This exvangelical deconstruction of Santa Claus comes courtesy of Baptist Accountabilty co-founder Megan South Benninger (read her story here). This fascinating exploration reminds me of the "deconstruction" essays I wrote for grad school in which I searched for the historical roots of Dracula and Frankenstein. Really fascinating stuff, to find the kernel of truth in …
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 …
I met Royce when I was a college student at the University of Alaska, during the waning days of my evangelical journey. We had a few classes together, and his perceptive and uncouth contributions to our class discussions impressed me and made me chuckle in about equal proportion. For my undergrad thesis in 2006, I …
Continue reading Dispatches: Making the Safe Place by Royce Snyder
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 …
Growing up as Christians, we were taught from childhood that our theology was the "Absolute Truth," and that it would never change not collapse under scrutiny. When doubts arose as they inevitably do, it was explained to us as God "testing us" or Satan "tempting us." This is framed in a way that suggests that …
Continue reading Exvangelical Meditation: The Courage to Question
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
"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
Just for purposes of complete transparency, there are a few irrefutable facts that really aren't up for debate in my exvangelical essays. We can move forward with the confidence that they are so obvious that they are assumed. Here are a few examples: The Earth is round, Nazis are bad, vaccinations save lives, and the …
This is a guest article written by my friend and fellow exvangelical Shana Nielsen, who currently lives in Texas and is witness to the appalling attack happening right now on women's reproductive rights in that state. Shana's insightful story links these current events with a manipulative scare tactic that happened to her during a childhood …
Continue reading Dispatches: Under Attack –Evangelical Christianity’s Reverse Victimhood
Earlier this year, a poet friend of mine and I had a conversation about returning to normalcy after the chaos of 2020 and beyond. It stirred some speculations on what "normality" looks like and how it is defined. I was in therapy at the time for work-related PTSD, which I was processing both in its own …
Surviving the Spirit 