BACKSLIDERS

On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our new friend, the singer, songwriter, harpist, musician, and performing artist Calvin Arsenia. Stay tuned to the end of the episode for a surprise performance by Calvin! 

Calvin grew up in Olathe, Kansas, about twenty miles away from Kansas City. In terms of his religious background, he was someone who enjoyed “having a buffet of it all.” He dwelled in churches that mostly fall under the umbrella of Protestant, non-denominational churches, charismatic churches, The International House of Prayer, as well as more apologetics-based churches. He studied with 7th Day Adventists as well as the Messianic Jewish Temple as well.

Calvin tells us about what he observed while growing up in the midwest as a sensitive and creative young boy, never the most masculine in his circles. He found that leading worship, and expressing himself through music, created a safe environment for him to be the creative, sensing person that he was, without those traits being seen as effeminate or wrong–like they commonly are in church/religion. Calvin also shares his experience of true devotion to God, and the traumatic complexities of being taught that “homosexuality” was a sin as a closeted young child who knew he was “different.” He absorbed the message that the only way to live a life that would honor God would be to become a worship pastor with a wife and kids, so that’s what he thought he would have to do. 

When Calvin was on a mission and living abroad in Scotland in his early 20s, he began noticing that he was able to be very open and free with his new friends that he had made there–friends that were not with the church. He remembers vividly feeling their love for him and acceptance of him, without conditions of who he was “supposed” to be. This shocked him and moved him to his core. While on a prayer walk there in Scotland, he had a moment where he realized he could no longer keep hiding himself from the world. And that’s where the title of this episode comes in. Calvin had a conversation with his higher power, and decided not to hate himself anymore, because he didn’t think God hated him. He decided to believe that being his true self would set him free. Calvin speaks with us at length about the complicated process of leaving his faith community after that experience abroad, as he figured out how to find work outside of Christian spheres so he could fully live the life he knew was his, and the double life he had to lead for the years in between.

Now, he’s not connected to any church or religion, but he believes in the metaphysical spiritual plane that is accessible to all of us as human and spiritual beings. He is a full-time artist and musician in Kansas City, he’s found a new family in the queer community, and he makes music so beautiful you’ll feel it in your soul. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. Be sure to listen to the end for a live performance by Calvin and his harp!

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If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our new episode by clicking here.

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On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our brilliant and beautiful new friend Brittany Bruton. Brittany is an educator, writer, wife, and mom. Brittany talks with us about her upbringing as a 7th-day Adventist in Georgia. Full disclosure, we didn’t know that much about 7th Day beliefs when this conversation began, so she gave us a rundown of some of their specifics: observing the Saturday sabbath, practicing vegetarianism, and the story of the prophet of the church Ellen G. White—a woman.

As a child, Brittany was a natural leader. She had an early habit of observing things in the church and then asking her mom a lot of questions back at home about scenarios that she could never get full satisfaction from. Things like if it was women’s day, or mother’s day, women could speak in her church. But only if the woman’s husband was there and a part of leadership. Brittany also observed women’s roles in the church —cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, teaching classes—roles that are vital and of utmost importance, but it bothered her that women were expected to do these things, and then they were prevented from ministry roles and preaching. She wondered, “How can we have a prophet who wrote the manuals who was a woman, but she and all other women are not allowed to preach?” These questions would stay with her as she grew up in the church.

 Brittany went to Christian school from elementary to 8th grade, then public high school, and then to Georgia State for college. In college, she met people from all walks of life and ideologies and her view of the world really expanded there. Brittany initially felt like she was called to ministry, but, after experiencing more blatant sexism in the church she attended in college, she just could no longer see herself on that path. It was too difficult to justify being treated like a second-class citizen in a church environment. She became an educator and a writer instead. Brittany shared with us how much of a powerful experience she’s been having over the last many years as she has continued to open herself up to new questions, new beliefs, and texts and ideologies that are different than those she was told to be the ultimate truth.

 Although she still believes in God and Jesus, she can no longer say she is a Christian. She no longer belongs to a church and is finding community in groups of Black Womanist Pastors committed to dismantling racism and sexism. Now, after giving birth and become a mother, Brittany says, “I fully embrace the fact that God is a woman. My language for spirit now is Mother Comforter. I refuse to believe that there is a god and that no part of that is female. So much of life comes from women. Now, I can approach God differently, because I know that a part of God can at least empathize for what I’ve gone through, and can help me in mothering, in being patient, comforting, loving and nurturing.” 

Brittany also talks with us about her experience getting a diagnosis for a chronic illness that she has, and how her time alone in the hospital made her question why she was shrinking herself to make anyone else happy, since all we have is this moment right now. That experience was the catalyst to her launching her blog and website, and sharing more of her true thoughts with the world. Other topics we touch on: the effects of being taught we are inherently wicked, purity culture, the power and resiliency of the human body, the feminine divine, racism and christian nationalism holding its hand, and how problematic and harmful it is to demonize or discourage education. We had such a beautiful conversation with Brittany and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

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[NEW NEWS]

If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our new episode by clicking here.

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[CREDITS]

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

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Special Thanks to Angie Charles

[REACH OUT]

We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our dear friend, the talented and light-filled artist Forest VanDyke! Forest is an actor, singer, writer, creator, and teaching artist currently in Austin, Texas, though he has lived in Brooklyn for the past twelve years. We are so stoked to celebrate that Forest is a featured artist on the new Grammy-Nominated album Dialogues on Race by Gregg August! We love him so much, and his friendship means the world to us. We hope you enjoy this conversation with our dear friend as much as we did! It was hard to end the conversation and we plan on recording with him again soon. (** NOTES ** *TW:*** We do touch on the topics of abortion and rape in this episode. Please skip if these subjects are triggering for you. PS. Listen to the whole thing to get a bonus at the very end of this episode where we review a new review of our podcast and Micah tries to take constructive criticism. LOL)

Back to this episode! Forest talks with us about his upbringing in Austin, his junior high experience in the American Boys Choir in New Jersey, his high school years at a Baptist school in Austin, and his college years at Texas State University. We also get into the details of his religious upbringing and his perspective growing up as a gay black man in the south. He was raised African-American Baptist and spent his whole life going to a Baptist church in Austin, Texas. Forest is the son of a deacon and deaconess, sang in the choir, and became a student leader. People at church even used to call him “preacha man” because everyone thought he would be a preacher. Forest tells us about what it was like feeling like he couldn’t truly be himself until he went to college and stepped away from religious environments and into theatre spaces.

Where is he today? Not to spoil anything, but Forest confessed to us that he no longer identifies as Christian, and walked away, in his words, “because of what I saw and experienced as a gay man, but also as a black man. And the history of that book (bible), and how it was used, not only in the U.S. but in Africa. And the power that colonizers used with that book to oppress people. And...in good faith, I just can’t get behind it, I can’t sit there and listen to those things when I know the history behind it. And we don’t know what those original words were because they’ve been translated, and re-translated. Actually, I walked away from everything, before quarantine... but I’ve been reacquainted with God in a different way, and I’m exploring Him / It / She through African Traditional Religions. Because I also want to be in contact with my ancestors, and I feel like something that’s untouched, unspoiled, feels right for me.”

Forest’s story is so powerful. We talk candidly with him about leaving Christianity, and getting back to his African spiritual roots. Other topics we discuss: George Floyd, the ways LGBTQ people are treated by Christians, and the experience of living with family that are fundamental Christians, while you are exploring ancient religions and talking to your spirit guides. :) 

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Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

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We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our new friend Lou Wilson. Lou is a comedian, actor, writer, and improviser from Los Angeles, CA. He currently writes for Jimmy Kimmel Live and stars in the new movie King of Staten Island, directed by one of our personal favorites, Judd Apatow. (It’s streaming on Amazon/HBO/HULU - watch it!) Lou talks with us about his upbringing in Los Angeles where he was raised Catholic and went to mass every Sunday with his family, including grandparents. Lou says he was never really into church and he wasn’t forced to go to Sunday School, so he wasn’t as serious about everything as the other kids his age. Lou describes himself as a Lax Catholic and said he’s always believed in God, but has never been big on rules and rituals. When Lou was in junior high, another scandal with abusive priests in the Catholic church went public, including some priests that his parents knew. This caused his mother to stop going to church, and so he stopped going as well.

Lou did connect with the values of his Jesuit Catholic High School, that his education had a purpose that was meant to serve greater humanity. Both in high school and college, he was able to distance himself from the rules and rituals of his Catholic surroundings and would skip church whenever he could. “Where do I seek God in my life?” is a meditation/prayer that he learned in college and still carries with him today. We also talk with Lou about his creative process, where he credits the spiritual spaces he grew up and was educated in, which taught him to do work that creates a more just world in service of others. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

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Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

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[REACH OUT]

We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our new friend, Dorcas Gitimu. She is a 20-year-old Political Science, Foreign Affairs, and Philosophy Student at Youngstown State University. She is also a writer, poet, and creative who writes from her experiences and perspectives moving through the world as a Black Woman who is a self-described “Christian Exvangelical,” as well as a First-Generation Immigrant and a proud Kenyan-American. She came to the United States from Kenya when she was 2 years old, and here, she and her parents became involved in the Assemblies of God denomination. In her words, “In essence, I grew up in Charismatic White Pentecostal Evangelical Christian spaces.” However, Dorcas’ faith was in main part shaped by her parents (both of whom are educators and came to the U.S. for school) and her family, who actually had their own church in Kenya. She jokes with her friends that she’s genuinely never met someone from Africa who is an atheist or doesn’t have some form of faith, because of the “genuine faith-based culture” there. Dorcas also shared with us some of her personal spiritual journey, and that her Christian faith became very real to her when she was 11. She studied the faith for herself, read her Bible, prayed, and never stopped questioning. Fast forward to when Dorcas turned 16 years old: the Trump era happened...and her faith deconstruction started, spurred in large part from “toxic religious set-ups" she experienced in Evangelicalism. After that, she started her faith reconstruction, truly finding and molding a faith that was, in her words, “the Christian faith that I had always known to be better than the road that Evangelicism gave me.” This is a powerful interview and our first episode with a Gen-Z guest! We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation with Dorcas as much as we enjoyed having it with her. Follow Dorcas on Instagram, Twitter, and Clubhouse below and stay tuned for more creations she is planning to put into the world—including maybe a future podcast of her own?? We’d love to listen to it! 

NEW NEWS: If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our latest episode by clicking here.

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[CREDITS]

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

Title Animation/Poster art by Cody Walzel

Special Thanks to Angie Charles

[REACH OUT]

We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

Happy Black History Month! On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our new friend, Dianca London Potts, a brilliant and hilarious author currently working and residing in Brooklyn. Her memoir, Planning for the Apocalypse: Meditations on Faith and Being the Only Black Girl at Your Party, is forthcoming from 37 Ink. We chat with Dianca about her experience growing up in a rural, conservative suburb outside of Philadelphia in the 90s, going to many different types of churches, and getting her elementary education in a very restrictive, nationalist, fundamental baptist school. We also dive into her high school experience in a Mennonite school, where being in a new space that wasn’t Christian-nationalist opened her up to feel comfortable questioning things like not only her nation and her country’s history but her faith community’s history as well. After high school, Dianca attended a Christian university in New England for two years, where her studies made her become even more interested in viewing the bible and sacred text as something of literary relevance that needs interpretation and context, and not something that is “just Truth with a capital T.” However, even this collegiate Christian environment was still seeped in conservatism, and she still had to deal with unique strains of racism and prejudice that took a toll on her mental health. She decided she had to leave the Christian university and complete the final years of her higher education at a secular university, Temple.

She talks with us about how she is still in process of deconstructing her fundamentalist upbringing, and probably always will be. But as she’s been digging into her family’s history (especially on her mother’s side of her family, with her great-grandfather founding a Church), she feels like the Black church has been a bedrock of stability in offering things that the government still fails to offer, and also as a place of collective resistance against white supremacy and collective action for civil rights. She feels like it (Christianity) is a broken thing, but there are parts of it that she’s proud of, and to disavow herself as a Black American from that history would be “really strange.” She feels like she’s ‘culturally christian’ in that way, (something she knows her parents will probably react to with, “What are you saying?”).

Dianca also shared with us that when she thinks about what matters most to her from everything that she was either raised to believe or she walked away believing from how she was raised, it’s the radical love of “Christ as the archetype.” She views Christ as a story archetype and model for how to be ethically, sympathetically, and inclusively human. “Jesus the archetype as a model for radical love, and how to care not only for each other but for ourselves.” She thinks that makes her "christian-adjacent," or culturally christian, descriptions she says usually make everyone uncomfortable, but it’s right for her.

This conversation goes deep. We even talk about subjects like the blasphemy of white evangelical Christianity, the hypocrisy of virtue-signaling, and the power of simply holding space and listening. We think this is one of the best conversations we've had on our whole show so far. :) We hope you enjoy our conversation with Dianca as much as we did, and please show support for her artistry by subscribing to her newsletter and following her on social media! All links are below.

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[CREDITS]

Sound Mixing by Darren Augustus

Videography and Photography by Claude Charles

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

Title Animation/Poster art by Cody Walzel

Special Thanks to Angie Charles

[FREE WAYS TO SUPPORT BACKSLIDERS]

Please consider these free things you can do to help our projects reach others!

1) Subscribe to this podcast!

2) Leave us a 5-star rating and a one-sentence review!

3) Share your favorite episode with your friends or in a group you're a part of!

4) Subscribe to our Youtube Channel and leave us a comment!

Thank you so much for your support! 

[WATCH OUR OTHER SHOWS]

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We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

Hello again, old friends! Welcome to Season Two of Backsliders! In this episode, we (Keylee and Micah) sit down just the two of us and talk about some of the questions and themes we’ve been ruminating on throughout this very challenging last year (okay, last few years). We talk candidly about grief, loss, the parallels of facing a loved one's terminal illness and facing a global pandemic, the importance of self-compassion, learning to pursue progress and not perfection, and most importantly: how we still don’t really know much of anything. We hope this conversation brings you some sense of connection and makes you feel less alone. We will be releasing the episodes we recorded in our early 2020 lockdown, as well as some new conversations we plan to have with friends old and new in 2021. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe and be well.

[NEW NEWS] If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our new episode by clicking here.

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[CREDITS]

Poster Photography by Claude Charles

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

Title Animation/Poster art by Cody Walzel

Special Thanks to Angie Charles

[FREE WAYS TO SUPPORT BACKSLIDERS]

Please consider these free things you can do to help our projects reach others!

1) Subscribe to this podcast!

2) Leave us a 5-star rating and a one-sentence review!

3) Share your favorite episode with your friends or in a group you're a part of!

4) Subscribe to our Youtube Channel and leave us a comment!

Thank you so much for your support! 

[WATCH OUR OTHER SHOWS]

Backsliders the series

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[REACH OUT]

We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves. [email protected] [email protected]

Happy Pride Month! On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our new friend, Kristina Cunningham, of the blog and Instagram account Transitional Christian. Kristina grew up in the Ozark Mountains in a very fundamentalist family. Her childhood was spent going to an independent church that wasn't connected to any other larger denomination. She describes her family's church as a "little shack in the woods" where the entire congregation consisted of 45 people...all her family members. Aside from the tent revival preachers that would pass through, her church congregation kept to themselves and believed that all outsiders were going to hell. She remembers praying by the time she was four or five that she would wake up in the body she knew she was—a girl. But little Kristina belonged to a church that every Sunday was talking about "those homosexuals and trans folks that were abominations of God." Kristina's family didn't even own a TV growing up, and she first learned about the real existence of other queer people when she went to a video store at 17 years old. This made her finally feel like she could have options and maybe even find acceptance of her true self, outside of the family she was born into. Kristina talks with us about her experience with homelessness after being outed by her boyfriend in high school, and how the greatest people she ever met were those she met while living on the street. While Kristina admits she went through many years of being angry with the image of God, she now finds peace in spirituality outside of fundamentalist rigidity and sees God in love, connection and nature. This is a great conversation and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Note from Key and Micah: We apologize for our delay in releasing this latest episode. We have been taking a pause to listen, reflect, and take actions in this fight to dismantle hatred in all its current forms throughout our nation. We want to state that we are not only committed to being allies to the LGBTQ+ community, but we are committed to anti-racism. We stand with the Black Lives Matter movement and its goal to dismantle systemic racism, white supremacy, and end the unjust murders and abuse of precious black lives. We hope you do, too. We created a new page with a compilation of some helpful resources on large and small actions we can all take against racism, as well as other accounts to follow from anti-racism advocates, leaders, and teachers. This resource hub will be permanently featured on our website. Check it out here.

NEW NEWS: If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our new episode by clicking here.

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Sound Mixing by Darren Augustus

Videography and Photography by Claude Charles

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

Title Animation/Poster art by Cody Walzel

Special Thanks to Angie Charles

FREE WAYS TO SUPPORT BACKSLIDERS

If you can't give financially, we understand. Please consider these free things you can do to help our projects reach others!

1) Subscribe to this podcast!

2) Leave us a 5-star rating and a one-sentence review!

3) Share your favorite episode with your friends or in a group you're a part of!

4) Subscribe to our Youtube Channel and leave us a comment!

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We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]

On this episode of Backsliders, we talk with our friend, fellow actor/writer/director/producer Jason Nguyen. Jason was born in Vietnam and moved to the U.S. when he was really young. We talk with him about his upbringing in a Buddhist household in Vancouver, Washington. His parents were spiritual people but Jason felt like he had to piece together their beliefs as if they were the Zodiac Killer. He tells us stories about going to Temple as a child and how he thought it was a Vietnamese community space for immigrant families to get to know each other, but he didn’t really know what the monks were doing. Jason thinks about death a lot, and deals with being depressed by talking to other people about how they stay positive (Check out his podcast Stay Positive!). Other fun topics in this episode include: some superstitions that Jason’s parents held, how Jason first heard about Jesus and hell, the first time he stepped foot in a church, meditation, and more.

NEW NEWS: If you enjoy this podcast and want to hang out with us a little more, we also have a web series titled Backsliders! This show was recently selected by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Tribeca Creators Market sponsored by HBO! Check out our new episode by clicking here.

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Sound Mixing by Darren Augustus

Videography and Photography by Claude Charles

Intro Music "7.2.19" by Chase Burnett

Outro Music "Stay Mad" by Chase Burnett ft. Julia Nunes

Title Animation/Poster art by Cody Walzel

Special Thanks to Angie Charles

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FREE WAYS TO SUPPORT BACKSLIDERS

If you can't give financially, we understand. Please consider these free things you can do to help our projects reach others!

1) Subscribe to this podcast!

2) Leave us a 5-star rating and a one-sentence review!

3) Share your favorite episode with your friends or in a group you're a part of!

4) Subscribe to our Youtube Channel and leave us a comment!

Thank you so much for your support!

WATCH OUR OTHER SHOWS

Backsliders the series

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REACH OUT

We'd love to hear from you directly! Let's talk about what we were raised to believe, where we are now, and how that affects our relationships with others and ourselves! [email protected] [email protected]