Originally Published February 9, 2018 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Valerie Tarico is the author of Trusting Doubt:  A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light. Raised in a staunch fundamentalist family, Valerie attended Wheaton College, of Billy Graham fame.  She completed a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa and postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington.  For years Valerie maintained a psychotherapy practice and practiced “don’t ask, don’t tell” about matters of faith.  But as it became clear that Evangelicals weren’t playing by the same rules, she decided to join the fray.  She closed her practice and began writing and speaking about fundamentalism, American style.  Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society are featured at Salon, AlterNet and Raw Story.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published January 25, 2018 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Stephanie Zvan is an atheist and feminist activist and speaker. She writes at Almost Diamonds on The Orbit network and interviews interesting people on Minnesota Atheists’ Atheists Talk radio show. She serves on the board of Secular Woman and is one of the founders of the Secular Women Work conference.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published January 21, 2018 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Brittany Stirling (Pseudonym) was raised in the Canadian Reformed Church in southern Ontario. She doesn’t remember having many questions or doubts as a child. Her parents were devout and somewhat legalistic about their Christianity. Brittany wasn’t raised with a very pervasive feeling of God’s love in her life but she does remember the feeling of being part of an exclusive group – and that essentially the rest of the world was full of outsiders who were different from her and were inferior in some way.When Brittany was 12, she moved to Ottawa for a few years and then spent Grade 10-12 in Indonesia. She made friends with people from difference races/religions along the way. She moved home to Ottawa for 2 years after high school and then spent her early 20’s in Alberta.Throughout all these stages she was a good Christian girl (FAR from perfect) but with no major questions against what she had always been taught. But she was time and time again being exposed to other people and other people’s beliefs. The slow and constant barrage began wearing away at her foundation.Ultimately it came down to a few things. A sexual relationship, questions about human nature and how responsible we actually are for choices we make, and the death of a friend who had been going through his own tumultuous de-conversion journey. She remembers the moment she first truly realized there was no god. Brittany had been contemplating that thought for a couple years already, but felt like everything in that moment shifted. Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published December 20, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Janelle Leegstra was raised in a very specific branch of Christianity: the Reformed or Calvinist branch. Most people who think of Reformed think of Christian Reformed, which was the liberal side of the Reformed spectrum. They resided somewhere in the middle. Her family believed in a lot of fundamentalist teachings such as: women couldn’t lead in the church, original sin makes everyone prone to evil, no sex outside of marriage, etc. However, some more conservative versions of Calvinism went steps further, and believed things like women should always wear skirts and you could never know if you were saved (Janelle’s husband belonged to one of these). They believed they were chosen by God and must now follow his teachings. A lot of what they believed was quite conservative.She grew up very absorbed in this tradition. She was homeschooled for 8 of her school years because they moved a lot and also due to the fact that her parents didn’t like the mainstream Christian schools because they were too liberal. Eventually, in grade 9, Janelle was enrolled in a Canadian Reformed School and graduated from there. She even went to a Christian university in Ontario for a year. She didn’t break out of Christian circles until she came to Lethbridge, Alberta to go to a secular university. This is where Janelle finally got a glimpse of what outside ways of thinking looked like and began her journey of de-conversion. It took a couple years before she finally realized she didn’t believe it anymore, and it’s still a work-in-progress to let go of all of the inner thought processes. But, she is definitely an Atheist now, and has recently come out to her family as such. The fallout from that is very recent and is pretty tense still. It’s been a long road with a long way to go yet, but she is very excited to see where it goes.Janelle was definitely influenced by the misogynistic culture of her church community. There was a lot of emphasis on virginity and definitely an unequal partnership in dating and marriage. She and her dad picked out a purity ring when she got her first period and Janelle was deeply immersed in purity culture until her boyfriend (now husband) began to leave the church. Her dad was very proud of the fact that he worked hard to make sure her mom didn’t “have to” work. Janelle’s mom left university to get her “MRS degree” and never finished becoming a teacher (she would have been an amazing one). She was not an outwardly confident woman, although she was very strong and very smart. Her mother stood in her dad’s shadow and didn’t speak out for herself very often. Growing up, Janelle witnessed the control her dad had over her mom. Their religion dictated that the man was the “head of the house” and that the final word in any major decision belonged to the man. He was never violent, but her mother had little freedom to be herself. He dictated a lot, down to even the clothes she was allowed to wear. As for Janelle, she had always been a very vocal person, and when she was young (and often still now) she would get put down for voicing her opinions too much. She still struggles with a lack of confidence in her ability to have valid ideas or opinions. She was always portrayed as “silly” and no one ever really took her seriously. Janelle’s husband was the first person to tell her that she was smart and capable, and he still is her biggest support even now.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published November 23, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title. Sabrina Deal is a humanist freethinker, mother of 4, entrepreneur, an advocate of courage and self-expression and a lover of all things colorful, living and loving life in Southern California.She is a former charismatic Christian who had a strong involvement in the church from a young age and throughout her 20s.  She began her conscious de-conversion at the age of 31, and while she has come a long way she considers, what she calls, “The Untangling” to be an indefinite process.Sabrina is driven to help people, and her primary objective is to empower others. She encourages wholehearted courageous passionate vulnerable living through self-awareness and self-expression.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published October 27, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Elle Albus (Pseudonym) grew up in a rural Oklahoma, Southern Baptist family. Bookish and introverted, she never really fit in, but, as a people pleaser on the receiving end of corporal punishment and terrified of hell, she tried her best. She was close with her mom and a few trusted friends and thrived in the classroom, becoming valedictorian at her public (but still very white, conservative, and Christian) high school.When she moved to college, she found a new community within the faith and, young and in her first ever romantic relationship, married a man she met there. Elle and her husband were committed to following the faith as best they could: they tithed dutifully, attended every week, always voted Republican, and promised to raise their children to follow god.She tried, awkwardly, to submit and felt subtly guilty when she took the lead, even though it worked better that way.After a few years of wedded bliss, they started trying to get pregnant, something Elle had always looked forward to, given her relationship with her own mother and how motherhood was emphasized in the church. Instead of the idyllic family they had planned, however, they were blindsided by infertility.The pain of that experience and the abuse she endured at the hands of well-meaning Christians gave her the courage to finally question the beliefs she’d been raised with. As she fought to become a mom, she realized she would never treat her children the way the church and, by extension, the Christian god, had treated her and others. Nothing could ever make her send someone to hell.When she came upon a blog article describing abusive relationships, it clicked into place that fundamentalism is abuse, and the last grips of her Christian indoctrination faded. Elle left fundamentalism behind, but more progressive Christianity held little appeal for her either. After researching and weighing the evidence, she found the evidence unconvincing and now identifies as a secular humanist.While Elle is no longer a believer, her husband and most family members still are, and she is in the process of going public with her non-belief. She lives in the American South with her husband and toddlers, where she teaches high school science and math.Elle is passionate about exposing the harm and abuse inherent in doctrines such as total depravity, female submission, purity culture, and hell and hopes to help others struggling with fundamentalism and with what life looks like on the other side.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published October 17, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Angela Reddekopp and Wendy, both Canadian podcasters, had an informal discussion on September 10th, 2017. Topics discussed included Social media, scandals, feminism and the atheist movement, patriarchal issues, ideas for improving how the movement can help women and other topics that they rant and brainstorm about. Due to some of the topics being more sensitive and private in nature, the full conversation was edited from 2 hours down to 1 hour.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published October 10, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Dorothy Husen grew up in a family with parents who were traumatized and passed their trauma onto their kids. Her father had a mental illness and her mother was very controlling with intermittent fits of rage.In childhood, she survived by becoming the good, quiet, obedient, compliant, and dependent little girl that her mother needed her to be. She scared of her parents and witnessed their anger exploding onto each other and her siblings regularly. When she was 13, Dorothy’s parents converted to Charismatic Christianity through the Jesus movement in Southern California during the late 60’s and 70’s.Dorothy’s parents were seemingly instantaneously “healed in Jesus”. All was forgiven, healed, and made new in Christ Jesus. The Christian faith provided an outer structure in which Dorothy could live her life. It gave her a purpose and role to fulfill as long as she remained within the walls of this structure. The faith held her together but at a high cost. The damage it did to her was that it taught her to repress and deny the pain from childhood. The horrible damage this perpetuated then was that Dorothy passed on her trauma to her children.Both Dorothy’s children sought comfort and solace in drugs and alcohol.  Their home became the chaos of her childhood with the constant fighting over the children’s disobedience and “rebellion” from God and the church.One day Dorothy’s husband said that he was unable to sustain the stress of being an attorney and that he might die of a heart attack if he kept this up. She got really scared because she loved him and was dependent upon him. He asked her to go back to school with him and they both could become Marriage and Family Therapists. Dorothy agreed. And thus began her journey of healing, identity formation, and deconversion.The first day she sat across from her therapist ( a requirement to graduate was 6 months of personal psychotherapy), Dorothy told her that she didn’t know what to talk about because her life was so good and healthy. She thought she was a spiritually mature Christian woman.  The therapist told her, “Dorothy, I think you have PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder]”. Outwardly, she protested, but deep down inside, for the first time ever in her life, she felt validated! She started healing, slowly, by journaling. Dorothy started provided for herself what her parents couldn’t give her…security, acceptance, unconditional love, a safe haven. She discovered her own moral compass and found that she was GOOD. [This is when she stopped reading her bible]Then she moved into the normal human development of curiosity, exploration, and trying new things.She opened up her own private practice, joined Toastmasters, found her voice, and grew in confidence. Dorothy remained agnostic for a couple of years, believing in source, love, or some higher power. Then, in early 2017, she decided to try a Meet-Up with a local agnostic & atheist group. She also started watching TED talks and listening to atheist podcasts. [This is when she completely de-converted and became an atheist]Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published October 1, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Jemma Martin is a 40-something world-traveling dream chaser. By day, she is a healthcare professional. She studied music in the past and now, occasionally has a singing gig. Raised in the Deep South, she grew up surrounded by pride, prejudice, and fundamentalist Christianity. Yet somehow, she made it out.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson

Originally Published September 27, 2017 under the Women Beyond Belief podcast title.Wendy talks about the 6th month Anniversary of her podcast, Activism, Feminism, and the Evolution of a podcaster.Original Music Composition by Esther NicholsonDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the podcast host, Wendy Nicholson