Reclaiming the Garden

A note about this episode's content: we discuss disordered eating and body image issues, if you're not in a good place to listen, take care of yourself!

During a month where many of us host feasts (that are rooted in a history of colonization), we’re talking about theologies of food, and food ethics. Anna and April share stories of struggling with body image and unhealthy policing of our food choices in our teenage and early young adult years, and how those feelings likely arose from purity culture. We talk about how our experiences of eating communally, moments of hospitality and communion, helped to heal some of these conflicts, along with our changes in theology about our bodies. How we talk about bodies and pleasure impacts not just sexual desire but how we view food as well. Without making judgments about anyone’s food choices (yay for bodily autonomy and not shaming people!), we discuss the ways we can make sustainable, ethical choices about food with the options we have available to us, and how we can be aware of the food injustices/insecurities that exist in our communities and do what we can to help our neighbors. 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we have a conversation with YouTubers (and damn good researchers on fundamentalist Christianity) the Reverend Jen and King James of Fundie Fridays! Jen and James share how they grew up non-religious but adjacent (literally and figuratively) to religion in their conservative hometowns in Missouri. Anna and April share our own stories that resonate with some of their experiences. There are also just a looooot of rabbit holes that we go down, and of course we talk some shit about fundies (fuck Michael Tait!).

Link to Fundie Fridays: https://www.youtube.com/@FundieFridays/videos 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, April and Anna discuss our experiences of how disability and neurodivergence were viewed in the churches we grew up in and how those views changed as we came to realize our own neurodivergence and grapple with ableist theologies. April was planning on discussing more of her realization that she is autistic but her frazzled brain just didn’t; she does have a post about it on her Substack, linked below. We discuss Jesus’ healings of sick and disabled people and how to read those in an anti-ableist lens; Jesus was restoring them to community in the only way that was possible in their context, allowing them to be ritually clean and free to go to the Temple. Today, we can follow in Jesus’ path by advocating for accessibility and affordable healthcare for all; it is our systems that are broken, not people’s bodies or minds. 

Autistic Pro-Choice YouTuber discusses the ethical nuances of Down Syndrome testing and abortion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGg85tQZRo 

April’s Substack Post about realizing she is autistic: https://aprilthewriter.substack.com/p/learning-to-love-how-my-mind-and 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we have a conversation with therapist, podcaster, author, and theologian Matthias Roberts! He shares his faith journey of being raised in a non-affirming church, then going to Side B (queer-folks-are-called-to-celibacy) theology as he came to terms with being gay, to realizing that LGBTQ+ Christians existed and that he could have a romantic partner and still be Christian. He also talks about his new book (available anywhere books are sold starting on October 3rd, link below for pre-order/purchase), Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion. We’re so excited about this book and the ways it breaks down what has happened to so many of us–religious trauma, and deconstruction–and how we can rebuild our faith in creative ways.

You can find Matthias on Instagram and Twitter (no, we’re not calling it the other thing) @matthiasroberts. You can listen to his podcast, Queerology, wherever you listen to podcasts, and can follow @queerologypod on Instagram and Twitter. Preorder/purchase his book here: https://matthiasroberts.com/holyrunaways/ 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we get down and dirty and nerdy with Paul’s long Epistle (letter) to the Romans (more specifically, the early Christian community there). This text has been used to justify bigotry towards LGBTQ+ people and the awful doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, and to manipulate people into converting, but it also has empowering passages about the love of God, and guidance on how to live in community in the midst of conflicts of belief–the church has been in theological disputes since the very beginning. The very passage that is used against LGBTQ+ people in Romans 1 is a set-up of Paul’s message that we should not judge or hold ourselves up as being superior to others! Paul also talks about how our salvation is from the faithfulness of Jesus, not necessarily faith “in” Jesus. Yes, you can’t necessarily get away from the language Paul uses about sacrifice and Jesus’ death, but this is his interpretation and what he believed would be the best way to present the Gospel to his audience. The beauty of the Gospel is that it can mean multiple things across different cultural contexts, but it all connects back to the goodness and love of Jesus.

Resources:

James Brownson’s book Bible, Gender Sexuality (take what you want, leave the anti-polyamory and anti premarital sex stuff)

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we have a conversation with our friend and political scientist Chalen Aleong! Chalen shares his faith journey and feeling like he was “too religious for queer people and too queer for religious people” and how he got involved with Q Christian Fellowship. We also discuss the Barbie movie and the weird conservative response to it, and how the movie actually shows how the patriarchy and purity culture harms both men and women (fuck the Bill Graham rule, man!! Let men and women and everyone be friends!). We also discuss the challenges and joys of faith deconstruction and how Chalen has navigated relationships with people he disagrees with politically.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we discuss our first impressions of the apocrypha–both the texts that come from the Greek Old Testament that some Christians hold as canon Scripture (such as Sirach, Judith, or 1 Maccabees) and the early Christian texts that did not get canonized in the New Testament (such as several strange Infancy Gospels, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla). These texts serve as a reminder that the history of the Christian tradition has always been varied and contested and never as simple as our youth pastors made it out to be. There’s so much more to explore, but we hope this introduction encourages you to go and learn more.

The YouTube video Anna mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idqPwX1XQOg 

All the Apocrypha we read can either be found in an online Bible that includes the Greek Old Testament apocrypha or by searching Google for the non-canonical Christian text.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we have a conversation with queer, autistic, leftist Christian pastor Chloe Specht! She shares about growing up as a pastor’s kid in the holiness/Church of God movement, pursuing ordination in that tradition (which technically ordains women but not really in practice) and wanting to bring about change, and then realizing it wasn’t where she felt belonging (because they basically kicked her out, gross!). She also talks about being “a person of her own creation,” how she realized she’s autistic, and her journey from disembodiment to having a faith where she can bring her full self as a pastor in a Disciples of Christ church in Kentucky. And, as we sometimes do, we talk some shit about the God’s Not Dead movies.

Also, the God’s Not Dead drinking game we mention in the outro is still in the brainstorming process, look for it on our Instagram in the next few weeks…

You can find Chloe on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter @chloejspecht. 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!

In this episode, we discuss a topic that April wrote a 15 page paper about over her spring term: what is the human being fully alive, in light of God/the Divine? We explore what it means to be humans made in the image of God, what it means to bring the fullness of ourselves to God and one another and live authentically, and how the sharing of our stories and our diversity celebrated in community can lead to collective human flourishing and liberation (and April gushes a little about Jesus). We also discuss the specific gifts of neurodivergent and queer people that can contribute to human flourishing, and bring up the works of April’s many conversation partners, which are listed below.

Bibliography:

Boff, Leonardo. “Trinity.” Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology. 

Edited by Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996.

Cheng, Patrick. Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology. New York: Seabury Books, 

2011.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Bloomsbury 

Academic, 2018.

Gunton, Colin. “Trinity, Ontology and Anthropology: Towards a Renewal of the Doctrine of the 

Imago Dei.” Persons, Divine and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological 

Anthropology. Edited by Christoph Schwöbel and Colin Gunton. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 

1991.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions, 2013.

Kim, Grace Ji-Sun and Susan M. Shaw. Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide. 

Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2018.

Leidenhag, Joanna. “Autism, Doxology, and the Nature of Christian Worship.” Journal of 

Disability & Religion 26, no. 2 (2022).

Leidenhag, Joanna. “The Challenge of Autism for Relational Approaches to Theological 

Anthropology.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 23, no. 1 (January 2021).

Little, April. “Who is God?” Unpublished paper, The Seattle School of Theology and 

Psychology, 2023.

Mayfield, D. L. “A Good Christian Woman.” Healing is My Special Interest. June 13 2023. 

https://dlmayfield.substack.com/p/a-good-christian-woman This post is locked behind a 

subscriber paywall.

Mayfield, D. L. “Are You a Religious Fundamentalist?” Healing is My Special Interest. August 

23 2022. https://dlmayfield.substack.com/p/are-you-a-religious-fundamentalist. 

Mayfield, D. L. “Burnout, in 3 acts.” Healing is My Special Interest. September 13, 2022.

https://dlmayfield.substack.com/p/burnout-in-3-acts This post is locked behind a 

subscriber paywall.

Miles, Sara. Take This Bread. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007

Old Saint Paul’s Edinburgh, “Autism, Theology, and Life in the Church.” Streamed live 

on February 16, 2022, YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAm1P5F1yzM&t=6437s  

Rapley, Stewart. Autistic Thinking in the Life of the Church. London: SCM Press, 2021.

Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ. New York: Convergent Books, 2019

Romero, Oscar. The Violence of Love. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. Translated by James 

R. Brockman.

Tonstad, Linn. Queer Theology. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018.

In this episode, we have a conversation with Ugandan humanitarian, educator and human rights defender Samson Turinawe! He shares his experience of becoming a Pentecostal preacher and then being excommunicated after he started preaching about accepting LGBTQ+ people and he shares his experience of realizing he is gay. He discusses the dire state of LGBTQ+ people’s safety and well-being in Uganda after the recent passing of a law that requires landlords to report to the police folks they suspect to be LGBTQ+. The work that Turinawe does at Universal Love Alliance provides support to LGBTQ+ folks and other marginalized folks in need, and you can find out how to get involved on their website (linked below). We must stand in solidarity with our Ugandan siblings because none of us are free until all of us are free, and we are so grateful for the brave and necessary work that Samson and Universal Love Alliance are doing!

https://www.universallovealliance.org/ 

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee and more here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/rtgardenpodcast/shop 

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!