036: One of the harsh realities of parenting is that in order to teach our children about love, sometimes we have to tell them about hate. This is the truth in confronting homophobia in the world. I have on my show today, Susan Cottrell, author and speaker who works with parents of faith who are raising LGBTQ children, and Trey Pearson, the Christian singer/songwriter who came out as gay publicly a few years ago.

Chris Stroop and I connect online because we are both #EXvangelicals, which is a term coined by our mutual friend, Blake Chastain, who has a podcast by the same name. It means that evangelicalism is both a shaping influence of our lives and a system we have rejected. Chris has an academic background on Russian history and for now most well known for his writing and hashtag activism, which has been featured in many mainstream news outlets.

Liz Lin is a writer and co-founder of the Facebook group Progressive Asian American Christians. We took the opportunity to geek out about facebook groups and what it’s like to admin for fairly large groups and foster online community in this way. We end up with more questions than answers, which is what I believe every successful podcast episode should accomplish. Hope you enjoy the show!

This episode is in response to the MAGA teens from Covington Catholic High School interacting disrespectfully to an Indigenous elder. This story prompts a conversation about white supremacy, media, children/teens/minors, so this episode is dedicated to unpacking all those layers.

At the end of the year, lots of people love posting round-ups of their favorite books. I was lazy and didn’t do a round up even though I read lots of good books, but IF I WERE to have done one for 2018, at the tippy top of the list would for sure be a novel titled, This is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel.

I’ve long admired the work done by Ashia Ray in her book curating website called Books For Littles. Her list of children’s books that help children understand privilege is TOTAL FIRE:  http://www.booksforlittles.com/silence-is-violence/

Linda Kay Klein, author of PURE, and I talk all things purity culture in evangelicalism. We define what purity culture is, how deeply it is embedded in both the culture and our psyche as young women growing up in it. Linda shares the science behind why it takes a long time for many of us to break free. Of course, we also cover parenting and how we can raise our girls, and boys, to dismantle Patriarchy, and introduce better sex education.

Toxic Masculinity is the root of many of our evils in the world today. I ask Mike Reynolds, the founder of Everyday Girl Dad to join me in helping dismantle toxic masculinity. He gives practical tips on how to disrupt locker room talk and how to model healthy masculinity. Mike shares his cross stitch project which you all will LOVE. Be sure to check them out on his website below in the link!

Links:

Mike Reynold’s website: https://everydaygirldad.com

It’s hard to believe we haven’t had a pediatrician on the show about parenting yet! This oversight ends today! So honored to have Dr. Joani Lea Jack on the show. She’s a pediatrician who grew up in the conservative Bible Belt culture of the South. She tells me about meeting her a resident who is gay, and how listening to the story of that man changed the course of her faith.

An unimaginable tragedy happened to one of our previous podcast guests, Kay Bruner. She lost her 28 year old daughter in the summer of 2018. I’ve invited her back on to our show to talk about death, this intrusion into her family life and turned her world upside down. We share tips on how to talk to children about death, as Kay is caring for her granddaughter. We talk about deconstruction of faith and what our beliefs are about the afterlife and what that means when it actually hits home.