Holy Ghosting (Meg & Sarai)

TW: religious abuse, sexual abuse, family cover-up of abuse, emotional neglect, psychological abuse, physical abuse (and violent punishment of children), intimate partner abuse.

In this episode we talk about Bill Gothard’s teachings, women's gender roles, and parenting ideals that create environments where abuse could occur with impunity.

This is the second of a four-episode series called Too Many Cults, where Lindsay and Krispin (from the Prophetic Imagination Station) recap the docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets (Amazon Prime)

Here are this Episode's topics:

0:00 Introduction, overview of episode, discussion of why traumatized people can be drawn to fundamentalism

9:45 homeschooling

22:10 subjugation of women; abuse of girls & women, purity culture, gender roles

30:00 child abuse; the discipline of children

47:30 sexual abuse

Join our patreon community to support this podcast. Or join us on TikTok and Instagram

Just when you thought your hellacious heroines, Lindsay, Meg & Sarai, couldn't possibly have more to say about YWAM, BAM! A fourth episode! This time, the call is coming from inside the house, so to speak, because Ghosties like you are sharing their YWAM experiences.

Hang out with us as your Ghostie compatriots get brave and tell us the wild tales from their days traveling the world on God's dime. You'll have all the feelings there are to feel.

Before you listen, know there are some contents that may be disturbing to some people. Content Warnings: sexual assault, animal cruelty, religious trauma, attempts to colonize the world for Jesus or something

The specter of Halloween is upon us yet again! And so is this Best Of episode - To Hell with the Devil's Holiday or: Suck it Harvest Parties! Learn about Lindsay's quest to become Queen of Halloween, and hear some spooky stories of youth group shenanigans gone awry. Joyous references include: Hell Houses, Heaven's Gates/Hell's Flames, and other completely ridiculous "scared straight" tactics Christians loved using in the 80's and 90's to get the youth to secure their own eternal salvation. Pretty creepy, actually, good Halloween vibes.

Content Heads Up:

Mentions of animal cruelty and death, and probably a bunch of other triggery things, so...religious trauma! Take good care of yourself.

Ahoy, Ghosties! Set sail with us on the turbulent waters of YWAM's Mercy Ships as Karen Alea, from the Deconversion Therapy podcast, joins us for a deep-sea adventure into religious deconstruction. From the highs of missionary zeal to the lows of financial strain and the choppy waves of communal living, Karen shares her journey of finding land after leaving the evangelical archipelago.

In this episode:

• 🌍 Travel Bugs and Belonging: Karen dives into why YWAM's promise of adventure lured her in.
• 💸 Financial Storms: Unpack the dicey ethics of fundraising in missionary work.
• 🙏 Deconstruction Lifelines: How humor can be your life jacket when navigating the heavy currents of faith questioning.

Grab your life vests and join our crew as we explore how to keep your head above water in the sea of spiritual uncertainty.

👻 Support the Journey: Like what you hear? Show your support by subscribing, sharing this episode, and dropping us a review. Every bit helps us keep the conversation flowing and the community growing.

Find Karen on the Deconversion Therapy Podcast

In this episode, Karen shared about a 10-step prayer ritual she had to go through every time she prayed. The same person who came up with the Plumb Line made this gem. Enjoy!

As Evangelical children in the 80’s and 90’s, we had plenty of Big Terrible Things to fear. Satanic Panic was in full swing, stranger danger lurked in every darkened doorway, and America’s Most Wanted sailed into our living rooms on the reg. One of the most fearful things, of course, was the rise of Environmentalism. (BUT WHY?!)

Seriously, though, does anybody know why Evangelicals - people who believe God literally created the world and everything it and who believe the earth is a gift from God above - also hate environmentalism? Deny climate change? Fight for industry over the health of the earth? (All God’s creatures great and small, unless you’re the Spotted Owl, then fuck you!) The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

So, if you, like this unanimous trio of co-hosts, were not allowed to watch Fern Gully, lest your fertile young mind absorb the poison of the message to protect the earth, listen in as we get into the nitty gritty of Christians and the Environmental Agenda.

If, on the other hand, you’re reading this description and thinking it makes literally no sense - you’re not wrong. Join the club and still listen, because if nothing else, this will entertain you for a little while. 

This season, Holy Ghosting is focusing on the philosophies, activities, existences, and concepts that were taboo in our Evangelical experience. Anything and everything from fat bodies, naked bodies, LGBTQIA+ bodies and humans…we’re gonna opine and weep and laugh our way through it all. If you’re into that sort of thing, you might want to become one of our besties and become a Holy Ghostie at Patreon.com/holyghosting

Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode this season! What’s more fun than Taboo? Guesstures? NO. Taboo is the best group game, end of discussion. But also a very interesting topic to unpack amongst consenting adults. xoxox

Hey, Ghosties! Whether you rocked a camp t-shirt with a punny camp theme or wore one to cover your already modest AF bathing suit, you're going to enjoy our encore visit to Evangelical Christian summer camp!

Gird your loins for some jarring admissions of life-long devotion to the very concept of summer camp, including our own Sarai admitting she'd reconvert if some camp would hire her to work there forever and ever. Spoiler alert: she's lying, but it's still a fun idea!

Let's talk about the tearful, overwrought, sometimes made-up completely bonfire testimonies, the strange intoxication of a camp experience, and one heroic tale of rattlesnake vanquishing from Meg.

Support Holy Ghosting and become a part of our Patreon community

We want to be friends!! TikTok YouTube and Instagram

Fascism in Plain Sight is the third episode of our mini-series "Too Many Cults", where Lindsay and Krispin (from the Prophetic Imagination Station and Linds' BIL) recap the docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.

In this episode we talk about how IBLP and Jim Bob Duggar hold onto money while those with less power do unpaid work. We also talk about how Gothard created an environment in the IBLP that encouraged abuse to exist with impunity. Krispin shares some of the parallels he saw in his evangelical community in response to his disclosure of sexual abuse by a family member.

TW: religious abuse, sexual abuse, family cover-up of abuse, psychological abuse, harsh punishment of children), controlling parenting, grooming and sexual abuse.

Here's a breakdown of the episode and the topics:

0:00 Introduction, brief non-specific mention on Josh's child pornography charges.

2:00 Discussion of free labor in Evangelical spaces

23:00 Discussion of sexual abuse from Gothard and sexual abuse within the IBLP.

Join our patreon community to support this podcast. You can find us on TikTok and Instagram.

In our latest episode we jump into the turbulent waters of gendered messages and purity culture with a critical eye on the Christian advice book, 'For Young Women Only'—or as we like to call it, “How to NOT Cause a Guy to Stumble.” Published in the early 2000s, this book perpetuates harmful beliefs about gender, sexuality, and the role of women in the church, echoing through youth groups and beyond.

We dissect the enforced performance of masculinity, the unjust objectification of women's bodies, and the dangerous overlap of rape and purity cultures that unjustly places blame on women. Our discussion goes deeper, challenging the control exerted over thoughts and visuals, the male gaze, and the relentless standards set by modesty teachings and visual temptations, all underscored by eyebrow-raising survey results from teenage boys.

This episode is an unflinching conversation about the impacts of sexual assault and harassment, underscoring the urgent need for autonomy, consent education, and a seismic shift in attitudes toward women's bodies and choices.

Get ready, Ghosties, to break free from the shackles of high-control religion. It's time to unravel the mess, advocate for bodily autonomy, and maybe, just maybe, start healing.

Happy New Year Ghosties! We're back with an update and then we're sharing one of our favorite episodes where we talk to DL Mayfield in the midst of their deconversion from Christianity and we reflect on what the impact is on kids like us raised in high control religion.

Imagine a world, where you could admit that you were interested - nay, desirous of - sex. What?? That's nuts - ladies don't want that shit, right?? Get ready to think again: it's ok to want sex (contrary to popular DC Talk lyrics).

Join your triumphant trio as they talk with Dr. Laura Anderson about the literal pain and trauma that purity culture leaves in its wake. Did you, for instance, know that sex is supposed to feel good????? And that feeling good includes not having pain?

And what about that interesting "you're not married yet so shut that sexual anything down ASAP" to "you're married now, you gotta let that P into your V full force, or you're bad" transition? That's fun! No? It's terrible? OK, you're not wrong.

Long story short here? Purity culture is a disaster for all the people it has harmed, continues to harm today, and will continue to harm well into the future - unless....hear me out...unless, we refuse to let sexual repression ruin our experience of being human. Join us and learn how a few chaste women entered their permanent slut era, or at least have found some nice ways to reach orgasm. And that's worth some investment of your time and energy.

In closing: cum early, cum often. Love you! xoxo

"When Religion Hurts You: 

HEALING FROM RELIGIOUS TRAUMA AND THE IMPACT OF HIGH CONTROL RELIGION" Dr Laura Anderson, PHD 

Pre-Order: https://drlauraeanderson.com/book

"Transforming the Sacred Wound" by Peter Levin (Audio Book Only)

Witches and Christians haven’t always enjoyed one another’s company (see: all of church history, witch hunts, etc), but what if there’s more to it than ladies with ergot poisoning who may or may not have rode brooms around the house as a way to…pleasure…themselves…and a systematic femicide perpetuated by the patriarchy? 

When we met Dr. Melissa Bird and heard about her work as a Christian witch, we had to know more. Join your triumphant trio of 40-something moms to learn how there just might be room in the world to make space for all of who we are. Even if we’re charting new territory. In fact, it’s not really new at all - it’s just casting spells aka prayer and joining into the ongoing work of creation. 

Content heads up for this episode: prepare to hear the worst (or most epic) pickup line in the history of pickup hackery. Other than that, it’s rather shockingly trauma free for once.

Awaken your own graceful revolution and connect with Dr. Bird drmelissabird.com

FB, Twitter, TikTok, and IG @birdgirl1001

A message for our listeners from Dr. Melissa Bird:

For the last 3 months of 2022 I am offering a special 3 month coaching package. 7 1:1 coaching sessions, 1 misfit magic hour, 2 clairvoyant meditations. https://www.drmelissabird.com/coachingoffer

Through the month of October I am offering a Misfit Magic Hour BOGO special buy one get the next 50% off. 2 1 hour readings! Whoohoo! https://www.drmelissabird.com/misfit-magic-hour

I am booking speaking engagements at spiritual and religious conferences for women. Here is the link to learn more about my speaking https://www.drmelissabird.com/live-events

Books Dr. Bird Recommends:

Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson

Waking the Witch by Pam Grossman

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans

One afternoon, months and months ago, three loudmouth Type-A women gathered in Meg’s living room to record the inaugural episode of Holy Ghosting (“Panic at the Altar”). And if that weren’t enough sharing for one day, we decided to share our Testimonies and catch each other up on our walks, because that’s what fellowship is, we supposed. So if you’ve ever wondered how we went from Good Girls to whatever we are now, this is the episode for you.

Each of us had similar beginnings, but we each had a Very Specific Journey through and out of Evangelical Christianity. Pull some threads with us as we share pieces of our deconstruction and reconstruction stories.

Ever wondered how many sidebars Sarai could stick in one episode, find out now! Who among us majored in Bible? What the heck happened with these perfectly suitable evangelical Good Girls? Listen, enjoy, and then go ahead and work out your own Salvation, fear and trembling optional. 

Thank you for joining us for Season One of Holy Ghosting, we’re already working on Season Two, so we’ll see you in January!

We’ve launched a Patreon, and if you sign up in December at any level you will become a Founding Member and be granted Eternal Ghostie Benefits. Learn more at https://www.patreon.com/holyghosting

Your fave middle-aged mom apostates connect with their friend Shaunea, a black woman who grew up in almost exclusively white spaces when her white mother converted to Christianity in the 1980’s. Sha’s mom had the kind of testimony Evangelicals went batshit crazy for back then (and still now!)

Sha’s story about growing up black in a white Evangelical world reveals some of the deeper beliefs and White Supremacist/Christian Nationalist leanings that have been with the American Evangelical church from…probably the beginning, let’s be real. Join Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai as they listen and discover a long-suppressed reality - when people are not able to be themselves, where belonging is conditional to how one looks, acts, talks, and moves through the world - including the color of their skin (sorry, D.C. Talk - being colorblind isn’t a thing and it’s actually racist, heads up!)….well, it doesn’t do anybody any good to continue to allow that system to flourish and persist. Let’s confront some of the uglier sides of who we were as Evangelical white kids (say Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai) and learn from people who had a much more alienating and disempowering experience than we did. Which…if you’ve listened to even 10 minutes of a single episode of Holy Ghosting, you realize is saying A LOT. 

This is the last of our four-episode series "Too Many Cults", where Lindsay and Krispin (from the Prophetic Imagination Station and Linds' BIL) recap the docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.TW: religious abuse, sexual abuse, family cover-up of abuse, psychological abuse, harsh punishment of children), controlling parenting, grooming, and sexual abuse. 

Most of this episode discusses sexual abuse and child pornography.

A short section 13:55-22:55 discusses the plan for Christian homeschoolers to go to Washington and Republican politics, and also current youtube Christian influencers. 

39:40-end is free of triggers around sexual abuse, and discusses the hope of survivors of IBLP. 

The episode talks about how the Duggar family and friends respond to Josh Duggar's allegations, how they respond to the sexual abuse of girls. There's also discussion of abuse charges and also legal retaliation. There's a short portion about how conservative Christians are trying to hold cultural power through politics and social media. We also talk a bit about the survivors of IBLP and how they've been healing and recovering from trauma.

Join our Patreon community

Hang out with us on socials TikTok and Instagram.

Check out our YouTube Channel

Episode CW: we talk about our bodies, restrictive eating, diet culture, sexual repression

In this soulful episode of Holy Ghosting, Meg and Sarai Johnson delve into the deeply personal journey of embodiment and the common struggle of feeling disconnected from our own bodies—something many of us face, especially if we grew up in high-control religious settings. They unwrap how cultural and religious scripts have shaped our views on body image and why it’s crucial to cultivate self-care and self-love.

Together, they tackle the tough stuff: the impacts of purity culture and diet culture, and why intuitive eating can be a game-changer. They champion the idea of radical self-care, urging everyone to weave together the pieces of self and body to reclaim their personal power and agency.

In this first episode of their "In This Body" Series, Meg and Sarai share some practical tips on embracing change and making yourself a priority because sometimes, the most revolutionary act is choosing to love yourself.

Chapters

00:00 The Journey of Embodiment

02:28 Awakening to Physical Awareness

06:45 Cultural and Religious Disconnection

10:21 The Impact of Purity Culture

13:02 Food, Body Image, and Self-Love

18:11 Intuitive Eating and Self-Care

20:50 Reclaiming Sexuality and Pleasure

24:05 The Power of Self-Ownership

27:27 Navigating Community and Expectations

31:26 Integration vs. Separation

36:18 The Importance of Self-Care

38:59 Redefining Selfishness

41:56 Embracing Needs and Vulnerability

47:01 The Process of Becoming

52:44 Finding Freedom in Embodiment

Have you ever felt like you didn't have a voice? Or that you didn't feel safe to talk about your needs or interests in your relationships, workplaces, your home -- uh, church, maybe?

Well, today your favorite Apostolic Apostates, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai join forces with Meredith Holley of Eris Resolution to dig into the basics of Empowered Communication.

Learn how to find your voice, how high control religion taught us disempowered communication strategies, and get ready for some juicy gossip about how Meredith's first betrothal (at the age of 7) worked out.

Meredith is the cohost of The Empowered Communication Podcast, which focuses primarily on workplace communication. Meredith was also a civil rights litigator, expert shit talker, and - Oh! Also? This woman was raised in a cult, so she knows a thing or two about how to find yourself and speak your truth after high control religion.

This is the first in a special four-episode series: Too Many Cults, hosted by Lindsay and Krispin (from the Prophetic Imagination Station). They recap the docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets [Amazon Prime] TW: religious abuse, sexual abuse, family cover-up of abuse

We’re recapping the episodes, talking about what stands out to us, and processing some religious trauma along the way. Oh! And you can find episodes on both podcasts, a true crossover series!

We're calling the series Too Many Cults, inspired by the video Too Many Cooks, which you should go watch!

In this episode, we talk about how Bill Gothard’s teachings of the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP) are incredibly similar to mainstream evangelicalism and the Focus on the Family we all grew up with. Bill Gothard and Dr. Dobson were incredibly similar and created very similar dysfunctional family cultures (the latter just had fewer kids).

It's an episode about motherhood! It's an episode about feminism! It's an episode about feminism and motherhood and all of the fun messages we were taught about being a Good Christian Girl™!

In this episode we get into all the nitty gritty of what it means to identify as a woman in The United States of Evangelical America. 

Here are just a few of the things we cover:

-The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

-Concerned Women for America and the work of Phyllis Schlafly (spoiler: she's not in favor of equal rights for women! Not great!)

-The (very few) positive female role models that exist in the Bible (and what was so wrong with Vashti anyway? And Jezebel got a bad rap!)

-SPAGHETTI STRAPS AND THE PROBLEM OF SHOWING TOO MUCH SEXY SHOULDER

-The mixed messages about what it meant to be a woman in Evangelical Christianity

-Passing the Bechdel Test in your own damn IG bio

-How Mothers are treated like garbage in this country. Paid maternity leave and free healthcare for all, plz.

-The church’s insistence on giving women carnations on Mother’s Day. WHY?

-How it’s none of your business if people are going to have a baby or not! (Lookin’ at you, Vanessa Lachey)

-You can be anything and do anyone! You can change your name or your gender! You don’t have to take your husband’s name!

-Motherhood is not the highest and only calling for women. It is a choice and we support your choice to be or not to be a mother. Period.

-Motherhood is a gift and also a pain in the ass. Happy Mother’s Day, call your senators, and support the Equal Rights Amendment. The end.

To learn more about how to support the Equal Rights Movement please visit: https://www.eracoalition.org/

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/holyghosting

Follow us on social: 

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@holyghosting

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

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/holyghosting

In this very special episode of Holy Ghosting, we got to chat with everyone’s favorite rogue CCM songwriter, Derek Webb of Caedmon’s Call! If you were an evangelical Christian in the 90’s/2000’s, you know who we’re talkin about. Caedmon’s Call was THE band of youth groups and Bible colleges. And as it turns out, Derek is quite literally from a Long Line of Leavers (SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?!) and after a long and successful career in the Christian music industry, he decided to leave Christianity entirely. He’s made a lot of music about his faith journey, and has been refreshingly open and honest along the way.

p.s. Derek is on tour currently, debuting songs from his soon-to-be released album, The Jesus Hypothesis. Tickets and info at derekwebb.com

That said, we were super excited to sit down and chat with Derek about alllllllllll the things. We talked about his CCM days, his “fall from grace”, deconversion, solo career, and all that fun stuff! (We also heard a little from his adorable pup, Etta.) We got into all the nitty gritty of evangelical Christianity and were floored by his kind and graceful way of speaking about the messiness of faith and doubt and everything in between. And we talked about David Bazan (because if you’re talkin about deconstruction, it always comes back to Bazan).

Just trust us when we say we had the best conversation with Derek and he made us feel a part of something bigger and it made us feel thankful for YOU (our Ghosties!) and this rad community we’re building. Now stop reading and go listen to the interview!

Join your bestie ghostie trifecta, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai as we have an amazing conversation with a particularly rad human being. Val is one of Meg's longtime dear friends, raised the same funky way we were in the Evangelical church.

Listen as Val shares her journey of coming out in her 30's. Y'all, repression is REAL!

She has a beautiful story to tell about self-discovery, community building, and representation. Most of all, she has clearly learned to trust herself - a massive accomplishment for those of us who were raised to trust only those who told us what god supposedly wanted for our lives. 

Join our Patreon community to support this podcast. You can find us on TikTok YouTube and Instagram.

Hiiiii! We’re surprising you this week with an extra special bonus extravaganza bonanza to let our beautiful Ghosties know we’ve launched a *drumrollllllllll* Patreon. Can you even believe it? You can?? Well, good. Because it’s the gospel truth. 

We wanted to let y’all know that you, if you are so bold as to join the Ghostie brigade at any level before 12:00 AM on January 1, 2023, you’ll be an Eternal Ghostie with all access to everything we create now and into perpetuity, or until we all die, whatever comes first.

That’s wild! It’s amazing! It’s….some might say…”priceless.” Stay tuned 'till the end of the episode for all the amazing details, but spoiler, you can just go to Patreon.com/HolyGhosting to join today - and tell all your Ghost-like friends, because this will be a one-time deal December ONLY (P.S. But, also, like, now, so some of November too).

Come to the altar today, folks, and commit your life to…honestly, whatever you want or don't, but more importantly, let’s be friends and you do you! *kiss-kiss*

Anyway - this episode is bonus in the most bonusey way because it’s a behind the scenes welcome into the inner world of your middle aged mom friends as we talk amongst themselves to get ready to record an episode.

Join us in taking the Spiritual Gifts Quiz at www.giftstest.com (not a sponsor! We got nothin’ from them besides a list of our top five spiritual gifts, straight from the mouth of our sweet baby Yoda).

From the one-piece swimsuits and the oversized free t-shirts all the way to the tearful confessionals and personal testimonies around a bonfire, Evangelical Christian summer camps were a masterpiece of emotional manipulation and unadulterated peer on peer action. 

Join Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai - a bevy of former camp attendees (and a lifer in the bunch, who would reconvert TODAY if a lifelong summer camp job opened up for her) - as they discuss the Camp ExperienceTM. Whether they were finding sneaky ways to be near crushes, witnessing gross-out challenges in the mess hall, or reliving an experience with a rattlesnake that is less parable and more badass than you'd expect, these maidens were camp mavens. 

If you’re a former church kid who grew up going to camp, you’ll find some familiar tales of the dust-laden camps where craft shacks ruled the day, all the way to the fanciest-pants California camps with pools and comparatively luxurious cabins *with bathrooms INSIDE THEM*, and hopefully, it will be a relatively soothing trip down memory lane. Hey, even Exvangelicals need a break sometimes, and what’s better than some good, clean, camp-based fun?

What happens when you're deconstructing with your middle-aged mom friends...and you get to a point where you're like, cool, I'm no longer a part of this religion, but how do I live now?

Short answer: Howsoever you fucking want; but more specifically, it's something you get to work out with fear and trembling, just like you probably did with your own salvation.

Join your fave apostates as they discuss what this strange post-pandemic peri-apocalyptic year has wrought - at least at a micro-level.

🔍 Lindsay's Leap: From the tangled threads of faith, Lindsay's been unraveling a spirituality that's as authentic as her favorite pair of jeans. Spoiler: It's a perfect fit.

🌈 Sarai's Shift: Breaking free from a long-term relationship, Sarai embraced her full, fabulous queerness. It's a story of transformation, glitter, and growing into her own.

💫 Meg's Metamorphosis: God, the universe, and everything in between - Meg's been reshaping her beliefs and sexuality into a mosaic that's uniquely hers.

Be it laughter or lamentation, your hosts unwrap the lessons learned, hopes for the future, and the reality that sometimes...it's just gonna be dark for a while, even while you're living into your fullest, biggest self.

Dare to jump into the fray and reflect on the places you've been this year - and where you hope to walk in the coming journey around the sun.

If you're anything like the Unholy Trinity (Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai), you might have occasion to peel back layers on healing generational trauma, tap into your own power, and maybe even learning how and when to ask for help. Join with all Ghosties everywhere to co-create an inclusive community, dreaming up vibrant futures, and setting those oh-so-important boundaries.

Let's celebrate the journey of being wonderfully, messily human together.

#SelfDiscovery #FaithJourney #QueerPride #GenerationalHealing #HolyGhostingPodcast

Support Here

What does one do with the conundrum of abortion? When Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai were growing up, the Evangelical Christian stance on abortion was never, ever, no way, no how. The church made specious (and racist, xenophobic, peri-holocaust denying or at best minimizing) arguments meant to tug at the heartstrings of nice, Christian, white ladies. Present-day: billboards litter the interstates of America, showing bright-eyed (almost exclusively white) babies with ominous words like “abortion stops a beating heart” emblazoned across their tidily diapered butts; pro-choice and pro-life people don’t even speak the same language much less know how to fight in the same battle; and the powers that be have successfully edged Roe v Wade toward the dustbin of history. 

Enter some deconstructing, young former Evangelicals (one of whom shamefully admitted she voted for George W. Bush…TWICE) and they start to ask questions about this once untouchable medical procedure. Your 40-ish mom friends talk through the taboo tornado of purity culture (patriarchy), Nice Christian White Ladies (white supremacy), and hit action movies from bygone decades, oh and abortion...all while we realize it was never really about the babies…and Evangelicals didn’t give any toots about abortion until, like, a year or two before our hosts were all born. How would we have known when we were standing on the streets in our respective hometowns begging people to just realize that life begins at conception (but where does conception begin? Oh…I think we’re in an inception now)…anyway…give it a listen! And join the conversation with us at HolyGhosting.com

TikTok@holyghosting

Instagram & Twitter @holyghostingpod

If you or someone you know needs abortion healthcare call the NAF Hotline at 1-800-772-9100 for help and to learn about safe options for ending a pregnancy.

ProChoice.org

Samatha Bee Episode

Meg opens up about her experiences in YWAM. You don't want to miss this episode in our Youth With A Mission series.

Just when you thought we were done with ghouls and horrors for the year, we're here to point out that the holidays are just around the corner...so beware! Because they love you, your terrific trio of hosts asked Dr. Laura Anderson back to give us all some tools to use at the dinner table and beyond.

Dr. Laura has an array of ways to handle family communication around challenging, triggering, and re-traumatizing topics, so you can come home whole and unscathed. Everybody can pick up some great strategies for maintaining harmony - and if not that, prioritizing your sanity when it comes to family.

What’s one thing you regret NOT doing as a young evangelical? If you’re like us, it probably had something to do with sex. Don’t worry, the entire episode isn’t about premarital sexual things…but most of it is. So, content warning for those of you who want to be the ones to tell your teens that self-pleasure is good and to worry more about giving consent and getting consent than crossing an imaginary purity boundary imposed by people that were obsessed with our virginity. 

But that isn’t the only thing these Good Christian Girls®, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai, rebelled against. This week we’re gossiping about our younger selves and revealing the secrets we thought would stay in our journals until we died, or until we burned them in a cleansing ritual (you guess if it’ll be the holy kind or the witchy kind). 

We want to hear your stories of rebellion, too. How did you rebuke the church elders or reply to a bat-shit-crazy interpretation of scripture or call out the youth pastor? Send us your stories and we’ll share them with our community. We’re louder together and they can’t shut us ALL up. 

Oh. And for the faithful reader and listener...there's a bonus ending if your loyalty and patience are never-ending. Hint: If you're a Marvel fan, you know to wait.

TikTok @holyghosting

IG @holyghostingpod

Have you ever known some hetero Christian married couple who were together a real long time and then one of them is like, “oops, I’m gay!” and they break up? A lot of us have known folks in this position. And we also remember the fallout and the “prayer chain” (read: gossip train) buzz when these woes befell our brethren. 

By the way, is there such a thing as “sisthren?” or “siblingthren?” There should be. We digress. 

Long story short, this podcast is hosted by a sisthren of “oops, I’m gay!” women in their 40’s. Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai have all experienced different journeys in discovering, accepting, and embracing their queerness. In this episode, our Holy Ghosting triumvirate share the ways their paths wound from compulsory heteronormativity toward full awareness of their unique sexualities. 

In this episode topics include feeling like imposters, finding acceptance and love in the LGBTQIA2S+++ community, and navigating the aftermath of a lifetime of mandatory sexual repression. 

Content Warning: welp. These broads definitely talk a lot about LGBTQIA2s+ history including discussion of internalized homophobia, general homophobia as disseminated by the evangelical right wing from the 80’s until…um, right now, and honestly, the hosts are wont to talk about sexual trauma kind of a lot. Listen with care, and if it’s not an episode that feels good to you, take a beat and take good care of your beautiful human self. 

Don't get spooked!

Before we dive into the good, clean fun (explicit fun, so with all the swears still) of the episode, please take note if you are a human with regular human emotions. This episode contains a few campfire horror stories about strange events and spooky shit that happened in our youths. Content warning includes: demon possession, youth pastors grooming…well, youth, animal death (in a DEEPLY disturbing way), and, if you love Sarai’s conspiracy theories, there’s a real humdinger in this episode. 

For the bravest among us who can wade these dark and murky waters, carry on.

As Good Christian Girls®, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai grew up in the shadow of the Satanic Panic, which made Halloween a ghastly time for Evangelicals. To create a safe haven from the ghosts and witches and satan worshippers (can we stop for a moment and appreciate that this was a THING we all learned??? That satan worshippers are marauding about your suburbs and sacrificing stray cats??)…ahem, the safe haven, that is, was one that was nestled inside the holy walls of a church. Harvest Parties! (Or Harvest Festivals! If you were extra). 

Wind your way through the emerging Halloween appreciation your 40-Something Mom Friends are experiencing in their own special ways. And then?? Then! Get on the sosh meeds and tell us your favorite Evangelical childhood antics - anybody dress up like Larry the Cucumber? We need to know, and we need to see the photographic evidence, PLEASE!

TikTok @holyghosting

IG @holyghostingpod

It's beginning to look a lot like X-mas - you know, with the silver bells, the Santa at the mall, the carnage left behind when people utter the phrase "Happy Holidays..."

Your Bible Busting Besties, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai are joined by the man behind the myth, the legend, The Original Sinfluencer, Joshua Colburn. Get in on the delightful hangout and learn who *really* canceled Christmas (spoiler: The Damn Puritans, good lort, those people), why Bill O'Reillly should be crowned a patron saint of Evangelical Christianity, and get a little sample of what post-Evangelical holiday tunes sound like.

We all know Evangelical Christians are amazing at Scrooging away at everybody else's everything while claiming they are persecuted by the heathen masses. This is one space where they do it so extra well.

A Brief History of the War on Christmas, Alex Altman, Time Magazine, December 24, 2008

https://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868542,00.html 

Every holiday season brings tidings of great joy and shiny toys for the girls and boys (and people) who celebrate whatever holidays. For evangelical kids, the gifts kept giving all year long, because ours were…spiritual. 

Join Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai as they troll through their past and reanimate their spiritual ghosts, we mean gifts. Remember words normals never use (exhortation, anyone??), join us as we talk through the controversy surrounding tongues (with and without interpretation, nerds), and rediscover one key gift all three of us share: Discernment. (We will wait for your collective gasp!)

Ever wonder what spiritual gifts were all about? Even if you don’t believe the stuff you were raised with, what can we do with this information? Turns out Discernment is a pretty rad signifier of having intuition and listening to it. And, the gift of Administration leads a kid to just absolutely love paperwork and be the boss-betch of the world. And of course, Hospitality makes all potlucks possible - and science says nobody can survive without being forced to eat room temperature green bean casserole at least once. Plus! Bonus: Stay tuned next week for a special release (Our Spiritual Gift to you, dear Ghostie), as we release behind the scenes content of the three of us middle aged mom friends reconstructing our top five spiritual gifts, and deconstructing the leftover shreds of pain and shame and doubt and turning them to wailing laughter and hopefully, something useful we can all still take from our experience. Yay! It’s fun! It’s gifts! 

Hi Ghosties! What's your summer been like? Ours were wild! Your hosts, Lindsay, Meg and Sarai start this episode by sharing our summer experiences, personal growth and big news about the podcast. AND THEN!!!! Ekkk! We celebrate Amy Grant. We talk about her legacy and her influence on our lives, discussing our favorite album art, our desert island song and the controversies surrounding her divorce. We get into the scandal and the redemption of our favorite crossover pop star on the newest episode of Holy Ghosting

Protect your peace: CW: Suicide, Depression, dark thoughts, religious ocd

Anna Gazmarian shares her spiritual and mental health journey with Lindsay and Meg.

Get Anna's book, out now! Devout: A Memoir of Doubt

A lot of things were considered real bad in the 80’s and 90’s - especially for evangelical kids like your fave trio, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai. The devil, yikes! Having boobs, terrible! Even thinking about or knowing anybody who drank any kind of alcohol?? NO! And especially…DRUGS. 

Then again, in the 80’s and 90’s, drugs were bad for everyone, because Nancy Reagan said so. 

This season is all about Taboos! In this episode, we delve into the realm of substances and how we’ve learned where, when, and how substances harm or help us.

“Before we can ask an addict to say no to drugs we have to give them something to say yes to.” Gabor Maté, MD In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

This Naked Mind by Annie Grace

Growing up neurodivergent and in the throes of evangelicalism, a high control and fear-based religion, offered DL Mayfield one choice...to be the best darn good girl she could be, the bestest christian and martyr for the lord, and to do it with perfection and grace. And so she did. FOR YEARS, DECADES even!

Come along on a wild ride as we hear how DL Mayfield (Lindsay's sister!!!) has begun to disentangle her life from the world she grew up in after her autism diagnosis...and now she's Holy Ghosting.

Content heads up: rape, sexual assault, and institutional irresponsibility. 

The Evangelical church has quite an interesting relationship with capitalism and exploitation, and guess who cares about that? We do! And bonus: Fina of the Mindful Minds podcast cares about this too, so buckle up as she joins the Unfaithful Few, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai, on today’s episode. 

Learn about how uncannily (and horrifically) THE SAME it is to grow up in the Evangelical church as a human being, especially one who is not a cis man, as it was 20 years ago when these middle aged mom friends got all tangled up in purity culture. Fina, a relatively recent college grad, tells your aghast hosts about her life in the church as a volunteer and as a survivor of sexual assault. Not only is this lack of evolution unacceptable, but it is also time for these institutions and the people who participate in them to take accountability for the lives they have failed to care about and support. It’s not pretty, and it’s not cool, but it’s true and happening - so let’s talk about it and uncover ways we might make different choices for ourselves now, as we heal from the experience of exploitation and repression the church foisted upon us. And more importantly, let’s start looking at ways religious institutions must catch up with the rest of society in some key ways.

Support Holy Ghosting and become a part of our Patreon community

We want to be friends!! TikTok YouTube and Instagram

Y’all. Flamy Grant is this podcast’s favorite Drag Queen, and today’s episode is glorious because we get to talk with her! Join Meg and an ailing Sarai, as well as Lindsay, in spirit, as they chat with Flamy about queer joy and how we can all make more room to be more compassionate to ourselves and others.

Pride month is full of celebration and joy AND ALSO a lot of your fave middle aged mom friends being their MOST middle aged mom-ness with relentless reminders to call your legislators and all the above. And all that’s true and still stands (eat your damn vegetables!) - yet, let’s not forget about the joy of finally being able to show up as fully, truly, and completely one’s self. By embracing our sexuality and who we love (whether it’s allowed by the religious programming we’ve endured or no) we are able to set ourselves and others free.

Support Holy Ghosting and become a part of our Patreon community

We want to be friends!! TikTok YouTube and Instagram

Find more information about Flamy Grant here

Flamy Grant TikTok

Welcome, Ghosties! This episode, "It's Good To Feel Good," brings the amazing duo of Julia and Jeremiah from the Sexvangelicals podcast to talk with Meg & Sarai about the journey from sexual repression to liberation, shedding light on how purity culture has shaped our views on intimacy and desire. We get INTO IT today, sharing personal stories and things we've learned about reclaiming bodily autonomy, exploring pleasures beyond shame, and challenging conventional norms like monogamy.

• From Repression to Expression: Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of deconstructing religious beliefs around sex. Our guests share their transformative journeys from sexual repression to embracing full, joyful expression.
• Shedding the Shame: We'll unravel the threads of shame and outdated gender scripts that high control religions often weave around our desires and relationships.
• Rediscovering Pleasure: Discover how therapies like sensate focus can help us explore touch and intimacy without the pressure of performance, paving the way for a healthier connection with our bodies.
• Challenging Norms: Why is monogamy the default? We’re discussing how expanding perspectives on relationships can lead to a more fulfilling sexual life.
• Embodiment and Healing: We wrap up with powerful insights on embodying pleasure, the therapeutic power of yoga, and making our bodies a safe haven for our souls.

Sexual liberation and healing from trauma are not just topics; they’re pathways to deeper self-discovery and healthier relationships. Whether you're navigating these waters yourself or just curious about the conversation, there’s something in this episode for everyone.

Find the Sexvangelicals, Julia & Jeremiah, at Sexvangelicals.com

It’s no surprise “God Hates Divorce” or at least “God Hates Divorce for Women” in evangelical christianity. There’s only one thing that will end a marriage in God’s eyes…ADULTERY. But even then, sometimes it’s best to forgive (the man) and stay married! 

We’re all big fans of personal choice over here, even if you signed a legal (gasp!) document one time when you were 20 (oh, was that just Meg?!) you don’t HAVE to stay in a relationship you don’t like (you don’t even have to say your reason). Join us for a healing episode celebrating the TABOO of divorce!

Ghosties! Get ready for a month of amazing interviews celebrating PRIDE.

Our first episode of this 4-Part Mini Series is a conversation with Kevin Garcia, author (of many things and most recently), “What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Divine Self.”

Kevin is a mystic who has discovered a path back to himself and his spirituality after a lifetime of Evangelical gay-shaming…nay, gay-annihilating… doctrine and practice. Luckily, the Vengeful Evangelical God™️ doesn’t have a monopoly on spirituality. Kevin, like your fab three faves (Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai), has been able to carve a beautiful spiritual life out for himself - and he helps others do the same with his work today. You won’t want to miss this or any other Pride conversation this month, so be sure to subscribe, tell all your friends, and leave a nice review if you have the inkling to do so. :) 

Love is Love and We Love YOU! 

Resources from this episode:

Pray Away (Documentary on Netflix)

App Suggestions: Headspace, Bloom

Reading Suggestions: A Course in Miracles, The Soul of RUMI

Kevin’s Podcast: A Tiny Revolution

Socials @thekevingarcia

TikTok @thekevingarcia_ 

Books by Kevin Garcia

“Bad Theology Kills” BadTheologyKills.com

“What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Devine Self”

Available for Pre-Sale Now! Coming January 2024

When we were kids, we were told to listen to “the voice of God” which was usually something someone else told us, and rarely, if ever, something we actually “heard” with our ears. 

Even our own intuition couldn’t possibly be right, so we spent our childhoods and young adulthoods under the impression that we couldn’t make a decision lest we be out of God’s will. 

In the Bible, there are SO MANY stories about people using divination to understand what they perceived the will of God to be - and some of those stories (Gideon, for instance) are held up as triumphs…whereas others are condemned (King Saul consulting a medium or fortune teller - Jehova was like, NOPE, you’re not King anymore). What is divination, anyway? Will you be smoted from the earth if you use it? (spoiler: no)  

Divination is the practice of getting insight into a question or situation, it's not scary at all, we promise.

Things you can read about divination (if you dare!)

Divination is terrible and a sin: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-divination.html

References in the Old Testament to Divination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft_and_divination_in_the_Hebrew_Bible

A Very Fun Article About Christians and Magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_magic

In this episode, Meg and Lindsay chat with Crystal Britt, a licensed clinical social worker and actual therapist about the famed book, ‘The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts’ by pastor (NOT therapist) Gary Chapman. We talk about how the Five Love Languages are reductive, gendered, and heteronormative and how there are many better resources for communication in relationships. 

Christians especially love this read and recommend the Five Love Languages as if the Lord himself wrote this book. Why is that? Welp, we get into it with the lovely Crystal Britt throughout this episode. (Spoiler alert: it’s the misogyny.)

Follow Crystal Everywhere@itscrystalbritt 

Podcast: Time To Lean

Recommended:

Bell Hooks:  All About Love 

The Gottman's:  7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work 

Dr. Rachel Vanderbuilt on TikTok - Queer Focus

Dr. Stan Tatkin:  Wired For Love

Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.:  Come As You Are & Come Together

Jessica Fern:  Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Marisa G. Franco PhD:  Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends

Fresh Starts Registry - A resource place to share your post-divorce needs

What happens when a homeschooled horse girl feels “god put Africa on her heart?” Well. It could be a lot of things. In fact, your own fave Ghostie Hostie, Lindsay, was exactly this kind of girlie. And yet! Just as two paths diverge in a yellow wood, so do our choices take us to different places. Lindsay, for one, went on a medical mission to Uganda, wore scrubs, and - shockingly - didn’t perform a single medical intervention that would require training, certification, or licensure. 

For Renee Bach, the white missionary who is the subject of Savior Complex an HBO Original Documentary Series, she chose a path (hopefully) less taken and went full speed ahead providing services that were way beyond her training and competency - with dire results.

Join your thrilling throuple, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai, as they discuss the second half of the Max docuseries, Savior Complex.

Listen to Part One of our Recap Here

They get down and dirty into the accusations surrounding Renee as No White Saviors picks up momentum online, talk a whole load of shit about Renee’s doting mother, Laurie Bach, and wrestle with the centering of white voices and behaviors that are rife within this story (including ours!)

While it’s useful, at times, to wrap our minds around something by defaulting to narratives with good guys and bad guys (or…good homeschool horse girls vs bad ones?), real life is much more complicated than all that. What we end up with is a very gray story with a lot of problematic white women centering themselves in it. Which you can hear more of while your ghostie hosts do a little of that too, hopefully in a helpful way. 

If you grew up with Creationism instead of Science or had odd electives like Lapidary or Little House on the Prairie Curriculum then you may have been schooled by Christian Education! 

Our three hosts share all about their sheltered education from unschooling, homeschooling, and private education …so you know there are some pretty wild stories from Christian Campus life. 

If you’d like to support the show, become a Ghostie at Patreon.com/holyghosting

In the harrowing days of puberty, evangelical young women and girls were foisted into a shame spiral that kept them tame and readily codependent for…maybe their entire lives. Their every move governed by the grave understanding that it was their job to “not cause your brother to stumble,” they walked about with hunched shoulders, tucked their butts, and generally shut their every desire or bodily sensation DOWN, and fast. They were especially horrified by their own breasticles, as they seemed to cause their “brothers” to stumble despite their best efforts to wear Modest Is Hottest fashion (read: not fashion). 

Join Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai - three cisgendered ladies whose boobs have haunted them their entire post-pubescent lives - as they uncover the real meaning behind the context of that stupid “brothers stumbling” BS, and reckon with the aftermath of blaming oneself for literally everybody else’s problems and working their lifelong butts off to appease and make others feel more comfortable in their presence. 

If you’re a former church kid who grew up when Modest really was Hottest, whether cis, trans, queer, or straight, you’ll recognize these damaging ideas. Hopefully, as these three boob-havers discuss their experiences with the oppression and abuse grooming inherent in Purity Culture, you might be able to unwind a little bit of your own bosom-or non-bosom related woes. Good news, though: knowing is half the battle, and…half is pretty good progress, tbh. 

Just when you think you’ve had your fill of problematic white women, Renee Bach comes along. Look, your Murder of MILFs (hey! It stands for “Mom I’d Like to Friend,” get your head out of the gutter!) watched “Savior Complex,” a documentary detailing the ascent of a young missionary, Renee Bach and Serving His Children, the organization she founded and operated in Uganda. At the wise and totally reasonable age of 19, she discovered she had “a heart for Africa” and was called by God. 

What started out as a feeding program rapidly mushroomed into an unlicensed medical clinic. Renee herself, homeschooled horse girl with no medical training or credentials took it upon herself to conduct medical procedures on malnourished children with disastrous results. 

We watched this horror so you don’t have to! The docu-series is on HBO Max and is 3 episodes in total - in this episode, we tackle the first episode and part of the second. (Part 2 will be out soon!)

Know this: you’re going to need to gird your loins (or ears), because the conversation includes extremely ill and malnourished children, infant and child death, white supremacy, and Renée’s mom, Laurie Bach, who might be the biggest trigger of all…

SURPRISE! We couldn't stay quiet about politics...so we're sharing a bonus episode! Our advice in a nutshell? Vote your VALUES.

If you “search engine” * the term “What should I NEVER talk about?” you’ll get a lot of lists. Most of those lists include sex, death, money, and especially religion and politics. Unfortunately, for those consumed with propriety, this podcast pretty much covers all of them at one point or another.

In this episode, join your favorite throuple, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai, to learn about how their Evangelical upbringing informed (or misinformed, more accurately) the shape of their political lives and choices. From being raised on a steady diet of Rush Limbaugh to using Christian Voter Guides -- codename: “how to be a Republican no matter how far it leads you from your supposed ‘biblical worldview’ -- to how the three of them have unraveled themselves from the entanglement of the church and the right-wing in America. 

Important sidebars and rabbit** trails this episode include: health care is a human right, Oregon-specific political rants, and the strange affection Lindsay and Sarai both harbor toward the fearfully departed Limbaugh, PLUS a surprise worship song that is sure to tug at your heartstrings. It was written and performed by Kermit The Frog, originally.

Want to chat about fun (read: terrible) things like Christian Nationalism (aka White Supremacy and Colonialist Idealism) and wonderful things (read: actually wonderful) like voting by mail? Hit us up.

And we’d love, as always, to hear your stories about this work of dismantling your ideologies after Evangelicalism. Or during it, in some cases, which, wow, that is a trip. Or a stumble, depending on who you ask.

TikTok @holyghosting

IG @holyghostingpod

*looking at you, Google, you don’t get a mention unless you sponsor this podcast

**don't worry there isn't another terrible story involving a rabbit in this episode (but if you missed that one, check out our Halloween Episode!)

Ahoy, Ghosties! While we're still on break until we launch our next episodes starting in September, we missed you too much to stay all the way away. Give a listen to a classic episode from our first season and cringe at the stories of white saviorism, poverty tourism, and otherwise ghastly evangelizing activities Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai performed in their respective youths.

Don't forget to rate (an honest five stars, oh please!) and review this podcast so other listeners like you can find us! Rock and roll.

Support Holy Ghosting and become a part of our Patreon community

We want to be friends!! TikTok YouTube and Instagram

Imagine, giving birth to a beautiful baby…assigning them a gender, and just a few years later finding out they already know themselves better than we ever could. Hearing “I’m a girl” from a kiddo you assumed was a boy can elicit a lot of reactions. Today we talk to two moms who heard their kids when their children told them who they really are and have chosen to raise them to affirm their respective genders. Their reactions were to believe and nurture their unique and beautiful children.

That’s what is happening in families across the world - and in America, a whooooole chunk of the country is actively trying to erase these kids (and their adult counterparts!) with anti-trans legislation. We can’t stand by while old white men chat in state halls about who gets to pee where when our kids’ very lives are on the line.

Join the unholy trinity, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai as they learn from two parents who have joyously embraced their kids’ identities, and raise them to affirm and support who their kids know they are. Have trouble understanding folks who are trans? Stick with us as we talk a bit about how we’ve chosen to learn from the courageous, self-knowing humans who dare to be completely true to their entire selves as they show up in the world. Celebrate and support your trans friends and don’t let them be crushed by the hatred they face in the world. Stand beside the ones you love and believe them when they tell you who they really are. As Waterdeep would say, “Everyone’s Beautiful” (and you’re welcome for the very specific CCM deep cut).

————————————————————

Information about Trans suicide rates

ACLU guide to talking to people about attacks on Trans Youth

Human Rights Campaign: fight anti trans legislation.

In this episode, we dive into the not-so-wonderful world of Youth With a Mission, aka YWAM. We chat with our pal (and Lindsay’s sister), D.L. Mayfield about the history and horrors of the cult-like organization that began with one white guy's vision of young people sweeping the globe for Jesus. (Totally not creepy, right?)

Fast forward a few decades and YWAM is one of the largest missions organizations on the planet, with 1100 locations in 180+ countries and over 18,000 (unpaid!) staff.

It should come as no surprise to our listeners that YWAM is super problematic.. We get into all the cultiest aspects of this organization - from their Discipleship Training School to the forced trauma bonding that they call “Plumbline”. YWAM’s entire model is recruiting young people - before their prefrontal cortexes are fully formed - and they make it VERY hard to leave. If you do manage to escape the cult of YWAM, chances are you’ll be left with zero real-life skills with a side of religious trauma. 

We’ll be back in a few weeks with a part 2 where we hear from friends and listeners about their about their firsthand encounters with YWAM. (Spoiler alert: the reviews aren't exactly glowing.)

Links

-Check out DL and Krispin Mayfield’s brand new project, Strong Willed (all about recovering from religious authoritarian parenting) -

-DL Mayfield on Instagram - @d_l_mayfield

-Tiktok - @dlmayfield

In this crucial episode, we’re joined by Dr. Laura Anderson to unravel the complex web of religious trauma and its intersection with political turbulence. We're adventuring into the realms of election anxiety, religious healing, and Christian nationalism, we discover challenges and pathways to personal empowerment and peace.

What we're talking about this episode:

• Election Anxiety & Healing Trauma:How the current political climate exacerbates religious trauma and what it means for those caught at the intersection.
• The Christian Nationalism Conundrum: We break down the long game of Christian nationalism and its profound impact on personal and societal boundaries.
• Mastering Self-Care: Learn practical techniques for visualization, bodily awareness, and establishing emotional and physical boundaries, especially in tumultuous times.
• Navigating Family & Information Overload: Get insights on handling tricky family dynamics and shielding yourself from the chaos of constant news cycles.
• Embracing Change and Lightness: Amidst serious discussions, we find moments of lightness and strategies to embrace ease and joy in everyday life.

Dr. Laura Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You, and the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery have created the: Religious Trauma and the Elections Course: www.traumaresolutionandrecovery.com

In this season of the podcast, we’re talkin all about taboos. The people, places, things, and beliefs that never really quite fit into the narrow scope of evangelicalism. You know, all the things you couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t talk about because you were a Good Christian Girl™. Things like BODIES. Thanks to our ole friend Purity Culture, talking about bodies was weird. (You could even say it was TABOO!) And, if you were unlucky enough to be born with ample breasts - aka “Heavenly Hills” - well, then you were just shit outta luck.

But what about larger bodies? How did the evangelical church deal with fatness? (Spoiler alert: NOT GREAT!) To get into this triggering topic, we invited fat activist and body image coach, Amanda Martínez Beck, to chat with us about faith and fatness and everything in between.

Amanda brings us back to the very beginning, with the fall of humankind in the Garden of Eden. Because Adam and Eve ate something they shouldn’t. They didn’t have self control, they ate, and then they were ashamed about their naked bodies. And thus kicked off lifetimes of guilt and shame about our bodies! (Fun times!)

We tackle all sorts of fun topics in this episode. The famed “your body is a temple” scripture that is so often quoted at folks to guilt them into being thin. We get into fatphobia and its origins in white supremacy. The definitions of fat activist vs fat liberationist. Paul’s vision of eating clean vs unclean animals. And Amanda’s belief that the true purpose of our bodies is for relationship.

We cannot say enough good things about Amanda or this conversation. Go follow her on the interwebs, go buy her book, and support her important work in any way you can.

Follow Amanda TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram

Link to buy More of You: A Fat Girl’s Field Guide to the Modern World

CW: child abuse

Of your three Holy Hosts, two of them were homeschooled. Both take a perverse kind of pride in being not like other homeschoolers, but if you really think about it, that may be the most homeschool thing about them. All that said, homeschooling has been on a meteoric rise since the 1980’s (coincidentally, when the Christian Evangelical right wing marriage was consummated with the election of Ronald Reagan). It has been driven by conservative Evangelicals (a hilariously redundant thing to call them), who wanted to train up their children in the way they should go, according to these parental minds, and hope they don’t depart from it. 

The problem: Sometimes they don’t depart from it. 

Also problematic: the lack of regulation on homeschooling laws inadequately protect children from a heinously vacuous education, and also makes them susceptible to abuses that thrive in isolation and disconnection. Yet another exciting example as to why Focusing on the Family is a bad way to build a healthy society. Listen as your buds, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai arrive at no final conclusions, but talk about stuff and find that ambiguity is sometimes just alright.

Links: 

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/

https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/62-1/62arizlrev1.pdf

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-homeschoolings-rise-during-the-pandemic-has-impacted-traditional-school-enrollment

https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/advocacy/policy/abuse-in-homeschooling-environments/

https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/advocacy/policy/homeschooling-abuse-concealing-abuse/

Growing up in American Christianity in the 80’s and 90’s meant we were smack dab in the height of Dobson Domination. That is, Dr. James Dobson and his Focus on the Family ubiquity in the realm of parenting and child rearing advice, children’s entertainment (and, behind the scenes, lobbying and more exciting political dealings)…

If your parents “dared to discipline” their “strong-willed children” the Dobson way, you probably got a good amount of spanking, control, and fear in your childhood. Parents were told that breaking the spirit of a child would ensure they would become good little Christians and (just as or more importantly) good little Republicans. Amazingly, many of us didn’t end up that way - and the Boomers who listened to Focus on the Family’s terrible advice haven’t learned how to apologize for their behavior. And some of them are just left to wonder why their children have betrayed them. 

So…what now??? How do we learn to parent our children differently? How do we raise kids who become emotionally mature and intelligent? Join the conversation and hear how a handful of your fave middle-aged mom friends have been trying their hand at it so far. 

CW: Child Abuse, IBLP and Bill Gothard Abuse

If you're a survivor of IBLP please find support at: Recovering Grace

Shiny Happy People gave us a tiny glimpse into the realities of the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) cult. *Sidebar: be sure to listen to the Too Many Cults mini-series on this feed if you want to deep dive with our very own Lindsay and Krispin Mayfield from The Prophetic Imagination Station podcast! 

But even with 4 episodes, Shiny Happy People barely scratches the surface of daily life when you’re a kid in a cult. And so, we are thrilled to welcome Chad Harris, an IBLP survivor who shared his experiences on Shiny Happy People, to give us his testimony of how he Holy Ghosted IBLP and high control religion. 

Not only will you learn more about “encouragement” (read: “corporal punishment with mind games”), the Joshua Project (Christian Nationalism through political and military-esque training), and more; you’ll get insider tips on why white bread is the evil kind of bread, how the IBLP business model works (kind of), and whether snake oil really works or not.

(Our sincere apologies to Aubrey Gordon for forgetting to fangirl about you in this episode WE LOVE YOU TOO!!)

Here we are, June of 2022. Welcome summer, and farewell Mental Health Awareness Month (May!). But if we go back in time, just a little bit, to remember the good old days of the freewheeling 1980’s - when Evangelical churches and politicians were in the golden age of knitting together the interests of church and state (so cute!)…people were too busy to talk about mental health (at least not at church)…even though Mental Health Awareness Month started WAY BACK in 1949 - oh, we’ve had Mental Health issues all along as humans? No Way!

In this inaugural episode of Holy Ghosting, you’ll meet Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai - a bunch of former church girls who came of age in 80s and 90s American Evangelicalism. With a veritable host of mental health diagnoses between them, you’ll learn more than you ever thought you’d want to know about their own journeys through mental health by way of the church, and you might find echoes of your own experience if you were once a church kid too. 

We cover everything from the laying on of hands, the shame of mental health issues, using the Bible as therapy (instead of therapy because that wasn’t a thing we ever considered doing), and everything from visual hallucinations to the revolutionary idea that maybe, just maybe, telling other people the truth about our own mental wellbeing can help everybody be a little safer and a little better. 

If you or someone you know needs mental health support: text BRAVE to the Crisis Text Line at 741741

A trained crisis counselor will receive it and respond within minutes. Then, the crisis counselor will help you de-escalate your situation and connect you to help locally.

(Ultimate Spoiler: Oops, All White Supremacy - AGAIN?)

Have you lost some people you love to an internet conspiracy theory? Is your weird aunt saying wild shit about Jewish space lasers at family dinners? If so, you might be a human being who still believes the earth is a globe that orbits the sun, or, say, that gravity exists...and your friends and relatives and people from church, in particular, are doubting those generally agreed upon realities.

What gives? Why do Christians seem to fall for this stuff? And you know what - it's not because they already believe some pretty mind-boggling things - it's much deeper, more sinister, and perverse than that.

Join Cynane Shay and your unholy trinity of hosts as they discuss the rapid unraveling of reality, thought reform, fascism, and why do Christians believe this stuff? (Once again, the answer will be disappointingly obvious).

Cynane is the mastermind behind Taking Off the Tinfoil Hat. Find her work at:

https://takingoffthetinfoilhat.com/

Instagram: @taking.off.the.tinfoil.hat

TikTok: @takingoffthetinfoilhat

Content Heads-Up: this episode contains mentions of attempted suicide, mental health challenges, and sexuality and gender dysphoria. Listen with care and call your bestie if you need support. If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts about taking their own lives, please dial the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

Hey, Ghosties! What a day. As you know by now, Holy Ghosting is celebrating Pride this month with weekly episodes about different aspects of LGBTQ+ and Evangelicalism. This week, we are talking about Coming Out - and bonus: you'll get to hear directly from four listeners about how their entanglements with the church have worked out after they came out. Some folks are still (non-Evangelical) Christians, and others are no longer religious. All of them have something important to share about the challenges of being alienated from one's own sense of self, sexuality, and gender - and what it is like when you still make space for yourself to be all of who you are.

We all want to thank the listeners who took the time and effort to send us their stories. We also want to thank Joy Weber, our spritely right-hand enbie who read one of the stories submitted anonymously by a 41 yr old listener who is still healing her own soul after her very difficult coming out story.

Y'all. Be you. Be strong. Be safe. Be bold. You are not alone - and the more we all peel our layers of oppression away from ourselves, we make it safe for others to do the same. Rock and roll!

Join our patreon community to support this podcast. You can find us on TikTok and Instagram.

Something Old, Something New: a Tale of Two Mexicos 

Plus: save your soul and the world, inquire inside!

If you were an evangelical in your coming of age period at the turn of the millennium, you or several of your close God-fearing friends took a mission trip (or dozens). Mission trips were like…I guess a wandering train of [Jesus] Freaks setting up shop in one nation or another. Instead of fortune tellers, strongmen, and bearded ladies, mission trips brought a gimmicky way to “spread the gospel”.

Anyhoo, these trips were SO emo. We all got on board a bus or a plane or some kid’s mom’s minivan and entered the mission field. Once there, we’d build (and/or rebuild - allegedly) a playground or a church or an orphanage, or dress up like mimes, or stand on actual soapboxes on street corners - all to shout about the wonderful plan Jesus has for your life. Then, Mission Accomplished, we would leave enriched with culture, travel, and the uncanny feeling that perhaps this trip was for us all along. We’d reflect, shocked, that maybe we learned more from the people we came to help than we ever had to teach them. White saviors start early.

Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai talk about their experiences going to exotic places (including Oklahoma!!), spreading the gospel like a linen duvet cover (shout out to our 40-ish mom friends!). Cringe your way through the past and remember that oh, so fresh feeling of saving souls and taking names.

In honor of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and All the Buying Things Days from now until approximately December 25th, your Queen Ghosties, Lindsay, Meg, & Sarai bring you a deep dive into all things Christian bookstores, products, and marketing. They also take a perplexing look at why Christians are such brilliant capitalists whilst claiming they follow a broke carpenter who, apparently, "never asked for a raise" (listen if you want to be extra grossed out by what this actually means).

Bottom line: we get into what we thought and bought as young Christian babes. Hear how Lindsay worked in not one, but TWO Christian bookstores. Learn how Sarai does real time podcast research to confirm her suspicions that the White Jesus Gets Us (erm, "He Gets Us") ad campaign has something to do with politics (shockingly, it does!)...and enjoy as Meg reveals her strange and wonderful journey from coveter of "the hottest Bibles" to Christian Bookstore-eschewing crone.

Hey ghosties, since we’re in that wicked season, we thought we would take a stab at sharing some of the things we were told were evil. We welcome Kevin Garcia back to the show and we stuck ourselves back in middle school, in the early 90’s when TV was evil.

Chances are if you were assigned the tender feminine gender at your evangelical birth, well, ya probably have a lot of baggage and issues that stem from questionable portrayals of women in the Bible.

Among the vagina-laden humans celebrated in the canon, we have everyone from a literal teenager, whose virginity inspired millennia of penis-havers to idolize purity, to the wily, vengeful Judge Deborah, who straight up murdered a Philistine with a wicked tent peg through the temple. Pretty badass, tbh. 

But greatest among these female role models, as few and scattered they were amid the many, many Jezebel-style characters (by the way, “eaten by dogs” is my preferred way to describe a death)…there stood alone a perfect prototype of the ideal wife. The Proverbs 31 Woman. This strong, gluten-free woman (she eats not the bread of idleness), stays awake all damn night working on her embroideries and preserves, dresses her children in scarlet, herself in purple and linens, and gets busy making food, importing and exporting goods, feeding the poor, feeding her lovin’ man/king, and fully celebrated by all excellence at everything. She surpasses all other women with her tireless, industrious, wise work ethic. But when does she get to take a damn nap? 

Join your new favorite heretics as they discuss what The Proverbs 31 Woman meant to them, why 3/3rds of them *still* have a hard time letting their lamp go out by night, and where and how we might like to grow in perhaps less hurried and productive ways. Welcome to radical uselessness. And yeah, you can wear all the scarlet and purple and strength and dignity you can handle - no shame in that. Just know that it’s good to take a beat sometimes and even better to remember this P 31 woman (as I’ve seen her referred to on her most devoted fan websites) - she was never a real person at all. What if we could become our own heroes instead of living up to an impossible idea? What if we got to enjoy the fruit of our labor too?

Let’s try it. After we take a wee nap.

For kids who grew up during the Satanic Panic - especially those of us raised in Good Christian Homes - talking about, thinking about, worrying about, or wondering about demons was just an everyday thing. Join your Unwholesome Homeschoolers (and Meg) as they remember their personal demonologies and the way we really did think we always had demons scratching at every "foothold" to get in and influence (?) or possess (?) us. Phew! Wild times! Come along for this spooky season episode all about our demon upbringings.

Not since Carman personally slayed the DEVIL himself when he called for Revival in the Land has there ever been such a meaningful movement of the awakening of the Christian spirit's openness to the Holy Ghost.

Not until now.

Asbury University has experienced a celebrity-level Revival in the Land amongst its student body. But, REVIVAL...what is it good for?

Dr. Amy Ferrell "I hope for everyone's sake that if there is any kind of awakening that it is to the truths of this world. Especially the truth of our complicity in harm, like racism, patriarchy, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, Christian exceptionalism ("We're the good and right ones"), saviorism, martyrdom, emotional repression, binaries, paradigms of control using manipulation, coercion, intimidation, and punishment, and I could go on. Hoping we all can wake up and see through the illusions of the world and of us."

Revival is never said in the New Testament, but 2 Chronicles 7:14 is used to justify "healing the land" of America from things Christians don't like.

Watch the Carman Revival In The Land video with us at Patreon.com/holyghosting

Biola Revival Article: https://charismamag.com/charisma-archive/spiritual-awakening-continues-to-shake-biola-university-in-california/