Ep. 5 – Farewell Evangelicalism | Smash the Patriarchy with Cait West, Liz Jenkins, and D.L. Mayfield

Following Episode 4 on Propaganda, we take aim at a crucial evangelical pillar: patriarchy. Patriarchy designed specifically around religious convictions to ultimately control the bodies of women and children. It’s also a tool to support authoritarian leadership explaining the rationale behind why evangelicals overwhelmingly support authoritarian governments: it’s what they practice in their own churches.

Episode 5 welcomes three exciting guests. Cait West, author of Rift, opens our conversation by sharing her story growing up in the Christian Patriarchy Movement. CPM has developed an enterprise that pulls in billions of dollars in revenue from their materials overtly supporting the values of Christian patriarchy. Cait shares her journey escaping what she would ultimately describe as a cult, but in reality looks like a lot of conservative churches out there. How to attune to your bodies and trust your intuition are two important attributes for folks still stuck in the clutches of malformed churches.

Liz Cooledge Jenkins is my second guest. She is the author of Nice Churchy Patriarchy. We discuss how evangelical churches hide their patriarchy; how they might look ‘cool’ on the outside, but in fact operate with the same tools of patriarchy behind the veil.

Finally, DL Mayfield returns from Episode 4 to conclude a conversation about patriarchy and the intersections of white supremacy with eugenics.

“There is no finish line to healing even though we want to be in a place where you’re perfectly happy. And there is a lot of resources now to minimize symptoms and heal from it. What worked for me was trauma therapy, which is different than talk therapy….” Cait West

“[In patriarchy] there’s encouragement to not trust your gut, and encouragement not to talk to other women about unequal power structures.” Liz Jenkins

“America has this horrific history of white supremacist patriarchal aims including in the realm of eugenics.” D.L. Mayfield

Episode 5 – Chapters

(00:00) – Introduction (04:40) – Introducing Cait West (09:20) – The size of Christian Patriarchy Movement including Goddard, IBL, Vision Form…. (12:20) – How to notice all that ain’t right in churches that love patriarchy. (18:00) – Pathways of healing from religious patriarchy. (30:00) – Introducing Liz Jenkins (32:00) – Chatting about patriarchy that’s not so ‘in your face’. (36:30) – Culture problems in parachurch and socialization. (40:20) – Returning to a conversation with DL Mayfield. (42:00) – DL on eugenics. (46:00) – DL Mayfield teasing out aspects of liberation from malformed intersections of patriarchy. (54:30) – Outro

Featuring your host, Rohadi (from Rohadi.com).

Rohadi’s books can be found here, including his latest publication, When We Belong. Reclaiming Christianity on the Margins.

Special guests in Episode 5:

Cait West – Author of Rift. A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy Cait West lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre, and Hawaii Pacific Review, among others. As an advocate and a survivor of the Christian patriarchy movement, she serves on the editorial board for Tears of Eden, a nonprofit providing resources for survivors of spiritual abuse, and cohosts the podcast Survivors Discuss. Find out more. Substack | Instagram | TikTok

Liz Jenkins – Author of Nice Churchy Patriarchy. If you’d like to read more, check out her now-occasional blog, her Substack, and/or her book Nice Churchy Patriarchy. Find Liz via Instagram: @lizcoolj and @postevangelicalprayers.

Author/Podcaster – D.L. Mayfield D.L. Mayfield (they/them) is a podcaster and author. After a decade of writing for Christian spaces, they now write prim