Where Do We Go From Here?

Kendall Vanderslice is with us to talk about her upcoming book By Bread Alone, and this conversation is all about hunger, and the way our physical hunger for food mirrors sexuality, the distortion in our culture (and Christian culture) around hunger and women.

This episode is exclusively for partners, but you get to hear a sneak peak today. Get the full conversation for $3/month.

Show Notes: By Bread Alone: A Baker's Reflections on Hunger, Longing, and the Goodness of God (Preorder Amazon)

Kendall's Podcast

Visit Kendall Vanderslice's Edible Theology website

Visit Kendall Vanderslice's website Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Kendall Vanderslice is a baker, writer, and speaker, as well as the founder of the Edible Theology Project, a ministry that connects the Communion table to the kitchen table. She is a graduate of Wheaton College (BA Anthropology), Boston University (MLA Gastronomy), and Duke Divinity School (Master of Theological Studies). Her bylines include Christianity Today, Bitter Southerner, Christian Century, Religion News Service, and Faith & Leadership, as well as her book We Will Feast (Eerdmans 2019). Kendall lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her big-eared beagle named Strudel, where she teaches workshops on bread baking as a spiritual practice. Visit her online at kendallvanderslice.com.

This is for anyone who feels like they don't belong in church or among white evangelicals. Journalist Sara Billups traces the question - "How did we get here?" - by looking at the impact of the culture wars and consumerism on a generation of white evangelicals. And she helps us take steps home. We talk about

• what is an orphaned believer and how did we get here
• the dignity of choice
• a propehtic imagination for the future

Full show notes

Partner with us to hear Jess & Devi's discuss Purity Culture News this week - Pamela Anderson has a new memoir (and so does Jinger Duggar Vuolo). Marie Kondo's house is messier than we thought?! Purity culture in Australia plus some shows and a movie you should definitely be watching. Get it for $3/USD a month!

Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, and more. Sara is completing her Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. She works to help wavering Christians remain steadfast through cultural storms and continues to hope for the flourishing of the Church amid deep political and cultural division in America.

"Clueless" is the romcom that started the flood of high school coming of age movies in the 90s and early 00s, but what do we think about it today? You get a sneak peak of what our partners get to hear this week.

To hear the rest, join us for $3/month! It'll get you a ticket to our monthly zoom call next week on Tuesday at 9pm EST and Wednesday 1pm AEDT.

You get to hear a sneak peak of our conversation about Prince Harry's first time - what's the difference between how our culture talks about the first sexual experiences of men and women? SPOILER - we think there's a difference.

Want to hear the full conversation? Join our partners in patreon to hear about low libido after babies, plus all of Jess' recommendations about what you should be watching next.

Jess and Devi are finishing 2022 out with some big announcements about what's next for the show! Plus we also discuss:

• changes in opinion about gay marriage
• evangelicals' favorite heresies and why purity culture "helps"
• "Harry & Meghan" - is it a documentary or PR? We have a lot of thoughts

Full show notes here

Partner with us to hear our take on "The Holiday." Can women be single during the holidays and be happy? Is love addiction real? Can Jack Black be a romantic lead? We have so many thoughts, and you can hear them for $3/month (USD). Don't forget that the only episodes we'll be creating in January will be for partners, so now's a great time to sign up if you've been on the fence.

Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter

Christmas is almost here, and we think it's a perfect time to think about a woman's body and the story it tells about who God is. If God could occupy a woman's body for nine months before Jesus' birth, maybe we can begin to untangle what this might mean for our lives today. Dr. Christy Bauman joins us to talk womb theology and manger theology - it's a story about God and likely one you haven't heard of before.

We discuss:

• the impact of purity culture
• how a woman's body points to God
• what breasts, menstruation, wombs, and more say about the divine

Trigger warning: There is discussion of infertility and miscarriage in this conversation.

Full show notes here

Become a partner to hear Devi & Kelly talk about masturbation, desire when you're celibate, and more (plus next week is our final Green Room for 2022). It's $3/month (USD) for bonus episodes and a ticket to the Green Room. Dr. Christy Bauman is committed to helping women come into their true voice. She has a podcast entitled Womaneering and she offers storywork consulting, womaneering weekends, and marriage intensives with her husband Andrew Bauman through their organization, Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma. Andrew and Christy host Therapy Shorts podcast for couples. She is the author and producer of her works: The Sexually Healthy Woman, Theology of the Womb, Womaneering Perpetual Calendar, A Brave Lament, and the award-winning Documentary: A Brave Lament. She is a psychotherapist and author who focuses on the female body, sexuality, and theology. Christy's work can be found at christybauman.com, and you can connect with her on Instagram.

What do you do when your child comes out? What are the next steps? This is for any parent regardless of what you believe; this episode will give you the tools you need to create a nurturing environment for your children so that they know they are safe and unconditionally loved. We discuss:

• being safe early
• what to say when your child says, "I'm gay"
• how to communicate with kids who don't want to talk about it
• sex ed for LGBTQ kids

Become a partner to hear this week's Purity Culture News episode - Devi talks through the Respect for Marriage Act, apps being used to find friends, and a new law in Indonesia.

Full Show Notes Here

Candice Czubernat has been a therapist for 17 years and is the founder of the LGBTQ affirming counseling and coaching practice, The Christian Closet as well as the teletherapy organization Progressive Christian Counseling. Candice is a graduate of The Moody Bible Institute and The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. She identifies as a lesbian and a Christian. She lives in a small mountain town in southern California with her wife, the love of her life, Crystal, and their 8-year-old boy/girl twins Deacon and Dylan. Connect with Candice on Twitter and Instagram.

A sex educator is in the house, and she's taking us back to school for the education most of us never got. Erica Smith founded the Purity Culture Dropout™️ Program to equip people like us with information and education that is "accurate, queer inclusive, trauma informed, compassionate, and comprehensive." We discuss:

• why sex education is more than preventing negative health outcomes
• what happens when we pathologize all things sex related
• all things masturbation
• sex toys and sex shops

Full show notes here

Join us in patreon to hear Jess & Devi relive the romcom, Notting Hill. Also coming next week, Devi and Kelly debrief this conversation on sex ed and masturbation. It's $3/month (USD) and you get three episodes a month plus a ticket to the Green Room where you get to meet others in the community.

Erica Smith (she/her) is an award winning sexuality educator and consultant with over 20 years of experience. She has provided comprehensive sex education and advocacy to young women and LGBTQ+ youth in Philadelphia's juvenile justice system, worked in abortion care, and supported HIV+ and transgender adolescents and their families. In 2019, she developed the Purity Culture Dropout™️ Program to help people learn all of the sex education that they missed growing up in purity culture- sex ed that is accurate, queer inclusive, trauma informed, compassionate, and comprehensive. Erica lives in Philadelphia with her partner and house full of rescue animals. Connect with Erica on Instagram

It's no secret - the people who designed purity culture inteded it to benefit white, male, and straight people. What was unsaid was that purity culture was also about a kind of body, a body that had all the standard abilities. Dr. Amy Kenny disrupts the story with her life and work as a disability justice scholar and advocate. Could it be we've misunderstood who we are and who God is all along?

We talk about:

• the overlap between purity culture and the experience of disabled people
• maybe God isn't just "strong"
• what is the bodymind
• what happens when we add the disabled experience to the sexuality conversation

Join us for an exclusive conversation with Amy about disability in the church - should we have prayer ministry for healing? What's the difference between curing and healing? It's exclusive for our partners, and you can hear it and new episodes weekly for $3/month (USD).

Full show notes here

Amy Kenny (PhD, University of Sussex) is a disabled scholar whose research

focuses on medical and bodily themes in literature. She is a Shakespeare lecturer at the University of California, Riverside, and is on the editorial board of Shakespeare Bulletin. Kenny is a member and scribe of the Freedom Road Global Writers' Group hosted by Lisa Sharon Harper and has written for Sojourners about disability in the church. She serves on the mayor's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force in her home city, coordinates support for people experiencing homelessness, and is colaunching Jubilee Homes OC, a permanent supportive housing initiative in her local community. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram

Embodiment is a popular buzz word in therapy and spirituality circles, but does it have something for Christians and those coming out of a Christian background? Dr. Hillary McBride joins us to figure it out. We discuss:

• the impact of purity culture on embodiment
• what embodiment is
• how God is embodied in Jesus and what that means for us
• high control religious environments and their influence on how we see our emotions

For partners only! Join us in the Green Room this week to talk about this episode and all the other great ones in October. We've got TWO Green Rooms this month, one specifically for those of you in Australia who want to talk about our Purity Culture News episode on Andrew Thorburn, City on a Hill, and Essendon situation. Join us on Thursday October 27 at 8pm (AEDT) and 9pm (EST)

We have an upcoming episode with Dr. Hillary McBride on mothers and body image, and we want your voices on it. Record a voice memo starting with "Dear Mom (or Mum or Mama or Oma or whatever you call your mother)" and tell her what you wish she knew about her body. Email it to [email protected] .

Full show notes here

Hillary L. McBride is a registered psychologist, an award-winning researcher, and a sought-after speaker who specializes in embodiment. McBride's clinical and academic work has been recognized by the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association. She is an adjunct professor in the department of counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia and has a private counseling practice in Vancouver. She is the author of The Wisdom of Your Body, and Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image and coeditor of Embodiment and Eating Disorders. Connect with Hillary on Twitter and Instagram