In this episode, we have a conversation with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, author, speaker and LGBTQ+ advocate Jennifer Knapp! Jennifer shares her faith journey, her career in the contemporary Christian music industry, and the burnout that led to her leaving it. She also talks about her coming out journey and the ways she has advocated for LGBTQ+ people in the church. We have some nerdy theological conversations as well about the wonderful act of bringing our full selves, “the gift of you,” to God. 

You can find Jennifer on Instagram @jenniferknappmusic, and you can support her work on Patreon. We’re excited for her to re-record her first albums, among other projects!

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!

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!

In this episode, we discuss many examples of LGBTQ+ folks in religious history, from gay nuns to a non-binary Quaker in the 1800s to the deeply prayerful Marsha P. Johnson, and all kinds of other queer saints. April also brings up some of her favorite LGBTQ+ Christian scholars such as Marcella Althaus-Reid and Patrick Cheng. We encourage folks to look at the two main websites we used, LGBTQ Religious Archives Network (which contains profiles on folks from many different religious traditions) and QSpirit!

Resources:

https://lgbtqreligiousarchives.org/ 

https://qspirit.net/ 

Strange Aeons on Gay Nuns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRty_UFx8uE 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzyuYjIsYFE&t

Jessica Kelgren-Fozard on The Public Universal Friend:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vTQE7G648Q&list=PLhADVL2AiGX8NqRXFmtBzIuTc5V88k4eH&index=17&t 

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 (our 50th!!!), we have a conversation with Karen Huckaby, co-founder of The Reclaim Therapy Collective, a group of therapists specializing in helping folks heal from adverse religious experiences and spiritual trauma. Karen shares about her faith background and her intense experiences of evangelizing to people on the beach, her journey of questioning that led her to become a therapist, and the ways she has found healing and has helped others to reconnect with their full selves. 

You can find The Reclaim Therapy Collective on their Instagram @thereclaimtherapycollective and on Facebook or their website. 

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 more casual (but still passionate) discussion about current events, which inevitably was centered on the legislative and cultural attack on trans and gender-expansive people in the United States and the conservative moral panic over “wokeness.” We also discuss our disappointment with Megan Phelps-Roper’s podcast that paints J. K Rowling in a positive light, and April discusses DL Mayfield’s Substack post about the connection of ABA therapy for autistic people to conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people.

Savy Writes Books YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SAVYLEISER/videos

DL's Newsletter: https://dlmayfield.substack.com/

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 freelance writer, film producer and playwright Peter Fenton! Peter talks about his experiences as a gay man in the evangelical church, including his time as a Christian camp counselor, and how he came to terms with accepting himself and how he has explored his evolving faith through his writing. We are so excited for Peter’s play, Abandon All Hope, to make its Off Broadway debut in June!!!!

You can follow Peter on Instagram and Twitter @peterfent. You can support the GoFundMe for Peter’s show here. 

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 letter to Philemon, his shortest letter in the New Testament. We discuss the historical background and the gaps that the letter doesn’t tell us (why do people assume Philemon’s slave Onesimus was the one in the wrong?). We also rant about how Paul could have been clearer in his words that slavery is wrong. Although we can take some moral lessons from this letter (the example of deep friendship between Onesimus and Paul), it is important to remember that this was written to a specific person about an interpersonal conflict that we don’t know all the details about (and it definitely doesn’t mean that when you forgive you have to bring that person back into your life, yikes!).

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 dear friend, bookstagrammer and aspiring author Briana Michelle Meyer!!! Briana talks to us about her upbringing at a Christian school, her love of literature and how that has impacted her faith, and her life as a teacher in South Korea. We'll be cheering her on as she goes to grad school in London in the fall!

You can find Briana on Instagram @brianamichellemeyer and on Twitter @margoroths.

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!

Just in time for the release of Greg Laurie’s vanity film that erases Lonnie Frisbee’s queer identity (Jesus Revolution), we’re talking about films with religious (mostly Christian) themes! We discuss the God’s Not Dead and Left Behind movies, the Jesus Camp documentary, and films that explore religion in more nuanced ways, like Boy Erased, Philomena, Carrie, But I’m a Cheerleader, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and more.

Here's the Buzzfeed article we mentioned: https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewhuff/25-films-that-discuss-religious-trauma?fbclid=IwAR3xr1HbD3xphPxnnV2YFJn3EZ0CzmQIQw8carVt3omZZIJJJn4yJLLIDug

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 worship pastor and queer Christian podcaster Jess Grace Garcia at the 2023 Q Christian Fellowship Conference! Jess talks about their faith journey and with it their evolving relationship with worship music. Likewise, we also dive into Jess’ journeys with gender and sexuality and how it has impacted their life, and we learn about the amazing concept of “Do be do.”

You can find Jess on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @jessgracegarcia. You can find the podcast they host with Jonathan Quinn, Lavender Mafia, wherever you listen to podcasts. And of course, if you want some affirming worship music in your life, you can find Q Worship Collective on Instagram and Spotify!

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 share our coming out stories (which are still always unfolding, never one and done). From our first crushes and “oh my God, how did you not know” moments, to the times we first spoke aloud that we might be queer, to openly living our joyfully queer lives, we talk about our journey towards accepting ourselves and having the bravery to start telling others. We hope that in being out and proud now, we invite folks to share their stories and bring their full selves.

April's post about her mom becoming LGBTQ+ affirming: https://aprilthewriter.substack.com/p/i-cant-look-at-that-and-call-it-wrong

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, Anna and April recount our experiences at the Q Christian Fellowship Conference. We got to meet (and hug!) so many dear friends in-person for the first time, hear talks from folks we admire, goof around in DC, hit up gay bars, and of course do a live podcast show! It was so much fun (even when we felt exhausted at times) and we can’t wait until we can be together with our queer Christian fam again.

If you want to sign up for a QCF Community Group, here's a link: https://www.qchristian.org/community/signup

If you want to come to conf next year, here’s the link to register: https://www.qcfconf.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!

In this episode, we have a conversation with author and religious studies scholar/professor Brad Onishi (who also is a co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast)! Brad talks about his upbringing in evangelical spaces in California, his journey from being a youth pastor to deconstructing to becoming a scholar on white Christian Nationalism, and also a little about his experiences in Paris (April gets excited whenever she has an excuse to talk to people about Paris).

You can find Brad on Instagram @bbonishi and Twitter @BradleyOnishi . Here is the link to purchase his book, Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism–And What Comes Next: https://www.bradonishi.com/books/. You can listen to his podcast Straight White American Jesus on all podcast platforms and follow the pod’s Insta @straightwhitejc.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

“Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right” by Lisa McGirr

“From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism” by Darren Dochuk

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!

We’re back with our podcast pals Jordyn and Sara for another year-in-review! We talk about Tish Harrison Warren’s terrible not-Anglican New York Times takes, God is Grey’s problematic treatment of Jo Luehmann that left a bad taste in our mouths, the bureaucratic nightmare that is the United Methodist Church split, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the amazing anthems of Maddie Zahm for us burnt-out Good Christian Girls, the chaos of Elon Musk buying Twitter, and more. We hope y’all have a Happy New Year and are so excited for what’s in store in 2023!

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, Anna and April draw from our respective academic disciplines (social work and theology) and Sara Miles’ memoir Take This Bread to discuss strategies for how to sustain ourselves in the work of healing and justice, including neurodivergent-friendly alternatives to meditation. Sara Miles’ connection to bodily spiritual experience, her conviction that her “body was connected literally and mysteriously to other bodies and loved without reason” and the grace she experienced through communion led her to start a food pantry through her church that empowered the people who came there to engage in it themselves, to feed others as they had been fed–it’s a story of creating beauty and justice in the midst of the messiness of community. April and Anna also reflect on what we’ve learned in grad school so far.

Link to QCF Conference Podcasters Page; check out who else is on the stage at conf!: https://www.qcfconf.org/podcaststage

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug 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 Baptist pastor Dana and ordained Hindu Fred, who are happily married. They share their beautiful story of finding each other through a dating app and connecting over a shared love of spirituality despite their differing beliefs. They discuss their life together and how they take part in each others’ spiritual traditions/practices and how that cross-fertilization has been helpful for them. We also unpack Paul’s often misused words in 2 Corinthians about “being unequally yoked with non-believers”; like Dana says, it’s not about having the same faith but having deep faith.

Rachel Held Evans’ blog post interview with Dana and Fred: https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/ask-an-interfaith-couple-response

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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, along with our friends Celia and Colleen from Assemblies of Pop Podcast, share our memories of Christian music and the culture created around it (music festivals, etc): we talk about TobyMac, Family Force 5, DC Talk, Dara Maclean, the big worship bands like Hillsong and Bethel, and other artists of various genres that have been lumped into the Christian label. We discuss how our relationship to Christian and/or worship music changed as we went through faith deconstruction, and the kinds of music we enjoy listening to now (we can listen to “secular” pop music and other things our parents or our own evangelical selves would not allow us to listen to!). We also chat a little bit about hymns at the end, because discovering the richness of worship music that existed before the 1960/70s to the present has been helpful to the spiritual growth of several of us.

Here is a playlist that has the Christian music we still like (whether for the nostalgia or genuine appreciation) and other tunes we’ve been enjoying these days: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42oWcyynPYAtrbpgEYoos9?si=c44f0d5706b14ba1

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 mystical theologian and author of Bad Theology Kills, Kevin Garcia! Kevin shares their spiritual journey from being in ex-gay ministry to finding wholeness in queer identity and finding God in their body, in other people, and in practices such as yoga. We get into some pretty deep theological discussions (April tries to articulate her Christology) and talk about what makes us feel alive with wonder, whether that be in a church community or somewhere completely different. We hope this conversation inspires you to sit in the mystery and find spiritual practices that are good for your well-being.

You can find Kevin on Instagram and Twitter @theKevinGarcia. Their podcasts, A Tiny Revolution and Your Favorite Aunts, can be found wherever you listen to podcasts. You can purchase their book here.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 honor of this spooky month, this episode is all about what scares evangelical Christians to death (but we forgot to even really talk much about Halloween–oops!). From cuss words to the “devil’s lettuce” to feminist theory to children’s media not being superheteronormative (Baby Bear from Sesame Street can’t have a doll, he’s a boy!!!), we discuss why these “scandalous” things are actually not that scary, and often can be good things!

Rachel Held Evans’ blog post on Owen Strachan’s absurd response to a Sesame Street bear puppet owning a doll: https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/guys-dolls-legalism-own-strachan-biblical-manhood?rq=guys%20and%20dolls

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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!

Now that we’ve been doing this podcast for a year and a half (!), we figured it was time for a re-introduction. Anna and April talk about what we do on this podcast–we break down the bad theology we learned in our evangelical adolescences, and share our journeys of learning new ways to look at biblical texts, sexual ethics, systems of power, and more. We also interview all kinds of wonderful people–mostly LGBTQ+ folks and/or people who have left toxic religious environments, but we’re always excited about featuring any voice who has something to say about religious or spiritual identity. We also give some recommendations of where you should start listening–if you want to hear personal stories, check out “Let’s Talk About Purity Culture.” If you want to dig deep into theology, try out one of our Bible Dyke Deep Dives. And honestly, all our guests are phenomenal, but our first two interviews (Amy Kósa and Alicia Crosby, respectively) will always be close to our hearts.

Here are some updated bios as well:

April Little (she/her) is a queer Christian and ex-evangelical who is studying for her Master’s degree in Theology and Culture: Community Development at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. She is passionate about LGBTQ+ inclusion and liberation in the church and any other religious/spiritual spaces. She is in the process of writing a memoir about healing from the religious trauma of growing up in an evangelical church that led her to repress her sexuality.

She believes that vulnerable storytelling is the foundation for creating change in the world, and she loves facilitating spaces for people to share their stories. She wants to help create a world where all LGBTQ+ folks, particularly youth, know that they are beloved by God, and can experience love among thriving communities (whether they are communities of faith or not). April is also a big nerd when it comes to musicals, the French language, and the Bible.

Anna Dawahare (she/they) is a student, creative, and nerd living in beautiful Southern California. She is currently attending Fordham University (online, because that’d be a long commute) and is part-way through getting her Masters in Social Work. Upon graduating, Anna wants to practice with LGBTQ+ youth and those harmed by religious trauma, as well as obtain her license to private practice.

They love being able to share the stories of their friends on Reclaiming the Garden as well as researching the variety of topics brought up (Anna is a sucker for a good research product because, as mentioned above, she is a nerd). Their life purpose is to be the snarky, genderqueer older sibling they needed when they were younger. When she isn’t studying, working at her internship, or podcasting, Anna sings with Angel City Chorale, volunteers with Q Christian Fellowship, and drinks copious amounts of tea. The way to her heart is a nice jasmine green tea. Anna aspires to be Uncle Iroh- as we all should.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 Keri Seymour, a multi-hyphenate human who currently lives in London who acted as Anna’s coming out sounding board. Keri tells the story of her difficult Catholic adolescence and her time spent in a convent (where yes, she did indeed kiss a nun), and she talks about the questions she had about Jesus and God that ultimately led to her taking on the belief that if any being created the world, they’re not really “here” anymore. We believe, as progressive Christians, that it is important to listen to Keri and others who have found wholeness leaving faith entirely, because it keeps us from falling into the cliche of telling people, “well you just haven’t found the real Jesus, that was human religion, but you should try out my affirming church.” If people are happy and whole where they are, we should celebrate that.

You can find Keri on Instagram @whiskywhinebier.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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!l 

Although our modern understanding of sexuality and gender identity and the terms we use to describe the spectrum of those identities are very different than the understanding and language used during “Bible times” (across several centuries, cultures, and languages), we can still look at certain relationships and characters in the Bible and see how they went outside of the sexual, relational, and/or gender norms of their culture. These are, in a sense, our LGBTQ+ ancestors, and they point to the truth that there has always been a spectrum of difference in human sexuality and gender identity. In this episode, we talk about David and Johnathan (who were probs more than “just buds”), Naomi and Ruth (who Boaz was the sperm donor for), Joseph and his princess dress, the Ethiopian Eunuch (and eunuchs in general as a sexual minority–although the law prohibited them from participating in religious life, a disciple, Philip, baptized him with no questions asked), and Jesus and the Beloved Disciple (and all the other ways Jesus can be interpreted as any of the letters in LGBTQIA+).

Resources:

Transmission Ministry Collective, offers community and resources for trans and gender-expansive people: https://transmissionministry.com/

That Theology Teacher’s videos on queer identity in the Bible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o6TG57KFQ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJHgYz6RYcs

https://qspirit.net/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 author and liberation theologian Damon Garcia, whose book, The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus, releases today, August 23rd; links to purchase available below/on his social media pages! We chat with Damon about his spiritual journey of growing up conservative evangelical and discovering that the Jesus he read about in the Gospels was much different than what his church had taught, and why he had to leave the church where he was leading youth ministry. April and Anna bring up their favorite themes of the book (the way he writes about forgiveness will blow your mind!!! In the collectivist culture of the time it was understood to be a communal act that takes away the shame that society has placed upon them!!), and we discussed practical ways for living out God’s dream of radical justice in community. We deeply enjoyed reading his book and we hope you will too!

Damon Garcia can be found on Instagram and Twitter @whoisdamon. You can purchase his book here and subscribe to his YouTube channel here.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 break down what we were taught about money, the economy, and socioeconomic status in the churches we grew up in. Even if we were not explicitly taught the “prosperity gospel” à la televangelists (that if you be the best Christian you can be and donate a lot of money to the church, God will make you rich, and poor people are “just lazy and don’t have God’s favor”), we were still taught that capitalism was Good and socialism was Scary, that the government shouldn’t take the church’s role of caring for the poor. We were still taught an individualistic view that people could have financial abundance if they put in the work, completely ignoring the many systemic barriers that keep marginalized communities from acquiring financial security. We also discussed the consumerist culture present in evangelicalism with its church coffee shops and concert style worship.

But God’s vision of economic justice, and justice in general, is the exact opposite of that, and the culture in which the Scriptures were written was collectivist. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are FILLED with calls to care for our neighbors, to not hoard things when we already have enough. Jesus says the poor are blessed, because the poor are the closest to God–God is not partial to a political party, but God is on the side of the poor and oppressed, always. And that has implications that we (Anna and I grew up well-off) have to wrestle with and make sure we are truly living out God’s call to justice and wholeness for all.

Resources:

John Oliver on Televangelists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg

The channel Anna mentioned that has done several videos on MLMs, including what Girl Defined is currently peddling: https://www.youtube.com/c/SAVYLEISER/videos

For more information on the Year of Jubilee, read the relevant excerpts in Leviticus and/or this Wikipedia page: https://www.youtube.com/c/SAVYLEISER/videos (the book of Deuteronomy also has cool stuff about caring for the poor and those in need)

For more info about the socioeconomic stuff going on in Revelation, listen to our Bible Dyke Deep Dive on it or read The Rapture Exposed by Barbara Rossing.

Examples of prophets getting mad about economic injustice: Isaiah 58 and Amos 5.

New Testament texts discussed: James, 1 and 2 Corinthians (and any of Paul’s letters where he entreats the community to care for poorer churches/people in need), Acts 2, many things that Jesus did in the Gospels but one we forgot to mention: Matthew 19:24, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Also April didn’t bring this up but if you want to read a memoir about someone wrestling with the implications the prosperity gospel had on her life, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler is great.

April’s new newsletter, Butterflies in the Wilderness: https://aprilthewriter.substack.com/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 ex-Mormon (or “exmo”) YouTubers Jordan and McKay! They share their journey of growing up in the Mormon/LDS church and the things that caused them to doubt until their “shelves” of faith broke and they decided to leave (the disturbing history of Joseph Smith marrying women as young as 14, the practices and lack of informed consent in the Temple, among other things). All of us discuss what we were taught about the other’s faith tradition–Anna and April were taught that Mormonism was a cult and that Mormons were going to hell, and *gasp* they believed in a Heavenly Mother as well as Father; and Jordan and McKay were taught that, although Mormons tried to do work in partnership with other denominations, those denominations were a distorted mirror compared to Joseph Smith’s restored church. April talks about how her church’s support of Mitt Romney was the first crack in her evangelical faith (because if he’s going to hell as they taught her all Mormons are, then why are they voting for him?). We also talk about the tension in Mormon culture of being very patriotic but also having a distrust of “big government.”

You can find Jordan and Mckay on their YouTube channel here, and you can find them on Instagram and TikTok @jordanandmckay. You can support them on Patreon and can buy their sticker merch here and clothing merch here.

Resources:

The CES Letter: https://cesletter.org/

https://quitmormon.com/

April’s new newsletter, Butterflies in the Wilderness: https://aprilthewriter.substack.com/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 the ancient lawbook of Leviticus. We break down the arbitrary categories we were given to interpret the laws of the Hebrew Bible (the moral law vs. the ceremonial law; even if this concept was applied, the rule prohibiting mixed fabrics is in a section of mostly “moral laws”), and we discuss Leviticus’ authorship (not Moses lol, he didn’t have the time). We also consider the question that Christians have been debating from the very beginning (and in fact we see this debate played out in several books of the New Testament): As Christians, which parts of the law do we follow, and which ones are specific to the culture of the time? Paul had to deal with a lot of people getting mad at the radical message of grace that he and apostles like Peter preached: do not call unclean what God has made clean.

We also break down two of the most often cited “clobber passages'' used to condemn LGBTQ+ people, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. These verses are likely about temple prostitution between men or between an adult man and a boy. And to anyone who would tell us that accepting LGBTQ+ people will lead to our society accepting other forms of sex prohibited in Leviticus (bestiality, incest), we say: you’re thinking about bestiality an awful lot, aren’t you? Also, sex or romantic relationships between two consenting adults is a completely different thing.

Plus, there is so much more to Leviticus than those two clobber verses! Within parts of it, there are beautiful models for how to love our neighbors (especially refugees and those in need) and the earth, and it is a shame that this wisdom is so often missed when we focus on just a few verses (or get weirded out by all the details about animal sacrifice at the beginning of the book).

Resources:

Wikipedia page for Leviticus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Leviticus

Maybe the whole book of Leviticus was just laws for priests? https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2017-05-13/ty-article/revisiting-leviticus-can-we-eat-bacon-now/0000017f-f592-d044-adff-f7fb9e950000

What do the words abomination and unclean mean? | Rabbi Daniel Lapin

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 Richie X, an autistic, queer and non-binary writer/commentator and host of two podcasts, Surviving Fundamentalism and Underdogs on Top! They share their winding faith journey from being raised Muslim to finding Black Baptist churches and becoming a young preacher, to finding Pentecostalism, to joining a fundamentalist cult, to deconstructing and finding wholeness in the God who “just is,” who says “They are who They are.” They also discuss how their neurodivergence impacted their experience in religious spaces (religion gave rules and black + white thinking, gave them a passion to research Bible/theology), and how education opened up their mind to new ideas and led them down the path of deconstruction and coming to terms with their queer identity.

You can find Richie X on Instagram and Twitter @richieatitagain. You can find their podcasts Surviving Fundamentalism and Underdogs on Top wherever you listen to podcasts.

Here is the newsletter April mentions in the episode, DL Mayfield’s God is my Special Interest: https://dlmayfield.substack.com/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 celebration of the Tony’s (which at time of release was this past Sunday), Anna and I discuss several musicals that make us think about theology and/or LGBTQ+ identity (and we include the perspectives of a few of our friends, too!). We of course start with musicals that take their stories from the Bible (Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and Prince of Egypt which yes, April still needs to watch), then go into shows that have inspired us in our journeys of faith without having outright religious themes–among them are anti-purity culture anthems from Wicked and Heathers, queer joy in The Prom, Fun Home, and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and (okay, these actually do have outright religious themes) the redemption stories in A Muppet Christmas Carol and Les Miserables. We hope you enjoy what is the most lighthearted episode we’ve ever recorded!

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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!

Due to some scheduling conflicts and April and Anna having a lot going on in late May, our May guest interview has been moved to June. But today we’re dropping a minisode with some cool life updates! Anna talks about her experience with grad school (MA in Social Work) so far, her classes and internship; April talks about her belated graduation (which on date of release was this past Sunday, look at her Instagram for photos!!) and her upcoming move back to Seattle in July. We also discuss our nervousness re: the current rise in covid cases (and Anna unfortunately has covid right now–they’re not doing too bad but prayers and love sent her way are appreciated). We hold our joys and sorrows together as we look forward to the opportunities ahead of us.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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!

Content warning: depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation. Please take care of yourself, we love y’all.

This episode is all about mental health (and we didn’t even realize May is Mental Health Awareness Month when we recorded it!). We discuss how the churches we grew up in did not equip us to deal with our depression and anxiety in a healthy way (“just pray and read the Bible and deal with the sin in your life, then you’ll be happy…our hardships in life are for the perfection of our faith”), and of course were actively involved in the repression of our sexualities which made matters worse. We speak openly about the emotional rollercoasters we’ve been on and how we’ve sought to heal. Therapy and medication have been vital to our thriving, and that is a beautiful thing that is not to be ashamed of–Jesus is our spiritual guide and our comfort in the midst of struggle, but he’s not a therapist, and medicine is a modern miracle, a form of grace.

Mental Health Resources

Trevor Project–for LGBTQ+ people, call or text: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-help/

Trans Lifeline (877) 565-8860 https://translifeline.org/

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Resources on CDC website: https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/tools-resources/individuals/index.htm

For teens and young adults: https://jedfoundation.org/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 take on a topic so big (heaven, hell, the final destiny of creation), we had to bring in the perspectives of our friends from Ravel Podcast–Emily Rettinghouse, Josh Lieuallen, and Stephen Henning. We break down what we were taught about the afterlife (kind of having amnesia in heaven about your friends and family who were in hell? And heaven being a neverending church service? Yikes!) in our respective faith backgrounds. We then discuss how our views have changed over time, our questions and doubts about why a loving God would punish people forever and about whether there even is an afterlife. All of us land in different places in what we believe now and how that affects how we live (Emily is clergy and she is very refreshing in how openness that she isn’t sure if heaven or hell exist), but all of us are connected to the idea of new creation, not just in some distant future–Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of Heaven invite us into the restoration of ourselves, our communities, and the earth, right here and now (and that unfortunately, some people choose to create hell on earth instead). And for some of us, that hope of new creation goes beyond death and into a vision where one day, all life on this earth will be restored, and instead of an endless worship service, maybe heaven is an adventure where we imagine and create with God and each other.

You can follow Ravel Podcast on Instagram and Twitter @ravelpod, and make sure to give their episodes a listen wherever you’re listening to ours! You can follow the individual folks here: @stephenghenning on Insta and Twitter, @joshlieuallen on Twitter, and @RevRettinghouse on Twitter.

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 scripture (and liberation theology) as we discuss the central claim of Christianity: that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. We break down what we were taught about Jesus’ death, the “God-ordained” cosmic child abuse known as penal substitutionary atonement theory–that on the cross Jesus took God’s wrath that was meant for us and our sins, because otherwise sin would separate us from God like “a chasm.” And in accepting Jesus' sacrifice and believing in him as Lord and Savior, one is saved from the wrath of hell (we’ll talk more on hell in our next episode). This theory of atonement didn’t exist until the Reformation (thanks, Calvin and Luther) and does not jive with the historical understanding of the Trinity as a loving, self-giving presence–God cannot punish Godself. And our God is one of restorative justice, not retributive justice.

We talk about the various ways our understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the painful journey that led up to it, has deepened and changed over the past few years. The work of Black liberation theologians such as James Cone and Womanist theologians like Delores Williams shine a light on how the violence of the cross is very similar to the violence faced by Black people in the past and present (lynching, police violence, incarceration)--it was a way of instilling fear and keeping order, it was a showing of the empire’s power over others. Though Cone and Williams take different stances on how to interpret the cross, both of their voices are vital in keeping us from glorifying the violence of the cross, reminding us of Jesus’ solidarity with the suffering and marginalized, and calling us to be in solidarity with the crucified bodies in our midst today. We also talk about the presence of women in the narrative of the ending of all four Gospels–they followed him to the cross, wept beside him after all other disciples had abandoned him, and they were the first to see him raised from the dead and proclaim this to the other disciples–and men wrote all of that in the Bible, even though a woman’s testimony would not be accepted in court at the time.

Ultimately, we think Jesus’ death on the cross was not a divine necessity, but a result of the earthly powers that conspired to kill him (the majority of which came from the Roman state and the religious establishment that had aligned itself with the state); we hold space for the turbulent emotions of Jesus and his disciples, and we remember them, not wanting to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter. But we hold hope that this isn’t the end of the story. We believe that the goodness, love, and life of Jesus was more powerful than the empire, and in this way he conquered death and beat the powers of evil–no payment, no transaction, no wrath. This way of thinking about atonement and the cross is called Christus Victor, and is historically the view that most Christians throughout the centuries have held. And this resurrection life is something Jesus offers to us; he calls us to a new kind of being human.

If you’re listening to this on the day of release, may you have a blessed Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. And God holds us in our doubts and questions in the spaces between those words.

Here are the resources we bring up in the episode:

Scary Things: Will You End Up In Hell? - Queer Theology podcast

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone (and any podcasts/lectures he appears on)

Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores Williams

Knowing Christ Crucified by M. Shawn Copeland

As always lol, Rachel Held Evans…I feel like she explores her feelings about Jesus/the cross/resurrection in all her books

In this episode, we have a conversation with our friend Ellie Dote, a transgender Christian woman, public speaker, and business owner! She shares about her winding faith background from Catholicism to Calvary Chapel evangelicalism and working in church ministry, and the various experiences that brought her life to a turning point, including getting diagnosed as HIV positive. She talks about her coming out journey and how often, churches were fine with her presence at women’s events until she told them she was trans (and April wonders, what are all these LGBTQphobic churches going to do with more and more trans people living into their truth?), and she talks about her brave ministry of reaching out to evangelical pastors to share her story. She also discusses why she wrote her book, Walking Towards Cordelia; she wants people to know the story of a trans person so that they can no longer say they’re ignorant, they have to be accountable–kind of like how evangelicals talk about the Gospel: now that you’ve heard this, what will you do with the information? How will you respond? We know we’ll respond by advocating for the rights of our trans beloveds everywhere.

You can find Ellie on Instagram @Ellieanne1977 and her business @elliegirlcreations. You can find her on Twitter @EllieGirl77. Here is the link to purchase her book: https://elliedote.com/walking-towards-cordelia/ and her business website: https://elliegirlcreations.com/

For a full breakdown of context re: why we don't support God is Grey/Brenda Marie Davies anymore, see this excellent blog post that lays out everything that happened and why her actions were harmful: https://sheseeksnonfiction.blog/2022/03/27/why-i-can-no-longer-support-brenda-marie-davies/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 spiritual practices–things we do that ground us in the presence of God and that contribute to our well-being. We start by discussing the state of the world right now, how we often feel burnt out and helpless with the news of Russia (though it is not the Russian people’s will but Vladimir Putin’s) invading Ukraine and the news of anti-trans legislation in Texas and other states, on top of what we’re facing in our personal lives. We think that this, in itself, is a spiritual practice, naming and lamenting the evil in our world; this happens in many of the Psalms and there’s a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations.

We talk about other spiritual practices that have been helpful for us during these past few weeks–reading prophetic scripture that speaks to empires falling, reading books that feature the hope of change and goodness in the world and the church (see said books below), tarot card reading, liturgical written prayer (April loves the Book of Common Prayer!), and also practices that allow us to be embodied, such as holding things while praying (crystals, prayer beads), and corporate practices like communion. We discuss what spiritual practices were available to us under evangelicalism–not many, really, besides prayer, Bible reading, and journaling, and for the former two there were pretty rigid expectations about how you were supposed to do it (even though prayer was supposed to be freeform, you weren’t allowed to get mad at God or ask too many questions, etc). As our beliefs have shifted, we have allowed ourselves to find the Divine in more places and practices, knowing that the Holy Spirit is always with us. And we know now that God is not afraid of our doubts or our anger or our sadness, God actually desires that we bring our full selves to prayer, scripture reading, or whatever other way we encounter God.

Resources mentioned:

Books April just read:

         Dear Church by Lenny Duncan

         Outdoing Jesus by Doug Pagitt

         (and now she is reading To Bless the Space Between Us, a book of blessings by the late Irish poet John O'Donohue, and that has been spiritually enriching as well)

Want a Bible app that offers LGBTQ+ affirming devotionals? We recommend Our Bible App (it’s literally the only one that does, unfortunately)! https://www.ourbibleapp.com/

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 public radio journalist and queer Christian Claire Murashima! Claire talks about her Christian Reformed background (her understanding of total depravity is recognizing that the world has so much brokenness and injustice, not that we as humans are bad at our core), her educational and faith formation at Calvin University, and the journey that led to her coming out as the first openly gay Student Body President at Calvin. She also talks about her foray into journalism and how her identity and journey impacts the work she does in public radio, how she navigates the tension of bringing her full self into a field where one is supposed to remain unbiased and “tell the story, not be the story.”

You can find Claire on Instagram @clairemurashima (she often does really fun either/or polls on her story!) and on Twitter @CMurashima. The shows that Claire works on can be found here:

Stateside Radio: https://www.michiganradio.org/show/stateside

How I Built This: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

This is probably the nth time we’ve brought up Straight White American Jesus in one of our episodes. It’s an amazing podcast and you should check it out if you haven’t yet!

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 vocation, calling, purpose–spiritual ways of saying, what are we supposed to be doing with our lives? In the churches we grew up in, we learned a lot of misconceptions and rigid ideas about how God works Their good will through us and in the world–like that we’re called, or even predestined, to do this One Thing for life or that a call to ministry or evangelism is the highest calling one can have, and that in fact Christianity should be incorporated into whatever career we pursue. We also talk about the Basic Bitch Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11, that is always misinterpreted to mean that God has the entirety of our lives planned out for us. Since we both considered the idea of becoming missionaries when we were evangelical (*cringes*), we go into the problematic aspects of missionary work (voluntourism, colonialism), and discuss better ways to approach humanitarian work in countries that are not our own (if the locals aren’t leading the work, and if evangelism is compulsory, that’s a red flag).

We also discuss how, as our beliefs shifted, we found that we both started to look at our callings in life in a much more open way–that we are in a creative partnership with God in how we are bringing about God’s love, mercy, and hope on earth. We are always going to be living out that purpose, but the way we live it out will change throughout our lives. And of course, our passion for helping LGBTQ+ youth is something that guides us both as Anna pursues studying social work and April pursues studying theology.

If you wanna help two gals saving up for grad school, we have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 YouTuber Mary Clare Kunkel, whose channel “Faith Evolving” (not to be confused with the Evolving Faith Conference!) has A+ content for Christians seeking faith in their evolving contexts. Mary Clare talks about her ecumenical faith background in the United Methodist, Catholic, and Lutheran churches, and what she’s learned about spirituality through them (she also touches on the few times she’s had brushes with evangelical culture), and how she came to terms with her queerness. We nerd out about the Bible, talk about how faith is found in the asking of questions, not in the certainty of answers, and we discuss how Tumblr actually introduced all of us to a lot of things re: gender, sexuality, and social justice! Mary Clare also shares about her seminary experience, particularly from her perspective as someone who doesn’t feel called to ordained/pastor ministry.

You can find Mary Clare on her YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/FaithEvolving and her merch here: https://www.bonfire.com/store/faith-evolving-store/. You can also find her on Instagram @faithevolvingproject and on Twitter @maryclarekunkel.

The book April mentions on church history is A Nearly Infallible History of Christianity by Nick Page.

If you want to learn more about Mary Clare's fave nun, here's a Britannica article on St. Hildegard of Bingen: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Hildegard

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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, because Jan. 6th marked one year since the violent insurrection at the Capitol building, we discuss the systems of oppression that were on full display at the event, as well as other parts of history where that same “Christian” violence, white supremacy, and nationalism were in full force, and how these systems are embedded into every aspect of our society. We talk about the Puritans and the myth that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation,” the real origins of the “pro-life” movement (really, it was a cover for opposition to racial integration in schools), and the various groups of people involved in the Jan. 6th insurrection, the religious symbols they donned and the prayers they prayed. We also discuss the ways that we can resist these unjust systems, starting with our interpersonal relationships and our vote. There are a loooot of resources we mention in this episode (and some we found in our research that we forgot to mention!), so be sure to check out the links below to learn more!

Resources:

Book: Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad

Christian fascism wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fascism 

https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/christian-nationalists-capitol-attack.html 

Post by Lisa Sharon Harper on Rachel Held Evans' blog: https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/the-other-lie-lisa-sharon-harper-ferguson# 

https://uncivilreligion.org/home/index 

https://religionnews.com/2022/01/05/violence-isnt-the-only-way-christian-nationalism-endangers-democracy/ 

Literally any episode of the Straight White American Jesus podcast–look for episode titles that mention Christian Nationalism or the series this month, Jan. 6th One Year Later

The Exvangelical Podcast interview with Anthea Butler, author of “White Evangelical Racism” (https://bookshop.org/books/white-evangelical-racism-the-politics-of-morality-in-america/9781469661179), would also recommend his interview with Pastor Lenny Duncan. Interview with Anthea Butler here: https://www.exvangelicalpodcast.com/white-evangelical-racism-with-dr-anthea-butler/

https://religionnews.com/2022/01/06/jan-6-a-timeline-in-prayers/ 

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/ 

https://religionnews.com/2021/09/16/survey-white-evangelicals-to-falsely-blame-left-wing-activists-for-insurrection/ 

https://religionnews.com/2021/02/25/the-insurrectionists-senate-floor-prayer-highlights-a-curious-trumpian-ecumenism/ 

https://religionnews.com/2021/01/12/the-faith-of-the-insurrectionists/ 

https://time.com/6132591/january-6th-christian-nationalism/ 

Book: Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith by Troy Jackson, Lisa Sharon Harper, Mae Elise Cannon, Soong-Chan Rah. https://bookshop.org/books/forgive-us-confessions-of-a-compromised-faith/9780310515968

Jo Luehmann on social media @JoLuehmann

We have merch! Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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!

We’re ending this year with a lovely conversation with our pals from the Couch Communion Podcast, Sara Kaufmann and Jordyn Manczyk! We also have an episode we did with them over on their podcast where we played Bible and Christmas Jeopardy, so go check that out!

In this episode, we reflect on what happened in the Christian faith/religion and the exvangelical/deconstruction spheres this year. We actually start off by discussing how those two words–exvangelical and deconstruction–are becoming more mainstream, how the stories of exvangelicals are gaining attention from media outlets and more prevalence on social media, and in turn are receiving more backlash from the evangelical establishment (The Gospel Coalition, John Piper, Christianity Today), which in turn creates some lovely clapbacks from exvies. We also discuss some of the worst showings of the rotten fruit of evangelicalism this year–the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6th and its connection with white evangelical movements (theocracy and white supremacy has always been the end goal of white evangelical politics), and the sexual abusers Ravi Zacharias and Josh Duggar. Another thread is April talking about some things she learned while reading through Rachel Held Evans’ blog posts this year (she’s trying to read through every single one and has not finished yet). And, of course, we share the origin stories of our podcasts, since we both launched our podcasts this year at around the same time!

You can find Couch Communion anywhere you listen to podcasts, and on Twitter and Instagram @CouchCommunion.

Did you know that we launched merch? Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

Resources:

Rachel Held Evans' Blog: https://rachelheldevans.com/archives

Exvangelical Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exvangelical

Letter from the International Board of Directors of Ravi Zacharias Ministries: https://rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/board-statement.html

For more information on Josh Duggar and his court case, we recommend watching YouTuber Fundie Fridays' videos on the subject.

Here's a sampling of articles from this year related to exvangelicals/deconstruction, and no I am not sharing the articles from Christianity Today or The Gospel Coalition, they don't need more clicks:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/abraham-piper-tiktok-exvangelical.html

https://www.yahoo.com/now/exvangelicals-breaking-away-spreading-gospel-110037953.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/syndicated/exvangelicals-growing-movement-rejecting-conservative-faiths-rigid-political-ideology/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/akdbee/what-its-like-to-leave-the-evangelical-community-exvangelicals

https://religionnews.com/2021/08/28/evangelicals-youre-still-not-really-listening-to-what-exvangelicals-are-saying/

https://religiondispatches.org/evangelicals-in-moral-panic-over-exvangelicals/

https://www.axios.com/evangelical-exvangelicals-church-religion-christianity-100fc653-ef8f-4966-9653-6395cd30fb97.html

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!

This is part two of two episodes about our church experiences. In this episode, we start by briefly touching on two elements of our church adolescence we didn’t get to in the first episode (and even as April types this, she can think of so many more memories she didn’t get to; but they’re bound to come up in other episodes)--experiences around the themes of missionary and martyrdom aspirations. We then go into how our feelings re: church shifted as we started to doubt the faith we had been taught growing up, our meandering church searches as we tried to find belonging in the midst of pain and disillusionment, and the joy and love we have experienced in the various new ways we’ve found church (baptism, liturgy, confirmation, affirming church ladies, and online community).

I feel like we mention QCF (Q Christian Fellowship) every episode, but here’s their website if you want to check it out. They facilitate online community groups, provide affirming resources, and host conferences (Anna will be at their conference in January!):https://www.qchristian.org/ If you want to search for an affirming church in your area (or find one to stream online) good places to start are https://www.churchclarity.org/ and https://www.gaychurch.org/

Did you know that we launched merch? Get your Bible Dyke Energy Tee or mug here: https://reclaiming-the-garden.creator-spring.com/

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 wonderfully queer friend Nathan Daniel Cromwell! He discusses his faith background, wild stories from when he served in Australia and Indonesia through the evangelical org Youth with a Mission, his shift towards agnosticism (though he has no doubt in his mind that he’s got some guardian angels), and how he came to terms with being trans.

You can find Nathan on his personal Instagram @naetertot_ and his modeling Instagram @naetertotshots.

Here’s where you can buy the lovely shirt Nathan was wearing during the interview (a tee that says “Bottoms and Tops We All Hate Cops”): https://badnewswares.com/products/bottoms-and-tops-we-all-hate-cops-shirt?fbclid=IwAR3WgCJtbXH3cR3iijGuTNqO1TxNCow7a9hkst7jc0o-t6D2JiIxtiXRplc

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

This is part one of two episodes about our church experiences. In this episode we focus on children’s church, youth group, and church camp, and the next episode will be about church in the midst of the deconstruction and reconstruction of our faith (though in the next episode we’ll still have a few things from youth group and church camp to bring up, there’s so much to talk about!). We talk about the programming in children’s church (Veggie Tales, 3-2-1 Penguins, and the lesser known but honestly weirder set of DVDS called Kidmo), our trying to fit into our youth groups and church camps, and also about some of the shenanigans that went on there (lots of fun games and not-so-fun purity culture and worship leaders trying way too hard). Ultimately, although we had some fun times and we made some friends, our feelings re: our church upbringings are very complicated.

If anyone else in the world, like April, grew up watching Kidmo on Sundays in children's church, let us know! You can find a lot of clips from Kidmo on YouTube (though if you search for that word the first thing to come up are videos in Japanese; scroll down and you’ll get to things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inNlRKUx0Lk).

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 the awesome queer couple Angel and Nicole Morris! They discuss their winding journeys of faith, the challenges they faced when coming out at a Christian university, and the spiritual practices that they’ve discovered and found meaningful as they now find themselves no longer identifying as Christians. We also talk about how embodiment is really important, and that listening to your body (look up the work of Jamie Lee Finch, and April also talks in the episode about what this looks like for her) is an important spiritual practice that had been denied to us in the churches we spent our teenage years in.

You can find Angel on Insta, TikTok, and Twitter @canklemorris (which, we found out on the podcast, is a reference to a high school nickname) and you can find Nicole on Instagram @coliejean. You should also check out The Voyage Meetup, @thevoyagemeetup on Insta--it’s an awesome group for LGBTQ+ people of faith, where April has met so many amazing people, including Angel and Nicole! The Voyage meets on Zoom (info in Insta bio) the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 6PM Pacific Time.

There weren’t really any specific resources mentioned in this episode but I’ll just echo here what Nicole said about looking into witchy spiritual practices: make sure you are not culturally appropriating from anyone, do your research around what is open to be shared (such as tarot cards) and what is not.

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

The beasts in the book of Revelation are scary...but what’s even more terrifying are the oppressive, violent, greedy empires they represent (and in which all of us are complicit). In this episode, we get down and dirty and nerdy with scripture as we break down the misconceptions we were taught about this apocalyptic text; most notably, the supposed order of events of the end of the world (sometimes called the End Times Timeline).

We explore John of Patmos’ vision in his historical, cultural, and literary context and see that his monstrous imagery is often taken from the Hebrew Bible prophets (especially Daniel) that were referring to the empires that had taken them captive in their day; John was showing how Rome was just the most recent iteration of that same pattern of conquest. In this book, John is laying out a clear choice, and no, it’s not whether you prayed the Sinner’s Prayer or not. Will we follow the way of the empire, acting in ways that profit off the blood of our neighbor and destroy God’s good world, or will we follow the way of Jesus, the slain Lamb, who does not achieve victory through conquest but through loving and dying for his enemies?

We also discuss how Revelation actually offers a vision of incredible hope, especially in its final two chapters, which God invites us to take part in making a reality in the here and now: a vision of a river of life and tree of life, and a city where all of God’s people thrive, where the whole of creation is renewed (God is making all things new, not an all-new earth) and heaven is finally reunited with earth. Contrary to what many evangelicals say, the final pages of the Bible testify that this earth that we live on right now is our home and God’s home.

Resources we drew from for this episode:

The work of Dr, Barbara Rossing (she is ordained in the ELCA, which is, for the most part, an LGBTQ affirming denomination):

• https://trinitywallstreet.org/videos/gods-unfinished-future-barbara-rossing
• https://www.livinglutheran.org/2013/06/end-times/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V4lkH6TsR4
• We did not have time to read it, but she has written a book on this topic: The Rapture Exposed

The Bible Project’s two-part overview of the Book of Revelation (the founder of Bible Proj, Tim Mackie, is not affirming--if anyone can recommend a similar resource from someone who is affirming, please let us know, but for now, this seems to be one of the best overview videos that explains the imagery in its original historical context, and the fact that it’s illustrated is super helpful too):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nvVVcYD-0w

Quote from Sojourner Truth can be found here: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/narrative-sojourner-truth

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 author and filmmaker (and April’s best friend) Brianna da Silva. We discuss her faith background and her journey to becoming an atheist and coming to terms with her lesbian identity, and how that experience impacted her creative process and what she believes about storytelling (and along with that we do a little shit-talking about Christian movies, of course). We also discuss her debut fantasy novel, City of Reckoning (which features several queer characters, especially bi folks), which is available for purchase in digital or print versions at various places, check Brianna’s socials below for more info and links!

You can follow Brianna on Instagram @curious_storyteller and Twitter @Brianna_daSilva, and her website is http://briannadasilva.blog/ (she has some really cool creative nonfiction on there that we didn’t get to talking about in the interview).

Videos Anna mentioned on God’s Not Dead:

God's Not Dead: The Rhetoric of Christian Propaganda | Big Joel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSMJiWmLQyw

GOD'S NOT DEAD: The Most Casually Racist and Sexist Movie from "Christian Netflix" (PureFlix) (Nick DiRamio)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQuMcr8pqnk

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 talk about women all across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—from badass skull-breaking ladies like Jael to the too-many-Marys to the unnamed women that Jesus encountered, and everyone else in-between. We discuss the nuances of their stories that often aren’t brought up in church (if the women are even mentioned at all), and we talk about the “Proverbs 31 woman” and why evangelicals have taken it out of its original context—it’s a celebration of women for who they already are, not a checklist for what a perfect wife should be!

We also talk about Paul’s view of women when taking account of all his epistles and not just a few hand-picked verses—he worked alongside women in his missionary work, naming women in his letters as co-workers (or even with Phoebe’s case, calling her a deacon) and telling the recipients to thank them; there’s also the fact that some of the misogynistic-seeming verses from Paul’s epistles about women are scorning the behavior of rude, wealthy widows and not all women at all times.

This is by no means an exhaustive overview; if we didn’t talk about your fave “biblical woman,” let us know who she is! We’ll definitely get to her in a future episode (Bible Dyke Deep Dive on Esther, anyone?).

Resources:

Here’s a list of all the named women in the Bible: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Chapter-2-Alphabetical

Here’s a list of all the unnamed women in the Bible, including Paul’s sister. Uh, Paul, that’s so rude to not even mention her name!! https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Chapter-3-Nameless-Bible-Women

Episode of VeggieTales that Anna mentioned: King George and the Ducky (based on the story of David and Bathsheba...obviously watered down a whole lot)

To hear about the story of Rizpah in the Bible, listen to episode two of the Evolving Faith Podcast, "Climbing the Mountain of Injustice with Austin Channing Brown." She tells the story better than either of us ever could.

The way that Rachel Held Evans writes about the story of Esther and Queen Vashti is really good, both in her blog posts and in her book Inspired.

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 talk with soon-to-be Master’s student in gender, sexuality, and culture, Artie Peters (they/he). They share about their faith journey, and he also talks about his hopes and interests for his Master’s degree program, and the importance of rituals in his life (such as reading, which leads into a big discussion about media and its impacts on our lives). We also poke fun at April’s kitschy Christian merch she bought at Christian music festivals in the early 2010s (check our Instagram for photos!).

You can follow Artie on Instagram and TikTok @patrongodartemis. And here are the socials for the orgs they recommended: Transvisible Montana (@transvisiblemontana on Insta and @TransVisibleMT on Twitter) and Kaleidoscope (@Kalediscopemissoula).

To anyone who happens to be reading this who is parenting a middle school aged child...April highly recommends the Warrior Cats series. Mostly the original series (there are like, God knows how many sequel series now, since they’re ghostwritten by a group of multiple writers…). And if you or your child is going to read Harry Potter, please do so in a way that gives no more money to the author (thrift stores, letting your child read the copies that you bought when you were a kid and didn’t know JK was transphobic, etc), and listen to the podcast Artie mentioned, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (@hpsacredtext). If you or your child is going to read the Chronicles of Narnia, please know that the religious metaphor is really heavy-handed at times, and the books are also sometimes sexist and racist (but they’re still a fun read). Dear God, that lion is Jesus.

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 the recently released Netflix documentary Pray Away, which tells the stories of ex-leaders (all of whom are queer) of the conversion therapy movement; they speak out about its harm to the LGBTQ+ community and its devastating persistence in the modern day through new movements like Freedom March. We discuss the stories that touched our hearts (particularly Julie Rodgers’), the unfortunate lack of diversity of voices, and how we feel about the choice of the filmmakers to feature the story of a current leader in the ex-gay movement who still supports the message (Jeffrey McCall of Freedom March).

Julie Rodgers’ new book (which she reads an excerpt from in the doc), Outlove, is out now! Support her work! Also, check out Q Christian Fellowship’s UNCHANGED movement which combats ex-gay narratives: https://www.unchangedmovement.com/ and @unchangedmvmt on Twitter and Instagram.

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 talk with our wonderful friend and fierce LGBTQ+ Christian advocate Lauren Dempster (she/they). They share the story of their winding faith journey and how they came to terms with their bisexuality and non-binary gender identity. She also talks about the painful process of coming out to her non-affirming church and eventually choosing to leave it. 

You can follow Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @laurensgaylife. Their dog also has an Instagram, @milo.the.rescue. You should also follow The Voyage Meetup, @thevoyagemeetup on Insta--it’s an awesome group for LGBTQ+ people of faith, where April met Lauren! We meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month (which is coincidentally when we’ll also be dropping episodes each month!).

Lauren brings up Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian in this episode as a resource that helped her, and although we didn’t bring this up in the episode, we wanted to explain in the show notes why we would not recommend this book (though we do acknowledge it has been helpful for many people in reconciling their sexuality theologically with their faith). Matthew Vines has managed his own organization, The Reformation Project, quite poorly, particularly when it comes to the work of antiracism--in 2019, the entire staff at RP quit, many of which were people of color. You can get an inside look of what the organizational culture was like in this great article by AnaYelsi Velasco Sanchez- https://medium.com/@anayelsivelascosanchez/when-organizations-devolve-the-whitewashing-of-the-reformation-project-fda9b24cc24f. Also, Matthew Vines’ book and the Reformation Project still assert that sex must only be in the context of marriage, and they do not support ethical polyamourous relationships, so we cannot in good conscience support that purity culture bullshit. Here are some books by other LGBTQ+ authors that we would recommend instead (and the last one is an ally but is good if you’re looking for something very theology-based):

One Coin Found by Emmy Kegler

Undivided by Vicky Beeching

Does Jesus Really Love Me? By Jeff Chu

Bad Theology Kills by Kevin Garcia

Changing Our Mind by David Gushee

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

Content warning: sexual abuse, evangelical bullshit, religious shame/trauma

Purity culture—the sexual ethic taught by most evangelical and Catholic churches that sex is only good/holy in the context of monogamous marriage between a cisgender man and cisgender woman. It’s a teaching that has led to so much sexual shame, abuse, and loss of people’s agency and embodiment. In this episode, we discuss how we experienced this teaching in church (and the culture at large--in a secular context, we would call it rape culture or slut shaming), how it impacted us, and how we deconstructed and reconstructed our sexual ethics to have a healthier, less rigid view of sex. A healthy sexual ethic should be rooted in the values of consent and care for other people—that is, you’re not harming yourself or others, and you make sure to get enthusiastic consent.

We also discuss how purity culture creates an environment where sexual abuse can flourish and survivors are shamed into silence; it’s not a bug of the system, it’s a feature. We also make fun of Matthew West’s stupid song “Modest is Hottest.”

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

Resources mentioned in this episode (and maybe a few extra anti-purity culture resources that we forgot to say!)::

A whole lot of God is Grey videos on YouTube—check out Brenda Marie Davies’ new book, On Her Knees!

Beyond Shame by Matthias Roberts

#Churchtoo by Emily Joy Allison

Pure by Linda Kay Klein

Shameless by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Damaged Goods by Dianna Anderson

Bad Theology Kills by Kevin Garcia

You Are Your Own by Jamie Lee Finch

Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust

We’re assuming you have no interest in looking up the shitty purity culture books we mentioned, but if you are curious for the sake of research, you can DM us.

In this episode, we have a conversation with justice educator, activist, (sometimes reluctant) minister, and writer/speaker Alicia Crosby. Alicia and April start off by bonding over their shared alma mater, Hollins University. After that, we get into Alicia’s faith journey, her “ecumenical promiscuousness” and what she’s learned from different Christian traditions, her coming out journey and pansexual identity, and her work related to religious trauma (particularly racialized, imperialist trauma and LGBTQ+ trauma). We also talk about how whiteness and imperialism shows up in both conservative and progressive spaces, the importance of intersectional justice, personal healing, and decolonization (particularly in deconstruction/reconstruction), purity culture, and about the vast spectrum of people who identify with the Christian faith and how they interpret the Bible, from the white folks who worship a macho capitalist “warrior king Jesus” to people like Alicia, who identify more with the Jesus who was changing the world by sitting at dinner tables.

You can follow Alicia on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @aliciatcrosby. You can learn more about her and her work at https://www.aliciatcrosby.com/, and you can buy from her new line of merch at ACTOutGear on Etsy, https://www.etsy.com/shop/ACTOutGear?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=1028890815.

Make sure to listen to the very end of the episode to hear an exciting life update from April (grad school plans!!), as well as what shows we’re watching right now.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Chanequa Walker-Barnes’ “Prayer of a Weary Black Woman” in A Rhythm of Prayer (curated by Sarah Bessey)

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (which was also adapted into a Broadway musical, the soundtrack rocks, go listen to “Changing my Major,” and unlike April in her freshman year of college, don’t pause it and stop listening when you hear the word “sex”)

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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 Scripture, specifically with the first three chapters of Genesis. We’re breaking down the misconceptions about the text that we were taught by the evangelical churches we grew up in, and providing another way of looking at these topics from a scientific and LGBTQ+ affirming standpoint, while also honoring its place in the bigger story of God. We also discuss what the Bible is to us, as progressive Christians (definitely not inerrant, we can tell you that), and bring up our curiosities about the Creation narratives (yes, plural) that still remain unanswered.

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

Sources used in this episode [note: we are big proponents of clarity, so if a source we use is from a person who we know is not LGBTQ+ affirming, we will disclose that here!]:

For more information about the anonymous sources of the Hebrew Bible writings:https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-source

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans

The works of Austen Hartke (YouTube, his book "Transforming")

“Science and Faith” from the Exploring My Strange Bible Podcast (Tim Mackie is not LGBTQ+ affirming, but is an expert when it comes to the texts of Genesis 1 and 2, and he does not speak directly about gender/sexuality in this episode)

Articles on BioLogos, a pro-science Christian org (BioLogos appears to be undisclosed in their position re: LGBTQ+ affirmation):

This explains the ancient Hebrew view of cosmology as represented in Genesis:https://biologos.org/articles/the-ancient-science-in-the-bible

Pete Enns discussing the Babylonian creation narrative and how that impacted the Hebrew Scripture creation narrative (Pete Enns is affirming, yay!): https://biologos.org/articles/genesis-1-and-a-babylonian-creation-story

The Lost World of Genesis One is cited by both RHE and Mackie as a source on their understanding of the text. The author, John Walton, as of 2019, is not LGBTQ+ affirming.

Jewish perspective on why God says "Let *us* create humans in *our* image": https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/558595/jewish/Who-was-Gd-addressing-when-saying-Let-US-create-man.htm

Read if you dare, John Piper’s explanation of complementarianism (CW obvi, evangelical bullshit): https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/god-created-man-male-and-female

Again, if you dare, a video that sheds light on John’s complementarian views and particularly his interpretation of Eve in Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSvwEB2WDAU

In this episode, we talk with Hungarian academic Amy Kósa about her religious background, how she became a progressive Christian, and the research she is currently doing on the dynamics of evangelical and progressive Christianity in the United States. We also talk about our shared love for the progressive Christian writer Rachel Held Evans, why the Bible is NOT “clear,” the pressure to proselytize, American individualism, and the similarities and differences between evangelical churches in the US and Hungary.

The conservative Lutheran church denomination April mentions is indeed LCMS, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.

Resources/people that are mentioned in this episode, go look them up!

Torn by Justin Lee, all of Rachel Held Evans’ books (https://rachelheldevans.com/books), Nadia Bolz-Weber, The Shack by William P. Young, Pete Enns, Rob Bell, Sarah Bessey.

Feel free to send Amy a message on Facebook, just make sure to mention you heard about her on the podcast!

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!

We’re so excited to launch this podcast! In our first episode, we discuss why we chose “Reclaiming the Garden” as our title, and we share a bit about our faith journeys of coming to terms with our queer identities.

RHE tweet that April quotes:  https://mobile.twitter.com/rachelheldevans/status/1003321449497681921

Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. 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!