December 11, 2025 • 54 mins
Today, Devi shares a conversation that she leads at the Mental Wealth Expo discussing the profound impact of religious trauma and the courageous work of reclaiming personal agency and trust. Devi shares the stage with Dr. Teddy Reeves, Senior Curator of Religion at the Smithsonian, and Carl Lentz, a former pastor and current strategist at Transformation Church. The conversation focuses on defining religious trauma, recognizing its effects, and finding pathways for healing. The guests discuss various forms of harm inflicted in religious contexts and offer practical advice for those struggling with these experiences. They emphasize the importance of finding personal connection with the divine outside traditional frameworks and encourage listeners to explore their spiritual identity with compassion and autonomy. The episode aims to provide tools for understanding, healing, and rediscovering a relationship with God that is true, expansive, and grounded in personal agency.
Dr. Teddy Reeves IG: @TeddyRashaan
Film & Web Series: gOD Talk Film & Web Series
Learn More: https://ptsem.edu/profiles/dr-teddy-rashaan-reeves/
Carl Lentz IG: @CarlLentz
Lights On Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lights-on-with-carl-lentz/id1747789103
✺
Connect with Devi:
Website: https://devibrownwellbeing.com/
Living In Wisdom Book: https://www.devibrown.com/book
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devibrown/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deeplywellpod/
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Take a deep breath in through your nose. Holds it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again, deep in, helle.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Hold release, repeating internally to yourself as you connect to
my voice. I am deeply well. I am deeply well.
(01:22):
I am deeply I'm Debbie Brown and this is the
Deeply Well Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand in higher consciousness and self care.
This is where we heal, this is where we transcend.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the show. As always, I'm
(02:03):
Debbie Brown. Thank you, thank you for being here. Today's
episode is going to be a little different. We have
a special episode plan for today. So this October, some
of you may remember that we gathered for the fourth
annual Mental Wealth Expo that was created by my dear
brothers Charlomagne the God. It's an event that I am
(02:26):
so proud to be a part of and an organization,
the Mental Wealth Alliance, that I'm just so proud to
be a board member of. So this incredible event has
been happening for the last four years. We bring thousands
of people together, usually from all over the tri state
area specifically, and it is a day full of just
(02:49):
really powerful information, opportunity to get connected, treatment, and everything
that is expansive to the conversation happening in our homes
around mental health and our communities around mental health and
well being. And so this year was really might be
(03:12):
my favorite. This year, I created two panels for the
Mental Wealth Alliance Expo, and I wanted to investigate some
conversations in front of a live audience that we've had
the chance to begin investigating here on the podcast Deeply Well.
This year, I had the honor of creating these panels,
(03:35):
and I'm really grateful to share one of them with
you today and we'll be sharing the second one in
the coming weeks. But today's episode is going to be
very layered, very deep, an exploration of religious trauma, what
it is, how it can shape our sense of self
(03:57):
and belonging, and the courageous work that it takes to
reclaim agency and trust in ourselves after we may have
experienced spiritual harm. So I want to anchor this understanding
of religious trauma for just a second. So we've done
a previous episode on this podcast called religious Trauma, which
(04:18):
I highly suggest that you go listen to.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
But this is a.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Really kind of broad and layer phrase to give a definition,
give a description to an experience where and this can
happen in a multitude of ways, but in an experience
where religion or family belief was community belief was weaponized
(04:44):
against you and could have dramatically impaired your relationship with yourself,
your relationship with God, and your relationship with a.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Greater world around you.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Sometimes that can look like things that we've heard of
in the news for many decades, certain things that the
Catholic Church has faced. So that can include sexual assault, molestation,
rape by a clergy member, by a member of the church,
by an adult against a child, by an adult against
(05:19):
another adult, but wrapped within religious contexts, or an unspoken
kind of authority that is rooted in religion and in belief.
It can also mean someone perpetrating manipulation, manipulative harm against you,
dominating you, getting you to do a multitude of things,
(05:40):
but usually not related to God and for the betterment
of whoever was in a position of power at the time.
Even the way that I'm speaking to this now, I
want you to know that that these are not the
only things that fall under the context of religious trauma.
I know I've heard from other people throughout my adult
(06:01):
life who have been in either very constricting religions. I've
had some friends that would recognize being in JW as
an experience that they perceived as religious trauma, that they
experienced as religious trauma. Also situations where people might have
found themselves in cults, either by their own choice or
(06:24):
because they were raised into it because of the choices
of their caregivers. But again, it's about any kind of restriction, dominance,
abuse of any kind, manipulation of any.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Kind that.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You experienced at the hands of someone. In religious contexts,
it can also be yeah, dogma and doctrination of beliefs
that only serve one person or certain grouping of people.
But if this term in any way is triggering, it's
causing charge in the body, or it's causing a lot
(07:02):
of really just new thoughts or curiosity to come forward,
I really, really really hope to give you permission with
this episode and this conversation to investigate what that phrase
means to you. Spend some time looking it up. I
think at a basic level, use chat, GPT, use Google
(07:23):
to start looking up a few different ways that that
term or phrase is positioned. I think it could be
very supportive or helpful to consider bringing it up in
a therapized environment or with someone that has more experience
working with people who have experienced significant trauma. So we're
(07:47):
going to dive into this conversation. So this panel that
I created, I was joined by two men with really
powerful stories and powerful lives experiences. So on this panel,
I was joined by doctor Teddy Reeves and Carl Lentz.
(08:08):
In this conversation, we hold space for both the personal
and historical dimensions of this topic and reflect on what healing, accountability,
and spiritual renewal can really look like in our lives
and our communities, especially as we begin to reclaim God
for ourselves and reclaim our bodies and reclaim our minds.
(08:31):
So our first guest that I named, doctor Teddy Reeves, PhD,
is the Senior Curator of Religion at the Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and Culture. He's the creator
of God Talk, a documentary exploring how Black millennials reimagine
faith across traditions. You may have heard me speak about
(08:53):
this film God Talks. Over the years I filmed for
this project, Teddy asked me to be a part of it.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
In it was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It was a few weeks after I had my son,
and I always preface that because Good Lord was I
in the thick of postpartum life as I filmed for
this series. So I remember I even had like quests
kind of like a cross for me as a newborn
because I was feeding him and I was shooting, but
(09:23):
I was. It was something that was really special. And
at that time that this was put together, he had
a series of talks that were going across the country
where we were bringing to life this idea of understanding
what religious trauma is, but also what are the various
ways that you can know God for yourself that people
have been fortifying themselves and faith in their lives and
(09:48):
their belief with and their healing with and also investigating
in this doc you know, the real difference that happened
with the millennial generation. There was for a time a
mass it is from the church from this generation, and.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
That is talked about quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
A lot of different reasonings and personal perspectives that were
shared across belief systems through the culture, and it was
just a really incredibly done film that I feel very
honored to be a part of. But Teddy explores this
in such a huge way in his role in all
the work he does around the country on this topic.
(10:27):
And our second guest on this conversation was Karl Lentz.
Karl Lentz, many might be familiar, was a renowned pastor.
He is currently a strategist at Transformation Church and the
host of the lights On podcast. Once a high profile pastor,
(10:48):
Carl has since embraced sobriety and a path of public healing.
He now supports others through coaching, helping to destigmatize addiction,
in fidelity and challenges with mental health. This conversation was
really special and powerful, and for me as the facilitator
(11:13):
of this convo, my eyes are always locked into the audience,
My heart is always locked into the audience, My senses
and my energy are always locked into the audience and
what they're feeling and how they're processing. And it was
just really powerful for me to watch the expressions, to
hear the size, to hear even some of the anger,
(11:33):
to hear some of the deep reflection that was happening
throughout the audience as we were having this conversation and
then to see so many afterwards just form huge lines
to speak with Teddy, to speak with Carl, to share
with Carl what he meant to them as a pastor,
(11:53):
and what it meant to them to hear him now
speaking from his space of healing. So an honor to
share this conversation with you. We talk about the duality
of sacred spaces, how they can offer profound comfort and connection,
yet also be sites for shame, for silence, for ego,
(12:14):
for control, and together we really examine how religious trauma
can impact identity and self worth, the stifling of women's
leadership that can happen within the church, and the subtle
ways that shame and hierarchy shape our relationship with God
and with ourselves, sometimes forever. The conversation invites us to
(12:37):
release limiting beliefs, dismantle shame, and rediscover the divine beyond institutions,
to rebuild a relationship with Spirit that feels true, expansive,
and grounded in autonomy, curiosity, and compassion. And it's an
offering to anyone healing from spiritual wounds, honoring where you're called,
(12:59):
and choosing a faith that allows you to flourish. At
the end of our time together, doctor Reeves and Carl
leave us with powerful reflections and practices that can support
you on your journey. So, without further ado, here's our
conversation on religious trauma.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Deeply Well.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Hello everyone, how are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
What an amazing and important way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
My name is Debbie Brown.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm a wellness educator and a healer and also a
proud board member of the Mental Wealth Alliance.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So we are so excited to be here for year four.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
We're going to have a very deep panel and to
get us ready, and before I introduce my guests, let's
have a centering breath together. Is everybody in for that? Yeah,
So go ahead and get comfortable, like really comfortable, like
uncross a couple things. Sit forward, let your spine be
straight and your belly be soft, and we're just gonna
(14:14):
take three deep breaths in to really lock us into
the present moment and anything that may arise. So I
want to invite you, if you can hear the sound
of my voice and you're seated and comfortable, to gently close.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Your eyes.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And we will begin a nice deep in hell in
through your nose, filling your belly, rising.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
In the chest and excel deep in Hell, in through
the nose.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
And reallyase.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And last breath here together, deep in hell and through
your nose, really let it stretch your belly and your chest,
and beautiful, thank you for settling into this space with me.
You can gently open your eyes as you're ready, So again,
(15:23):
welcome everyone. Today, we're getting ready to enter into a
very deep and nuanced conversation about religious trauma, what it means,
how it shapes our sense of self, our sense of belonging,
our connection to faith in God, and how we can
begin the work of reclaiming agency after harm. If that
(15:44):
was present in your life, we have, I mean, we
are just blessed to have these two men on stage,
absolute acclaim stage today. I want to start by introducing
the first incredible voice, Doctor Teddy Reeves. Who is He'm
the senior Curator of Religion at the Smithsonian National Museum
of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
He's the Yes, He's the creator of.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
A really phenomenal documentary called God Talk, exploring how Black
millennials reimagine faith across traditions. And I was very honored
to be featured in that film. Welcome Teddy, thank you.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Thank you, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
And next we have Karl Lentz, strategist at Transformation Church
and host of the lights On podcast. Once a high
profile pastor, Carl has since embraced sobriety and a public
path of healing. He now supports others through coaching, helping
destigmatize addiction, infidelity, and challenges with mental health. Thank you
(16:54):
so much for being here, Carl.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
Honor, thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I think to to really get this conversation grounded before
we start. You know, religious spaces kind of historically can
be both sacred places of healing and sources of profound harm.
Religious trauma impacts identity, self worth, and the ability to
connect with the community and with your own relationship with
(17:20):
a higher power. Healing in this space requires so much courage,
safe spaces.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Humility, and new ways of belonging.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So I think to kick off this conversation and I'll
start with you, Teddy, what is your definition of religious trauma?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
How do you even relate to that word, that concept?
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Thanks so much, DEVI for the question, and I'm really
excited to be here. I think to define religious trauma.
I first asked a question of what is religion for
that person? Right, That religion means something different for each
one of us, depending on the tradition we came out of,
depending on the experiences we had. But I will say,
(18:03):
as someone who grew up in the South, as in
a Black Baptist church, I would say my religious trauma
came from the experiences of people in my Black Baptist church.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Right.
Speaker 8 (18:14):
And so I think religious trauma is the vestuses of
something deeper, particularly for people of African descent. It's the
remnants of something that we have continuously been dealing with since.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
Our arrival on these shores. Right.
Speaker 8 (18:29):
That religious trauma is not something that happened in the nineties,
only in the two thousands.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Only.
Speaker 8 (18:35):
Religious trauma started in eighteen sixty five, once we set
our foot on these shores, right, eighteen sixty five, when
we're free from these shores. But when we get here
in seventeen ninety, right, it begins at these points. So
religious trauma is anything that has caused you called soul wounds,
that's called mental wounds in you and around you, at
(18:57):
the hands of your religious institution or those who are
leading it. But I think also religious trauma is something
we experience at home right that it isn't always at
the hands of.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
The religious leader or leaders.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
But it is something that happens when the texts, when tradition,
when doctrine is used to justify behavior, or justify discipline,
or justify mistreatment of individuals, that become the remnants of
religious trauma. I just always like to center it, particularly
for people of African descent, that religious trauma didn't start
(19:31):
in our hands. We inherited it and we've been passing
it and perpetuating it since then.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Thank you, Carl. How do you relate to that word?
Speaker 7 (19:43):
Well, I just like to say, firstly, your outfits incredible
and how's everybody doing. Guy's good, It's good to see you.
I think I see this angle from the situation from
two angles, as a perpetrator of religious trauma, UH, as
a pastor that lied to people that trusted me, and
(20:04):
a victim of in some ways of having things done
to me. So my life right now consists of holding
these two things with a beautiful tension because religious trauma
is different than other trauma, and that we're attaching it
to God and anytime that happens, things get really beautiful
or really complicated, And so I enjoy seeing people get
(20:27):
free of that fear that often accompanies this kind of
religious trauma. And there is a brighter day for people
who are willing to dig for it.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Oh wow, deeply wow.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I just want to say thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I'm going to say this to you all day, but
just like thank you for the courage and the humility
of being here and speaking to this in that.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Way, like the power of what you.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And your unique viewpoint can bring to the world, it's
really profound. I'll start with you on this first question, Carl.
You know, how can we practically disrupt the cycles of
shame and secrecy that often keeps religious trauma as an
unspoken experience.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
You got to speak about it. I mean, I love
when people get the courage to actually get it out,
because the power of shame will get people to stop talking.
And the longer you do that, the more that pain
will continue to work through your whole body. And so
it seems like it's a long road to heal from
(21:42):
religious trauma, and it can be. But the first step
is just getting with somebody that you trust to get
it out and say this is how I feel. Because
the first thing you lose with religious trauma is agency.
You have outsourced your conviction, your power. You have to
go to someone else to get something else. The first
step to reclaiming that it's saying, wait, I have a voice,
(22:04):
I feel, I see, I sense, and learning how to
trust that again. It's a beautiful journey, but that's where
it begins. It's just making a choice to say, from
this second on, I'm gonna reclaim my own power and
start to ask these questions that I've had for a
really long time. And so I love pointing people right
to that one moment of just sitting with somebody you
(22:24):
love and saying this is this is what happened to me.
And even if that's all you did, it's enough to
start this journey of healing that never ends until until
we're going to be in heaven.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Never ends. Yeah, thank you, thank you, Teddy.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
I think to that point, Karl, I think a big
part of it for me is that many individuals don't
even know that they're traumatized. Right that we got plenty
of people sitting in mosque and churches across our country,
across our world, not knowing that every Sunday they're traumatized.
Right that every Sunday they're walking around with psychological.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Trauma in their body and not knowing it.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Right, that someone is willing to parse out their identity,
their way of being, their existence.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
Example of some people are sitting in churches where women
can't lead based off of Paul line text that was
poorly interpretated when Paul says that women should be silent.
When Paul was specifically talking to the church at Corinth
because the women were being loud in the colosseum, and
he was like, look, y'all can't talk when I come
around to mean that women can't lead in leadership roles, right,
(23:34):
that's religious trauma, right, that we have plenty in our
churches are full of women, particularly Black women, that are
sitting in these spaces not knowing that.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
The stifling of.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
Leadership starts early, right, and it often starts at the
hands of Black churches, in Black religious spaces.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
And and so I think.
Speaker 8 (23:53):
That particularly for we're looking at millennials and Gen z
ors and even Gen xers and up who have were
raised in the church.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Right.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
Gen z is the first generation that's not raised in
the church, not raised in a religious institution overwhelmingly.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And so we see for these three older.
Speaker 8 (24:09):
Generations living that they are riddled with religious trauma. Right,
that we literally are living in the after effects of
people believing that women cannot lead, right, and that black
women cannot lead, and so really believing that, you know,
we got folks who are walking around believing their sexual
identities is up.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
For debate because of a text when we.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
Can't even read a liberatory text, when the story of
Jonathan and David is a story not of platonic friendship, right,
but we're not talking about the hermeneutics and the theological
conversations and questions and readings that need to be done
in the text. And so I think part of this
is that a lot of people are walking around not
knowing their traumatized, right, and that becomes the story of
(24:53):
also a group of people who walk around consistently traumatized
from injustice, from hate, from all of these things. And
so when you compound religiosity to it we are a
spiritual people, it only continues to perpetuate bondage and shrike
shackles and ways of being that is not conducive for
(25:13):
our freedom. And so I think that that is also
something we need to sit with.
Speaker 7 (25:17):
I was going to say, do you find it when
you when you talk to people and you want to
know whether they know they're traumatized? Aroun I like to say,
what do you think God's posture is? If you're going
to have a conversation with the God that you claim
to believe in, what is his posture towards you? Right away?
You can find out because most people would think he's judgy,
he's mean, he's mad. What would be the posture of God?
(25:39):
And that's when you find out quickly? Wow, how long
you been living like that?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Is?
Speaker 7 (25:43):
That? Is that heavy to walk around every day thinking
that God is looking at you like there's what if
there's a different truth to find?
Speaker 6 (25:51):
And who would want to serve a God like that?
Speaker 7 (25:53):
Apparently a lot of people did White evangelical.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Shirt that that is true.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Brother, that is true, because then we get into the
fibers of the way that we connect God even to
the trauma we experience in our homes and in the
world and systemic oppression and why we are seeking out
to serve punishment in the first place.
Speaker 8 (26:14):
And why do we give God human problems? Okay, God
didn't do that to you. The church that that person
did that, right, that we are all broking beings. But
name the thing, right, The text tells us to name
the demon, right, Jesus asks the demon the name for
a specific reason, because he's saying, what is this thing
that I need to uproot?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
I need to name the person.
Speaker 8 (26:35):
That harmed me so that we can uproot and begin
to find out are we going to reconcile or are
we not going to reconcile?
Speaker 6 (26:41):
Right? But if we're.
Speaker 8 (26:42):
Unwilling to name it, but we put it on God, right,
I'm like, God ain't hurt you. These people hurt you, right,
and the God in them is what we can be reconciled.
We can decide whether we want to be reconciled back
to one another through it. But I think that when
we talk about church decline and all these other things
where it's often been because people put the hurt on God, right,
(27:02):
and and to your point, versus putting the hurt and
the blame where it needs to sit and us walking
through that.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, ooh, it's funny when you when you say giving
God human problems, Like the first thing that came to
me is like, yeah, if you're looking at God as
being this punishing, this judging these so we're saying God
doesn't have tools that like God isn't emotionally regulated, have
the ability to see past personal feelings of you know,
(27:31):
irritation and indignation.
Speaker 7 (27:35):
Now I was going to say, it's a lot of
people will God's voice sounds a lot like their dad
that was or was not there, that was good or
was not good. And that's a really interesting thing to
look at because that's that's the tape people play. God's
voice is the dad that you either hated or didn't have.
Maybe he loved them, but that's not necessarily reflective of
(27:56):
the God that we know. And that's a very tricky
thing for people to start to unwind, but it's worth
it because you might have been listening to the wrong
tape your whole life. What impact might that have had.
And that's the thing about trauma. If you have relationship trauma,
beautiful relationships are the carnage. If you have church trauma,
your relationship with God can be the carnage. And that's
not fair. We're old better than that, you know.
Speaker 8 (28:18):
I think from a very practical sense, what I often
offer people to that point is one of the first
things to do in kind of freeing yourself from that
is to free yourself from the language.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
That God has to only be your father. Right, I
refer to God as she.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Right, you can put she in the text sometimes when
it says he, that is a we did that, right,
that is a that's an interpretation. But that if you're
referring to God and you give God back God's autonomy,
because God is not a man nor a woman. When
you give God back God's autonomy or saying God is
a good God, right reviews removing the pronouns allow you
(28:56):
to remove the harm that was done to you by
those personal individual rules and give God back God's autonomy.
Right that I will say mother God quickly, right, because
if you have a poor relationship with your mother, with
your father, and God is your father, then you and God.
That's why you don't pray like that, right, because you
don't know how to talk to your daddy. So like
really having this freeing moment to say no, like God
(29:18):
is autonomous of us.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
God.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
We are God's hands and feet in the world, but
God is autonomous from me as a being, and so
God is God, God is Spirit. God is this thing
that's beyond me, but it's in me and around me.
And so I don't have to give God again human
problems right that mm they hurt me, but God loves me, right.
(29:41):
And so if I sit in that I am beautifully
and wonderfully made, right that I don't enter my relationship
with God in sin. I enter my relationship with God
in love, right. And when I enter with love.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
Everything else works itself out right.
Speaker 8 (29:57):
But when you enter from a sinful point, you look
at God, it's this, Oh God, it is going to
turn God's back on me or.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
I'm not good enough from God. I'm beautiful and wonderfully made.
Speaker 8 (30:05):
That's what the text said, right, And it said that
when He created he or she created me, I was
good creation period right. Everything else will work itself out.
That is my humanity working right now. But I'm good
right that if I hurt my brother here, I'm still good.
The text gives me how to reconcile with him, but
(30:26):
God still loves me, period right. And I think that
that freedom also helps us release ourselves from that trauma.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
That is so good.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, I'm looking at this clock and I'm like, they
better put sixty more minutes up here, because I have
all the questions we need to hear today.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I think next, and I know this is.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Oh, Carl, I'll start with you here on this next question.
You know, for those that have decided because of often
unspoken harm that has happened, who've decided to step away
from religion entirely, what are some ways to reconnect with
spirituality or meaning outside of traditional frameworks. How do you
(31:12):
build that walk live in that walk if you have
stepped away from your family's church or just.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
All of it as a system.
Speaker 7 (31:23):
I think religious institutions, whether it's a church or whatever
we're going to call an institution, it's only as powerful
as the door that you entered it from. So we
always tried to tell people was the ideal is to
have a relationship with God outside of that institution. From there,
if you enter a church or a place, it's a
(31:45):
different succession of connection. If your only connection to God
is through an institution, what happens when the institution goes bad,
or the pastor lies, or the pastor lets you down
all of a sudden, it all falls down. But if
you enter this, you know, whatever your faith leads you
towards if you have a relationship with God that supersedes
that which it should, there's a lot more strength. So
(32:07):
I always encourage people I'm not interested in what box
you check or what you call yourself on Facebook Christian Catholic,
with what is your relationship with the Living God? How
do you define that? From there flows everything? And most people,
if you ask them about God, the first thing they
do is talk about their church. And there's a little
bit of beauty to that, but there's a whole lot
(32:28):
of problems with that too. So I just like to
tell people you have a a lot of time, take
your time. There's no rush. God is patient, and it's
better to go slow and be right than it is
to rush back in and be wrong again. And often people,
when they're traumatized, they just take the first option there
and sometimes you get back in the same cycle. So
I just like to point people to you know, church
(32:49):
is something that is important. We've made it. It can
be beautiful, but the design is to always have a
relationship with God that is unattached from that. And if
you have that, typically you're gonna want to build a community.
You're gonna want to be in community with people that
believe the same thing. But if I have my relationship
with God correctly, humans can let me down and it
(33:10):
will not knock my view of this God that I
believe saved my life. And there's something you can stand on.
When that happens. I'm hurt and I'm disappointed, and I'm
sad that this person or this church let me down,
but it has not changed my standing with the God
that created me. There's power in that.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Oh, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
That is so good, And I think even in that,
and I wish we had the time to get into it.
But for me, that also brings up that when you
are kind of looking at your church, if you did
come from a place that felt harmful or just not
the most aligned fit to you being in presence with God,
like have a discerning eye of how much of this
community might actually be caught up in like social hierarchy, right,
(33:56):
or like ego, because I think historically churches also can
become places where the root isn't about God and community
and service, it's about what positions you hold and what
you take that to mean about yourself within the systems.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
Also, to add to both of you, I think we
also get to nuance, this language around reconnecting, right, because
what I tell people, if you left your church, you're
still with God outside in the club period, Right, It
doesn't require you come back into something to be reconnected
with the divine. Right that I think when we're looking
(34:36):
at data just alone, Millennials and gen z are overwhelmingly
identifying as nuns, n o ne right that we are,
Nor are we Christian?
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Are we Buddhists? We are living in this very pluristic
space in our faith.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Right, we are Christian, but we get our tear cars
where we're Christian and we do crystals. We're Christian and
we meditate like we are living in this very spiritually
fluid space. And so I think part of what this
is is when we're dealing with this religious trauma and
many folks have walked out of.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
The space, it's to cultivate the space you've walked into.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Right.
Speaker 8 (35:10):
If the space is podcasting, stay in the podcasting lane, right,
God is with you there.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
It's a ministry.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Right.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
If your space is at the music festival, right, I
think if your space is here at the Mental Wealth Expo,
this is a space where we're having church. Right, we're
talking about the divine. You can eat, you can break bread,
you can fellowship, we can even sing a song and
leave right that we have done the work of the church.
And so I think it's honoring your call, honoring where
(35:37):
Spirit has called you in this season. If it's outside
of the church in which you were raised, flourish right,
flourish there, experience the Divine there. This is what's happening today.
This is where Spirit is moving today. And I always
want to say, we're not doing anything new, We're reclaiming
old practices. Right that our ancestors when we got here,
overwhelmingly majority of us were Muslim, or we practice traditional
(36:01):
African religion. If you are a descendant of chattel slavery
in this country, your people were not Christian. Christianity was
happening in the north. It was in Ethiopia, or unless
you're Ethiopian, that is where that was happening for us.
And so what we're seeing today with millennials is us
reclaiming free thought.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Right.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
We're walking in line of Zordaiirhirston, We're walking in the
line of James Balwin, We're walking in the line of
Frederick Douglass. These folks who understood that their relationship with
the divine was not regulated to a church, right, but
that the church becomes one extension of what black folks
were able to create, particularly for us in this country,
to resist injustice, right to fight against oppression. And it's
(36:42):
a beautiful space that we should keep cultivating. But not
all of us are called to be in that space.
And so honoring where you are called, honoring where Spirit
is leading you and healing your trauma there right there.
Sometimes you the hand, as doctor Thema Briant would say,
the hand that harmed you can't be the hand that
(37:02):
healed you, right, And so you gotta go get healed.
And if you want to reconnect, make sure that you
are healed before you go back to the space.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
That harmed you.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
And honor where you are and where Spirit may have you,
if that's the club, if that's twitch, if it's you two,
wherever that is, wherever your ministry has called you to
commune with the divine or conjure with the Divine.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Honor that thank you.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Deeply well.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think is our final question on this stage. I'm
going to make it a two part because I got
to get an extra question off because this time went
too fast. I would say for each of you, you know,
how can communities of faith begin to repair trust with
people who have been harmed? And for anyone in the
(38:00):
audience listening right now that is quietly struggling with their
own story and experiences, how would you encourage them to
take a first step towards reclaiming agency. So little two
parter rebuilding as a faith community and internal building as
an individual.
Speaker 7 (38:18):
I meant I'll go fifteen seconds, you go twenty. Now
we're talking about church.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
We should just.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
Disregard the time. Anyway, if we're talking church, no, I
think I point people to truth. It's worth digging for truth.
I'm a Jesus follower. So if you know your Bible
in here, and the Bible talks about putting on the
armor of God. It likens truth to a belt, because
if you have everything but you don't have a belt,
everything falls down and you are now immobilized. You have
(38:46):
the best outfit in the world on, but if your
pants fall down, you're not going anywhere. And in the
church world, you see a lot of people who have
the fancy stuff. They got the sword, they got the helmet,
but they don't know the truth. And they can't figure
out why it never seems to fit right. And I
like pointing people to a mirror. First, how do I
feel right now? What's in my body? What's in my soul?
(39:08):
What do I think has happened to me? And then
you grab a telescope and think what would a life
of freedom look like rather than fear? And then you
get a magnifying glass and go, what's one step I
can do today? And that little succession before you know it,
you're on this walk and you're like, how did I
get so free? Because you don't get free in today.
It's a journey. So I like looking at it like that,
(39:29):
like what's true for me? What do I believe is true?
Don't judge it, just stand on it. And from there,
you know, every day is a new step to find
some deeper truth. But there's a better day than just
sitting where you've been hurt. It's just a tragedy to
me when people allow the horrible actions of others to
rob them of a relationship with the living God. There's
(39:51):
a better opportunity, thank you.
Speaker 8 (39:57):
I would argue for institutions when I'm talking to clergy,
whether they're Christian, Muslim, Buddhists all and the question is
always how do we get young people? How do we
get young people? You're not gonna get us right like
we gone right, but it's not as and it's the
(40:17):
data shows us millennials and gen z ors are not
walking away from God, They're walking away from church. And
to your point, Carl earlier, if we can begin to
do the work to see them as not mutually exclusive right,
that it is the job of religious institutions to name
the harm.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Right that you have, our.
Speaker 8 (40:38):
Institutions and the people within them have to do the
hard work to reconcile.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
How are we causing harm? How have we caused harm?
Speaker 8 (40:46):
How do we support the work of what young people
are creating in the world today to experience the divine?
Speaker 6 (40:51):
If they at the club, create something to go to
the club, right, if they like to do?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
You know?
Speaker 8 (40:56):
I used to be a pastor many moons ago, and
I remember having a young adult party and I was
the executive pastor and a senior pastor was like, we
having a party?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
I said, absolutely, having a party? Why not? I was like,
and we haven't drinks? Why not?
Speaker 8 (41:10):
Because they're gonna drink when they leave here? Why they
might as well drink when they're here, right, But we
can talk about responsible drinking. We can talk about what
it means to be the church. We can talk about
the first miracle being wine. You think Jesus didn't drink it,
right like, we can talk about what does it mean
to practically live this thing out right. But it takes
(41:32):
us to have these hard conversations. It takes us meeting
these generations where they are. It doesn't take us compromising
the story that Jesus lived. Jesus was born, and Jesus died,
and on the third day Jesus got up.
Speaker 6 (41:43):
What it takes us is to.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
Really acknowledge that Jesus lived in the world in which
is not similar to the world we live in today,
but also is not much.
Speaker 6 (41:52):
Different than the world we lived in today.
Speaker 8 (41:53):
There were the same same folks, same demons, same everything
going on. They just didn't have the same technologies we had.
And so looking at that and having those hard truths,
I think if I'm talking to an individual or anyone
here that is in this point in their journey, I
would say, very practically, if you journal, if you audio
record yourself, whatever that is, I would encourage you to
(42:15):
write a list everything the church or your religious institution
told you was wrong about you. Right, I'm not this
because I do that. I am not this because I
do that. Write it down, don't hold it back. Just
write it all on a list, vocalize it, and then
begin to write on the other column everything you believe
(42:35):
about yourself. Right, I'm powerful, I'm loving, I am this,
I am that. Look at the thing you were taught
to believe that you were not because you didn't follow this,
but everything you believe about yourself.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Right.
Speaker 8 (42:51):
If the list of things that you were told were
not good about you outweighs the things you believe about yourself,
you're in religious true. Right, name the demon and begin
to work through that list.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Right.
Speaker 8 (43:06):
If you were like, I'm not this because of this,
I encourage you to go get a commentary and begin
to read the text for yourself to realize this text
was written for a specific demographic of people at a
specific time, for specific reason. Right, I free you one better.
If you're still reading the King James version, let the
King James version go.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
Right.
Speaker 8 (43:29):
That brother was a not that there's anything wrong with it.
But if we're going to name the demon, right, because
your list is on the left side. That brother was
a drunk who was making money, so he converted the
Bible into English to sell it. It's not even the
closest you're going to get to the original text. The
NRSV or the NIV as the closest you're going to
(43:50):
get to the original.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Greek and Hebrew.
Speaker 8 (43:52):
So if you're talking about really working through religious trauma,
it comes from a very practical level of how are
you reading the text? What is your hermineutic of seeing
yourself in the text? Connect yourself to amazing theologians doing
work around the things on your list. Right, if you
feel like you're a black woman and you can't lead,
there's theologians like Candice Bimbo, Melva Sampson, all of these
(44:13):
women who are doing work around.
Speaker 6 (44:15):
No, we actually are worthy.
Speaker 8 (44:17):
If you believe it's because of your sexual orientation, you're
a theologians that can walk you through that there is
work and love and purpose and honor in the divine
for you, and so do that work to begin to
unravel and heal yourself. The text says, servant, heal thyself right,
know thyself, and heal thyself right, because if God lives
(44:39):
in you, then the healing and everything you need. We
profess Holy Spirit, right, even if you're not even Christian,
the spirit. We believe that there's something, that thing is
on the inside of you. If you begin to do
the work and begin to change the outside of you too, right,
and so give yourself over to that work.
Speaker 7 (44:57):
Do y'all say this, I give you beautiful reletive. I
think as a just as a handle if you wanted
an idea. If you're in this space and you're searching,
one of the most beautiful prayers you can pray, because
the Bible points to the renewing of your mind being
the real conduit for transformation, not your action. So if
you just say, God, help me renew my mind. If
there is a God and he does hear us, and
(45:18):
we believe that he does, he will do that. It
doesn't when was the last time you thought again? When's
the last time you renewed your mind? And the Bible
points to this picture of us having the ability to
shake it off and say, let me think again, let
me see clearly, and God will answer that prayer. So
it's just a If you find yourself lonely today and
you leave here and you're thinking I don't know what
to pray. Lord, help me renew my mind is something
(45:40):
you'll never be sorry you ever said to Heaven.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Wow, I do not want to get off this stage.
Speaker 7 (45:52):
We got to take up an offering now, So if
you can just look under your seat for an envelope.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
I would make the joke and say locked the doors.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
I just want to say to you both first, I
have such a deep admiration for each of you and
how you are carrying yourselves in the world and what
you were doing with your lived experience to stay deeply
connected with God, to serve, but to also bring people
to God and to bring people to whatever healing they
deserve to have happened within themselves.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Your honesty, your wisdom, the courage to bring all of
this into this space. I think religious trauma is very
deeply personal, it's collective, and what we have heard here
is that it requires our own internal investigation, supercharged discernment,
accountability and self compassion and compassion for all ultimately, So
(46:50):
as we close, I really want to remind everyone in
the audience right now who's listening, who may be navigating
this quietly internally, whether it's your experience, your children, your parents,
however it presents. You are absolutely, as you've learned now
more than ever, not alone in this process. And I
want you to know that to a certain degree, like
(47:10):
if you grappled with this in earlier stages of your
life and decided not to go back to try to
figure that out. Life is changing, The world is rapidly
evolving and changing, and resources, people, communities, just the language
to understand what you may have walked through in your
life is now more readily available than it has ever
(47:33):
been in human history. In the history of humanity. We are,
you know, really coming to such a precipice with how
we experience God, but also how we experience ourselves, with
our mental health and our physical health. So there are
more answers than ever. Please start looking for them, you know,
(47:54):
even really refined Google searches could be a great start
to lead you somewhere looking up this term walking in
rooms with this term recently, Teddy, I didn't have a
chance to share this story with you, but I'm based
in la and I was meeting a friend for a
studio session, and we were having to talk about your
film outside and I opened the door and I'm not
(48:16):
going to say who it is, but the room was
filled with incredible musicians that we know and love. I
opened the door and the last thing I said as
I walked in, I go, well, yeah, because that's religious trauma.
Them hearing me say that word, the whole room went silent,
and they're like, can you say that again?
Speaker 4 (48:34):
And I go, religious trauma.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
And you just saw all these light bulbs go off
in people because they didn't have that framework of language.
And that turned into hours and hours of conversation about this.
And I know you know each one in the world
on their own search. But I say all that to
say again, there are more resources than ever. There are
more ways to really understand what your lived experience might
(48:58):
have been, but also where you can go from here
and how you can continue to build faith in your
heart and in your life and connect to a higher power.
So so grateful for everybody in this room. Thank you
for being here today. I'm Debbie Brown, doctor to oh Teddy,
would you mind sharing that?
Speaker 8 (49:16):
Yes, I will be at the book table at one o'clock.
The first hundred people that join us there at the
museum will be giving you a free book. It's our
double exposure book. It looks at African American religion through
various traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Santa Voodoo, through photography, and so
I'll encourage the first hundred people. It's a free book
on behalf of the National Museum of African American History
(49:36):
and Culture.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Thank you so much for making this possible for us,
Doctor Teddy Reeves, CARLNZ, thank you so much. Wow, thank you,
thank you, thank you everyone for opening your hearts to
this conversation. It can be a very triggering one for
a lot of reasons, and for many it might be
(49:58):
the very first time that you you are hearing of
this particular experience what religious trauma is. So I just
send a lot of love to you on holding your
curiosity for this and investigating where it may land in
your life or where you may have recognized it landing
in the life of someone you love or someone you know.
(50:20):
If you're navigating your own journey with religious trauma, reclaiming
your spiritual identity, or learning to trust yourself again, I
really want to remind you right now you're not alone
in this. This affects millions of people, and there is
nothing wrong or broken about you. Your questions, your pain,
(50:42):
and your longing for deeper connection are sacred and they're valid.
We're living in a time where language, resources and community
are expanding spaces for healing or growing, and there are
more paths than ever to explore your faith, your spirit,
and your truth at your own pace and in a
way that honors your wholeness and your unique path. As
(51:07):
you move forward, I hope that you continue building trust
in your own inner knowing, and may you remember that
your connection to God, to Spirit, to the divine, it
belongs to you and you alone. It cannot be taken,
it cannot be defined for you, and it can only
be lived from within. Take your time, seek support when
(51:29):
you needed, and hold yourself with compassion as you unlearn, unbuild.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
And rise.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
Thank you so much to doctor Teddy reeves to Carl
Lentz for the courage for the shepherding that was really
felt and received by this conversation, and I'm looking forward
to having many more. I know, after we got off
the stage from having this conversation, we the three of
(51:58):
us kind of huddled together and we were like, we
got to hit the road with this.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
It's just yeah, I'm excited to continue to expand in
this conversation and especially with those two gentlemen, So please
share your thoughts and really the only soul work for
today's episode is give yourself the space, the time, and
the softness to explore where this episode is landing within
(52:25):
your body and start to ask why and how and
what you want to investigate about it moving forward. Thank
you for joining us on this episode. We'll be back
next week. Please share this episode with any friend you
think could use it. Share it on threads, share it
on IG on stories. If you're on X, share it
(52:48):
on X sub stack wherever the people are gathering, and
thank you.
Speaker 6 (52:53):
Mistake.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
The content presented on deeply well serve so for educational
and informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement
for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not
constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable
to consult with your healthcare provider or health team for
(53:17):
any specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect
with me on social at Debbie Brown that's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Don't Forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Deeply Well is.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
A production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's
produced by Jacquess Thomas, Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown.
The Beautiful Soundbath You heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from
Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you listen to your favorite sh ouse.
Take a deep breath in through your nose. Holds it.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Now, release slowly again, deep in, helle.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Hold release, repeating internally to yourself as you connect to
my voice. I am deeply well. I am deeply well.
(01:22):
I am deeply I'm Debbie Brown and this is the
Deeply Well Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land on
your journey. A podcast for those that are curious, creative,
and ready to expand in higher consciousness and self care.
This is where we heal, this is where we transcend.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the show. As always, I'm
(02:03):
Debbie Brown. Thank you, thank you for being here. Today's
episode is going to be a little different. We have
a special episode plan for today. So this October, some
of you may remember that we gathered for the fourth
annual Mental Wealth Expo that was created by my dear
brothers Charlomagne the God. It's an event that I am
(02:26):
so proud to be a part of and an organization,
the Mental Wealth Alliance, that I'm just so proud to
be a board member of. So this incredible event has
been happening for the last four years. We bring thousands
of people together, usually from all over the tri state
area specifically, and it is a day full of just
(02:49):
really powerful information, opportunity to get connected, treatment, and everything
that is expansive to the conversation happening in our homes
around mental health and our communities around mental health and
well being. And so this year was really might be
(03:12):
my favorite. This year, I created two panels for the
Mental Wealth Alliance Expo, and I wanted to investigate some
conversations in front of a live audience that we've had
the chance to begin investigating here on the podcast Deeply Well.
This year, I had the honor of creating these panels,
(03:35):
and I'm really grateful to share one of them with
you today and we'll be sharing the second one in
the coming weeks. But today's episode is going to be
very layered, very deep, an exploration of religious trauma, what
it is, how it can shape our sense of self
(03:57):
and belonging, and the courageous work that it takes to
reclaim agency and trust in ourselves after we may have
experienced spiritual harm. So I want to anchor this understanding
of religious trauma for just a second. So we've done
a previous episode on this podcast called religious Trauma, which
(04:18):
I highly suggest that you go listen to.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
But this is a.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Really kind of broad and layer phrase to give a definition,
give a description to an experience where and this can
happen in a multitude of ways, but in an experience
where religion or family belief was community belief was weaponized
(04:44):
against you and could have dramatically impaired your relationship with yourself,
your relationship with God, and your relationship with a.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Greater world around you.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Sometimes that can look like things that we've heard of
in the news for many decades, certain things that the
Catholic Church has faced. So that can include sexual assault, molestation,
rape by a clergy member, by a member of the church,
by an adult against a child, by an adult against
(05:19):
another adult, but wrapped within religious contexts, or an unspoken
kind of authority that is rooted in religion and in belief.
It can also mean someone perpetrating manipulation, manipulative harm against you,
dominating you, getting you to do a multitude of things,
(05:40):
but usually not related to God and for the betterment
of whoever was in a position of power at the time.
Even the way that I'm speaking to this now, I
want you to know that that these are not the
only things that fall under the context of religious trauma.
I know I've heard from other people throughout my adult
(06:01):
life who have been in either very constricting religions. I've
had some friends that would recognize being in JW as
an experience that they perceived as religious trauma, that they
experienced as religious trauma. Also situations where people might have
found themselves in cults, either by their own choice or
(06:24):
because they were raised into it because of the choices
of their caregivers. But again, it's about any kind of restriction, dominance,
abuse of any kind, manipulation of any.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Kind that.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You experienced at the hands of someone. In religious contexts,
it can also be yeah, dogma and doctrination of beliefs
that only serve one person or certain grouping of people.
But if this term in any way is triggering, it's
causing charge in the body, or it's causing a lot
(07:02):
of really just new thoughts or curiosity to come forward,
I really, really really hope to give you permission with
this episode and this conversation to investigate what that phrase
means to you. Spend some time looking it up. I
think at a basic level, use chat, GPT, use Google
(07:23):
to start looking up a few different ways that that
term or phrase is positioned. I think it could be
very supportive or helpful to consider bringing it up in
a therapized environment or with someone that has more experience
working with people who have experienced significant trauma. So we're
(07:47):
going to dive into this conversation. So this panel that
I created, I was joined by two men with really
powerful stories and powerful lives experiences. So on this panel,
I was joined by doctor Teddy Reeves and Carl Lentz.
(08:08):
In this conversation, we hold space for both the personal
and historical dimensions of this topic and reflect on what healing, accountability,
and spiritual renewal can really look like in our lives
and our communities, especially as we begin to reclaim God
for ourselves and reclaim our bodies and reclaim our minds.
(08:31):
So our first guest that I named, doctor Teddy Reeves, PhD,
is the Senior Curator of Religion at the Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and Culture. He's the creator
of God Talk, a documentary exploring how Black millennials reimagine
faith across traditions. You may have heard me speak about
(08:53):
this film God Talks. Over the years I filmed for
this project, Teddy asked me to be a part of it.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
In it was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It was a few weeks after I had my son,
and I always preface that because Good Lord was I
in the thick of postpartum life as I filmed for
this series. So I remember I even had like quests
kind of like a cross for me as a newborn
because I was feeding him and I was shooting, but
(09:23):
I was. It was something that was really special. And
at that time that this was put together, he had
a series of talks that were going across the country
where we were bringing to life this idea of understanding
what religious trauma is, but also what are the various
ways that you can know God for yourself that people
have been fortifying themselves and faith in their lives and
(09:48):
their belief with and their healing with and also investigating
in this doc you know, the real difference that happened
with the millennial generation. There was for a time a
mass it is from the church from this generation, and.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
That is talked about quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
A lot of different reasonings and personal perspectives that were
shared across belief systems through the culture, and it was
just a really incredibly done film that I feel very
honored to be a part of. But Teddy explores this
in such a huge way in his role in all
the work he does around the country on this topic.
(10:27):
And our second guest on this conversation was Karl Lentz.
Karl Lentz, many might be familiar, was a renowned pastor.
He is currently a strategist at Transformation Church and the
host of the lights On podcast. Once a high profile pastor,
(10:48):
Carl has since embraced sobriety and a path of public healing.
He now supports others through coaching, helping to destigmatize addiction,
in fidelity and challenges with mental health. This conversation was
really special and powerful, and for me as the facilitator
(11:13):
of this convo, my eyes are always locked into the audience,
My heart is always locked into the audience, My senses
and my energy are always locked into the audience and
what they're feeling and how they're processing. And it was
just really powerful for me to watch the expressions, to
hear the size, to hear even some of the anger,
(11:33):
to hear some of the deep reflection that was happening
throughout the audience as we were having this conversation and
then to see so many afterwards just form huge lines
to speak with Teddy, to speak with Carl, to share
with Carl what he meant to them as a pastor,
(11:53):
and what it meant to them to hear him now
speaking from his space of healing. So an honor to
share this conversation with you. We talk about the duality
of sacred spaces, how they can offer profound comfort and connection,
yet also be sites for shame, for silence, for ego,
(12:14):
for control, and together we really examine how religious trauma
can impact identity and self worth, the stifling of women's
leadership that can happen within the church, and the subtle
ways that shame and hierarchy shape our relationship with God
and with ourselves, sometimes forever. The conversation invites us to
(12:37):
release limiting beliefs, dismantle shame, and rediscover the divine beyond institutions,
to rebuild a relationship with Spirit that feels true, expansive,
and grounded in autonomy, curiosity, and compassion. And it's an
offering to anyone healing from spiritual wounds, honoring where you're called,
(12:59):
and choosing a faith that allows you to flourish. At
the end of our time together, doctor Reeves and Carl
leave us with powerful reflections and practices that can support
you on your journey. So, without further ado, here's our
conversation on religious trauma.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Deeply Well.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Hello everyone, how are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
What an amazing and important way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
My name is Debbie Brown.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm a wellness educator and a healer and also a
proud board member of the Mental Wealth Alliance.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So we are so excited to be here for year four.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
We're going to have a very deep panel and to
get us ready, and before I introduce my guests, let's
have a centering breath together. Is everybody in for that? Yeah,
So go ahead and get comfortable, like really comfortable, like
uncross a couple things. Sit forward, let your spine be
straight and your belly be soft, and we're just gonna
(14:14):
take three deep breaths in to really lock us into
the present moment and anything that may arise. So I
want to invite you, if you can hear the sound
of my voice and you're seated and comfortable, to gently close.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Your eyes.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And we will begin a nice deep in hell in
through your nose, filling your belly, rising.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
In the chest and excel deep in Hell, in through
the nose.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
And reallyase.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And last breath here together, deep in hell and through
your nose, really let it stretch your belly and your chest,
and beautiful, thank you for settling into this space with me.
You can gently open your eyes as you're ready, So again,
(15:23):
welcome everyone. Today, we're getting ready to enter into a
very deep and nuanced conversation about religious trauma, what it means,
how it shapes our sense of self, our sense of belonging,
our connection to faith in God, and how we can
begin the work of reclaiming agency after harm. If that
(15:44):
was present in your life, we have, I mean, we
are just blessed to have these two men on stage,
absolute acclaim stage today. I want to start by introducing
the first incredible voice, Doctor Teddy Reeves. Who is He'm
the senior Curator of Religion at the Smithsonian National Museum
of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
He's the Yes, He's the creator of.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
A really phenomenal documentary called God Talk, exploring how Black
millennials reimagine faith across traditions. And I was very honored
to be featured in that film. Welcome Teddy, thank you.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Thank you, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
And next we have Karl Lentz, strategist at Transformation Church
and host of the lights On podcast. Once a high
profile pastor, Carl has since embraced sobriety and a public
path of healing. He now supports others through coaching, helping
destigmatize addiction, infidelity, and challenges with mental health. Thank you
(16:54):
so much for being here, Carl.
Speaker 7 (16:56):
Honor, thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I think to to really get this conversation grounded before
we start. You know, religious spaces kind of historically can
be both sacred places of healing and sources of profound harm.
Religious trauma impacts identity, self worth, and the ability to
connect with the community and with your own relationship with
(17:20):
a higher power. Healing in this space requires so much courage,
safe spaces.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Humility, and new ways of belonging.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So I think to kick off this conversation and I'll
start with you, Teddy, what is your definition of religious trauma?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
How do you even relate to that word, that concept?
Speaker 8 (17:40):
Thanks so much, DEVI for the question, and I'm really
excited to be here. I think to define religious trauma.
I first asked a question of what is religion for
that person? Right, That religion means something different for each
one of us, depending on the tradition we came out of,
depending on the experiences we had. But I will say,
(18:03):
as someone who grew up in the South, as in
a Black Baptist church, I would say my religious trauma
came from the experiences of people in my Black Baptist church.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Right.
Speaker 8 (18:14):
And so I think religious trauma is the vestuses of
something deeper, particularly for people of African descent. It's the
remnants of something that we have continuously been dealing with since.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
Our arrival on these shores. Right.
Speaker 8 (18:29):
That religious trauma is not something that happened in the nineties,
only in the two thousands.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Only.
Speaker 8 (18:35):
Religious trauma started in eighteen sixty five, once we set
our foot on these shores, right, eighteen sixty five, when
we're free from these shores. But when we get here
in seventeen ninety, right, it begins at these points. So
religious trauma is anything that has caused you called soul wounds,
that's called mental wounds in you and around you, at
(18:57):
the hands of your religious institution or those who are
leading it. But I think also religious trauma is something
we experience at home right that it isn't always at
the hands of.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
The religious leader or leaders.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
But it is something that happens when the texts, when tradition,
when doctrine is used to justify behavior, or justify discipline,
or justify mistreatment of individuals, that become the remnants of
religious trauma. I just always like to center it, particularly
for people of African descent, that religious trauma didn't start
(19:31):
in our hands. We inherited it and we've been passing
it and perpetuating it since then.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Thank you, Carl. How do you relate to that word?
Speaker 7 (19:43):
Well, I just like to say, firstly, your outfits incredible
and how's everybody doing. Guy's good, It's good to see you.
I think I see this angle from the situation from
two angles, as a perpetrator of religious trauma, UH, as
a pastor that lied to people that trusted me, and
(20:04):
a victim of in some ways of having things done
to me. So my life right now consists of holding
these two things with a beautiful tension because religious trauma
is different than other trauma, and that we're attaching it
to God and anytime that happens, things get really beautiful
or really complicated, And so I enjoy seeing people get
(20:27):
free of that fear that often accompanies this kind of
religious trauma. And there is a brighter day for people
who are willing to dig for it.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Oh wow, deeply wow.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I just want to say thank you.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I'm going to say this to you all day, but
just like thank you for the courage and the humility
of being here and speaking to this in that.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Way, like the power of what you.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And your unique viewpoint can bring to the world, it's
really profound. I'll start with you on this first question, Carl.
You know, how can we practically disrupt the cycles of
shame and secrecy that often keeps religious trauma as an
unspoken experience.
Speaker 7 (21:20):
You got to speak about it. I mean, I love
when people get the courage to actually get it out,
because the power of shame will get people to stop talking.
And the longer you do that, the more that pain
will continue to work through your whole body. And so
it seems like it's a long road to heal from
(21:42):
religious trauma, and it can be. But the first step
is just getting with somebody that you trust to get
it out and say this is how I feel. Because
the first thing you lose with religious trauma is agency.
You have outsourced your conviction, your power. You have to
go to someone else to get something else. The first
step to reclaiming that it's saying, wait, I have a voice,
(22:04):
I feel, I see, I sense, and learning how to
trust that again. It's a beautiful journey, but that's where
it begins. It's just making a choice to say, from
this second on, I'm gonna reclaim my own power and
start to ask these questions that I've had for a
really long time. And so I love pointing people right
to that one moment of just sitting with somebody you
(22:24):
love and saying this is this is what happened to me.
And even if that's all you did, it's enough to
start this journey of healing that never ends until until
we're going to be in heaven.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Never ends. Yeah, thank you, thank you, Teddy.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
I think to that point, Karl, I think a big
part of it for me is that many individuals don't
even know that they're traumatized. Right that we got plenty
of people sitting in mosque and churches across our country,
across our world, not knowing that every Sunday they're traumatized.
Right that every Sunday they're walking around with psychological.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Trauma in their body and not knowing it.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Right, that someone is willing to parse out their identity,
their way of being, their existence.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
Example of some people are sitting in churches where women
can't lead based off of Paul line text that was
poorly interpretated when Paul says that women should be silent.
When Paul was specifically talking to the church at Corinth
because the women were being loud in the colosseum, and
he was like, look, y'all can't talk when I come
around to mean that women can't lead in leadership roles, right,
(23:34):
that's religious trauma, right, that we have plenty in our
churches are full of women, particularly Black women, that are
sitting in these spaces not knowing that.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
The stifling of.
Speaker 8 (23:45):
Leadership starts early, right, and it often starts at the
hands of Black churches, in Black religious spaces.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
And and so I think.
Speaker 8 (23:53):
That particularly for we're looking at millennials and Gen z
ors and even Gen xers and up who have were
raised in the church.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Right.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
Gen z is the first generation that's not raised in
the church, not raised in a religious institution overwhelmingly.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
And so we see for these three older.
Speaker 8 (24:09):
Generations living that they are riddled with religious trauma. Right,
that we literally are living in the after effects of
people believing that women cannot lead, right, and that black
women cannot lead, and so really believing that, you know,
we got folks who are walking around believing their sexual
identities is up.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
For debate because of a text when we.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
Can't even read a liberatory text, when the story of
Jonathan and David is a story not of platonic friendship, right,
but we're not talking about the hermeneutics and the theological
conversations and questions and readings that need to be done
in the text. And so I think part of this
is that a lot of people are walking around not
knowing their traumatized, right, and that becomes the story of
(24:53):
also a group of people who walk around consistently traumatized
from injustice, from hate, from all of these things. And
so when you compound religiosity to it we are a
spiritual people, it only continues to perpetuate bondage and shrike
shackles and ways of being that is not conducive for
(25:13):
our freedom. And so I think that that is also
something we need to sit with.
Speaker 7 (25:17):
I was going to say, do you find it when
you when you talk to people and you want to
know whether they know they're traumatized? Aroun I like to say,
what do you think God's posture is? If you're going
to have a conversation with the God that you claim
to believe in, what is his posture towards you? Right away?
You can find out because most people would think he's judgy,
he's mean, he's mad. What would be the posture of God?
(25:39):
And that's when you find out quickly? Wow, how long
you been living like that?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Is?
Speaker 7 (25:43):
That? Is that heavy to walk around every day thinking
that God is looking at you like there's what if
there's a different truth to find?
Speaker 6 (25:51):
And who would want to serve a God like that?
Speaker 7 (25:53):
Apparently a lot of people did White evangelical.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Shirt that that is true.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Brother, that is true, because then we get into the
fibers of the way that we connect God even to
the trauma we experience in our homes and in the
world and systemic oppression and why we are seeking out
to serve punishment in the first place.
Speaker 8 (26:14):
And why do we give God human problems? Okay, God
didn't do that to you. The church that that person
did that, right, that we are all broking beings. But
name the thing, right, The text tells us to name
the demon, right, Jesus asks the demon the name for
a specific reason, because he's saying, what is this thing
that I need to uproot?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
I need to name the person.
Speaker 8 (26:35):
That harmed me so that we can uproot and begin
to find out are we going to reconcile or are
we not going to reconcile?
Speaker 6 (26:41):
Right? But if we're.
Speaker 8 (26:42):
Unwilling to name it, but we put it on God, right,
I'm like, God ain't hurt you. These people hurt you, right,
and the God in them is what we can be reconciled.
We can decide whether we want to be reconciled back
to one another through it. But I think that when
we talk about church decline and all these other things
where it's often been because people put the hurt on God, right,
(27:02):
and and to your point, versus putting the hurt and
the blame where it needs to sit and us walking
through that.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, ooh, it's funny when you when you say giving
God human problems, Like the first thing that came to
me is like, yeah, if you're looking at God as
being this punishing, this judging these so we're saying God
doesn't have tools that like God isn't emotionally regulated, have
the ability to see past personal feelings of you know,
(27:31):
irritation and indignation.
Speaker 7 (27:35):
Now I was going to say, it's a lot of
people will God's voice sounds a lot like their dad
that was or was not there, that was good or
was not good. And that's a really interesting thing to
look at because that's that's the tape people play. God's
voice is the dad that you either hated or didn't have.
Maybe he loved them, but that's not necessarily reflective of
(27:56):
the God that we know. And that's a very tricky
thing for people to start to unwind, but it's worth
it because you might have been listening to the wrong
tape your whole life. What impact might that have had.
And that's the thing about trauma. If you have relationship trauma,
beautiful relationships are the carnage. If you have church trauma,
your relationship with God can be the carnage. And that's
not fair. We're old better than that, you know.
Speaker 8 (28:18):
I think from a very practical sense, what I often
offer people to that point is one of the first
things to do in kind of freeing yourself from that
is to free yourself from the language.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
That God has to only be your father. Right, I
refer to God as she.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Right, you can put she in the text sometimes when
it says he, that is a we did that, right,
that is a that's an interpretation. But that if you're
referring to God and you give God back God's autonomy,
because God is not a man nor a woman. When
you give God back God's autonomy or saying God is
a good God, right reviews removing the pronouns allow you
(28:56):
to remove the harm that was done to you by
those personal individual rules and give God back God's autonomy.
Right that I will say mother God quickly, right, because
if you have a poor relationship with your mother, with
your father, and God is your father, then you and God.
That's why you don't pray like that, right, because you
don't know how to talk to your daddy. So like
really having this freeing moment to say no, like God
(29:18):
is autonomous of us.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
God.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
We are God's hands and feet in the world, but
God is autonomous from me as a being, and so
God is God, God is Spirit. God is this thing
that's beyond me, but it's in me and around me.
And so I don't have to give God again human
problems right that mm they hurt me, but God loves me, right.
(29:41):
And so if I sit in that I am beautifully
and wonderfully made, right that I don't enter my relationship
with God in sin. I enter my relationship with God
in love, right. And when I enter with love.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
Everything else works itself out right.
Speaker 8 (29:57):
But when you enter from a sinful point, you look
at God, it's this, Oh God, it is going to
turn God's back on me or.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
I'm not good enough from God. I'm beautiful and wonderfully made.
Speaker 8 (30:05):
That's what the text said, right, And it said that
when He created he or she created me, I was
good creation period right. Everything else will work itself out.
That is my humanity working right now. But I'm good
right that if I hurt my brother here, I'm still good.
The text gives me how to reconcile with him, but
(30:26):
God still loves me, period right. And I think that
that freedom also helps us release ourselves from that trauma.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
That is so good.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, I'm looking at this clock and I'm like, they
better put sixty more minutes up here, because I have
all the questions we need to hear today.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I think next, and I know this is.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Oh, Carl, I'll start with you here on this next question.
You know, for those that have decided because of often
unspoken harm that has happened, who've decided to step away
from religion entirely, what are some ways to reconnect with
spirituality or meaning outside of traditional frameworks. How do you
(31:12):
build that walk live in that walk if you have
stepped away from your family's church or just.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
All of it as a system.
Speaker 7 (31:23):
I think religious institutions, whether it's a church or whatever
we're going to call an institution, it's only as powerful
as the door that you entered it from. So we
always tried to tell people was the ideal is to
have a relationship with God outside of that institution. From there,
if you enter a church or a place, it's a
(31:45):
different succession of connection. If your only connection to God
is through an institution, what happens when the institution goes bad,
or the pastor lies, or the pastor lets you down
all of a sudden, it all falls down. But if
you enter this, you know, whatever your faith leads you
towards if you have a relationship with God that supersedes
that which it should, there's a lot more strength. So
(32:07):
I always encourage people I'm not interested in what box
you check or what you call yourself on Facebook Christian Catholic,
with what is your relationship with the Living God? How
do you define that? From there flows everything? And most people,
if you ask them about God, the first thing they
do is talk about their church. And there's a little
bit of beauty to that, but there's a whole lot
(32:28):
of problems with that too. So I just like to
tell people you have a a lot of time, take
your time. There's no rush. God is patient, and it's
better to go slow and be right than it is
to rush back in and be wrong again. And often people,
when they're traumatized, they just take the first option there
and sometimes you get back in the same cycle. So
I just like to point people to you know, church
(32:49):
is something that is important. We've made it. It can
be beautiful, but the design is to always have a
relationship with God that is unattached from that. And if
you have that, typically you're gonna want to build a community.
You're gonna want to be in community with people that
believe the same thing. But if I have my relationship
with God correctly, humans can let me down and it
(33:10):
will not knock my view of this God that I
believe saved my life. And there's something you can stand on.
When that happens. I'm hurt and I'm disappointed, and I'm
sad that this person or this church let me down,
but it has not changed my standing with the God
that created me. There's power in that.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Oh, that is so good.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
That is so good, And I think even in that,
and I wish we had the time to get into it.
But for me, that also brings up that when you
are kind of looking at your church, if you did
come from a place that felt harmful or just not
the most aligned fit to you being in presence with God,
like have a discerning eye of how much of this
community might actually be caught up in like social hierarchy, right,
(33:56):
or like ego, because I think historically churches also can
become places where the root isn't about God and community
and service, it's about what positions you hold and what
you take that to mean about yourself within the systems.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
Also, to add to both of you, I think we
also get to nuance, this language around reconnecting, right, because
what I tell people, if you left your church, you're
still with God outside in the club period, Right, It
doesn't require you come back into something to be reconnected
with the divine. Right that I think when we're looking
(34:36):
at data just alone, Millennials and gen z are overwhelmingly
identifying as nuns, n o ne right that we are,
Nor are we Christian?
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Are we Buddhists? We are living in this very pluristic
space in our faith.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Right, we are Christian, but we get our tear cars
where we're Christian and we do crystals. We're Christian and
we meditate like we are living in this very spiritually
fluid space. And so I think part of what this
is is when we're dealing with this religious trauma and
many folks have walked out of.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
The space, it's to cultivate the space you've walked into.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Right.
Speaker 8 (35:10):
If the space is podcasting, stay in the podcasting lane, right,
God is with you there.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
It's a ministry.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Right.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
If your space is at the music festival, right, I
think if your space is here at the Mental Wealth Expo,
this is a space where we're having church. Right, we're
talking about the divine. You can eat, you can break bread,
you can fellowship, we can even sing a song and
leave right that we have done the work of the church.
And so I think it's honoring your call, honoring where
(35:37):
Spirit has called you in this season. If it's outside
of the church in which you were raised, flourish right,
flourish there, experience the Divine there. This is what's happening today.
This is where Spirit is moving today. And I always
want to say, we're not doing anything new, We're reclaiming
old practices. Right that our ancestors when we got here,
overwhelmingly majority of us were Muslim, or we practice traditional
(36:01):
African religion. If you are a descendant of chattel slavery
in this country, your people were not Christian. Christianity was
happening in the north. It was in Ethiopia, or unless
you're Ethiopian, that is where that was happening for us.
And so what we're seeing today with millennials is us
reclaiming free thought.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Right.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
We're walking in line of Zordaiirhirston, We're walking in the
line of James Balwin, We're walking in the line of
Frederick Douglass. These folks who understood that their relationship with
the divine was not regulated to a church, right, but
that the church becomes one extension of what black folks
were able to create, particularly for us in this country,
to resist injustice, right to fight against oppression. And it's
(36:42):
a beautiful space that we should keep cultivating. But not
all of us are called to be in that space.
And so honoring where you are called, honoring where Spirit
is leading you and healing your trauma there right there.
Sometimes you the hand, as doctor Thema Briant would say,
the hand that harmed you can't be the hand that
(37:02):
healed you, right, And so you gotta go get healed.
And if you want to reconnect, make sure that you
are healed before you go back to the space.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
That harmed you.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
And honor where you are and where Spirit may have you,
if that's the club, if that's twitch, if it's you two,
wherever that is, wherever your ministry has called you to
commune with the divine or conjure with the Divine.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Honor that thank you.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Deeply well.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think is our final question on this stage. I'm
going to make it a two part because I got
to get an extra question off because this time went
too fast. I would say for each of you, you know,
how can communities of faith begin to repair trust with
people who have been harmed? And for anyone in the
(38:00):
audience listening right now that is quietly struggling with their
own story and experiences, how would you encourage them to
take a first step towards reclaiming agency. So little two
parter rebuilding as a faith community and internal building as
an individual.
Speaker 7 (38:18):
I meant I'll go fifteen seconds, you go twenty. Now
we're talking about church.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
We should just.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
Disregard the time. Anyway, if we're talking church, no, I
think I point people to truth. It's worth digging for truth.
I'm a Jesus follower. So if you know your Bible
in here, and the Bible talks about putting on the
armor of God. It likens truth to a belt, because
if you have everything but you don't have a belt,
everything falls down and you are now immobilized. You have
(38:46):
the best outfit in the world on, but if your
pants fall down, you're not going anywhere. And in the
church world, you see a lot of people who have
the fancy stuff. They got the sword, they got the helmet,
but they don't know the truth. And they can't figure
out why it never seems to fit right. And I
like pointing people to a mirror. First, how do I
feel right now? What's in my body? What's in my soul?
(39:08):
What do I think has happened to me? And then
you grab a telescope and think what would a life
of freedom look like rather than fear? And then you
get a magnifying glass and go, what's one step I
can do today? And that little succession before you know it,
you're on this walk and you're like, how did I
get so free? Because you don't get free in today.
It's a journey. So I like looking at it like that,
(39:29):
like what's true for me? What do I believe is true?
Don't judge it, just stand on it. And from there,
you know, every day is a new step to find
some deeper truth. But there's a better day than just
sitting where you've been hurt. It's just a tragedy to
me when people allow the horrible actions of others to
rob them of a relationship with the living God. There's
(39:51):
a better opportunity, thank you.
Speaker 8 (39:57):
I would argue for institutions when I'm talking to clergy,
whether they're Christian, Muslim, Buddhists all and the question is
always how do we get young people? How do we
get young people? You're not gonna get us right like
we gone right, but it's not as and it's the
(40:17):
data shows us millennials and gen z ors are not
walking away from God, They're walking away from church. And
to your point, Carl earlier, if we can begin to
do the work to see them as not mutually exclusive right,
that it is the job of religious institutions to name
the harm.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Right that you have, our.
Speaker 8 (40:38):
Institutions and the people within them have to do the
hard work to reconcile.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
How are we causing harm? How have we caused harm?
Speaker 8 (40:46):
How do we support the work of what young people
are creating in the world today to experience the divine?
Speaker 6 (40:51):
If they at the club, create something to go to
the club, right, if they like to do?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
You know?
Speaker 8 (40:56):
I used to be a pastor many moons ago, and
I remember having a young adult party and I was
the executive pastor and a senior pastor was like, we
having a party?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
I said, absolutely, having a party? Why not? I was like,
and we haven't drinks? Why not?
Speaker 8 (41:10):
Because they're gonna drink when they leave here? Why they
might as well drink when they're here, right, But we
can talk about responsible drinking. We can talk about what
it means to be the church. We can talk about
the first miracle being wine. You think Jesus didn't drink it,
right like, we can talk about what does it mean
to practically live this thing out right. But it takes
(41:32):
us to have these hard conversations. It takes us meeting
these generations where they are. It doesn't take us compromising
the story that Jesus lived. Jesus was born, and Jesus died,
and on the third day Jesus got up.
Speaker 6 (41:43):
What it takes us is to.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
Really acknowledge that Jesus lived in the world in which
is not similar to the world we live in today,
but also is not much.
Speaker 6 (41:52):
Different than the world we lived in today.
Speaker 8 (41:53):
There were the same same folks, same demons, same everything
going on. They just didn't have the same technologies we had.
And so looking at that and having those hard truths,
I think if I'm talking to an individual or anyone
here that is in this point in their journey, I
would say, very practically, if you journal, if you audio
record yourself, whatever that is, I would encourage you to
(42:15):
write a list everything the church or your religious institution
told you was wrong about you. Right, I'm not this
because I do that. I am not this because I
do that. Write it down, don't hold it back. Just
write it all on a list, vocalize it, and then
begin to write on the other column everything you believe
(42:35):
about yourself. Right, I'm powerful, I'm loving, I am this,
I am that. Look at the thing you were taught
to believe that you were not because you didn't follow this,
but everything you believe about yourself.
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Right.
Speaker 8 (42:51):
If the list of things that you were told were
not good about you outweighs the things you believe about yourself,
you're in religious true. Right, name the demon and begin
to work through that list.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Right.
Speaker 8 (43:06):
If you were like, I'm not this because of this,
I encourage you to go get a commentary and begin
to read the text for yourself to realize this text
was written for a specific demographic of people at a
specific time, for specific reason. Right, I free you one better.
If you're still reading the King James version, let the
King James version go.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
Right.
Speaker 8 (43:29):
That brother was a not that there's anything wrong with it.
But if we're going to name the demon, right, because
your list is on the left side. That brother was
a drunk who was making money, so he converted the
Bible into English to sell it. It's not even the
closest you're going to get to the original text. The
NRSV or the NIV as the closest you're going to
(43:50):
get to the original.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Greek and Hebrew.
Speaker 8 (43:52):
So if you're talking about really working through religious trauma,
it comes from a very practical level of how are
you reading the text? What is your hermineutic of seeing
yourself in the text? Connect yourself to amazing theologians doing
work around the things on your list. Right, if you
feel like you're a black woman and you can't lead,
there's theologians like Candice Bimbo, Melva Sampson, all of these
(44:13):
women who are doing work around.
Speaker 6 (44:15):
No, we actually are worthy.
Speaker 8 (44:17):
If you believe it's because of your sexual orientation, you're
a theologians that can walk you through that there is
work and love and purpose and honor in the divine
for you, and so do that work to begin to
unravel and heal yourself. The text says, servant, heal thyself right,
know thyself, and heal thyself right, because if God lives
(44:39):
in you, then the healing and everything you need. We
profess Holy Spirit, right, even if you're not even Christian,
the spirit. We believe that there's something, that thing is
on the inside of you. If you begin to do
the work and begin to change the outside of you too, right,
and so give yourself over to that work.
Speaker 7 (44:57):
Do y'all say this, I give you beautiful reletive. I
think as a just as a handle if you wanted
an idea. If you're in this space and you're searching,
one of the most beautiful prayers you can pray, because
the Bible points to the renewing of your mind being
the real conduit for transformation, not your action. So if
you just say, God, help me renew my mind. If
there is a God and he does hear us, and
(45:18):
we believe that he does, he will do that. It
doesn't when was the last time you thought again? When's
the last time you renewed your mind? And the Bible
points to this picture of us having the ability to
shake it off and say, let me think again, let
me see clearly, and God will answer that prayer. So
it's just a If you find yourself lonely today and
you leave here and you're thinking I don't know what
to pray. Lord, help me renew my mind is something
(45:40):
you'll never be sorry you ever said to Heaven.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Wow, I do not want to get off this stage.
Speaker 7 (45:52):
We got to take up an offering now, So if
you can just look under your seat for an envelope.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
I would make the joke and say locked the doors.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
I just want to say to you both first, I
have such a deep admiration for each of you and
how you are carrying yourselves in the world and what
you were doing with your lived experience to stay deeply
connected with God, to serve, but to also bring people
to God and to bring people to whatever healing they
deserve to have happened within themselves.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Your honesty, your wisdom, the courage to bring all of
this into this space. I think religious trauma is very
deeply personal, it's collective, and what we have heard here
is that it requires our own internal investigation, supercharged discernment,
accountability and self compassion and compassion for all ultimately, So
(46:50):
as we close, I really want to remind everyone in
the audience right now who's listening, who may be navigating
this quietly internally, whether it's your experience, your children, your parents,
however it presents. You are absolutely, as you've learned now
more than ever, not alone in this process. And I
want you to know that to a certain degree, like
(47:10):
if you grappled with this in earlier stages of your
life and decided not to go back to try to
figure that out. Life is changing, The world is rapidly
evolving and changing, and resources, people, communities, just the language
to understand what you may have walked through in your
life is now more readily available than it has ever
(47:33):
been in human history. In the history of humanity. We are,
you know, really coming to such a precipice with how
we experience God, but also how we experience ourselves, with
our mental health and our physical health. So there are
more answers than ever. Please start looking for them, you know,
(47:54):
even really refined Google searches could be a great start
to lead you somewhere looking up this term walking in
rooms with this term recently, Teddy, I didn't have a
chance to share this story with you, but I'm based
in la and I was meeting a friend for a
studio session, and we were having to talk about your
film outside and I opened the door and I'm not
(48:16):
going to say who it is, but the room was
filled with incredible musicians that we know and love. I
opened the door and the last thing I said as
I walked in, I go, well, yeah, because that's religious trauma.
Them hearing me say that word, the whole room went silent,
and they're like, can you say that again?
Speaker 4 (48:34):
And I go, religious trauma.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
And you just saw all these light bulbs go off
in people because they didn't have that framework of language.
And that turned into hours and hours of conversation about this.
And I know you know each one in the world
on their own search. But I say all that to
say again, there are more resources than ever. There are
more ways to really understand what your lived experience might
(48:58):
have been, but also where you can go from here
and how you can continue to build faith in your
heart and in your life and connect to a higher power.
So so grateful for everybody in this room. Thank you
for being here today. I'm Debbie Brown, doctor to oh Teddy,
would you mind sharing that?
Speaker 8 (49:16):
Yes, I will be at the book table at one o'clock.
The first hundred people that join us there at the
museum will be giving you a free book. It's our
double exposure book. It looks at African American religion through
various traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Santa Voodoo, through photography, and so
I'll encourage the first hundred people. It's a free book
on behalf of the National Museum of African American History
(49:36):
and Culture.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Thank you so much for making this possible for us,
Doctor Teddy Reeves, CARLNZ, thank you so much. Wow, thank you,
thank you, thank you everyone for opening your hearts to
this conversation. It can be a very triggering one for
a lot of reasons, and for many it might be
(49:58):
the very first time that you you are hearing of
this particular experience what religious trauma is. So I just
send a lot of love to you on holding your
curiosity for this and investigating where it may land in
your life or where you may have recognized it landing
in the life of someone you love or someone you know.
(50:20):
If you're navigating your own journey with religious trauma, reclaiming
your spiritual identity, or learning to trust yourself again, I
really want to remind you right now you're not alone
in this. This affects millions of people, and there is
nothing wrong or broken about you. Your questions, your pain,
(50:42):
and your longing for deeper connection are sacred and they're valid.
We're living in a time where language, resources and community
are expanding spaces for healing or growing, and there are
more paths than ever to explore your faith, your spirit,
and your truth at your own pace and in a
way that honors your wholeness and your unique path. As
(51:07):
you move forward, I hope that you continue building trust
in your own inner knowing, and may you remember that
your connection to God, to Spirit, to the divine, it
belongs to you and you alone. It cannot be taken,
it cannot be defined for you, and it can only
be lived from within. Take your time, seek support when
(51:29):
you needed, and hold yourself with compassion as you unlearn, unbuild.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
And rise.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
Thank you so much to doctor Teddy reeves to Carl
Lentz for the courage for the shepherding that was really
felt and received by this conversation, and I'm looking forward
to having many more. I know, after we got off
the stage from having this conversation, we the three of
(51:58):
us kind of huddled together and we were like, we
got to hit the road with this.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
It's just yeah, I'm excited to continue to expand in
this conversation and especially with those two gentlemen, So please
share your thoughts and really the only soul work for
today's episode is give yourself the space, the time, and
the softness to explore where this episode is landing within
(52:25):
your body and start to ask why and how and
what you want to investigate about it moving forward. Thank
you for joining us on this episode. We'll be back
next week. Please share this episode with any friend you
think could use it. Share it on threads, share it
on IG on stories. If you're on X, share it
(52:48):
on X sub stack wherever the people are gathering, and
thank you.
Speaker 6 (52:53):
Mistake.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
The content presented on deeply well serve so for educational
and informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement
for personalized medical or mental health guidance and does not
constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable
to consult with your healthcare provider or health team for
(53:17):
any specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect
with me on social at Debbie Brown that's Twitter and Instagram,
or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts.
Don't Forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this
episode to a friend.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Deeply Well is.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
A production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's
produced by Jacquess Thomas, Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown.
The Beautiful Soundbath You heard That's by Jarrelen Glass from
Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you listen to your favorite sh ouse.
Host
Devi Brown
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.