Sexvangelicals

There's a lot of memoirs, social media comments, and dialogue about leaving the evangelical church. However, as our guest, NPR National Correspondent Sarah McCammon, says, "you can't really understand the leaving without understanding loving and living the evangelical church." Sarah is the author of the new book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. She talks with us about: The History of Evangelical Christianity and Politics (3:58): Sarah starts us off, "As s I talk about in the book that meant that had implications for queer people. It had implications for how we were taught about science and about sexuality. And so I've organized the book around all of these themes that for me and a lot of others were tension points, or points of cognitive dissonance or breaking points in some cases." What Religion May Offer (6:13): Sarah says: "It never left me. I think about these questions and this is actually something I'm mostly grateful to my parents and my religious upbringing for, is that I feel like it taught me to think about important things, like what's true, what's good, how should we live, what is our obligation to one another?" Bill Clinton Era and Purity Culture (13:22): uded to in our first interview was the following of rules in the conversation we're having right now. You're talking about a pastor who broke a sexual rule. And you also mentioned that in that Bill Clinton era during the scandal, you were being told to dress modestly, do this, do that, primarily, don't do this." Evangelical Relationships (15:30): Sarah says: "Evangelical Christianity treats relationships like they're a formula. Do X and Y will come out. And that's not just that's not how human beings are." Performing Gender (18:00): Jeremiah offers: "What we've discovered is that evangelicalism is almost exclusively about how well you perform gender." Breaking Down the Title (23:00): Sarah breaks down the title of her book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. "The title highlights the nuance of all of this because for good reason, it can be easy to demonize the entire system and the entire system of white evangelicalism has caused all kinds of harm for many different people from many different groups." Grief (24:30): Jeremiah says: "That's also the hard choice that a lot of folks are left with. It's really hard to move through talking about deconstruction sociologically, therapeutically, without talking about grief and without constantly that some of the hard decisions that we've all faced." Connection and Trauma Bonding (30:30): Sarah shares: "You meet the other person who grew up Southern Baptist or grew up evangelical or Pentecostal or whatever, and you wind up like in a corner somewhere like, you know, trauma bonding. And I hope that this book will make it a little bit easier for people to feel like they don't have to hide in the corner. They can just talk to each other and also their nonreligious partners or their colleagues in an appropriate way about who people that you run into who might not understand what this is." Healing Through Storytelling (32:00): Julia says: "I am thankful that you, to repackage some Christian language, decided to hold on to the calling and to tell your story, but also allow folks like me to have my own story seen and reflected by someone else. I personally am a fan of live storytelling events, and that's because I believe that so much healing occurs through the power of the human narrative." Let's heal together!

It's been really fascinating to watch the ways that Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal (EMPish) cultures have begun to be deconstructed and discussed on a wider cultural level. While some still struggle to accurately name the direct correlation between EMPish cultures and the construction of the modern-day Republican Party, NPR national correspondent Sarah McCammon discusses the strategy and implementation of rigid conservative values in her new book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. In part 1 of a 2 part interview, Sarah talks with us about: Trump and Evangelicals (5:20): Sarah starts us off: "I think the most obvious reason is that we are seeing and have been seeing for the past several years what appears to be the apex of white evangelical power as a political project. And one of the most important things I wanted to get across in the book is that we didn't get to where we are by accident." Two Target Audiences (11:00): When asked about reaching various audiences Sarah remarks, "I wrote this book really both for people like us with evangelical religious backgrounds and for people like my husband and a lot of my good friends who are aware that this evangelical world exists, certainly, but find it in a lot of ways kind of mystifying." Why Write the Book? (13:00): Sarah says: "Since then I've been asked so many times to explain how Trump happened, to explain white evangelical support for Trump. And I just decided to write a book to try to answer those questions. So I hope for the quote unquote, outsiders it will help to explain that on a really granular level. And for those of us insiders, I hope that they'll feel seen by what I describe." Fear of Judgement (17:00): Julia discusses fear, "Leaving a religious community comes with so much loss. That person might also have the added challenge of moving into more progressive or secular spaces and having a fear of judgment about a particular background. Something that I notice is that when a couple or an individual comes to therapy, particularly sexual health therapy, they have a fear of, "What will this therapist say about me if they know that I chose not to have certain sexual experiences before I got married or whatever else they might have experienced?" Empathy and Honesty (19:30): Julia notes: "Something else that you do so excellently is calling out, for lack of a better way to say it, the harm from the broader institutional structures, particularly the political movement so tied with white evangelicalism, while also humanizing the people who have lived and then moved out of it. That is really difficult to be able to do both." Why People Stay in EMPish Spaces (22:00): Sarah offers: "You get these sort of incredulous questions for people, like "Why would anyone be part of something like this?" When they hear about certain aspects of it. I can't underscore enough how important every human being needs community." Lack of Goodbyes (24:00): Jeremiah shares, "The saying goodbye and the saying goodbye without a proper goodbye. Because most people who leave evangelical spaces don't have a proper goodbye, a mutually agreed upon "Hey, if we're in different spaces, I wish you the best for the next chapter of your life." Most people either get kicked out like I did, or the goodbye is kind of fueled by avoidance." Christianity and Inclusivity (28:00): Sarah says: "I've wondered about a lot and I don't have the answer forhow would Christianity be different if it had been much more inclusive over all of its history? If people of color and also women had been included in the same way that many churches have prioritized the voices of mostly white men." Promises Unfulfilled (32:00): Sarah notes: "That's one of the most painful things, is that even when you follow the rules and the formula, it doesn't always work out the way you've been told it will." Salem Witch Trials and Christian Textbooks (34:00): Sarah recounts her research into her former Christian textbooks and discusses the rhetoric: "But then it pivoted to this really weird place and it basically ended the section about the Salem Witch Trials by saying, "You know, all of these explanations ignore one obvious possibility, which is that these women really were demon possessed." I'm sure that I would have glossed over that. But today I look back and I go, wait a second, you were saying that women were witches and it's like all of these really subtle ideas about how the family should look, and who women are." Let's heal together!

One of the most common relational processes that the deconstructing world talks about is boundaries. Evangelical circles encourage the elimination of boundaries. Sexuality is public, as Purity Culture invites people in leadership positions to make a variety of comments about people's bodies. Accountability groups and testimonials favor people who describe the most intimate parts of their stories. When making sense of these harmful systems, it's easy to go the opposite direction with boundaries; in fact, quite a few people in the deconstructing community invite people to do this. But as we talk about with Laura Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You, the construction of boundaries is a complex, nuanced process, something more complicated than just "Setting those boundaries". Laura talks with us about: Leaving Religious Spaces (2:15): Julia starts us off, "Leaving religious spaces comes with immediate relational losses, such as the friend who said 'God hates divorce' when I tearfully confided in her about my separation." Trust post-Religion (4:00): Jeremiah says: "Building and maintaining a social network involves a new relationship with trust which can be really hard when religious systems hurt you. Boundary Rigidity (5:40): Laura discusses, "Coming out of high control religion, boundaries are more like rules than what we might clinically consider boundaries to be, and so I think there's like a needing to reframe that or re-work that principle in order to understand what boundaries truly are. The other piece that I notice a lot with boundaries, especially when we're talking about people where there's a lot of unresolved trauma, a lot of active triggers, and a newness in this process is that there's a lot of boundary rigidity. Our work is about helping people understand that boundaries themselves don't have to be rigid." Differences Being Dangerous (11:00): Julia talks about differences and high control religions: "I hear you describing in setting boundaries, we acknowledge that sometimes setting a boundary or receiving a boundary from someone else will highlight a difference, a difference in belief or preferences or any other number of things. And in high control religious contexts we learn that differences can be really dangerous. Pop Psychology (18:00): Laura says: "I love social media for so many reasons. But I also look at the way that certain things have kind of taken on a life of their own. And I'm like, that's not what that means, or that's not what boundaries are. That's not what trauma bonding is. That's not what a narcissist is. And I can appreciate people trying to understand things, but boundaries are for me, what do I need in order to keep myself safe? Trauma in the Context of Relationships (21:00): Laura says: "It's very common for people to have an amount of isolation prior to getting into some healthy relationships. So much trauma is based on being harmed in the context of relationship. And even though research talks about how we need relationships in order to heal from trauma, that can feel incredibly scary." The Practice of Slowing Down (23:00): Jeremiah highlights, "Even in relationship therapy, we talk about, as a relationship process, how can we talk slower? How can we give more spaces between the clauses that we use? How can we slow and kind of soften our rate? There are ways that you can establish practices of slowing down of space within the relationships that you have." Isolation v. Relationships (26:00): Laura shares: "There is such a visceral difference between isolation and relationship that my body feels it every time. So to talk about the people that I'm in relationship with, there's this overwhelming gratitude that comes up because I understand what the healing piece is there." Healing Ourselves First (31:00): Julia says, "Sexuality and sexual healing first and foremost begins with the relationship to the self. Before we move into even sex with ourselves through masturbation or through other self pleasure, we first come back to who we are in our bodies in a more neutral kind of way, and then we move towards these other relational aspects of healing, whether that's with our sexual self or with a partner or partners or anyone or anything else." Living in Your Legacy (34:00): Laura discusses: "I love Janina Fisher's work here of the living legacy of trauma. She talks about how legacy is oftentimes something that we inherit, that is generational. But a living legacy is saying, here's these things that have happened, and this is my legacy. I am living in this, and yet, it's not necessarily the totality of who I am, it's just that I live within that construct, and it's actually meant to give freedom." Accommodations and Understanding (35:00): Laura offers a metaphor: "I use the language of, chronic illness, chronic disease, to talk about accommodations. And so we think about people that have injuries or whatnot, I think in the book, I say something like if, if somebody has a written test and they have a broken arm we don't look at them and say you are so stupid for not being able to write the answers on your test or your arms should just heal faster so that you can get this done. Right. We're like, no, Hey, do you need somebody to write for you? Do you need to do an oral exam? Totally makes sense that you can't take this test, you know, writing because your arm is broken, right?" Let's heal together!

What is religious abuse? Dr. Laura Anderson, in her new book When Religion Hurts You, defines it as: "The improper use of religious beliefs, teachings, doctrines, and relationships against another person. This might include harassment, humiliation, mind control, psychological abuse, isolation, threats, intimidation, minimizing, denying, blaming, asserting spiritual authority, and making it difficult to leave the religious community." If you're experienced one or more of the above, our interview with Laura provides some strategies for processing and navigating these experiences. Laura talks with us about: Addressing Religious Trauma (6:20): Julia says: "The language of religious trauma is still relatively new in our lexicon, both in the field of psychology and in the general public. I've often thought what would have been different if I had the language that I have today 15 years ago." Downplaying Trauma (13:30): Laura discusses, "I was able to recognize physiological symptoms that my clients were demonstrating things like being triggered, hypervigilant. What I would hear from so many clients is that, 'I didn't really go through anything that bad. I wasn't abused by a clergy member.' They were downplaying trauma." Blaming the Individual (16:30): Julia says, "If I saw a therapist who took insurance, I am sure that I would most likely receive some sort of diagnostic label of PTSD. What always bothers me about that is that actually my responses are not only normal, but often healthy, necessary response." The Non-Banned Books (25:00): Laura talks about the impact of the books she read when she was apart of the Church: "It is all about power and control. Talk about rigidity and roles and having to fragment yourself so that you can be this very specific prototype of a person. Ot's so prescriptive and so shaming all at the same time." Focusing on the Body (30:00): Laura discusses: "When we talk about embodiment like that is living in the fullness of your body. It is that welcoming home to yourself versus the divorce from the self. I think that's why I focus so much on the body. It feels extremely rebellious as compared to what I grew up in." Eating Disorders and EMPish Communities (33:00): Laura discusses her research, her personal life, and the connection between eating disorders and the Church: "When you don't know how to listen to your body or when you have shut your body down so much that it can't give those signals loud enough for you to listen to then you just continue, in my case starving myself for years afterwards (leaving the church)." Acknowledging before Healing (40:00): Jeremiah outlines the thought process that must begin before even moving in the territory of healing "I have a body and my body is not connected to anything else other than my body. I can be my own person. Recognizing that you can be your own person--that allows you to move into your relationships in a different way." Two-Choice Dilemma (44:30): Jeremiah says "This idea of two choice dilemma that at some point along the way you can't exist in both worlds. You either have to choose a relationship with your body which acknowledges the body that you have, or you can continue to take a shot at that and to participate in the Church." Honoring Grief (48:00): Laura says, "Grief is more of an honoring process to say like, no, this happened, this was important, it matters, and it's not about dwelling on it or living in the past, but it is about acknowledging the importance of it." Demonizing Anger (50:30): Julia says, "Anger and sadness and anxiety within Christian cultures are so demonized. Cast all your anxieties onto the Lord. Be joyful always … those verses serve to once again control who we are, to control our bodies, and even to control our feelings.

Purity Culture is largely embedded within White social and political systems intended to dominate and control bodies through a hyper-moralistic, anti-sex landscape. However, in this last week of Black History month, it's imperative that we talk about the ways that Purity Culture has impacted Black communities. To help us, we are sharing our interview with Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, about how the values of Purity Culture have infiltrated Black churches and informed sexual relationships and expectations within the Black community. We talk about: Purity Culture within Cultural Contexts (5:00): Julia starts us off: "We must remember that purity culture, although within a racist system in the United States, has fucked with the sexuality of black communities and many other communities outside of middle and upper middle class white communities in the interview, Deesha shares about her experiences of black churches, and I hope that as we continue to explore and discuss how purity culture perpetuated several generations of relationally and sexually illiterate individuals and families. We don't lose sight of the nuances of how purity culture gets portrayed in different communities, in largely black communities and in other minority communities." Values (9:00): Jeremiah says, "Julia and I, as white people, are dedicated to using this podcast to challenge the ways that white Christianity has created a moral code around sexuality and the usage of our bodies centered around order and has used control, coercion, and manipulation to maintain that order. Sexvangelicals invites folks to share their experiences about experiencing freedom, peace, and joy through sexual exploration and sexual health." What Informs the Writing? (16:00): Deesha when asked about her process: "All roads seem to lead back to sex. And so we're figuring out who we are as young people. And then we take that into adulthood. Who are we going to be? And we're just dragging these notions, these fears, the shame, the guilt, all that stuff that we're loaded down with those binaries that aren't helpful. And it's a lot of heavy baggage. People navigate that differently. So I found myself very interested in writing about how women navigate those things." The Lack of Conversation (24:00): Deesha says: "But there was not conversation about sexual health. It was just always about not having a bad reputation and not going to hell. You know, there was just no nuance there. No subtlety. That was what contributes to secrecy and hiding and people being dysfunctional and being harmed." Divorce within the Church (29:00): Julia discusses "the response from the church towards divorce, particularly with the idea that God hates divorce, then creates another bind for folks. Can I be a divorced person and be a part of the faith community? And depending on the faith community, sometimes the answer is no. The literal ostracization." Fiction and Sexual Health (38:00): Jeremiah says: "When it comes to sexuality, when it comes to trauma, the field of fiction is light years ahead of the field of mental health than being able to describe healthy sexuality and describe processing trauma in a really accessible way. But it's really interesting that even with sex education, one of the places that you turned to was the world of fiction. Suffering in Silence (42:00): Deesha discusses her experience with faith: "I have been living the secret in the marriage. The secret was, I'm doing all this praying and I'm not feeling anything. Going to every Bible study and all of these things and I'm just not feeling it their plan, God's plan for marriage doesn't excite me in sex and all of that. And so I was suffering in silence.Well, not always silent like my then husband, you know, we would talk about these things but my takeaway was you know, because Christianity is so freaking self referential, right?" "Daddy Issues'' (51:00): Deesha discusses, "One of the things that she [Deesha's therapist] did that I am forever grateful for is that she zeroed in on the father stuff for me, you know, people joke about daddy issues, but you all know that that's absolutely real. And so she said … there's got to be a book about fatherless daughters, you know and how that impacts you and your relationships because you know, once you've been divorced twice you start wondering like, okay what do I need to do differently, you know, because clearly there's a pattern something's going on." Grief (58:00): Deesha shares, "When my mother died and my father died and my grandmother died and it was like all these deaths, I then had that experience of, you know, grief is not the five stages that they tell you and it's not just sitting around sad." Working Through Self-Hate Through Fiction (1:19:00): Deesha discusses her work: "I also conflated God and Moses. And so Moses has the long beard. So I figured God was this white man who had a long beard. One intentional choice I made in the story was Olivia's [Character] concept of God then is black has dark skin. And I don't interrogate that much, but maybe it's because she's just so smart that one thing she didn't Inhale or not inhale, but absorbed is any kind of self hate and so if she's dark, then God would be dark too though that was great." Sexism within Black Churches (1:30:00): Deesha shares, "We see the church grappling around this issue specifically with the Black Lives Matter movement, which is black woman led, queer led, and the church trying to figure out how do we partner with people when we think of them as sinners? How do we partner primarily and what is the church willing to relinquish in order to be in a healthy relationship with the movement and also the church as a follower, right?" Let's heal together!

Julia begins, "Unlearning the messages from the church archive is only part of the healing process. The next step is learning new ways to engage relationships and sexuality. So, together, we are going to begin creating a new library with literature that can support us in building better, more sustainable, and thriving relationships." In order to unlearn unhelpful messages, we have to understand the systems that propagated these messages. "If I had a dollar for every time a client mentioned The Five Love Languages in therapy, I'd have close to a thousand dollars by this stage," Jeremiah says. The problem? The Five Love Languages was written by Gary Chapman. Chapman has no professional training in therapy or the science of relationships. Rather, he's one of hundreds of clergy trained at Wheaton, Moody Bible College, and other conservative organizations who have written about relationships--generally not their scope of practice. These authors have been propelled by a multi-billion dollar publishing industry who have generated radio shows, books, TV shows, and podcasts to sell complementarian gender roles, a rigid understanding of sexuality, and communication strategies that seek avoidance and compliance rather than negotiation of differences. In this episode, Jeremiah and Julia talk about: History of Christian Publishing Houses (4:20): Jeremiah details the history and reach of these publishing houses: "Christian publishing houses gained significant political power. To spread conservative sexual messaging to institutions outside of evangelical or other christian spaces" Conservatism and Publishing (9:30): Jeremiah describes how the Dutch-American publishing owner Americanized his own name to fit within the conservative culture, "Even though the Baker house gained political power and massive finical success in the U.S., they did not escape conservative structures that they eventually perpetuated in the books that they published." Christian Education and Apologetics (22:00): Julia discusses how she took apologetics classes and the effectiveness of it, "Fear and shame perhaps more harmful, are also more motivating than obnoxious circular debate, which is what apologetics tends to be." Why Christian Literature is Effective (25:00): Jeremiah says: "One of the reasons that Christian Literature may have had such extensive influence on you and others is that it undergirded all of your formal and informal education, while unifying you with Christians across the world." Ask Suzie (29:00): Julia draws an example from Rio magazine, a Christian magazine published by focus on the family: "That highlights the amount of anxiety that young girls feel in these communities, that accidentally falling asleep during a movie in which your head is on the shoulder of a boy was something that would cause you that level of distress." Why Focus on Christian Media? (33:35): Julia shares, "the whole reason that we're sharing these stories is because the Christian publishing industries and Christian media like focus on the family has had such foundational impacts into the relational and sexual development of folks like me and my clients." "Sex Ed" (36:00): Jeremiah shares: "My understanding of sexuality and relationships was much more informed by what I learned about women through a combination of sexist and homophobic comments inside and outside of the Church system." The Books of Deconstruction and Music as Manipulation (45:00): Jeremiah talks about his deconstruction journey: "Leviton talks about how artists use cord progressions, intinations, and instrumentation to connote feelings, and at its worst to manipulate audiences. I discovered pretty quickly that Hillsong and other contemporary worships groups were using that strategy in their music." The Second Book of Deconstruction (49:10): Julia says, "The book (the Bible tells me so) exposes the ways that many Christian groups have misinterpreted so much of christian scripture by missing cultural context, accurate translations, and other sociological factors." Perpetuating Myths (53:00): Julia discusses her sex therapy training: "I hoped that my community of education and my training would have rewritten some of those myths that I learned in both Christian and Secular culture, sadly not even sex therapy has caught up." Let's heal together!

The Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, and Acts 29 Churches have all had significant challenges with sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse in their systems, something that becomes even more pronounced when religious systems become intertwined with private and home schooling, sex education, and the expectations of rigid gender norms. Sarah Stankorb, author of the national best-seller Disobedient Women, interviews women who have been victimized within Evangelical systems. And while online spaces provided camaraderie, acceptance, and empowerment, the disclosure of abuse and sexual crimes often gets met with the opposite outcomes. Sarah talks with us about things to consider when disclosing spiritual abuse, including: How the Church Enables Abuse (4:00): Sarah outlines: "Many of the theologies that can underlie abusive relationships within institutions. You may see in Christian school the threat of corporal punishment, which puts children in a position where it's [not in] the interest for them to question authorities. So if you are trained from a very young age not to dare question your parents or you will be struck. When you encounter abuse within a church system or at work, that's based into your experience that you must obey, you must not question, and that creates an extra hurdle." Intertwining Church and School (6:00): Sarah discuss how the Pastor and Principal being one in the same can be harmful, "I think in both places, if you are a superintendent of your small Christian school, or the head of your Christian school is your pastor, that notion of the godly authority figure, who cannot be questioned, can reside in both places, and again that makes reporting much less likely and it makes it harder for families to call anything in question in both places." Homeschooling and Being Insulated (12:00): Sarah describes how homeschooled children often have no one to turn to: "The number of stories that have come out of homeschool, Christian homeschool environments, where overwhelmed mothers, too many children, their education gets neglected. They are also part of a very insular community with home churches. So they may only know three, four, or five other homeschool families like them that are deemed godly enough that they can interact with. They don't have many friends. They don't have outside adults that they could turn to for help…. If there is abuse in that environment, the child has virtually nowhere to go." Reporting Abuse in Higher Education (17:30): Sarah details her research and the specific issues within the schools she conducted her reporting: "There were sexual assault policies that were confusing people all sorts of different ways. There were disciplinary measures that were far more extreme if a student cheated on a test versus raped someone. So students were obviously quite upset about that." Parallels Between Secular and Christian Universities (19:00): Jeremiah discusses the issues at Michigan State and draws a parallel between Michigan State and the Southern Baptist convention: "The bureaucratic issues that happened at Michigan State … were really similar to the bureaucratic issues that happened in church systems, like the Southern Baptist Convention, where there's a passing the buck, where there's a denial of accountability, where there's an administrator who ultimately has no criminal justice experience, nor should they who are being put in the role of criminal justice person." Title IX (23:00): Sarah talks about Title IX and exemptions from it: "Religious schools can apply for the Title IX exemption. So, those protections that usually you would expect to exist within a college or university just might not because your institution asked not to have to comply with it." Right to Silence (27:00): Julia insightfully says, "If we pressure that person to make whatever case they want to make, we're doing the same thing in some ways as the religious structure that has said. This is your fault. You are equally responsible and people have the right to their autonomy. And sometimes that silence and privacy, and sometimes that's breaking the silence. Every person has different resources and circumstances to consider." The Importance of Listening (32:00): Sarah describes her experience after using Botox to aid her Vocal Tremor: "For me, it [Botox] made me compute completely mute. For a month at a time, I would move my mouth. And nothing would come out, then I had a month where I could whisper. So if someone really, really, really wanted to hear me, and would stop and listen to me, they could…. I kept silencing, physically silencing myself on this quest for some better version of my voice. I think one of the big scars I've imposed on my own life was those periods of just not being able to say what was on my mind." The Internet and Community (36:00): Sarah says: "The internet gave people a chance to show what they had experienced. And for many people who are either in high control churches, or in isolated families, or in situations where they did not know other people who had dealt with what they dealt with, seeing other people speak up online made them realize this: Oh, this is not just me. " A huge thanks to Sarah for all the work that she does to support victims of spiritual and sexual abuse. Let's heal together!

It's well documented that reporting abuse to larger systems is a daunting process. The Southern Baptist Convention is the latest organization to have been outed for the ways that it protects perpetrators of violence, especially against women and children, two categories of people whose stories are commonly dismissed in our larger society. We're thrilled to have Sarah Stankorb on our podcast. Sarah Stankorb is the author of the national best-seller Disobedient Women. The award-winning, Ohio-based writer talks about religion, politics, feminism, health, technology, and the public good. In Disobedient Women, she outlines how access to the internet—its networks, freedom of expression, and resources for deeply researching and reporting on powerful church figures—allowed women to begin dismantling the false authority of evangelical communities that had long demanded their submission. In this episode, Sarah talks with us about the emotional and relational processes that empower women to share their stories and hold systems accountable for their actions. We discuss: Impact v. Intent (4:00): Jeremiah says: "The way that something impacts someone is often much more important in the immediacy of the conversation than the intent." Accessing Anger (7:00): Julia discusses, "Accessing anger around my negative supervision process was just the entry point to access anger about much more significant parts of my story and the stories of others on a systemic level." How the Church Enables Abuse (11:00): Sarah outlines how abuse functions within the Church walls. "God sanctioned the abuse that they had dealt with … The greatest power in the universe is on the side of the people who are hurting you." Demonizing Anger (18:00): Julia notes: "In and outside of religious systems the narrative around anger in women is so demonized, literally and figuratively." Untethered Empathy (21:00): Sarah discusses Christian rhetoric and how it shames men from speaking up by reinforcing gender norms, "If you are angry, even a man, sticking up for one of these women, you have untethered empathy, you are too emotional." The Weight of Speaking Up (28:00): Sarah talks about the challenges of speaking up within the Church system: "You're turning to another Church leader because a Church leader is abusing you. The sheer weight of that. And your entire Church community depends upon these people and believing in them, as someone standing in for God and speaking on behalf of God. That's a very scary thing to do." The Novel and Journalism (34:00): Julia offers her opinion on successful journalism and how it applies to Sarah's book: "The best journalism doesn't tell you what to think or feel. The best journalism allows you to have access to a source as direct as possible, and then you read that and can internalize the power of the story." Bravery (37:00): Jeremiah talks about the power of the system and the bravery to go against it: "Speaking out against a system that is both backed by the authority of God and also fueled by a series of behaviors, dismissals, any number of things to deny accountability, that takes a special kind of bravery." Defining Bravery (40:00): Sarah offers an incredible definition of bravery: "I wrote this book about incredibly courageous women, who were raised to be so tiny … they did the opposite. And in doing the opposite, they took on power that was maybe a whole lot bigger than they imagined they'd be taking on. They found other bold and silent folks alongside them who needed to hear that." Trad-Wife Trend (43:50): Jeremiah outlines the ultra-conservative trad-wife movement, "The trad-wife community is also part of a larger ultra-conservative movement that is doing whatever it can to gain momentum in the 2020's." In discussing the "trad-wife" trend, Sarah points out that "it's frightening how relevant I think this book will be for quite a while." A huge thanks to Sarah for capturing and representing these stories so eloquently and bravely. Let's heal together!