Slow Train to Heck

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Slow Train to Heck A podcast about people deconstructing, leaving toxic, authoritarian religious environments and belief systems, and what happens next.

30/08/2023

Instagram linkage seems to be broken right now so posts I make there aren't showing up here! But episodes are still dropping - this one's available now!
rsw shares her experience of Christianity and the spiritual trauma that it caused her, and gives her take on religious trauma as a whole from her perspective as a social worker and counsellor focused on helping people navigate changing beliefs, deconstruction, and that religious trauma. She discusses how many church environments force us to betray ourselves in many ways, from an early age, and normalize the lack of boundaries, portraying that lack of boundaries and submission to church authority as a necessary prerequisite to community. Additionally, she dives into the normalization of physical abuse of children in the form of spanking, how that abuse is advocated by Christian groups like Focus on the Family, and how that can have long-lasting effects even into adulthood.

Content warnings: traumatic religious experiences, physical abuse of children

Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SleykrSnuZiUc7DHDrOjx?si=ByTbMTYERxGPe6dR7jm6Ew

Audio Transcript: The root cause [of religious trauma] that I see in a lot of my clients, a lot of my friends, a lot of my family, is being forced to betray ourselves. Doing things that you don't feel comfortable with, not being allowed to feel the full extent of your emotions - you can feel sadness, you can feel joy, but do not feel anger or resentment, because that is bad. Being punished for feeling feelings. Not being able to be authentic to who you are, and when I say that I'm thinking specifically of the q***r community... you were never allowed to fully express who you are. And the fear of eternal torment being behind that lack of authenticity. How deeply painful and sad that is. So that is a common, common theme that I see: I have to hide, I can't be fully who I am - and the result of that being shame.

On vacation - we'll be back with new episodes in August!
27/07/2023

On vacation - we'll be back with new episodes in August!

Please stand by: The Slow Train to Heck will resume its route on April 26th.I'm rested, recharged, and ready to share mo...
29/03/2023

Please stand by: The Slow Train to Heck will resume its route on April 26th.

I'm rested, recharged, and ready to share more Canadian stories about deconstruction, exiting toxic religious environments, and maybe some conversations about where the heck we go from here.

I've got a whole bunch of guests lined up who have stories I'm really looking forward to sharing with you. See you on April 26th!

Where have I been? Well, I actually *thought* I posted this 2 weeks ago but apparently I neglected to double-check! Sorr...
03/01/2023

Where have I been? Well, I actually *thought* I posted this 2 weeks ago but apparently I neglected to double-check! Sorry about the absence!

So: I'm taking a temporary hiatus. Making a podcast takes a bit of work! As for the future of the podcast… honestly, I'm not 100% sure. This isn't an announcement about the end of the podcast, but the podcast has never been a forever thing. When I started this, there were a couple motivations - one was "meaning-making" for myself. When you grow up having meaning and purpose thrust upon you, and then leave that behind, and begin to recognize that while there were good aspects to that whole experience, there was a lot of s**tty stuff - that was done to me, but also that I did in the name of what I thought was right. When you leave that behind, it leaves a big hole. What was it all for? Did I go through all that for nothing? Was there no point? And, in a cosmic scale, sure, yeah. Eons from now none of this is going to matter. But - and this is maybe my biggest shift in thinking since leaving Christianity seven years ago - I don't need meaning on a cosmic scale. What I do here and now, in the lives of those around me, that's where i derive meaning. Not as a bit player in an inscrutable celestial drama where I can justify harm to others now in return for unproven gains in a heaven I may or may not ever see. So on that personal scale, I wanted to try to mine some good out of that pain I experienced. Make the pain meaningful. Hence the podcast. That was my other motivation - if I could help even just one other person not feel as alone as I did - if I could be the encouraging voice that I needed when I was going through it - I'd call the whole project a win. 

Honestly, at this point, I'm feeling good about what's been done.  It's been almost a year and a half of sharing stories. I never, ever thought that I'd still be doing this a year and a half later and I'm so honoured and grateful that all of you are still here and listening. But there is still a bit more to come! I've got a few more conversations in the works that I'm excited about coming very soon, so watch this space for the return announcement.

Thank you!!

03/11/2022

In yesterday's episode, Jake talks about how Trinity and churches in that vein perceive backlash as a sign that they are on the right track, and why us "fighting fire with fire" only adds fuel to their beliefs.

Audio Transcript: "Whenever [Trinity Bible Chapel] gets backlash - like we see majorly with Covid, but even every other little thing - I think they honestly feel this sense of justification that they're doing the Lord's work because they're being persecuted in their eyes. When they get backlash, whether it's from other Christians, or it's from the media, or anything, they feel this sense of justification, that they are on the righteous path. They're really tied to verses like the Beatitudes, where it's 'blessed is the one who is persecuted in the name of God'... or somewhere in the Gospels where it's like 'if the world hates you, just know it hated me first'... so it's this idea that if the world is hating them, criticizing them, if they're speaking out against them, then they are doing a good job. It's this terrifying feedback loop."

02/11/2022

Jake Kroeker chats with us this week about his time at Trinity Bible Chapel, a fundamentalist evangelical church in the Waterloo Region of Ontario that has been increasingly positioning itself at the forefront of a growing Christian Nationalist movement among evangelical churches here in Canada. Jake talks about what motivates people who adhere to Trinity and churches like it, what his path out of that environment was, and how we can interact with people who hold those beliefs without further fanning the flames of their extremism.

Content warnings: homophobic and transphobic slurs are referenced, as used by leadership at Trinity Bible Chapel

Episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-31-a-skewed-definition-of-love/id1581431734?i=1000584733181

Audio Transcript: "The Bible's full of a lot of war and military metaphors, like the armor of faith, and using the Word of God as a sword, doing sword drills as a kid... so [Trinity Bible Chapel] has taken that and just laser focused on this war that is being waged as soon as you walk out the door of the church, and even in your heart in the church, there's this constant war that's going on. When you believe that there's conflict all the time, when you believe there's war all the time, I think you start seeing it in places that maybe aren't there; like maybe the government teaching kids more about LGBTQ matters, and these things all of a sudden look like they start chipping away at the church's moral teachings. And then when Covid happens, that was sort of a huge iron chair of a conflict that, once the churches were shut down, that's all of a sudden - 'This is war, finally, they're shutting down the churches, guys, we're being persecuted, let's all rally together!' So I think it comes down to their definition of love and their obsession with conflict and war."

31/10/2022

In two days, Jake talks about how he was taught by the church that atheists were evil - and how meeting a compassionate person who treated Christianity fairly contradicted what he had believed, and started him down the road to deconstruction.

Audio Transcript: "The cracks started forming when I... was in my high school philosophy class. The philosophy teacher was a great guy, one of my favorite teachers in high school, so I had a lot of respect for him. In Philosophy, I found out he grew up as a pastor's kid. So he grew up even more involved in the church than I was, and he was no longer a Christian. I don't know if he considered himself an atheist or hard agnostic or something, but he was, to a Christian mind, an atheist. It was the way he spoke about Christianity that started filling in the cracks. It wasn't him dissecting it, or being like 'oh, see, this is all a fairy tale', it was him being fair and rational and accepting of a Christian worldview when we were talking about metaphysics and God and stuff like that. It was his fair portrayal of Christianity where I was like 'hmm. This man is not a Christian, has lived a Christian life, and doesn't hate God, he's not angry at God, he doesn't have this nemesis archrivalry with God...' It started just warping my whole worldview... 'if there's people on the other side who are good people, then what does that mean for me?'"

28/10/2022

Next week, Jake shares about how Trinity Bible Chapel taught him how to view people outside the church, assigning motivations to those who didn't believe the way they did and painting a villainous picture of people outside their walls.

Audio Transcript: "There was a very strong sense that those who are outside of [Trinity Bible Chapel] are either just ignorant to God, or my favourite is the atheist who hates God, who has this emotional relationship with God that has thrust him or her into atheism. That was very much the sense of these intellectuals, these academics, that I had growing up in the church - that they hate God, they're aggressive towards God, and that very reason is why God exists, because these people hate him and say they don't. That vibe was very ingrained in me as a child and growing up into my teens, so created this really 'us versus them', this bifurcated 'world versus the church'... their specific church.'"

26/10/2022

Next week we're doing something a little different, and taking a look at one specific church - something we don't normally do - but this church, Trinity Bible Chapel, casts a long shadow in the Canadian evangelical space, particular through its ties to the growing Christian Nationalist movement in Canada, and the upcoming documentary and conference they're having with the theme of the church going to war against the government, which they have declared as "Antichrist" due to what they perceive as persecution against the church by the government, particularly through the pandemic.

Jake Kroeker spent his formative years at Trinity Bible Chapel (back when it was known as Harvest Bible Chapel Waterloo Region), and has offered us an inside look at Trinity, what motivates the people who attend there, their growing insularity as they pull themselves further and further away from the rest of society and even their contemporary Christians, and what those of us seeing the growing radicalism of Christian fundamentalism can do to help stop it.

Tune in next Wednesday to hear more. 

Audio Transcript: "It is interesting that [At Trinity Bible Chapel] it was never about bringing feet into the door. It was never about amassing a big group of Christians, because our job is just to preach, it's God's job to grow the seeds. We sow the seeds, and it's up to God to see if any of those stick, so it was never like 'oh, let's strategize, let's get this group, because they're more willing to come to Christ' - it was very much this 'we're just there to preach' - which creates this sense of, if someone walks away, you're just like 'okay, I did my job.' At the start, it wasn't as aggressive as I'm seeing now, but I think it lends to this idea that it doesn't matter how you preach the Word, it's just preaching the Word, and so it creates a lot of this abrasiveness that is in the name of 'love', or, quote-unquote, 'their definition of love'."

25/10/2022

At the end of the latest episode, Luke gave me the honour of closing it out by playing a song of his own composition, which he describes in this clip. Listen to the end of the episode to hear his amazing work!

Audio Transcript: "The guitar [in the song I want to share with you] was planned. It was scripted, and I followed exactly what I wanted to play. I did so in 2004, I think. That would have been while I was still at the very beginning of my deconstruction. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life or what I believed, but I knew it was important to me to inspire people for good. The piano part is completely improvised... there's some sour notes in there. Good. I'm glad there are. There are no wrong notes. Do you really think that a loving God that made me as weird as I am, who made the song you're about to hear - do you really think that the next logical thing is that because I didn't specifically say that I accepted Jesus into my heart, that I deserve to die in eternal torment? Does that make any sense?"

21/10/2022

Luke shares his thoughts on the confirmation bias that some Christians experience as part of their faith, and his discomfort with that logic being used to inform beliefs, in the latest episode of Slow Train to Heck.

Audio Transcript: "Confirmation bias causes us to assume that things that line up or go our way on purpose, it must be that lucky charm, or that psychic, or that horoscope, it was vague enough that 'oh, that message actually resonates with me today'. It's putting the cart before the horse, or in Christianity's case, the faith before the facts - and it makes a virtue out of blind belief."

20/10/2022

On the latest episode, Luke talks about his growing doubts about the Bible and the way that some Christians apply it.

Audio Transcript: "So, the Great Commission is a rough one - that's making believers of the world, and it is the seed from which radical Evangelical motivation grows. The gospels have slight variation on the Great Commission, but it's relatively consistent on that part. Would have been a great opportunity for one of them to double down on the 'forgiveness' thing, or potentially 'loving people' thing, instead of 'making everyone believe this' thing - but there was 120 years-ish of canonization, and like six drafts to the Bible... they picked which books were close enough and they got something relatively consistent and what makes sense for the Holy Bible as we know it, but what's on the cutting room floor?"

19/10/2022

We rejoin Luke Williams this week as he shares the remainder of his story, detailing the changes in his life after he left Christianity. Luke covers a whole bunch of life experiences and viewpoints, including exploring polyamorous relationships and cannabis and other drugs; working with the homeless, and organizing conventions; inconsistencies in the Bible and the human influence on its creation; and how his personal politics and views of society and people have been influenced by leaving Christianity.

Episode link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/episode-30-there-are-no-wrong-notes-part-two/id1581431734?i=1000583106807

Audio Transcript: "You can have too much Jesus. You can get obsessed. It can become your only personality trait. You can become exhausting. You can lose yourself in the simplicity of loyalty and commitment and ritual. But if your loved ones are hurting? If you can help someone? If you want to live lovingly, as Christ did, consider the possibility that the box [of Christianity] right now isn't what they need. They need your other hand back. They need a friend. They need a hug."

18/10/2022

In two days, the rest of Luke's story drops. Luke talks about a lot of his deconstruction process, including how the skepticism his apologetics was infused with ended up backfiring when it was turned against his own beliefs.

Audio Transcript: "Whenever I was actually apologizing in the Christian faith - before I reached the point where I was like, 'man, I can't defend this s**t anymore' - it was important to me that I had an answer for anything that could be thrown at me in debate. I needed to test everything and be skeptical of everything so that if they had something to throw at me, I would be able to say, 'Ah ah ah, got a Bible verse that says blah blah blah,' or I would be like, 'oh, you're referring to this author from this year, well, theres...' but the more I dug into that, the more there was to be skeptical of."

14/10/2022

Next week, Part Two of the conversation with Luke drops, and Luke shares how his political viewpoints have changed since he left the church, especially as he noticed that churches were failing to fill the needs in society that they claimed to be able to without government intervention.

Audio Transcript: "Actionable incentives of left-wing policies include things like universal basic income, or reparations for indigenous communities that are hurting the most, or more mental health resources, funding for health care workers and teachers, a living wage, housing security, programs to cover community needs, shelter for victims... churches aren't doing that enough. I think that's clear."

07/10/2022

Luke talks about his missions and evangelism experiences in the latest episode, and talks about how he found the prospect of learning more about others much more appealing than the idea of converting them all to his beliefs.

Audio Transcript: "There were two classes [in Bible school] that I did go to enough times to retain some of the substance of. One was Worldview Studies. It was supposed to be a missionary prep kind of thing. 'You're going to experience some other worldviews, here's how you safeguard against them!' But all that it did was sort of remind me of the fact that there's so many other kinds of people out there, and I was excited to meet them."

05/10/2022

Luke Williams joins the Slow Train to Heck to share his journey through and out of Christianity. Luke has lived through many different experiences in his life, and the message of suffering, and the expectation of suffering both now and in the future, was a strong one. However, Luke was able to move beyond that message and share his story with us now.

I'm a big believer in people being able to share all of themselves and their whole story, and Luke and I realized that his story needed two parts to be told in full. This episode is Part One, and Part Two will be released on October 19th.

Audio Transcript: "[Rhett McLaughlin, of Rhett and Link, says of reactions to his own deconstruction] 'Can't you respect me enough to believe that I tried? And don't you think that I really did give it my all? Don't you think that I was really trying?' That described my experience completely. I tried really hard. I was witnessing on those forums. I was making an ass out of myself. It wasn't going to stick. It wasn't going to stay. All it really took was that opposition - that other kernel of an idea - 'I don't know if I believe this anymore' - to give me permission to do that too."

04/10/2022

Two more days until Luke tells Part One of his story on the podcast, including sharing how the Christian environment he was immersed in caused him to have a desire to do missions work while being wholly unprepared for what that entailed.

Audio Transcript: "I was very interested in this rough mission idea of just generally finding a way to bring Jesus to Japan. My plan was, after my one year mountaintop certificate - very useful for my career path, let me tell you - that I was going to land there and let faith take me. I honestly was just going to show up with a heart full of courage, with learning as much about Japan as I could at the time, and the clothes on my back, and maybe a backpack of stuff. That was my plan. I am glad it didn't pan out that way - that is a disastrous idea."

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