Episode 126 - Apostate - with Sarah Bacaller - Still Unbelievable!

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Episode 126 Apostate with Sarah Backeler.
This is Matthew and in this episode of Still Unbelievable,
I'll be interviewing Sarah Backeler.
This is an exciting episode for me because it's the first
official official. Ladies and gentlemen, the first
official episode celebrating thelaunch of the book Apostate.

(00:22):
Sarah has organised 21 differentpeople who each recount some of
their recovery from Christianity.
There'll be more episodes that discuss the book, including
interviews with contributors. To buy the book, see link one in
the show notes. Sarah's book Fault Lines that
she mentions is link 2, and link3 is to a YouTube video where

(00:43):
Sarah and one of the contributors have already done a
video promoting the book. Hello everybody, welcome to
another episode of Still Unbelievable.
This is Matthew. I have mentioned it a couple of
times in the past. So this is the formal, the
official, the absolutely it is definitely happening episode

(01:05):
where we talk about the book which I've contributed the
chapter 2. So the book is called Apostate.
I have contributed a chapter to it.
There's about 20 other people who have also contributed
chapters to it. I have read through the book.
I haven't quite read all of the chapters yet, but I've certainly
read a chunk of them. I love the book.
I hope that you, dear listening,will love it too.

(01:27):
There will be details on how to buy it.
This will not be the only episode in which I plugged the
book, I can promise you that. But before we get to all of that
stuff, I do want to talk to the person who has been responsible
for driving this book, who came up with the idea, who invited
people to come onto it. Set up the Facebook group to
bring us all together. Did all the preliminary editing

(01:48):
of all of our early chapters. Did the tedious job of reading
through all our dirty drafts, cleaning them all up, making
them neat, getting publisher involved, having goodness knows
how many conversations with that.
Sarah, thank you so much for coming on.
Congratulations on doing that. You probably can't breathe after
all the work that you've been doing for the last six months.

(02:11):
Thank you and welcome. Thanks so much, Matthew.
It is a pleasure to be here talking to you today and to be
talking about the book. Yes, absolutely.
Now to clear up for the listeners.
Most of the times when I talk tosomebody, they have an obviously
English accent or an obviously American accent.
You have neither, so tell us where you are and why.

(02:33):
Oh. I'd like the listeners to guess.
I'll give. Them it's New Zealand, isn't it?
It's it's New Zealand. How dare you?
How dare you. No, no, no, no.
I'm from Australia and I live about an hour out of Melbourne,
sort of on the urban, rural fringe in a very beautiful spot,

(02:54):
close to lots of beautiful beaches.
And, and yeah, and that is whereI'm from.
That's my accent. I've grown up in Australia.
I do have a very multicultural background, but I think my, my
accent's pretty Aussie. Not as not as Aussie Aussie as
it could be, mate, but yeah. Now, those of us who might be

(03:14):
geographically challenged, whereabouts is Melbourne?
That's South Coast. Is it?
Do I remember right? Yeah.
So Melbourne is well right, wellright down the the southeast
bottom of Melbourne. So of Australia, sorry if you've
got a map of Australia and the highest tip on the eastern side,

(03:37):
you just go straight down from that right down to the bottom of
the mainland, you'll pretty muchhit Melbourne.
And yeah. And so Melbourne is on on the
sea, it's on the northern point of Port Phillip Bay.
And I live on the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay, kind of
further down towards the coast. So yeah, so that's where it is.

(03:57):
I can't give you the exact latitude and longitude, I'm
sorry but. So, but you a surfer, are you a
skier? Is is is boat ownership
mandatory where you are? Oh, I'm a gardener, Matthew.
Actually, I, no, my husband has done a bit of surfing.
I've, I've also done a little bit of surfing, but it, it takes

(04:21):
a lot of energy, but we, we lovethe beach.
We're often at the beach. Our kids are kind of have always
been water babies and in Australia that, you know, it's,
it's kind of standard practice that, you know, as soon as
you're allowed to. So when kids are about 6 months
old, they start swimming lessonsbasically.
Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's, that's

(04:41):
what we do. And, and one of my jobs, as I
mentioned, I work as a gardener.So there's a, a spot called the
Mornington Peninsula, which is down in the South southeastern
side of Port Phillip Bay and go around there working on lots of
different gardens there. So I get to enjoy enjoy the the
Seaview from lots of different angles.
Lovely, very nice, but I do needto go back to Australia.

(05:04):
I visited Australia once and it was in the year 2000, so I was
there for Christmas 2000, New Year 2001, but I was over the
other side. I was visiting some friends of
my wife's over in Perth and Fremantle.
Oh cool. So we were, we were at that end,
we were eastern Australia. So we went all the way up to
Shark Bay and all the way down to Margaret River and enjoyed

(05:25):
that part. Saw lots of glorious sunsets,
came very close to a snake in the sea.
The the guide there didn't seem to be bothered about it, but I
thought, hang on a minute, aren't snakes supposed to be
poisonous? But the.
The. Guide wasn't particularly
bothered by it, so we stayed standing ankle deep in water

(05:45):
with this snake swimming betweenour feet.
It was like, OK, interesting. Interesting.
Well, OK, that's interesting. I mean, it's not uncommon for us
to, to have snakes around where we, I mean, you know, you don't
walk down the street and see a snake, but if you go walking in
a bushland reserve in summer, then there's probably, you know,
a 20% chance you'll see a snake.But that's fine.

(06:05):
We're just pretty used to that, I think.
Yes, I'm sure we just don't do anything to frighten the poor
bugger. Yeah, that's right.
Excellent, excellent. That's in spiders.
Oh, and the other thing I was warned about?
All the locals couldn't help butwarn me about drop bears.
Apparently drop bears are a really dangerous thing in
Australia as well. Yeah, well, they're having a lot

(06:28):
of fun with you there, Matthew. We do.
We actually, we have some koalasaround where I live.
It's not often that you see them'cause they like to hide, but
they are around, which is very nice.
But no, they don't, they don't drop on you.
So that's not it's not part of their.
Surprise kamikaze attack on you.That no.

(06:49):
No. OK, right.
OK, Well, with the Magpies. Might the Magpies might.
Sorry to interrupt, but you knowthey actually do.
In springtime. They'll swoop you and they can
be pretty brutal actually, so. Yeah, and a a bird beak making
contact with your with your head, especially with the
folically challenged, the roof that I've got.
Yeah, I wouldn't want a bird. No, I wouldn't want a bird beak,

(07:11):
a bird beak making contact with with my skin at any kind of
velocity. No, I can imagine.
Don't come in springtime. Yeah, I can imagine that can be
deep. So one more question about
Australia. What are the winters like there?
Does it get cold as cold there as it does here in Blighty, or
do you still have a pleasant winter?

(07:31):
I reckon like our average daily temperatures during winter might
be between, I don't know, 10 to 16°C so OK where I live.
It doesn't. Still pretty mild then.
Yeah, pretty mild. Yeah, Where I am it doesn't, it
doesn't snow. Probably have to drive into into
some mountainous terrain which which isn't too far away, a

(07:51):
couple of hours away by car. So there are people who enjoy
their skiing and snowboarding. That's not kind of part of our
family culture so much, but but the kids do enjoy it when when
we've been up to to the snow. But yeah, it's pretty mild,
which is good, which is good. We get a few light frosts where
I live, but that's about it. OK, brilliant.

(08:12):
Right, So business, same. Because now that we've made all
of the listeners want to immediately hop on the flight
over to Australia to cuddle koalas, bat off drop bears and
have fun with water and snow on the same day.
So apostate the book. So you've gathered together, if
I remember right, it's about 21 contributors, some of whom are

(08:34):
podcasters, some of whom are quite active in the
deconstruction, deconstructed faith community, and some are
people who've travelled it on their own and have hung around.
And some still carry hurts and some have gone through that hurt
and are very happy to tell theirstory in all its guts and glory.

(08:55):
So what was it that made you want to put this book together?
I guess it's the very first question I want to ask.
Yeah, good question. I, I, I mentioned this in the,
in the introduction to the book.I've, I've written a brief
introduction, but I was kind of working through a lot of my own
stuff. And one of the things that I did

(09:16):
as a part of that was to write abook or a novella.
Basically it's a fictional novella, but it explores a lot
of the questions that I was wrestling with about life and
faith and anxiety and the afterlife and asking questions
and the spaces in which we do that.
And I, I wrote this story and I was able to find a publisher who

(09:40):
wanted to publish it. And it was whips and stock in
the US, which I thought was actually great of them because
they they are a faith affiliatedpublisher.
And, and I felt like I was pushing the boundaries a bit
with this story, but I emailed a, one of our kind of major
Christian bookstores in Australia and asked if they'd be
willing to stock it. And I kind of gave them a bit of

(10:02):
a, a pricey about what the book was about and sent them some
information. And they must have, whoever was
responsible must have kind of had a look through it or read it
and just kind of sent me a very blunt e-mail saying like, no
way, Why would we do that kind of thing in, in not so many
words. Well, in not in those words.
But that was that was kind of the message, which which was not

(10:25):
really very nice to receive because I felt that the story, I
don't know, like I felt like I was fairly gentle.
I wasn't kind of saying the church is bad, screw the church,
like let's all you know, whatever.
But I was kind of highlighting how important it was to ask
these big questions and to reflect on, I guess, the the

(10:49):
experience that faith narrativeshave on our day-to-day can have
on our day-to-day existence and our, our feelings about
ourselves and our lives. And so I kind of was looking for
a bit of solidarity after that. And then I started thinking
like, oh, actually, probably people in the sort of

(11:09):
deconstructed community are the ones who are going to connect
with this story more than anyonebecause it's sort of traces the,
you know, the emergence of thesequestions that become so big
that, yeah, that they kind of change direction, that change,
change someone's life direction.So, so that story is called the
fault lines Founding Liberty. And so I, I happened to, I

(11:32):
stumbled across the, the Graceful Atheist Facebook group,
joined it and kind of posted about this experience that I'd
had and was just like, what was me?
This was not very nice and had, and, and which was, you know,
and had some really kind of compassionate responses from
people. And I was like, oh, I'm just,
you know, they don't know who I am.
I've just jumped in here to complain to them all.

(11:53):
And yet, you know, I'm still, I'm receiving these kind of
thoughtful, compassionate replies.
And, and so then I, I was obviously following the group
and began, you know, seeing the posts that people were putting
up and, and the snippets of their stories.
And it was so humbling, I suppose.

(12:15):
And I don't know, gut wrenching to be faced or just to encounter
these very immediate heartfelt pleas for understanding and
compassion. And, you know, just people, a
group where people could say, what the hell do I do now that
I'm in this situation or I'm really scared or I don't know

(12:37):
what's happening or lots of questions about, you know,
personal relationships and spouses and, and what to do when
your beliefs start to change andthat starts impacting
relationships. And I was like, man, people in
this group have such important stories to tell.
And I want to hear more of thesestories.
And I think it's really important for other people to

(12:58):
hear these stories, especially people in the church.
You know, what ideas are like, sometimes they just strike like
lightning. It's the inspiration.
So I actually was on AI, was in on a trip with my family.
We're in a campervan and, and I was sort of lying in my
campervan bed with my nose about, I don't know how many
inches from the campervan roof and, you know, hearing the sound

(13:22):
of the waves crashing not too far away outside.
And, and the idea struck and I thought, let's let's write a
book where we gather some stories of people who are
willing and able to tell them. And I, I, I, I'd love to read
it. And so I hope other people would
too. And also I'd love to give people
the opportunity to tell their stories in a, in a focused way.

(13:46):
Yeah. That really honours those
stories. Yeah.
So that's how it happened. And thank you so much for doing
that, Sarah. And quick shout out to everybody
on the Deconstruction Anonymous Facebook group and the
associated Graceful Atheist podcast, because that podcast
has done a great service to the community.
And I want to echo what you saidabout that community in that

(14:08):
Facebook group, because they areloving people.
They care for each other. And I know I've put out my own
posts on there and I've seen many posts like the ones that
that you've talked about. And the love and the community
that flows out of that group is much needed and is deeply,
deeply appreciated. And it's quite sad that you end

(14:31):
that people end up in that groupneeding love and not getting it
from the people that they most expect it from.
And then they suddenly get it from strangers, people who don't
know anything about them. And there's something that's
both heart warming but also quite saddening about that.
So I'm glad that that group exists and I want to support

(14:52):
that group as as much as possible.
And I like what you said just now about people telling their
story in a structured way, because I've done my own episode
on the Graceful Atheist podcast a couple of years ago.
And when you're telling your story in an interview format
like that, you're thinking on the fly and that you don't know
which way it's going to go. And you can prepare what you

(15:15):
want to say as much as possible,but it never goes to where you
expect it. And the great advantage of
writing is that you can, you can, you can structure it how
you want. You can edit it as many times as
you want and before the world sees it, it's been read multiple
times, it's gone through multiple times.
You can sleep on it, you can sleep on it again and you can go

(15:36):
go back through it. And it's, it's a much more
cultivated process and I like that.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And look, everyone, I want to kind of shout out to the
contributors because everyone, Imean, I, I can't remember
exactly how long ago it was thatI had the idea, but we have
worked solidly on this for at least the last year, you know,

(15:59):
and, and contributors, obviouslyeveryone has sort of different
levels of experience in terms ofwriting.
You know, some, some of our contributors are, are
experienced writers, others havenot really done much writing in
that sort of way in the past. And everyone's really stuck at
it and responded so graciously to my kind of editorial
attempted guidance and, and yeah, and I just really

(16:23):
appreciate that, that people have been willing to stick with
the process because it is a longprocess, the process of
publication. And, and, you know, I think in
the last couple of weeks, in thelast six weeks, I've probably
gone through three or four different versions of the proof,
you know, and people and, and have been pestering people, you
know, with can you look through your chapter and blah, blah,
blah. And, and they've had to do that
lots of times. So I, I really appreciate that.

(16:45):
And yeah, a lot of work has goneinto it.
I I don't doubt it for a second.And yes, I have been the
recipient of several emails fromyou on on my own contribution.
I loved being involved in that contribution.
As soon as I saw the post that said I've got this idea, I was
yes yes. Yeah, yeah.

(17:06):
And it was really good to see the the the numbers jump up
quite quickly. So I'm glad we've got over 20
people involved. So cheeky question then.
You must have read everybody's story a handful of times.
Does it ever get I'm going to use the word?

(17:26):
Probably not the right word, butI'm going to use it anyway.
Does it ever get tedious readingthose?
Stories Well, well, before I answer that, I'm going to
clarify my last point. When I said a lot of work goes
into it, I was talking about thework of the contributors, not
me. I signed up and obviously I did.
I've done a lot of work, but when I signed up, I knew it was
going to be a lot of work. And I feel like for the
contributors, they didn't necessarily know how much work

(17:49):
it was going to be. So they have put in a lot of
work that they didn't necessarily know that I was
signing up for. This is the point that I was
trying to emphasize. But how many times have I read?
Oh, does it ever become tedious?No.
Well, I've just started actuallyrecording the audiobook, which
I'm narrating because that's another thing that I do is

(18:09):
narrating audiobooks. So I probably look probably more
than a handful of times I've read each person's story, I
would say at least 10 times for each story, like a really
careful read and, and maybe more.
And I thought, and I wondered when I, you know, when I was
coming to do the audio book, like I've gone through these,

(18:31):
these stories lots of times. Is it going to be tedious or, or
difficult to kind of maintain myfocus as I'm reading them aloud?
But it's, it's not, it's not difficult.
It's because giving voice to those stories aloud is a
different way of engaging with the stories.
And, and I think because I, I know the stories fairly well
now, it's sort of, it's, there'sa flow to it.

(18:54):
And I feel like I'm able to, yeah, to give voice to them in,
in an authentic way. I, I hope.
I mean, look, and, and the otherthing is when you're editing,
you sort of there are many different layers or many
different lenses through which you read a chapter.
So, you know, when I'm doing like a a fine tooth comb kind of
edit of a chapter, it's different from when I'm reading

(19:14):
a chapter to kind of get a senseof the narrative as a whole, of
the pacing and that sort of thing.
So any, anything that's worth having is, is some trouble is a
code that I like from Anne of Green Gables and, and yeah.
And so I think that's, that's, Iknew it was going to be, it was
going to be hard work as part ofit.
And that's fine. It's it's all just part of the
process. Can I?

(19:34):
I'd like to get personal for a bit because sure, I'm one of the
contributors to the book and I've told my story variations of
my story multiple times through this podcast Medium, both on The
Graceful Atheist, a couple of other podcasts.
I'm currently working through a series for my own podcast where

(19:58):
Andrew, David, and myself are telling our story in a long form
format. We've done 2 episodes.
I'm trying to get my head together around recording
episode 3. I probably won't get to record
that until the new year now. But what I'm trying to say is
I'm used to telling my story, but even then the actual sitting
down and writing my story. So although I've written it down

(20:23):
a couple of times in for my own purpose in order to verbally
tell it, but I've never written it down in order for somebody
else to read. And that's that little nuance in
itself was a big step for me. And even then writing down
things that I knew and I've got a part of my story has got quite

(20:47):
a traumatic kidnap scenario. And I know that story extremely
well. I've told that story extremely
well. But actually typing it out was a
very different experience for me.
And although, and that story still felt raw to me, it brought

(21:08):
a new freshness isn't the right word, but it did feel like the
wounds that I thought were healed were were being jabbed
again, because I was putting it out in a different context.
I'm mostly safe talking about itverbally on another podcast, but
that writing experience. So I can imagine that other

(21:29):
people, again, those tough partsof their life was probably a
similar experience for them. So I think we need to give
credit to the emotional cost to our contributors as well.
But then the weirdest thing was when I got the first edits back

(21:49):
from you and I read it through and I went, that's not how I
would say that. And there was this psychological
letting go of those are my words.
I've written my story down. Now it's going through a process
and that letting go of the storyand letting somebody else clean

(22:12):
up my words and edit my story for for for an audience,
somebody who has a better idea of that process of myself, was
more emotional than I expected it to be.
Really. OK.
And it wasn't until I was actually able to say to myself,

(22:32):
let go of the story, Matt. Yeah.
Move on, let somebody else Polish it, let it's now ready
for other people to read. It doesn't have to be your
perfect words. It's still, it's still pushes
out the same meaning. Nothing has actually changed.

(22:52):
And actually that emotional letting go was actually very
liberating. So I want to say thank you to
that because that was an experience I was unused to.
And then, of course, it went on and had a bigger edit and then
came back, and there were a couple of words in there where I
went, Oh, I wouldn't say that. Yeah.

(23:13):
And I just had to sit for a minute, then go back and reread
it and go actually know what? I'm happy with that.
I don't need to change that. I don't need to get upset over
that. Yes.
It's not how I would have phrased it, but it's OK.
Yeah. And and I had to remind myself
that the people reading it will still get something from it and

(23:37):
reading it in that final draft that you've sent out.
And I read back through my storyagain.
It still made me cry. I was still very happy with the
story. And I went, OK, that's good, I'm
OK with that. It's not 100% me, but that's
good and I'm good with that. Yeah, so.
Thank you for that new experience, Sarah.

(23:59):
Well, I'm, I'm, I'm really grateful that you've shared
that, Matthew. And I think, yeah, that's right.
Because writing for for an audience and writing for a book,
it's, as you mentioned, just just writing your story out on
paper where it's there staring back at you is an experience in
and of itself. Yeah.

(24:20):
But then to give it over to someone else with their red pen.
And I was very, very conscious about this because these stories
are so, so deeply personal that,you know, I mean, I know what

(24:40):
it's like to have your heartfeltwords corrected.
I remember when I started, I was, you know, I was working, I
was at university and I would begun work on, on what was more
or less an honest thesis and my soup.
And I starting that process witha supervisor who goes through
and edits the work. And I just found that so hard

(25:02):
because I was so invested in every word and in and, and in
the way that I'd said things. And it was so hard for me not to
take it. Well, I'd, well, I did.
I took it really personally at first, but I kind of realized
that if I'm going to progress with this, if I'm going to move
forward, I actually just have toget used to this process.

(25:25):
But it's easy to forget now. That's probably about, I don't
know, 10 plus years ago now for me and, and I, and I've done a
fair bit of writing since then. And you know, for example, in,
in an academic context, when I've written articles, you
always have peer review, you always have people pulling it
apart. And it's sort of important, I

(25:47):
guess, for me to remember what it's like to be new to that
process and, and how gut wrenching it can be.
And so, you know, I was talking about the everyone's hard work,
but it's also the hard work of putting up with me coming to the
stories and saying, can we phrase this differently?

(26:07):
Can we cut this out? Can we rearrange this?
You know, and, and I hope that in that process that people have
felt that my goal has been to, Idon't know, to put their their
story on a platform as effectively as possible so that
it engages readers as well as possible without wanting to take

(26:30):
away at all with, from from the way that they tell that story or
impose my like, I did not want to impose my own voice on that
story, on those stories at all. And it's a very fine line.
And there was some edits, you know, when the contributors
would say to me, I wouldn't say it like that.
Can we leave it how it was, you know, or, yeah, that's not a
word I would use. Can we, can we use something
else instead? And, and often it would be a

(26:51):
process, you know, I mean, what I would call like a dialectical
process where it's like back andforth.
And then you would actually cometo a solution.
That's not what either of you suggested in the 1st place.
But is, is kind of better that you come to together through
that process of working it out, which is an, an amazingly
valuable process when it comes to writing.
So yes, people have had to put up with me coming to their

(27:14):
stories and, you know, probably sometimes stepping over the line
of imposing my voice too much. But I, I hope that in the end,
the product that we have is the best that it can be.
And, you know, and, and just because a person's written their
story in this way for the book doesn't mean that that stops
them from writing it again in their own way, in a different

(27:36):
context or, or, you know, that sort of thing.
So yeah. And yeah, thank you for
clarifying that. And in my reading of the book,
the individual voice still comesthrough on each story.
So I don't think you've lost anything.
And I'll be perfectly honest, I expected more edit on mine.

(27:59):
Oh, OK, OK. So I'm, I'm going to assume that
you you went kind on mine. Oh, no, I think I was fairly
even across the board, so I don't know.
I mean, I mean, there were stories I just really didn't
need to do much as well. So yeah.
So we obviously want to give people a little bit of a taste

(28:22):
of the book, but we also want tobuy them.
Check the show notes, dear listeners, check the show notes.
There will be details about where to get the book.
The book is due out on the 6th of January.
If I got that right, this episode will be around about
that date. So check your calendar as you're
listening to this. Check the show notes, there will

(28:42):
be show notes in the next episode as well.
I will be plugging this book. I promise you I will be plugging
this book, so stay stay tuned. I'll also try and find the the
link to the book that Sarah wrote that she's mentioned as
well. Sarah will send me a link about
it afterwards, so if you want togo and get that, we will also be
able to arrange that as well. The book will be called

(29:05):
Apostates, so put that into yoursearch engine of choice.
I'm sure there'll be several options that come up with with
that, but look out for the one that will.
We will be linking in the show notes.
So, Sarah, when you put all these stories together, there
must have been a little bit of nervousness about what kind of
things were going to come up. Was there you obviously, no, no,

(29:30):
we won't need to give any personal details or anything
like that. But were there any surprises,
things that surprised you about what came up or, or things that
really pleased you? What What were the What are
there any examples or things where the would gave you the
biggest emotion when you came upor things that you didn't even
expect? Interesting question.

(29:51):
Look, I, I don't think I was as nervous about what would come up
in the stories as I was about finding a publisher who wanted
to publish them because I kind of launched this project and
went, OK, we've got people signing up like, can we do
justice to this by actually finding a publisher who wants
to, to publish it? So I just want to shout out to,
to John at Apocryphile Press. And it was actually through

(30:12):
another member of the DD conversion anonymous Facebook
page that I came across his, hispublishing company because
another person had had written the book and he published it
and, and, and he responded to mye-mail about our book like it
was like within 24 or 48 hours. It's like, when does that ever

(30:32):
happen with a publisher? Wow, very cool.
Well. Done.
Send him. Oh, well, look, John and John's
been amazing. It was just a matter of finding
the right fit. But in terms of the stories, I
was they actually richer and deeper and more expansive both

(30:53):
in the themes, I mean, in the themes that they cover and in
the breadth of people's experience that then I was
expecting. And yet at the same time, there
are these kind of common threadsthat are woven through all of
them, you know, things like being willing to ask the hard
questions and think critically and, you know, hold your beliefs

(31:17):
up to, to scrutiny. And, you know, this idea of
coming home to yourself, you know, that's actually quite a
strong theme that's emerged. You know, and we've got, we've
got it's mostly contributors from the US, but you know,
you're one of the, the, I think the two, one of two contributors

(31:37):
from the UK. We've got a number of
contributors who, like yourself,grew up with parents who are
missionaries, which I found really interesting and I was
really pleased with. So through that, the, the
missionary experience, the sort of reflection on sort of the,
the colonialist impetus that is often kind of woven into, you

(32:01):
know, Western Christianity. But I think, you know, something
that I think is so great about the book is the, the breadth and
the depth of, of deep theological reflection.
And I just feel like so many of the things that I've thought
about in terms of or wrestled with myself in terms of theology

(32:21):
and faith were addressed so comprehensively in these stories
when we brought them together. Like a multi faceted diamond
where you know you're piercing it together facet by facet.
I know you don't exactly, you don't piece diamonds together,
but you know what? I.
Mean yes. And I just feel like I feel like
this book says everything that Ihoped it would say and more.

(32:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to pick up on
that because one thing that thisbook does scream to my mind in
going through it is the contributors are intelligent
people. They are thoughtful people.
They are articulate people, and that comes across through all
their stories. And one of the lies that's often

(33:09):
told about people who deconvert is that, oh, they had a painful
experience. They just gave up.
That is not true in any of the stories that are featured.
And anybody who reads any of those stories and then still
says that hasn't been paying attention because these are
people who thought, yes, there is pain in every, in some of the

(33:30):
stories, in many of the stories,yes, there are people who have
been hurt, but these aren't people who just got hurt and
gave up. These are people who wrestled.
These are people who thought deeply.
These are people who tried to save a crumbling faith through
intellectual prowess and, and then through that found a way

(33:52):
out there. There isn't anybody who just
rolled over and gave up because they didn't like what they'd
experienced. Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. And, you know, and there are a
couple of stories where people say, you know, hasn't been
majorly hurt by the church. It's not because I've been hurt
that I've left. There's a couple like that where
they say isn't there, There hasn't been kind of a traumatic

(34:13):
experience. A lot of times there has for
people, but a lot of times that what what has actually, you
know, those traumatic experiences that have sort of
erupted have been the. Result of things.
That were already there underlying, you know, in their
experience the whole time, you know, and it brought things to a

(34:34):
head. So it's, you know, none, as you
say, none of these stories are sort of like, oh, something
bad's happened. You know, screw that.
I'm going to get out of here andand then, you know, bag it all
out. And and that's actually that One
of the other things that I love about this book is that at no
point does any contributor have.A go at the.

(34:55):
Church or Christian people or the Christian faith?
Out of a sense of. I don't know, out of a sense of
bitterness or just wanting to, to have a go at it, like
criticize it for the sake of it.There's none of that.
There's no cheap shots. There are just none.
People's experiences range from there's.

(35:16):
Something you know there's. One contributor for whom you
know he says there's something about Jesus that resonates with
him still, but he does not. See those positive?
Elements in the church and he can't reconcile being part of
the church, which he actually sees as as undermining a lot of
what he he feels Jesus was on about.

(35:37):
I mean, that's his experience. That's quite different to some
of the other stories. But, you know, but there are a
lot of people for whom there arepeople that they love in their
family, their spouse, who are still part of the church.
And people say, you know, some contributors say things like I
feel. So angry.
I feel so upset. I feel so regretful about all

(35:58):
the time that I poured into this, you know, into this kind
of life. But I temper that anger because
people I love are still part of it or because I can still see
the value in faith for some people.
Or, you know, these are very, very mature, well balanced,
intelligent reflections where, as I say, there are no cheap

(36:19):
shots. There's no, you know, bagging
out of religion for the sake of it.
There's none of that. It's people being honest about
their personal experience because they can.
They can do nothing else. They can only be where they are
because that's. What their experiences?
Have led them to and they kind of share these stories as a gift

(36:41):
to us to take on board and add to our own.
Collection of evidence as we. Evaluate where each of us kind
of stands in relation to these questions.
Thank you. For that, Sarah and you've, I've
just remembered the other thing that I wanted to say when I was
talking about my experience was I'm looking forward to hearing a

(37:04):
different voice read my story, OK?
It's it's it's going to. Be interesting for me.
I haven't yet got my head aroundwhat it would be like hearing a
female voice read my story for for obvious reasons.
But yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to that.
But I want to absolutely echo what you've just said about the

(37:25):
contributors. And the question I want to ask
you off the back of that is was there a point when the when
those first drafts started coming in where you said to
yourself, yes, I have something here that is going to be
published? I actually don't remember.

(37:46):
Matthew, to be perfectly honest,But I do remember that just this
feeling of growing. What was it?
What word could I use? Almost like awe.
You know that like, these stories are coming in and these
people are sharing these storiesand they're such amazing

(38:07):
stories, like. Which are reflective of the.
People who have written them. And I was just, I couldn't
believe that it had just that itcohered so well.
Because, you know, an idea is just an idea.
Like it, it sounds great in yourhead, but when you put legs on
it, sometimes an idea doesn't kind of take off in the way you

(38:29):
hope. But this was just one of those
occasions where it did. Yeah, excellent.
And I'm really looking forward to doing.
And just for clarity, this is going to be a printed book as
well as an audio book as well asan e-book.
Yeah. Correct.
Yeah. That's right.
So the audio book, I should mention that it will be

(38:49):
available a little bit later than the print book.
That's just down to me and the the my ability to make my
schedule happen. So bit of background is that
I've just in the last few monthsalso been finishing off a PhD in
philosophy. So this has been kind of one of
many projects that has been happening and and the narration

(39:12):
I'm about yeah, well, I guess bythe time this episode airs, the
the audio book will be well and truly winging its way to audio
book platforms. But the pre-order for the audio
book should be available pretty much by the time by the 6th of
January. So stay listening to still.
Unbelievable. As soon as I have update on that

(39:33):
it it'll be there. Trust me people, I am not going
to stop talking about this book,right?
Just deal with it. So so you did a PhD while
organising this book that's presumably while also holding
down a job as well. Yeah.
And and probably. Kids are also the main kind of

(39:54):
kids are the main job, No, Yeah.So PHDI don't know a couple of
different. I I don't know I'm.
Just one of those people who likes to have variety and do
lots of things. So yes, I've been doing a PhD.
I've been the past year, I've been working in a kind of
university research job. But before that, I don't know, I
was doing bits and pieces gardening work.

(40:14):
As I mentioned. I also, yeah, so the audio book
stuff, I code Co direct an audiobook production company.
So there are varying levels of busyness with that.
What is it with some? People and addicted to being
busy. I mean, my wife does a fantastic
full time job for a charity in the local area and a couple

(40:35):
years ago she said I'm going to do a do a PhD or do a do a
degree that was it. She did a degree and then she
did the degree and they said youknow what I'll do another one.
So she's now disgusted and I'm like, for goodness sake, you
know what, Between the work thatyou do, the awesome work that
you do, us watching fantastic crime dramas, new cooking,

(40:57):
fantastic meals, how do you havetime to do that as well?
Yeah. Apparently she does.
Well, you know I don't I. Don't like the idea of being
busy and I don't feel busy. I mean, I do a lot of my work.
My, my research job was all frommy house.
You know, like everything revolves around school pick up
and drop off and, and the fact that I need early nights and,

(41:22):
you know, all this kind of thing.
I just, I don't know. I have.
I have been wrestling with this question, Matthew.
Now that the PhD has done it. I'm not.
I don't think I'm one of those. People who can go halfway around
the world chasing my dream career, like a, you know, my
academic job. There's, there's very few
philosophy jobs in Australia andAustralia's huge, like, you

(41:44):
know, if I go to Perth, it's equivalent to going to the other
side of Europe basically. You know the difference is a big
yes. Yeah, and and.
Look, and, and my kids, it's been a big few years, you know,
with COVID and we had two years of remote schooling in Australia
basically. And you know, just getting

(42:06):
having my kids happy and settledin their schools with their
friends and all that is really important.
So I'm just asking myself what it looks like to be content with
where I am and, and what I actually want in life.
So I don't know that and the answer to that yet.
Well, good luck in the next PhD or whatever it is that you
decide to do the next book. The next book.

(42:28):
Yeah, the next book. Absolutely.
So fiction or non fiction I guess.
Well, I think I'm going to. Going to try and turn my PhD
into a, into a book. And interestingly, honestly,
like my PhD is me wrestling withall my baggage of having grown
up in a Christian home. Actually, it's philosophy.
It's philosophy of religion. It's yeah, it's all of that.

(42:50):
So I think I'm going to enjoy. I mean, basically, you know, you
can, you've probably listeners will be able to hear a theme
here. You know, I write a novella,
then I'm editing this book and I've got this PhD, which is I'm
basically hitting it, hitting myhitting my baggage from all
angles here, possibly while still avoiding telling the story

(43:11):
in the way that the book contributors have have
themselves done so. Yeah, right.
Well, I would. Like to ask a few more personal
questions, but just before I getto that, in reading through
these stories, were there any stories that resonated with you
personally and your own experiences?
Good. Question I'm going to open up
the book so that I can look at the.

(43:34):
At the. Contents list.
Yeah, there are some. Very cool chapter titles.
I I must must confess I think myfavorite one is the The Ship of
Thesis. Chapter Title.
So Seth, well done, good chaptertitle.
I I love it. Here in the UK we call it

(43:56):
triggers broom, but it means exactly the same thing.
And British, British people willget it.
If you're not British, you won'tget it.
That's perfectly fine. You're not dim.
It's just peculiarly British. But yes, I, I did love that
chapter title. So Sarah, Seth.
Seth. Will be delighted to hear that
because that was a last minute change.

(44:16):
Because was it really? Yeah.
Because Seth's. Title actually drew on some song
lyrics. And when I emailed the, you
know, the band's contact to to find out about whether, you
know, the process of, of gettingrights to use song lyrics, they
said it's very long and complicated and expensive and,
wow, obviously we don't have thecapacity for that.
So I think, you know, Seth kind of pulled that out that, that,

(44:40):
that title. So he'll be delighted to hear
that that, that it's your favorite, I think.
Excellent. Good for him.
Yeah. It's a really good.
Question about which ones I identified with most.
I think I identified with Suzanne Adams.
Dangerous questions Joe Lloyd Johnson A woman's place so

(45:04):
probably the like a lot of the female ones.
Gretchen Spencer A private journey it took a child Liz Teo
I think I I mean, I don't know, it's just sort of a, you know,
being able to resonate with other women's experiences in the
church. But I think that theme of.

(45:26):
Suppressing questions. And, and having that real kind
of that curiosity, that drive that wanting to understand and
wanting to know, but suppressingthose questions because of the
context and sometimes as a survival mechanism and sometimes
just because you don't have the space to air them, a safe space
to air those questions. Yeah, I think that that was one

(45:47):
of the key themes that came through really strongly in the
in some of the women's stories, along with obviously discussions
around, you know, a women's, a woman's place in, in the context
of Christian faith and the church.
Yeah, those things really resonated for me.
Yeah. And.
That's still an issue today as well, which constantly baffles

(46:10):
me. I get frustrated when I see
social media comments from prominent Christians about the
place of woman. I'm married to a wonderful woman
who is still a Christian. She occasionally preaches at her
own church and while not this church that she goes to, but
previous church, I've been therewhere people have not gone to

(46:32):
services because it's been a woman preaching.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's.
Crazy I. Just find it quite baffling.
And when we were both still Christians, I loved being the
husband, supporting his wife, preaching because she preached
well. And now that I'm no longer a
believer, the last thing I wouldwant to do is to stop her doing

(46:53):
that because she gets a thrill out of that.
But there are Christians who would not want her to do that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have.
Actually I so I. Yeah, I I used.
To preach sometimes at our church.
I mean, I went to a fairly so I grew up the 1st 10 years of my
life in a fairly fundamentalist conservative church, which is

(47:19):
probably less common in Australia than compared to
somewhere like the US. And within the denomination that
that church was part of it, theywould have been quite an
outlier. I think when I was 11 or 12, my
dad became a minister and, and we moved churches to a much more
liberal leaning church and which, which for me growing up

(47:41):
was like finding oxygen within that context.
You know, when I was about 12 or13, we had a, a woman who was
appointed as like the youth minister who was amazing.
And that in that context, it wasa very, it was just very normal
for women to be in ministry positions and be up preaching
and running things and, and whatever.

(48:02):
And that was sort of, I was sortof fostered within that
environment. And then I, I worked in a
theological college for a numberof years in theology, although I
would often in particular context, people would be like,
oh, are you one of the admin people at the college?
I'll be like, no, I tutor in theology.

(48:23):
And so it was probably a challenge for some people in the
class. The fact that and I'm and I was
young and I look quite young. I'm, I'm older than I look.
So to have sort of this kind of.Green sprout of a of a.
Female up there and I'm running their tutorials.
I don't know that it was necessarily easy for all of
them, but thankfully the the people who are kind of in yeah,

(48:48):
in positions of influence in those contexts were very
affirming of me. But I have had, you know, other
people in the congregation or whatever say, you know, I'm not
coming because I'm not comfortable.
You know, you're female and you're preaching.
Another woman actually said thatto me once.
And I was only probably like 18 or 19 at the time.
And it's very like, I don't know, cuts, cuts deep.

(49:10):
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I must.
Be on this? I don't understand where that
well, I, I do intellectually in that it, it comes from a
particular reading of, of Bible verses, but I, I don't
understand it psychologically. I I see the, the value of a
woman up there. Look, I'm an IT guy.

(49:31):
I have the number of women I've actually worked with.
I can still count on the fingersof my two hands.
Yeah, right. There are so few.
But every time it's happened, and I'm really pleased that the
team that I'm in now has a womanin it.
Every time it happens, the team is better for the presence of a
woman. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It just is, full stop.

(49:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in in the.
Theological college context, thewomen tended to be very, very
proficient in their ability to engage deeply and critically,
theologically, actually. Like, that is a consistent
pattern that I noticed. And maybe, you know, maybe I'm
biased, but actually the lecturer who I worked with who
was male, said was the one who said that to me.

(50:13):
The women. I don't doubt it.
Yeah, I you don't. Need to convince me I I, I
believe he just you saying it. I I don't doubt it at all.
You know, when the, the best project managers I've I've
worked with have been female, you know, it's, Yeah, women
bring something to the table. You know, anything that's just

(50:33):
men is basically boils down to shit, frankly.
That's the quote. That's the quote of the episode.
Matthew, Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I ain't cutting
that. I ain't cutting that.
So, Sarah, there is one name that is missing from the list of
contributors, and that's your name.

(50:54):
Were you tempted to write your own chapter?
Not until. The last two weeks, Matthew,
Really. Wow.
There's a confession, yeah. I have found it really
therapeutic reading through and working closely on these stories

(51:14):
because people are articulating things that I haven't been able
to articulate myself yet. One reason that I haven't.
Written my story. I'm still engaged in in certain
contexts, you know, with. Religious Studies and.
Theological education and and one of the things that I am

(51:37):
really enjoying is not having todefine myself by particular
stated beliefs I feel like one of my one of the things that I
haven't enjoyed about growing upin the church is.
The liberty that people. Feel to so-called speak into

(51:59):
your life, right or to make judgments about where you're at
or to you know, and I feel like I have always been trying to.
Say. But I believe.
This and I I. Believe that and then look at me
doing this. I'm OK, I'm OK.
Like, you know, like accept thatit's enough.
And I'm probably trying to convince myself more than

(52:20):
anyone, but I've kind of reacheda point where I'm like, I just
don't feel the need to make a list of my official beliefs and
publicize it or even like. Have it for my own self.
Because I think it's actually much more valuable for me to

(52:40):
think about my values and for meto say to people, well, you'll
figure out what I believe based on my actions.
Like, because we can make statedbeliefs, but it's actually the
functional beliefs that fuel everything we do that are our
real beliefs, you know, and we can't even articulate those a
lot of the time. They're very, they tend to be

(53:01):
very subconscious beliefs. So they, you know, and it's
writing can be such an importantprocess because it's a, it's a
matter of bringing those subconscious functional beliefs,
operational beliefs into our conscious awareness so that then
we can reflect on them and go hang on a minute, like, is this
healthy? Is this helpful?
I mean, this is the point of, oftherapy, right?

(53:22):
Like, you know, being able to talk through and think
consciously about these things. So if people want to know what I
believe, they should look at my life and my values and the
things that I write and figure it out.
And I and, and, and not having alist of stated beliefs means
that my beliefs feel more dynamic.

(53:43):
You know, I'm recognize it's like I haven't landed yet.
I'm not going to land. We're human.
Like we have values that guide what we do, and they're really,
really important. And they're important for us to
reflect upon. Does that make sense?
Yes. Yes.
It does and I get it. And I've seen that some people

(54:03):
when they have this, these moments of doubts and, you know,
questioning Christianity, some people they say, OK, what I
believe or choose to believe or don't believe about this isn't
that important. What's important is how I am
with people, how I am with the world and, and how I, and to, to

(54:27):
use a, a phrase to copy a phrasethat I've heard before, really
be Jesus with skin, you know, just be a good person out there.
And what I actually believe is less important than what I
actually do for people like me who like the sound of their own
voice. Oh, I want to shout out about
what I believe. And I want to criticize you for

(54:48):
not believing the right thing. But for some people, that's
actually not important. And bless them, that's OK.
Not everybody needs to to say that.
And sometimes sticking your headup and saying that you've taken
the stand exposes you to to pushback.

(55:10):
And quite often people struggle with Christianity to the point
where they don't want to attractthat kind of gunfire and they
would much rather disappear quietly and just be a decent
person that's. OK.
If that's better for them, that's perfectly OK.
I remember the very first time after speaking up about being an

(55:32):
atheist and the push back and immediately getting the push
back of Oh well you are never a proper Christian in the 1st
place. And I remember knowing that one
day it would happen, but being taken aback by how quickly it
happened and how firmly it happened.
And then because that took me bysurprise by how much it hurt.

(55:56):
And then I had it again, and then I had it again and I was
still recovering and I had it again.
And it still is the most often, the most common thing I get.
And I'm like, guys, do you actually listen to what I'm
saying? You know, have you actually paid
attention to what I'm trying to say?
And you're still saying, oh, youare never a real Christian?

(56:17):
So I get it. If people don't want to expose
themselves to that because it hurts, it really hurts, then
that's fine. They don't have to expose
themselves to it. Just.
Yeah. And I.
Think it's also like a matter ofgiving myself space to just be
in motion in process. You know, I quite like so Tim

(56:39):
Hatcher, who's contributed to the book, one of his kind of
final paragraphs, he says that it feels to him that even
calling himself non religious oratheist or agnostic is still
bowing to the societal obligation to label ourselves in
relation to religion. And so I kind of I kind of feel
like, well, I feel like I've hadto sort of make it clear that

(57:01):
I'm ticking in particular boxes my whole life.
And now I'm just going to step back from that list and go, all
right, well, how are you going to treat me if you don't
actually know, like I'm not saying yes, this way or yes, or,
you know, yes, that way. I'm just stepping back from that
list altogether. So that changes the dynamic of
how how you relate to people. And I think it also sometimes,

(57:22):
you know, I guess I want to be able to have relationships with
people in all kinds of differentcontexts.
And, you know, because if peoplewill kind of see a label,
sometimes they just shut off completely.
They are no, I don't, you know, they're not going to listen to
someone who's this or who's that.
I don't know. I'm always interested in
engaging with people in conversation.
So I feel like stepping back from that list and going, you

(57:43):
can't judge me by by that list. But but at the same time, that
also means that I'm not judging you by that list.
And maybe there's a there's a liberty in in that when you
offer that to someone else and you say list's not important,
I'm just engaging with you as a human being, There's a
gentleness. In doing that, I've opted for
the spiky way and I fly the atheist flag and I I'm

(58:06):
unashamedly like that. That's not for everybody, and I
am glad that there is variety inthis.
Yeah, well, me too. Me too.
Yeah, absolutely. So what are you prepared to tell
me then? You've dropped a few hints about
your own story. Sarah, you, you, you grew up

(58:26):
like, like myself in a, in an evangelical stroke
fundamentalist church. What are you prepared to tell
the listeners? Tell the fellow contributors who
will hopefully listen to this about your story.
Well, a lot actually. I I was thinking about it
beforehand and I mentioned in the last two weeks that I've
been tempted to write my story because thinking back, there's a

(58:50):
lot that can be explored withouthaving to necessarily kind of,
yeah, just like with Tim's storyin the book, we've got 3 Tim's,
but with Tim Hatch's story in the book in particular, clearly
the coolest name. Obviously.
Isn't it? Obviously, Obviously.
You know, you don't have to kindof pigeonhole yourself at the
end. But yeah, I mean, I grew up in a

(59:10):
pretty lower, lower to middle class kind of socio economic
context. It was, I actually grew up in
the most multicultural kind of region of of Australia, I think.
So my grandparents on my mother's side are from Europe
and my dad immigrated from Indiawhen he was 19.

(59:32):
And my parents met at this evangelical fundamentalist style
congregation, which interestingly was actually
extraordinarily multicultural. Although in hindsight, now that
I think about it, the. Ministers were always.
White, I don't like using the word white because it's very,
very a very blunt, very, very blunt tool and I don't like it,

(59:55):
but you know what I mean when I say they're, you know, but the
congregation was very multi ethnic and and that was a
brilliant context to grow up in,but.
And what that meant was that everyone, people really
supported each other. You know, it was a very tight
knit community, but it was also very authoritarian.

(01:00:18):
So, you know, and I grew up in that context and it was sort of
reflected in my family context as well.
And I was the kind of kid I was always very quite, you know,
sensitive and anxious and relationally attuned, I guess
you would say. But I always wanted to ask
questions like from, you know, Iwas just one of those toddlers

(01:00:40):
who follows their mum around saying, but why?
But why? But why?
And I've just always been wired that way.
And unfortunately, in that context, the answer was, well,
because the Bible says so. And that was a very, I guess,
quite crushing. I guess as a child, having that
sort of that, that part of you shut down.

(01:01:01):
I really took refuge in reading and in books and I was a real
bookworm and, and as I mentioned, so my dad went and
trained at, at a Pentecostal kind of theological college.
I I. Would like to put scare.
Quotes around the word theological.
That might be a bit rude, but that's sort of how I feel about
it. And got a job as a minister at a

(01:01:26):
church half an hour away in in another sort of lower
socioeconomic context. But I really actually think that
that gave a real kind of groundedness to that the new
church community. So we moved to that church and
he was a minister there. And then after about 3 or 4,
maybe four or five years actually of him being there, he

(01:01:48):
just, he wasn't coping particularly well with being in
a, in a position of in the ministry position.
I think partly because he'd grown, he'd he'd.
He'd he'd grown I. Suppose as a Christian in a
context that was very black and white and this.
New church context. Was much more democratic, you
know, it was much more people questioned those in authority
and accountability was really important.

(01:02:09):
And that was possibly quite, quite threatening.
I don't know, quite challenging for him.
But yeah, he, he, he sort of went into a period of quite
difficult, quite a difficult time for him and he quit that
job. But for me, that church
community, oh, like, and the, the people there, so the, the

(01:02:30):
youth minister and her husband and some of the youth leaders
were just brilliant, loving, accepting people.
And it just became my home and Icould not fathom the idea of
leaving, even though that my family was moving on.
So I continued to go there youthgroup and, and church and, and
they gave me heaps of opportunities.
Just, you know, I mean, in the Christian context, we call them

(01:02:53):
like, you know, mentoring and weand I had leadership development
opportunities and blah, blah. But but it was it was actually
putting. Me in different situations.
That required me to develop skills like musical skills and
public speaking skills and, and facilitative facilitatory
skills, you know, facilitating groups and, and discussion with
people and diplomatic skills andall sorts of things that were

(01:03:14):
really valuable. And I just, you know, youth
group on a Friday night was justmy world like, and the people
there and I, you know, I met my husband there and, and, you
know, so that was a very nurturing environment.
But then, I don't know, the timewent on and I had kids and, and,

(01:03:38):
and honestly, like church started to feel like a bit of a
sickening cycle really, of we get a new minister and
everyone's really excited and this is God's plan.
And this is. And then after a few years, like
things hadn't gone so well or their family kind of things
hadn't, you know, And then they left off.
OK. Now we search again.

(01:03:58):
Who does God want us to have? We find someone and it's all
excitement and hope. And then the same thing happens
after a couple of years and it just happened again and again.
And my family was part of that cycle.
You know, my dad was a minister and my home life probably from
about age 1314 on, like, I mean,there had already been, you can
sort of imagine, you know, sort of the authoritarian style

(01:04:21):
experience, like, and, you know,punishment is what makes makes
us better human beings apparently and all those sorts
of yucky things. But yeah, things got really bad
from when I was sort of mid teens onwards.
And I'm the eldest child. So I felt a lot of
responsibility, I guess for looking after my siblings,
looking after my mum. And yeah, I think by the time I

(01:04:46):
was like 18 or 19, trying to hold all that together had
basically blown me apart. I managed to finish school and
do very well. And I think it actually was
helpful to have something to focus on.
But you know when? When?
Crisis hits and life falls apart.
You question everything. And I did in some ways, like I

(01:05:13):
was still very committed to faith and then I had my own
children. And then, as you know, like
having your own children makes you question everything too you.
Think intentionally about. How do you want to raise your
children? Like, you know, I didn't barge
this, this belief that punishment makes us better, you
know, that confessing our sins and focusing on, you know, it's,

(01:05:34):
it's such a weird contradiction in faith, in Christian faith, in
Christian contexts where on the one hand, like we're forgiven
and there's grace, but on the other hand, like we're always
pulled back to this reminder that we're sinful.
And there's, we need to confess our sins all the time and be
right with God. And like, if you're forgiven,

(01:05:56):
just forget it. Like just face forward and like
you say, like do your best. And I just found that I'd
really, yeah, as I said, I'd imbibed this, this, you know,
punish yourself to make you better.
I really, really wanted to be a good person, like to be the best
I could. But I became, I feel like

(01:06:18):
internally my own I. Suppose the climate of.
My own thinking was shaped by this, yeah, this dynamic of
we're sinful, you know, this fundamental belief.
And, and maybe that's one fundamental belief that I can
stay that I, that I don't think it's actually helpful to, to
label ourselves as fundamentallysinful.

(01:06:41):
I do not think that it is helpful.
And that actually is my framework for evaluating the
helpfulness of beliefs is does this belief help people to
flourish or does it diminish them?
And I kind of came to this pointof I don't believe in punishing
my children. I don't believe that punishment
is going to help them in any way.
And, and Christians try to justify it and call it, you

(01:07:03):
know, discipline and blah, blah,blah.
It's like rubbish. Like you're being punitive and
you're expecting that to actually help someone to grow.
Like, no. And then I thought, well, if I'm
not, if I'm not being punitive with my kids, what about with
myself? I can't, I couldn't.

(01:07:24):
It was sort of like, I suppose it's like when Jesus says, you
know, as you do unto others, like it's what you're doing to
yourself. You can't, you can't have both.
You can't live in that contradiction or I, I couldn't.
So I just had to let go of and Ithought, well, if I'm letting go
of that fundamental belief in myvadnais and in the belief that I
deserve punishment, you know, regardless of whether Jesus has

(01:07:45):
taken that punishment or not, it's like that fundamental
belief, like I can't go on and Ican't actually do a good job.
Like I just reached a total. Crisis point in my life of I've
either got to let some of these beliefs go or I am not going to
be able to be a person who can function effectively and
function effectively to be a responsible parent.

(01:08:05):
It was basically a choice between letting go of certain
beliefs and then being able to fulfil my my responsibilities as
a healthy human with children orhold on to them and just just
implode. It really got to that point for
me. So, yeah.
And and I'm so grateful to my kids because I don't know if

(01:08:26):
without my sense of responsibility to them would.
I have been able to say. No, and and let things go on my
own behalf, like on my own account, just for my own
well-being. Like, I don't know, do you think
you're a? Different parent than you would
have been if you'd remained a Christian. 100% sorry I'm making

(01:08:48):
the. Assumption.
That you've fully walked away from Christianity.
We haven't actually established.I yeah, I.
Wouldn't describe. I think there are many shades
when it comes to what it means to be connected with
Christianity, either culturally or like my daughter, goes to a
Christian School. But that part of that is.

(01:09:08):
Because I want her to be exposedto those beliefs and those ways
of thinking while she's with us and can reflect critically
together with us as she's and, and so that she's not naive, I
suppose, as she grows up. But like, we've got family, like
close family who's still involved, you know, at church
and. Yeah, and my husband still.
Kind of goes and plays music with his mom at church now and

(01:09:30):
then. And, and yeah, so I'm connected
with different communities, I suppose, in different ways.
But I think if I was still actively part of church life,
the way that I would parent my kids would be very different.
And the narratives they'd be hearing about themselves and
their place in the world and thesort of meta narrative, cosmic

(01:09:52):
cosmic, sorry, cosmic narrative would be very, very different.
And, and it absolutely, it brings me such joy to hear them
just ask questions about everything and feel no sense of
taboo in saying, I don't think that I don't agree with that or
our teacher said that, you know,my daughter who goes to the
Christian School, my teacher taught us this.

(01:10:13):
I I just think that's rubbish. Like, I think it's awesome that
she has the freedom to just express herself like that,
regardless of of, you know, Yeah, that.
I think that part is is a headache because you've
expressed a few things that sound very similar to the way
that John Steingard talked when I had him on Still Unbelief.

(01:10:37):
And for those who aren't familiar with name, John
Steingard was a member of the Christian band Hawk Nelson and
he came public about five years ago now as having walked away
from Christianity was no longer called himself a Christian.
And I had the pleasure of interviewing him with Andrew
here on Southern Belief. And he said a very similar thing

(01:10:59):
about it was a young parent. He was questioning things and
this whole concept of looking atGod in the Bible and God's
action of punishment to those who were inverted Commons, his
children and then how he would as a human parent treat his
child. And he felt that there was, he

(01:11:20):
felt uncomfortable with the the connections there.
And that was a feature of of hismajor doubts.
Yeah. Interesting.
Interesting, Tina and. I'm, I obviously have low
emotional intelligence because those questions didn't come for
me until, you know, I went full intellectual and all, my, all my

(01:11:43):
questioning was intellectual. And I got out of that.
And it was after that it was like, OK, I've got a three-year
old child now. I'm no longer a Christian.
How do I examine God as parent now?
And I went, oh, Oh no, what could my child possibly do that

(01:12:03):
I would reject them from my presence?
Nothing. There is nothing.
And it was that realise I went, why didn't I go there?
Yeah, well, you. Know, I mean, we all take
different paths, don't we? We do for me the.
Intellectual path has. Come sort of alongside that.
I mean, look, I, I did my PhD ona philosopher called Hegel who's

(01:12:28):
been interpreted in many different ways.
But my reading of him has been about the affirmation of thought
as, as, as, as part of what it means to be human.
Because one of the things, as I mentioned, that I struggled with
so much was this denigration of critical thinking.
This like, stop asking questions, just have faith.
Like I cannot do that. I If you and if you have to shut

(01:12:52):
off your critical thinking, then.
For me, that's always a. Red flag like always, regardless
of whether you know, if I just read a book, a memoir by someone
who's not a Christian, not affiliated with faith at all,
but who was very much still, youknow, we have so much more
knowledge from our intuition andour feelings and blah, blah,

(01:13:12):
blah. Sometimes we just have to stop
thinking and I understand what what this person was trying to
say, but then it's red flag for me.
It's like do not stop thinking because thinking it's much more
integrated. The process of consciously
engaging with life is much more nuanced than dividing between
thinking and feeling. And yeah.

(01:13:34):
And and they're really. Intertwined, I guess.
For me, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, I had somebody.
Literally say to me, stop askingquestions and just believe,
yeah, I can't do that. I I just can't do that.
I've gone too far. I cannot do that.
It's just not a possibility. Yeah, yeah.
And you otherwise, I mean, if you try to do that, you've got

(01:13:55):
to shut yourself down. You've just got to go into
zombie mode and sign yourself over to something else that is
not you. And then that's your life gone.
And as soon. As you affirm that kind of
mentality, you may as well stop calling yourself an
intellectually valid belief system.
Yeah, because. You.

(01:14:16):
The only way to be intellectually valid is by
challenging. By self challenging, by exposing
yourself to challenge, by welcoming challenge.
As soon as you stop doing that, you cease to be intellectually
valid. Well, you stop growing.
And it's actually also it's justa mechanism of control.
Yes, that's. What it is?
Stop thinking, just follow. Just do it, yes, because my

(01:14:39):
question. Becomes how do I separate a true
belief from a false belief? How do I validate if someone's
telling me something? Fact checking is my favorite
pastime. Yeah, I, I, I say to people
here, I say fact. I mean, if I'm doing a review of
another podcast, fact checking is what I do.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:15:01):
totally, totally. And it was interesting, like
when when you were saying, you know, the way we relate to the
idea of Christian faith. I guess for me, I'm just
philosophically inclined. So I guess you could say I have
a philosophical relationship with Christian faith.
Like maybe that's that's how I could describe best where I am
at the moment. I have a philosophical

(01:15:21):
relationship with Christian faith.
To understand the nuances of that relationship, people might
have to read some of the things I've written because those are
the spaces in which I work out what those dynamics are.
Yeah, so. If I dare ask, what is the title
of your PhD? Do you know what?

(01:15:41):
It's so simple, it just rolls off your tongue what is
actually. The title, I changed it at the
last minute. Just like Seth's thesis chapter.
It's called Finitude and Faith, The Hagel or something.
And they're like, Oh my God, I can't believe that actually.
I'm not a philosophical heavyweight by any stretch of

(01:16:02):
the imagination, but I'm familiar with the name Hagel.
I don't know anything about him,but I do know I do recall it as
a name that comes up in these kinds of discussions, but I
won't pretend to be anyway. Or knowing about philosophy.
But I, I do like, yeah, I, I do like hearing philosophers talk.
I do like reading a bit about philosophy, but I won't call

(01:16:24):
myself a, a well skilled philosopher.
Look, I've got it in. Front of me now, my thesis title
is thinking, Finitude and faith,Hegel's epistemic reconciliation
and what I'm talking about there, like epistemic
epistemology, you know how we know what we know.
So I'm talking about Hegel's reconciliation here between
thinking and the rest of our lives thinking and feeling and,

(01:16:47):
and what that looks like in the context of, you know, Christian,
Christian belief and using a word like God.
I have written an article where it's, it's sort of like an
introduction to German idealism for Christians.
And which means, obviously it's not for you, Matthew, but you
still might enjoy it. But I.
As long as it's not in. German.

(01:17:08):
No. No, it's not in German I.
Did I did, yeah. It's not in German.
So Hagel was, he kind of was most active in the kind of 1st
30 years of the 1800s in Germany, obviously.
And he was responding to Immanuel Kant and another guy,
Fichta and Jakobi. And I mean, a lot of their
discussions really centred around what can we know about

(01:17:30):
anything, but what can we know about God.
And this is kind of why I've gone back there to, to work
through a lot of these questionsbecause they're, they're kind of
trying to explore the fundamental frameworks or the
fundamental processes that lie behind and within how we know
anything. And, and yeah, and I think

(01:17:54):
Hegel's great. And, and I read, I mean, he's
sort of like this sort of stodgyold German philosopher who for
some reason that some of his work really resonates me.
And it's very, it can be very difficult to read.
But the, the article that I, I mentioned, I read an article by,
by a Christian leader from Australia who was kind of

(01:18:18):
arguing that mega churches and and mega church worship had in
the way that they do things. I sort of have revenant
resonances with scriptural traditions and revivalism.
And basically that the way they do things is, you know, God
ordained and, and it's great because this is how God says we
should do things. And so look at us, we're doing

(01:18:38):
them. And I just, I had to respond to
that. And I did that using some German
philosophy because it's a bit ofa lateral kind of way of
addressing it without just saying to someone like what you
can't just say to someone you'rewrong, that stupid.
Like you actually need a way of engaging intelligently with the
issues underlying what they're saying with resources that I

(01:18:58):
don't know that expand our thinking about it when how we
talk about these things. So I don't know.
I'll send you the article link anyway, I and this kind of.
Thinking is good, and I hold my hand up.
I'm guilty, as guilty of this asthe people I criticize, but
there is certainly an element ofour current atheist Christian

(01:19:20):
dialogue which skips the thinking and goes straight for
Yabu. You're wrong.
And if we can step away from that and actually go back to,
OK, you have said that. I'll give what you've said some
due credit and I'll think about it.
And here is my thought process. And This is why I think you can

(01:19:42):
be corrected, because here's my thought process that takes
effort. And people have written books on
that kind of thing. And maybe there is something we
can learn more from from that kind of thing.
Yeah. 100 years ago, these kindsof dialogues were had via
letter. You would write a long letter,
you'd send it, somebody would read it.

(01:20:03):
They'd write a long letter. And, you know, two weeks later,
you'd get a reply back. And these conversations would go
on for prolonged periods of timeand you'd have lots of downtime
for thinking. With today's Internet and 180
characters, there is no downtimefor thinking and there is no
capacity for long thought for responses It it doesn't exist.

(01:20:25):
And I think that's killed some of the quality dialogue we could
have that's. Really interesting actually,
that you say that. Yeah, yeah.
And I think like what's important in dialogue too, is to
actually like ask the question of why.
Why is that person making that argument like?
What are they trying to get at? Because when we, when we talk,
when we put things in words, it's hard to actually hit the

(01:20:48):
nail on the head. And, and often there's like an
impetus behind what we're, what we're saying that has value to
it, but we sort of missed the mark continually, you know, and,
and it's like listening in for that initial impetus.
Like when someone says, like in the book that I read, you've got
a, we've got a value feeling andintuition.
Well, maybe they've been in a context where those kind of
dynamics in our lives have been suppressed or poo pooed, or

(01:21:11):
maybe like where they've been somewhere where it's like
intellectualism is valued, but feelings and intuition aren't.
So they're trying to correct thebalance.
And often it's like trying to correct, we try to correct the
balance, but we swing too far inthe in the in the other
direction. And I feel like it's, it can be
helpful in, in these conversations.
Like, what need is this person fulfilling by asserting this
statement, by having this belief?

(01:21:33):
Like, what is on a human level, what's happening?
What are they trying to say? Yeah.
And that for me, that's a reallyhelpful way of approaching, of
approaching dialogue. Thank you for that so.
This is why I love talking to people who are philosophically
skilled, because it helps me to have a better conversation.
I love talking to people who arephilosophically skilled.
Well, thank you. I'm glad you know that.

(01:21:54):
I'm philosophically skilled myself.
I'm I'm not sure about that, butbut I appreciate it well.
I am measuring from a very low bar beyond no.
Don't, no, don't undersell yourself.
Don't It's you know, I mean, I'mall for philosophy of everyday
life. Like what's the point of
philosophy if if we can't, you know, if it's not real grounded
in our real stuff. I mean, I know.

(01:22:17):
It's often du jour to to lump onphilosophy and to scoff on
philosophy. But frankly, philosophy gives us
the best and most interesting questions, and I think we should
acknowledge that. And the best and most
interesting questions give us the best and most interesting
experience in terms of trying tofind the answer.

(01:22:40):
So let's embrace that and embrace.
Doesn't matter if we find the answer or not, at least we've
had a journey trying to do so. Yeah, you're certainly not
going. To learn anything if you don't
ask the question in the 1st place, quite and.
Yeah, and and that's why I like philosophy because it does it it
gives us the best and most interesting questions, which
always leads to A to a better life.

(01:23:00):
I had a question on the took my tongue, Sarah, but it's suddenly
gone. But I wanted to bring us back to
the book. Let's try and bring some
philosophy in. What do you think?
I'm going to put you right, right on your toes here Now,
what do you think is the best question then that's asked in
the book? Oh.
You know, it's like not even 9:00 AM here in Melbourne yet,

(01:23:20):
Matthew. No, I'm just, I'm just teasing.
What's the best question? Who am I is a pretty good.
Question. Yeah, that really is, is
underpins a lot of the well, I mean, and it's the well, the
questions of philosophy, what's true, what is what is true, what

(01:23:41):
is good? What does it mean to live the
good life, a good life? You know, actually, I think what
is true or what is truth is a really big question, one of the
really important questions. And I think too, that's kind of
something that's fueled a lot ofmy searching as well.
And it was also a crucial pivot moment for me in shifting how I
think about things because in, in a sort of, I mean, you know,

(01:24:03):
how 2 dimensional the idea of truth is in a fundamentalist and
sometimes just evangelical context, right?
Like it's true because God says so is true because, you know,
and we actually have a very dualistic idea of truth, like,
and you know, we might find elements of that in Plato's
thinking or in Can't's dualism about things in themselves

(01:24:24):
versus, you know, the phenomena that we experience.
But it's sort of like there's this parallel universe of the
truth, you know, that God is that is God's whatever.
It's all there. And we have to just kind of.
We try our best to to. To to channel that when this
person says this, that's the truth because that's God or that

(01:24:45):
God's ordained person or that's what the Bible says, whatever,
you know, And the Bible fell outof the sky as it is perfect,
blah, blah, blah. No, I mean, yeah.
But I think for me, like what actually matters is what truth
means in relationships. Like So what I mean by that is

(01:25:06):
like what does it mean to be true?
Truth as in not the. Truth, but to be true is
actually to be aligned like to be true like is, you know, in
measurement, something that is straight and true is it has
integrity. It it it follows, follows
through. And so being someone who is
reliable, who has integrity, whobasically who lives truthfully

(01:25:31):
is, I think one of the significant shifts that our our
book kind of charts. So people have gone from asking
what is truth? What, what is the truth?
Or I know the truth actually, rather than what is it.
What is the truth is, is the beginning of the journey beyond
that very static notion of truth. 2.

(01:25:52):
How can I live authentically? Like how can I be truthful in
the way that I conduct myself? And what's so ironic is that
that they found that those assertions of having the truth
are the most inauthentic ways ofliving for them, you know, for
all of our contributors. And what is most authentic is to
actually go hang on. I don't know like that.

(01:26:15):
Is most. Truthful.
And I think that's one, yeah, I think that's one of the the
fundamental fundamentally philosophical themes of our our
book. Yes, that.
Sitting with, I don't know, was probably the big turning point
of my ID construction journey there.
There was a lot of questioning, there was a lot of crying, there
was a lot of pain. But I think one of the biggest

(01:26:39):
single moments of personal progress was when I got to a
point where I said I don't know and I'm OK with that.
And when I was able to honestly and with integrity, say the
second-half of that was probablywhen Matthew became a better
person. Wow, really interesting.

(01:27:03):
And yeah, there's a there's a poem at the beginning of our
book by Liz Teo, who's I think actually there's three
contributors from the UKI think I said 2 earlier, but there are
three. And Liz is one of them.
And she's written a great poem which which starts our book.
And and part of that is, you know, she's reflecting on the
idea of, well, if you know the answers, why look?

(01:27:26):
But then you know, and but but her phrase is, you know, that
that idea of giving up the blessed assurance and, and
saying I'm OK with baby. I'm probably wrong, you know?
Yeah, yeah. So I yeah, I think that's it's
great. That that's surfaced in our.
Book. Yeah.
Yes. Brilliant it is.
It is. It's brilliant.
I love it. And so getting into the nitty

(01:27:47):
gritty of the book, yeah. Who do you want to read the
book? Oh, good question.
Everyone. I actually really want people in
the church to read the book. OK, let's.
See Finder if you know people inthe church listeners.
Plug it. Please plug it.
Plug it on your Be brave. Plug it on your Facebook for

(01:28:10):
church people I look. Obviously, I really, really want
people who are in the deconstruction process to read
it because I think it can. It has the potential to offer
hope and solidarity and encouragement to people who are,
you know, who may be feeling very, very alone.
And I know that within that deconversion anonymous Facebook

(01:28:30):
group, when people post, I'm really looking forward to us
being able to say, hey, we've got this book of stories, check
it out. It will encourage you.
It's OK things are going to be OK because these are stories of
people for whom things have beenOK.
You know how you know how, you know how reassuring it can be
when you're in the middle of something and then someone else

(01:28:52):
has been through something similar or has been through
something grueling and has come out the other side.
That gives us hope that we can do the same.
So they're, you know, obviously that is probably my key, the key
audience that I hope will read it.
But I say that I want people in the church to read it not
because I think because I want to deconvert anyone, Like that's

(01:29:14):
just not my agenda at all. I want people in the church to
read it because I want these stories to be heard in the
contexts where the damaging dynamics are perpetuated.
Yes, and. That's because how can?
How can change happen unless people are willing to hear these
stories and say, hang on a minute, what have we been doing?

(01:29:37):
Look at the damage we've caused.And and that's, that's probably
a really tough call. Like I don't know that why?
Would people in the church read?It like they're probably not
going to be interested, but how can there ever be progress
beyond these, you know, how can there be reformed?
How can people recognize the damage that's being done unless
they listen so? So you've, I guess you may have

(01:30:03):
answered this question already. Who do you think is going to get
the most out of the book? Well, the contributors and me
probably just in terms of, I mean, I should, I should say
right out that none of the contributors, they've all
donated their time and their stories.
We're actually donating proceedsfrom the sale of the print
enable to a charity that supports people with religious

(01:30:26):
trauma, basically. But I think I don't know, I
mean, you're a contributor, Matthew.
Do you think you are one of the people who will benefit the most
from this book being out there? Nice way of turning it back on
me. I have been, I've benefited from
the experience in ways that I didn't anticipate.

(01:30:48):
When I jumped on board, I thought, yeah, great.
This is another passive way for me to get my story out there.
A little bit of selfish self promotion of the still
unbelievable brand. Hurrah, hurrah.
Isn't Matthew great? And then I went through the
whole process that I described earlier in the episode to you
about the process of not just writing it down cathartically,

(01:31:10):
but then going through an editing process, which I wasn't
part of. I mean, that was had a process
separated from me, which was strange, but liberating in its
own way. And obviously I'm going to go
through the whole experience of listening to a third voice
reading my story back to me, which I'm looking forward to it,

(01:31:31):
but wondering what that's going to bring up for me.
So yeah, there was definitely a moment of personal growth.
But in answer to my own question, I think those who are
in the early stages of their deconstruction, whether or not
their final destination is in orout is irrelevant.
But I think those who are in theearly stages of deconstruction

(01:31:52):
are probably going to get the most from it.
And reading that book will probably help to help them to
decide or help them on their journey whether they go out all
the way or whether they stay in in a different form of
Christianity. I think this book or or help
those people in that journey. And yes, you mentioned about the

(01:32:14):
proceeds from the book. I should have mentioned that at
the head. Yes, all the proceeds are going
to a charity. There are practical challenges
around how you distribute incomefrom a book like that across 20
different contributors, and thatis partly part of the decision.
But I am very much on board withthe the proceeds going to
charity. If I want to make money from a

(01:32:36):
book, I literally have to get upearly and write my own.
You know, this is not a lazy, this is not a lazy way for
putting money into my pocket. No, no.
And the other. Thing is that usually like if
you've got a funder or a publisher who's, who's launching
an anthology, they often will pay like a, you know, a flat fee
to each contributor for their, for their rights to their story.

(01:32:58):
We would just ordinary people with an idea.
And so and that's sort of how and and that's what I mean like
everyone has contributed so generously to that to put
something into the world that isgoing to I think do a lot of
good. Yeah, yes.
Brilliant and I I hope I am confident that the book will

(01:33:18):
make an impact. So obvious question.
These stories don't stop. The graceful atheist.
Podcast existed for what it did because of stories.
If I had the capacity, I would easily be able to fill a weekly
episode slot with people wantingto tell their stories.
I haven't got it, but I am goingto try to bring on boards people

(01:33:40):
onto Still Unbelievable to tell their stories.
Look out. For later in 20. 25 to see on
whether or not I've actually managed to achieve that.
So the question, if it's not obvious I'm coming to, is can
you see in 2027 Apostate 2, huh?Very good.
Question. Yeah, I have sort of been

(01:34:00):
thinking about this the last fewweeks as well.
Yeah, I think so for sure. And, and, and I think part of
the reason, you know, why I answered that the contributors
might be the ones to benefit most from the stories is that,
you know, for those who don't necessarily have a public
platform or for those. So some of our contributors have

(01:34:21):
contributed under pseudonyms. So they're, they're, they've
remained anonymous. I did wonder about that.
Reading through the names, you haven't made it publicly obvious
in the Facebook group which oneshave and which ones haven't.
That's good. I'm very, very cool with that.
I don't care. But it is reading through some
of the names ago. Yeah, that's a, that's a

(01:34:42):
pseudonym. Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
Cool to those. People.
Some people are in places where they're not comfortable with
their name being public. Well, some of the contributors.
Basically, they haven't told anyone.
And so this is a, this is the first time they've been able to
tell their story in a public way, which, you know, is like, I
hope is probably like coming up for oxygen for them, just being

(01:35:05):
able to be real and then being able to have this story and when
they're ready to share it with particular people, say, here's
my story. And I think you know.
For those of us who felt contributors who feel like their
voices have been suppressed or not heard or whatever throughout
their lives or in the context offaith, this puts their story on

(01:35:30):
a pedestal pedestal and says, hey, this is really worth
reading. This is a story worth telling.
This is a story worth listening to.
This is a serious, real story, like it's in a book.
It's been published, and I hope that gives a real lift to the
people who are living those stories.
Yes. I wanted to say Amen to that,

(01:35:50):
but it kind of felt like it was probably not the right right
word to to use. Probably preach it, Sister is.
Is. Yes, yes.
Oh, I'm sure there's a sound effect I can throw in in the
risk response. Sarah, thank you.
Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the the past

(01:36:11):
hour and a half with you. It just leaves me with one last
question because I'm sure we could talk more, but let's let's
give it a break. From now, there will be some
interviews with some of the contributors to the book.
So look out for a future episodeof Silent Belief where we'll be
talking to some of my fellow contributors.
Maybe I'll have Sarah back on again.
Maybe she'll join with some of the contributors.

(01:36:32):
We'll see how it goes. Stay tuned to Still
Unbelievable. But Sarah, before I let you go,
the usual question I ask all of my guests, or certainly the the
Christian ones or those who havean interest in Christianity, do
you have a favorite Bible character and impression,
please? Well, I think it'd have to be

(01:36:52):
the Good Samaritan, right? Yeah, obviously he's the the
protagonist of a parable, so. Hopefully he ticks the box.
As a, as a Bible character, but you know, how can you go past
that? Like someone who breaks down
social barriers in order to reach out to someone in need?
Like that's what it's about, right?

(01:37:14):
I could probably more deeply psychoanalyze the the Good
Samaritan and maybe kind of findsome, you know, sometimes in
the, in growing up in church, wesort of get trained to give more
than what we reasonably have and, and we get guilted into,
yeah, to giving beyond what is perhaps reasonable.

(01:37:35):
And so, you know, but hey, the Good Samaritan was an outsider
and, and surprised everyone. So I like that, yes.
And he went and he did good for someone else to a level that
cost him. Yeah, absolutely.
It cost him. And he he, like I said, he
challenged social expectations and he broke down barriers.

(01:37:57):
And he just related to someone else on a human level, like
another human being in need who I can help and I'll do it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, if. Only we could all be a little
bit more like that. I think the world would be so
much more pleasant to live in. Thank you Sarah, I've had a
variety of answers to that question.

(01:38:18):
You are the 1st to send a character from a parable.
I like my little firsts. So that's a great first to have.
So thank you, Sarah. Absolutely approve of that one.
I didn't call it. Sometimes I think I get a feel
for the kind of character it had.

(01:38:38):
But no, I, I wasn't prepared to go anywhere with you.
I, I didn't know I, I didn't. I did wonder if it might be a
female, but I wasn't prepared tobe more specific than that.
But yeah, Good Samaritan is a isa good choice.
Yeah. Cool.
Yeah, well, I don't mind. I don't mind the.
The the the widow who put her 2 pennies in the bowl either she's

(01:39:02):
pretty Yeah, I like she's a goodone.
She's. Good.
I'm hoping that one day someone will come up and say the woman
at the Well, yeah, I did. She.
Did cross my mind, Yeah. Did she really?
Oh, brilliant. Brilliant.
Excellent. So we'll, we'll see.
We'll see if somebody in the future comes up with that one.
But yeah, we've had some great answers.
Back catalogue. If you want to know what all the

(01:39:23):
answers are. I'm not going to list them all
here. Maybe that's something I could
do though, list them or create alist of them.
That would be quite cool to think.
Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you again for the hard
work that you've done in the book bringing us all together.
I'm really looking forward to the the next two months while we
wait for the the proper officiallaunch date, which is a month

(01:39:44):
from today if my calendar is right.
Yeah, so that'll be great. The 6th of December today.
You're obviously not listening to this on the 6th of December,
but yes. So the next month up until
launch date and then the month after that while we try to plug
it across our relative social media.
Medias send it to as many peopleas we possibly could.
I know I'll be reaching out to some podcasts and sending them

(01:40:07):
links to the book and inviting myself on or other people on to
talk about the book. I will be doing that kind of
thing. Listeners, please do that social
media into crazy. Let's get this book read by as
many people as we possibly can. Thanks again Sarah, I hope you
had a fabulous Christmas and a great New Year.
Enjoy the the coming spring in Australia, although it won't be

(01:40:29):
spring for you will it? It's midnight becoming autumn.
Yes, I mean I. Keep forgetting you guys.
That's the one thing I miss. Actually, quick tangent before I
hang up on you. The one thing I missed from
growing up in Zambia was hot Christmases.
Really. Yeah, South of the equator.
Christmas, as always, a hot day.We used to take the dining table
out into the garden and have Christmas dinner in the garden

(01:40:51):
because that was the time of year.
And then here in England, it's wet, it's miserable, it's
overcast. You know the sunsets before
you've even finished eating. I mean, there's just no part of
the day to enjoy. Well, you know, it's funny.
There are a lot of imported European traditions when it
comes to Christmas that don't really fit our context but that

(01:41:11):
we retain like the. Christmas trees.
And and the hot meals, but that's yes, Santa does get
around in his in his shorts and with his stubby of beer and
excellent. Excellent.
Yes, fabulous. I did enjoy my Christmas in
Australia 20 years ago. Right.
Thanks again, Sarah. Have a wonderful time and I'll

(01:41:31):
talk to you again soon. Cheers.
Bye, bye. It's been such a privilege.
Matthew, thank you. Yeah.
Thanks, Sarah. Cheers, bye.
You have been listening to a. Podcast from Reason Press.
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(01:41:53):
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Episode 126 - Apostate - with Sarah Bacaller

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 126 - Apostate - with Sarah Bacaller