I wanted to give my readers an update: Writing has slowed down here at Surviving the Spirit, but it isn't because I'm taking a break. It's because I've been busy writing an exvangelical memoir, in which I rework much of what I've written here while both expanding existing content and writing entirely new material. With …
Read Part Four -- "An Exiled Christian and a Genderqueer Walk Into a Bar" here. It is 2010. I am 29 years old and living in Mount Vernon, Washington where, for the last eighteen months or so, I've been working through my shit with gloriously backbreaking manual labor on a farm.And I think I'm falling …
It is my pleasure to present a new voice in our Dispatches column. Self-proclaimed "ex-fundie" Andrew Pledger reached out to me this week to see if I was interested in sharing his story at Surviving the Spirit; after reading his "testimony" (maybe it's time for exvangelicals to take that term back), I was deeply moved and knew …
Continue reading Dispatches: “Religious Trauma is Trauma” by Andrew Pledger
Read Part 1 -- "Sea of Sin" here. It is fall of 1998. We've moved again – we do that quite a bit in my family, due to Dad's music minister job. I'm not sure if it is the nature of all ministers to move their family around so much, or if it is just …
Our courageous exvangelical warrior on the ground in Texas, Shana Nielsen, has graciously provided us an update about how life has been down there since signing their anti-trans bill into law. As I've stated before: This is the theocracy that the Moral Majority wants, and it is only going to continue to escalate as they …
Continue reading Dispatches: Cognitive Dissonance in Cattle Country
It is 1994, and I am thirteen years old. My family is living in Mill Valley, California, where my father is attending Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. It's an island of conservative evangelicalism surrounded by a sea of sin. San Francisco is just across the bridge, and we are very careful when we venture out …
"The Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR) has established the world's first and most comprehensive psychiatric research group to study the causes, manifestations, and treatment options for those suffering from religious trauma (RT). GCRR has built a team of approximately 30 licensed psychiatrists, therapists, sociologists, university professors, religion scholars, and Ph.D. candidates from around the …
Continue reading Exvangelical Meditation: Global Center for Religious Research
For many of us in the exvangelical and deconstruction communities, navigating the holidays can be a very tricky and even triggering time. Even though it is considered to be a season in which we are expected to be giving off the perpetually positive vibes of holiday cheer – “peace on Earth, good will toward men,” …
“If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.” – The Joker It's taken me a long, long journey into healing and a brave, unexpected confession from someone dear to me to realize that it is time to tell this particular chapter in my story. Because it is not just …
Continue reading My Story: The Vanishing Act – A Tale of an Exvangelical’s Monster
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