Join us for a quick Thanksgiving episode and special announcement! Kyle shares his family's special Thanksgiving meal tradition and Amanda shares some memories of Thanksgivings from her childhood. For all of our listeners with tough family situations this holiday season, we send you love and a reminder that you are worthy, your boundaries are important, and you always have community here with us. Happy Thanksgiving!  

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Amanda and Kyle respond to listener questions about head coverings, cult practices around the Sabbath, if Amanda thinks her boldness and intelligence caused her to be targeted for abuse as she grew up in the IBLP cult, and how Amanda thinks sexual abuse against one of her brothers would have been handled versus how it was handled for her as a girl. 

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What do Cabbage Patch Kids and the 2024 election in the US have in common? A lot, as it turns out. This episode was recorded in response to a poll posted on social media asking listeners to share topics they would like to hear in an episode. Amanda and Kyle discuss correlations between Bill Gothard and Trump/Vance.

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Kyle is in the hot seat sharing his background in the Christian church, his thoughts about purity culture as a young adult, and the way he handled sex and relationships as someone who attended Baptist church. Amanda learns a shocking revelation about Kyle's past. Kyle shares his deconstruction story and his eventual departure from Christianity. Jump in the comments and convince Kyle to share photos of his high school hairstyle on our social media channel. 

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Amanda shares her deconstruction journey, which began a decade ago when she was a worship leader for a church. That was awkward. She talks through attending seminary after Bible college and her process of realizing there were aspects of Christianity and religion that were irreconcilable with logic, in her opinion. Kyle accidentally lands in the hot seat when revealing parts of his deconstruction experience, so more to come on this topic for sure! 

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Following up on the marriage purposes series, Amanda and Kyle share their non-courtship story that basically ignored all of Bill's relationship guidelines. However, Kyle almost followed purity culture with room for the Holy Spirit for a whole lotta dates. Amanda will never let him live it down. They compare Bill's marriage principles to the insights of an actual therapist who, you know, is trained in these matters, and Kyle reports on the results of travel-enforced abstinence--in case you were wondering how Bill's marriage rules work out in the real world. 

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Amanda flies solo for another episode. This time, she shares about her journey out of a very checked out or dissociative state and home to her own body, mind, and emotions. Amanda went on this journey as she left the cult and began abuse recovery, and also more recently. She shares the ups and downs of the process, including the discomfort of checking back into your own life and becoming aware of issues that exist there as well as the joy of getting to know yourself for the first time. In the end, she finds her way home. 

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Amanda and Kyle are joined by a special guest! Skye's story caught our attention right away—her mother, the owner of an adult toy business, sent her to a fundamentalist Christian elementary school WAIT WHAT?! The part about her mom’s business is a great story and will make you chuckle, but unfortunately, this school is also where Skye first experienced grooming. It was also at this school, at just seven years old, she was told Satan was living in her heart, sparking a deconstruction journey that began decades before, well, many of us. In this episode, Skye delivers a powerful message on the importance of listening to children when they express discomfort, how naivety can make individuals more vulnerable to grooming, and the crucial role of believing and protecting survivors from further harm. She also opens up about her own journey to heal and reclaim her ability to trust and find goodness in others, even those with differing beliefs.

Topic warning: Grooming, rape, biphobia 

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We reach the end of our Six Purposes of Marriage journey! Amanda and Kyle procrastinate and talk about a lot of other things, including how the violin is the most righteous instrument, before diving into Bill Gothard’s strange teachings about what marriage “illustrates.” Amanda and Kyle recap the purpose of marriage in the IBLP cult, which is basically about abstinence and the menstrual cycle, and Amanda gets the brilliant idea to try Bill’s abstinence program for science and report back on its marital impacts. Kyle proves difficult to convince. Amanda's story about being asked to perform music for a mass wedding ceremony to Jesus gets honorable mention. 

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Mothers aren't protective. Divorce taints godly seed. A woman finally matters because she made a lot of kids who went and did church work. We talk about these topics and many other confusing aspects of Bill Gothard's teachings about pure Christian family lines. Amanda and Kyle also answer listener questions about beliefs in the cult regarding doctors/medical intervention/vaccines as well as a cult-adjacent program called "Bright Lights."

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