March 21, 2024 • 56 mins
Have you ever felt the ground beneath your religious beliefs quiver and crack? Join me, Spencer Helms, alongside Darren Slade of the Global Center for Religious Research, as we venture into the heartache and complexity of religious trauma. Through our conversation, we shine a light on the psychological toll of departing from a faith-based community, discuss the nuances of toxic Christianity, and contemplate the evolving landscape of American evangelicalism. Our personal accounts intersect with broader discussions on the marginalization of black and queer identities, offering a raw, unfiltered look at the very real impacts of religious indoctrination and exclusion.
Navigating the murky waters of faith and politics can leave anyone gasping for air. In this episode, Darren and I dissect the tight weave of American Christianity with political ideologies, pondering the future of a religion at the brink of institutional collapse. We also provide a lifeline for those swimming through the aftermath of religious trauma, highlighting resources like Recovering from Religion. By widening one's literary horizon, we argue, one can foster resilience and growth in the wake of deconstructing fundamentalist beliefs. My journey from a tumultuous post-high school period to finding solace in religion, only to grapple with its darker sides, serves as a testament to the transformative power of self-enquiry and education.
The path to intellectual freedom is often strewn with obstacles, yet it’s a journey worth embarking upon. For those who have walked through the fire of religious trauma or wrestled with the shackles of cult-like environments, this episode is a guiding beacon. We wrap up our deep-dive with a discussion on essential readings that informed our transformative experiences and a spotlight on the certifications offered by Darren's organization, aiding anyone on the road to recovery. This is more than an exchange of ideas—it's a harbinger of healing, a call to rethink our spiritual journeys, and an invitation to reshape our understanding of religion's role in our lives.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
Don’t miss out on what Tamice has planned next! Follow her on Instagram and Twitter, or subscribe to her Patreon page.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everybody?
Welcome to this episode of lifeafter 11.
I'm your host to me, spencerHelms, and this week I am joined
by Darren Slade.
I will tell you a little bitmore about Darren as we get into
the end Interview, but I'mreally excited to have him here.
He runs.
Let me start over, sorry.
It's the global research centerfor global.
(00:23):
What is the global religion?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
for religious research?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, global Center for religious research.
I mixed up the acronym.
Okay, what's up everybody?
What's everybody?
Welcome back to this episode oflife after 11?
.
I'm your host to me, spencerHelms, and this week I'm joined
by Darren Slade of the globalCenter for religious research,
and I am going to talk to himabout one of the topics I love
(00:46):
to nerd out about and a topicthat I have a lot of familiarity
with, and we're gonna talkabout religious trauma today.
Some of you know that, in lightof the Michael Bickel I'm
incident at I hop KC and thefact that I was on staff there
for so many years, I have beenvery interested in cults and
religious trauma, and so I lovewhat Darren is doing out here in
(01:07):
the streets, so I asked him tocome on the podcast.
So welcome, darren, I'm gladyou're here.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks for having me to me's appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So tell us a little bit about who you are and and
what made you start even thecertificate program for
religious trauma, and Iappreciate you doing that, by
the way well, you know what.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I kind of fell ass backwards into it.
Honestly, by trade andprofession, I'm an historian.
I Really specialized in thesocio-political development of
religious beliefs and thephilosophies and world views
that go along with it,especially from the ancient
world.
And when you study religion fora living, you kind of come to
(01:49):
learn that there isn't much leftto study.
Every rock has been turned overa thousand times and Then I
ended up leaving my cult and Ilost everything.
Lost wife, family, friends, myentire support system.
(02:10):
And when I was going through somuch trauma surrounding it and
was receiving the retaliationfrom having left my cult, I Was
told by a colleague have youever heard or looked up
religious trauma?
And at the time they had saidreligious trauma syndrome, which
(02:31):
in our certification programand stuff that we prefer not to
say the word syndrome in all ofthis.
But that got me going.
I didn't realize this was athing.
And to learn that it was in itsinfancy, that nobody was really
studying it.
For academics like me and, ofcourse, for victims like me.
(02:53):
We we jumped on it.
We needed to know anything andeverything we could, and so from
there kind of snowballed and weended up becoming the largest
institute in the world to studyreligious trauma.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
It's so incredible the resources that I found.
I mean, obviously, all you haveto do is Google and you all pop
right up my like.
I was telling you earlier my myintroduction to religious
trauma Happened in 2013, 2014.
I actually had left the cult Iwas in I hop KC.
I'm not sure if you've heard ofthat place, but right now, the
(03:29):
founder of I have KC isembroiled in a bunch of scandal
right now of clergy sexual abuse, and it was so funny because I
left almost 10 years ago andnever brought myself to calling
it a cult Because there was nosex stuff.
I was like it seems like acouple, there's no weird sex
stuff.
And then it starts to come outthat, like, actually there was a
(03:51):
lot of weird sex stuff.
So when I was in 2013, 2014,the main reason I left was
because of my experiences aroundTrayvon Martin's murder and the
Ways that they were talkingabout that and the disconnect
that was happening for me withmy own sense of Identity in
terms of being a black person inthis country and and kind of
(04:12):
feeling like I was being made tofollow Something of like a
white Jesus that we see kind ofshow up in that Christian
nationalist movement.
And my therapist I told her.
I said you know, every time I'min church I'm getting hives,
I'm itching, I'm having panicattacks.
I can't sit still I'm sweating,I don't know what's going on.
And and my therapist back thensaid two things to me that maybe
(04:38):
because of the fact that, likeyou know, in these religious
places and I'd love to have youtalk about this you develop
neuro pathways, and so she wassaying to me that you know,
sometimes, when those pathwayshave been created in our minds,
maybe the divine or the universeis speaking through your body
to kind of warn you and protectyou because you can't, you've
got to wait For your brain tocreate new pathways, right, and
(05:01):
she she was like you know,there's a new study, there's new
studies coming out about thisthing religious trauma syndrome.
Have you ever heard of it?
Because I think that's what'sgoing on for you.
So I feel like I've kind of hadthis journey with it as a topic
and as kind of a Category toplace my experience.
But I would love for folks whohave never heard of it to kind
(05:22):
of get an idea from you what.
What is religious trauma?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, the ultimate question is, Basically it is
trauma and that has its owndefinition.
It's own clinical definition.
We can explore that, but it'sbasically trauma, but trauma
that occurs within the contextof Religious or a faith-based
(05:49):
system of belief.
So and kind of what you werealluding to.
It doesn't have to be majorsexual exploitation and and or
anything like that.
It can actually be caused byvery small things as well, like
doctrinal beliefs that really,aralisa, really adversely affect
(06:13):
people.
So, for instance, belief in therapture For a lot of people.
We have known people who havedeveloped a fear of heights and
or just a constant fear ofthings like masturbating,
because they're terrified thatat some point Jesus is going to
return and catch you orsomething.
So the way we define it and thisis now kind of the standard
(06:33):
definition that's beenrecognized by a lot of
clinicians that religious traumaresults from an event, a series
of events, relationships orcircumstances that are connected
to religious beliefs, practicesor religious structures.
That is experienced by theindividual as not just
(06:59):
overwhelming but is alsodisruptive to their central
nervous system and that causeslasting Adverse effects on them.
And it could.
The adverse effects could belike in your case, the physical
effects right, the high sweating, the pain, the panic attacks
(07:19):
and or anxiety attacks on themental and social and emotional
levels, or adverse effects onsomebody's spiritual life as
well.
Constant fear, and those areactually some of the top.
Those are actually some of thetop traits, symptoms of somebody
(07:39):
who is suffering from religioustrauma, or is the Anxiety, fear
, shame, guilt.
Now would you start, though,with your, because I'm
fascinated by this.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I'm sorry, darren, hold on one second, babe, I'm
recording, I got it.
You can't call me.
Good, I'll edit it out.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Okay, close your question.
So would you say, with yoursweating and the hines and stuff
, do you think that those wereanxiety attacks?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Happening.
You know it's hard to it was soweird, the, the experience I
had of it and I can say the twotimes where the hives and the
sweating happened.
One was I was doing everythingI could to stay sort of involved
in that movement right.
So you know I hop KC is kind ofthe mothership of the global
(08:33):
prayer movement, though theywon't claim that right.
And so there was another sortof iteration of the house of
prayer In Atlanta, georgia.
So when I moved away fromKansas City I moved to Atlanta
and kind of involved with I hopAtlanta and I was sitting in the
message.
One day the director wasspeaking and comes on stage and
(08:57):
Begins to talk about Kind ofwhat God is doing now in this
hour, and it was so far fret,far fetched and left field that
it just was like I had thisthought, like this man is
preaching his journal to us asthough it's like biblical truth,
like he's crying.
And then I just felt thisimmediate feeling of like
(09:19):
distrust or like clarity, likethis person is not.
Why do I believe this person?
As soon as I I said that, I hadthis Breath of like kind of
lose my breath and I startitching and shaking right and so
I have to actually leave thesanctuary.
I couldn't, I couldn't stay.
(09:40):
I thought maybe something weirdwas happening.
And then it happened a secondtime.
There was a it was kind of agroup of people who were
influenced by the house ofprayer, asked me to come and
speak at a conference andWalking up to the door it
happened again and I actuallyhad to call and cancel.
I could not go through withspeaking and I just felt at that
(10:03):
moment it was more.
It was more than just I don'tbelieve this anymore.
It felt violent and poisonousto me.
Some of the theology that I wasbeing asked to Share and speak
about and endorse and I didn't Imean, obviously I didn't
believe it, but I thought maybeI could get away with was
(10:23):
sharing about it because I'mfamiliar with it, right, yeah,
and so after that happenedthat's actually when I reached
out to a therapist is I reallythought something was wrong with
me, but that's that's kind ofwhat happened.
Other than that, it would justbe the you know, a sense of like
discomfort, a Sense of panicwhen you hear certain words or
(10:44):
phrases or songs.
I had physical manifestationsin my body of discomfort and
trauma and when it came to thatparticular way of viewing
religion and God and that typeof stuff, so that's what was
happening for me.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I mean it honest to goodness, it does sound like
almost textbook panic attack andand I know that there's layers
and more to it than just that.
So I mean I'm curious realquick.
Yeah, the IHOP movement or theIHOP Paraminastry churches are
kind of within that charismatictradition.
(11:21):
Yes, right, what stopped youfrom interpreting this as just a
demonic attack and that you sawthat, and why didn't you just
seek out an exorcism?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Mm-hmm, that is a great question.
I did it first.
I did at first think I'm thisis demonic, because that's you
know.
It's so interesting how IRealize now that any type of
dissonance I felt was alwayslabeled conviction, right from
(11:57):
the Holy Spirit.
So my intuition I would, I wasalmost taught against my own
intuition, right, and Ibasically outsourced my
intuition and I abdicated all ofmy agency to these people who
had a clear picture of scripture, had a better relationship with
God, who had done all thesemarvelous things, and so any
(12:19):
type of dissonance orDisagreement that I felt was
always Labeled bitterness or,like your, your heart is
offended with God.
And then, after a while, I juststarted policing myself.
So any any resistance oranything that just seemed off or
seemed like a hard pill toswallow.
I thought, oh, that's demonicand I've got to work through
(12:40):
that, need to fast more, I needto spend more time in prayer
because I'm resisting this andthat means I'm resisting God.
So I used to call it demonicuntil I mean honestly I say this
in 2012 when Trayvon wasmurdered, because For the first
time, it was like this group ofpeople say they hear from God,
(13:02):
they're best friends with God.
The founder has, you know, goneup to heaven and gotten in
chariots and been called anapostle, and so, from me, my
heart was broken over what washappening to black men in our
country.
And so to be in a place thatclaim to be able to hear from
God so clearly and none of themGod isn't talking to any of you
(13:24):
about this, because I can'tsleep at night over this is
bothers me.
This could have been my brother,and so that was the first time
where I felt permission to beginto disagree, because it seemed
like there was that, there was away that they had characterized
Barack Obama, and then therewas the like frenzy over Donald
Trump.
They kind of showed me like, oh, this isn't God, this is not.
(13:49):
This is like some sort ofwhiteness, religious political
Stuff that's been infused intowhat I've been taught about God,
and so that gave me thepermission to be able.
I'm not gonna I'm actually notgonna squelch my intuition
anymore, and I'm actually notgoing to ignore common sense
(14:10):
anymore, because you guys areMissing a whole swath of
humanity in the ways that youconceptualize God, like you're
not even thinking about whatlife is like for people who
don't look or experience theworld like you do, so it's very
free.
Like you can't have universalglobal truth, you don't even
know about Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You know, I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised that you'rein that initially You're, you're
having this value conflictinside of you.
On the one hand, is thisdemonic, it might just be an
attack, or, and also myintuition here is starting to
(14:53):
Peek out and is giving voiceagain.
You know there was a study doneof all of the best-selling
Christian self-help books.
Yeah, number one Sided reasonfor things like depression was
demonic influence and demonicpossession, and that is so.
(15:18):
Of course, there's this longtradition of not Actually paying
attention to your body, yourbrain, your nervous and instead
is telling you it's an outsideoppressor.
And and that's what leads me tokind of the other thing that
I'm very Interested about withyou, which I believe is what
(15:39):
helped break you free of this.
Oftentimes, cults will trainyou to do what we call thought
stopping behavior or thoughtstop.
Messages to yourself werebasically, if you start to have
doubts, skeptical, or yourquestion things or something
(16:00):
just doesn't feel right, we getconditioned to stop it.
We say in mantras, in our headyou know not today, satan, or
get behind Satan got it good,you know, we just start
repeating things and what it'sdesigned to do is to Squelch any
(16:20):
type of your own body trying tocommunicate with you.
Interesting that that was in.
I mean, maybe it was happeninga little bit, but it didn't win
the day.
Loud your voice to come out, soI think.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, I think I think you know, I think it was in the
for the first time saying no, Iam actually a queer black
person and that matters, andbringing that to the forefront,
whereas before it was like oneidentity was Dmonic right.
(16:57):
Being queer was like you'regonna go to hell, and being
black was kind of like we'recolorblind, we don't see color
right.
So I think it was in kind ofwhat was happening in the world,
it was affecting thoseidentities for me, and so the
fact that the religion I wasgiven or the truth I was given
couldn't speak to either one ofthose things and the ways that
(17:20):
it was speaking to those thingswas so unfruitful or negative in
my life that it kind of I thinkI was saved by returning to
some of these identities that Iwas told to forget or rebuke or
throw off right, and so thatfeels to me like such an
important part of even thedeconstruction process for me.
(17:43):
I think that the decolonizationprocess is just as important,
and so I think that a lot of thetoxicity that shows up in
religion I'm talking across theboard has to do with people
abdicating who they actually areand their identity.
Well, I mean, what are yourthoughts about that.
What have you seen?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Well, yeah, absolutely, that's almost cult
101, right, you want toeliminate individuality and
autonomy for people.
They shouldn't have freethought, free beliefs free.
They shouldn't be free in theiremotions and certainly not
(18:23):
their beliefs.
You want to have their identitycompletely assumed and
assimilated into the cultleader's identity or the group's
identity.
So, yeah, I think you'reabsolutely right to have
(18:44):
recognized that in the longhistory, christianity and then
Christianity here in America,you're seeing a very Eurocentric
, white, diluted and even youcan probably go so far to say a
(19:04):
colonialized version of this andthe belief system.
Places like Kansas City, yes, Iimagine maybe colonial is its
ancestry, but you're definitelytalking rooted in a culture, war
(19:28):
, religious right movement whichis really I mean, it's actually
quite new In the long scheme of2000 years of history in our
country.
The fundamentalist religiousright movement which gave birth
to a lot of this stuff like IHOP, is actually it's kind of an
(19:53):
aberration in church three, butit's fairly recent and it's
fairly new, and so I would saythat you're probably seeing more
of a politicized version, notjust a colonial version, right,
yeah, that makes a lot of senseto me and I know that you've
done a ton of study.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So when you think about American Christianity,
right, like how would you?
I guess I wanna ask thisquestion in a way that answers
the most questions.
When you think aboutChristianity in America, do you
see threads that are loose, thatcould possibly cause a thing to
(20:36):
unravel?
Just I'm talking about AmericanChristianity, not just
evangelicalism, I'm talking themain line.
Do you see elements of the waysthat Christianity is
conceptualized just here from anAmerican perspective that have
detrimental sort of holes orcracks in it in the foundation?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
That's a great question.
Well, you know, what'sinteresting is, we, as Americans
, have done such a great job ofmarketing our version of
Christianity around the world,so it isn't exactly isolated to
us anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Oh wow, you're right.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Especially so.
Americanized Christianity is infact, a global phenomenon now
and it has really taken root andis very exploitative in Africa,
where people are desperate fora type of Christianity that
gives this hint of prosperity,of individualism pull yourself
(21:44):
up by your own bootstraps.
The John Wayne kind of versionof Christianity, which is very
much downplays and ignoresJesus' teachings from the Sermon
on the Mount that the poorshall inherit the earth and that
(22:06):
blessed the peacemakers, rightTo a very militarized warrior
and, of course, staunchlyRepublicanized conservative
version and even RepublicanizedTrumpian Christianity now.
So, yes, I do see loose threadson institutional wise.
(22:32):
We're actually seeing thisacross the board.
So not just evangelicalChristianity, but across the
board.
And here's what I mean.
I was part of a major study afew years back that looked at
the number of worship centersand churches and congregations
versus the number of Christians,and what we found is that the
(22:55):
number of worship centers sothat could be a church or
whatever right Was outpacing thenumber of actual Christians by
birth and by conversion, meaningchurches were splitting and
breaking up faster than theywere getting converts.
(23:20):
Wow, and that means and this isagain across the board and we
can show this through data thatthe pews are just empty.
With the exception of somemajor mega churches, most
churches in the US and aroundthe world are empty.
They're not filling the seatsand they're getting emptier.
(23:43):
And one of the reasons they'regetting emptier is because the
churches are fighting.
The Christians are fightingamongst each other and then
splitting up.
So you'll get the Baptistchurch over here, and then first
Baptist of the Holy Rock overthere, and then this is the
second Baptist church and thethird, and all in the same city,
the loose thread being thatwhat we likely are going to see
(24:07):
within this century so by 2100estimated is that
institutionalized versions ofChristianity is likely to
collapse on itself because itcan't support.
There are not enough Christiansto pay for the overhead costs
(24:28):
of all those congregations andchurches.
So what we will see is likely aretreat out of the
institutionalized form ofChristianity into a more
personalized house church kindof format which has the
(24:48):
potential of going one of twoways.
Maybe both One people reallystart to reclaim a more
spiritualized and outwardfocused, community focused type
of church where they actuallywant to help the poor and do
something worthwhile.
Or we will also see maybe anexplosion, like in the case of
(25:12):
IHOP, of cultish type of stuffwhere suddenly the leader of
this house church is now anapostle and is riding around in
church, right the other thread.
I will tell you that none of uswere expecting and now it has
(25:34):
become so evident to so manythat it's just, it's amazing the
speed at that, how thisdeveloped and that is the
Trumpian version, the cult ofpersonality surrounding Trump
and that having the Christianflavor to it.
I think what all of that'sgoing to do and I hope we can
(26:01):
see this for what it is whileit's happening, not be looking
back in the history books of howthe world killed itself, but I,
for a lot of people, itcompletely showed the true color
(26:24):
of people who are claiming tobe Christian in this country and
showed that those southernchurches a lot of them, or the
deeply conservative ones, reallyhad politics on their mind, had
ideologies and agendas on theirminds and were one step away
from just turning into a cult, abad cult.
(26:47):
Then they actually werepreaching anything close to
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm wondering about that and I've been trying to
think about.
I was on a panel recently andsomeone was asking me about
cults and everything and I saidyou know what it's hard for me
not to even just think ofevangelicalism in and of itself
as a cult.
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Do you think that's toograndiose a statement?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well let's make a distinction.
In academia, we always try toget as nuanced as we can right.
So there is what we might callclassical evangelicalism, and
then there is what we might callneo-evangelicalism.
Okay, help us understand whatthat is so classical
evangelicalism really focused onfaith and it was politically
(27:39):
neutral.
This is something that JimmyCarr yeah, that's a great
example.
Yes, and even before that.
So it wasn't that they didn'thave a political persuasion, it
was just.
It wasn't dictated and itwasn't aligned with your
identity.
So you could be a Democrat, youcould be a Republican, you
(28:01):
could be just a political, andit was okay.
Because the three main focusesof classic evangelicalism was
the atoning death of Christ,that salvation is by grace and
faith, and that the Bible wasyour main source of authority
(28:22):
for all things spirituality, allthings, religion and that was
what they were interested in.
They wanted to be saved and theywanted to follow God while they
were on earth.
That did result in somebreak-offs, some offshoots, like
the fundamentalist movement inthe early 20th century, and
(28:47):
what's interesting is we thinkof fundamentalists as being the
political activists nowadays,and that's actually not true.
They were isolationists.
They didn't want any part ofpolitics, no part of society,
because it was sinful.
What we find happening is, atthe rise of the religious right
(29:09):
at the late 70s and into the 80s, and then the Ronald Reagan era
, we have fundamentalism, whichthis very obstinate, dogmatic
it's.
I'm right, everybody else iswrong and you'll never change my
mind.
(29:30):
So this really stubborn,dogmatic form of Christianity,
mixing with a new wave ofpolitical conservatism that
recognized it, could useidentity politics to divide the
country, and this is way more ofa complex answer than you were
(29:54):
looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
No I love it.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's important to understand the historical
context here, because what wesee around this time, around the
rise of the religious right andstuff is also a major change in
American politics.
And this is important becausethe switch with the Democratic
Party going from beingpredominantly in the South to
(30:20):
the Republican Party taking upthe South and this is in wake of
the civil rights movement thatbasically we recognized or I
should say we the politiciansespecially, but in particular
people on what are now theRepublican Party had recognized
they could use race and racismto help divide.
(30:44):
And so what ended up happening?
A lot of the Christianfundamentalists, who were white
Southerners, matched on to thepolitical agendas of the new
conservative, the new Republicanmovement happening and they
both co-opted each other, theyboth liked each other because it
(31:08):
was expedient to do so.
So the Republican said I can,I'll push for things like no
abortion, no same sex marriage,if you will come on board for
getting tax breaks to the richand getting rid of welfare
systems, okay.
It is that molding together thatwe see a brand new breed of
(31:34):
evangelical, what I might callthe neo evangelical, and that is
the dogmatic obstinacy,somebody who will absolutely not
change their mind, but morethan that, will refuse to ever
cooperate with any opposingviewpoint inside.
Mix that with politicalactivism, so they're
(32:00):
fundamentalists who arepolitically active and in a
really gross kind of way.
So that I think is culty.
They're not allowed to havefreedom of thought, they're not
allowed to have freedom ofspeech and they do isolate into
(32:24):
their little silos, fox newskind of silos.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, it makes so much.
Oh, that is so helpful, darren,seriously, and we might even do
a two-parter and have you backbecause you just are.
So your ability to kind ofbreak it down for us is so
helpful.
I'm wondering because I thinkabout this now.
Obviously I'm bringing my queerblack self to the table and
(32:52):
thinking about how I see thissort of merging taking place
around the Carter Nixon yearsLike.
That's when it first, likebecomes very clear for me of
like you see, you know this sortof Jimmy Carter character who's
talking about being born againand about faith, but is pro-life
, I mean pro-choice, who is verynuanced and generous in terms
(33:16):
of the ways that he thinks.
And then you have this sort ofNixon character coming in
talking about law and order andsuper predators and these things
that do feel very political,and you see sort of the you know
far wells and those backingthis president.
And he said I remember there'sa interesting thing he did one
(33:40):
time where he said somethinglike you know, you can't endorse
me, but I can endorse you, orsomething like that, and that to
me feels like the beginnings ofwhat has caused and wreaked so
much havoc, I think, on peoplelike me.
I think that definitely theevangelicalism that I was kind
of pulled into was of thatvariety.
(34:02):
Do you feel like the classicalevangelical even exists?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
anymore it does, and they would be the ones who
probably speak out the mostagainst their fellow Christians
who endorse people like Trump,who is the most religious and
un-Christian Christianpolitician.
So, yes, but they have beensilenced on a number of ways, so
(34:34):
they're just not, as theymissed the boat in being
politically active, so theirpower and their influence in
society has diminishedsignificantly.
And, unfortunately, the cultyversion, the neo-evangelical
(34:54):
Trump type cult, has done such agreat job of making people's
Christian identity synonymouswith supporting Trump or
supporting the Republican partythat the moderate or classical
(35:15):
evangelical congregations don'tsurvive.
When the preacher gets up thereand says Jesus is our leader,
not Trump, not the president,not a political party, it is
going to cause the samecognitive dissonance and maybe
even those anxiety attacks likeyou.
(35:36):
But for people who have boughtinto this, no, in order to be a
good, god-fearing, jesus-lovingChristian, I also have to be a
Republican.
That's gonna cause someproblems for them.
So they exist, they're dying.
Here's the thing.
And you had mentioned Nixon, soyou know Nixon came before
(35:59):
Jimmy Carter and he, and priorto this religion, wasn't on the
docket right.
Most Christian, most American.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Not Nixon Reagan, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, but it's important.
But this is important becauseyou know we see this all the
time.
We see political opportunismall the time.
That's politics and it's gross,but it's also part and parcel
of the game.
Back in the day most Americansbelieved religion was a private
(36:38):
matter and the government shouldhave no influence or say, and
they definitely didn't want areligious politician.
So Jimmy Carter was part of thereligious rights rise to
influence.
They helped Jimmy Carter getelected.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh, wow, I didn't know that okay.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, he was, you know, a bona fide Southern
Baptist.
He just took a hard line stanceon things like abortion and
stuff because for him, being aBaptist actually a good Baptist
he believed that churches shouldbe autonomous and that people's
ethics and morals should not belegislated by the government.
(37:23):
So that was not okay for them.
So that's when the religiousright became the religious right
and switched sides and saidwe're gonna endorse Reagan now.
But yeah, you're right, it's atthis point, suddenly, religion
(37:46):
is being exploited and it iselevated to the point that the
opportunists, the politicalopportunists, are able to
capitalize on it.
Stoke those flames, wow.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
so I know that you again, I consider myself a nerd,
but I'm looking at yourbookshelf.
I've been in your courses, soyou're way more nerdy than me.
What problem are you trying tosolve these days?
What are you?
What problem are you trying tosolve these days?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well, I got a nerd problem.
I have a proton pack, I docosplay, and so my ghost-pushed
proton pack is coming alongbeautifully well, but there is a
couple of slime canisters thatI'm having trouble figuring out.
So that's the nerd problem I'mtrying to figure out.
That's awesome.
No, you know what we are reallylooking towards.
(38:44):
How can we bring more exposureto religious trauma?
So I want to host in-personconferences and virtual
conferences.
I think people would benefit alot.
So I was trying to work outwe're trying to work out all of
(39:05):
the logistics of doing anin-person conference, so
hopefully in the next year or sothat problem will be solved.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's amazing.
I'm wanting to kind of turntowards, if there are people
listening right Like I stillhave some folks who are one foot
in, one foot out, not sure howto leave, because I think that
they feel there's so muchhistory in their faith tradition
, so much of their identity Imean people named kids, picked
(39:35):
addresses, bought houses, pickedjobs, picked cities, I mean all
kinds of things are wrapped upin the sort of identity they've
created and crafted in areligion that is no longer
serving them or making sense tothem.
What would be some of the waysthat a person could walk this
(39:55):
out intact and stay intact,relatively speaking?
I mean, I think you do justkind of unravel, but what are
some best practices in the midstof this process of recognizing
religious trauma and beginningto heal from it?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Hmm, there are so many things.
I first recommend getting asupport group, getting into
support groups.
There are organizations outthere like.
Recovering from Religion is anorganization that is really
beneficial and helpful to me.
(40:30):
But even if you don't want todo something, that's kind of a
professional organized supportgroup.
There are a lot of people goingthrough the exact same thing
and, with social media and stuff, it shouldn't be too hard to
track it down, and so theimportant thing is to know that
you don't have to walk thatjourney on your own.
(40:51):
There are people and resourcesIf you want to keep some
spirituality intact, while maybejettisoning the particular
congregation or the religionthat you're a part of, or if you
just want to know what youactually believe.
(41:13):
I always, always encouragepeople, read, successful people
read, and read as much as youcan, as often as you can, and
don't just read the stuff thataligns with what you believe.
See, if you can't track downactual good work by people who
(41:39):
you might initially disagreewith, you wouldn't believe what
it does to your brain, thoseneural pathways and to your
nervous system to slow thingsdown and say I'm going to enrich
myself.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Man, this is so helpful.
I definitely want to have youback.
I think that I just know yourbrain has so many different
corridors that I would love toexplore, and I'm just like we
don't have time Because, I mean,I've just learned so much from
you in a short amount of timeand really do appreciate your
(42:20):
commitment to this.
I think in the days to come,years to come, there will be
more and more people who arerecognizing this in themselves
and trying to find a pathforward.
Before I ask you the final twoquestions we've got about 10
minutes what is your story ofleaving your cult?
I'd love to hear that story,and then I'll ask you my final
(42:41):
question.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sure, I was definitely a fundamentalist when
I first converted.
I would say religion saved mylife.
I did because I was in a reallybad place after high school and
I didn't consider myself a verygood person.
So religion at first did teachme to want to be a better person
(43:10):
, to want to love and supportand help others.
But one of my biggest thingsI've always been an intellectual
.
I've always loved learning andI started reading books, I
started consuming knowledge andI went to seminary.
(43:32):
I wanted to be a pastor and Iwanted to be a theologian and
blah, blah, blah.
But what I was getting inseminary and what I was getting
in grad school was notsufficient.
I just could not stop learningand what I had learned about was
some of these cognitive biases.
(43:54):
For some reason I just started.
I'm just consuming whatever Ican in terms of academic
scholarship and I learned aboutneuroscience.
I learned about these cognitivebiases and stuff, and one in
particular is the confirmationbias, which is basically and
this is something we all sufferfrom in every area of our life
but basically we see in hereonly what we want to see in here
(44:15):
that our brains automaticallymake a conclusion about our
beliefs and then our brainfilters out all of the
information that doesn't alignwith what our brain
automatically assumed is true,and we know that this takes
place.
And we also know ways to combatconfirmation bias.
(44:37):
And I was asking myself am Iengaging in a confirmation bias
with my own beliefs, my ownChristian, evangelical,
fundamentalist beliefs?
And the short answer is yes, itwas.
But one of the ways you combatconfirmation bias is you go read
the counter side, and I was notprepared.
(45:00):
I was not aware of just whatactual scholarship, not what
seminary and theologians, butwhat actual scholars, the
sociologists, psychologists,anthropologists, archaeologists,
right, the actual historians,what we actually know about our
(45:20):
religion and the history of ourreligion, and this and that.
Anyway, for me it got to becomea flood.
It was so much counter evidenceagainst my beliefs that
intellectually I could notsustain it anymore.
I laughed for intellectualreasons and was victimized,
(45:46):
harassed, stalked, abused,severely Stalked, yes, and death
threats, and this and that soseverely for having left.
And that's when the emotionalpart came in for me.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
That's really.
Thank you for sharing that.
I think it's it's really.
It's really real.
I mean, I think anyone who haswalked away knows something of
what you're talking about.
It is very lonely to beyourself sometimes and to be
(46:30):
honest, and so I thank you forthat and I thank you for kind of
creating a pathway for us torecover ourselves and our brains
.
I really appreciate what you'redoing and I'm going to ask you
my questions.
So every every episode, I askpeople what they're bringing
from the rubble of what's left.
If there's anything left offaith for them or their faith
(46:53):
tradition, then I ask, kind of,what you're binging so I don't
know if it's Ghostbusters,Cosplay or not and then I ask
you know, what are some words wecan live by?
And I'm definitely going tohave you back because I'd like
to dive more into someparticular aspects of religious
trauma but what are you bringing, what are you binging and what
(47:14):
are some words to live by?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I alluded to it earlier.
I take from the rubble apassion for wanting to make the
world better.
I learned that from religionand realized that it's a
universal.
It doesn't have to be fromreligion, so I want to make a
positive impact on this planet.
(47:39):
Binging, I just got done.
The last night got done.
Binging, escaping twin flameson oh God.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Which is finished it.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Okay, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
I had no idea that that existedand I'm screaming at the TV the
whole time.
It's like you're on a zoom callwith this guy, exactly.
So, that's what I'm binging,and words to live by.
(48:14):
You're not alone.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I love that.
Oh man, I wish I would haveknown about Twin Flames, because
we could have totally done it.
My gosh, I was stunned by it.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
And I'm somebody who empathizes with people who have
been sucked in and indoctrinatedand deculted, right, yes, and
I'm just going how.
How Are you sure?
He selected you from a Zoomcall and said this is you my
gosh?
Speaker 1 (48:54):
This is your twin and chased them down and stalked
them.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, and you're in the wrong body, you're in the
wrong gender, so go get it, yeah, so oh my gosh, that part.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
That part was so.
Actually, I learned a lot fromthat, because it made me realize
that cults are universal.
They don't have to be Christian.
They don't have to be becausewhat, jeff?
And what's her name, her newname?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Shaler, Shaler, whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah, yeah, whatever the fact that they were forcing
people to shift bodies andtalking about the sort of binary
energies and it was just kindof like this is all progressive
language, this is all like sortof new age and it's still toxic.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Oh, cults are just as prevalent on the left side of
the spectrum as they are on theright, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
How do we avoid them?
How do we avoid cults?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Read a goddamn book.
That's too much.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yes, seriously, though, learning to be able to
be skeptical and to criticallythink and to entertain more than
just one source of authority,because we are just from our
evolution as a species.
We're prone to this.
We want to be told what to do,so it is a concerted thing.
(50:29):
I'm not saying education is theanswer to everything, but in
this case, it's a big part ofavoiding the cult.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
All right, top five books.
I mean, you're so interesting,I can't wait to talk to you
again.
Top five books that you feellike were instrumental in your
freedom.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Oh gosh, well, that's hard because I was reading.
The things that wereinstrumental for me to break out
of my cult were journalarticles on cognitive science
and stuff like that.
So, ok, there is a book calledGod and Anatomy, and my favorite
(51:27):
book of all time.
Absolutely love it.
You're going to get such agreat breakdown of ancient
religion and the history ofChristianity in particular, but
also Islam, and interviews them.
The other one, by Litva, isEesus Deus, which is the
(51:49):
Latinized form of Jesus, jesus'sname.
That is also wonderful in termsof theology and history, the
background, the Greco-Romancontext of the Christian faith,
and then a wonderful one ifyou're looking for something
like counter apologetics, so onethat kind of exposes some of
(52:10):
the BS book called the EmptyTomb.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
And it's an anthology , so a number of scholars have
contributed to this and that waseyeopening for me.
So check out those three.
I can think of two others.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, that's great, and you've got journals all over
the internet, so tell folkswhere they can find you and read
your stuff real quick before wego.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah, probably the easiest is just at the Global
Center for Religious Research,which is just gcrrorg, and you
should be able to find my stuffthere.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Awesome.
Darren, thank you so much.
I can't wait to have you back.
Really appreciate you andthanks for teaching me.
I'm certified now because ofyou in religious trauma, so
thank you so much for being onthe show.
Thank you, Denise.
Thank you for listening To pickyour money and your heart is
donate to Subquatcher Inc andclear the path for black
(53:15):
students today.
What's up everybody?
Welcome to this episode of lifeafter 11.
I'm your host to me, spencerHelms, and this week I am joined
by Darren Slade.
I will tell you a little bitmore about Darren as we get into
the end Interview, but I'mreally excited to have him here.
He runs.
Let me start over, sorry.
It's the global research centerfor global.
(00:23):
What is the global religion?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
for religious research?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, global Center for religious research.
I mixed up the acronym.
Okay, what's up everybody?
What's everybody?
Welcome back to this episode oflife after 11?
.
I'm your host to me, spencerHelms, and this week I'm joined
by Darren Slade of the globalCenter for religious research,
and I am going to talk to himabout one of the topics I love
(00:46):
to nerd out about and a topicthat I have a lot of familiarity
with, and we're gonna talkabout religious trauma today.
Some of you know that, in lightof the Michael Bickel I'm
incident at I hop KC and thefact that I was on staff there
for so many years, I have beenvery interested in cults and
religious trauma, and so I lovewhat Darren is doing out here in
(01:07):
the streets, so I asked him tocome on the podcast.
So welcome, darren, I'm gladyou're here.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks for having me to me's appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So tell us a little bit about who you are and and
what made you start even thecertificate program for
religious trauma, and Iappreciate you doing that, by
the way well, you know what.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I kind of fell ass backwards into it.
Honestly, by trade andprofession, I'm an historian.
I Really specialized in thesocio-political development of
religious beliefs and thephilosophies and world views
that go along with it,especially from the ancient
world.
And when you study religion fora living, you kind of come to
(01:49):
learn that there isn't much leftto study.
Every rock has been turned overa thousand times and Then I
ended up leaving my cult and Ilost everything.
Lost wife, family, friends, myentire support system.
(02:10):
And when I was going through somuch trauma surrounding it and
was receiving the retaliationfrom having left my cult, I Was
told by a colleague have youever heard or looked up
religious trauma?
And at the time they had saidreligious trauma syndrome, which
(02:31):
in our certification programand stuff that we prefer not to
say the word syndrome in all ofthis.
But that got me going.
I didn't realize this was athing.
And to learn that it was in itsinfancy, that nobody was really
studying it.
For academics like me and, ofcourse, for victims like me.
(02:53):
We we jumped on it.
We needed to know anything andeverything we could, and so from
there kind of snowballed and weended up becoming the largest
institute in the world to studyreligious trauma.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
It's so incredible the resources that I found.
I mean, obviously, all you haveto do is Google and you all pop
right up my like.
I was telling you earlier my myintroduction to religious
trauma Happened in 2013, 2014.
I actually had left the cult Iwas in I hop KC.
I'm not sure if you've heard ofthat place, but right now, the
(03:29):
founder of I have KC isembroiled in a bunch of scandal
right now of clergy sexual abuse, and it was so funny because I
left almost 10 years ago andnever brought myself to calling
it a cult Because there was nosex stuff.
I was like it seems like acouple, there's no weird sex
stuff.
And then it starts to come outthat, like, actually there was a
(03:51):
lot of weird sex stuff.
So when I was in 2013, 2014,the main reason I left was
because of my experiences aroundTrayvon Martin's murder and the
Ways that they were talkingabout that and the disconnect
that was happening for me withmy own sense of Identity in
terms of being a black person inthis country and and kind of
(04:12):
feeling like I was being made tofollow Something of like a
white Jesus that we see kind ofshow up in that Christian
nationalist movement.
And my therapist I told her.
I said you know, every time I'min church I'm getting hives,
I'm itching, I'm having panicattacks.
I can't sit still I'm sweating,I don't know what's going on.
And and my therapist back thensaid two things to me that maybe
(04:38):
because of the fact that, likeyou know, in these religious
places and I'd love to have youtalk about this you develop
neuro pathways, and so she wassaying to me that you know,
sometimes, when those pathwayshave been created in our minds,
maybe the divine or the universeis speaking through your body
to kind of warn you and protectyou because you can't, you've
got to wait For your brain tocreate new pathways, right, and
(05:01):
she she was like you know,there's a new study, there's new
studies coming out about thisthing religious trauma syndrome.
Have you ever heard of it?
Because I think that's what'sgoing on for you.
So I feel like I've kind of hadthis journey with it as a topic
and as kind of a Category toplace my experience.
But I would love for folks whohave never heard of it to kind
(05:22):
of get an idea from you what.
What is religious trauma?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, the ultimate question is, Basically it is
trauma and that has its owndefinition.
It's own clinical definition.
We can explore that, but it'sbasically trauma, but trauma
that occurs within the contextof Religious or a faith-based
(05:49):
system of belief.
So and kind of what you werealluding to.
It doesn't have to be majorsexual exploitation and and or
anything like that.
It can actually be caused byvery small things as well, like
doctrinal beliefs that really,aralisa, really adversely affect
(06:13):
people.
So, for instance, belief in therapture For a lot of people.
We have known people who havedeveloped a fear of heights and
or just a constant fear ofthings like masturbating,
because they're terrified thatat some point Jesus is going to
return and catch you orsomething.
So the way we define it and thisis now kind of the standard
(06:33):
definition that's beenrecognized by a lot of
clinicians that religious traumaresults from an event, a series
of events, relationships orcircumstances that are connected
to religious beliefs, practicesor religious structures.
That is experienced by theindividual as not just
(06:59):
overwhelming but is alsodisruptive to their central
nervous system and that causeslasting Adverse effects on them.
And it could.
The adverse effects could belike in your case, the physical
effects right, the high sweating, the pain, the panic attacks
(07:19):
and or anxiety attacks on themental and social and emotional
levels, or adverse effects onsomebody's spiritual life as
well.
Constant fear, and those areactually some of the top.
Those are actually some of thetop traits, symptoms of somebody
(07:39):
who is suffering from religioustrauma, or is the Anxiety, fear
, shame, guilt.
Now would you start, though,with your, because I'm
fascinated by this.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I'm sorry, darren, hold on one second, babe, I'm
recording, I got it.
You can't call me.
Good, I'll edit it out.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Okay, close your question.
So would you say, with yoursweating and the hines and stuff
, do you think that those wereanxiety attacks?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Happening.
You know it's hard to it was soweird, the, the experience I
had of it and I can say the twotimes where the hives and the
sweating happened.
One was I was doing everythingI could to stay sort of involved
in that movement right.
So you know I hop KC is kind ofthe mothership of the global
(08:33):
prayer movement, though theywon't claim that right.
And so there was another sortof iteration of the house of
prayer In Atlanta, georgia.
So when I moved away fromKansas City I moved to Atlanta
and kind of involved with I hopAtlanta and I was sitting in the
message.
One day the director wasspeaking and comes on stage and
(08:57):
Begins to talk about Kind ofwhat God is doing now in this
hour, and it was so far fret,far fetched and left field that
it just was like I had thisthought, like this man is
preaching his journal to us asthough it's like biblical truth,
like he's crying.
And then I just felt thisimmediate feeling of like
(09:19):
distrust or like clarity, likethis person is not.
Why do I believe this person?
As soon as I I said that, I hadthis Breath of like kind of
lose my breath and I startitching and shaking right and so
I have to actually leave thesanctuary.
I couldn't, I couldn't stay.
(09:40):
I thought maybe something weirdwas happening.
And then it happened a secondtime.
There was a it was kind of agroup of people who were
influenced by the house ofprayer, asked me to come and
speak at a conference andWalking up to the door it
happened again and I actuallyhad to call and cancel.
I could not go through withspeaking and I just felt at that
(10:03):
moment it was more.
It was more than just I don'tbelieve this anymore.
It felt violent and poisonousto me.
Some of the theology that I wasbeing asked to Share and speak
about and endorse and I didn't Imean, obviously I didn't
believe it, but I thought maybeI could get away with was
(10:23):
sharing about it because I'mfamiliar with it, right, yeah,
and so after that happenedthat's actually when I reached
out to a therapist is I reallythought something was wrong with
me, but that's that's kind ofwhat happened.
Other than that, it would justbe the you know, a sense of like
discomfort, a Sense of panicwhen you hear certain words or
(10:44):
phrases or songs.
I had physical manifestationsin my body of discomfort and
trauma and when it came to thatparticular way of viewing
religion and God and that typeof stuff, so that's what was
happening for me.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I mean it honest to goodness, it does sound like
almost textbook panic attack andand I know that there's layers
and more to it than just that.
So I mean I'm curious realquick.
Yeah, the IHOP movement or theIHOP Paraminastry churches are
kind of within that charismatictradition.
(11:21):
Yes, right, what stopped youfrom interpreting this as just a
demonic attack and that you sawthat, and why didn't you just
seek out an exorcism?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Mm-hmm, that is a great question.
I did it first.
I did at first think I'm thisis demonic, because that's you
know.
It's so interesting how IRealize now that any type of
dissonance I felt was alwayslabeled conviction, right from
(11:57):
the Holy Spirit.
So my intuition I would, I wasalmost taught against my own
intuition, right, and Ibasically outsourced my
intuition and I abdicated all ofmy agency to these people who
had a clear picture of scripture, had a better relationship with
God, who had done all thesemarvelous things, and so any
(12:19):
type of dissonance orDisagreement that I felt was
always Labeled bitterness or,like your, your heart is
offended with God.
And then, after a while, I juststarted policing myself.
So any any resistance oranything that just seemed off or
seemed like a hard pill toswallow.
I thought, oh, that's demonicand I've got to work through
(12:40):
that, need to fast more, I needto spend more time in prayer
because I'm resisting this andthat means I'm resisting God.
So I used to call it demonicuntil I mean honestly I say this
in 2012 when Trayvon wasmurdered, because For the first
time, it was like this group ofpeople say they hear from God,
(13:02):
they're best friends with God.
The founder has, you know, goneup to heaven and gotten in
chariots and been called anapostle, and so, from me, my
heart was broken over what washappening to black men in our
country.
And so to be in a place thatclaim to be able to hear from
God so clearly and none of themGod isn't talking to any of you
(13:24):
about this, because I can'tsleep at night over this is
bothers me.
This could have been my brother,and so that was the first time
where I felt permission to beginto disagree, because it seemed
like there was that, there was away that they had characterized
Barack Obama, and then therewas the like frenzy over Donald
Trump.
They kind of showed me like, oh, this isn't God, this is not.
(13:49):
This is like some sort ofwhiteness, religious political
Stuff that's been infused intowhat I've been taught about God,
and so that gave me thepermission to be able.
I'm not gonna I'm actually notgonna squelch my intuition
anymore, and I'm actually notgoing to ignore common sense
(14:10):
anymore, because you guys areMissing a whole swath of
humanity in the ways that youconceptualize God, like you're
not even thinking about whatlife is like for people who
don't look or experience theworld like you do, so it's very
free.
Like you can't have universalglobal truth, you don't even
know about Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You know, I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised that you'rein that initially You're, you're
having this value conflictinside of you.
On the one hand, is thisdemonic, it might just be an
attack, or, and also myintuition here is starting to
(14:53):
Peek out and is giving voiceagain.
You know there was a study doneof all of the best-selling
Christian self-help books.
Yeah, number one Sided reasonfor things like depression was
demonic influence and demonicpossession, and that is so.
(15:18):
Of course, there's this longtradition of not Actually paying
attention to your body, yourbrain, your nervous and instead
is telling you it's an outsideoppressor.
And and that's what leads me tokind of the other thing that
I'm very Interested about withyou, which I believe is what
(15:39):
helped break you free of this.
Oftentimes, cults will trainyou to do what we call thought
stopping behavior or thoughtstop.
Messages to yourself werebasically, if you start to have
doubts, skeptical, or yourquestion things or something
(16:00):
just doesn't feel right, we getconditioned to stop it.
We say in mantras, in our headyou know not today, satan, or
get behind Satan got it good,you know, we just start
repeating things and what it'sdesigned to do is to Squelch any
(16:20):
type of your own body trying tocommunicate with you.
Interesting that that was in.
I mean, maybe it was happeninga little bit, but it didn't win
the day.
Loud your voice to come out, soI think.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, I think I think you know, I think it was in the
for the first time saying no, Iam actually a queer black
person and that matters, andbringing that to the forefront,
whereas before it was like oneidentity was Dmonic right.
(16:57):
Being queer was like you'regonna go to hell, and being
black was kind of like we'recolorblind, we don't see color
right.
So I think it was in kind ofwhat was happening in the world,
it was affecting thoseidentities for me, and so the
fact that the religion I wasgiven or the truth I was given
couldn't speak to either one ofthose things and the ways that
(17:20):
it was speaking to those thingswas so unfruitful or negative in
my life that it kind of I thinkI was saved by returning to
some of these identities that Iwas told to forget or rebuke or
throw off right, and so thatfeels to me like such an
important part of even thedeconstruction process for me.
(17:43):
I think that the decolonizationprocess is just as important,
and so I think that a lot of thetoxicity that shows up in
religion I'm talking across theboard has to do with people
abdicating who they actually areand their identity.
Well, I mean, what are yourthoughts about that.
What have you seen?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Well, yeah, absolutely, that's almost cult
101, right, you want toeliminate individuality and
autonomy for people.
They shouldn't have freethought, free beliefs free.
They shouldn't be free in theiremotions and certainly not
(18:23):
their beliefs.
You want to have their identitycompletely assumed and
assimilated into the cultleader's identity or the group's
identity.
So, yeah, I think you'reabsolutely right to have
(18:44):
recognized that in the longhistory, christianity and then
Christianity here in America,you're seeing a very Eurocentric
, white, diluted and even youcan probably go so far to say a
(19:04):
colonialized version of this andthe belief system.
Places like Kansas City, yes, Iimagine maybe colonial is its
ancestry, but you're definitelytalking rooted in a culture, war
(19:28):
, religious right movement whichis really I mean, it's actually
quite new In the long scheme of2000 years of history in our
country.
The fundamentalist religiousright movement which gave birth
to a lot of this stuff like IHOP, is actually it's kind of an
(19:53):
aberration in church three, butit's fairly recent and it's
fairly new, and so I would saythat you're probably seeing more
of a politicized version, notjust a colonial version, right,
yeah, that makes a lot of senseto me and I know that you've
done a ton of study.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So when you think about American Christianity,
right, like how would you?
I guess I wanna ask thisquestion in a way that answers
the most questions.
When you think aboutChristianity in America, do you
see threads that are loose, thatcould possibly cause a thing to
(20:36):
unravel?
Just I'm talking about AmericanChristianity, not just
evangelicalism, I'm talking themain line.
Do you see elements of the waysthat Christianity is
conceptualized just here from anAmerican perspective that have
detrimental sort of holes orcracks in it in the foundation?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
That's a great question.
Well, you know, what'sinteresting is, we, as Americans
, have done such a great job ofmarketing our version of
Christianity around the world,so it isn't exactly isolated to
us anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Oh wow, you're right.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Especially so.
Americanized Christianity is infact, a global phenomenon now
and it has really taken root andis very exploitative in Africa,
where people are desperate fora type of Christianity that
gives this hint of prosperity,of individualism pull yourself
(21:44):
up by your own bootstraps.
The John Wayne kind of versionof Christianity, which is very
much downplays and ignoresJesus' teachings from the Sermon
on the Mount that the poorshall inherit the earth and that
(22:06):
blessed the peacemakers, rightTo a very militarized warrior
and, of course, staunchlyRepublicanized conservative
version and even RepublicanizedTrumpian Christianity now.
So, yes, I do see loose threadson institutional wise.
(22:32):
We're actually seeing thisacross the board.
So not just evangelicalChristianity, but across the
board.
And here's what I mean.
I was part of a major study afew years back that looked at
the number of worship centersand churches and congregations
versus the number of Christians,and what we found is that the
(22:55):
number of worship centers sothat could be a church or
whatever right Was outpacing thenumber of actual Christians by
birth and by conversion, meaningchurches were splitting and
breaking up faster than theywere getting converts.
(23:20):
Wow, and that means and this isagain across the board and we
can show this through data thatthe pews are just empty.
With the exception of somemajor mega churches, most
churches in the US and aroundthe world are empty.
They're not filling the seatsand they're getting emptier.
(23:43):
And one of the reasons they'regetting emptier is because the
churches are fighting.
The Christians are fightingamongst each other and then
splitting up.
So you'll get the Baptistchurch over here, and then first
Baptist of the Holy Rock overthere, and then this is the
second Baptist church and thethird, and all in the same city,
the loose thread being thatwhat we likely are going to see
(24:07):
within this century so by 2100estimated is that
institutionalized versions ofChristianity is likely to
collapse on itself because itcan't support.
There are not enough Christiansto pay for the overhead costs
(24:28):
of all those congregations andchurches.
So what we will see is likely aretreat out of the
institutionalized form ofChristianity into a more
personalized house church kindof format which has the
(24:48):
potential of going one of twoways.
Maybe both One people reallystart to reclaim a more
spiritualized and outwardfocused, community focused type
of church where they actuallywant to help the poor and do
something worthwhile.
Or we will also see maybe anexplosion, like in the case of
(25:12):
IHOP, of cultish type of stuffwhere suddenly the leader of
this house church is now anapostle and is riding around in
church, right the other thread.
I will tell you that none of uswere expecting and now it has
(25:34):
become so evident to so manythat it's just, it's amazing the
speed at that, how thisdeveloped and that is the
Trumpian version, the cult ofpersonality surrounding Trump
and that having the Christianflavor to it.
I think what all of that'sgoing to do and I hope we can
(26:01):
see this for what it is whileit's happening, not be looking
back in the history books of howthe world killed itself, but I,
for a lot of people, itcompletely showed the true color
(26:24):
of people who are claiming tobe Christian in this country and
showed that those southernchurches a lot of them, or the
deeply conservative ones, reallyhad politics on their mind, had
ideologies and agendas on theirminds and were one step away
from just turning into a cult, abad cult.
(26:47):
Then they actually werepreaching anything close to
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm wondering about that and I've been trying to
think about.
I was on a panel recently andsomeone was asking me about
cults and everything and I saidyou know what it's hard for me
not to even just think ofevangelicalism in and of itself
as a cult.
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Do you think that's toograndiose a statement?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well let's make a distinction.
In academia, we always try toget as nuanced as we can right.
So there is what we might callclassical evangelicalism, and
then there is what we might callneo-evangelicalism.
Okay, help us understand whatthat is so classical
evangelicalism really focused onfaith and it was politically
(27:39):
neutral.
This is something that JimmyCarr yeah, that's a great
example.
Yes, and even before that.
So it wasn't that they didn'thave a political persuasion, it
was just.
It wasn't dictated and itwasn't aligned with your
identity.
So you could be a Democrat, youcould be a Republican, you
(28:01):
could be just a political, andit was okay.
Because the three main focusesof classic evangelicalism was
the atoning death of Christ,that salvation is by grace and
faith, and that the Bible wasyour main source of authority
(28:22):
for all things spirituality, allthings, religion and that was
what they were interested in.
They wanted to be saved and theywanted to follow God while they
were on earth.
That did result in somebreak-offs, some offshoots, like
the fundamentalist movement inthe early 20th century, and
(28:47):
what's interesting is we thinkof fundamentalists as being the
political activists nowadays,and that's actually not true.
They were isolationists.
They didn't want any part ofpolitics, no part of society,
because it was sinful.
What we find happening is, atthe rise of the religious right
(29:09):
at the late 70s and into the 80s, and then the Ronald Reagan era
, we have fundamentalism, whichthis very obstinate, dogmatic
it's.
I'm right, everybody else iswrong and you'll never change my
mind.
(29:30):
So this really stubborn,dogmatic form of Christianity,
mixing with a new wave ofpolitical conservatism that
recognized it, could useidentity politics to divide the
country, and this is way more ofa complex answer than you were
(29:54):
looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
No I love it.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's important to understand the historical
context here, because what wesee around this time, around the
rise of the religious right andstuff is also a major change in
American politics.
And this is important becausethe switch with the Democratic
Party going from beingpredominantly in the South to
(30:20):
the Republican Party taking upthe South and this is in wake of
the civil rights movement thatbasically we recognized or I
should say we the politiciansespecially, but in particular
people on what are now theRepublican Party had recognized
they could use race and racismto help divide.
(30:44):
And so what ended up happening?
A lot of the Christianfundamentalists, who were white
Southerners, matched on to thepolitical agendas of the new
conservative, the new Republicanmovement happening and they
both co-opted each other, theyboth liked each other because it
(31:08):
was expedient to do so.
So the Republican said I can,I'll push for things like no
abortion, no same sex marriage,if you will come on board for
getting tax breaks to the richand getting rid of welfare
systems, okay.
It is that molding together thatwe see a brand new breed of
(31:34):
evangelical, what I might callthe neo evangelical, and that is
the dogmatic obstinacy,somebody who will absolutely not
change their mind, but morethan that, will refuse to ever
cooperate with any opposingviewpoint inside.
Mix that with politicalactivism, so they're
(32:00):
fundamentalists who arepolitically active and in a
really gross kind of way.
So that I think is culty.
They're not allowed to havefreedom of thought, they're not
allowed to have freedom ofspeech and they do isolate into
(32:24):
their little silos, fox newskind of silos.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, it makes so much.
Oh, that is so helpful, darren,seriously, and we might even do
a two-parter and have you backbecause you just are.
So your ability to kind ofbreak it down for us is so
helpful.
I'm wondering because I thinkabout this now.
Obviously I'm bringing my queerblack self to the table and
(32:52):
thinking about how I see thissort of merging taking place
around the Carter Nixon yearsLike.
That's when it first, likebecomes very clear for me of
like you see, you know this sortof Jimmy Carter character who's
talking about being born againand about faith, but is pro-life
, I mean pro-choice, who is verynuanced and generous in terms
(33:16):
of the ways that he thinks.
And then you have this sort ofNixon character coming in
talking about law and order andsuper predators and these things
that do feel very political,and you see sort of the you know
far wells and those backingthis president.
And he said I remember there'sa interesting thing he did one
(33:40):
time where he said somethinglike you know, you can't endorse
me, but I can endorse you, orsomething like that, and that to
me feels like the beginnings ofwhat has caused and wreaked so
much havoc, I think, on peoplelike me.
I think that definitely theevangelicalism that I was kind
of pulled into was of thatvariety.
(34:02):
Do you feel like the classicalevangelical even exists?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
anymore it does, and they would be the ones who
probably speak out the mostagainst their fellow Christians
who endorse people like Trump,who is the most religious and
un-Christian Christianpolitician.
So, yes, but they have beensilenced on a number of ways, so
(34:34):
they're just not, as theymissed the boat in being
politically active, so theirpower and their influence in
society has diminishedsignificantly.
And, unfortunately, the cultyversion, the neo-evangelical
(34:54):
Trump type cult, has done such agreat job of making people's
Christian identity synonymouswith supporting Trump or
supporting the Republican partythat the moderate or classical
(35:15):
evangelical congregations don'tsurvive.
When the preacher gets up thereand says Jesus is our leader,
not Trump, not the president,not a political party, it is
going to cause the samecognitive dissonance and maybe
even those anxiety attacks likeyou.
(35:36):
But for people who have boughtinto this, no, in order to be a
good, god-fearing, jesus-lovingChristian, I also have to be a
Republican.
That's gonna cause someproblems for them.
So they exist, they're dying.
Here's the thing.
And you had mentioned Nixon, soyou know Nixon came before
(35:59):
Jimmy Carter and he, and priorto this religion, wasn't on the
docket right.
Most Christian, most American.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Not Nixon Reagan, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, but it's important.
But this is important becauseyou know we see this all the
time.
We see political opportunismall the time.
That's politics and it's gross,but it's also part and parcel
of the game.
Back in the day most Americansbelieved religion was a private
(36:38):
matter and the government shouldhave no influence or say, and
they definitely didn't want areligious politician.
So Jimmy Carter was part of thereligious rights rise to
influence.
They helped Jimmy Carter getelected.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh, wow, I didn't know that okay.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, he was, you know, a bona fide Southern
Baptist.
He just took a hard line stanceon things like abortion and
stuff because for him, being aBaptist actually a good Baptist
he believed that churches shouldbe autonomous and that people's
ethics and morals should not belegislated by the government.
(37:23):
So that was not okay for them.
So that's when the religiousright became the religious right
and switched sides and saidwe're gonna endorse Reagan now.
But yeah, you're right, it's atthis point, suddenly, religion
(37:46):
is being exploited and it iselevated to the point that the
opportunists, the politicalopportunists, are able to
capitalize on it.
Stoke those flames, wow.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
so I know that you again, I consider myself a nerd,
but I'm looking at yourbookshelf.
I've been in your courses, soyou're way more nerdy than me.
What problem are you trying tosolve these days?
What are you?
What problem are you trying tosolve these days?
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well, I got a nerd problem.
I have a proton pack, I docosplay, and so my ghost-pushed
proton pack is coming alongbeautifully well, but there is a
couple of slime canisters thatI'm having trouble figuring out.
So that's the nerd problem I'mtrying to figure out.
That's awesome.
No, you know what we are reallylooking towards.
(38:44):
How can we bring more exposureto religious trauma?
So I want to host in-personconferences and virtual
conferences.
I think people would benefit alot.
So I was trying to work outwe're trying to work out all of
(39:05):
the logistics of doing anin-person conference, so
hopefully in the next year or sothat problem will be solved.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's amazing.
I'm wanting to kind of turntowards, if there are people
listening right Like I stillhave some folks who are one foot
in, one foot out, not sure howto leave, because I think that
they feel there's so muchhistory in their faith tradition
, so much of their identity Imean people named kids, picked
(39:35):
addresses, bought houses, pickedjobs, picked cities, I mean all
kinds of things are wrapped upin the sort of identity they've
created and crafted in areligion that is no longer
serving them or making sense tothem.
What would be some of the waysthat a person could walk this
(39:55):
out intact and stay intact,relatively speaking?
I mean, I think you do justkind of unravel, but what are
some best practices in the midstof this process of recognizing
religious trauma and beginningto heal from it?
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Hmm, there are so many things.
I first recommend getting asupport group, getting into
support groups.
There are organizations outthere like.
Recovering from Religion is anorganization that is really
beneficial and helpful to me.
(40:30):
But even if you don't want todo something, that's kind of a
professional organized supportgroup.
There are a lot of people goingthrough the exact same thing
and, with social media and stuff, it shouldn't be too hard to
track it down, and so theimportant thing is to know that
you don't have to walk thatjourney on your own.
(40:51):
There are people and resourcesIf you want to keep some
spirituality intact, while maybejettisoning the particular
congregation or the religionthat you're a part of, or if you
just want to know what youactually believe.
(41:13):
I always, always encouragepeople, read, successful people
read, and read as much as youcan, as often as you can, and
don't just read the stuff thataligns with what you believe.
See, if you can't track downactual good work by people who
(41:39):
you might initially disagreewith, you wouldn't believe what
it does to your brain, thoseneural pathways and to your
nervous system to slow thingsdown and say I'm going to enrich
myself.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Man, this is so helpful.
I definitely want to have youback.
I think that I just know yourbrain has so many different
corridors that I would love toexplore, and I'm just like we
don't have time Because, I mean,I've just learned so much from
you in a short amount of timeand really do appreciate your
(42:20):
commitment to this.
I think in the days to come,years to come, there will be
more and more people who arerecognizing this in themselves
and trying to find a pathforward.
Before I ask you the final twoquestions we've got about 10
minutes what is your story ofleaving your cult?
I'd love to hear that story,and then I'll ask you my final
(42:41):
question.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sure, I was definitely a fundamentalist when
I first converted.
I would say religion saved mylife.
I did because I was in a reallybad place after high school and
I didn't consider myself a verygood person.
So religion at first did teachme to want to be a better person
(43:10):
, to want to love and supportand help others.
But one of my biggest thingsI've always been an intellectual
.
I've always loved learning andI started reading books, I
started consuming knowledge andI went to seminary.
(43:32):
I wanted to be a pastor and Iwanted to be a theologian and
blah, blah, blah.
But what I was getting inseminary and what I was getting
in grad school was notsufficient.
I just could not stop learningand what I had learned about was
some of these cognitive biases.
(43:54):
For some reason I just started.
I'm just consuming whatever Ican in terms of academic
scholarship and I learned aboutneuroscience.
I learned about these cognitivebiases and stuff, and one in
particular is the confirmationbias, which is basically and
this is something we all sufferfrom in every area of our life
but basically we see in hereonly what we want to see in here
(44:15):
that our brains automaticallymake a conclusion about our
beliefs and then our brainfilters out all of the
information that doesn't alignwith what our brain
automatically assumed is true,and we know that this takes
place.
And we also know ways to combatconfirmation bias.
(44:37):
And I was asking myself am Iengaging in a confirmation bias
with my own beliefs, my ownChristian, evangelical,
fundamentalist beliefs?
And the short answer is yes, itwas.
But one of the ways you combatconfirmation bias is you go read
the counter side, and I was notprepared.
(45:00):
I was not aware of just whatactual scholarship, not what
seminary and theologians, butwhat actual scholars, the
sociologists, psychologists,anthropologists, archaeologists,
right, the actual historians,what we actually know about our
(45:20):
religion and the history of ourreligion, and this and that.
Anyway, for me it got to becomea flood.
It was so much counter evidenceagainst my beliefs that
intellectually I could notsustain it anymore.
I laughed for intellectualreasons and was victimized,
(45:46):
harassed, stalked, abused,severely Stalked, yes, and death
threats, and this and that soseverely for having left.
And that's when the emotionalpart came in for me.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
That's really.
Thank you for sharing that.
I think it's it's really.
It's really real.
I mean, I think anyone who haswalked away knows something of
what you're talking about.
It is very lonely to beyourself sometimes and to be
(46:30):
honest, and so I thank you forthat and I thank you for kind of
creating a pathway for us torecover ourselves and our brains
.
I really appreciate what you'redoing and I'm going to ask you
my questions.
So every every episode, I askpeople what they're bringing
from the rubble of what's left.
If there's anything left offaith for them or their faith
(46:53):
tradition, then I ask, kind of,what you're binging so I don't
know if it's Ghostbusters,Cosplay or not and then I ask
you know, what are some words wecan live by?
And I'm definitely going tohave you back because I'd like
to dive more into someparticular aspects of religious
trauma but what are you bringing, what are you binging and what
(47:14):
are some words to live by?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I alluded to it earlier.
I take from the rubble apassion for wanting to make the
world better.
I learned that from religionand realized that it's a
universal.
It doesn't have to be fromreligion, so I want to make a
positive impact on this planet.
(47:39):
Binging, I just got done.
The last night got done.
Binging, escaping twin flameson oh God.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Which is finished it.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Okay, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
I had no idea that that existedand I'm screaming at the TV the
whole time.
It's like you're on a zoom callwith this guy, exactly.
So, that's what I'm binging,and words to live by.
(48:14):
You're not alone.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I love that.
Oh man, I wish I would haveknown about Twin Flames, because
we could have totally done it.
My gosh, I was stunned by it.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
And I'm somebody who empathizes with people who have
been sucked in and indoctrinatedand deculted, right, yes, and
I'm just going how.
How Are you sure?
He selected you from a Zoomcall and said this is you my
gosh?
Speaker 1 (48:54):
This is your twin and chased them down and stalked
them.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, and you're in the wrong body, you're in the
wrong gender, so go get it, yeah, so oh my gosh, that part.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
That part was so.
Actually, I learned a lot fromthat, because it made me realize
that cults are universal.
They don't have to be Christian.
They don't have to be becausewhat, jeff?
And what's her name, her newname?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Shaler, Shaler, whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah, yeah, whatever the fact that they were forcing
people to shift bodies andtalking about the sort of binary
energies and it was just kindof like this is all progressive
language, this is all like sortof new age and it's still toxic.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Oh, cults are just as prevalent on the left side of
the spectrum as they are on theright, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
How do we avoid them?
How do we avoid cults?
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Read a goddamn book.
That's too much.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yes, seriously, though, learning to be able to
be skeptical and to criticallythink and to entertain more than
just one source of authority,because we are just from our
evolution as a species.
We're prone to this.
We want to be told what to do,so it is a concerted thing.
(50:29):
I'm not saying education is theanswer to everything, but in
this case, it's a big part ofavoiding the cult.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
All right, top five books.
I mean, you're so interesting,I can't wait to talk to you
again.
Top five books that you feellike were instrumental in your
freedom.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Oh gosh, well, that's hard because I was reading.
The things that wereinstrumental for me to break out
of my cult were journalarticles on cognitive science
and stuff like that.
So, ok, there is a book calledGod and Anatomy, and my favorite
(51:27):
book of all time.
Absolutely love it.
You're going to get such agreat breakdown of ancient
religion and the history ofChristianity in particular, but
also Islam, and interviews them.
The other one, by Litva, isEesus Deus, which is the
(51:49):
Latinized form of Jesus, jesus'sname.
That is also wonderful in termsof theology and history, the
background, the Greco-Romancontext of the Christian faith,
and then a wonderful one ifyou're looking for something
like counter apologetics, so onethat kind of exposes some of
(52:10):
the BS book called the EmptyTomb.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
And it's an anthology , so a number of scholars have
contributed to this and that waseyeopening for me.
So check out those three.
I can think of two others.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, that's great, and you've got journals all over
the internet, so tell folkswhere they can find you and read
your stuff real quick before wego.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah, probably the easiest is just at the Global
Center for Religious Research,which is just gcrrorg, and you
should be able to find my stuffthere.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Awesome.
Darren, thank you so much.
I can't wait to have you back.
Really appreciate you andthanks for teaching me.
I'm certified now because ofyou in religious trauma, so
thank you so much for being onthe show.
Thank you, Denise.
Thank you for listening To pickyour money and your heart is
donate to Subquatcher Inc andclear the path for black
(53:15):
students today.
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