What does it mean to own yourself after years of being told your body, voice, and choices belonged to someone else? Join us for a conversation with New York Times bestselling author Tia Levings as she unpacks the concept of autonomy as both a psychological milestone and a direct act of resistance against cult control.

We talk about reclaiming autonomy in our minds, hearts, and bodies, how “should” is one of the most dangerous words in the recovery space, and how fundamentalism is a structure of thought that can show up along any spectrum. We explore the tension between silence as both safety and complicity, and how survivors can learn to wield their voice (and their quiet) with intention and autonomy.

You’ll also hear about:

• What fundamentalism actually is at its core
• How to identify when a religious environment has become harmful
• How pressure to share your story can replicate religious coercion
• How religious indoctrination interrupts natural psychological development
• Why belonging should never require surrendering your individuality

Guest Spotlight ✨  

Tia Levings is the New York Times Bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife, her memoir of escape from Christian Patriarchy. She writes about the realities of Christian fundamentalism, evangelical patriarchy, and religious trauma. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, the Huffington Post, and Newsweek. She also appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series, Shiny Happy People. Based in North Carolina, she is mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, hike, paint, and daydream.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Instagram | Substack

• I Belong to Me by Tia Levings | Amazon | Bookshop
• A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings | Amazon | Bookshop

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After spiritual abuse, how do you separate the voice of Jesus from the voices that harmed you? 

In this conversation with theologian and pastor A.J. Swoboda, we explore why slowing down — not speeding up — is the key to rebuilding a durable, honest faith after spiritual harm.

How do you trust truth again when it's been weaponized against you? This conversation explores how we can learn to trust truth again when it's been weaponized.

There can be ways to hold strong beliefs without becoming harmful, to understand that belief is not certainty, and that genuine theological knowledge should produce humility, not arrogance.

You'll learn:

• Why treating faith like a commodity does long-term damage
• How truth is often used as a power play in religious communities
• How to hold beliefs with humility rather than certainty
• Why fundamentalism is a mindset that can exist anywhere on the political or theological spectrum
• How lament is a legitimate and important part of the faith journey 

Guest Spotlight ✨  

Rev. Dr. A. J. Swoboda (Ph.D., Birmingham) is the lead pastor of Faith Center in Eugene, Oregon and is the associate professor of Bible and Theology at Bushnell University. He is the lead mentor of the Doctor of Ministry program in Christian Formation and Soul Care at Friends University. He is the author of many books, including The Gift of Thorns (Zondervan), After Doubt (Brazos), and the award-winning Subversive Sabbath (Brazos). He hosts the “Slow Theology” podcast (w/ Dr. Nijay Gupta) and writes the widely read “Low-Level Theologian” Substack. A.J. lives and works on an urban farm with his wife and son in Eugene, Oregon.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Substack | Website | Instagram

• Slow Theology Podcast
• Slow Theology by AJ Swoboda & Nijay Gupta | Amazon | Bookshop

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So I’ve deconstructed. What now?

In her latest book, “To Rebehold the Stars,” author and professor Tiffany Yecke Brooks guides us into a hopeful path of reconstruction. Drawing on Dante, psychology, and spiritual formation, she invites us to reimagine faith with wonder, curiosity, and courage after spiritual abuse or disillusionment.

Explore how naming experiences creates categories for healing and helps form a new, life-giving spiritual lexicon. Differentiate between discomfort that grows us and pain that harms us—and challenge spiritual teachings that keep us hostage to harm. Learn how to “audit” traditions, discern what aligns with the heart of God, and practice spiritual differentiation: forming your own faith while remaining in relationship if you wish.

Guest Spotlight ✨  

Tiffany Yecke Brooks is the lead or contributing writer for more than three dozen books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers. She writes about issues facing the modern church in her latest book, To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith and Formation After Deconstruction. She has also cowritten many books and written numerous articles for publications such as Smithsonian, New York Archives Magazine, and various peer-reviewed journals.

Tiffany holds a PhD from Florida State University, an MA in Classics from the University of Bristol (UK) and an MA in Spiritual Formation from Portland Seminary. She has taught literature and writing at Florida State University, Abilene Christian University, McMurry University, and the University of South Carolina-Beaufort and currently teaches nonfiction writing at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Instagram | Substack

• THROUGH Cohort waitlist
• Gaslighted by God: Reconstructing a Disillusioned Faith by Tiffany Yecke Brooks on Amazon | Bookshop
• Episode 7: Forced Forgiveness: Misinterpreting Matthew 18 with Dr. Scot McKnight
• Episode 36: Burning a Path to Renewal with Erin Moon

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In this episode, neighbor and author Shannan Martin shares her “counterweights” practice—how we move forward by carrying life’s heaviness with equal measures of rest, joy, and community. Together, we explore how to navigate the burdens we carry and the importance of community, grief, and hope.

Shannan shares why we often can’t set our burdens down (and how privilege shapes who can), how grief is a counterweight to loss, and how naming both our weights and counterweights becomes a path to healing. From jailhouse church to backyard gardens, she shows how neighbors, embodied practices, and hope as a renewable resource keep us upright in a complicated and lopsided world.

You’ll hear:

• How grief functions as a healing counterweight to loss
• Simple counterweights that aren’t just self care or spiritual bypassing
• How being a neighbor can help and serve the vulnerable in your community
• Why curiosity over certainty can be a counterweight in a changing faith—and how to rebuild belonging

Guest Spotlight ✨

Shannan Martin is the bestselling author of several books, including Start with Hello, The Ministry of Ordinary Places, and the popular Substack The Soup. Shannan is a wannabe gardener, a news geek, a fighter for justice, and a thrift store stalker. She and her family live as grateful neighbors in Goshen, Indiana, where Shannan is on staff at the local community kitchen.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Instagram | Substack

• Counterweights by Shannan Martin | Amazon | Bookshop
• Good Soil by Jeff Chu | Amazon | Bookshop

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Have you ever heard people using a word that sounds important and like something you should already know about?

Misogyny can feel like one of those words, and this week, we’re talking with author and journalist Dorothy Greco about her newest book, For the Love of Women. She expands the definition of misogyny beyond “hatred of women,” explores how it permeates everyday life—including the church—while offering a path toward healing and change.

We talk about the spectrum of misogyny from subtle bias to overt abuse, how power and theology get misused in spiritual spaces, and practical ways men and communities can become allies, advocates, and interrupters. The conversation closes with hopeful practices for healing, boundaries, and cultivating beauty.

You’ll hear:

• Why power dynamics matter and the difference between patriarchy, complementarianism, and misogyny
• Practical steps to confront misogyny: ally, advocate, and interruptor
• How entitlement fuels harm and how men can begin with grief, empathy, and listening
• Why anger can be a faithful, constructive response to injustice—and how to process it

Guest Spotlight ✨  

Dorothy Greco has worked as a photojournalist for more than forty years. She is a three-time author and has written for many publications including Christianity Today, Missio Alliance, Christians for Biblical Equality, and The Common Good. She is the mother of three grown men and a wife to one husband. 

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Substack | Instagram

• For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America by Dorothy Greco | Amazon | Bookshop

Similar Episodes You Might Like

• Episode 42: Safeguarding the Church against Sexism and Abuse with Dr. Andrew Bauman
• Episode 41: Ordinary Women of Faith and Ministry with Beth Allison Barr
• Episode 21: Deconstructing Deconstruction with Scot McKnight & Tommy Preson Phillips

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We need your help. Your gift of just $25 will make a big difference and help us continue this work. Donate today.

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We’re back for Season 4 of the podcast next week!

I can’t wait to share these conversations with some of the incredible guests you just heard like Tiffany Brooks, Dorothy Greco, Shannan Martin, and lots more.

A huge thank you to our listeners who make this show possible through their financial support. You can support our work by becoming a donor today. Just head to brokentobeloved.org/support or click the link to donate in the show notes.

Links & Resources 🔗

Website | Instagram | Substack

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We need your help. Your gift of just $25 will make a big difference and help us continue this work. Donate today.

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That's a wrap on Season 3 of the podcast!

We're so grateful for each of you taking the time to listen and engage with our episodes, and I hope you've found these conversations to be helpful and hope-filled.

We'll be back next year after the Annual Summit (January 26–29) with new episodes. Until then, it'll be pretty quiet around here as we prepare for the Summit. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes when they drop.

Consider supporting the Podcast by setting up a monthly donation. Just $89 would cover our podcast expenses each month!

It also helps us so much when you share these episodes with a friend, and when you leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. I'd love to hear from you—did you have a favorite episode this season? What was one thing you found helpful?

Thanks again for being here, and I look forward to creating en episodes next year. Here's to moving toward healing and wholeness. Together. See you next time!

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Instagram | Substack

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Were you raised (and maybe harmed) in a Christian household that did parenting "by the book?"

Maybe you were a parent who was looking for resources to parent "the right way," Regardless of intent, research and time have shown the harmful impact of Christian parenting books and the myths they perpetuated. 

In this conversation, we dive into the very real and lived effects on generations of children and adults, and how we look for more informed and honoring ways to move forward. We'll talk about patriarchy and hierarchy, spanking and discipline, and the ways that these messages set up compliant Christian children for future abuse.

Listen in for a compassionate look at at how we can approach parenting (and learning to reconcile with our own stories of how we were raised) with a more informed lens that balances both therapy and theology through a trauma-informed lens.

Guest Spotlight ✨ 

Marissa Franks Burt is a novelist, editor, teacher, and cohost of the At Home with the Lectionary and In the Church Library podcasts. She lives in a small town in Washington's Snoqualmie Valley with her husband, six children, and heaps of books.

Kelsey Kramer McGinnis is a musicologist, educator, and correspondent for Christianity Today, writing on worship practices and Christian subculture. She is an adjunct professor at Grand View University in Des Moines and previously worked at the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights.

Meaghan Hampton is a Christian therapist, writer, and parenting educator passionate about integrating faith, psychology, and neuroscience to support families on their journey toward healing and wholeness.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Marissa: Website | Instagram | Substack

Kelsey: Website | Instagram | Substack | “In the Church Library” podcast

• The Myth of Good Christian Parenting by Marissa Burt and Kelsey McGinnis | Amazon | Bookshop

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Is there a link between the rise of megachurches, Christian Nationalism, and spiritual abuse?

In this conversation with journalist and author Scott Latta, he exposes surprising findings from his research on how "successful" evangelical churches are driving much of the Christian Nationalism and abuse reported today. After interviewing survivors of spiritual abuse in America's megachurches, lawyers, and advocates, he reveals systemic gaps that allow misconduct to thrive, the effects on smaller churches, and how money and politics are at play. Tune in to hear numerous stories and examples, including Scott's own reflections from working in churches, discovered in his process of writing Gods of The Smoke Machine.

Guest Spotlight ✨ 

Scott Latta is an award-winning journalist who has spent a decade reporting for humanitarian organizations on conflict, displacement, and climate change around the world. He is the author of the new book, Gods of the Smoke Machine: Power, Pain, and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch, which explores how large churches coalesce power and political influence. He lives in Oregon.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Substack | BlueSky

• Gods of the Smoke Machine | Amazon | Bookshop
• Post Evangelical Collective
• Restored Voices Collective

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We need your help. Your gift of just $25 will make a big difference and help us continue this work. Donate today.

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Do you feel broken beyond repair and just want life to be...better?

In this episode with Ian Morgan Cron, we talk about the use of the 12 steps—not just for managing common addictions, but for general well-being. You'll enjoy his perspective as a priest, author, and psychotherapist, as he emphasizes the importance of finding wholeness through making amends, releasing shame, and pursuing post-traumatic growth. Let's dive into his most recent book, The Fix, and explore how working the steps can benefit people who have experienced spiritual trauma.

Guest Spotlight ✨ 

Ian Morgan Cron is a bestselling author, psychotherapist, Enneagram teacher, Episcopal priest, and the host of the wildly popular podcast, "Typology," which has over 20 million downloads. His books include the Enneagram primer The Road Back to You, which has sold over one million copies; as well as Chasing Francis; Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me; The Story of You; and his newest book, The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between.

Links & Resources 🔗 

Website | Instagram | Typology Institute | Typology Podcast

• The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between | Amazon | Bookshop.org
• The Story of You | Amazon | Bookshop.org
• The Road Back to You | Amazon | Bookshop.org

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