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July 17, 2025 51 mins

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual abuse.


You’ve seen them — maybe at the airport with pamphlets, or quietly shopping at a farmer’s market. Dressed in starched shirts, tie-back bonnets, pressed skirts. Singing in gentle harmonies. Smiling softly. The Holdeman Mennonites, they’ll tell you, are just humble people of faith. 


Quiet. 

Nonviolent. 

Pure.


But purity can be a costume. And obedience, a weapon.


Today’s guest, Billy Holdeman-Bass grew up in that world.


And there were things that didn’t get sung about.

Doors that stayed locked.

And a question his mother never answered: “Why do you always follow me to the bathroom?”


Behind the hymnals and homemade apple pies lies a truth that can’t stay buried forever. In this episode, that truth begins to speak.

________


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