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August 12, 2025 62 mins

In this episode of Cults and the Culting of America, Scot Loyd joins Haley while Daniela is away on her book tour. The conversation centers on Scot’s forthcoming memoir The God I Was Given: Looking for Faith After Losing My Religion, which blends personal memoir with philosophical and scholarly reflections on growing up in the United Pentecostal Church (UPC). Scot discusses the creative and emotional risks of releasing such a personal work, particularly the fear of being misunderstood or dismissed by current UPC members.

He shares vivid stories from his childhood in rural Arkansas, shaped by his religious grandmother’s influence and the paradox of being raised under a strong female matriarch within a patriarchal religious system. The discussion explores masculinity, gender socialization, identity loss after leaving a high-control religion, and the role of storytelling in fostering empathy and understanding. Scot emphasizes that leaving the church cost him his core identity as a “Pentecostal preacher,” but also gave him the opportunity to discover and cultivate other talents.

Throughout, Scot and Haley highlight the need for nuance in conversations about faith, deconstruction, and human identity, advocating for a broader cultural shift toward allowing multiple ways of being without harm.

Daniella's Links:

You can read all about my story in my book, Uncultured-- buy signed copies here. https://bit.ly/SignedUncultured

 

For more info on me:

Patreon: https://bit.ly/YTPLanding

Cult book Clubs (Advanced AND Memoirs) Annual Membership: https://bit.ly/YTPLanding

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:25):
Welcome to another episode of Cults and the Culting of America podcast.
My name is Scott Lloyd and I'm joined tonight by our wonderful producer, Haley.
Haley, it's good to see you.
It is good to see you as always, Scott, but now they're seeing me, so that's hopefully funfor them.

(00:46):
Well, absolutely.
We're thrilled to have you.
And just a word of explanation, Daniela is out tonight because she is on the road.
She's in, what is she calling it?
The Knitting Cult Lady RV uh traveling uh North America.
I think she's up in Canada or somewhere right now, but out promoting uh her new book, TheCulting of America.

(01:16):
Okay, so she's, you know, yeah, we should play that game like Where in the World is CarmenSandiego?
could do Where in the World is uh Knitting Cult Lady.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I appreciate that you're here tonight.
And I appreciate that Daniela has given me this opportunity to talk about my book becausewe're only a few weeks away from it being available.

(01:44):
And in fact, right now, if you go to Amazon, you can find it, uh the Kindle version, thedigital version is available for uh pre-order.
and the print version will be available shortly as well.
And then August 26th, it goes live.
It's out there in the world.
And I was telling you before we hit the record button tonight that I'm excited, obviously,but I'm also a little anxious, right?

(02:14):
Because I've been working on this for the past three years and all of you that tune in andlisten to me and Daniela.
Week in and week out, we've talked a bit about it, but I'm anxious because once it's outthere, right?
You pointed this out.
It's no longer in my control.

(02:35):
It's out there, but I'm really excited and thrilled for the book to get out there.
Yeah, and I'll share with our audience the same thing I shared with you.
If y'all listen to Daniela's other podcast that I produce, Hey White Women, uh every timeDaniela mentions uh that she had a middling book launch for Uncultured, ah Rebecca looks

(02:57):
at her like she grew an extra head and goes, but you wrote a book.
So I want you to hold onto that.
And that's important for all creatives who put something out there.
Like you put it out there.
There are so many people, uh myself included, that have things that they want out therethat haven't invested that courage yet.

(03:19):
So we are so proud of you.
And we have questions.
that, Haley.
Absolutely.
Let's get to the questions.
Um, the first question is one you're probably not ready for, but I'm to make you answeranyway.
Uh, what are you most afraid of?
And in the book coming out, what's your biggest fear?
Um.

(03:42):
You do your best when you're writing to be clear and to communicate effectively, butyou're also, at least I was, I was thinking in terms of, want this to be something that is
beautiful to read.
And so as a creative and, uh you know, I am a creative, but typically I don't use thatlanguage about myself because in my public persona, I'm, uh

(04:11):
a scholar, I've been a university professor, a debate coach.
I've been at one point in my life, I was a pastor.
so, um you know, people don't typically, they wouldn't look at me and look at the thingsthat I've done as being creative.
But if you follow me on social media and things of that nature, you know that I do createa lot of content and those that know me well.

(04:39):
They know that I have that uh creative streak in me.
uh And so I wanted to do more than just communicate words.
I wanted to communicate something that was uh beautiful, something that was of lastingvalue and something that had depth.
Right?
So um you can read the words and you can get the meaning of the words.

(05:06):
but then also there's layers.
And I hope that people will sit with the words that I've written and sort of think abouttheir own lives.
And so that's what a good memoir does.
And this is sort of a hybrid.
uh It is a uh hybrid between a memoir.
It contains a lot of my own personal memories and the things that I've experienced growingup in a cult in the United Pentecostal Church.

(05:36):
But it also uh has some philosophical underpinnings.
And there are uh some places in the book where I try to be uh put on my scholarly hat andsort of examine more closely the reasons why I think people were motivated to do or to say

(05:57):
or to act in certain ways.
And certainly I do that with my own life uh and with my own experiences.
So the thing that I'm
I'm most afraid of is that maybe people will misunderstand or they won't take the time tosee the layers and to see the depth and to dive deep into it.

(06:20):
uh I think those that still belong to the United Pentecostal Church and who will beoffended uh by me calling it a cult, I think uh they're probably uh imagining
that the book is going to be a lot more uh condemning of that particular organization thanwhat it is.

(06:44):
know, people sort of conjure up in their minds these images of what I could write and whatI could say, especially those that have been a part of my story.
And I think this is a common experience.
think even Daniela has uh pointed this out that in most instances when people
who still belong to the cult or the group that you're writing about, uh when they read it,they're almost relieved, right?

(07:11):
Because they know, they know what you could have said and what you could have written inmany instances, but didn't.
And so I hope that people will sit with it.
And even those that belong to the United Pentecostal Church, I really hope that they willread it and they will consider

(07:32):
some of my arguments.
I certainly don't expect them to agree with it, but I want them to consider my argumentsand not just dismiss it.
In fact, I spend an entire chapter at towards the end of the book uh attempting to explainwhy this shouldn't be dismissed and why my perspective and other people's perspectives

(07:55):
that are like me shouldn't be dismissed as bitterness or disgruntled.
But rather, they should take a few moments and consider the arguments that I'm making inthe book.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think that, um, because I'm gonna bring in some common Daniella anecdotessince we don't have her here.

(08:16):
But I think that's a common thing when people tell their cult stories.
And, you know, I haven't really talked much about mine other than when I was on here.
em But I know that anytime I bring a new friend around my family, my family's just gotthis, like, protectiveness, like, what have you told them?
What do they know?

(08:37):
And it's this projection, and you said it so well.
It's like, they're afraid of what you could have said.
And oftentimes we don't because that hurts us just as much as it would hurt anybody else.
em But that's a valid fear.
And I know that not being understood with all of the nuance that you bring is, I mean, myname on socials is nuanced whatever, know, nuanced millennial, nuanced masculinity.

(09:04):
So.
that's obviously something that I get.
It's like, I'm gonna say some things that are gonna be triggering, but nuance is thepoint.
Like I'm trying to challenge.
em So that's a uh great perspective for people going in.
appreciate you.
Yeah, and I really appreciate you bringing up that point because we live in a cultureright now that is totally lacking in nuance, right?

(09:30):
It's binary.
You're either this or that, you know, and people have difficulty understanding layers anddepth and nuance and that...
there are categories beyond either or, oh this or that.
A lot of times it's both and.

(09:52):
And that's really the tension that I'm endeavoring to communicate throughout the book isthat my experiences in the United Pentecostal Church were a mixed bag.
There were good things that happened to me as I reflect on my childhood, as I reflect onmy life as a

(10:12):
As someone growing up in the uh 70s and 80s in the rural South, Northeast Arkansas, in theUnited States, I had a lot of wonderful memories, a lot of good experiences, but I also
had a lot of harmful experiences.
And that's true.

(10:33):
That's the human condition.
But the problem with dogmatic uh certainty and dogmatic assertions, right?
within these cult groups is that they are forbidden to talk about the bad.
They are forbidden to talk about what was wrong because they see that as an attack ontheir religion, on their closely held beliefs.

(11:01):
um But for me, um if I retain, if I make a claim that I'm retaining
my faith, then my faith has to be open to scrutiny.
It has to be both the good and the bad.
you know, it's that tension that I'm endeavoring to communicate throughout the book.

(11:25):
All right.
So my next question is, ah what God were you given?
Yeah, so I grew up in a particular time and place.
And one of the themes that runs throughout the book is the axiom that geography isdestiny.
And that's one of the philosophical points, right, that I uh explore throughout the bookas I recount my experiences that uh what if I had been born at a different place at a

(11:58):
different time to different parents or in a different
context, uh it is likely uh that my life would have been completely different, right?
Especially if I had been born in a different part of the world, uh even if I had been bornin the same place at a different time, because all of us are products of both nature and

(12:23):
nurture.
It's a convergence of both.
uh you know, the
the nurturing experiences, especially those early ones that we have, are very influentialon our life.
So the God that I was given was in the context of uh rural Arkansas, the Mississippi RiverDelta, about an hour north of Memphis, Tennessee, and about three hours south of St.

(12:49):
Louis, Missouri, about a mile removed to the west of the Mississippi River.
right below the boot hill of Missouri and a little place called Gosnell, Arkansas.
It was actually kind of twin cities, Blytheville, Gosnell, right on Interstate 55.
uh And historically, uh one of the uh poorest regions of the country to this day, I grewup in a city and a town and a region that was approximately 60 % African-American.

(13:23):
So even though I was a white male,
uh who was in the minority because of the realities of systemic racism in this nation, Ienjoyed privileges that my Black peers did not enjoy.
And then you couple that with the fact that my earliest experiences, I spent a lot of timewith my grandmother, we called her Ma, she was my paternal grandmother, my father's

(13:51):
mother.
And so my mom worked
And my grandmother would keep me and my grandmother was a very religious woman.
By the time I came along, she was widowed.
Her husband had died a long time before I was born, leaving her to raise five children.

(14:12):
And she was in her twenties when he died because she actually married the dude when shewas 14.
Yeah.
And so he died.
uh His name was Jesse Lloyd and he died from a tooth blood poisoning that was the resultof a tooth being pulled from by an obviously unqualified dentist.

(14:36):
uh so Jesse Lloyd died leaving uh my grandmother to raise five children by herself.
And by the time I came along, she was, uh you know, up in years, but she was still
very much the uh matriarch of our family.
She was uh the biggest influence on all of our lives.

(14:58):
uh My dad built a house right beside hers.
We lived at the end of a gravel road.
We called it, affectionately, called it Lloydville.
And I spent a lot of time with my grandmother.
And my grandmother was very religious.
Our day would start with uh chores outside, but before we would do anything,

(15:18):
we would literally kneel and we would pray.
And she would pray in a very dramatic, a very passionate way, out loud.
uh a classical uh experience of Pentecostals was that she would speak in tongues.
For those that might not be familiar with that, uh it was a claim that was made byPentecostalism that when you spoke in this language, they called it a language, uh

(15:48):
It wasn't a language, but it sounded like a language and they claimed it was uh either aforeign language or when they couldn't demonstrate that it was an actual foreign language,
they would claim it was a heavenly language.
And it was a lot of, uh I describe it as uh grunts and uh just repeated sounds over andover again.

(16:15):
And my grandmother would do this out loud in front of me.
Mm-hmm.
And every time uh she would do that, she would encourage me to participate with her.
And it wasn't long before I started doing that.
She would read the Bible out loud.
She was a uh vocal person.

(16:36):
So uh rarely was she quiet, rarely was she contemplative.
It was always a running commentary about whatever was happening in our family.
It always came out in judgmental overtones like, you know, so and so needs to repent, soand so needs to stop uh engaging in this sin and the Lord's coming back.

(16:59):
You got to be ready.
And this was all the time.
And when I was in her presence, we would start the day outside, we'd milk a cow.
She would milk a cow as I watched and she would be in the garden and then we'd come insideand she'd start.
Cooking, she uh cooked a lot, three meals a day.

(17:20):
She had a reprobate.
uh We called him a reprobate.
He was uh her brother uh who never held a job other than a farm hand and was uh analcoholic.
He was drunk a lot, uh never owned a car, rode a bicycle.
And what's interesting is his first name was R.

(17:43):
last name.
So his name was Lloyd and then our last name was Lloyd.
And so he would come and my grandmother would feed him and preach to him and pray for him.
you know, he'd ignore her or cuss her or whatever and then leave.
uh you know, so that that was our day.
It was it was a mixture of work, uh sermonizing, praying, speaking in tongues, reading theBible.

(18:10):
In the winter, when she couldn't get outside, she was quilting.
And so she had this massive uh quilting loom that she'd stretch out in the living room andI'd play under it.
she was quilting with that needle and thread.
She was talking about the Bible or talking about the church.
And we all attended the same small church that was about 15 miles away in Blytheville.

(18:34):
And my grandmother couldn't drive, so my mother would take her.
We'd hear the sermon before the sermon we got there.
And so that sort of gives you an idea, right?
We were isolated because we lived out in the country.
And especially before I went to school, I never went to town except occasionally onSaturday to get a haircut.

(18:58):
But then we'd go on Sunday to go to church.
But the rest of the time I was either playing outside or spending time with my grandmotheror my mom.
My dad was an emotionally unavailable, hard worker, very silent, very quiet.
I came along late in my parents' life.
And so by the time my siblings were out the door, I was coming of age.

(19:22):
So in all practicality, I was an only child.
And so that sort of gives you a sense of the kind of atmosphere I was raised in.
And I like to tell people, uh when it comes to matters of religion,
I didn't stand a chance.
I was going to get it one way or another.
uh And there were only two dispositions in our family in matters of religion.

(19:46):
You were either in or you were out.
And there was nothing in between.
uh And so I received that religion by proxy and I was enthusiastically embracing it by thetime I was old enough to start recording my memories.
Mm-hmm.
Wow.

(20:08):
And I definitely hear in your explanation of that, that there is a certain charmed naturethat you see your childhood through.
And I know that that is part of that dichotomy.
But the dichotomy that I'm curious about is you said you grew up under a matriarch, butbeing fed into what I understand to be a very patriarchal system.

(20:33):
So I'm curious how, especially when you were like, I know for men and boys, it's like inthat teen, like young adult age, like how did that sit with you kind of trying to balance
that?
was confusing.
And I do spend some time in the book talking about that dichotomy and kudos to you onpicking up on that.

(20:55):
The idea, right, in conservative Christianity, and this was true in Pentecostalism as itis in all of conservative Christianity, is that, you know, the idea that men and men alone
are qualified to lead the family and the church.
Well, because my grandmother chose never to remarry, she was a very assertive, very strongpersonality, oh very independent, oh able to care for her children, uh able to care for

(21:29):
the needs of the community that she established, and people listened to her.
When she said something, uh they did as uh she uh instructed them to do.
But then by the same token, when we went to church, we had these male pastors that both mymother and my grandmother would put on a pedestal.

(21:51):
And in our church, which was, you know, on a good Sunday, we'd have 150 people there.
And, uh you know, the male pastor was the final arbiter of truth, not only in the mattersof faith, but in all aspects of our life.
Like if there was a major life decision,
We were taught, you gotta ask your pastor, you gotta run it by the pastor.

(22:16):
And the pastor would make these decisions.
But my grandmother, um she was the one that absent the pastor that we talked to first.
And she'd give us her opinion whether we wanted it or not.
And if we didn't follow her advice, there would be hell to pay.
There was a price to pay.
uh You were gonna get a talking to.

(22:39):
When you were younger, you would actually get
uh corporal punishment, you know, I was um spanked.
It wasn't with a hand, it wasn't with a belt.
We would actually go outside and cut a stick, a switch, we called it, off of the tree,right?
And uh I'd take it back to Ma and then she'd proceed to hit me with it and correct me.

(23:04):
you know, that's just the way that it was.
So I was confused because...
Beyond that, right, you're also taught that women are a source of temptation.
They're a source of sexual temptation to be avoided at all costs.
But then on the other hand, I had these very strong women, especially in my grandmother,that always had an opinion, always had something to say.

(23:34):
as far as I could tell, at least, especially at that time,
uh She was asexual, you know, if she had any interest in sex, I certainly didn't knowabout it and was never talked about and she never remarried.
So I don't know what was going on there.
But we were taught that, you know, women were uh there were two categories for women inour uh expressions and you were either a whore, excuse me, or an angel.

(24:05):
And there was no nuance in between.
And a lot of times that depended upon your proximity and closeness to power within thechurch.
And so my grandmother at church, I told you that she would speak in tongues often.
Well, in our church, in our belief system, there was this idea of having the gift oftongues and interpretation.

(24:34):
And it's based on some passages in the Bible.
I won't bore you with it now, but...
The way this worked practically was at any moment in the church, when church is justrolling along, Ma could out loud start speaking in tongues.
And when she did everything that was going on, whether the pastor was preaching, whetherthe choir was singing, the moment that she started doing that, everything would come to a

(24:59):
screeching halt because we were taught to believe that God was speaking through her andspeaking to
the church.
And so she'd give this long message in tongues, and then there'd be a pause, and thenshe'd give this message as if Jesus was speaking directly to us through her voice.

(25:22):
And so you've got to imagine for a woman at that time who had very little power, verylittle influence in the rest of society, that had to be incredibly attractive and
empowering that you
that you asserted more control and influence over the congregation than the male pastordid at the time.

(25:45):
And so as I was coming of age, right?
And as I started going through my uh sexual uh maturation and things, know, puberty andall of that and everything that everyone experiences, it became very confusing because was
I supposed to listen to these strong women?
uh

(26:06):
Or was I supposed to ignore all women?
Because I was a man, I was a male, I was called to preach.
And so who was I supposed to listen to?
And how was I supposed to listen to them?
And so yeah, at times it was very confusing.
And that dichotomy persisted.

(26:27):
But in a lot of ways, my grandmother served a purpose within our church, within ourreligion in the same way
that in Catholicism, you have pictures of the Virgin Mary, the Madonna with child, theycall it uh iconography, where art and sculpture is used to communicate ideas about the

(26:50):
religion and the ideas oh that, you know, some people can't read the Bible.
So how do you communicate to them the truth of your religion?
You do it through images.
Well, my grandmother, in the way that she dressed,
in the way that she conducted herself.
And remember, we were part of a cult that said women could not wear makeup of any kind.

(27:13):
They could not cut their hair, not even a little bit.
And they had to exclusively wear dresses.
And so remember, I'm seeing my grandmother in a skirt, in a dress, on her knees, in agarden, pulling weeds.
And it must have been very uncomfortable, but she made it work, right?
So she abided.

(27:33):
by all of these patriarchal designs and uh prohibitions on how she could dress and behave.
But at the same time, she was very assertive.
She was a leader.
uh People listened to her and she had a great deal of influence, not only in our family,but also in our little church.

(27:59):
Mm-hmm.
That's she sounds incredible first of all and also I wouldn't want to remarry like becausethen everything is then in a different context because because of that submissiveness
Because that's the the I was raised in a southern Baptist ish, you know, so the samepatriarchal context so everything you do and and You know being socialized as a woman

(28:27):
Everything that I was ever gonna do once I got married changed context
no matter how important it was to me.
I let go of that part real fast.
Which doesn't surprise anybody that see me say anything.
Haley was never gonna be a sit down and shut up person.
um It would have saved me a lot of pain in my childhood.

(28:51):
hurt.
Go ahead.
know what her experiences were like.
Like I said, by the time I came along, my grandfather was long gone.
ah But I do know that my dad uh and his brothers and uh all of the men, all of theson-in-laws, we deferred to my mom.

(29:13):
When she said something, we did it.
ah My dad, he didn't really listen to anybody, but he listened to her.
And whatever she said, he did it.
And that something you said earlier brings me to a question about masculinity, because youknow, I'm always going to tie it into masculinity.
Um, there's a lot of focus when religion, religious deconstruction is being talked aboutthe sexist nature of things and women being so, or people socialized as women to believe

(29:45):
that they are to be chosen not to choose.
And I've been thinking about what that does on the other side of it to men.
You're being.
you're being socialized that you're the chooser.
You get to choose, you get to pick, you know, a godly woman, a right woman.
You have, you know, these criteria, I would, I think.
And then I don't think men who are raised like that are ever prepared for rejection.

(30:12):
And I think about how, how harmful that would be to be socialized as a chooser.
And then inevitably rejection will come.
at some point for one reason or another and the inability to process that.
This might be tangential to the point of your book, but I am curious about it, em how thatties in.

(30:36):
Yeah, so I was very different than uh even my brothers or anybody else in my context.
So in Northeast Arkansas, if you were a man, then you were expected, and this was true formen and women, but especially for men, uh you were expected to be, number one, a hard

(30:57):
worker.
Work in our context wasn't a means to an end.
It was an end in and of itself.
Okay.
so even if you weren't making any money, my dad was the hardest worker I've ever known.
My older brother is second only to my dad as far as work is concerned.

(31:18):
But my dad never made a lot of money.
He worked at the same factory for 30 years, uh you know, and we were above the povertyline, but barely.
uh
You know, we made uh we had the necessities of life, but that was about it.
um And so, but he took a lot of pride in his work ethic.

(31:40):
So he would work all day long at the factory and then he would come home and then he wouldgo out in the garden or the yard and he would work until the sun went down.
uh And in the fall, he would cut firewood.
In the winter, he would go up under the porch and he would do woodworking or he wouldremodel the house.
So it was work.

(32:00):
all of the time.
And so I come along and I'm pretty much useless as far as physical labor is concerned.
I'm in my head a lot.
I'm thinking and feeling things.
I was a sensitive kid.
I was a small, unexceptional kid, not athletic.

(32:21):
And so there wasn't a whole lot of options for me.
My dad didn't know what to do with me.
uh I became somewhat of an emotional surrogate for my mother because my dad wasemotionally unavailable.
And so when my older sister left the house, when I was about nine or 10 years old, my momand I became practically inseparable.

(32:45):
She was very proud of me because there was only, there was really only one real option fora person like me.
in our context and that was I was going to be a preacher.
was the Holy Ghost preacher boy.
So she was very proud of that and she would promote that as did my grandmother.

(33:06):
And so when it comes time to make choices and things of that nature, uh a lot of choiceswere made for me.
And I didn't feel like I had a lot of options.
And I didn't know it back then, we didn't see it like that.
frame it like that.
It was you did what you felt like you were supposed to do.

(33:29):
And I was groomed, for lack of a better word, by both my mother and grandmother for a longtime, because I had the gifts of oratory.
I could articulate my thoughts.
I had thoughts, right?
I thought about things and I would say things that I thought about.
And everybody would look at me like I had, you know, like I just landed from Mars orsomething, because

(33:54):
You know, people in Northeast Arkansas, they didn't have the luxury of thinking too deeplyabout things because there was too much work to do.
For my dad growing up in depression and my grandmother trying to keep those children aliveabsent a husband uh in the Great Depression, all they did was work to survive.

(34:17):
And so there wasn't the luxury of thought.
There wasn't the luxury of...
uh
of reading, there wasn't the luxury.
My dad didn't even have an education.
He could write his name and that was it.
He couldn't read, he couldn't write.
um And so they didn't think about things.
And so I come along and I start expressing thoughts and everybody's looking at me like I'mweird.

(34:38):
And everybody quickly says, okay, in the context of our religion, then you're supposed tobe this, you're called to be a preacher.
So even though I was a male and
and experienced that, you know, what we're all conditioned to believe a male should be.
I was always divergent.

(34:59):
I never fit in.
I always sensed that.
I always knew that.
Others picked up on that as well.
And so there was only one real category for me to find acceptance in that context.
And that was to be a preacher.
And then it made, you know, it made my marriage complicated by the time I got marriedbecause

(35:20):
I had all of these insecurities about the expectations of what I was supposed to be.
And I ended up in, you know, in a lot of respects, emotionally and psychologically, andsometimes verbally, abusing my spouse, abusing my children, because it was my insecurities
that was speaking.
It was, uh I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

(35:43):
I don't know how to do this.
I'm not my dad.
I can't do what he does.
And he was quiet.
felt anything or thought anything, it was a mystery.
No one ever knew.
He just did what he did based upon his own volition, or he did what his mother asked himto do.
With one exception, he didn't go to our church, but everything else, he was verycompliant.

(36:08):
um And so I struggled a lot in my youth because I didn't know how to act.
I didn't know what to do.
And there were no male role models in our context.
Yeah, that's, that's, you've pinpointed so beautifully and also thank you for sharing thatwith us.

(36:29):
Um, that, cause I know that that's a hard thing to go back to.
Um, but that's why masculinity is so important to me and I won't fall into man-hatingfeminism because while men are causing most of the harm, they have been harmed so much.

(36:52):
Because hurt people hurt people, but people who haven't been hurt don't do that.
So it's never an obligation of someone being victimized to be that for a person.
I've made that mistake more than once because I want to see the nuance.
I want to offer compassion, but that's not the place it can come from.
But I think as we evolve as a society and we give all people more versions of themselvesthat they can be, you end up with so much less of that.

(37:22):
Women too, you know this women and non-binary people who were socialized to be a thing andthen they're insecure because they're never gonna be that thing I think you know, there's
a there's a quote about like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree that alwaysresonated with me and You know, there are so many different things That's why I love

(37:43):
nature so much because there's so much diversity in nature and it works because
because there are so many different roles.
And that's, you know, what I think you and me and Daniela and Rebecca, you know, all of usand a lot of creatives are pushing towards.
We're trying to show people that there are so many ways to exist.

(38:05):
And as long as you are not causing harm, there aren't wrong ones.
Literally, as long as you're not hurting anybody, do whatever you want.
Do what feels good.
Mm-hmm.
And that's the only thing.
I am not religious at all.
um And my thing is, are you hurting anyone?

(38:26):
And then secondary to that, are you growing yourself?
And that's just for everybody's own benefit.
um But that's secondary.
Are you not hurting anyone?
Are you growing yourself?
And everything else is gravy.
You can have more goals.
You can be more specific.
But it doesn't have to be this painful for people.

(38:47):
Absolutely.
I think that's so important.
I'm just so glad that we, as a culture, as hard as things are, we do have the privilege ofthought more so that more creatives can be out here talking about it and presenting these
options.
And I mean, even just the amount of gender diversity that I can open my phone and see, youknow, I wouldn't be able to express myself the way that I do if I hadn't seen more gender

(39:14):
nonconforming people.
to like give me that permission.
Like, oh, I actually can just figure it out.
I don't have to pick one of the two that neither of them ever resonated with me a day inmy life.
So, and you're doing that in a spiritual context.
You're showing people the nuance of it.
It's like, you can just look at it.

(39:35):
That's what deconstruction is.
You're taking it apart.
You're laying out the pieces and you're like, what's helpful here?
What feels good here?
Cause I don't think it's none of it.
I think there's something good here.
I, as a non-religious person, I can look at the community that religious people have.
I can look at how, how people support each other.

(39:56):
I can look at rituals like prayer, meditation, whatever it is.
Um, there's a study, I don't have enough information to cite, but I saw something recentlythat, um, the icons, the icons and the images and having saints is universally helpful.
Outside of religion, inside of religion, having people that you look up to and images ofthem to remind you of those things you want to embody is universally helpful.

(40:25):
And I think the person who was talking about it said the Catholics got something right.
em And I know that it's more than just Catholicism.
em My ex used to be, ah what was it, Russian Orthodox, so they have icons as well.
em Those were up.
in my home longer than I wanted them to be before deconstruction really took place.

(40:48):
But we were talking the other day about how I want to have like a Mr.
and some other just like pop culture, you know, even like it can be an animated person.
It doesn't matter.
Something that embodies like I like that.
I want to keep that.
And that's one thing that, that thankfully, because of my dad's refusal to attend oursmall United Pentecostal Church, the UPC had a prohibition against television.

(41:17):
So if you belong to the church, you weren't supposed to have a TV in your home.
My dad didn't go, so he always had a TV.
So I had a window to the world and I was able to see those examples.
I watched Mr.
Rogers.
I saw other men depicted on TV, both
good and bad examples, but at least, right, I was seeing something different than what waspresented to me in my local context.

(41:43):
um And that gave me options.
And again, because I was having, you I expressed thoughts about what I watched ontelevision and everybody looked at me like, you're not supposed to think about it.
You're supposed to just watch it.
But, you know, that was a gift to me.
I'll, for all of my dad's, uh
weaknesses and failures as a father, he did two things really, really well.

(42:06):
He worked hard and provided for the necessities and needs of our life.
We were never hungry.
We always had plenty to eat.
I always had something to wear.
I always had a comfortable bed to sleep in.
And thankfully he had a TV and we watched it.
Yeah.
So I think that you may have just answered it, but I was going to ask you why and how doyou think storytelling is so important in this deconstruction, in healing from

(42:36):
spirituality or other coercive systems?
People listen to stories.
They don't, and stories resonate with us on a uh primal, visceral level.
People don't listen to presentations.
They don't listen to sermons, certainly.
uh sermons, sermons may elicit a momentary reaction or change.

(43:04):
uh But uh if you want to have a lasting impact,
on people tell a story.
ah You know, it's attributed to Plato that he said, whoever tells stories rules the world.
I'm not sure if he said that or not, but it sounds good, right?
It makes sense because all of us will listen to a story.

(43:29):
And you can see this, right?
If you go and listen to a public speaker, if they're sharing information, everybody's kindof just sitting there.
But the moment
They say something like, you know, that reminds me of something that happened the otherday and they start telling the story.
Immediately, the audience's disposition changes.
Everybody leans in.
uh And so what you can do with stories is that you can produce empathy in those that arelistening to the stories.

(44:00):
And that's why reading fiction is so important.
uh Listening to stories.
uh That's why movies are so influential.
That's why television right now is so influential in our society and has been for a longtime.
uh Even the most influential uh social media influencers are the ones who can tell a goodstory because there's something about us.

(44:25):
uh I'm sure it has something to do with uh evolutionary biology, whatever, but
It resonates with us in a way that nothing else does.
Absolutely.
that I, that reminds me of a time when I was, I was 22 or something and I was goingthrough my first like long-term breakup.

(44:50):
had my first love thought I was going to marry him, that whole thing.
And I was just trying to figure out who I was after that.
And I remember looking up like going onto Google and I'm like, I need a about a woman whostarts over and finds her identity.
Like I just needed to see it.
There you go.
I found some like indie movies and I don't remember what any of them were called, butthat's all I did in my free time was I just needed to watch a portrayal of somebody doing

(45:17):
what I wanted to be doing.
And I think that's an autism thing too.
Like I just knew that I would absorb it and kind of embody it whether I was trying to ornot.
And I've done that in every major phase of my life.
I'm like, give me a movie or a show.
um
And I know, uh, made was a really big one.

(45:40):
Um, I don't know if you're familiar, but it's, it's a very beautifully done and nuancedperspective on, on leaving an abusive situation.
And it's not linear and there's like going back and it is one of the most beautiful piecesof television I've ever seen in using storytelling.

(46:04):
that I know that show saved people's lives.
And I think so many stories have that power that people aren't, especially people who arelike anti-arts, and I'm sure you grew up with a lot of that, the whole work, you you live
to work, but like how many lives have been saved because somebody thought that they werehopeless and they were the only one and then they watched, even in fiction, watched

(46:30):
somebody get through it.
And they're like, okay, there is a version.
It could happen.
It's beautiful.
um Next question.
um I'll tie this into Daniela's 10 things.
What was the biggest exit cost?

(46:51):
And then what did that cost get you?
Like what was the biggest sacrifice you made in leaving?
And in what ways do you think it was worth it?
My identity was tied up in uh being a preacher, being a Pentecostal preacher.
um That's what I was known for uh from uh even as a young person.

(47:17):
I was involved in creative pursuits at school.
I was in theater.
I was a writer on the school newspaper and was part of the yearbook staff.
we had a fully functioning
television studio at our school.
And so uh I was involved in all of that.
But the way that I utilized those creative pursuits was to amplify my particularperspective of the Bible and my church and my faith.

(47:48):
And I was very dogmatic to the point of I was obnoxious.
uh I carried my Bible in high school.
I tell a story in the book about
my beloved Bible that I got for my 16th birthday.
It was uh a Thompson chain reference Bible.

(48:08):
And I go into the details of what that was.
And it was one those big ones that I carried under my arm and uh two of my classmates instudy hall.
I would carry this to study hall and I would, everybody else was studying, doing theirhomework and I'd lay out my Bible and I would study the Bible.
And uh on one occasion, two of my classmates actually got into a fight uh and they werefighting.

(48:31):
over a desk, you know, like students do.
Like, I didn't see your name on it.
And before I knew it, right, one of the students had pulled out a chain and wrapped itaround his knuckles and they were literally exchanging blows and blood was being drawn.
And so the teacher wasn't around.
And so I felt obligated as a uh Christian young man with my Bible to step into the fray.

(48:55):
And so naively, I stepped in between them and miraculously,
They stopped, they stopped fighting.
I quoted some Bible verses about, you know, whoever lives by the sword will die by thesword.
And I stepped in between them and they stopped.
And then right then the teacher shows up, sends them to the principal's office.
But I, you know, I went from nerd, Bible nerd to super Bible nerd at that point, right?

(49:21):
And so, um so my identity, everybody knew me as the preacher boy.
Mm-hmm.
Everybody knew that and that continued throughout my, that was the only thing that I wasreally interested in and it set me apart.
You know, I was, I was a good, I was good on TV.

(49:42):
I was good on the radio.
I had a good voice for it and I had people saw that early on, but anytime any teacher orany adult in my life encouraged me to pursue that, I'd say, no, I'm called to preach.
I'm going to Bible school.
So if I can use this to
spread the gospel, I would produce these morality plays and I'd put them on film and Imade these movies.

(50:07):
And for a teenager in rural Arkansas, they weren't that bad, but they were all about, uhyou know, my doctrine and what I believed about the Bible and how people should live their
lives.
So I was the moral authority at 16, which is crazy to think about.
Um, but that was my identity.

(50:28):
so when I chose to leave, uh, you know, and that, process was a, was a long journey and insome respects it's continuing to this day.
Suddenly I find myself with who am I right?
What am I supposed to do?
Who am I supposed to be?
And then the people around me, even those closest to me, my, my wife and my children andmy mom and my, my siblings, they're like, we, we don't know who you are now.

(50:55):
right?
Because you were once this, and we don't know how to relate to you in any different waybecause you've never been passionate about anything else.
You've never cared about anything else in the way that you cared about the Bible andpreaching and all of that.
So the exit cost for me was a loss of identity.

(51:17):
On the other side of that, and this is a process that continues, I discovered a lot ofthings that
I'm good at, right?
A lot of things that I could pursue outside of ministry.
uh And uh in a lot of ways, I'm still figuring that out and still discovering that.
But I discovered a lot of things about myself that had those gifts, had those talents, hadthe opportunity to flourish in my youth instead of being uh directed in one way.

(51:50):
uh I don't know where I would be today.
You know, I can't change the past, but I can do something about my present and I can dosomething about my future.
The way that I write about it in the book is that my experiences in the United PentecostalChurch uh severely truncated my world.

(52:10):
It made it smaller.
So when I was a little kid, I was always up in my head.
I would imagine exploring the world.
I would imagine being a starship captain or a superhero.
Mm-hmm.
exploring the world, exploring the universe, saving the universe.
But as I got older, my world became very, very narrow and my path was exclusively, you area united Pentecostal preacher.

(52:38):
You are an apostolic Pentecostal and this is what all of your life is intended to become.
And that experience I don't think is unique to me.
And unfortunately for a lot of
men like me who experienced that growing up, they find themselves at 40 or 50 years ofage.

(53:00):
And because they didn't pursue education, because they didn't pursue anything else, butbeing that they don't have any other choices in their life.
And I'm convinced that this is why a lot of people remain in cult situations or in highcontrol religious groups.
uh It's not because they believe it.

(53:22):
Mm-hmm.
they don't have any other options in their life.
And that's very real.
And I sympathize with people who find themselves in that situation.
Thankfully for me, um as my process was changing and I was always interested in learning,I always had an inquisitive mind.
I wanted to know about other perspectives.

(53:44):
And so I went back to school and I earned a degree and then I earned another one.
And so...
When I finally made the decision to leave, I had some options that other people didn'thave in their life.
But still, even for me, that loss of identity was very real.
And it's still one that I'm still navigating in a lot of very real ways.

(54:06):
Yeah, and um, I mean, I, um, I'm a couple years younger than you.
Um, but I, you're what?
Like 35, something like that.
Um, but the, cause my, my, uh, my perspective on identity has been really a focus of minein the last year or so.

(54:28):
And I think something I came to that may prove to be nothing, cause I am, I'm 31.
I'm still.
still going to be learning is the closest thing I have to a concept that I could explainof who I am would be to list my values.
then beyond that, beyond knowing what I value, what I will and won't do, what are mylines, the responsibility of having a concept of me is not mine.

(55:00):
That's for everybody else to decide.
I don't need a concept of me.
I just need to make sure that I am in line with my values because I will spiral if I tryto come up with a concept of me.
So the last couple of years, I've been trying to just not think about it.
Like very intentionally, like that's not in my business.

(55:21):
Somebody I read in writing one time, what other people think about you is none of yourbusiness.
And it took probably 10 years for it to really click.
But I knew it was important and I'm like, I'm going to keep revisiting that.
And I kept thinking about it.
And then when I got to that concept of like, I don't think I need to know who I am as likea, a defined thing.

(55:45):
I think other people are going to do that about me, whether I want them to or not.
And that's none of my business.
I can't control it.
All I can control is if am I within my values.
And for me, this is a big one and anybody in my life can tell you.
When I don't align with my values, taking full and unequivocal accountability and movingto repair because we're human beings and that's always going to happen.

(56:11):
I was so hard on myself for so long that it was unhelpful to everybody.
But learning that that is part of being human.
Literally you will never not do that sometimes and learn to repair really well, get reallygood at repair because you're never going to be good at just not messing up.
Yeah.
beyond that, my identity is not in my business.

(56:33):
I'm, I am as authentic as I can be.
I have my values and that's the best.
That's, that's all I need right now.
You know, maybe when I'm older, I'll, I'll need more, but.
And that's very helpful because, I, I, I've experienced, you know, you talk aboutspiraling.
I did the same thing, you know, starting in about 2015, 2016, there was a decade, rightthere that, that I was spiraling and I was trying to figure out who I was post this

(57:03):
identity as, as a Pentecostal preacher.
And I tried a lot of different things and
Part of the things that I've experienced and talked about in therapy is what you touchedon there is figuring out my values and then staying true to those.
And that's still a work in progress for me.

(57:25):
Well, that was a lot.
I think it's a good place to wrap up because we've given people a lot to think about inpreparation for your book, which it sounds like needs to be taken with a notebook and pen
um and really digested.
Yeah, I hope people will do that.

(57:46):
I hope they'll spend some time with it.
uh I'm hopeful that the audio version will come out uh close to the 26th as well.
I'm not sure that it will, but we're working on that.
uh A couple of weeks ago, I went to Chicago three days intensively recording it and tryingto make it interesting to listen to.

(58:10):
Yeah, it was.
three eight hour days.
So yeah, it was, was a lot.
uh But uh I'm proud of the audio as well.
And so I hope either by reading it or listening to it, people will spend some time andthey'll reflect on their own experiences, right?
And whether they were a part of the United Pentecostal Church or another high controlreligious group or whatever, I hope that something that I wrote resonates with them.

(58:36):
And
you know, beyond that, even if it, even if my experiences are totally foreign to whatevertheir experiences, I hope it's a good story.
And there is a story and I want to tell people that this isn't something where you canjust read it and then stop and say, well, you know what Scott said or wrote there made me
mad.
So I'm going to stop, finish it.

(58:56):
Right.
There's an arc and you'll, you'll, you'll see me from when I was a very young person towhere I am today.
And you'll see the evolution in my thoughts.
There are things that I write early in the book where you'll be convinced, well, this guyis still as dogmatic as he ever was, but then you'll get to the end and hopefully it'll

(59:17):
make more sense to you.
So I hope it's a compelling story in and of itself that people will find it enjoyable, uheven if it doesn't resonate with their experience.
But my guess is that it's going to resonate with a lot of people's experiences.
Again, the book is The God I Was Given, Looking for Faith After Losing My Religion.

(59:38):
uh It's published by Choir Publishing.
uh right now, if you go to Amazon, you can find uh the digital version is available forpre-order.
The print version, as I understand it, will be available uh as well for pre-order the daybefore it launches, which it's live and available everywhere on August the 26th.

(01:00:01):
I think that's a Tuesday.
um And you're, if you follow me on the socials, you're going to be hearing all, all, allthings about it.
So I'm excited.
Haley, thank you for this opportunity.
And thanks to Daniela as well.
Hey, to our audience, I want to give a plug for this real quick.
If you're in our audience, if you listen to Cults and the Culting of America, and you canfind this in the show notes, I need help on YouTube.

(01:00:28):
I'm trying to grow that.
So I think I'm around 500, 510.
So if about 500 of you, if about 500 of you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, I wouldappreciate it.
Because I'm trying to grow that part of my social media footprint.
So thank you.

(01:00:49):
We will get that in the show notes and it will stay in the show notes.
Um, cause, we're excited for you and we are so proud of you.
All the, the knitting colt, knitting colt family.
Yeah, we're definitely not a colt though.

(01:01:10):
It continues.
I told somebody about going to the book launch party and it's space themed and they'rejust looking at me like, are you sure?
Are you sure it's not a cult?
How fun is that?
Well, thank you so much, Haley.
Thank you to Daniela, who is on the road, but she'll be back with us soon.

(01:01:30):
And thank you, all of you that listen and tune in.
And we'll see you on the next episode of Cults and the Culting of America.
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