Holy Ghosting

Just when you think you’ve had your fill of problematic white women, Renee Bach comes along. Look, your Murder of MILFs (hey! It stands for “Mom I’d Like to Friend,” get your head out of the gutter!) watched “Savior Complex,” a documentary detailing the ascent of a young missionary, Renee Bach and Serving His Children, the organization she founded and operated in Uganda. At the wise and totally reasonable age of 19, she discovered she had “a heart for Africa” and was called by God. 

What started out as a feeding program rapidly mushroomed into an unlicensed medical clinic. Renee herself, homeschooled horse girl with no medical training or credentials took it upon herself to conduct medical procedures on malnourished children with disastrous results. 

We watched this horror so you don’t have to! The docu-series is on HBO Max and is 3 episodes in total - in this episode, we tackle the first episode and part of the second. (Part 2 will be out soon!)

Know this: you’re going to need to gird your loins (or ears), because the conversation includes extremely ill and malnourished children, infant and child death, white supremacy, and Renée’s mom, Laurie Bach, who might be the biggest trigger of all…

In this episode, Meg and Lindsay chat with Crystal Britt, a licensed clinical social worker and actual therapist about the famed book, ‘The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts’ by pastor (NOT therapist) Gary Chapman. We talk about how the Five Love Languages are reductive, gendered, and heteronormative and how there are many better resources for communication in relationships. 

Christians especially love this read and recommend the Five Love Languages as if the Lord himself wrote this book. Why is that? Welp, we get into it with the lovely Crystal Britt throughout this episode. (Spoiler alert: it’s the misogyny.)

Follow Crystal Everywhere@itscrystalbritt 

Podcast: Time To Lean

Recommended:

Bell Hooks:  All About Love 

The Gottman's:  7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work 

Dr. Rachel Vanderbuilt on TikTok - Queer Focus

Dr. Stan Tatkin:  Wired For Love

Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.:  Come As You Are & Come Together

Jessica Fern:  Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Marisa G. Franco PhD:  Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends

Fresh Starts Registry - A resource place to share your post-divorce needs

Have you ever felt like you didn't have a voice? Or that you didn't feel safe to talk about your needs or interests in your relationships, workplaces, your home -- uh, church, maybe?

Well, today your favorite Apostolic Apostates, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai join forces with Meredith Holley of Eris Resolution to dig into the basics of Empowered Communication.

Learn how to find your voice, how high control religion taught us disempowered communication strategies, and get ready for some juicy gossip about how Meredith's first betrothal (at the age of 7) worked out.

Meredith is the cohost of The Empowered Communication Podcast, which focuses primarily on workplace communication. Meredith was also a civil rights litigator, expert shit talker, and - Oh! Also? This woman was raised in a cult, so she knows a thing or two about how to find yourself and speak your truth after high control religion.

Happy New Year Ghosties! We're back with an update and then we're sharing one of our favorite episodes where we talk to DL Mayfield in the midst of their deconversion from Christianity and we reflect on what the impact is on kids like us raised in high control religion.

What happens when you're deconstructing with your middle-aged mom friends...and you get to a point where you're like, cool, I'm no longer a part of this religion, but how do I live now?

Short answer: Howsoever you fucking want; but more specifically, it's something you get to work out with fear and trembling, just like you probably did with your own salvation.

Join your fave apostates as they discuss what this strange post-pandemic peri-apocalyptic year has wrought - at least at a micro-level.

🔍 Lindsay's Leap: From the tangled threads of faith, Lindsay's been unraveling a spirituality that's as authentic as her favorite pair of jeans. Spoiler: It's a perfect fit.

🌈 Sarai's Shift: Breaking free from a long-term relationship, Sarai embraced her full, fabulous queerness. It's a story of transformation, glitter, and growing into her own.

💫 Meg's Metamorphosis: God, the universe, and everything in between - Meg's been reshaping her beliefs and sexuality into a mosaic that's uniquely hers.

Be it laughter or lamentation, your hosts unwrap the lessons learned, hopes for the future, and the reality that sometimes...it's just gonna be dark for a while, even while you're living into your fullest, biggest self.

Dare to jump into the fray and reflect on the places you've been this year - and where you hope to walk in the coming journey around the sun.

If you're anything like the Unholy Trinity (Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai), you might have occasion to peel back layers on healing generational trauma, tap into your own power, and maybe even learning how and when to ask for help. Join with all Ghosties everywhere to co-create an inclusive community, dreaming up vibrant futures, and setting those oh-so-important boundaries.

Let's celebrate the journey of being wonderfully, messily human together.

#SelfDiscovery #FaithJourney #QueerPride #GenerationalHealing #HolyGhostingPodcast

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It's beginning to look a lot like X-mas - you know, with the silver bells, the Santa at the mall, the carnage left behind when people utter the phrase "Happy Holidays..."

Your Bible Busting Besties, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai are joined by the man behind the myth, the legend, The Original Sinfluencer, Joshua Colburn. Get in on the delightful hangout and learn who *really* canceled Christmas (spoiler: The Damn Puritans, good lort, those people), why Bill O'Reillly should be crowned a patron saint of Evangelical Christianity, and get a little sample of what post-Evangelical holiday tunes sound like.

We all know Evangelical Christians are amazing at Scrooging away at everybody else's everything while claiming they are persecuted by the heathen masses. This is one space where they do it so extra well.

A Brief History of the War on Christmas, Alex Altman, Time Magazine, December 24, 2008

https://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868542,00.html 

In honor of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and All the Buying Things Days from now until approximately December 25th, your Queen Ghosties, Lindsay, Meg, & Sarai bring you a deep dive into all things Christian bookstores, products, and marketing. They also take a perplexing look at why Christians are such brilliant capitalists whilst claiming they follow a broke carpenter who, apparently, "never asked for a raise" (listen if you want to be extra grossed out by what this actually means).

Bottom line: we get into what we thought and bought as young Christian babes. Hear how Lindsay worked in not one, but TWO Christian bookstores. Learn how Sarai does real time podcast research to confirm her suspicions that the White Jesus Gets Us (erm, "He Gets Us") ad campaign has something to do with politics (shockingly, it does!)...and enjoy as Meg reveals her strange and wonderful journey from coveter of "the hottest Bibles" to Christian Bookstore-eschewing crone.

Just when you thought we were done with ghouls and horrors for the year, we're here to point out that the holidays are just around the corner...so beware! Because they love you, your terrific trio of hosts asked Dr. Laura Anderson back to give us all some tools to use at the dinner table and beyond.

Dr. Laura has an array of ways to handle family communication around challenging, triggering, and re-traumatizing topics, so you can come home whole and unscathed. Everybody can pick up some great strategies for maintaining harmony - and if not that, prioritizing your sanity when it comes to family.

Don't get spooked!

The specter of Halloween is upon us yet again! And so is this Best Of episode - To Hell with the Devil's Holiday or: Suck it Harvest Parties! Learn about Lindsay's quest to become Queen of Halloween, and hear some spooky stories of youth group shenanigans gone awry. Joyous references include: Hell Houses, Heaven's Gates/Hell's Flames, and other completely ridiculous "scared straight" tactics Christians loved using in the 80's and 90's to get the youth to secure their own eternal salvation. Pretty creepy, actually, good Halloween vibes.

Content Heads Up:

Mentions of animal cruelty and death, and probably a bunch of other triggery things, so...religious trauma! Take good care of yourself.