about that issue, right? It's more important that we live to fight another day, as a team or as a family or as a friendship than me winning this no one battle is worth losing that war. Yeah. And you demonstrate that when you're willing to modify the way you talk.
David Ames 25:41
So I want to kind of synthesize what we've been discussing here. And I want to ask you directly as a humanist chaplain, and, you know, you have a famous dad, and you have this platform on your podcast, in a moment, like now in the middle of COVID-19, in the middle of race relations, the tragedy of George Floyd, the problems with police departments, all the things that we're experiencing in the United States, you mentioned all the politics and we can't talk to each other. Do you feel a responsibility to be hopeful to be a prophet of hope, a proclaimer, of hope.
Bart Campolo 26:25
It's funny, because I think that people, people often will say to my family, Bart's such a positive guy, you know, he's such a positive guy, and my family just laugh. And they just go like, Oh my gosh, like, this is the most relentlessly negative person ever, like, who explained you why this car won't work, why this new piece of furniture won't work? Why are vacations going to suck? Like, I struggle with negativity in real life? Yeah. And so I think for precisely that reason, perhaps I've become a student of hope. And I do feel a responsibility to be hopeful, but to be hopeful, in a way that like, I'm hopeful, but not optimistic, like optimistic, says, I think everything's gonna work out. And I don't, I don't think there's any reason to think everything will ever work out like anybody who comes telling me that like, in the end, if we, you know, if we use their system, or if we buy into their religion, like there will be eternal Nirvana at the end of it. I don't believe in eternal nirvana. I don't believe in Utopia. Yeah, I think the conflict is baked in. I don't even know if the species makes it out of here alive. The universe just keeps churning. And at some point, I think we get turned into my commitment to humanism is like, this is the species I'm part of this is my tribe. And as long as we're here, I want to make the best of this human experience. I love the human experience. I'm not saying it's eternal. I'm not saying it'll ever be perfect. I'm just saying like, I'm committed to it, right? So my hopefulness is not about utopianism. My hopefulness is this idea of like, things probably won't work out. But in the midst of them not working out. I think that what I do might make a difference for somebody. I think I have some agency here, I think I might be able to offer some comfort, I think I might be able to prolong our time a little bit. I think I might be able to make things brighter on the corner where I live. And so I think what happens is sometimes in the face of these large issues, people go like, listen, nothing I do, makes a difference. Like there's nothing I can do about it. These issues and these forces at work in our society are beyond my control. And like yeah, that's, that's true, but you still have agency, you still can make a difference. There's still something you can do that matter. Yeah. And so I do feel an obligation to tell that story. Right. And try to, in a sense, motivate people to make the most of this opportunity. Yeah, I mean, when you leave Christianity some people are like, Well, if there's no heaven and there's no heaven, we don't live forever, then what's the point of all this anyway? Like if if nothing lasts, why bother? And I go, like, you have this moment? Yeah. Like this. This matters. Like yeah, like this day matters. And I feel like that's, that's the same reality where you go like, well, if I can't really affect the whole system, if I can't change everything for the better than what's the point I got, like, ah, but because this day matters, this moment matters. This person matters. And they matter because you care about them. Yeah. So I do feel, I do feel dry. Part of it is I have to talk my self into acting hopefully every day. And so part of it is, you know, just like that preacher who's in the pulpit saying, pornography is the great evil and we must fight against sexual immorality. And you're like, Hey, I wonder what I wonder what's on his computer? Yeah. Because the ones that rail against it the loudest it's because like they're struggling with it. And so like, when you see somebody like doing like the super upbeat, warm, fuzzy hopeful, humanize me podcast, you go, like, I wonder if that guy has a heart of darkness? Of course he dies. Of course he dies. Yeah. Yeah. And he's preaching to himself. Yeah.
David Ames 30:38
Well, I think when you did the conversation with Roman, one of my comments was that you are at the top of your game, when you are talking about hope. And it may be barks, that because we lack that we lack that kind of leadership in the world, there are very few voices who are proclaiming hope. And so I think maybe that was what Roman was reacting to, is when you are not hopeless, but less hopeful, that that is kind of diminishing, somehow the work that you do.
Bart Campolo 31:11
Yeah, he's sort of like, we count on you. We Hey, buddy, we're counting on you. This is what yeah, we need you in the family. Like, this is what like, we need you like be you gotta be your best self for us. Yes, yeah. And I think that that is as good a reason as any, I think for a lot of people that are struggling in this COVID thing, and struggling in this racial moment, is that part of the problem of being caught off from each other is that it's the other people that tend to motivate us to do our best. Yes. And so when we get isolated, a lot of times we lose momentum, because you know, all this idea of self interest to the contrary, human beings are a tribal species, and we're motivated by one another, and by our concern for one another. And, you know, that's sort of our evolutionary trick, that that's how you get people to, like, give it up for the tribe, and, you know, to make great sacrifices is, is you build into them a sense of like, that my destiny is wrapped up with yours. And that, you know, in a sense, like, I'm more concerned about my DNA going forward than I am about my body. What do you think, which is a very sciency way of saying it, but like, what it says is like, you know, I'm part of something bigger than myself. Yes. And when you leave religion, people call it Oh, I missed that. I missed that sense of being part of the Kingdom of God being part of a larger destiny. And it's critical, like, you know, there's this other story about, you know, about life sort of emerging out of nothing, like out of the elements, and organizing itself into a place of consciousness and meaning. And then discovering a pathway that says that, like, love is the ultimate survival skill, like you actually are part of something much bigger than yourself. Yeah. And actually, if you check your impulses, to breathe, and to have sex and to eat, and to find shelter, like they are all wrapped up in, and not just surviving, but propagating this way of life, right. And this form of life, and so yeah, you know, what, you cut people off from each other, and you cut them off from literally the thing that makes life worth living.
David Ames 33:36
So we've been dancing around it just a little bit. I find after deconversion you know, the first thing that you see online is a lot of what I call debate culture, very, Christians are wrong, and atheists are right and, and it took me a while to find the humanist voices like yourself. Tell me, what does humanism mean for you? Why do you use that label at all? And just define it for me?
Bart Campolo 34:04
I'll yeah, that's, that's a good question. Because like, I'm not, you know, for somebody who's like a fairly well known humanist like, I'm not really that comfortable with the term. Okay. Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, right? And I tend to think like humanism is the worst thing to call myself, except for all the others. Like, I don't call myself an atheist, even though I am one. Because atheist means without God, and I live my life without any kind of connection or consciousness or, you know, belief in God. But when you see the word atheist in our culture, a lot of times people interpret that as against God or against people who believe in God, right? And so like, I don't want to be associated with that. I'm not one of those angry people that wants to tear it all down. And I have a lot of respect for what believing in God did for our species. It was a stage along the way. Yeah, it was the best story we had at the time. And a lot of the good stuff that we have now, in fact, the ability to conceptualize a world without God, that stuff got hammered out by people who are educated in the universities built by the wave and God. You know, so I'm a great respecter of what brought me here. So anyway, I don't want to be called an atheist agnostic. I know what it means is like, doesn't know or sort of, again, technically, I am agnostic, like, I can't prove that there is no God, or that, that I can't even prove that this universe isn't a simulation in somebody else's computer model, right? We're not all in the matrix. I can't prove that definitively. Yeah. So I am agnostic. But again, like it makes it sound like I'm not sure. And I'm really sure about what I value. And I'm really sure about the way I'm living my life. And like, I'm not like paralyzed by uncertainty. So I don't use that word, right? free thinker. Like, I understand, like, that's a lovely term. And like, I aspire to be a free thinker. But like, come on, you don't have to, you don't have to study cognitive biases very long. Yes. Or anthropology very long to know, like, even the fact that I don't believe in God, I can't take really credit for it. Right. Like I was raised in such a way that I am able not to believe in God, if I had been raised in a different place. If I had a different brain, if I had a different cultural mindset. I wouldn't like, I can't even take credit for the way I think. So yeah, no, I'm not going to call myself a free thinker. I wish it was. And skeptic, again, makes it sound like I'm walking around the world looking for things to take issue with or trouble with. And again, like, technically, skepticism is kind of like a scientific word. And it's a good thing to be sure. But in the end, what I want to communicate to people is like, yeah, I don't believe in God, but I'm really committed to life. And in particular, I'm really committed to human life and to try to make as much meaning as I can, in the context of this human life by loving other people. And so like, humanist is kind of the it least connotes the idea. Like, it's not what I don't believe in that defines me. It's what I am committed to. Right. And if somebody says, so you're committed to humanity, I got like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would be my ultimate commitment. Right? Yeah. So you know, calling myself a humanist, like I said, is better than all the others. But like, if you asked me to define humanism, I would go like, Oh, man, it's like Christianity. Like, there's 1000. You know, there's as many different forms of Christianity as there are Christians, Bret, to me, when I realized that I had to figure out how to get on without God, you know, I sort of like, well, I don't, I started to sort of go like, I want to make the most of this life, it still feels really like a privilege to have it. And I did some research and I looked around, and I read a bunch of books by people and kind of came to the conclusion like, you know, loving relationships is the thing. Like the people that live their lives, the longest and sort of die. The happiest are people that have a handful of loving relationships, and that spend their lives doing things to make things better for other people and have a sense of gratitude and, and cultivate that and that like, like, the more grateful I am, the happier I am. And so like, I came to the place where I was like, that's what I want to pursue. So if somebody says to me, what's your humanism, because I'll let you know, a humanist is somebody who like is really committed to loving relationships and making things better for other people, and cultivating gratitude and wonder in their life. And who's smart enough to recognize that like, just because that works for them, doesn't mean it would work for everybody. Right? Exactly. And so that's my definition of humanism. Like, like my little fellowship here in Cincinnati, the Cincinnati caravan, those four values, like, we ran them up the flag and a bunch of people secular people were like, that sounds ridiculous. That sounds like Old Time Religion, like, you know, and then a bunch of other people were like, Oh, my gosh, that's what I've been looking for. Like I miss, I missed that sense of focus. So it's like, we're going to be a community that helps each other pursue loving kindness as a way of life. And they were like, count me in. Yeah, like, Okay, so for us, that's our humanism, right? But like for somebody else, it means something very, very different.
David Ames 39:23
So yeah, man, you've touched on several things there. What I talk about a lot is that just because we no longer have a particular set of metaphysics does not mean that we don't need each other that we don't need community that we don't need to have a sense of belonging that we don't need to experience all we need all those things. Those are hardwired human needs.
Bart Campolo 39:43
But you know, David, different people need different amounts of them. That's interesting. Yeah. See, when I came out of Christianity, the Christianity went first. But the fundamentalism stayed with me a lot longer. And I went from thinking that Jesus was the one true Path to going like, I got to figure out what the one true path is. And like I was, you know, I became convinced it was this like commitment to like community, and that human beings were tribal species and stuff like that. And then I started meeting like, autistic people, you know, yeah, or people that had, you know, had been traumatized by certain kinds of relationships. And they were like, Yeah, I don't want to, like, I don't want to venture into that. And these people, were still finding ways to be connected to something, some of them to music, some of them were connected to other humans in an indirect way, like, they would stay alone in their room coding, and create things that would be helpful to other people, but they didn't want to talk to those people.
David Ames 40:43
Right? I can relate.
Bart Campolo 40:46
And so all of a sudden, like, not all of a sudden, but slowly, it dawned on me, you're still a fundamentalist part, you still want to come up with a way of life that works for you, and then suggest that that's what all human beings need. You know, at this stage in the game, that's part of my, I guess, you would call it worldview humility, where I go, like, think of about a bell curve, you know, where like, most people are in or close to the center of it, I'm gonna go like, I think for the vast majority of human beings, this business of like, a handful of loving relationships, and a sense of doing something that makes things better for other people and is meaningful, and a sense of gratitude. I think that will work for a lot of people that, but I'm not here to impose it on anybody, because I know that there are people for whom that wouldn't be the right. Cocktail, that wouldn't be the right formula, right. And so, I think there are a lot of different ways to make meaning. This is the one that sort of works for me. And so when I meet people that are struggling, and they're sad, I tend to say to them, Hey, this is the thing my friends and I are doing, and it's working for us, like, maybe this would work for you. But when I see somebody who's happily moving through life, in a different way, I am not prone to go like, Listen, you really need to, you know, like, I'm telling you, you, you're fooling yourself, you're not really happy behind that computer screen, you really won't be happy until you're more like me,
David Ames 42:11
right? Okay, so I'm taking that all in. And I totally agree with you. In fact, one of the things that I talked about whenever I talked about humanism is the beauty of it is that you can choose not to do that. Unlike more enforced religious doctrines, humanism allows for the great diversity within humanity. Yeah, because
Bart Campolo 42:34
you're because somebody's doing it a different way, isn't an implicit challenge to mind. Like in Christianity, if somebody's thriving outside of Christianity, that's a problem, because my religion teaches that you can't thrive outside of Christianity. So I have to find a way of explaining like this, my dad used to do with me when I first left the faith. He's he just kept trying to like, poke holes in my humanism, and sort of go, this can't be working for you. Because if this works for you, it implicitly challenges my sense that without Jesus life is meaningless, right? And at one point, I finally Dad, it's like you want my humanism to fail? And the thing is, like, do you think if you convince me that without believing in God, I'm bound to be suicidal and miserable? Do you think that will make me believe in God again? Wow. And he said, he said, No, I said, Yeah, I can't believe in God that makes it. Like, it doesn't make sense to me. So I said, If you convince me that I can't find meaning without God, all you will do is convinced me that I am a hopeless wreck of despair. And that kind of backed him off a little bit, is what it says, like, you need to hope that there's meaning outside of Christianity, or else your son is doomed. Right. And I think as a humanist, I need to do the same thing. I need to hope that there are multiple ways because there are a lot of people for whom this way of thinking like there are a lot of people who are hardwired to believe in a supernatural force. Yes. And they're not able not to. And so we better hope that there's a way for those people to thrive. And there's a way for those people to feel a sense of joy in their lives. Yeah. Because otherwise, we have nothing to offer them. And so I like the thing is like, it's not threatening to me when somebody thrives by another path, right? It doesn't bother me, you know, my evangelism. I'm not looking to talk anybody out of anything that's working for him. I'm looking for people who their shit is not working. The stuff is just not working. And those are the people that I'm like, Look, you've tried all these other things. Have you tried this thing? Because here's a way of living. Here's a way of looking at the universe that might work. for you.
David Ames 45:01
I want to tee up kind of a last idea teed up, David. You hit on this and that what you just were talking about, we often hear from particularly apologists, right? I often make the distinction between the regular believer in the pew and the apologist, but they're often trying to invalidate humanism or anything outside of Christianity. Of course, we come along as humanists, and we say, you know, there may not be inherent meaning in the universe, but we as human beings are meaning makers. And we find somehow, you and I, and many others have found a way for that to be really deeply, profoundly useful, purposeful, meaning making. How is it that that you make meaning how do you teach others to make meaning?
Bart Campolo 45:55
Oh, that's, that's your that's your question. Yeah, question. Oh, thanks.
David Ames 46:01
Yeah, just an easy one for the on the way out. Yeah.
Bart Campolo 46:05
It's funny when you mentioned apologist, I just got a note from somebody that there's evidently this apologist out there. I guess she's fairly well known. Her name is Alyssa Childers. He sent me this interview that she was doing in which she talks about me. And, and I thought she was gonna say crappy things about me. And he said, No, no, what she says is, she says, she doesn't understand progressive Christianity, because she's like, if you don't believe in the resurrection, and you don't believe that, you know, God made the world in seven days. And if you don't believe in the virgin birth, she said, I like BarCamp Hola, because like, he admits it, like if you don't believe in it, in a sense, you probably should stop calling yourself a Christian. Right? But but then I listened to a little bit more of what you said, and I and I'm apologist, they just freaked me out. Because what she basically said is like, the great thing about apologetics is, is that it convinces you that God is real, even if there's no evidence, even if you don't feel anything, even if God never answers a prayer, like but you still know it's real. And I just thought, gosh, you know, lady, you and I are wired differently. That is not a selling point for me. Yeah. So but the thing is, is that we see people make meaning in different ways. And I think that the thing that troubles me the most, is not when somebody is making it in a way that doesn't make sense to me. But when somebody seems to have no appetite for meaning, when somebody is seems unmotivated, when they are listless when they're when they're willing to just exist, rather than to live. My one of my favorite send off lines is Maurice Sendak, in his last interview with Terry Gross before he died, he just told her how much he loved being alive and how much he had had a great time and how much he loved knowing her. And he said, Terry, I'm never going to talk to you again. So let me just say it to you. Live your life. Live your life, live your life. And, you know, it broke her down and broke me. Yeah, you know, because there's a sense in which there's a purposefulness to that there's a sense in which don't let your life just happen live it. You know, and so, the question, I think that's always, even before I became a humanist, even when I was in Christianity working in the inner city was, how do you give somebody an appetite for life? That doesn't have one? And I wish I could say I knew the answer. What I do know is this is that when I was a kid in math, they would they would do these tests, and they would give you the question. And then they would say, you know, like, what's the, what's the square root of this? You know, or what's the quadratic formula? And then they would always be like, show your work? Right? Like, it wasn't enough to put down the answer. You had to show how you got there. Yeah. And I think that I see a lot of people like you, like me, who seem to be living their lives. And the question is, are you willing to show your work? Are you willing to, to articulate the process? You know, are you willing to talk about how you find the books that you read? Not just the books you read, but like how you found it? Right? And are you willing to talk about like, the hard conversation you had with your mom? Are you willing to share about your battle with depression? And are you willing to talk about not just what you love, but why you love it? Like it takes a lot of effort to explain to a child, why we're going to go on the trip that mom planned for us this on Saturday, even though none of us really want to go home because Mom, mom put a lot of effort into planning it, and we're not going to let her down. We're going to go and we're going to make it a good time. And it takes a lot of effort. To explain to kid like, why you sometimes do something you don't want to do, because you care about the person who planned it. Right? It's easier just to say to the kid, I'm Dad, you're the kid, get in the car we're going. And sometimes that's appropriate. But then you got to circle back and say, Hey, can I tell you how that worked? Can I tell you why I did that? Sometimes why I did the wrong thing. But sometimes why I did the right thing and why it matters. In my experience, people develop an appetite for something like coffee, not just when they taste it, but when somebody explains to them why they love it, and what to look for. And, you know, or fly fishing, or bicycle racing, or whatever it is, it's somebody has to not only sort of go like, Look, isn't this cool, but they have to say to you, this is what I love about it, this, look at the nuance here, like, you're not going to notice this, but there's actually a difference between that tire and this tire. And that's why we pick that tire for this kind of race. And they may not end up loving bike racing. But that's how you teach people what it is. To be passionate about something, to be interested in something to develop a taste for something. And frankly, I don't care what you develop a passion or a taste for nearly as much as I as I want you to have one. And so I think if I was a young parent, again, I'm a grandparent, so I'm getting to do it a little bit over. If I'm a friend of somebody who's discouraged, you're depressed, I think there's a tendency to want to talk at that person and tell them what they need to do. And I think you're probably better off showing your work, showing the work of being alive. And talking about it openly, and becoming articulate about why you do the things you do and why they mean something to you. And to that end, I'm gonna give you a book recommendation. Oh, it's gonna freak you out. Okay, okay. And it's the best book I've read in the last week. But it's a classic. I just finished reading Albert Camus, the plague, okay, it is a particularly apt book during the COVID-19 thing, although the plague he's talking about is the bluebonnet plague. And these people are locked down in a village and they can't get out. And people are dying, left and right. And the doctor at the center of it, is the true humanist, who makes meaning out of thin air, and figures out what really matters. And in the book, and I won't give you the trick ending, okay, because it's worth getting to, what I will tell you is, is it in the book, there's a sense in which the great skill of the writer is, is that the doctor shows his work. He shows what it takes to care at a time when it would be so easy to despair. And I think I think it's a beautiful example of what I'm talking about. I think one of the most humanizing things we can do for other people, is to show our work.
David Ames 53:09
I think that is a great place to stop, I'm going to keep that BART show your work, I'm going to for sure. Be telling other people about that as well. Bart, let people know how they can get in touch with you.
Bart Campolo 53:21
Listen, there's only one thing I do that has any significance outside of my little community here in Cincinnati, and that's my podcast, humanize me. And it's a place where I, I bring on other people and talk. And I'm always like, trying to find out from other people what they have to teach me about making the most of this life. And I'm glad that you listen to it, David, I'm glad you like it. I'm always glad when people like it. And for a lot of people they get on they go that guy's way too earnest, I can't stand them, I have to turn them off. That boy reminds me of a youth pastor. And it triggers me. But for those of you that can stomach it, that's probably the thing I do that has the most oath. And I send out a little email every week when I send out the podcast. That's my little sort of our daily bread devotional. And from what I can tell from the feedback that I get, there's a subset of human beings for whom that stuff is helpful. Yeah, and if you go to humanize me.com, like there's a place where it says contact Bart, the emails all come to me and I answer them slowly, but I do. So yeah, I'm grateful to you for for letting me into your circle and letting me meet your people. And if any of them are interested, I'm easy to find, as you know, but it is really good to talk with you. Thanks so much. That has
David Ames 54:37
been that's been a great conversation Bart, I really appreciate you giving me your time. Thank you so much. All right.
Final thoughts on the episode. As I said in the intro, if I began quoting Bart here, I would just restate the entire thing. Listen to the episode. Start again. It's fantastic. I'll just really harp on show you work. That is something that I literally have written up on my whiteboard to remind me it is a simple idea that has been haunting me for the past week or so after we recorded this episode. And it will affect the way that I parent my kids from now on. That's all I can say about that. The one thing I think that is interesting from our conversation that I'll point out here is Bart pushing back on me about what I call the ABCs of secular spirituality, all belonging and community, he pointed out that not everybody needs these things or not everybody needs them in the same degree or amounts. And that's important for me to hear that like I do think that that is a an important human need. But it doesn't mean that everyone needs it in the same way that I do. I'm assuming that if you're listening to this podcast that you think those things are important to some degree or another. But there are many secular people, many atheists out there who it sounds too much like religion, that sounds too much like their former church experience. And it could even be triggering or it could be drama inducing. So I just want to acknowledge that and I think that that's very true. While I will continue to talk about the secular ABCs of spirituality, I will do so with greater humility, the the worldview humility that BART talks about. I want to thank Bart for the amazing humility, integrity, honesty, Grace, with which he handles himself in public, as well as on this episode. I want to thank him for doing the work that he does for being hopeful in his home of hopelessness, and for admitting when he makes mistakes. And being willing to change his mind. I think all of that is an incredible example. And that is BarCamp. Polo showing his work. Thank you Bart. Again, I want to say I hope a speedy recovery for Tony Campolo after the stroke that he had on June 20. I hope that the Campillo family that all of you are well barked. I didn't bring this topic up because we had a short amount of time for our recording session. But I did want to tell this crazy story. I was in Bible college and very conservative Bible College in the 90s. And my roommate was a huge, huge fan of Tony Campillo. At the time, Tony was very famous for a provocative statement that he made in a speech, and I'll quote it here, quote, I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or disease related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you are more upset with the fact that I just said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. As you might imagine, that had quite an impact on people. So in Bible college, I have a roommate, who was enamored with this statement who decided in chapel to quote, Tony, verbatim, as you can imagine, this did not go well. I just wanted to share that with you. It's a memory that is emblazoned in my mind. Thank you Tony for saying that. As always, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me and be graceful human beings. Time for some footnotes. The song has a track called waves by mkhaya beats, please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast, here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows by word of mouth. If you found it useful or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith transition? You want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on? Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or a blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing? Please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist where you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can tweet at me at graceful atheist. Or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well, this has been the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
This has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
My guest this week is Dr. Clint Heacock. Clint is the host of the Mindshift Podcast that focuses on reconstruction after deconstruction. Clint grew up in the Church of Christ with parents who followed the Bill Gothard method of child rearing. Clint now describes this as cultic practices.
What I need to do is discover the authentic Christianity … and then I wasn’t able to do it.
After pursuing a PhD in Theology in the U.K. while teaching Clint began to recolonize the disparity between what he believed and what he was teaching. The problems with the bible became too much. At the time Clint was hosting a podcast called “Preacher’s Forum.” The content had become too radical for its audience. He then changed the podcast into Mindshift and as his listeners have told him, he began deconstructing in public.
Only when you physically remove yourself and psychologically remove yourself, that’s when you start to think critically.
Clint has has had a focus on cult studies, Christian Dominionism and Christian reconstruction where politics and religion meet. He has had various experts in these fields on his podcast.
Best advice: Get yourself educated
Most important Clint has a heart for people. Just because we no longer are religious does not mean we lose our sense of pastoral care.
“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. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. As always, if you like what you hear, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast and the apple podcast store or wherever you get your podcasts that makes the gristle atheist podcast visible to more people. Please also consider letting a friend or family member know about the podcast. I've recently had very fun stories of people introducing the podcast to others. And that is really, really exciting. I hope you're doing well in your social distancing. And hopefully the isolation is not too much reach out to each other and connect with people intentionally during this time of isolation. onto today's show, my guest today is Dr. Clint Heacock. Clint is the podcast host of the mind shift podcast that focuses on reconstruction after deconstruction, post religion. I love this conversation with Clint, you're going to hear both of us talk about a pastoral perspective that we are now using in the secular community. I love the tone of the mind shift podcast and what Clint is doing there. He has specifically focused on cults and dominion theology and the way that politics and religion have come together in the western world today. We also discuss if there's any daylight between the concepts of deconstruction and deconversion. All in all, we have a really good time, and I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Dr. Clint Heacock. Here's our conversation.
Dr Clint Heacock welcome to the Graceful atheist podcast.
Clint Heacock 2:08
Thank you for having me, David.
David Ames 2:09
Hey, I appreciate it. I've been following your work for some time. Now. I've listened to your podcast, you're the host of the mind shift podcast, I know you're doing a lot of blogging on medium these days. Give us just the five minute overview of the work you're doing there.
Clint Heacock 2:25
Oh, man, we only have five minutes. So
David Ames 2:29
we'll have some time at the end to keep
Clint Heacock 2:30
it short. My podcast is really about helping people to reconstruct after they've deconstructed their religious beliefs. So they've left their faith. And that has led me into a lot of areas. I started out exclusively focusing on kind of the X Evangelical, and which is my backstory, coming out of evangelicalism. But it's led me into all sorts of other fields like cult psychology, Christian reconstructionism, dominion theology, the Christian right Christian nationalism, because that's, that's part of my story, too. So it's part of my reconstruction to understand the way it works, I guess. And it all sort of ties together. So I'm a former Bible college teacher, I was I was in academics for years. So for me, I love to research things. And so as a teacher, I just have to share them. So that's really the heart of what I do. I just want to be a kind of a teacher. It's my outlet, my creative outlet. And you know, if it helps one person, happy days,
David Ames 3:34
I hear you know, I feel the same way about this podcast. This is as much for me as it is anyone else. Like I have to have some expression of all this some way to get this off my chest because otherwise you go insane. So you have to. So you've already hinted at it, but part of what I wanted to have you on is to give you a chance as well, to tell your story. You mentioned evangelicalism, but I'm not sure I know exactly. The factors and you grew up in and what that trajectory looked like.
Clint Heacock 4:02
Well, I was raised in Seattle, Washington. I live here in the UK. Now we've been here about 14 and a half years actually came over here to do a PhD. Yeah. And that's what that's what brought us over here. We luckily we've been able to stay on. So we've this is going to be our home now. You know, we're expatriates and all the rest of it. Right? But I grew up in Seattle, Washington in a really now I would I would say it's a fundamentalist cult, because it was the church was a church of Christ. That was the denomination, okay, but they subscribe to the Bill Gothard which at the time was called the Institute in basic youth conflicts. And so, everybody, not everybody, but our church strongly encouraged everybody, let's say, to attend his seminars, which we did. My family did. I remember going as a kid, 1314 years old, taking notes. And my parents raised us we had a very large family. They raised us according to his teachings, which now I see why me that they're very toxic If I say it's a cult, it is a fundamentalist Bible cults. And so I've done that's kind of part of the cult psychology interest in of mine is I started researching the inner workings of the Gotthard Empire, and quickly came to see that it was a cult to then I realized I was raised in a cult. Yeah. Okay, what does that do? You've got a an the best advice I've heard from many, many ex cultists, and cult experts and psychiatrists is to get yourself educated, educate yourself on what the essentially what they did to you. And so that's kind of where I'm at with this journey. And so yeah, I think I was raised in a very toxic theology. Right? It was the teaching that you had to be baptized in order to be saved as a Christian. So I was baptized ended up getting baptized three times.
David Ames 5:52
Yeah, yeah. That'll make it work. Yeah,
Clint Heacock 5:55
the first time I was about 10, or 11. I'd seen that movie a thief in the night, back in the late 70s. And it terrified me that I was going to be left behind in the rapture, as a many, many, many, many people have reported that experience as young children being absolutely traumatized. And so I went to the pastor, and I said, I need to I need to become a Christian. He said, let's get you baptized. And that was the first you know, so every time I'd get baptized, because I was failing, in my view, as a Christian, so I'd get baptized again. And again, because I was so desperate to make sure that I had it right. Yeah, no, I didn't want to be left behind in the rapture.
David Ames 6:35
I really find this interesting that it's the people who care about it the most. someone like yourself, you really honestly wanted to make sure that you were doing everything properly and correct. Hmm, maybe it was based out of some fear, but it was still a lot of desire to do the right thing. Absolutely. And then that tends to be the people who experience the most trauma at the back end of this. It's true people who
Clint Heacock 7:01
care the most we really wanted to get it right. And besides the theology taught that if you didn't believe the absolute correct, right things, you were one of those people that stood a good chance of being left behind in the rapture. Wow. So in our case, I would say now, what they call the good news of the gospel was not good news at all. Because that opened me up into a world of absolute anxiety, stress, pressure, what they call religious group velocity, which is constantly monitoring ever, it's an obsessive compulsive type thing. But it's instead of OCD, washing your hands 1000 times a day. You're you're watching every thought that you think and every action that you do, and everything, you know, because God's always watching you. And anything that you do might, you know, make you a candidate for being left behind, or not being a Christian? So I probably pray the sinners prayer, you know, 1000s of times, because I just was every night I'd lay there in bed and think, Oh, my God, you know what, if the rapture happens tonight, I better make sure that I'm covered, because I read it again. And that's what led me to keep getting baptized because I was convinced that I wasn't a Christian. And, you know, the formula hadn't worked the first time. And then the second time, and then the third time. Just keep trying. Yeah, definitely. Crazy.
David Ames 8:24
Sounds like you were very dedicated as well, you ultimately went on to seek an education in theology as well. Yeah. All right.
Clint Heacock 8:31
And now I see it, I went to Bible college, I did two masters degrees, and I did a PhD. And I realized now a lot of my motivation, at the time, I didn't see it that way, then. But I was it was to genuinely help people avoid the same kind of pitfalls that I had fallen into. Growing up in church, I was determined, I was going to go to Bible college, then I was gonna go to seminary, I was going to study the Greek study the Hebrew, really take a deep dive into the Bible and theology so that I could explain it to other people in a clear and helpful way. Right, which led me into becoming a pastor and then a Bible college teacher. Because I mean, I am a teacher at heart, I can't help but that's how I'm wired. It's true. And so for me, it was a natural fit, you know, what better thing to teach than the Bible, preach it. And if I could help somebody by my explanation of a particular passage, or Old Testament, New Testament book or whatever, then I was doing my job as a pastor as a spiritual leader. And I see that now that's that was my drive to be a pastor, which, ironically, is a lot of the same drive that I have now. I'm still kind of pastoring people. Weirdly, there's a lot of ex ex pastors out there that say the same thing that we still feel like we're doing pastoral work, it's just we're not we're not preaching the Bible or leading people to Christ anymore.
David Ames 9:54
Yeah, you know, I often say that, you know, when we when we lose our faith, that doesn't mean that we don't need Eat, connection and belonging and in some cases pastoral care, right? community, it's a human need that we have. And that's the best of religion is how it can bring people together. Obviously, we're talking about the darker side of things. But I'm very fascinated. And we'll maybe talk about this a little bit later of how we recreate the best parts of that in a, a more secularized environment.
Clint Heacock 10:28
Absolutely, it's true that one thing that church, on some levels they do well, and that is offer community. Yeah, you know, someone Someone said once that it's, it's a ready made community, you just have to slot into it. It's all there. It's all the pieces are there. Once you do the right thing, say the right things, whatever the denomination, or tradition has you do get baptized or get confirmation or you know, Bar Mitzvah, or whatever your rite of passage is? Yeah, then you're accepted. And it's a wonderful thing to be part of a community of people that believe the same things you do more or less, and you're accepted. And you're you do have community I mean, I have I had, and still do have some wonderful friendships and relationships from the church. When I was a pastor, and before I was a pastor, you know, so I don't take that lightly. But like you said, we as humans, we need it. Yeah, exactly. The church is offering it, so why not just slot into become a Christian?
David Ames 11:28
You know, just briefly my story, you know, I was at a really a cultural, Christian, my, my family were, they were believers, but it was very passive. And when my mom got clean and sober, and she had a kind of an epiphany experience, then we got very, very religious, very fundamentalist. And, you know, I sometimes point out the difference between the people who were raised in it, like if you were raising as a child, the trauma inducing nature of their fear of the rapture, or the fear of going to hell, if you know, as a child, how do you grapple with that, versus even just being a teenager when I converted? You know, I had some sense of who I was as a person and some ability to this is all hindsight, you know, but some ability to separate that and to recognize, that was a little less trauma experience. For me personally, I know, you've talked to lots of people on your podcast. Have you noticed that at all? Have you talked to people that converted at different ages? Yes, in
Clint Heacock 12:28
fact, I have a bunch of recordings, I haven't had time to edit them down into a complete episode. But I was going to do a study on the differences between first and second generation, religious people, not just limited to Christianity, but cults as well, wherever religions that they were a part of, as you say, there's there is a massive difference between first what they call first and second generation religions or cults. And the biggest difference that I found is that for people who come into it later in life, they develop a process. It's where Robert lifts, and he's a psychologist that did a lot of seminal work on cults and brainwashing. He describes it as this process called doubling, where you almost create a second self, and you have to fit into the group. And you have your authentic self, which is the real you. And then you have the religious self that you almost have to create. They live side by side in a way to fit into the group and, you know, be accepted in that wonderful community. We were talking about the difference between first generation or people second generation who were raised in it, they only ever had the religious identity. That's all we had. So I never experienced doubling, because I never had any other personality other than the religious one. So that's a whole different journey out because it was my whole worldview was I believed it. My parents said it was true. The pastor said it was true. These are authority figures that I trusted, I believed them. Why would they lie to me? They weren't lying to me. They were they believed it. Right. They were convinced. Yeah, they were committed. They I'm not I'm not saying they misled us intentionally. But the damage was done nonetheless. And so disentangling from that is, in some ways, a lot more difficult than someone who? Well, it's a different journey, I should say. It's not not about ease of transition. Some people have a much harder time on either path.
David Ames 14:20
Yeah. You know, the thing that I'm relating to the most here so for me, I recognize that doubling and my life I've, I was convinced that the church didn't understand grace. As you can see, I've carried over some of those ideas into the secular world. But ironically, when I became a Christian, I thought, you know, I read particularly the the Gospels, and I thought, Man, this concept of grace is so amazing, and it's just that the people who have been in church for so long they forgotten. I just don't remember how powerful this is. And I thought, and I again, I relate to the teacher thing, if I just teach them if I just have the right words, you know, they're gonna get it, things are going to be different. And one of the things I recognize eyes was that people were not their authentic selves, there was the need to present an image. Because if they were honest, they would be judged. And it wasn't possible to be your authentic self. And my theory was that that's what we're where we needed to get to was the ability to have enough acceptance and grace that we could be our authentic selves with each other sorted out, that wasn't going to work. But
Clint Heacock 15:27
it was a horrible failure. I can Yeah, that was, yeah, I can resonate with that, because that was kind of my philosophy of ministry, as a pastor. And then later, when I taught, I taught for about eight years in a Bible college, over here in the UK. And that was really my driving focus for my students, because they were all heading into ministry. And so I was always teaching them that they need to be raising up men and women to be the person God made them to be. That was my kind of thing, you know, and to be your authentic self. And I didn't see the irony is, of course at the time, but I was on that same trajectory, of trying to encourage people to be real to be themselves, blah, blah, blah. But as you say, most churches are not safe. Yeah, they're not a safe space. So you can't afford to be real. Because as you say, you could be judged, you can be ostracized, that's the dark side of that lovely community, we were talking about, where one minute you're in it, and then you enter into the cult psychology, which again, lifted calls the dispensing of existence, you don't have the right to exist, because you've questioned things or you've bucked the status quo. So you're gone. You're out of here, right? And that's how it works. You're shunned.
David Ames 16:36
Yeah, and that shunning that that's the loss of that community that is devastating to people? Absolutely. I think the reason that people stay in for so long, even when they begin to have doubts is the idea of walking away from that community is a huge mountain to climb.
Clint Heacock 16:54
Well, and part of that is to the sub, the sunk cost fallacy. There's I think that's operative as well, as well as the cognitive dissonance. You get to that point where you've put so much into the thing that you can't you can't envision envision any other options other than to stay in right now. Maybe it's gonna get better. Yeah, it has its downsides. And there's people that gossip and backstab and some horrible things happen. And I got burned here and there, but look at the money I've spent, look at the time I've invested. Yeah. And that's part of the deconstruction and reconstruction piece for people that spent, you know, I mean, look at me, I spent decades spending money and spending incredible amounts of time going into schools, and studying and teaching and writing and doing all this stuff for what, you know, for what, yeah, the only thing I have to show for it, someone said to me the other day that the one good thing about all the background that you've got is that it allows you to speak knowledgeably about theology and Bible and you can, you know, talk about this stuff from from an informed perspective. I'm not an insider, and outside or looking in, we were part of the system. So we know what we're talking about. Yeah,
David Ames 18:06
if only that respect were given, I think. Yeah, I think we're often seen as the, you know, wolves in sheep's clothing. And so anything you say is just dismissed.
Clint Heacock 18:17
Well, and we're, uh, we're like, ironically, we're in the midst of this Coronavirus, but it were seen as like a contagious virus. I think people that leave the church, especially that were high profile leaders, and I talked to Tim sledge, he wrote the book, goodbye Jesus and all that. But he was a megachurch pastor out of Houston, Texas, I mean, guys that were profile high profile like him. They have vilified him left, right and center, because they kind of have to, you know, when of high profile person stuff like Josh Harris, the guy who wrote I kiss dating goodbye, he repudiated it all. And then they ripped him to shreds. You know, there's been several high profile people that have left recently and you read the articles in the Facebook posts, man. They have to say there they were never a Christian in the first place. And you know, all that.
David Ames 19:08
It's it. Yeah, it's definitely terrible. I wonder what you would say to those people like what does any deconversion or any deconstruction, those high profile ones, in particular, say to the people who are still in the bubble?
Clint Heacock 19:23
That's a hard one because it's it's part of that cult psychology. I don't think evangelicalism as a whole is a cult. It's too broad. It's too diverse. It's not a monolith. But there are many, many, many cultic tactics and psychological mind control things that go on within churches. So you have to realize that you're talking to people who, to some extent, are in a bubble. That something that Rick Ross says he's a cult expert. He said that when you're in the bubble, and you're receiving their downloads, it's very very hard to think critically. Only when you physically remove yourself and psychologically remove yourself and unplug as it were from the system and stop receiving their downloads. That's when you start to think critically. But if you're in the midst of the what million what liftin calls milieu control, you're in the milieu that's being controlled by the people at the top. You know, you're literally under their control. Yeah, we never saw it that way. I'm sure you know, when we were part of the system.
David Ames 20:29
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've heard what you've just said there in different terms before that did an interview with Cassidy who's the blogger behind roll to disbelieve. And part of her deconversion story was prayer group that they were trying to start. And they only had three people and they were in some closet and a college and you know, didn't have the context. She realized in that moment that she was trying to create the feeling of God's presence, and that it wasn't there. That snap for her. That was the thing that broke her out of the bubble where she could see, oh, it depends on the context. Or in your words, the Milu. You know that? Yeah, it's an environment that you're in whether this makes sense or not.
Clint Heacock 21:14
Absolutely. And the next, these are all what Robert liftin, he has these eight markers of cults. milieu controls, the first one, the second one is mystical manipulation, which is exactly what you were just describing. When you go into, let's say, a church, you don't realize that you're entering into a milieu or a context that is being you're being manipulated. And it's creating an environment with music and the lighting and the ambiance. And the preacher, and the whole context is manipulated in such a way to make you feel and to you, you are literally on a genuine emotional journey. You really are. There's no question about it. The music is unbelievable, especially in some of these churches where they've got fantastic worship bands. I mean, yeah, like Hillsong, or Yeah, I mean, it's a full on professional concert, you're you're going to see a band that's every bit as good as any professional band is going to be on stage in a major stadium. Yeah, musically, professionally, and they are at the top of their game and they can play the crowd and move you from fast, upbeat tempo songs to slower, more introspective songs, the lighting comes down. Yeah, man, it's it is it is genuinely moving. There's no question about it. But what they do is they ascribe that to God, as you said, and then here comes the sermon. And here's 3040 minutes of rah rah Jesus indoctrination. Few more songs, and you're pumped up. And but it's a religious addiction, because you have to go back the next week to experience the same high, you know, you're always chasing that experience. And so you've got to come back to church and get it again.
David Ames 22:50
Yeah, definitely. And I think music is such a human connection. For us. It is, when we participate in a shared musical experience. That is a really bonding moment, right now, as we're recording, you know, we know that COVID-19 is an epidemic, a pandemic. And the things that we see that go viral are people out on their verandas, you know, singing with each other,
Clint Heacock 23:12
right, like the Italians singing across to each other.
David Ames 23:15
Exactly. It's like that is just something that we need to do. It really is, in a way the religion has kind of hijacked that and taken over,
Clint Heacock 23:24
that made use of it. And absolutely, I mean, I played in worship bands for years, I'm a drummer, and I felt that emotional, you get that connection with the audience. If, if you hit the pocket, kind of like a thing, where you know how it is, if you're playing live, whether you're playing rock and roll, or blues or worship music, if you hit in the right, the notes with the crowd, as it were, they get into it. And there's this symbiotic relationship between you and the audience. And I mean, I can remember many times where the worship leader would turn and, you know, let's go around again, let's go around it because yeah, there's something happened in here. You can see the audience really getting moved emotionally. And so let's play another bar. Let's play another verse. Let's, you know, keep the chorus going. And we would just flow with it. And we would say at the time, well, we were flowing with the Spirit, man. That's what it was all about. We were just, you know, the Holy Spirit took over and we were just riding the wave and I play in a rock and blues band. I felt the same thing playing AC DC songs. Yeah.
David Ames 24:25
Exactly.
Clint Heacock 24:26
We used to end our set with the song from Rocky Horror Picture Show, the time warp, you know, and that always went down just as big as any worship song in a church, you know? Yeah. Nothing like seeing like 400 Bikers doing the time warp dance. At a biker rally. Yeah, totally. It's amazing. And it has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.
David Ames 24:46
Right? It literally is resonance. Right? It's that like people their emotions are feeding on one another and there's a resonant quality to that and it's feeding back to the musicians and theatre just it's a positive feedback loop. You
Clint Heacock 25:00
This, and it's a wonderful thing. You know, if you're a musician, you know how it feels. There's a high from playing on stage live. And there's a high from being in a crowd. That's where the band is really killing it. We've all been to concerts, secular concerts, I'm sure where we've seen bands that just blew our minds. Yeah, you know, and it was an emotional experience to see that, especially when you have a band that you've really loved for years, and then they come to town, and you've never seen them live before. Like, oh, man, I got tickets to see these guys. They just exceeded your expectations, you know, and you're on a high. Yeah, and it absolutely is. So you can replicate that in the church? Absolutely.
David Ames 25:39
I realized that we've kind of gone way out of order here. And I do want to return to some of these subjects. But I want to just real quick, don't want to lose track of what for you personally. klant were the cracks that started to form the doubts that ultimately lead to deconstruction for you. Well, I
Clint Heacock 25:56
see it now. I didn't see it at the time I see it now as the cognitive dissonance was surfacing. And maybe that was my authentic self somehow in there, even though I was mostly that religious, still was the real me going, Hey, this doesn't add up. And I can remember, even in Bible college, I felt like a hypocrite because I was preparing for ministry. And I had doubts. But I didn't want to stand up in front of an audience or a classroom of students, teaching them something that I felt that I didn't believe in or wasn't working for me personally. And I really wrestled with that problem. For years. I remember going to mentors at Bible College and Seminary and talking to pastors and saying, What's going on here? Because I don't I'm not sure I'm buying this product that I'm supposed to be selling. And I can see that now was it wasn't because it wasn't working. Right. But I could never admit that to myself. I just thought it's something wrong with me. It's always the problem, isn't it? Where doubt gets thrown back onto the doubt or something's wrong with you. It's never God's fault. Obviously, it's not the fault of the Bible, you're just not interpreting it correctly, or whatever your theology isn't right? Or maybe you've got hidden sin your life. There's 1,000,001 reasons why it might not be working. But it's never God's fault. Going back to what you said, I really wanted to get it right. I do not want to feel like I'm a hypocrite standing in front of a crowd, telling them to believe something and that it should change your life. When I myself wasn't doing half the stuff I was telling my congregation to do.
David Ames 27:27
Yeah. And I've had people on who tell the story where they wanted God to change them they wanted, they were asking, you know, change me I live recognize that this isn't the best I can do help me. And then it was the recognition of that not happening, that there was no assistance, there was no helper available to assist them in changing.
Clint Heacock 27:49
Yeah, going back to my experiences I was talking about as a kid kept why kept getting baptized because I was begging and pleading God to help me as you just described, and no help was forthcoming. For example, I was I was in the purity culture. That was another part of the toxicity of the doctrine. And I've realized this now a lot of kids raised in the purity culture, they have to suppress their sexuality. So they turned to pornography as an outlet. So I became addicted to pornography. And of course, I knew that was wrong. I felt horrible about that. At least I knew I wasn't having actual physical sex, which was slightly better. But then I was, you know, turning to porn. Yeah. And that was a sin. So I mean, I begged and pleaded, and I've heard many stories of kids like me who did the same thing, asking God to take it away to help me nothing. And why isn't he interested in helping you to become that perfect Christian or perfect kid who doesn't sin? Why? Why not? Give me some help? Throw me a bone. Yeah, nothing.
David Ames 28:53
I totally get you. I think that on all levels, the repression of normal human sexual desire is destructive, right? It doesn't matter. You know, how you wind up dealing with that, whether that's porn, and I think the church would be so much better if they just said, Yeah, masturbation is normal. You should you should do that. If you want. There'll be a whole lot fewer problems, you know, like, but they can't, there's no way they can. They can't say that.
Clint Heacock 29:20
I mean, I remember going to pastors conferences, we used to go to the Oregon coast that go to these weekend long pastors conferences. And by about the end of the Sunday evening session, it was 40 or 50. Pastors in a room, and they were broken down. And most of them were confessing all kinds of sins. And the biggest one is pornography. And, you know, masturbation, yeah, asters who could never ever admit that to their own wives for one thing, or certainly not to their congregation. Can you imagine that? High profile pastor went up and said, Look, people I've been watching porn for years. I'm addicted to it. I got a real problem and they'd be out in most cases Yeah. So fast.
David Ames 30:02
I was fascinated by it when I was in the middle of, you know, I went to a Bible college purity culture was very much part of that. I was just honest with myself, I was, you know, like, I'm going to master. And I would definitely be, you know, I'd feel guilty and I would confess, and that whole cycle, but something the back of my mind was like, this is normal, the statistics on men in particular, but but women to just well over 50% of the whole population, this is just a normal thing. Some tiny part of me recognize that it was just ludicrous to beat myself up over something that was just a normal human thing.
Clint Heacock 30:40
Absolutely. And you could analyze it, from what we talked about the perspective of doubling your religious self is at war with your authentic self, your authentic self saying, Hey, this is normal, religious selves go, No, it's a sin. It's wrong. You need to confess and repent and get right and stop doing it. Throw away the magazine, stop getting online, stop looking at porn, you know, you've got to get it right and stop and suppress that sexuality until you get married. And you're supposed to be a virgin on your wedding day bla bla bla, that's the culture.
David Ames 31:12
I know that lots of the listeners will be very familiar with that. I know how destructive that is.
Clint Heacock 31:18
It is I just wrote an article on Medium about that, because we did a bunch of talking on it years ago with some people in a Facebook group. And I kind of stumbled across a bunch of these comments that I had archived. And I was reading through him about, you know, I asked the question in this group, what damage has the purity culture done to you this x evangelical group, and I got a shocking array of responses. I just started cutting and pasting them anonymously and putting them in a Word document. And it was like 10 or 12 pages long. And I thought, Oh, my God, I gotta do something with this. So I put this article together talking about specific instances of damage that the purity culture does to us sexually, psychologically, etc, etc. It's quite shocking. When you actually stand back and look at what it does. Yeah. And that's all part of the church's toxicity. No, yeah. Wow.
David Ames 32:07
To again, circle back just a little bit to the personal. So you recognize that there was a disparity between what you were teaching and what you were acting out or what you believe? What did that result in? Did you walk away from that teaching gig? How did that look?
Clint Heacock 32:22
I got made redundant. As they say, in this country, I got laid off from the teaching gig. Through no fault of my own. It was a case of the college that I was teaching for. I'd been there about seven or eight years, they ran into huge debt. And so they laid a bunch of us off, most of us lost our jobs without any warning, we just were gone. Just like that. I got home from my last day of teaching, just before Christmas, ironically, to get a letter on my table, saying your services are no longer. Merry Christmas. Oh, and by the way, they said, Do you know the college is in financial trouble, you wouldn't mind donating your final month's pay. Oh, my goodness, help us get through this shortfall. After we've just laid you off. I could not believe that. They actually said that. Yeah, I'll give you my last month's salary when I don't have a job to go to now. Thank you very much. I see now that did me a favor. But that was quite shocking. I mean, I cannot imagine a company doing something like that to an employee. Yeah, you lay somebody off and then turn around and say, Oh, you wouldn't mind donating your final month's pay to help us out here. But it was a Bible college.
David Ames 33:32
That is incredibly tone deaf, very tone deaf.
Clint Heacock 33:36
And I wrote a I wrote an email to the head of the college saying, I cannot believe you know that you've done this. And you've you're asking me to give you my last month's pay. And I said, I've been there eight years. And that's how I found out I don't even have a job anymore. And his response was equally tone deaf. He said, Well, actually, you shouldn't be upset. You were never actually an employee. You were a contract. lecturer. What's the problem? We just didn't renew your contract? What are you so upset about?
David Ames 34:03
Man? That's insane. So
Clint Heacock 34:06
deafness? Unbelievable. What do you see? You're never an employee here. What are you so pissed off about? What just you know? You're not coming back. And that's it. Period. What's the problem? Wow, I don't know. Eight years of teaching for nothing. That's terrible. Yeah, it really is.
David Ames 34:23
So what made you decide to start to go to the dark side a bit, to start expressing your deconstruction out loud to blog about it and whatever your first steps were? Well, what happened that
Clint Heacock 34:35
it was the actually the podcast that I started, I've changed the name now it's mine ship podcast, but originally, four years ago, it was called the preachers Forum Podcast. Okay. That was my last gasp of trying to reform the church. So I had gone through this cycle of reading progressive Christians, jettisoning a lot of my fundamentalist evangelical conservative dogma. As, and that was the journey I was on, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna help the church get relevant kind of like you said, your, your path of Let's help the church discover grace. I was that's what I was teaching my students, I was having them question things, and exposing them to a lot of progressive ideas and pushing the limits a little bit. But then I see now that was my journey. I'm way out. Because as I was jettisoning the pieces, eventually there was nothing left. But that journey was to really one last push to kind of reform the church. What I realized is, they didn't want to hear it. Nobody wanted to hear they were not listening. You know, I was just an angry ranting ex pastor who was still a Christian though. And then as I went down the line further and further and further, I realized, I've got nothing left. So that's when I realized that the idea of the preachers forum totally doesn't fit. The name doesn't fit. The brand name doesn't work. It's nothing about what I am standing for. So I changed it to the mind shift podcast. And that's where I guess someone said to me, you're basically you've deconstructed in front of an audience, right? Over the three or four years, that's kind of what I've done. I've entered the name, the preachers form reflects my own journey out. That was the last straw. But the last thing for me was actually the 2016. Evangelical Trump support. Yeah, when I saw that, I said to myself, I'm no longer ever going to call myself a Christian. I don't want to have anything to do with it. That was the final straw. I was done. I said, I don't want to have anything to do with that movement. evangelicalism. Yeah, maybe that's an overreaction. But to me, events have borne out the fact that it's a completely bankrupt system in many ways. I mean, there's some great Christians out there, no doubt, I'm not throwing all the baby out with the bathwater. But for a lot of people, that was their last straw.
David Ames 36:57
Like my wife is still very much a believer. And she was just crushed by, by that and continues to be crushed every time we see an evangelical who, then is not just a political thing here, but blindly supports Trump. So I know that that has affected the numbers of people huge numbers, that led them to deconstruction. I want to segue here just briefly and ask you your motto of the podcast as reconstruction after deconstruction, can I get your definitions of both of those words? What are those mean to you?
Clint Heacock 37:30
I would say that the deconstruction part is when people question their deeply held beliefs, you know, on a very worldview level type of thing. And it's very traumatic, it's very scary. There's a lot of emotions associated with it, because it was something that we believe wholeheartedly, like we've been talking about. If we were in the system, especially people that were in any form of leadership in the church or in a religion, it's really hard to question those things. Yeah. What what it's a case I think a lot of people's story is when that cognitive dissonance, that dissonance becomes too much. Yeah, like you said, the cracks, you cannot paper over the cracks anymore. Eventually, the walls are falling down. 50 layers of wallpaper won't, won't hide the structural flaws in the building.
David Ames 38:20
Yeah. So I've got an article that's similar to one that you've written, but that talks about this process. And I begin with unexpected events happen, something makes you think about this. But then as you go along, there stack up and you hit some critical mass point at which just what you've described, you can no longer pretend anymore, that there isn't a problem.
Clint Heacock 38:41
You can't do it. And going back to the cult psychology, that's a lot of people. There's a lot of ways to quell the cognitive dissonance. Christianese is a good one. And that's what we use in the church, you know, sort of pithy statements, platitudes, Bible verses that cover and those are sort of that wallpaper covering the cognitive dissonance. We don't understand why things happen. You see in it right now, with the Coronavirus, the COVID-19. Look at the various Christian responses to it. They are scrambling to try to come up with some answers, because there isn't any. Why is this happening? Because they are holding to the presupposition that God is all powerful. God's in control of everything. What the hell is going on here? I mean, seriously, is it a judgment? Is it a satanic attack? Is it they've got to come up with something? And so you see all sorts of people that are walking around quoting Psalm 91, Faith conquers fear and I don't have to wear a mask, I can disregard it all because God's gonna protect me. That's straight, loaded languages. liftin calls it it's thought terminating cliches, and that's what it is. And that's what I did for a long time. As you say the weight finally though, got too much. And I can see now that the progressive Christians was part of that journey. You guys like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell and Donald Miller, because they helped me to see that I was part of a formulaic religion. And once I saw that, I thought, my God, I have been practicing a religion that's been reduced to a formula, what I need to do is discover the authentic Christianity, and then I wasn't able to do it. Okay. It's sort of like Easy Rider, you know, the two guys that go off on their Harley's to try to rediscover the real America, and they can't find it. It's not there, right, it ain't there. And then the end, they end up getting killed, you know, so it doesn't end well.
David Ames 40:38
This is really where I wanted to go. This is a really interesting thing that you've just said, trying to find the authentic Christianity and then not being able to find it. And I want to preface this by saying that I try to avoid falling into the angry atheist, the New Atheists perspective, there's part of me that gets pulled that direction to just say, you know, just the story you just told, you know, you will have someone standing in front of a tornado strewn Street and their houses destroyed, but they survived. And they'll be like, well, thank God,
Clint Heacock 41:08
the Bible is untouched, sitting on the nightstand.
David Ames 41:11
100 people are dead in this massive destruction. But you know, I made it out. So that's great. The ability to miss all of that. But my point is, I want to be this idea of secular grace to be graceful to recognize where people are at, which includes various levels of progressive Christianity, various levels of deconstruction. And I'm confessing my faults to you that I times I can be critical and to try to overcome that. But what you just said is just really fascinating to me in that we have lots of progressive friends who are who are trying to live that out. I'm trying to find that authentic Christianity. What would you say to them?
Clint Heacock 41:49
That's a good question. Because I had a conversation recently with Dan Koch, who's a progressive Christian. And we went around and around, we had a really good, respectful dialogue. It wasn't an argument. And I come from the same perspective as you I'm not trying to talk anybody out of their thing or into anything, I will have a respectful dialogue, as long as anyone wants to talk with me. Absolutely. And the question that I posed at the end of it all, I mean, we there's no question, but that the church, and I'm generalizing, but you know, including Catholicism, and sure, there's so many abuses, there's no question about it. There's sexual abuse, there's pedophilia, there's spiritual abuse and religious trauma syndrome, and you can have a laundry list, hell induced PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc, etc, etc. And that's caused by the church. So I said to Dan, whose fault is it? Because is it God's fault that all this is so messed up? Or is it the fault of humanity who took something that was pure, and then corrupted it? What we need to do is get back to that pure faith? You know, and I think that was my, my journey, as you said, for a long time. I was hoping to find that sort of X Chapter Two church. Yeah. Oh, community. And that was what I taught my students to aim for. And now I realized that I think I never found it, you know, but for the progressive Christian, I have a hard time supporting some of that I get where they're coming from, I think, because I was on that same pasture. Sure. But I couldn't reconcile it with all the damage that was being done by the church. And I thought, you know, after four or five years of trying to get people to see my point of view, and nobody wanted to listen. I'm done. I'm not I'm not beating my head against the wall here. Yeah.
David Ames 43:37
I guess the reason I bring this up is, there's definitely part of me that still just wants to say, let it go. You're hurting yourself by trying to make this work. And my argument is this, that if, like, if you do the Thomas Jefferson thing, you rip all the miracles out of the Bible. If you take one more step and take all the archaic morality out of the Bible, you're left with a pamphlet that says you ought to be good to people. Right? And that's about it. And that the baggage that comes with traditional Christianity actually holds people back. And again, I'm recognizing that maybe that's being too critical. And people meet people where they're at and what their needs are. But there's part of me that definitely just wants to say, you can be free from this. And we can recognize what we need from one another as human beings. We still need to have community we still need to have a sense of awe. We need to have a sense of beauty of something even bigger than ourselves, if you will, but that doesn't need to be supernatural. But nature and humanity provides all of those needs. And this is ultimately my argument that even in the church, it was still just humanity that was providing those needs, right with musicians like yourself. It's the pastor's doing. You know, they're at the bedside. I'd have somebody who's dying, feeding the hungry, actually sure the action on the ground was the miracle. It's the people that are the magic.
Clint Heacock 45:09
One, as you said, look at the examples from church history, what you just were articulating the difference between you go back 100 years, the difference between classic liberal theology and the fundamentalist background, the end of the 19th century up till about 1940s 50s, into the 60s, even where the Liberals tried to accommodate their Christian faith with modern science. And they were saying kind of the same thing. Let's take biblical criticism as an example. You know, all this stuff that was questioning the authorship of the Bible and the Pentateuch, did Moses write it and on and on and on? And they said, Yeah, we believe what these scholars are finding in the text, we don't think it's every word was written by an inspired Prophet and all the rest of it, whereas the fundamentalists, they doubled down. And so we see those two streams, where the liberals, a lot of them did end up as atheists because they finally said, There's nothing left.
David Ames 46:02
There's nowhere to go. Yeah. Yeah. That ultimately leads me to the next question. I talked to you before we got on Mike about, is there a daylight between the concept of deconstruction, and deconversion. And usually, when I use the term deconversion, I mean, the letting go of faith of any kind of recognizing that it's basically the natural world is what we have. And I guess the point for me was the last two things I held on to the bitter end, where the concept of a soul and the resurrection, and when I realized that I had no reason no evidences no reliable reasons to hold on to those any longer. That was the thing that I was just done. At that point. I wasn't interested in going and exploring other religious traditions, I wasn't looking at other sects of Christianity. I was just done. And I'm curious if you think that most people deconstruct at some point and then fall off a cliff, or is it possible to just keep keep deconstruction going indefinitely? Sure.
Clint Heacock 47:02
Well, looking at my example, you know, when I was talking about reading progressive Christians, I was deconstructing I was questioning a lot of things I was my mind was being blown. Like I said, when I when I discovered that Christianity that I was falling was a formulaic religion, that blew my mind. But I was still very much a Christian. However, I jettisoned a tremendous amount of stuff from my past, that I thought was absolutely indispensable. And then I realized was not only not indispensable, it was actually quite damaging, and harmful to my own mental health and the way I lived my life and treated other people, but I was still very much a Christian. So like you said, that's, you could say, That's deconstruction, you're questioning, questioning, questioning. A lot of people do that, and then never leave Christianity, or whatever religion they're a part of. They question things. They jettison things. They don't believe certain things anymore. They might believe different things now, but they still consider themselves a Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, whatever. But like you say that if you're going to define deconversion, as the point where you say, I am no longer a Christian or whatever, I walk away, I'd repudiate the whole thing. I'm not trying to salvage anything. I'm not trying to save anything. Yeah, I am done. That's that's best must be the difference between deconstructing and de converting. And maybe one doesn't always inevitably lead to the other, but it certainly can. For a lot of people that has
David Ames 48:30
sure I definitely recognize very similar to you. You can say liberalizing, but I'm also fascinated by the Mere Christianity, Christians who say, wow, you know, these little minor doctrinal differences, they don't really matter. You know, it's really about, it's about the cross about the resurrection. But I feel like I did that I went to that edge where I was just hanging on to the resurrection has to be real the way it stated or I agree with Paul, that this is all worthless. We're the most to be pitied. Right. And, and it was when I fell off that cliff where I realized, yeah, that it wasn't true. I thought it was and I was mistaken.
Clint Heacock 49:09
Well, and one thing we haven't really touched on, it kind of mentioned it with the liberals. But the question of what Bible are you talking about? Because that's a whole huge problem. Yeah, that I'm sure we could get into somewhere else. But, you know, that's one thing that I was struggling with increasingly, because the more I studied the Bible as a scholar, and I finally I did my PhD on the book of Ezekiel. And one of the things I discovered about Ezekiel was, of course, there was the big debates as to the scholarship of Ezekiel that you need to write the book, blah, blah, blah. And I realized no, it was it was compiled from a bunch of different sources, and that that's the consensus of most scholarship, but certainly in the Old Testament, and there's a lot of questions about the New Testament. And that led me to think, Okay, this fundamentalist conservative view of the Bible, and therefore the interpretations that are drawn from that view of the Bible. Will cannot possibly be consistent, because the text doesn't support that it really doesn't. Scholarship has shown definitively, that is not the case. And there's a lot of questions around the Gospels and the historicity of Jesus. You know, so if you can argue about who Jesus was and what Jesus taught, and we need to recover the true Jesus, which Jesus, right, which gospel? Yes, you know, there's significant discrepancies. One of the things I used to have my students do when I was teaching New Testament, but I would make them study three different passages from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that were parallel passages giving the same account of an event. And I would have them list all the similarities and all the differences between the three. And there was a huge list of discrepancies. And that blew their minds, because they were like, know that they all have to agree they cannot possibly disagree. And I'd say, Well, what do you do with that? Right? Which account is right? Which account is historical? And it's all historically true, but it cannot be because they contradict each other in key details. So who's right which one's correct? You know, there's cognitive dissonance for you. Yeah. So, after that class session, a lady came up to me and said, Are you a Christian? And I said, What do you Why would you say that? The Bible college, just because you're having this question the Bible, and that Christians don't do that. Yeah. So that was her go to answer.
David Ames 51:25
You know, I often say that my Bible college teachers did their job too well. Hmm. In that, you know, my college experience, at least in the classroom was really good. It was critical thinking it was a bit of textual criticism, it was they didn't take it too far, but a little bit, but they know they would recognize that, yep, the Gospels are anonymous, they are hagiographies, you know, they were acknowledged that much, right. And then the new hand wave about well, it's still authoritative and similar enough. But my point is that they, you know, they conveyed the idea of good exegesis of good study of good hermeneutics interpretation of good, recognizing, you know, what it meant to the off the original author and the original hearers. And when you start to go down that road, and you recognize, as you've said, many books of the Bible are compilations that have multiple authors that have multiple time periods represented, that have multiple theological perspectives that are trying to be a service, you know that when you get to that point where you're just kind of honest with the text itself, that that's what it is, it's very, very hard to then maintain that this is some kind of supernatural developed product as it were
Clint Heacock 52:39
inspired product. That's the inerrant mistake, free, error free. Look at for example, if you just take a straight reading of the text, you end up with a God in the Old Testament, who commands genocide. Yeah. And he commands laws in the Book of Leviticus and Exodus and other places that are absolutely horrific. We would repudiate them today as human rights violations on all kinds of levels. And so you go wait a minute, if that's the same god of the New Testament, that you're worshipping in a church every Sunday? What about that? Yeah, how can you worship a God who commanded genocide on multiple occasions? And that's the same guy you're singing about and worshiping on a Sunday? What? This doesn't make any sense. And that's just a straight reading of the text. Now, of course, there's a million answers. I studied it myself, the Odyssey, the problem of evil, you know, there's a million reasons why Gods let off the hook. And it's not his fault and blah, blah, blah. But that's bullshit. Yeah, he commanded His people to kill men, women, children, animals, slaughter him without mercy. Yeah, we would condemn that as a war crime today, we sent the Nazis to the gallows for that, for killing millions of Jews in World War Two. And that's just the same scale, maybe not as industrialized the course. But same principle.
David Ames 53:59
Yeah, for sure. You know, about two years before my deconversion I read through the Bible. And my wife, you know, she'd say, you're angry, why are you angry? At the time, I had no idea why. Now, with hindsight, I recognize I was reading it straight through it all, including the boring parts, including Ezekiel, including the prophets including, and it's horrifying, what it actually says, you know, so if you I always recommend, you know, if you're a believer, read the Bible. Read it. That will make an atheist study. Yeah. The only thing I request is that you see it for what it actually says rather than that's what most people do is they interpret it in light of it for my case, I previously have interpreted all in light of grace, right? Well, God was judgmental because he was bringing the Hebrew people together, you know, needed to keep purity and what have you, but, but when I started to let go of that I took the rose colored glasses off and just I read the text, what does it say? That was devastating. It was absolutely devastating.
Clint Heacock 55:05
It is. And that was part of my, the shocking journey going through Ezekiel, you know, reading the book from a theological point of view, then I started reading it as a narrative text. That's what blew my mind. It's actually a story about this prophet who's in us in Babylon with these exiles. And he's trying to get through to them and all this. And at one point, God comes to Ezekiel and says, according to text, tomorrow, your wife's going to die, I'm going to kill your wife, and you will not be allowed to mourn for her as a some sort of object lesson to your fellow exiles here in Babylon. And God killed Ezekiel, his wife, and he wasn't allowed to shed a single tear. And that's horrifying. Yeah, if that's true, you know, narrative of historical, whatever. But I mean, that's what the text says, man. What the hell as equal, he was the good guy. That's exactly what he was doing. was obeying. He was doing everything got all the ridiculous things God was telling them to do. And God kills his wife. What kind of a monster is that? The same guy who destroys Job's life or allow Satan to over a cosmic bet with the devil. That job never finds out about? I mean, if that's the God of the Bible, I don't want to have anything to do with that. God, that's what did it for me? Yeah, no way.
David Ames 56:29
I can definitely relate. I feel like we've done a pretty good job of bashing the Bible and says, I want to turn the corner just a little bit and talk about first of all, like, do you consider yourself an atheist? You pick a term that you identify with? Is there agnostic?
Clint Heacock 56:44
I'd say I'm more of an agnostic, I think, definitely D converted. Okay, I'm not a Christian. There's no question about that. I don't call myself a Christian. But I'm not sure I have a lot of problems with that. God, like I've been saying, it seems pretty clear. I get passionate when I was talking about Yeah, because I have a lot of questions. If that God exists, the one of the Bible, there's some serious problems, right? I want some answers to those questions, you know, and I'm not getting them. I ain't getting them, you know? And so, I'm not sure if there is a God out there. If the if he does exist, wow, we've got some serious issues to deal with. So I could see the appeal of saying, Yeah, that's probably better off saying it's all made up. And if there's no God, right, I'm an atheist and sack the whole thing off.
David Ames 57:36
So then I want to use you know, the most generic term that I you know, I often use the word secular to be very generic. I don't necessarily mean atheistic, right, but just not religious. In your life and your quote, unquote, secular life now, how do you find community? What do you find meaningful? How do you experience all?
Clint Heacock 57:58
I find community Yeah, wherever you can really. It's around shared interests. Ironically, a lot of the things that we did in the church, yeah, music, motorcycles, American football in this country, it was what we call it. I played American football for eight seasons. I coach now, for about the last five years, I've been a coach. So my fellow coaches, the players, the team, that is my I used to say, That's my church. You know, we were we live in North Wales here. We're part of a community of it's a biker club. So we play music, and we have hundreds of people come we do rallies here where I live with bikers from all over the country. I mean, that's community, but it's around shared interests and passions, and, you know, things like that. So that's where I find it. Next, and I, my students, where I teach at the college here in England, I teach carpentry and multi skills to military veterans. And I always end up with some amazing friendships that come out of that, out of the classes that I teach. I keep in touch with people, you know, so it's things that I'm passionate about, I guess.
David Ames 59:05
Yeah, that's awesome. Can you give me the top three ish books that have been the most meaningful to you through this process or after this process?
Clint Heacock 59:14
The top one would have to be Robert Lipton's thought reform in the psychology of totalism, which opened my eyes to the whole cult psychology, and then I started relating that to evangelicalism. The second one I think would be take back your life by Janya law college and Madeline Tobias. Okay, which is a very good book about exactly what it says on the tin, you know, yeah, take that's the reconstruction piece, which we never actually talked about, but it's where you start to take back everything that was lost, stolen, smash destroyed from your old self, right? How did how do you do that? The next book, I would have to say now I'm reading with holy terror, Conway and Siegelman. which opened me up to studying the religious right, the rise of the religious right in America, which then led me into studying dominion theology, and which is part of my backstory coming out of Christian education, which is Christian reconstructionism. So those are three of the top books I would recommend.
David Ames 1:00:19
Excellent. I do recognize we missed a lot of the reconstruction stuff. Do you want to talk about that briefly? Like, what what for you was reconstruction? What do you what would you recommend for people that they're looking for when they are in the process of reconstruction?
Clint Heacock 1:00:34
The biggest piece of advice, and I've heard this, I asked the same question every time to someone who's Yeah. X religious person, they always say the same thing. They say education is the number one thing, educate yourself. And that's what I've been doing. That's why those books I recommended, were all books that changed my life from a reconstruction point of view, because they helped me to identify areas in my life where I had been controlled and manipulated and was part of that cult psychology. And I was a pawn in a bigger game in a way. And I wasn't seeing it at the time. But now I can look back and actually identify the various tactics that were used on me and many other people in the system. And I know it's true, because I've heard I've heard it from many, many, many, many, many people that say, that's what happened to me. You're describing my experience, right. And that helps me to start to disempower what they did to us and say, Okay, if I can name if I can point my finger to the actual tactic, then I can start to figure out how it affected me psychologically, then I can start to rebuild. And that's the journey I'm really on.
David Ames 1:01:47
Man, one of the things you just said, there really resonates with me as well. One of the purposes of me doing the podcast is for me, that recognition, when Clint you're telling your story, and I'm just like, Ah, I totally, I totally loved the resume. And like, and, you know, I have guests on that just happens consistently. And then I hear from people who are listeners, and they say, Oh, that person was telling my story. And they all are unique, every story is unique. But there's these brines that just everyone recognizes this. I went through that phase, and that was part of my story.
Clint Heacock 1:02:22
That's, and that's why the community is a huge piece. So the education is one, finding a supportive community, wherever that is, what we've been saying is that it's critically important, we need community as humans. And it's important if you're coming out of your faith, your religion or a cult, to find a group of supportive people that are, they don't have to be from the same story that you had. But we find that typically, like ex Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Mormons, ex evangelicals, they tend to band together because yeah, they all they all get it. Yeah, you know, they came out of the same destructive cult or whatever. And so yeah, they resonate. And there, they can offer the support that only a person coming out of that particular context can give. And so that's what's really important is to find that community.
David Ames 1:03:13
Absolutely. I wanted to give you just a minute to plug the work that you're doing, I understand, you've been doing a lot of blog posts on medium, one of which we discussed on seekers and skeptics a bit about the number of different ways that people go through deconstruction, tell us about the work that you're doing these days.
Clint Heacock 1:03:32
That's true. I've been doing a lot of work, as I was saying, on cult psychology, as well as Christian reconstructionism, dominion theology, the religious rights, so I tend to seek out people on the show that are experts in the field or authors. I've just got an episode coming out with Katherine Stewart, who wrote the book, The Power worshipers just came out in March. And she talks about the rise of Christian nationalism in America and the world really, and I'm chasing down other people to have on the show that are experts in Christian reconstructionism dominion theology, because I find a lot of people don't know much about that. Right? And they're very under informed as to what's actually going on. Again, not just in America, that's the most clear example but we're seeing it in Brazil and other places, where there's alliances with evangelicalism from a political point of view, and their agenda is really quite chilling. They want to establish a theocracy. And it's gonna become like a Handmaid's Tale type thing. And that's really not it's not an overstatement. Actually, quite scary.
David Ames 1:04:39
You know, and I live in the state so I see Betsy DeVos and you know, that like everything is moving that direction, then what's fascinating to me, it's it's absolutely special pleading. Christianity gets all these perks and but if you were to say, well, mosques should also get money rebuilding or something like no way that's not going to happen. So we have a couple completely abandoned separation of church and state. Exactly.
Clint Heacock 1:05:02
We have Bible studies led by Ralph drove injured in the White House in Congress weekly. The Congress, they're fine with that Mike Pence drops in absolutely fine. Trump has an evangelical advisory board. And someone said, Well, why doesn't he have a Muslim advisory board? Right? Why does he have a Scientology advisory board? Yeah, they should be in accordance with the terms of religious freedom and religious tolerance in America. Every religion should be equally represented. But why is it only these particular evangelical Dominionists that get to get these Bible studies and all these influences in the Trump administration? So that is affecting legislation right now? Today? They have a vision and they are working to make it happen.
David Ames 1:05:48
Yeah. And your mind shift podcast? I know. There's a few podcasts out there. They have that name. How do they find your podcast? If they're looking for it?
Clint Heacock 1:05:58
That's true. Because it's funny. I my wife actually suggest that name. And I kind of didn't realize at the time, there's about three or four. I changed the name, I did all the work. And then I went on there to iTunes, about Oh, my God, there's like four miles. Yeah. What have I done? Then for a minute there? I thought I might be in trouble. That's like copyright issue. Nobody said anything. So I'm kind of playing it safe. But yeah, if you look for my name, basically, I'm the only one that has Dr. Clint, hey, click on it. You'll find me there. That's me. The other ones tend to be like education podcasts, and there's one from a church. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Maybe they'll end up listening to a sermon, and think that it's me. Don't get the wrong mindset podcast. That's your head. You think what's this guy's he's preaching a sermon all of a sudden?
David Ames 1:06:54
Well, I just wanted to thank you for being on the podcast. And we talked briefly about still having kind of a pastor's heart and really, still acting that out. I hear that in you, I hear that in your work. It's very clear that you care about people. That's what this podcast is all about is how do we care about people more? I think the work that you're doing helping people to recognize the cultic nature of their previous faith is really, really important. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing all that wisdom with us.
Clint Heacock 1:07:25
Yeah, thank you so much, David, for being a great host. I want to have you as a guest on mine ship podcast. So we need to talk about how we can make that happen to
David Ames 1:07:34
that sounds great.
Final thoughts on the episode, there were so much resonance between Clinton I think we have very similar experiences and very similar perspectives on the post religious life and how we connect with one another how we maintain the human needs in community was just a great conversation to have with him. I thought the conversation about the potential difference between deconstruction and deconversion was really interesting. I know I sometimes come across as the stronger atheist. And it's important for me to remember that deconstruction is definitely a part of that process. I'm very much interested in meeting people where they are at, and not necessarily having them conform to what I think they should be thinking. So wherever you are in your deconstruction or reconstruction, I hope you'll listen to the podcast and enjoy it. I'm also fascinated by the work that Clint is doing and specifically the people that he has interviewed in the expertise of cults, the overlap of evangelicalism and cultic, like practices is fascinating. And as Clint himself said, it's not to say that all of evangelicalism is a cult, but there are practices which can be more or less cultic, and manipulative. recognizing those manipulations is important. I highly recommend that you check out the mind shift podcast and in particular, some of those episodes that focus on the ways in which cults manipulate people and see if you recognize some of those things from your faith tradition. Clint really touched on something when you remove yourself from the context, he said psychologically and physically. That's when you're able to get some space to start critically thinking, and that critical thinking may lead to deconstruction. And finally, I think his best advice was get yourself educated. Knowledge is really the key when we are in the bubble. And depending on how high demand the religious tradition you were a part of, there may be many resources or sources of information that were not allowed that were verboten, and now there are no restrictions. I highly recommend that you read everything read the Bible read apology. As I read atheists read everyone and come to your own conclusions, the entire point is that now, you are free to seek information and interpret it in light of reality, rather than in light of a body of dogmatic tradition. I want to thank Clint for being on the podcast and for sharing his heart for people. Again, I resonated so much with him being kind of a former ex pastor or ex teacher, at least of wanting so badly to convey the right things. And then ultimately, that being a part of what led to our own deconstructions in my case, full blown deconversion. Thank you, Clint, for the work that you do, and I hope that everyone will go out and listen to the mind shift podcast, I will have links in the show notes for that. I hope you will stay tuned. I have a number of exciting episodes coming up. I've already done the interviews. I'm really excited about them. One is Amy Logan of the ex Mormon ology podcast. Another is Richard Swan, who is the director of the London City voices. If you haven't heard of them, you got to check this out on YouTube. It is amazing the community that he has built, they sing pop songs and choir. And then they go out to the pub afterwards and hang out with each other. It's amazing the community that he's building there, stay tuned for those episodes coming up shortly. And as Clint hinted at the end of the episode, I will be joining him on his podcast we've already done that interview, and that will be released in the next few weeks. Until then, as always, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me in being graceful human beings. Time for some footnotes. The song has a track called waves by mkhaya beats, please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast, here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows it by word of mouth. If you found it useful or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith transition? You want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on? Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or a blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing? Please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show. If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist where you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can tweet at me at graceful atheist or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well this has been the graceful atheist podcast My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
This has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
My guest this week is Sarah. Sarah is a co-author of the book “Still Unbelievable!” She is a regular poster on the Unbelievable? discussion boards. Sarah has a unique blend of down to earth perspective and an intellectual rigor.
In some respects, it is like being skinned alive layers of belief are being pulled away.
Sarah grew up a Christian. She was a part of the Shepherding Movement which is now considered a cult. She has moved from the Anglican church, to (British) Baptist, and then to Charismatic Vineyard churches. Until she began to research her own faith. What she found was an utter lack of evidence and a confusing morass of conflicting information.
You are giving god CPR. You really are trying to keep it alive with the best intentions
She describes her search for validation as “going forensic” as she studied apologetics, philosophy, cosmology and evolution. Ultimately, she could not keep god on “life support” and she is now an agnostic.
Love is a good way to live your life. Love is the point. We’ve only got this present moment. That is all we know for certain.
My guest this week is Stephen Barry. Stephen was a Seventh Day Adventist who deconverted while attending college studying theology. When he was exposed to other ideas and other people even within his own faith tradition, this small amount of scrutiny led to deconversion.
I was waiting for that … something; fasting and praying, ask and you shall receive.
After losing the community of the black church, Stephen has found secular community. Though he notes we have a long way to go to be more inclusive of people of color in the secular community.
No voice is going to tell you the meaning of life, you need to go out there and make your own meaning.
Stephen is a musician and a music critic. He blogs about this love of music with great insight on Tublr. We discuss explicitly spiritual music and how we interpret it post-deconversion.
Now I am just more comfortable being who I authentically am.
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