Episode 134 - Apostate - Jo Lloyd Johnson - Still Unbelievable!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Episode 134 Apostate Joe Lloyd Johnson This is Matthew and in
this episode of Still Unbelievable, I chat with Joe,
one of the contributors of the book Apostate Stories of the
Conversion. Joe is already an author and has
written her own memoir of deconstruction.
See the show notes for links. Listeners, please be aware that

(00:25):
this conversation touches on sexual violence and that we
start discussing it in the opening minutes.
But it is not all we talk about.We cover other topics as well.
Jo's book does talk about her experience of sexual violence
and proceeds from her book go tothe fantastic charity Louder
Than Silence. See show notes for links.

(00:49):
Hello. Everybody, welcome to another
episode of Still Unbelievable. Did you know that I've written a
chapter for a book? What do you mean?
You've not heard any of the lastepisodes that I've been doing
plugging that Ridiculous. Sorry, not ridiculous.
What? That awesome book, Apostate
Stories of the Conversion. 21 authors have got together to
write 21 chapters telling their story out of Christianity, and

(01:11):
I've read to one of them. I've done a couple of
interviews. If you haven't heard any of
them, I have a back catalogue. Please go and listen to those.
But while you're getting ready for that, enjoy this one.
I'm sure this one will be fantastic because I am a fortune
teller so I'm welcoming Joe Joe's written a glorious chapter
for apostate book. She now will be having a chat

(01:33):
for however long it takes. Thank you so much Joe.
You are probably the only contributor to this book who
actually know. Let me start again.
You are one. You're probably the only
contributing author to this book, to this book who has
written your own book first. But Sarah, who puts us all
together, who organised all of this, She's written her own book
even though she hasn't written achapter for the book.

(01:55):
So welcome to a unique club, Joe, and welcome to Still
Unbelievable. I'm looking forward to having a
chat with you. Yeah, I'm definitely looking
forward to talking. I'm excited.
I read your chapter Preparing for this and I was pleasantly
surprised at how many overlaps there were between your life

(02:17):
story and some of the things that I talk about in my actual
book. So you've only read my chapter
in Apostate, so some of these similarities will be news to
you. OK, interesting.
I am looking forward to that. So let's talk a little bit about
your book first. Then your book is called Silence
to Need and you tell a story about that.

(02:37):
So as I have not had the opportunity to read it yet,
please tell my listeners about the book.
Yeah, so Silence and Eden is a memoir, so it's all my true life
story. I also was raised with the
Christian parents, instead of them being missionaries out of
country, they were pastors. Well, actually my grandparents

(02:58):
were pastors and they created a small commune in California.
So that same feeling of kind of being detached from the outside
world, definitely you can relateto that.
And I also have a very interesting story around
spiritual experience that yours resonated with mine.

(03:21):
But the book talks I started writing while I was actively
deconstructing. I didn't know it would turn into
deconverting. When I published the book, I
don't think I was fully there yet.
So it's more of a deconstructionstory, but it kind of parallels
my upbringing and then figuring out how to parent and how

(03:42):
sometimes trying to figure out how to parent effects, you start
to see like, wait, why did my parents do that?
Because I don't feel comfortabledoing that.
And how did like one thing I talk about in my chapter is
spanking. And that was something that my
parents did, so something I assumed I would do.
And when you then are enacting the things that your parents

(04:07):
did, you're like, I don't know if I actually think this is the
best. And you can also start to be
like, how did this affect me? Some of the negative effects?
So that's like one example of multiple topics that I bring up
in the book. One thing about the book is I am
a victim of sexual violence as achild.
It is talked about in the book. So something for readers to be

(04:30):
aware of. That's something you have to be
comfortable with. I do not get into explicit
details. It is not to, there's no point
to, to traumatize or to trigger people, but sadly, it is
something that many people have experienced.
And as a survivor, I wanted to be honest about that experience
and a lot that others know that they're not the only ones who

(04:53):
have also possibly experienced that.
For me, the abuse as a child andcoming, being raised in purity
culture and then leaving kind ofI had, I kind of had to unravel
all of that at the same time. So that is why they're very
interlinked for me because my memories were were repressed.

(05:14):
So I did not know all the specifics.
And as I kind of dug at how I was raised, those memories kind
of came to the surface. So I had to deal with both
situations at the same time. Interesting what you say about
memories to the self excite. One of the weird things about

(05:35):
that I've experienced over the last month writing my chapter
because we've hit the topic of sexual violence.
So let's go there briefly. This will be a few minutes of
talking about female sexual violence that listeners.
So please do be aware. I'm sorry that I've done it so
early in the episode, but it it's a thing.
So let's not hide that because Imake an oblique reference to

(05:59):
sexual violence in my own chapter.
And yes, I know I'm a man. Yes, I know I'm not a victim of
sexual violence, but there is anemotional link when you've got
that deep family connection to somebody who has been a victim
of it. And yes, I'm a stereotypical
white, soppy male. So just deal with it.

(06:19):
But I sobbed reading my chapter again and I've those are my own
words. I've written it, I've read it.
I've read it multiple times overthe last six months as we've
been doing this book, and yet that those words that I know so
well still brought me to sobbingtears.
And if that can do to me, let's just imagine that that's only a

(06:40):
fraction of what a woman has to deal with.
One thing that did stick out with your chapter was that the
fact you you talked about reading your mom's first hand
account. The reason that I started
writing my book was because I wanted I get my grandma had

(07:01):
passed away and I, I found out there are things about her life
I never, I never learned, I didn't know, she never told me.
And I thought, well, if I died right now, my daughters would
have no idea what I have experienced.
And so in a way, writing this book was a first hand account
for them to be able to read if Ididn't have the chance to share

(07:23):
with them. So there was a little bit of
that for me. Reading the way that you ended
up hearing your mom's story, I was grieved that you weren't
able to have the sit down conversation with her that I
have started to like try to sprinkle into life with my kids
so that the topics not off the table.

(07:44):
And they know that mom experienced this and it's OK to
ask questions and it's OK to talk about these things because
our society doesn't know how to talk about the things that are
ugly and scary and as a woman oras.
So one of the things about the book is that $1.00 for every

(08:05):
sale goes to Louder Than Silence, which is an
organization that is a nonprofitthat is, sorry, it's a nonprofit
that works with victims of sexual violence.
And actually since publishing the book, I first found Louder

(08:27):
Than Silence as a participant and have been volunteering with
them and ended up getting hired.So actually, that is what I do
now part time as I work with Louder Than Silence and as I dig
into the topic of sexual violence and Victoria, what
victims have gone through, how it affects the brain.

(08:50):
I've also learned that when it comes to childhood victims,
there are a lot of male survivors.
And it is something that we don't talk about as a society,
but boys have been victimized a lot more often than we like to
realize. OK, thank you for that Joe.

(09:10):
Just a reminder, there is a linkin the show notes to Louder in
the Silence as well as somewhereto buy Joe's book.
So please, if you have any sympathy for any of that topic,
please do go and visit the website support Louder in the
Silence by Joe's book so you cansupport them twice.
And B, it is an, an essential project, an essential work.

(09:31):
I didn't know of the organization, but I've been
around the website since Joe andI arranged this interview and
I'm very impressed with the organization, but my validation
doesn't count. Joe's does.
So thank you for that. Joe, I resonated with your
chapter right from the very opening of your chapter because
you your chapter opens with a very raw dialogue about

(09:53):
spanking. And I'm pretty sure that there
are many parents who read that chapter will have the same
reaction that I had reading it was wow, that seems so familiar.
My daughter's 20 now. We did have when Sarah and I
were still learning to be parents, when she was still very
young, I spanked her once and I briefly got her attention and I

(10:19):
tried it a second time. And it was very clear the second
time that this was not going to work as a method of punishment.
And I felt wretched. And Sarah and I had a very frank
conversation that day. And we didn't spank again after
that. It was awful.
And I was spanked as a child. I heard the whole this hurts you

(10:42):
more than me speech, which is initself so damaging.
And I'm pretty sure that that first experience of spanking my
daughter hurt me more than it did her.
And it hurt me so much it never happened again.
Well, I'm glad that it was only once, maybe twice for you.
I think I still have a little bit of guilt from it taking so

(11:06):
long. I, I don't remember exactly how
many years, but it got to the point where my daughter would
like the whatever tantrum she was being disciplined for wasn't
as bad as the emotional upset from being spanked.
Like, wait, if we're correcting her for a 10 minute flip out and

(11:26):
then it takes 45 minutes to calmher down like this is this is
actually helping anybody? So yeah.
And for me, as I've dug into therapy and stuff, I've realized
that some of my self harm ideation has actually come from
spanking because I was trained that my body is bad and that if

(11:50):
I do anything wrong or make a mistake that I deserve physical
pain. And so I will have the mental
urge to cause physical pain eventhough I'm like no, I don't want
to hurt myself. So I definitely think spanking
can lead to mental health issuesand I'm really glad that I

(12:11):
didn't spank all my kids. I have five children so I feel
bad that my daughter was the Guinea pig of us figuring our
crap out. But I do talk in my book
Silenced and Eden about how at least as she's a teenager now, I
am opening the doors to have conversations around like mom

(12:33):
didn't do it right. Mom tried her best and hoping
that as her brain is still growing, I can do better now, so
I can't go back and fix it right?
No, no, that's right. That, that's great to hear.
And I took a similar tactic or sorry, my wife and I both took a
similar tactic with our daughter.

(12:53):
She's 20 now. So I'm a parent of an adult.
I don't know how that happened. I don't know how I managed to
achieve that but I I have and wehave good conversations and I've
had similar conversations with her multiple times.
Apologise, my own failing. She's been very gracious in in
her responses to those and we'vejoked about she'll get her own

(13:18):
opportunity to traumatise a youngster in her own time.
But it means that we've actuallybuilt a healthy relationship
where we can talk these things through, which is far better
than either of her parents have with their respective parents,
which is the way it should be. We should be improving with each
generation, not maintaining trauma and maintaining vadnais.

(13:40):
So I'm really pleased that we'vemanaged to achieve that and I
look forward to the future with her.
It is nice when your kids hit that switch where you start to
enjoy them and respect them as their own humans.
Yeah. It, it can be fun.
I, my oldest is only 14, but I've already seen a lot of their
personalities. And I do, that is a theme of

(14:03):
Silence in Eden where I talk about kind of learning from
their innocence. And like I was indoctrinated so
young that I think some of thosepure natural things kind of get
shifted out of you so young whenyou don't kind of smush your kid

(14:26):
into a box. They kind of grow out however
they want to. And then I think that they can
kind of teach you things. So I do feel like my children
have taught me a lot. If you don't learn from being a
parent to children, you are clearly parenting wrong is my my
opinion. On that.
I definitely agree with that. The other thing that I say is

(14:47):
I'm. Probably.
An older parent than than average.
I'm 35 years older than my child.
A lot of parents have got a smaller age gap to their
children and I I'm quite happy to say that if I'd been a parent
of my 20s, I'd have been a monumentally ship parent.
And I'm glad I'm a parent that'sthat's older because I am better

(15:08):
for it. I'm still not perfect, don't
misunderstand me, but I'm betterthan I would have been.
Yeah, I was 23 when I became a mum and I think one part of my
story is that being a female andfundamental Christianity, there
is a lot of push to be submissive, to be like your role

(15:32):
is a lot about what you can do for men and and being a mother
is like the crown jewels, like that is what your goal is
supposed to be, the supporting role, make your man look good
and then raise nice children to go along with it.
So I really being that young, like my goal growing up was like

(15:55):
to find the right guy and then to have children.
And so it's been interesting to be like, oh, but I'm still my
own person. What does that look like?
Yeah, I don't, I don't need to just shift into mom and wife.
I get to be Joe. And who is Joe?
And it is interesting being 30. I'm 38, but it started at like

(16:16):
30 being like, who am I? I've never learned.
It's interesting you say that because I don't know when it
happened or or or attempts. I have no conscious thought of
thinking differently. But here I am, here now as a
man, the idea of a submissive wife who every waking moment is

(16:41):
an attempt to make me look good or or to please me.
It might. Sound good in a fantasy comic,
but. I.
Find the thoughts of that, frankly deeply unattractive.
So I do wonder what sort of man exists who finds that attractive

(17:03):
and and likes that. Oh, I personally think that the
draw of narcissistic men to Christianity, it has some of
that to it. I think a narcissist would
really love a submissive shut up, make me look good, pamper my
ego type of a situation. I don't think that that's a

(17:25):
healthy situation to want. Yeah, and unfulfilling as well,
frankly. Yeah, there is no way to
describe that kind of relationship that I am attracted
to. And I I don't get it.
And maybe that's that's a me thing and but I guess

(17:48):
academically I need to understand it.
So I know what I'm criticizing, but as as a man human sitting
here, I don't find that kind of person or relationship
attractive to me. And I'm glad I'm not married to
somebody like that. I'm going to.
Somebody who's not like that? Yeah, I really do feel like it
has to do with the narcissist who wants somebody who is just

(18:13):
there to make them feel good anddoesn't want the challenge of
like, the biblical iron sharpening iron.
They don't want that. They want somebody who gives
them attention. And to me, yeah, that just
sounds shallow. And yeah, I'm not interested in

(18:34):
it. No, no, absolutely not.
Let's get. On to your chapter then, and
we'll obviously be picking bits from your book.
So you mentioned earlier that you grew up, you were
indoctrinated from a very young age.
Where was that and what was the environment it was in?
Yeah, so my grandparents starteda commune.

(18:56):
We lived there till I was. My grandpa passed away when I
was four. He was the leader.
So it kind of fell apart. I think we moved out of the
commune when I was like 6. I remember praying the prayer of
salvation at 5:00. I remember not knowing if I did
it right so I would prayed it every night for like a month or

(19:18):
two. I also remember having the
anxious thought of well if I asked Jesus in my heart but sin
separates me from him. Then if I did anything wrong
that day does that mean he ran away from my heart?
So anxiety at 5 probably not thebest but that's weird.

(19:39):
My parents, I have always held to the very fundamental the idea
that Adam and Eve are real life people, that the story is
literal, that every part of the Bible is literal, that every
single word is properly translated.
I don't remember the obsession with new King James, but I do

(20:02):
remember that in like Calvary Chapel, when we started going to
a Calvary Chapel, it was very much like this.
Bible is better than that Bible and you better quote from King
James instead out. And.
Then when I was 16 I found a charismatic church.
That's actually where my husbandand I met.

(20:25):
This is all in California of theUSA and the charismatic church
was very similar to my grandparents church.
My grandma used to say she saw angels.
They believed in prophetic words.
And that was why the section where you share about your like,
deliverance resonated. I remember people falling down

(20:47):
in services. I actually did a missions trip
and had a woman fall down to me touching her.
So I was like, yeah, this, that's normal.
I know that. And what something that for me
happened. And I did talk about this in
silence. And Eden is that I got baptized
with the Holy Spirit, which means you speak in tongues.

(21:08):
And shortly after I had that occur, I was in a prayer service
and was speaking in tongues. And that was when I had my first
flashback of the abuse that happened when I was a child.
And at that point in time, I hadno memory that that that

(21:28):
anything had happened to me. And the thing with flashbacks is
that they're not clear. Like you don't have like clarity
of like all the things that happened.
It's just like a terrible fearful memory, kind of like
flashing like like Thunder whereyou see an image, but you don't
really know what you're seeing. And so as I deconstructed, I was

(21:49):
looking into like, what is speaking in tongues?
How do I explain that? Kind of like you were saying
with the sleep paralysis where you're like, wait, there's a
scientific explanation. This is amazing.
So I found that there's they've done scientific brain scans of

(22:10):
people speaking in tongues and that what happens to your brain
is very similar to hypnosis. And one thing that people and
therapy has tried to do before is to bring up memories that
were repressed through hypnosis.So it's like, Oh, well then that
makes a lot of sense. What a.
Connection. Wow.

(22:34):
And the thing that's kind of crazy there is like we're
opening Christians, charismatic Christians are kind of opening
this pathway, if you want to call it, in your brain, where
stuff like traumatic memories can come, stuff like your body
seizing and all these things. But we really don't have, they

(22:56):
don't have this scientific awareness or therapeutic
awareness to know like what to do once we've tapped someone
into a memory or an experience. They don't have a way of
navigating that except for to like spiritually bypass whatever
trauma they're bringing up, which is what ended up happening

(23:17):
with my experience. So I had a flashback.
I had full blown PTSD where I didn't, I couldn't sleep for two
months because if I closed my eyes, I would have that
flashback. So once.
It and. Come once.
It happened, it was now in your conscious thought and you just
couldn't get rid of it. Yes, and it was very PTSD and

(23:40):
the like. I've had severe anxiety.
I couldn't calm my body down andI still didn't have the
knowledge of what was coming up exactly.
I just knew that I was a child. I knew it was fear.
I knew that it had some sexual connotation, right?
And. Remind.
Me What age were you when this happened?
So the abuse. Happened when I was 6 but sorry

(24:02):
the the flashback. Yeah, the.
Flashback, I was like 16 or 17, OK.
So like. A.
Delicate age anyway, so that's areally shitty time to have that
kind of experience. Yeah.
And it was, it was really terrible.
And I was a very independent teenager at that point.

(24:25):
I had my own car. I was driving myself around, was
keeping my own schedule. And I didn't have the
relationship with my parents to like, tell them like, oh, hey,
all of a sudden I'm not sleepingat night.
And what I ended up, what ended up happening is that I had
another spiritual experience where they did an altar call and

(24:47):
I came to the altar and someone prayed over me.
And it like calmed that PTSD activation.
And so of course then I'm like, oh, well, now I'm healed and
it's all better. And it went away because I could
finally sleep at night. But really what happened was
that I just spiritually bypassedand didn't really deal with any

(25:11):
of the stuff that was bubbling up until another 14 years later
at 30 when I was like, hey, I still, I still have issues.
Maybe I shouldn't figure out what the hell really went on
when I was a kid, and maybe I should actually, like, go to

(25:31):
therapy or deal with it a littlebit better.
Right. OK, I'm.
Going to, obviously. Cut this because I really don't
know where to go next week. So don't want to dwell on on the
trauma, but it's clearly an important part of your story.

(25:52):
I guess the question I want to ask then is who was there to
help you through this? What what was it that helped you
or who was it that helped you toget to grips with what was going
on if you didn't have that relationship with your parents?
Yeah, so that was The thing is my only other safe situation was

(26:13):
I had, I had a best friend who helped, but I also just very
much leaned into Christianity. I just prayed and prayed.
Lord, take it away because you had that.
Calming. Experience and a prayer
scenario. So that's that sort of like
drags you into Christianity as aresult of that.
Yeah, I mean, I was. My whole identity was

(26:36):
Christianity and so it definitely had the like, well,
God's going to save me. That's my only option.
And I think that's why my brain like that is what my brain
decided had to happen was I had to have another spiritual
experience. I had to calm myself down.
And I do think there is a level of like you say with the your

(27:00):
situation where you say that when people have the sleep
paralysis, a lot of times they assume whatever spiritual
understanding they have, they apply to it, right.
And so that was very much what happened for me is that I just
like. Use.
My spirituality to kind of make a narrative that would calm my

(27:23):
brain down. And I think that speaks to how
intelligent we are as a human species that when faced with
trauma, we, I mean, repression itself is a way of dealing with
it over spiritualizing. It is a way to deal with it.

(27:44):
And so I do feel like Christianity and certain things
can be this nice little crutch that we take.
And I did in your chapter, you talk about kind of like losing
how you wanted to be a Christian, right?
You wanted that relationship to stay.

(28:05):
Yeah. I definitely relate to that.
You use the word of a bereavement.
Yeah. I actually, if you're if you're
OK with it, I would love to read1 little section.
OK. Yeah, good.

(28:27):
Because I feel like it will. It will resonate with you.
Losing your religion is like a death in the family.
The closer you are to the familymember, the greater you are
affected by the loss. No one will tell you it is all
your fault or you chose this when you are grieving a death.
But many will respond this way when your religion dies.

(28:51):
These religious do gooders try to shame you into repentance or
like a firing are are like a firing squad in a hurricane.
You need shelter not firepower. You need a home cooked meal and
a loving and loving company. A sermon is not required.
You already know all the Bible verses they are quoting.

(29:15):
If your community was your church family, and your family
is all churched, you may be mourning 100 deaths.
Every friendship may collapse. Every family tie may loosen.
It may just be you and all your questions by the end.
That's beautiful, Joe. I absolutely resonate with that.

(29:38):
I'm going to need to read your book, listeners.
Go buy. Joe's book you're supporting
Louder Than Silence. You're also supporting
Indirectly Apostate. But while you're buying Joe's
book by apostate as well, help us.
Post it, it'll be very. Very cool, yeah.
Thank you, John. I'm really pleased that you read
that. Yes, thank you for letting me

(30:00):
share that little bit. Yeah, reading apostate has been
great because it is, like I said, reading parts of your
story. I was like, oh, that reminds me
of my story. Clearly we both understand that
feeling of something being gone that you don't really want to be

(30:21):
gone. Like you maybe took steps to
question it or look at it, but in the your curiosity was not
hoping that it would go away. Like at no point did I want that
relationship with God to end. I.
Just wanted to understand why hell didn't seem like it was a

(30:42):
real place in the Bible. You know, I just had these
questions that cut came up or for me, the gender bias and the
submissive place of a woman. I just got to the point where I
was like, I don't want my daughters to think that that's

(31:02):
normal. And I don't think that that's
great that I feel like that's normal.
But at no point was I like, I wasn't angry with God either.
Like I wasn't like mad at him. I was like, this just doesn't
feel like these two pieces, likethe God of the Old Testament,
the the OR even like the Bible didn't seem like it all fit

(31:28):
together. There are certain stories that
oppress women. And then there's Jesus who like
it looks like he had disciples that were women and wait now all
this shit doesn't fit together. This is really confusing.
Yeah, yes, it does. Just going briefly back to the
whole bereavement thing, I've tried with a couple of questions

(31:50):
to explain to them how difficultthat process is and how much
like a bereavement it is and howdaily, even hourly, it is just a
drain on your mind. And I've yet to find a way to
actually adequately express it to Christie.
It's either my failure to adequately express it in the

(32:12):
right language or something about Christianity that protects
them from understanding what's being said.
Have you managed to have a successful conversation with a
believer about expressing just how rough that experience is?
I. I can't think of 1, not with
somebody who wasn't already on the path of like deconstructing,

(32:36):
who feared that they would end up there.
I've had conversations with people who who were maybe
something was going on that theywere angry with God and they,
they, but they were angry and still hoping that there wasn't a
God and they could understand the concept of that relationship
being severed or gone or evaporating.

(32:59):
But no, somebody who's still theclinging.
And I, I think that the cognitive dissonance is like,
you can't, it's unpenetrable at that point in my mind, that is.
What I'm wondering I'm, I'm trying to find evidence that is
not true, but that is what what I'm thinking.

(33:21):
Listeners, if you're an atheist,you've had a conversation with a
Christian successfully on this matter.
If you're a Christian and you dounderstand this matter, the
e-mail address reasonpress@gmail.com, please,
because I think this is something important.
This is an area where those of us who have left Christianity
can actually positively impact the way Christians think about
us. If we can find a way to actually
breakthrough with it adequately explain what this process is

(33:44):
like. So Joe, the other thing that
you're moving on to then, Joe, is how the experience of of a
woman was negative. And I've said this multiple
times and I'm not going to stop saying it.
I. Have learnt to appreciate how
much harder it is, how much the experience of both Christianity

(34:07):
and exiting Christianity is for people who are not white CIS
males. And as a white CIS male I am at
the the least troubled end of that direction.
I'm not saying it's easy for me,I'm saying I have it easier than
everybody else. And I've only begun to
appreciate that as an adult as part of my exit from
Christianity. And I do want to keep beating

(34:30):
that drama. I think it is important that
people like me do acknowledge that.
So what's the some of the examples that you can
immediately give then that make this the Christian experience
harder for women specifically? Yeah, so it starts at the very,
it starts with Genesis, right? Who do we blame as the beginning

(34:53):
of all sin? It's it's the female.
We are deemed the weaker of the sexes.
There's also the idea that Adam is made for God.
God wants a companion, so he makes Adam, but then Adam wants

(35:14):
a companion and he makes woman. So right off the bat we are
secondary. And that that's like, that's the
entire, I mean, that's how you feel as a woman.
You feel it in your bones that you are secondary, your needs

(35:35):
are secondary, your desires are secondary.
Everything that is you comes after the men.
And then I talk a lot in my bookabout purity culture and how
that also makes women the stumbling blocks.
So we're not just weaker, we arethe problem.

(35:57):
Yeah. Yes, I am aware of that and.
As somebody who's experienced sexual violence, your body is a
problem. Your existence is a problem.
You feel like you are bad, OK. And because it's topical and
forgive me for going there, but how does?

(36:20):
The current. Political situation in America
where Christians have overwhelmingly supported putting
a rapist into the White House. How does that affect women in
situations like you? Yeah, the victim blaming that
our my culture allows and promotes is horrendous.

(36:45):
I yeah, I mean, how many reports, how many victims have
come forward that somehow get paid off or somehow get
silenced? It's just I don't.
I don't understand how Christians can live with

(37:07):
themselves and and preach morality and then also promote
somebody who has no morals. It's.
Stomach turning. And then there's also, it can be
scary because there's talk of like, I don't know, I don't know

(37:28):
where we're going to go from here.
But I definitely think that as awoman, also for any other
minorities, there's probably a extreme amount of fear of like,
I mean, we don't even have birthcontrol right now.
Like women's rights are being actively taken away.

(37:50):
I personally know people who arelike afraid of being sexually
active because if they needed a way out, there would be no way
out. And and that also.
Is. I'm.
So you saying that has given me flashback to some of the things
that I've sorry. Flashback.
Is the wrong phrase to use. It has given me memories of some

(38:10):
conversations I've had on certain social media places
where. Extreme.
Right wing Christians would see what you've just said about
access to contraception as a good thing, because look at what
it's doing. It's forcing people to behave
themselves, therefore it's a good thing, yes.
But The thing is that most people won't actually behave

(38:32):
themselves. If that's what you want to quote
call it is behaving. What really ends up happening is
more harm people who people who need the resources that are not
given them. They also have the people with
money can just go to a state. They can just drive or fly to a

(38:53):
state and get the things they need and the poor have no option
because they don't have the finances to take a week off and
drive themselves to a different state and get the things that
they need. I think of that part of all of
that actually affects the classism where we want to keep
the poor, poor, keep the poor quiet.

(39:18):
Yeah, and. Let's be brutally cunning about
this. Refusing access to contraception
to a woman might make her rethink some of her activities,
but all that does is that deniesa violent man his outlet, and so
he's going to take it. And then suddenly the woman
loses twice. Yes, yes, though, yes,

(39:43):
absolutely. And in those domestic, you know,
domestic violence is on the risewhen culture turns this way.
If you make it where a woman hasno way out, then she's stuck in
her abusive relationship. And if you're pregnant with that
man's child and you have no way of you have no resources to get

(40:06):
it out like you're. Yeah, like you said, you're,
you're you're hurt twice. You're doubly affected by these
type of situations. Now they plan to hurt her again
by making it harder to get a divorce.
So now these women are doubly stuck in their abusive
relationship. So there is no good way to spin
this kind of ship. No.
No, there's not. And The thing is that they

(40:28):
usually then resources for thoseother resources start to get cut
too. Like we don't just start taking
women's rights away, but they'reactually starting to cut other
resources for minorities that, you know, we need.
We need those. That is how the, the, there's a

(40:49):
reason why the poor need help. It's because they don't have the
ability to. And you and I both know the
generational things right? So like if you are talking
talking about multiple generations of poor people,
we're talking also people who like are ex slaves only what how

(41:11):
many generations ago? Like they're starting from
nothing and then we don't acknowledge like, Oh no, the
white man who came over from Europe with thousands and
hundreds and all of the money and all the power.
Maybe there's an unequalness here.

(41:33):
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
And on that pleasant note, I I will switch tackle to bit
listeners, but these are serioustopics.
I'm not making light of these topics, but you do want to hear
other things discussed in this episode.
So Joe, I'd like to take you back to him.
You mentioned 20 minutes ago, however long ago it was about
growing up in a commune, communein California.

(41:56):
So just paint a little picture about what was that was like.
Would you have called it a cult or is it still just Christians
wanting to to do things their way?
And what memories, if they're told, do you have of that place?
I was young. When it fell apart I my parents
always just called it the property so we all like it was

(42:18):
just a pot of land, a property that multiple homes were on.
I would now call it a cult, but it took a long time of looking
at it before I would be ready to, to claim that the cultness
of we know better, we're doing it the right way.
Us and them of like, well, we'rethe real Christians.

(42:39):
And those are like lesser Christians.
All of that was definitely there.
But at four years old, like, I wouldn't have known that.
I just knew that all my friends were the people who went to the
church and that the church also had its own school.
And like, this was our little bubble in our own little world.
And we didn't really talk to anybody outside of our bubble.

(42:59):
I have great memories of being alittle kid running around
outside with very little parental vision and being able
to all my friends live there. We were all just a bunch of kids
hanging out, so that seemed great.
So some of my memories are wonderful.

(43:19):
But then as I get older, I see the like, oh, but my
relationship with my mom and dadwas kind of weird because I was
also like in a room with other people's kids who weren't with
my mom and dad. So it's kind of confusing if
auntie can spank me and dad can spank me, like who's my parent
here? So it was interesting.

(43:44):
It definitely blurs the lines offamily.
The leader definitely becomes kind of dad to all.
My grandma was kind of everyone's mom.
And it also set my parents up for failure in that when it fell
apart, neither one had education, neither one had a

(44:04):
savings because everyone's moneywas compiled together.
No one had land because the church owned the land.
So I can't imagine being, I think they were like 35 with
four kids and having nothing. They had no, Yeah.

(44:26):
So I definitely have sympathy for my parents.
I have sympathy for their own indoctrination and their own
limited resources. Then that's.
Very gracious of you to acknowledge that because they
are also victims, they didn't know better and in their
victimization they victimized you as well because they just

(44:47):
carried on. So Hallelujah to those of us who
managed to break the cycle. So going back to your chapter
then, your chapter dwells a lot on your time in Hawaii.
So you're obviously married by then.
So Fast forward a couple of years, sketch it out.
How did you end up in Hawaii? And tell me it was more than
just the beaches and the exotic canoeing that got you there.

(45:13):
I mean, the beach is amazing, sowhy not?
But my parents actually had a situation where my dad got
offered a job in Hawaii. My dad's a surfer, my husband's
a surfer. So as soon as my parents moved,
my husband wanted an excuse to get to Hawaii because that's
where the surface. So so he ended up finding a job.

(45:34):
And so it really was wanting to be by family but also by the
beach that sent us to Hawaii. But when we got to Hawaii, my
husband and I had this belief that we were supposed to be
pastors. So part of our indoctrination
was this idea of like God's purpose for your life, that God

(45:57):
has this specific calling on you.
And we believed that that was that we were supposed to be
pastors. So when we got to Hawaii, it
seemed like God was putting thatin front of our path finally,
and we were going to achieve theultimate calling on our lives.

(46:19):
And it was oddly in that actually coming close to
fruition or being presented to us that we both started having
the bigger questions and being like, wait, do we want that?
Are we comfortable with what church does?

(46:42):
For me, I've always had a heart for people.
I've always wanted to make people's lives better.
I've always had the social work concept of like sticking up for
children, sticking up for immigrants, sticking up for
people less fortunate than I. And as we started to uncover
what church actually, what most churches actually do, where it's

(47:07):
very self absorbed, we started realizing like maybe that's
nothing we'd want to be a part of.
And it would. And so that was kind of a.
Straw. On the camel's back or whatever,
where it was like, OK, well, if our Our Calling was to be a

(47:29):
pastor, but now we're not sure we even believe that church is
doing any good, how do we fit into the world now?
Because I thought that that was the calling of God on our lives.
Yeah, you expressed that really well in your chapter and I, I
really felt that because some really, some really difficult

(47:50):
times happen for you, you on there and.
Hawaii. Didn't turn out to be the the
paradise that you hoped it wouldbe.
So that must have been really difficult for you.
But the I don't want to spoil all the chapter.
Go and buy the book. Listeners, please just buy the
book. Support the charity that we're

(48:10):
supporting the book. Support all the authors, you
know, support what it is that we're trying to achieve here
with the book. So I won't give all the details
here, but you do have this moment.
In the book where you. The two of you, you and you and
your husband. Are clearly.
Thinking similar things, but it's not apparent to each other

(48:31):
that that's what's going on. And you tell it very much from
your side. And there's a moment in the book
where you express. In.
Very few words. What was obvious enormous
relief, and I'm fairly sure thatyou go through it in more detail
in your book, but I think what what the.
Beautiful bit that I got. Out of that was that your
husband was clearly on the same page.

(48:53):
And I think that's beautiful forfor the two of you.
So he was offered this job and he decided that wasn't the right
job for him. It wasn't the right job for your
family. So what happened next from that?
Because that was clearly a very brave decision to make in that
moment. Yeah, it was a light.
It was very much the shaking of our faith because it was the

(49:14):
light. OK, This is what God wants us to
do. This is who we're supposed to
be. It was very much part of my
identity of like where my calling is to be this.
So this is who I am lining myself up to become.
So I mean, since young, very young, that was the core of my
identity was that I was called to work inside, like be in the

(49:37):
church, be a pastor, be a pastor's wife, raise good holy
children. And when I realized like, oh, I
don't actually want to be the thing that I've been striving to
be, there was also there was a part of it where it was like,
wait, my wants get to matter. That's a new thought.

(49:59):
And also the like, well if this isn't who I am then who am I?
And do I have a say in who I am?Because before that moment it
was very much like prophetic word Bible reading.
Like it all just tells me I'm supposed to learn what it is but
I don't get to to create it if that makes sense.
Yes. It does, and you describe in the

(50:21):
book how the immense relief for you to do that was.
Was it the? Same emotion and same emotional
response for your husband. Was it relief?
Or was. It him making a conscious
decision that this is just not the right decision for me, you
know? I feel like that's one of those
things that I we probably would have to have another discussion
about. I'm not sure how he felt in that

(50:45):
moment. I think that there was some
level of relief. I know he has and now that that
we're in both not Christians that he's like really happy that
he didn't take it and then have his faith fall away while being
a pastor. That would be a lot more
confusing. But his initial feeling, I
honestly don't know. I'd have to ask him, OK?

(51:07):
All right then. Well, there you go.
Marriage advice from Matthew. Yeah, Don't take it.
Don't take it listeners and so that obviously in the that.
Was. Obviously a marker for a massive
change in you as a couple, in you as a family.
Presumably you had a couple of children by then at that point

(51:27):
in your life. Yeah, at that point I was
pregnant with our first son, so I was on our 4th.
Right. OK, those those number, I've,
I've stopped at 1 and so as soonas anyone says they've got more
than two children, I'm like, whoa, those numbers sound way
too big. Yeah, well, that was definitely
part of our fundamental belief was like that you were supposed

(51:49):
to, as a woman, your job is to have a lots of babies.
I also love the chaos of a big family.
So that was one of those teachings that I like was like,
sure, I'll I'll take that on. Let's have a whole bunch of kids
and have a brood. I'm I'm sure there is.
I mean, we obviously digressing very, very slightly here, but

(52:10):
I'm sure, Yeah. But the chaos of a large house
with lots of children in it, I can see the appeal of that.
And even sitting here now with my my little girl who's 20,
who's away at university at the moment.
So there are no children making noise at home.

(52:31):
So yes, I can imagine. Yeah.
Children running around, the sound of children playing, the
sound of children laughing, having fun.
It is. It sounds attractive.
And when you've only got 1, unless you've got friends
around, you don't get that. It's very different.
You have to get on your knees and you have to be their
playmate. And that comes with its own

(52:51):
challenges, I can tell you. I, I can imagine.
So one thing that you talk aboutin your chapter is the silencing
of yourself when you're walking through your deconstructing.
Obviously feeling, obviously feeling silenced is part of my

(53:14):
story. Hence silence and eating,
feeling like there are topics that you're not allowed to talk
to, to speak about in the open. And I was intrigued by the part
where you try to bring up a conversation with your spouse
and then kind of go silent. Do you feel like part of that

(53:35):
was Christianity or like maybe just you personality?
Or why do you think it was so hard to find your voice?
I think it was personality. I think at that time in my life
I was exploring things scientifically, exploring things
cerebrally and wanted to pick things apart to the minuti

(53:58):
level. And at that time in life, that
just wasn't something that that my wife was doing.
We're obviously still married. She's obviously still a
Christian. So I'm obviously not going to
say anything negative. So listeners, please do not, I
really mean this sincerely, please do not take this as

(54:19):
criticism of my life. I want to be very clear about
that. So the way we were thinking
these things through, the way wewere analysing these issues was
different. And so there's probably some
fault in mind in that I didn't find the appropriate way to
approach the conversation. I didn't, I didn't initiate the

(54:42):
conversation in a way that was attractive to Sarah to continue
it. So I'm I'm going to take, take
blame for that. And I think.
If I'd found a more constructiveand more productive way to
initiate that conversation, it probably would have gone better.
Probably the reason why that wasbecause this was all still very

(55:02):
new for me. I didn't know where my journey
was going to end. I was still processing what was
going on. So I was.
Trying to work out what these things meant in my head.
And so I described this scenario.
You mentioned it earlier. The sleep paralysis, a thing
that I thought had been a demonic attack on me years ago,
I realised was actually the verynatural process of sleep

(55:24):
paralysis. Terrifying.
If you've had it, you know what I'm talking about.
If you haven't, please never have it and but.
That was a real. Shift in my perspective in terms
of the way I viewed certain Christian things that gave me
permission to doubt and to question the sheer existence of
the spiritual realm, especially the demonic spiritual realm,

(55:47):
which would be the core of my Christian belief.
So I think if I'd found managed to find a, a more constructive
way to approach that topic and because of the raw nature of how
I felt there and the fearful nature with how I felt there.
Because again, to put context onthat and the blogs that I'd been
reading, every single blog I'd read where one partner had

(56:10):
deconverted and the other hadn't, the marriage failed.
The attrition rates of marriagesin that situation is
astonishingly high. And.
I am. So pleased that we've managed to
make it 1215 years Internet. It has not been an easy Rd.
It is hard on both partners. I do say that in my own chapter.

(56:35):
And so I think I just used that as an excuse not to talk about
it. Oh yeah, yeah, I tried.
And I think really what I shouldhave done was find a way to
constructively talk about it. And I, I tried.
I picked on the wrong topic and I picked it on it at the wrong
moment and so if you. Have read.

(56:55):
My chapter or do read my chapterand get to that point and hear
what I'm saying. Or if you never do, you're just
listening to this and you're in a situation where you are
deconstructing partner with a with somebody who still believes
and just trying to have those conversations.
Just try gently try multiple times, try different tasks, but
do try to have that conversation.

(57:16):
Don't just try what's going no that didn't work and then not do
it again. It's very easy to give into that
feel like I did, but it hurts more longer down the line.
So do have that conversation andfind a way to have it gently.
So there's a long, long winded. Answer to your to your question

(57:37):
there, Jo. So I will accept fault on on
that because I I should have made more effort.
My wife had no idea what it was that I was going through.
She had no idea what it was thatI was trying to say.
You know. All I was was I was just raising
some little thing in her head. And so it's hardly a surprise
she was like, yeah, that doesn'treally matter.
But for me it was bigger. It was bigger than.

(57:59):
It. Really was and I didn't make
that clear. I don't know if you noticed, but
in my chapter, I have this dialogue between me and my
husband where he talks about thedifference between spirit.
So the word spirit in the Bible,there's ones that verses that
are capitalized as and some thataren't and and the knowledge

(58:22):
that capitalization is like a new thing.
And I and I talk about how to him, he was trying to explain
that the Spirit in US and the Spirit as in the Holy Spirit,
like there's no difference in the biblical term, but in the

(58:43):
new translations, they try to make a difference by
capitalization. But in that conversation, I kind
of just off like, I'm like, I don't understand what you're
getting at. Like, yeah, it's English has
changed over years, whatever. And so it was just interesting
because to me, those two conversations feel similar in

(59:04):
that I didn't understand. Yeah, I didn't understand the
depth of what he was trying to get at.
Just like your wife was kind of like, what are you even talking
about? But my husband was very is a
very persistent person. And so maybe it is just that
that personality where I tend tobe the meeker, the, the if you

(59:25):
shut me down once I'm done, I don't know how to try again.
And he is the person who, like will just not stop until you
understand what he's getting at.Yeah.
Be. Persistent I think and be gentle
as well. And I I failed on on both
counts. It's important that we do have
these honest conversations. So when you and your husband Joe

(59:49):
were navigating these waters, did you realise that he was
deconstructing? Were you already deconstructing?
Were different things triggeringyou or was it a different time
periods? So he there were things in
Christianity that were uncomfortable for me and he

(01:00:10):
started he was the one who started vocalizing some of his
questions. And even in my story, I bring up
that he shares it in a small group.
And again, I guess it is that personality where I was
mortified that he opened his mouth and shared with other
people what I wouldn't even wasn't even comfortable speaking

(01:00:31):
to myself. Like the questions and the
changes in my faith that I wasn't even comfortable and self
acknowledging. He was going to share with a
group of friends who were all Christian, so there wasn't a
house. Group supposed to be that place
where you're safe to do that. Yes, absolutely it.
They should be right. But for us, it was very much we

(01:00:54):
were both starting that process in different trigger points or
different aspects of our beliefs.
And it was interesting because there were things where he would
question something and I would be like, but you can't question
that. Like that's not an I'm not ready
yet to question if there is a God.

(01:01:14):
Like that's whoa. I think his first was like the
in the Bible being factual or literal.
And that was the first one he's brought up and I was very
uncomfortable with. And then I brought up the like,
well then is Jesus more of a fable?
Or was it like a interesting person who changed things but

(01:01:37):
maybe didn't actually resurrect?Like, maybe that's just a story.
And then he was very much like, whoa, you can't question Jesus.
Like Jesus is Jesus. And so it was interesting.
We had that back and forth of like, he'd question something.
And I would be uncomfortable with him questioning that.

(01:01:57):
But then I would look into what he was saying and I'd be like,
oh, yeah, that makes sense. And then I would pushed it a
little farther and he'd be like,oh, yeah, I guess, I guess we
can question Jesus. OK, this is scary, but I very
much enjoyed having the partner to to process that with it was I

(01:02:17):
couldn't imagine the loneliness of doing that completely alone.
And even doing it in a partnership still was very scary
because you're still losing everyone outside of that
partnership. Yes.
Of course, yes, at least you goteach other to comfort each
other. But yes, there is loss of
community still in all of that. The benefits that that I have in

(01:02:43):
my situation is my life is connected to a church full of
friends and we, you know, have dinner at friends houses or we
entertain friends. Yes, they're all Christians, but
there is still that friends community.
And if we'd left that together, we would have to do our own
things to try to find new friends, because we would have

(01:03:06):
lost all of those people. Yeah, and that's what Josh and I
pretty much experienced where wewere like, OK, well, how do you
make friends? We have no idea because since
both of us grew up in the church, like that was where you
find your friends. So it was an interesting thing.

(01:03:28):
So my husband did in improv comedy in high school and so he
actually found an an improv clubwhere we moved and has found
some community there. And then I started working with
Louder than Silence and have an amazing community.
So we've both found our spots but it was a couple years of
very lonely and not knowing how to make friends as an adult so.

(01:03:53):
Your husband does stand up. He does improv.
Improv. He does.
He goes and does improv. Yeah.
So improv comedy is is where youtake suggestions and then you do
like a sketch. So it's a little different than
stand up. Yeah.
Is he good? At it Do you go and watch him?
Yeah, he that's his hobby. Like he has a regular job.

(01:04:16):
He doesn't get paid for it, but that is his hobby.
He gets on stage twice a month and he's a lot of fun to watch.
Excellent. And does he practice around the
dinner table as well? Yeah, right now two of our kids
have also taken improv classes, so it's become a family affair,
OK. Excellent.
I don't quite do improv. I do acting on stage, so

(01:04:40):
everything I do is scripted and memorized to the absolute detail
and the absolute step. You know, No improv allowed.
If you're improving, you're doing it wrong.
So perfect, yeah. In fact, then quick, I've just
got the script for the next play.
I mean, I've got it this week and the play is called Don't Get

(01:05:02):
Your Vicars in A Twist. That is a.
Great title, I love it. That is a great.
Title. And because none of my listeners
are ever going to come and watchit, thank goodness.
Well, thank goodness for you. I'm going to have a new
experience in this play. I've done a couple of weird
things on stage over the years in various plays, but this play

(01:05:23):
is going to give me a new experience because the the play
is. Set in the. 1980s when the UK
had its first female vicars. And so there's a female vicar.
And because it's actors being it's a play with actors as
characters in the play and female vicars in the play, my

(01:05:46):
poor character at some point in the play has to come on stage as
a female vicar in a short skirt.Yay.
I love it, yes. High heels are mentioned the,
the, the. The thought of that petrifies

(01:06:08):
me. First of all, how am I going to
find size 10 high heels? That's problem number one
problem #2. How do you?
Walk in those monsters. I'm going to end up with.
Two legs in plaster by the end of this play.
I'm afraid I won't be any help to you because I never wear wear

(01:06:29):
heels. I'm like 1 inch heel girl.
Like I don't want those big stilettos.
But we'll have the sharing, I think.
It's gonna have to be those, yeah.
I think we'll have the shared experience of wearing a skirt
without shame for the first timebecause I always was like, I
can't wear, I can't wear a shirtshort skirt.
That's shameful. So now you can understand.

(01:06:51):
There will definitely be some very thick tights, so I can tell
you that I ain't showing my barelegs.
Oh, come on. It's.
It's funny though, you you say that in one of the plays I was
in last year, I had to wear a military kilt.
No big deal, you say? It's all right.

(01:07:13):
Then. I sat.
Down wearing the kilt and now I had this realisation that I was
on the stage and the entirety ofthe audience was below my knees.
And. My brain went, this is what it's
like to be a woman every day. It's shit, isn't it?
And I went, Oh my God, I have. Never glued my knees together so

(01:07:39):
tightly ever in my life. Ladies, you have new respect
from me. Genuinely.
I know I'm making a joke out of this but it is serious.
There is a serious point is you genuinely have new respect from
me. There is a no, a new awareness,
right, of where you're putting your body parts and who is

(01:08:00):
noticing what parts of your bodyare showing that females, the
females have like that's a constant for us.
We're always aware of what's exposed, how I'm putting my body
and who's looking at it. So yeah, a good little taste of
what it's like to be a girl. Yeah, and yeah, let's stick.

(01:08:23):
With that for a moment. That was uncomfortable at times.
Yes, I was in the play and yes, it was comedy and all that, but
I was very conscious of that. And I was doing that while
trying to act, while trying to look engaged.
And so all of this was being done in real time with me
reciting memory lines, me looking for the queue, waiting

(01:08:47):
for the queue for my lines, waiting for the next move I was
going to do, trying to look attentive, like I was on stage.
And all the time my brain was going, where are your knees?
Cross your ankles, watch your knees, don't open your knees.
Keep your knees together, Matthew.
And it was wearing. It was genuinely draining.
And I came off stage and I said jokingly to tell people I've got

(01:09:09):
a new appreciation of what it's like to be a woman.
But I was actually being really serious.
And the thought of having to do that day in, day out, at work,
on the train, at a restaurant, at home with older relatives.
It's it. It must be terrible.
Yeah, and it starts at like 12/12/13 where you start to have

(01:09:34):
your body change and you all of a sudden aren't just a kid being
crazy, but you're told like, keep your legs together, keep
your skirt down, don't lift yourhands up if your belly shows.
Like, starts really young. Yeah.
And yeah. I.
I have not fully processed what that must be like, and to be
honest, I don't think I'm capable of fully processing that

(01:09:56):
way. So men, if you have no idea what
it's like, try acting. You'll eventually get exposed to
a little taster of what it mightbe.
Or just go out in public in a short skirt.
There you go. Go on a walk down not well lit
St. and see how safe you feel ina mini skirt.

(01:10:19):
Yeah, yes. That that is something I'm
incapable of comprehending, Joe.And I think it's important that
US men do do something that expose us us to the discomfort
that others who are not us experienced, even if it's only

(01:10:41):
for a fleeting moment. Because maybe that fleeting
moment will help us appreciate enough so that we do something
about it or try to make others aware of it.
Because again, you know, we've jested about it.
But on the serious point, since that experience on stage, I do
try to be a little bit more attentive to what's going on be

(01:11:04):
and I have noticed that sometimes women are very
conscious if they've got a shortskirt.
I have noticed a bit more sometimes can be very
conscientious when they're wearing a short skirt.
So I try just not to be in a place where I'm creating an
unnecessary problem. You know, if there's a woman
sitting at a bench in the pub, just got a short skirt on, don't

(01:11:25):
sit opposite her. Yeah, Little.
Things like that can actually make life a little bit easier.
Go and sit to the side or behindso that she knows that you're
not there for a cheap look. It's little things like that
actually can make a bit of a difference and that's made me
aware of that kind of behaviour.I'm sorry ladies that it's taken

(01:11:45):
me so long to get there, but sometimes we just need to
experience it in an uncomfortable way to know what
it's like. Yeah, I think there's a lot of
at one point you had mentioned the being a white male assist
male and also. So one thing I realized growing
up the way I grew up was the ingrained homophobia.

(01:12:08):
There's so many biases that we don't notice.
We have, you mention it as a missionary's kid where you don't
see the fact that there's this classism with whites and, and
the natives right in Africa and it seems all normal.
And then as an adult you go, whoa, wait.

(01:12:28):
And so one thing I realized was the ingrain homophobia and my
upbringing and my culture. And so last year I set out to
read LGBTQIA books, authors, so I could just have that little
taste of what do they experience?

(01:12:49):
Because if you don't take, if you don't purpose to see the
world from their view, you will never see the biases that you
have in you. You will never notice the things
that you don't notice, right? So yeah, you won't notice how a
woman's body language changes when she's wearing a skirt
unless you put on a skirt. So for me.

(01:13:13):
Yeah, for me, I didn't really understand what it might feel
like to be trans. And then I read people's stories
of body dysphoria and I'm like, oh, I can.
I've had my own mental illness issues.
I can relate to some of this just enough to be more conscious

(01:13:33):
of the pronouns that they would like me to use.
And then do it, yes. Yeah, representation is very
important, and if we don't expose ourselves to some
representation, we cannot know what it's like.
Just as the side, I was listening to a podcast only this
week about the scientific ways to cure racism and the answer.

(01:13:54):
Was very simple. Have a mixed culture.
Be in. Your in your circle of friends
in where you work, just be exposed to people who are
different to you and those people who are in an environment
where they're coming across people who are not of the same
skin colour as them and see themas just normal people.

(01:14:15):
It makes a difference to their attitudes to those people.
And if you're stuck in your white racist village doing your
white racist things and then suddenly this strange coloured
person comes through, you're going to be obnoxious to them
because you don't know any better.
So expose yourselves to these things and make yourself and
everybody else around you betterpeople for it.

(01:14:36):
So that's a great idea, Joe, reading books like that.
If you have any recommendations,I can throw in my show notes,
Chuck them at me and we can stick some in the show notes for
people to to go and read. I'm not aware that I've
actually, to be fair, I don't read very many books anyway.
But Even so, I'm not aware that I've read any books by anybody

(01:14:58):
who is in the LGBT community or features prominent LGBT
characters, and that's somethingI probably need to address.
I have consumed media in other ways, but why not make it a book
as well? Yeah, for me, obviously, books
are like important. I decided to publish my book
because part of my deconstructing was reading

(01:15:19):
memoirs of cult people who have left cults.
That was like my obsession as I left religion.
And so once, you know, I, I consumed a lot of memoirs, I was
like, OK, well, what how do I branch out from just the cult
ones? And so that's why I decided to
do LGBTQ and yeah, the inverse cowgirl, an intersex female who

(01:15:46):
her story was amazing. I'm blanking on pigeons book,
but I will. I'll send that to you.
But yeah, 22 that come to mind are intersex and I wasn't even
aware at that time, I'm sad to say of my ignorance, but I
wasn't even aware of intersex people unaware, uneducated.

(01:16:07):
So much of my education was Christianese.
The bubble, right? I was home schooled off and on.
I remember vividly when my school, I was going to public
school, when evolution was taught, and my dad would make me
come home and watch young earth scientists disprove whatever

(01:16:29):
they were teaching at school. Wow.
Yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I can imagine that
being quite, quite difficult. Have you had any conversations
with your dad about that since? I my dad and I's relationship
has had to shift as I have shifted and he's still a

(01:16:54):
believer. I, I would assume he's still a
young Earth believer. Yeah.
So there are certain topics thatI just aren't worth the effort.
So that is not a conversation that we have had the, the last
couple times we've seen each other.
There's been a lot of healing and just respecting each other's

(01:17:19):
ability to believe what they want, what what works for him
and what works for me, and starting to respect that they
don't have to be the same. And is his still in Hawaii or
did he leave Hawaii when you guys left?
No, my parents and two of my sisters are still in Hawaii.

(01:17:40):
So I, I, we now have quite a long ways between us because I
actually relocated to the East Coast, so now we're way too far
away. But yeah, they're still enjoying
the big waves and the sunshine. Does your husband?
Miss it? Oh yes, dizzy.
Absolutely. So, but you've got an excuse to
go back on a regular basis though, yes, A.

(01:18:01):
Good reason to go visit. Excellent.
So you left Hawaii, you, the twoof you ended up on on the East
Coast. Was that part of your
deconstruction experience, or was it something that was likely
to happen anyway? What we it?
It's interesting. I think it helped.

(01:18:25):
It wasn't because of deconstructing, but I definitely
think it helped us have the roomto deconstruct when when we were
in Hawaii, our whole like everybody we knew was all the
church that we attended. And so it's really convenient to
move and then like, oh, just notget around to finding a church.

(01:18:47):
Yeah, it's. It's a great way to avoid going
to church. Just relocate and go.
Damn, I forgot to do that. Yeah.
I never got around to that. Darn.
So they correlated, but they weren't because of each other.
So it's kind of interesting, OK.Do you think it helped?
Yes, it definitely helped. It definitely made it easy.

(01:19:12):
It. Helped with the kids too because
they had friends and they only saw each other at church, right?
And so taking those friends awaywould have been hard to explain
to them, but moving made it. They had a really good reason to
not be able to see those friends.
They were an ocean away. Yeah, Do they?

(01:19:32):
Have memories, much memories of church and do they miss that at
all? Did.
Was there some explaining you had to do on that?
We, yeah, again, because of the circumstances of life, there
wasn't a lot of explaining that needed to happen.
We started having conversations with them about how different

(01:19:53):
people have different beliefs and that that that was OK and
kind of broadening our narrativeof the world around them.
It's interesting. So my husband, this last
Christmas, actually, my husband said he missed Christmas carols
and he was like, what if we go to like a, a mass or like a

(01:20:17):
Christmas Eve service? I just want like the candlelight
service. And I was like, OK, well, I'm
open to that as long as it's notlike an intense preaching, like
let's see what I can handle. I don't know.
And so he pitched it to the kids.
He's like, do you guys want to go to church and all?
Of them were. No, that's boring.

(01:20:42):
Wow. So.
I wouldn't say they miss it, no.That's quite, quite different.
My daughter was a young teen when she popped the question to
me because it was after we movedand my wife's obviously still
going to church and I'm clearly not.
And so we we've relocated. She's what, tennis thereabouts,

(01:21:05):
so maybe not, maybe not even a teenager and she said.
Dad, why don't? You come to church anymore?
I'm like, oh shit, it's happened.
Because I knew my daughter. I knew the question would come,
and I knew I'd known for at least a year that eventually

(01:21:27):
she's going to ask me this question and I'm going to need
to have an answer to it. And none of the words that I'd
thought to myself came to me in that moment.
So I kind of stumbled through itbut.
It was. Awkward.
That was difficult and awkward for me because she was going to
church with her mum every Sunday, so I couldn't say.

(01:21:52):
Because Christianity is a horrible, rotten thing that's
going to poison your mind. You know, I can't say something
like that. No, that's not the answer.
SO. You know, I had to.
Say, you know, something along the lines of I, I'm unable to
believe it anymore in a way thatdoesn't make it seem negative

(01:22:12):
because then that runs the risk of hurting our relationship and
the relationship with him and that they're all sorts of
horribleness comes out from that.
So yeah, I, I built it up into my head.
I think I got through it, but none of what I rehearsed to
myself came out in that moment. Seems like it.

(01:22:34):
Would be a really complicated dance that you would have to do.
I had an an interesting situation with my 6 year old.
He's going to public school right now.
And where we live, there's a lotof Christian, you know, Bible
belt type. And he tells me that his friend
at school says that Christmas isJesus or God's is God's

(01:22:57):
birthday. And I was like, yeah, some
people believe that Christmas isGod's birthday.
But before Christianity claimed claimed Christmas, it was
actually went to solstice. And I go on this history lesson.
He's only six. OK.
So I don't think I was really thinking through.

(01:23:17):
Yeah. But how many histories?
Around those days, it's just changed lots over the years.
Right. So I go through a little history
lesson of of that, of the way that traditions have changed.
And again, he's 6, so I don't think I really took a second to
think about my audience at that time.
And so I get down with my long spiel and he goes, yeah, but so

(01:23:41):
and so says that it's God's birthday, so I believe him.
But I'm like, oh, all right. Well, great, the beautiful.
Naivety of youngsters you know, there are some Christians that
actually try to argue that Christmas Day is genuinely
Jesus's birthday, that the wholeBethlehem story actually

(01:24:01):
happened at that time and it's something peculiar to do with
nine months before his March andso conception was around about
Passover or. Also I said yeah, if those are
the. Hoops that you want to jump
through? Go right.
Ahead, I'm fairly sure that history is not on your side, but

(01:24:21):
if that's what you need to do, knock yourself out.
I'm just going to sit here, drink my lovely cider and laugh
at you. Yeah, see, I was lucky enough
that that one my dad knew was didn't believe.
He was like, yeah, no, Christmasis the day that we chose to
celebrate Jesus's birthday, and that's a little bit easier to

(01:24:42):
swallow. Yes.
I'm so glad that I was never on that road as well.
I I think it's a relatively modern thing.
I I could be wrong, but my impression is it's a relatively
modern thing. But oh am I so glad that I was
never at that end. Yeah, so.
You're you and your husband are working happily now in in
secular work, obviously doing fabulous things.

(01:25:04):
He's entertaining people. You're helping people.
Do you know what the hopes and dreams of your children are?
Is that? Something you're allowed to say
on this podcast? I actually went to breakfast
with my 11 year old and asked her if she's thought about what
she wants to go to college for and what and she's like, I don't
know. I don't know yet, but very much

(01:25:30):
I try to foster their independence, their ability to
to make their own choices, to figure out who they are and what
they want to be and do in the world.
To the thing about my 6 year oldson.
Like I'm like OK if you want to believe in the Christian God or
a God, totally fine. I'm open to you figuring out and

(01:25:52):
painting the world as fits best for you.
And things change. My her daughter, throughout the
latter half of her teens, was always big into volcanoes.
She wanted to to do work on volcanoes.
She wanted to be a volcanologist.
And then when she went to university and started doing it,
she came back and said, you knowwhat?

(01:26:12):
Nah. I think I'm done.
I think volcanoes isn't really my thing.
And so she changed course. So she did the year of doing
volcanoes at university and now she's switched and started
again. OK, fine.
You had a good enough relationship with me, with your
parents that you could have thatconversation.
And we had a good enough relationship with her that we

(01:26:35):
were able to support her throughthat.
And that's the best we can do asparents.
And I'm so pleased that she had that freedom and that confidence
to be able to do that. Because it would have broken my
heart if she'd struggled throughthe course, not enjoying it, not
got the grade she wanted becauseshe wasn't enjoying it, and then
struggled to find employment andfelt that she'd wasted three

(01:26:55):
years because that would have been worse for everybody.
Absolutely. And that ability to you can
change your mind even when you tart start taking steps towards
something that is beautiful. I that's something I have
struggled like I've always had that thought of like, well, once
you commit to something, then you're committed and you're

(01:27:15):
gonna do it. It's been a process of me
learning like, no, I get to change my mind.
That's OK. It's OK to change course.
Yes, it's fine. And I think there's something
beautiful about deconstruction in that it gives us permission
to change. Let's drag something from
because it's very easy to get into this Whirlpool of how awful

(01:27:38):
and of how terrible and how fearful and how painful the
deconstruction process can be. And the determination of that
deconstruction process isn't theend of the pain.
You know, you now need to navigate a new life and that has
its own challenges and its own loneliness.
So let's look at some of the positives and the benefits of
that. And that freedom to change our

(01:27:59):
mind and to look at things differently is something that we
should grasp. And let's see that it's not a
failure to realize that you're doing something that's not right
for you and you need to move on.That is a success point.
It's not a failure point that weneed to get out of that mindset
of of thinking and be kind and be gracious to ourselves.

(01:28:20):
And the thing that's beautiful is once you let go of the this
is who I have to be, or this is the shoulds, this is the way the
life the world looks, then you get to start defining it for
yourself. I remember having this
conversation with a fellow friend who had deconstructed
years before me. And he was like, well, the

(01:28:42):
beautiful thing is that once youlet go of the narrative of who
you have to be, you get to decide who you want to be.
Yes. Absolutely.
And I'd. Say Amen to that.
We we need a new word. We need an atheist word for
that, because you know that. Is hard, doesn't.

(01:29:03):
Seem strong enough, you know, Great.
Amen. Just gets the meaning across for
for what we want we we need. We need to own a new expression
for that. So Joe, let's get back on to the
book and writing and chapter writing, because of course,
we're talking about apostate stories of deconversion and the

(01:29:23):
support of that, and Joe's books, Silence in Eden and
obviously Louder Than Silence, the fantastic charity that's
attached to that. So Joe, how did you find out
about the Apostate Book project?What made you want to get on
board with that? Yeah, so when I first published
my book Silence in Eden, I started looking at podcast and

(01:29:45):
the deconstruction sphere to kind of put it out there because
you want. To plug your book and get out
there and get your voice out there.
You know, like every other author, right?
As you should. And so I went on the Graceful
Atheist podcast. That was the first podcast I
ever did. And so then I found the

(01:30:07):
Deconversion Anonymous group through doing that, and it was
interesting because I am not on Facebook all that often.
I rarely look on there. I'm not like some people who are
on there often. And I came across one of Sarah's
posts and she at that point already had a good amount of

(01:30:28):
stories and she was saying, oh, I'm gonna the deadline to get
your story and has been postponed.
So if you haven't submitted yet,submit.
And I was, it was the first timeI'd heard of it.
And so I was like, oh, can I geton board?
What is this? Tell me please.
Too many people having. Fun.
I need to be there with them as well.
Absolutely. And incidentally, listeners are

(01:30:51):
gonna try and find Joe's episodeof The Graceful Atheist, so you
don't need to go searching for yourself.
Show notes, you know, you know the drill by now.
Everything that's important in the show is in the show notes.
That's what they're there for, so check them.
Thank you for doing that. That would be great.
I definitely remember being a lot more nervous, so hopefully
it's worth listening to. But yeah, so I saw Sarah's post

(01:31:14):
and I was like, well this would be first of all fun because I
like writing and would be a great way to plug my book.
And so she was great. She was like, yeah, go ahead,
send it to me. I think I had like 2 weeks to
put my chapter together in regular fashion.
I waited until like the two daysbefore and then freaked out and

(01:31:36):
got it all finished. You know, ADHD.
By any chance? I I What's funny is that we now
think I am. My husband is, and they say men
are a lot easier to diagnose because they have more of the
typical signs. As I have therapy, become more
aware of the way that I interactwith the world, I'm like, Oh

(01:31:58):
yeah, I'm most likely ADHD. That makes a lot of sense.
So yes, I was very ADHD about putting in my chapter and I
loved the experience of writing.I loved working with Sarah.
She was really easy to communicate with, very easy and
very gracious with her, like notes.

(01:32:18):
She was like, this is how I would do it.
You can say yes, you can say no,you can add something else.
So it was really great working with her.
At one point she mentioned like maybe we'll do another book for
another group of stories. I think that that would be
amazing because I think she definitely has a gifting for
this and there's. People out there.
Post 8, two in a couple years time, then three a couple years

(01:32:41):
after that. And yeah, this could keep going,
and I hope it does. I really hope it does.
I think it would be beautiful. I think the process of writing
is healing for those doing it, and I think the process, the
ability to read it will be healing for those who who need
it. Yes.
Absolutely. So was that why you got on
board? Yeah, I.

(01:33:02):
Got on board because I believe in something like this.
Like I said, it was like, hey, this would be great way to plug
my book and I wanted an excuse to write more.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And with your previous book, I can't remember what you said
about that. Did that go through a formal
editing process or is it fully self published so?

(01:33:23):
My sister is an English teacher for over a decade and worked as
my editor tirelessly and underpaid, but I did have.
Always said to be abused. Bless them.
Yes. Bless them very much.
She also was a lot of help emotionally when I was

(01:33:45):
processing the the childhood stuff.
So I don't know if I would have survived the last six years
without her emotionally and the book definitely would have never
come to be without her expertiseand brain.
And is your. Sister a believer still?
Or is she deconstructed as well?She is not.

(01:34:08):
She. She and I had a similar journey
and she was about 10 years. She, she deconstructed about 10
years before I did. But much like you didn't really
talk about it, nobody in the family really knew what was
going on. She just kind of pulled away.
And so I think I, I hope that the process of being able to,

(01:34:30):
for me to talk about it with herwas healing for her.
Yes, so. When did you realize?
It was interesting. So she kind of pulled back.
She actually went through a crappy divorce that kind of
shook everything for her. And so she pulled back.
And it was just evident by the way she was living that things
had changed. But she definitely wasn't at the

(01:34:51):
point where she was wanting to talk about the spiritual aspect
of it and emotional aspect of it.
And I definitely didn't push, didn't ask.
I knew she was going through things and let her come to me
when she was ready, which she didn't really do for a long
time. But then when I started

(01:35:11):
deconstructing, I reached out toher to be like, hey, this is
where I'm at. I'm at, did you go through this?
And I think that there was a level of healing for her for
having me bring it all back up and her be able to, like, feel
like she was processing it againwith someone because she did it
all herself before. Yeah.

(01:35:33):
That's probably a very validating experience for both
of you, I imagine. Yeah, I was definitely.
Like I said, I don't think I would have survived the process
without her. Yeah.
Bless, bless siblings. So Sarah edited your chapter.
So what was it like then having somebody different editing your
words and putting them together?I think it was good in the fact

(01:35:54):
that with my sister, she like knew what I was talking about.
With Sarah, she was able to be like, wait, this isn't very
clear. I don't know what you're talking
about here. So let's explain this because I
had my my book took four years and an entire year of editing.
So I had the painful process of somebody being like, yeah, you

(01:36:17):
don't say this well or red penning your words.
I had already had that happen somuch that I was prepared for
Sarah's very sweet little tweaks.
That's a very good way of describing the, the processing,
the editing experience and the Sarah, that's that's glorious.
I love the way you expressed that it was for me because I'd

(01:36:40):
never gone through this before the all the previous writing I'd
done is either my notes for whenI do a show here, or the blog,
which I had, which of course nobody edits.
You know, when I go read some ofthe posts I put up on the blog,
I'll go, oh wow, I didn't do a very good editing job myself,
did I? In fact.

(01:37:00):
I'm fairly. Sure, quite a lot of my blog
posts I literally just typed them and posted them.
I didn't even type and read it, which is mistake number one.
You know, always type, then read, then post one.
Thing as I've been for Louder Than Silence, I just started
doing a writing group and one ofthe things I tell all of them is

(01:37:23):
once you do your first draft, read it, fix the things that you
see, and then read it out loud. There are things that you will
not catch while reading it in your head that you will catch
when reading it out loud. So for anybody out there who
posts stuff, that is my recommendation.
Read it out loud, hear yourself say the words and you will see

(01:37:43):
things that need to be fixed. Yeah.
That is a. Very, very good tip.
I've actually used that a coupleof times at work.
I've had to do a presentation and I prep my script.
I put hours into prepping my script and then I stand up in my
little office at home and I say it out loud.
Or I go to the living room and II say it out loud because you,
you then start to find the little bits that you stumble

(01:38:04):
over that you don't notice when you're reading silently because
your brain just goes through thewords and puts them in the right
order. It's only when you actually read
it out loud that you find those basically.
Oh yeah, that phrasing doesn't really work, does it?
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, very good tip. There, there, Joe.
And well, I'm glad you got on board.

(01:38:26):
I did enjoy reading your chapter.
And coming up soon, we're recording it on the last day of
January. This will go out in March.
So by the time this has been published, we will have already
received, I hope, the audio version of the book as well,
which we're going to get read bythe lovely Sarah's voice so I
get to hear my story read in an Australian accent.

(01:38:48):
I mean, how much more awesome isthat?
I was kind of happy when she said she was gonna do her
regular voice because it will bevery interesting to hear it with
a different accent. Yes, I'm.
I'm looking, I, I have a little bit of trepidation about hearing
somebody else reading my words. That's going to be very

(01:39:08):
definitely a new experience for me.
So it's a little bit of nervous there, but I am also genuinely
looking forward to that because.When we first.
Got on board with this project and people started floating idea
about of an audio book. I was thinking, yeah, all those
different voices reading those stories out and I thought maybe
I can get one of the other guys to read my story that could be

(01:39:31):
quite interesting, etcetera. And then so I said, no, I'll,
I'll read the whole story, the whole book.
And I thought. Oh yeah, really?
Really. No, that won't work.
Oh. Actually, you know what?
There's a. Consistency there.
That probably works so. I I.
Think on balance it's the right choice and getting people to do
it. Not everybody will have the

(01:39:52):
right equipment in their office,and there'll be some ambient
noise in the background on some,and I think that would be
frustrating to switch between. So it's better that it has a
consistent voice and the consistent audio quality all the
way through. Yeah, if we could have all got
together to a recording booth and read our chapters in the
same environment, that might have been different.

(01:40:12):
But we're all over the world, all over America.
That really wasn't going to be practical to work.
No, not at all. And I do think that there will
be some level of yeah, ease to listen to the same voice.
I think it may have gotten a little like noisy to have
multiple different voices going on.
So I think it'll be beautiful. I know she has such a respect

(01:40:36):
for everyone's story, but I think she will.
I know that she will do a wonderful job and I'm definitely
looking forward to hearing it. And.
What I loved about Sarah and herattitude to this project because
for context, listening, as I said, we're recording this in
the last day in January. It was only a week ago we were
all on a group called celebrating the official launch

(01:40:56):
of the book. The book was launched on the 6th
of January. A week ago, 20 something of
January, somebody arranged, one of the authors arranged sort of
a group together and it was great.
We had about 14, I think of the 21 authors together on the
screen and talking together for about an hour and a half.
It was brilliant. It was great.
And Sarah, when she was talking to some of us, she brought out

(01:41:19):
bits of our story. It was like she prepared, you
know, she brought out little bits of people's stories and
themes from people's stories andbrought it into the
conversation. And it was lovely.
And I really appreciated that Sarah had made that effort.
Yeah, I know. She did a wonderful job, you
could tell. She definitely has been
familiar, right? I can only imagine how many
times she has read each person'sstory, but yeah, it was.

(01:41:44):
You could tell that she has an honour and respect for
everybody's story, which is really cool, yes.
Yes, cool. And the other reason why I think
she's the right choices? As I said earlier, I still can't
read my story without tears. Yep.
So yeah, let's see what her words do to me.

(01:42:05):
Thank you so much. So I've really enjoyed the last
two hours. We've had a great chat together.
Is there anything that you're itching to get out that I really
should have asked you about If? You have experienced sexual
violence. Louder Than Silence does
cohorts, so we do workshops for victims.
It's completely free. We know that survivors have paid

(01:42:25):
enough, so we do not ask you to pay for our services.
So that is there for anybody whois listening, who has
experienced that and is ready tojoin a group and talk about what
they've gone through. One thing that the book is us
coming together and saying here are our shared experiences.
There's a healing that happens with validating what we've all

(01:42:47):
been through and that is what Louder Than Silence believes in.
They believe that coming together, sharing each other's
voice, spending time in the shared uncomfortable experience
that we've all had helps us feelmore seen.
So it's definitely something I believe in and it does have that
same human to human aspect. Whereas humans, I think we have

(01:43:12):
the power to harm each other, but as humans we have the power
to heal each other as well. Thank you so much, Joe Lincoln,
the show notes, of course, please do go and support Louder
Than Silence. And Joe, if there are people who
are physically too far away fromwhere you are over in America
and or from the offices of Louder Than Silence, do you have

(01:43:35):
contacts and affiliates to otherparts of the states if they were
to get in touch with you? So right now we just do it on
Zoom. So we do have people who are
outside of the US that come obviously the time zone may make
that a little complicated, but we do not, I don't have
resources outside of that currently, but there.

(01:43:56):
Probably. Are similar organizations
spattered around? Yes, I'm definitely.
Certain there are. I believe rain is national.
I'm trying to think of some of the ones.
I do know that we do have a resource page on Louder in
Silence, but again, I'm not surehow many would be international
resources. It's.
Probably. Difficult or impossible even to

(01:44:17):
make it an exhaustive list, but it's probably a good place to
start. And I think that idea of Zoom
call sounds really good, sounds really useful, sounds really
practical, a great positive use of our technology.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you.
So much, Sarah. I'm Sarah.
Thank you so much, Joe. I knew that we were going to

(01:44:37):
have a fun chat. Thank you for living up to my
expectations, not that there wasany pressure anyway.
So all that is left now then is my usual question to most of my
guests at the end of every interview is do you have a
favorite Bible character and whoare they so.
It was interesting sitting with this question because one of the

(01:44:59):
things I point out in Louder Than, or excuse me, one of the
things I point out in Silenced and Eden is that as a female, so
many of the Christian charactersare male.
We really don't have a whole lotof female characters.
And so I share this story of Esther when I was a little kid,
she was one of the few female characters that we were like,

(01:45:21):
Hey, she's kind of a badass, right?
So let's, let's enjoy that. So we used to dress up.
We would do a whole like weddingceremony thing and her getting
ready and then her going to was that Malachi and asking for him
to have the children of Israel pray like the whole thing.

(01:45:43):
I remember vividly what exact dress we would use to be the
Princess. And in in my book, I point out
that but the power lied in the king.
King was the one who had all thepower.
So everybody in my family. So I'm one of four girls, so all

(01:46:04):
girls. So everybody wants to be Esther,
right? Nobody wants to play the king.
No one wants to be the bad guy. And so I would always want to be
the king because I wanted to be the one who had the final say
and what actually happened. I wanted to be the one with the
the power. And so it's interesting because
most of my life, though, has been Esther, where I only have

(01:46:26):
so much power. I only have so much say, but I
also have the heart to save people.
So I'm going to say Esther. Thank you, Joe, and I think
that's that's fitting. And yes, you definitely do have
that heart, listeners, science and Eden.
That's the book louder than science.
That is the charity that is supported by it.

(01:46:48):
And don't forget while you're doing that, apostate stories of
the conversion. And until next time, listeners.
Don't be. Silent.
Thank you so much, Joe. You have been.

(01:47:09):
Listening to a podcast from Reason Press.
Do you have? Any thoughts on what you've just
heard? Do you have a topic that you
would like us to cover? Please send all feedback to
reasonpress@gmail.com. You might even appear on an
episode. Our theme.
Music was written for us by Holly.
To hear more. Of her music, see the links in

(01:47:29):
our show notes.

All Episodes

Episode 134 - Apostate - Jo Lloyd Johnson

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.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 134 - Apostate - Jo Lloyd Johnson