Graceful Atheist Podcast

CW: sexual abuse; suicidal ideation

This week's guest is Religious Trauma Life Coach, Mary Burkhart. See her full bio here.

Mary grew up in the Apostolic Pentecostal Church, and her family's devotion goes back generations.

When she was little, unspeakable things happened to Mary, but their church self-righteously dismissed the situation, forcing her mom and her to move. They found different churches; Mary hoped these would be different.

Between working behind the scenes in another church and seeing the "same ugliness," she'd seen before and a silly question asked by a college friend, Mary's uncertainties started to pile up. She was still a believer but she needed sturdier answers than Christianity was giving her.

"It's not about being hurt or about hurt feelings. You leave [the Church] because things keep compiling, things keep compounding. That's why."

After more than fifteen years out of religion, Mary coaches others through their own journeys of religious deconstruction with Religion In Remission. Her work is a grand example of secular grace.

Links

Site
https://religioninremission.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/religion_in_remission/

Facebook
https://m.facebook.com/RiRLifeCoach
https://m.facebook.com/religioninremission

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE0BqfCB0iPQT2zmxbj66Rw

Religion In Remission Podcast
https://religioninremissionpodcast.buzzsprout.com/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/07/30/mary-burkhart-religion-in-remission/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're going to want to grab a cozy drink and pull up your favorite note-taking app because this episode is jam-packed!

Former guest, Daniel shared his deconversion story here, and now he returns with a lesson on the psychology of modern—and often, predatory—apologetics. He knows his stuff, so prepare to learn a few things.

"The target audience of apologetics is actually believers, and the purpose of apologetics is to reduce cognitive dissonance."

Links

Daniel's first episode
https://gracefulatheist.com/2022/10/09/daniel-office-of-the-skeptic/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/07/16/daniel-psychology-of-apologetics/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is artist Stephanie Stalvey. You can see her full bio here. She is the artist behind Instagram's @stephanie.stalvey.artist.

Stephanie was a "90's church kid" attending various evangelical churches when she was young. She took her beliefs seriously, and it wasn't until her twenties that a sudden loss forced her to question whether life was as simple as she'd been taught.

When Stephanie became a mother, she truly left fundamentalist religion. "I needed to let God expand into whatever God might be."

Now she lives without a label, allowing her values and beliefs about humanity and divinity to change as she changes.

Her art speaks to those of us who've left religion, reminding us that "…we are, in our hearts and in our inner essence, good and pure and sacred and not depraved."

Links

Website
https://stephaniestalvey.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/stephanie.stalvey.artist/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/07/09/stephanie-stalvey-artist/

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution
"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is Benoit Kim. He is a "Veteran, Penn-educated Policymaker turned Psychotherapist, & Podcaster at Discover More." Benoit is a Christian, creating space for deep and meaningful conversations and stories. The Discover More podcast is a show for independent thinkers with an emphasis on mental health. Benoit is currently a forensic clinician at Project 180.

Links

Discover More Podcast
https://www.discovermorepodcast.com/

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@DiscoverMorePodcast

LinkTree
https://kite.link/DiscoverMore133

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/07/02/benoit-kim-discover-more/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Content Warning: Sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, severe mental health disorders

Kyler's story is one of "beauty from ashes". He lives with dissociative identity disorder, a category of CPTSD. Kyler is one distinct personality in the "system". The adults in his life abused him as a child—would not keep him safe—and so his brain stepped in and made a way to survive.

Kyler watched the church fail him and his family over and over, refusing to help or even acknowledge the abuse and trauma.

"This person who has PTSD has no clue where it's from, has all this trauma, pain, and hurt…and the church just wants to throw Bible verses and actually doesn't want to help you."

Today, Kyler is a completely different person than when he was young. He's free to embrace his whole self without shame and fear, and the future is radiant.

Links

988
https://988lifeline.org/

Recovering From Religion
https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/

Secular Therapy Project
https://www.seculartherapy.org/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/06/25/kyler-cptsd/

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is Christian Lomsdalen. Christian is the current president of the Norwegian Humanist Association and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bergen studying the didactics (science) of religion.

Christian grew up in an ordinary Christian Norwegian family as "Christmas Christians". He went to church for Christmas and other holidays, and that was about it.

"I identified as a Christian…a quiet liberal Christian, probably. I guess a lot of the evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn't have recognized me as a Christian."

Around eighteen, Christian realized he didn't believe in God, though he read the Bible and liked the stories. Since then, however, he has lived a humanist life.

Christian shares many of the differences between Norway and the US, tackling religion and politics. The Norwegian Humanist Association is doing great work, and it's a good model for other countries moving forward.

Links

Norwegian Humanist Association
https://www.human.no/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/06/18/christian-lomsdalen-norwegian-humanist-association/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is Benjamin Faye, also known as @heytherebenji.Benji was adopted when he was young and during middle school, his adoptive parents suddenly "wanted a spiritual life" and started going to church.

His life as an adoptee was difficult. Benji questioned whether he belonged in the family and things only got worse as he got older. His adoptive parent became abusive and in his early twenties, he had to leave.

He hoped the church could be the place he could question and process his grief and uncertainty but it wasn't.

"…on some level, I knew that…there would be no room for me to process [my questions]. It would just begin and end with Jesus, and it's very, very difficult to have a conversation when there's a preset ending to it."

Benji and his partner moved from church to church, hoping to find where they could fully belong. Skip ahead to 2020 and all the covert racism that has always been in the background of white evangelicalism became blindingly obvious. They both had to get out.

Today, Benji is using his online platform to share his own story and to be a place of find empathy and compassion. His work is a great example of living out secular grace.

Links

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/heytherebenji/

TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@heytherebenji

Important Things with Ben and Carole
https://pod.link/1497773808

Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/important_things

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/06/11/heytherebenji/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is Ben Reed. Ben grew up in the Church of Christ with a cappella music, no clapping, no raised hands, no prophecies, no miracles, but also no demons.

"Compared to the more charismatic denominations, the Church of Christ is pretty boring…I think that's kind of why I stayed so long because it wasn't that exhausting."

Ben's years in the church were good—no cognitive dissonance or serious trauma—until 2020.

"It wasn't until Covid hit that I really started waking up, and I saw how Christians were acting about the masking and the vaccines, and I was thinking, Do you not see the moral implications and the examples that we are supposed to set here?"

By 2022 and a chance encounter with some Mormons, too many questions were surfacing. Cheekily thanking "the gods of atheism," Ben is now able to ask questions and expect serious evidence before he can be convinced of something.

It seems that "the promises of Christianity are found outside of it".

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/06/04/ben-reed-deconversion-from-church-of-christ/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is Shifra Lowen. Shifra grew up in a small, well-controlled Hasidic community in Canada. As a girl, Shifra wanted to do everything according to the rules of their village. At the same, she desperately wanted forbidden things, like a kitten or a pet bird.

At 17, her marriage was arranged to someone she knew and even liked, and Shifra was on Cloud 9 for a while, though suspicious of her own happiness. Then her husband did something unthinkable.

"…Imagine my shock and fear when I found out that my husband visited a library."

Visiting a Jewish library was only the beginning of Shifra's world coming apart, but slowly she would realize it was all for good—for the good of their whole family.

Years later, after much learning and growing, Shifra and her family are thriving, living in accordance with their own values and not someone else's rules.

Links

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/yiddishe_/

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@shifralowen

Patreon
http://www.patreon.com/ClaraWasserstein

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/05/27/shifra-out-of-hasidic-orthodoxy/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week's guest is comedian and writer, Holly Laurent. See her full bio and work here.

Holly tells a bit of her story, growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical household. From the fear of demons to eternal conscious torment, Holly is still dismantling the indoctrination. In comedy, she's found a way to express her "voice that always got [her] in trouble" as well as an accepting community, something she struggled to find in the church.

Her podcast Mega has a new five-part mini-series parodying the downfall of an infamous Mars Hill pastor. Episode 1 of "The Rise and Fall of Twin Hills" drops May 21. It sounds like it's going to be great fun!

Links

Holly's site
https://www.hollylaurent.com/

Mega the Podcast
https://www.megathepodcast.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/hollylaurent/
https://www.instagram.com/megathepodcast/

Interact

For quotes, recommendations, transcripts and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/05/21/holly-laurent-the-rise-and-fall-of-twin-hills/

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy