The Life After Podcast

Pushing Beyond (Being Othered x Theology) with Verdell Wright

On this episode of The Life After, we are talking with our friend, Verdell Wright. Verdell is a theology nerd in the purest sense. Boasting theology degrees from Rutgers, Howard and Wesley Theological Seminary. Verdell is also black, and gay. Put all those things together, along with a very intelligent and well conceived deconstruction and you get a powerful thinker, writer, and advocate. Verdell very recently published a piece for for the Black Youth Project about how he went from being a sought after minister to leaving the Christian faith. Or, pushing beyond the Christian faith as he likes to put it. In our interview with Verdell, we cover everything from the problem of theodicy, to coming out, to what it’s like to be the token Black guy in a quote ‘progressive’ white church.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg
 

Failed Missionary (YWAM x Abuse of Power) with Corey Pigg

Corey Pigg joins Brady and Chuck to discuss his experiences as a full-time missionary with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) that made way for his exit from toxic religion.
Corey has started his own podcast, which focuses on the dark underbelly of modern missions. He is joined by ex-missionaries to discuss what it means to be “called, not qualified” in an industry full of manipulation, crushed dreams, and abuses of power. Learn about what he is doing at failedmissionary.com.
 
The Life After Podcast and Community | Live Real-LifeWe Hold Space for Those Leaving Their Faith in a Secret Facebook Group and Slack Channel.thelifeafter.org

Recovery (Queer x Addiction) with Kendal

Have you recovered what oppressive religion took from you?
When Kendal came out as a lesbian, her life never could be the same again. She was once heavily involved in her church’s youth group, but she was banned from being alone with teenagers because of prejudice against her sexuality. This rejection and feelings of purposelessness drove her to alcoholism, a common path for LGBT+ people who have to face the shame their faith communities place on them.
Kendal joins Chuck and Brady in the studio to discuss how shame is often used by religion to gain and keep followers and how AA changed saved her life. Through the program and hard work, she recovered what oppressive religion took from her.
 
Addition Resource: DrugRehab.com: They provide information, resources, and treatment for people battling addiction and related conditions.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

The Breakfast Church (Rebellion x Community) with Jessie W.

TW: This episode mentions a suicide attempt, birth trauma
She started off Southern Baptist. Then she was Charismatic. And now, she’s with the Breakfast Church, a weekly group at her house of other people deconstructing their faith (their only doctrine is to eat breakfast, joke about their old lives, and drink mimosas).
On this episode, Chuck and Brady talk to their new friend, Jessie W. She was the “bad girl” at her Christian college before she met her future ex-husband and started to attend a Charismatic church together. After a few weird experiences, she wanted to learn more about the power of the Holy Spirit and trained to use the gift of prophecy. As the years went on, Jessie’s life is filled with tragedy after tragedy. After two very complicated pregnancies and a suicide attempt of a close family member, she asked: “why me?”
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

The Airing of Grief and Unbelief (Beliefs x Authenticity) with Derek Webb

Derek Webb was the lead vocalist for Caemond's Call, a folk/rock band that was wildly popular within Evangelicalism in the early 2000's, before recording solo albums. Known for pushing against the status quo of Christian culture, Derek created a large fanbase of Christians who left like they were on the fringes of their culture. But he had an affair that brought huge life changes. Washington Post, Relevant Magazine, and Huffington Post all wrote articles about his divorce. Also during this time, he examined his beliefs to see if they still held up.
His beliefs didn't survive, but his love for looking at the world and describe it through music remained. He released an album that focused on what he calls his two divorces, one from his ex-wife and the other from God. Many fans, old and new, look at his music as a soundtrack for their faith deconstruction because they see their own pain in Derek's vulnerability found in his music. Others find themselves disappointed that he left the Christianity he was so vocal in supporting years ago. On his podcast, The Airing of Grief, his fans (past and/or present) share their opinions on him, his music, and his unbeliefs.
Derek doesn't just put emphasis on faith deconstruction. He also encourages his fans and listeners to focus on rebuilding more-enriched lives after leaving oppressive religion by finding freedom where there once was guilt and shame.
Chuck and Brady chatted with Derek about investigating long-held belief systems, and he explained how morality means more to him after leaving the faith than it did beforehand. He frankly addresses his affair the eventually ended his marriage and described how the weight of his actions didn't fully affect him until after exiting Christianity.
Lastly, he tackled some major questions Exvangelicals reflect on. What is the source of post-faith morality? How do we explain the seemingly supernatural experiences we felt while in the faith? With God out of the picture, how do we lean on our intuition after years of trying to silence it?
The answer to the last one may surprise you.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg
 

Indoctrination (Social Pressure x Questioning) with Tim Warzel and Jamie Lee Finch

Indoctrination is one very essential topic that permeates everything we talk about on this show, but so far we haven’t really addressed it directly. It is so pervasive within religious systems that its almost impossible to talk about anything on this show without it looming in the background.
That makes it difficult to really define and nail down. OED defines it as “The process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.” What you end up with is a long line of dominoes, each domino is one of the things you have to believe to in order for your religious system to remain whole. Indoctrination is the insistence that you don’t poke, prod, remove, or even too closely observe the any of the dominoes because what happens if you knock one over? The whole system is exposed.
Host Brady and Chuck sat down their friends, Tim Warzel and Jamie Lee Finch, to discuss the ever-present ghost called indoctrination.
To learn more about Jamie’s work, follow her on Twitter, @jamieleefinch or visit her website: jamieleefinch.com.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Professional Help (Church Counseling Dangers x Licensed Therapy) with Ari Holtz, PhD

What makes counseling good or bad? What ethical laws are in place to protect people from harmful counselors? Are pastors and “church counselors” held to the same standard? How can you know if you’ve been treated fairly by a pastor, church counselor, or therapist?
Ari Holtz, PhD is a licensed psychologist. He joined The *Life After Boyz in the studio to discuss how church counseling often works and derails. Brady and Chuck shared stories of church counseling and spiritual abuse, allowing Ari to give his valuable input. They ended with a game of “Evangelical View Point vs. Ari’s Professional Opinion” that showed the contrast of the two worldviews and methods.
 
Mental Health Resources:
Find a Therapist: www.psychologytoday.com. Search by insurance, sliding scale, clinical issues, gender, location, etc.
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness): 1-800-950-NAMI (6264). They recommend free or low-cost treatment options.
The Secular Therapy Project: Seculartherapy.org. Want to make sure you’re getting a therapist who isn’t going to push a religious worldview even unconsciously? Check them out here.
211: www.211.org. They provide more mental health resources.
Suicide hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You are never alone.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

#EmptyThePews (Spiritual Abuse x Deconstruction Movement) with Chrissy Stroop

*Chrissy has since transitioned since this episode and the description has been updated to reflect it.
Chrissy Stroop, PhD created the #EmptyThePews Movement to ask Evangelicals to examine the fruits of their religion and walk away from its grip. Chrissy joins Brady and Chuck on this episode of The Life After, focusing on the community of ex-evangelicals, bound together through the internet.
Chrissy discusses the history of how abortion became the foundation of religious right-wing politics, how her degree in Russian history has made her a unique expert in these unpredictable political times, and Chrissy shares her heart-breaking story of spiritual abuse. You can find Chrissy’s blog, Not Your Mission Field, at cstroop.com. She is a common guest and contributor to our friends, the #Exvangelical community.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg
 
 
 

Prey (Consent x #ChurchToo) with Kyla Bauer and Jamie Lee Finch

TW: This episode contains stories of sexual, physical, and spiritual abuse (not in great detail).
The episode that kept growing! What started as a mini-project to release while Chuck worked on a more complex episode kept putting itself in our view as the news of sexual predators poured out. Much of the world has a problem knowing, defining, and respecting consent. Women, who were once made to feel powerless, have proven their predators wrong by coming forward while others, for a wide spectrum of reasons, remain silent. We speak with one of our favorite guests, Jamie Lee Finch, about consent, desire for power that leads to abuse, and sexual ethics.
Listener Kyla Bauer ends the episode with a powerful story of how her family did what was “right” in the eyes of the Bible, but it led them right back into the cycle of abuse.
To learn more about Jamie’s work, follow her on Twitter, @jamieleefinch or visit her website: jamieleefinch.com.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg
 

Humanism (Ethics x Secular Community) with James Croft, Ed.D.

While most of the episodes focus on deconstruction, this episode tackles reconstruction. James Croft, Ed.D., the outreach director of The Ethical Society of Saint Louis, joins Brady and Chuck to answer the extremely important question of what to do after leaving the faith. Many people struggle with establishing a new set of morals and ethics after leaving dogmatic religion, but James shows how it can be done with logic and practical empathy.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg