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Welcome to the finale of a podcast about people, sharing their stories of deconstruction and leaving behind toxic religious systems... so what happens next? I've got one more story for you. Podcast episode about Hegel's God: https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/hegels-god Slow Train To Heck - the Substack: https://slowtraintoheck.substack.com Thank you all for listening for the past two years. It has meant the world.

In this final conversation on Slow Train To Heck, Matt and Mandy Ottaway share the story of their lives together: Growing up in evangelicalism, attending Moody Bible Institute, getting into youth ministry in their early 20s... eventually with Matt realizing the restrictive intellectual cage that his ministry position required and Mandy experiencing the burnout of a life dedicated to church ministries while trying to raise their kids. After leaving ministry, they discovered what the world outside of "required belief" was like, and the freedom to be able to "deconstruct", to learn, to grow, and to change.

Matthew Burkholder joins the podcast to share his experience of growing up immersed in purity culture, starting all the way back as a kid in a Christian bookstore surrounded by the key texts of that ideology. We talk about the lasting damage that can be done by teaching children to hate the natural things that make them human, and the subsequent roadblocks that are created that can get in the way of healthy spirituality. We also chat about his journey into academia, as he's now working on his PhD in Theological Studies through Wycliffe College, how that has affected his faith, and why he's made the decision to step away from the label "evangelical". Content warnings: self-harm, suicide Theology Jam, Matthew's podcast with Dr. Jon Korkidakis: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theology-jam/id1577928391

Olivia Grigg shares her experience of Christianity and the spiritual trauma that it caused her, and gives her take on religious trauma as a whole from her perspective as a social worker and counsellor focused on helping people navigate changing beliefs, deconstruction, and that religious trauma. She discusses how many church environments force us to betray ourselves in many ways, from an early age, and normalize the lack of boundaries, portraying that lack of boundaries and submission to church authority as a necessary prerequisite to community. Additionally, she dives into the normalization of physical abuse of children in the form of spanking, how that abuse is advocated by Christian groups like Focus on the Family, and how that can have long-lasting effects even into adulthood. Content warnings: traumatic religious experiences, physical abuse of children Find Olivia on Instagram at @oliviagrigg.rsw, or her website https://www.oliviagriggrsw.ca/. Resource list for further reading on Adverse Childhood Events provided by the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/resources.html Articles describing evidence for spanking causing higher levels of stress for adults: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1533&context=senior_theses https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213417300145?via%3Dihub Hillary McBride's Holy/Hurt Podcast: https://holyhurtpodcast.com/ 

Laurel talks about the link between dysfunctional families and dysfunctional fundamentalist churches, and how people in abusive situations who are desperate for love are reeled in by the promise of love from leaders who manipulate that desire for the purposes of control. She also shares her own story of growing up in an abusive environment and how she has since found freedom from environments that use fear as a method of control. Content warnings: physical and spiritual abuse of children, mental illness, depression Books Laurel mentioned: Bradshaw on The Family (John Bradshaw): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/223513 The Search For Significance (Robert S. McGee): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406464 Further Along the Road Less Traveled (M. Scott Peck): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7371

This week I'm joined by Kevin Wilcox (see his previous appearance on the podcast in Episode 6) to talk about how you might be able to maintain or forge relationships "across the aisle" - is it possible for an evangelical and an exvangelical to be friends, and if so, how? What needs to be considered when entering into a relationship like that? What boundaries need to be established, what considerations need to be taken into account, and most importantly, how can we best love and care for ourselves and other people in the process? We chat about these questions and more in this episode! Content warnings: evangelical perspectives, Bible verses, a discussion about abortion debates Kevin's Carl Jung quote comes from the book Psychology and Religion: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123636.Psychology_and_Religion Kevin's appearance on MBC's "Transforming Culture" podcast where he talks about deconstruction: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3VBJLpp4QzXlm4F8BMiLn6?si=FDnsA1q9RdeaSPHMb57Gxg

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Jannah Rulfs, who grew up Pentecostal in Southwestern Ontario and has since left the church. Jannah has a lot of really insightful things to say about the anxiety and fear that Christianity generated in her as a young teenager, the challenges she has with some of what Christianity seems to require of young people in terms of evangelism and certainty, and how she relates to Christianity and Christians now in a positive way.

Alexandra and John share their experiences growing up Christian and the fear-based narratives they lived within. Eventually, they entered the mission field, living in China for some time, and eventually worked for Christian nonprofits. What they saw in these arenas further confirmed what they had grown up experiencing of Christianity - the system is broken. The way Christianity said Christians would act was not at all how the Christians in their lives were acting - even worse than "the world" in many cases - and this caused them to question whether the church really had a role to play in their lives. Content warnings: binge drinking, homophobia

Cassy shares her story and talks about her mental illness and sexual assault, and processing these heavy things while also processing her faith deconstruction. Cassy is an incredibly strong person who has come through a lot of really hard things, and I hope her strength inspires you as much as it did me. Please take note of the content warnings below and mentioned in the opening, as this episode digs into a few things in detail. Content warnings: sexual assault, mental illness, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, trichotillomania, homophobia Cassy's essay "Should You Report Your Sexual Assault?": https://drive.google.com/file/d/197D8L5nUMKSwbQFtEGYI6f8gTfrK_kCl/view?usp=share_link Cassy's Suicide Safety Plan Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-shzbtb-CYu8CEqxYWUIrQ6om3QKGBVb/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=112809201114914334694&rtpof=true&sd=true Olivia Grigg's Instagram: @oliviagrigg.rsw Olivia Grigg Counselling Services: https://www.oliviagriggrsw.ca/

The Slow Train is back, and with it comes David Hayward, a.k.a. the Naked Pastor. David is a former pastor who has since become an artist, creating amazing paintings and cartoons that challenge aspects of religious environments in ways that provoke conversations - in fact he's recently released a collection of cartoons called Flip it Like This which you can check out right now and put it on your coffee table if you want to spark some conversations of your own. He's also an author, having written 10 books including one of my favourites, Til Doubt Do Us Part, about changing beliefs and their impact within marriage.  David and I chat about his own deconstruction, and the multiple facets that are contained within deconstruction - not just theologically, but also ecclesiologically, as people often find themselves needing to deconstruct what church was to them and find their way outside of those community spaces. We also talk about what healthy spiritual growth is, not letting others impose their agendas on our deconstruction, and the importance of enjoying the current moment you find yourself in along your journey. --- Check out the Naked Pastor at nakedpastor.com or @nakedpastor on Instagram! ---- I mentioned Carly Butler's Patreon in the podcast endnotes - here's a link to that as well: https://www.patreon.com/CarlyButler

Walter Schultz hops on the Slow Train to Heck to share his story of being required to attend church as a child, the confusion that caused him when presented with two wildly opposed worldviews between Sunday School and public school, and how his relationship with his mother was what ultimately helped him escape that world and leave it behind. Content warnings: spousal abuse, generational trauma, residential schools/church abuse, the holocaust

This week Marie Wall shares her story of joining, living in, and ultimately Escaping the Church of God fundamentalist Christian cult in Aylmer, Ontario. She shares her harrowing experience of being slowly worn down by the church until she joined, then being brainwashed to believe that there was no hope for her outside their walls. After a deep descent into depression, she was able to escape and has never been happier.  Content warnings: significant spiritual and religious abuse, physical abuse of children, depression, suicide If you're struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call for help. Canada's suicide hotline is 18334564566 or can be texted at 45645.