This week’s guest is Benjamin Faye, also known as @heytherebenji.Benji was adopted when he was young and during middle school, his adoptive parents suddenly “wanted a spiritual life” and started going to church.

His life as an adoptee was difficult. Benji questioned whether he belonged in the family and things only got worse as he got older. His adoptive parent became abusive and in his early twenties, he had to leave.

He hoped the church could be the place he could question and process his grief and uncertainty but it wasn’t.

“…on some level, I knew that…there would be no room for me to process [my questions]. It would just begin and end with Jesus, and it’s very, very difficult to have a conversation when there’s a preset ending to it.”

Benji and his partner moved from church to church, hoping to find where they could fully belong. Skip ahead to 2020 and all the covert racism that has always been in the background of white evangelicalism became blindingly obvious. They both had to get out.

Today, Benji is using his online platform to share his own story and to be a place of find empathy and compassion. His work is a great example of living out secular grace.

Links

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

TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@heytherebenji

Important Things with Ben and Carole
https://pod.link/1497773808

Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/important_things

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/06/11/heytherebenji/

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

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

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

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/

2025.12.08: Church For Sale