Welcome to Hallway Transgressions, I'm Chris. I'm Ryan.
We are two Christian school alumni who aim to discuss Christian concepts and deconstruct them through a postmodern lens. Hey Ryan,
what's your bright spot?
Well, not to steal anyone's thunder,
but I think my bright spot is that a new game has
recently been released over the past weekend, that game being Splatoon 3.
This is kind of my like first time actually delving into I played a little bit of Splatoon 2,
but didn't play much because I didn't like the motion controls and just never really got to trying to play it in docked mode.
I always played my Switch in handheld and it didn't feel right. So I didn't play it much,
but now I've been getting into Splatoon 3 as you know, and it's a lot of fun despite what some reviewers may say.
It's a good game. How about you? What's your bright spot Chris?
I just really throw in that Ars Technica guy to the bus.
Look, look.
Mine is also Splatoon 3. I played the first one when I was in Japan.
I went to the Google headquarters there and they had a little room where they were playing Splatoon and then let me play a couple matches with them and I had a blast.
But I didn't have a Wii U, unfortunately, so I couldn't play when I got back.
But I played Splatoon 2 a little bit when it launched, but that game wasn't super supported or the lifespan of the game wasn't very good.
And it kind of got boring towards the end. But Splatoon 3, I'm going to tell you, it just feels like a really polished version of the second game.
It feels really good and I'm having a blast with it.
Yeah, and despite what Chris plays, there's a lot of modes in it. Like there's so much to do in it. There's so much content.
Chris decides to ignore those, but I have been trying out all the stuff and it's all pretty fun, except for one specific game mode, which absolutely sucks.
I will be spending no time in it, but the rest of it really fun.
Look, I'm here to play one thing and one thing only, and that's Turf War. And it's just to prepare for the Splatfest coming up this next week.
So I thought I was to prepare for our future professional Splatoon career.
Our competitive career in Splatoon 3. That's what we're practicing for, right?
They better watch out because we're going to be the champions.
So today we have the pleasure of having Becca back on our podcast to talk to her a little bit about her social media career.
She's kind of been making a brand of herself on TikTok, mainly that is of her deconstruction of her beliefs that she grew up with.
And there's actually been a lot of backlash in the comments, almost bullying from a side of these conversations.
And it's just kind of funny that it's mostly coming from current Christians and them kind of talking to her, invalidating her experience, or just flat out disrespecting and insulting her.
And we find it funny that it would be the Christians that do that, like you would expect someone within this religion of love and mercy and love.
Like it's mainly like loving people, like love God, love others. They're the ones that are like really just bashing on her. What do you think about it?
Yeah, I mean, after we recorded our first podcast, she had shown us some of the comments on her TikTok and I was just like, you have to come back on the podcast and like share these because they're just like, and some of them are just incredible.
I think there was the normal amount of bullying. So like normal amount of bullying for TikTok.
But I was the things I were surprised about were how many people were on her page, which is purely an ex evangelical page, which is kind of like a brand of content right now.
And I was surprised at how many of current Christians were on there, like commenting that it was just the church she went to, or like what you said earlier, invalidating her experience.
And like it was interesting to me to think about like, why were they there in the first place and what compelled them to say that it wasn't, where it wasn't just like, you know, scroll and move by because ex evangelical is not my brand of content.
But it's like kind of not even reaching out, though, because it was just like, you should just try a different church.
It was like, yeah, she's probably thought about that already.
And it obviously didn't work out as like instead of asking questions about what went wrong or what happened, it was just like, it's fine.
You're fine. And then the other brand of comments that were interesting to me were just the ones that were like, you weren't saved at all.
And I mentioned it in this episode a little bit where I'm talking about how like evangelicalism can't seem to face the mirror of itself and like understand that when it fails, it needs to figure out why it fails at a conversion.
And instead, they just kind of take this concept of this person was never saved to begin with, because how could someone possibly walk away from God's love in quotes?
And it's just it's a concept I've seen a lot growing up in in this religion.
And it's something that I do find really interesting and kind of want to explore more in a later episode.
Yeah. And just to be clear, since we have read some of those comments and I know kind of what to expect, we're not trying to generalize all Christians by pointing out that Christians are saying these things.
That doesn't mean that we're attacking you specifically or anything like that. We just thought it was surprising or just interesting in general to see the amount of comments and everything from Christians on that platform.
So don't try to defend yourself or you're not that way. You wouldn't do that kind of stuff.
We don't care. We understand that's not everyone, but there are those out there and that does have an impact.
Yeah, yeah, we we wanted to bring up some of them because they were entertaining and how they were presented.
We brought up a couple just because of the concepts behind them, like I was talking about before.
But yeah, I mean, we're not trying to specifically talk or specifically call out any specific person or just like a generalization, but just kind of like this is probably not great behavior to be in.
I mean, it doesn't feel good to get bullied and it sure doesn't feel good to have spent most of your life in church and working and volunteering for a church and then turning away from that to try to find because it was toxic to you.
And then a bunch of people comment on your post that you were never a Christian in the first place.
Like that doesn't feel good. And it's not the nicest thing to say.
No, and there's literally just blatant bullying like those the blatant bullying isn't as common. It didn't seem like.
But those were still in there like name calling, just being just brutal.
The blatant bullying that surprised me the most was it mostly seemed to have come from people that she personally knew while she was in the church and surrounding our adjacent areas around church.
I like people that she personally knew for like a long time even have kind of like become more zealous almost in a way of like defending their truth and start to lash out and in a way that causes a lot of harm to people.
That's what surprised me the most, I think.
Yeah. So anyways, bullying is not a good coping mechanism.
Please find another way to soothe your frustrations.
There are other ways you don't have to put it out there on social media to try to harm someone else. Unnecessary.
That's a good way to put it.
And with that, we would like to go right into this episode.
Hey everyone, welcome to another special episode.
We have back our favorite and highly requested guest to return, Becca.
Who requested me?
Everyone. All ten listeners.
Well, here I am.
Oh, Becca, last time we talked a little bit off the record about your social media presence and the fact that when you started using it in a way to be more accepting and critical or be more accepting of people, but more critical of the church, you started to get a flood of, I wouldn't say hate mail, but unkind words.
Yeah, which like before because so I started a TikTok account like shortly after our interview, just because I realized that like kind of I have a very wealth of like large wealth of knowledge of just experience growing up Christian that I could pull from and just like make content and even if nobody else watched it, it was kind of like therapeutic for me in a way.
And so before I would just like post things on Instagram that were controversial and just disagreeing with things.
And so the people that were responding were like people I grew up with or people that I had run like cross paths with in the church at some point or another.
And so there was like some extent of that.
Like there was one guy in particular that would bully me and he bullies other people on social media who went to like winning graduated from it.
But then I started this TikTok account and I had one TikTok that blew up and it's at like 150,000 views right now and I was pretty much expecting no one to see it and that post led to just a flood of like super hateful comments.
Super just mean comments, people assuming a lot about me and yeah, which has led to like more comments and stuff on my other TikToks that I make because I just make I make content about different things that happened to me as someone that was raised, you know, from birth to now as Christian and just the different ways that affected my life and the different things that like horrible behaviors at the church do.
Cool. What's one of your favorite TikToks?
I liked the one where I talked about our high school assigning an essay topic where we had to tell someone about Jesus.
Because that one it was like I completely forgot that that was a home assignment and then as I just like sat down and was trying to brainstorm things I was like somewhere inside of me just like unlocked and I remember having to just have like a really awkward conversation with my older brother because he was the only person I knew that was Christian.
So I didn't even talk about that in the TikTok but just like I remember that memory of me just like texting my brother and I'm just imagine I was just like so what are your thoughts on Jesus?
What do you think about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
What grade? How old were you? How old was he?
I think that was like probably 10th or 11th grade. I feel like it was for the English teacher.
I don't actually think it was for Bible class. I think it was the English teacher that assigned it.
I'm trying not to name drop because I realized the last time I was on here I name dropped so much and I kind of felt bad.
We know who you're talking about though.
That's fine. You guys can know. I realized I name dropped the church that I worked for a whole bunch in the last episode and I felt bad.
I put that in on purpose by the way.
I think they deserved a little bit of falling out.
Yeah. But yeah, I think it was like we had her every other year.
So it was either 10th or 11th grade that I had her and my brother is nine and a half years older than me.
So I was like 15 or 16 and he was like 24 or 25.
That's so interesting.
It's funny. I was having my brother sending me Richard Dawkins videos while I was in high school.
Do you guys think, both of you, that having a sibling that was older and more mature that wasn't a Christian helped you your deconstruction or was it unrelated?
It was completely unrelated for me. That wasn't like a driving force or factor at all.
Mine had more to do with education and going through a Bible college, like Christian high school Bible college.
That's where mine stemmed from. Me and my brother didn't really keep in touch a whole lot after I went to Anderson for Bible and religion.
We kind of dropped off after he had his kid. He just was busy a lot and so it just didn't really happen at all.
So it's only recently that we've been able to come together and talk and it's kind of crazy how many of the same realizations we've both had.
It's honestly really weird how similar our thought processes are now having had a time span where we were not in contact with each other.
But yeah, he wasn't really a big part of my deconstruction process or origins.
I have the exact opposite answer. Ryan and I have talked about his brother a little bit and I'm actually really surprised to hear that deconstructions were unrelated
because remember just like specific things you've mentioned where it's like, you've all like you both have had the same thoughts.
So it's actually really surprising to hear that. Oh, it's it's really weird.
Well, even just recently we've discussed just like where we are like philosophically and how similar we view the world and how we like cope with things.
It's weird. Interesting. Okay, Becca, you can go now. Thank you for your permission.
You have my permission. Granted, let the man give you permission before you speak.
Just trying to follow the appropriate rules. Anyways, so I think that my brothers played a huge role in my deconstruction process just because I watched mainly two of my brothers.
Really, I have always been really close with them and like I text them, call them all the time.
And so just as I've had questions come up in my life, having someone that I can text them questions and just get their opinion on it, that someone that's not involved in the church, that's an outside perspective, has been super beneficial, I think, for me just in that whole process.
And we just had our first like family vacation recently since I've like started doing deconstruction and all that stuff.
And it was really interesting just some of the conversations we had. We just talked about, we had very small conversations just about some like spiritual things.
I think my siblings are still spiritual in some way, but not Christian. So it was interesting like having some of those conversations because we've never really had those at family functions.
And it was interesting, like my dad still set a blessing over our meals and stuff. And I just remember like not knowing what to do with myself. I was like, it was the first time I was confronted with like not knowing self during a prayer.
And I just like stared at the floor and just like didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. But yeah, it was weird. I was telling my brother too that I hadn't, we were talking about the realization that like, I don't know where I stand on things yet, but I did have this
this thought of the realization. Like if I don't believe in God, then I'm alone in my head for the first time in years. And that was a weird thing to wrap my brain around.
Because like, I don't know, I grew up like thinking that God was like in my brain.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That's an interesting thought. Thinking about that right now.
But it's really just a construct that you built in your brain anyway. So you've always been alone in your brain.
That's sad.
Is it though?
But also, okay.
I just think of like the Squidward alone, alone.
For me though, the realization, like the becoming not spiritual, I guess, in a way, is almost comforting, because I'd always grown up of like God judging me of my every move and thought and like having the realization that he doesn't exist is almost like losing a prison guard in my
that I've constructed in my own head. It's just almost like freeing that way.
Yeah, I'd be in the same boat.
See, and I think, like I have that side of things of like where the guilt of it, I'm happy that that's gone. But then there's also the side of it for me that was like, it was comforting that I was never alone in something that I was doing. And now it's like, all right, Becca, you got this.
Best of luck.
So before we get into I wanted to talk a little bit about the comments and the concepts behind them, but I wanted to go a little bit into specifically some of the topics that you created on your TikTok.
I've actually a decent amount of these. I wouldn't call them like requested, but these were all topics that like I just, I didn't just come up with on my own.
I've like talked with a lot of other female Christians, especially people or females that grew up Christian, I should say.
And they're the ones that like helped me come up with these ideas that I've done.
So it's a group effort on my TikTok. I told my one friend that if I ever get famous for it, she gets royalties because she's helped me a lot.
I also like to include my dogs in them because I'm talking about like sometimes sad and serious things. I try to show a puppy to make people feel better.
Well, it sure made me feel better watching through some of them. So I appreciate that.
My first three aren't anything church related. The fourth one I posted is the first church related one I did.
Okay. So one where most of your comments came from, right?
Yeah, it is my fourth one, but it's also like pinned at the top.
Also has so many views from the others.
Yeah. 162.1 K is what it's at right now, which is a lot of people.
When I was like starting to get all these views on it, I started looking at like the amount of people that were looking at it.
And I was looking up at like how big football stadiums were. I was very overwhelmed by how many people were looking at it.
Why do you think this one that's so big? What was the appeal you think of people wanting to watch it?
I don't. My brain is like the TikTok algorithm because I used a trending sound.
Because I mean, I did use a sound that is a song from a girl who left the church.
She was a worship leader who left the church and then basically wrote her own version of a worship song about leaving.
And then she also came out as bisexual when she left too and was shunned by a lot of people that she grew up with.
But so I think the story itself is very relatable to people that grew up Christian and don't feel they fit that anymore or have and have left that.
And so then I think I also just told a very relatable story because the TikTok that blew up is just me kind of explaining my journey of, you know, being raised Christian,
going to Christian school, working at a church, doing all of the right things and just always kind of feeling like something didn't fit.
And then deciding to leave and finally finding my voice in the world and being able to speak up and speak out about things that I truly do believe instead of feeling kind of like I'm boxed in.
And so I think that both the song and the story that it told is what made it so relatable to a lot of people.
Because I got a lot of really cool comments from people that were saying like very similar story or like I was a PK pastors kid.
Like I did all of these things. I saved one, Ryan, for you because one of the comments I got was somebody from Anderson.
They had gone to Anderson. Yeah, I don't know where it's at, but it was someone saying that they had like gone to Anderson University and went through kind of a similar story.
But I think it was just relatable. I think there's not there's not a lot of us that come out of Christianity.
I think with these insane stories like there are people that leave the church because of that.
But I also think it's a slow realization for a lot of us.
Like I think it's a lot of time unraveling stuff and coming to conclusions on your own and making that decision to finally leave.
But yeah, I don't know why it blew up. It was so funny when I was making it. I was sitting on the floor of my boyfriend's game room while he played Call of Duty.
And I was sitting there sobbing as I'm making it because it's like it's reliving my entire life and you know going through the fact that I no longer believe in what I've always believed.
And so like it's it's hard. It sucks to turn your back on everything you've ever known.
And so I was literally sobbing while I was putting it together because the song itself just made me cry.
And I kept looking at him and saying, why am I crying over a TikTok? What is wrong with me?
You're right though. Like it's really is just a story of your life.
Like I think it's it's really well put together. The song is yeah, the song is a lot.
I think just the turn that you have, you put the eye descent during your Roe v. Wade overturning protest at the courthouse.
And just like you put on there that now you use your voice to help others or something like that.
You know, I felt that too. I was like, wow, it's like a really powerful thing to kind of turn it around.
I think there's just like something to be said about people that leave the church feel like their voices are silenced and to be able to finally talk about things we really care about is so freeing, especially like Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Like I cried when that happened. It was heartbreaking for me.
And I would never have been able to express that while I was working at a church, while I was involved at a church and especially working at the church.
I don't think I would have been able to feel like I could share anything and I would just continue to suppress pieces of me that I really cared about and were important to me.
So it was nice to finally be who I am.
I would my one friend who I've been talking to about all this stuff, she said, it's nice to finally meet the real you.
Damn.
I'm just gonna make me cry.
It is crazy to me though how many people saw it because I genuinely like my my tech talks that I had made had only gotten some views.
And so I was expecting like 10 people that look at it and it was really more for myself than anything.
And then all these people started commenting, like saying I was doing it for attention.
And I'm like, I literally made this for myself.
I don't know who you people are.
You brought up an interesting point of that you didn't feel like if you were still in the church, you didn't feel like you could share this part of you.
I mean, I assume that's not just specifically about Robi Wade, but other topics as well.
Yeah, which I actually talked about this last night with my friend who was she went to the youth group while I was a youth leader there.
And I was telling her about how like when I when I put in the video, I put the quotes that I was criticized for my progressive views.
And I don't want people to think that I was like outright bullied or anything for it.
But it was more there was a there was a tone and there was an understanding that like if I talked about certain things, I was going to get made fun of.
And like there would be snide comments about things like it was very it was made very clear that I was one of three Democrats on staff at the church.
Like they like we kept a tally because there were so few of us.
And so I was at least like able to talk about that.
But we didn't really talk about what that meant for me being on staff at a church because it still felt like there were things I couldn't really talk about my students just about where I stood on things because I was I was pro choice even when I worked at the church.
But I wasn't allowed to talk about that.
That's not something I could say.
I was very pro LGBTQ, but I couldn't talk about that.
I whenever we had the come at youth group about same sex attraction, as they would call it.
I never felt like I could create the type of environment I wanted to because I wasn't allowed to tell these kids how I really felt about it.
And because it would differ from what they were teaching.
I couldn't I couldn't tell a kid that was that maybe was gay and was trying to trying to process through that like, hey, that's OK.
Like, let's talk about it. Let's talk through that. Like, like, what does it look like to explore your sexuality?
And I couldn't have conversations like that because it was not OK.
And so that was really hard for me because I'm sure I had girls in my small group that were probably dealing with it.
And so that was tough. And I'm trying to think.
I had a hard time being a feminist in a church, too, because the way that it was set up, they had female pastors on staff and they are head pastor always said, you know,
if I get if I get to heaven and the one thing I was was that women shouldn't be pastors, then whatever.
That's fine. And so he tried to make it seem like he wanted to create an environment where he could in leadership.
But then we would go to these meetings and they would make women in the kitchen comments and we would get left out of decision.
And they would just undermine what they were saying and just like talk over us and not really take us into account and make snide comments when we would be vocal about things.
And do you guys this just came up recently, too. Do you guys know what the Franklin Graham rule is?
No. So there's a Franklin Graham rule. I think it's Franklin.
What's called or maybe it's maybe it's not Franklin. Maybe it's Billy Graham. OK.
But they they followed the Billy Graham rule, which said that like any male staff could not be alone with a female staff member.
And there's just the whole idea behind it is that they never want the male staff to seem like they're doing anything wrong, even if it's innocent.
But it creates this whole culture of the woman is a temptress.
And that's why a man can't be alone with her. Like I was volunteering at Lakewood, which was two minutes from this church.
And another male pastor was also volunteering there.
And I could not ride in the car with him to go to Lakewood because of the appearance that it gives off.
But, you know, damn well that the appearance is that I could be doing something wrong, not the male pastor.
Like that's that that's what that gives off is that I am somehow tempting the male pastor, not the other way around.
And so it just things like that, like they just set up environments where women were just not supported.
I got talked to about wearing leggings one day because I would dress to go to the gym after working at the church.
And I got told one day that I needed to stop wearing leggings unless I was wearing a shirt that my butt, because I needed to respect the male pastors.
And so like you can sit. Yeah, you can sit there and say all day that you support women, but your actions don't reflect that.
Not by the way that I was treated. So it's because it's the same thing that I always grew up hearing was like, you know, don't dress or women don't dress this way because you'll make your fellow brother stumble kind of thing.
Like, yeah, yeah, you'd say that's like, oh, yeah, men are pigs. I mean, maybe if you raise them that way and, you know, it always somehow always the blame will end up on the woman every time.
Like, there's no much as the church seems to try to say that there's more equality than before. It just doesn't seem to feel that way for sure.
Yeah, which I feel like a lot of the more aggressive commenters on my social media are all these like Christian.
What's the word I'm looking for? It's all Christian men that are like hella masculine men of like like the only way I know to describe it.
Just that they get their rocks off trying to prove women wrong.
I don't like how you said that, but you're right.
I think listen, I'm thinking it.
I think those bringing up this Billy Graham rule is kind of interesting because it's just like, you know, it's it's so weird because on its face, it's like, yeah, you know, don't have a distrust for men or pigs kind of thing.
Like we don't trust men to be around women alone. You never know what's going to happen.
You're totally right. Like if anything would have happened, like pastor would have just been prayed about. He would have, you know, been like, oh, this happened and he probably would have been prayed or by the congregation and applauded for his bravery of confessing it.
And then, you know, what happens to the other person involved?
The woman would have been asked, well, why did you put yourself in that situation? Why did you put yourself in a situation where you were alone with the pastor to begin with?
Were you trying to seduce him or something like something like that? Right. Like the blame just squarely always falls on the women in situations like this.
Well, and we we had a situation at County Line where there was a pastor that had an inappropriate relationship with a female volunteer and it was never really it was all just kind of like hush hush thrown under the rug. And I don't think anything was done for the like nothing that I know of was done for the victim.
And even to this day, I'm trying to actually like get connected with her because I want to talk to her about what happened and like apologize for how I behaved because I remember like being feeling mad at her for what had happened.
I don't think I like hated her because of everything that happened. But I remember thinking like it was her fault kind of to an extent that like she's part of the reason that this staff member like fell apart or whatever.
And just having kind of a toxic view of it and having to kind of check myself and be like, no, she was the victim in all of this. Like she's the one that was taken advantage of.
You're like, I don't know if it's like a church thing. It might just be a human thing, but everyone tries to find fault or find blame for things.
Or I've gotten to a point where it's like blaming things or like faulting people just doesn't really make sense anymore. Like needing to find like the root cause of something because I don't think it's really possible to do and it's not very helpful.
But in my upbringing, it always had to do with like blame and whose fault it is for what.
And I just feel bad for like her. She was a victim and she was kind of shamed in the whole thing. And like that sucks. And I hate that that's what happened.
And I talked to this girl who was a student in the youth group and we talked about some other things that just happened to her.
And she told me she had taken it to male pastors who didn't do anything about it.
And I was on staff at the time and she was like, I wish I would have brought it to you. And I said, honestly, if you had brought me probably still nothing would have happened. But I would have at least been able to be in your corner and wouldn't let it go.
And so I would try to ensure that something happened. But it's just frustrating to like now that I'm out of it and stories about things that happened while I was on staff that got brushed under the rug. And it's it's really upsetting.
Yeah, so it sounds like when it comes to blame, if it's a woman, it's her fault. But if it's a man, it's because of said nature almost.
Yeah, it's the devil. It's Satan tempted. Like for being a male growing up and having this whole thing around like lust, lust was such a big thing that was talked about all the time to the point where it's like, I feel like they're creating the problem.
But it was always just this thing of not lusting over people and how it's just so easy to lust over someone you shouldn't be doing that. There's like this book also that we could get into that I was not made to read but highly young man's battle.
Yes, yep.
I read every young woman's battle.
Yeah, so I was made to read that book because every apparently every single male is going to have an issue with lusting over women. Like this is just an innate flaw in men and so it's like it's almost like it's not to be blamed on the men for the actions they take and what they do.
It's always laid on like this ultimate flaw, which is just silly. Like, if you don't want to, you know, sexually assault someone or just anything of that sort, just don't do it.
I don't know it's it's weird.
You'd think it would be that simple.
It is, but yeah, they want to give it's almost like men are given a scapegoat. Yeah, of like, we're just, we're just animals all men are just animals.
You have no control, you can't help it. So the women have it's all our responsibility to do everything we possibly can to help you.
Yeah, it's not my fucking job.
I didn't sign up for that.
And that's how it always was. And you can tell by the talks that were had at Lakewood. If you like whenever we would compare whenever the the guys and the girls would get separated what their talks were about.
It was just ridiculous.
How? Oh yeah, it was comical. Like we would laugh about it at the time, even though we were like fully in it and fully believing it.
We still would laugh about the things that they told us were immodest and like the things we were getting told.
Yeah. What a terrible time.
It's messed up. If I feel like there's has something to do with like if you tell someone they're going to have a problem with something, then it almost manifests it.
I don't think it manifests it. I think that you use it like you said earlier, when you tell someone that they're going to have an inherent problem, your inherent sin nature is that you're going to lust and you know, probably sexually assault someone or at least harass someone.
It's a scapegoat to like do it. Right. It's almost like a permission being granted in some like twisted way.
Like don't do this, but you're probably going to do it. But don't do it. But also if the women are in this exact circumstance and it happens.
Yeah, yeah. It's don't do it. You probably will. Don't do it. If you do do it. It's probably because someone of the opposite sex or gender dressed up to skimpy.
Or like whatever the thousand things like they said.
Yeah, that also makes me think like again, like the the difference where like for women, it's almost like met with anger.
Like it's fully put on women. But I remember having like youth groups and stuff where like we like confessed that we had watched pornography or something.
And it was always met with like compassion. It's like, oh, other people are struggling with that, too. Like you're not alone and your struggles with that. It's just met in very different ways.
I remember I was like not like a trailblazer, but like I was a hot commodity to have talk because I was one of the few women that was like willing to talk about women and like how they dealt with porn.
Because it was like something that was never talked about in like the female circles is like you didn't talk about porn. Women don't watch porn.
Yeah, like that was that was just like a super strange like idea that was drilled into your head.
I think as a female is that like do all these things, make yourself like look a certain way, act a certain way and don't talk about any of the problems you actually deal with. Shut up about everything else.
Suppress your sexuality. Well, like suppress your sexuality and your personality and all this stuff, right?
I'd like to think that sexuality has a play in your personality.
Interesting. But yeah, it's a topic that just I think was discussed more with men. And the only thing about sexuality that was discussed with men was the whole lusting after others thing and nothing else.
And then for women and sexuality, it's just don't do stuff that'll tempt men to lust after you. Cover up.
That's as much sexuality talks as we got. It's not healthy.
I mean, just like the even like the purity culture is not healthy in general, but even like the I went to a public school for up until high school.
My sex education came from a public school, sixth grade, but it was our fifth grade. Sorry, I don't want to lie about my own experiences. It was fifth grade.
It was awful. Like it was still a rural, not rural, but very conservative area of Indiana.
Like it would have been probably exactly the same as what happened in Lakewood.
But it was weird because we had a Macmillan Health come out to do it. They were like more like of a science institution, like a health and fitness kind of like education institution.
Yeah, we know Macmillan. We went there. We went to Macmillan Center for ours. Yeah. So we had gone to they had like the Macmillan Center or something.
We went to the actual location and had like a whole slideshow anatomy thing and whatnot. We had like one at school too, where at the end, boys were just given a stick of deodorant or something.
Like a puberty talk was had at the school, but then like more of a sex talk was had at the Macmillan Center where the teachers just didn't have to do anything.
I have a really vivid memory about the video we watched in fifth grade where we learned about our uterus and our ovaries.
It was like a girl was on a camping trip at her friend's house in the backyard and she like woke up with her period and the friend's mom drew the female reproductive system in pancake batter.
Oh, it's like a really distinct memory.
We should find that video.
I think I searched for it and I found it one time.
I forget, did Lakewood like when you had it in, was it like fifth grade or something where they had it at school?
What did they give the girls? Because like the guys they gave them deodorant because we were about to start getting smelly and stinky.
I think we got a pad. Yeah, that makes sense.
Just one? No tampons.
You got one pad? Probably. Eight hours, if even, right?
Yeah. Don't even get me started on the tax on period products.
Because they're luxury tags, right? Feminine products are a luxury.
And birth control is abortion adjacent.
Yeah, makes sense.
I don't want to bring that up.
I'm sorry.
Not yet.
That's going to be interesting because it's a two-parter. So it's like it's pretty long that they talk about this and it's pretty bad.
If you want to hear it, like and subscribe.
I hate being a woman sometimes.
I love being a man. It's way easier.
You know, women kind of must suck because like patriarchy is out to get you, your own body is out to get you and like you just don't get a break.
Government's out to get you. Well that counts as the patriarchy, right?
I don't know. I want to get back.
Wait, oh my God, I think I found it. Always changing, always growing is the name of the video. Oh my God, it's 50 minutes long.
The kids have sit through that whole thing. God damn.
Okay, well you got to, I'll put the link in the description if you, if that is the video.
Oh no, this is way too invasive. This talks about boners. This is not it. They would never talk about boners at Lakewood.
That's why you weren't at Lakewood. No, they wouldn't.
No, this isn't good at Lakewood when I saw this video. Yeah.
I saw a much more instructive sex video when I went to public school for a year in sixth grade.
And I had never had this sex talk. So I watched the video and I was just very traumatized.
Oh, this is somewhat off topic in, but I learned what a boner was when I went to Leo in eighth grade.
Are you serious? Yeah, because I distinctly remember this because apparently it was traumatizing to me at the time.
But I had like jeans where like the zipper part like wouldn't be straight. It would like bulge out a little bit.
Like ask me like, do you have a boner? Like just straight up. I had no idea what that was. No way. Didn't know what it was.
I learned a lot of terminology going to Leo that I had never heard before.
Can I also tell an unrelated story or do we need to stay focused?
My coworker was telling us a story about how she started in a new school.
And when she went there, one of the girls accused her of like of giving job and she didn't know what it was.
So she was just like, yeah, she thought it would make her popular.
Some girl hit her on the back of the head because she was like, I heard you're the girl who gives the head or something like that.
But just hit her on the back of the head for it because it like spread around school her very first day.
And then she had to go home and ask her mom what a blowjob was because she got hit in the head for it.
It's upsetting. Yeah, I learned what a dildo was at Leo too.
I have no concept of when I learned what a dildo was.
I have a vivid memory of that. I have a lot of vivid memories from Leo. It must have been a very traumatic time in my life.
Really sucks. I had a kid want to fight me over me not letting him play with my Rubik's Cube.
All right. Bringing it back. What were we talking about?
So you mentioned a little bit earlier that you didn't feel comfortable sharing your beliefs with your students.
Did you have actual conversations with pastors and lead people or was it just more of an assumption of like not sharing your belief because they were more progressive in a sense than everyone else at the church?
I pretty much assumed that there were certain things I couldn't talk about.
I pushed the envelope a little bit with like my feminist views.
And then I also told my seniors that I voted for Joe Biden because they were raging about election fraud.
So I needed them to know that I did agree with them.
That was towards the end of your work there.
Yeah, that was like I was just a volunteer at that point. I wasn't on staff anymore because their senior year I had moved on to a job.
And so I was simply a volunteer. But yeah, I pretty much just assumed it.
I mean, I was going to keep volunteering there at one point and Nick and I decided to move in together.
And I knew that that would disqualify me as a volunteer.
And that's why we waited to do it until I quit working there because I was genuinely worried that if Nick moved in together that I would get fired.
That was an actual thought that I had in my brain.
How would they have known that you moved in together?
Well, because I would want to like, I don't know, it comes up a decent amount because I just like talk about things that Nick and I do.
But it was also like a huge thing with my family. It blew up with my family.
So I'm sure it would have come up at some point because I was not well for like a week and a half when we decided to do it.
Hear that story a decent amount with people that become more progressive in Christianity or outside of Christianity where it's usually a thing with your family not taking it well and having to deal with that.
Like for some reason, your family feels like they're involved in this decision.
Oh, it tore my it tore my family up because it basically became a me and my brothers against my parents situation where like my brothers were on my side and supporting me in the decision because I called them before I told my parents.
And I think that's the only thing that like saved our relationship with our parents is that they realized that like nobody in the family agreed with them, that they were the minority in the family.
So I think it kind of helped them check themselves a little bit of like, do we really want to tear the family apart over this just because we disagree with it?
It's like, no, that's dumb. It's a dumb thing to be upset about and make Thanksgiving awkward.
It's surprising to me that job would feel like because like it's right. Like it surprises me that your family would felt like they have any say, but it just surprises me anymore that you would feel your job would fire you over the fact that you moved in with your partner.
There was a very specific meeting that we had where actually, so it was me and like two other girls that were on staff at the time, all the same age, all like 23 or whatever at the time that the head pastor literally looked at us and was like, promise me you'll never move in with your boyfriend before you're married.
Yeah, I have witnesses, me and the girl that used to be the like creative arts director there. We still talk about that conversation because it was so out of line and made us so uncomfortable.
And we both, I think we all just kind of like chuckled and just like looked at him because we didn't know what to do. But so I mean, it's like that kind of attitude of what if we did?
Yeah, yeah. God, I don't know if you keep saying some of this stuff and I don't even know how to respond to it.
It's just, I should have never worked at a church.
So you think that he would have said the same thing? Like, yeah, like, like, like, like, Brian, did you ever have a conversation like this with the head pastor?
Not really, because it wasn't on the table. Like, I was still in school. And yeah, it was just like, Natalie was still in school. I was still in school. We got married right after Natalie graduated.
So it just worked out to the point where it wasn't really a topic that ever got discussed.
This was like, he said this so out of the blue, too. Like, we weren't having a conversation or anything. It just like was a thing that he said. And as we were sitting at the table, we had a conversation about moving in or like anything like that.
Nope, I was not. I was never at that level with the head pastor where I would feel even comfortable talking about liking a boy in front of him.
It just came out of the blue. Yeah, never had that experience. And why would I? I'm a man.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering. I was just making sure.
It was like, it was so uncomfortable to because it was like clearly because it was three young females.
That's the hot new thing to do is like, you know, Belle, move in with your partner. Hot Chip and why?
Because that's what it is when you decide to move in as an act of rebellion. That's why you're doing it.
Rebellion against God and his perfect design and marriage between a male and a female.
Coverment marriage. That's God's design.
Do you? Okay. Did you feel more open and free? It wasn't your job? Like when you were just volunteering?
So when you're on full time staff, did you feel more free to speak at that point or?
I think to an extent just because I kind of knew my time was coming to an end because I was planning to be done after my seniors graduated.
But then I think I was like I was having a crisis of where I was struggling with my sense of identity because I was not really going to church anymore,
but still wanting to be a part of something where I felt like I was making a difference.
So I think I tried to rein it in a little bit towards the end because I wanted to keep volunteering.
But to keep volunteering would also mean that I would have had to continue to attend church and I didn't want to do that anymore because I was enjoying not going too much.
And I also wanted to move in with my boyfriend.
So I think because I knew I wanted to move in with and because I didn't want to go to church anymore, I was not a good volunteer.
Like when it was there last year, I was not going to church. I was not. I was barely a Christian at that point.
I think I was like already probably starting to construct a little bit of like, yeah, man, I really don't want to go to church anymore.
And I was just like trying to make it work, but I hated it. So yeah, I don't know. That was a weird time.
I felt very like disjointed when all that was happening because that was when I was trying to wrestle.
I really don't want to go to church, but this is what I'm supposed to believe. I'm supposed to like church. But wow, I really hate this.
Like I started wrestling that.
What about church made you not want to attend anymore?
I felt like I was going just because I had to getting anything out of being there.
I just felt like a robot that was doing something she was supposed to be doing that was expected of me.
And that really bothered me. I was I feel like I've kind of I've become anarchist, Becca.
I don't know. I just my personality is I don't I don't like being things.
I don't like doing things just because it's expected of me.
And that's exactly what I was doing.
I wasn't believing in what I was doing anymore and I wasn't being forced to as part of my job.
So that's when I started asking, like, you know, these past however many years, I've been going here because I've been paid to.
And now that I'm not being paid to, I don't want to be here. So why am I here?
It was a that was a weird time of just trying to understand and remember what made me want to go to church in the place.
And I think it was really a sense of unity. And I had found that sense of community at my new job.
I had friends at my new job. And because I had that fulfilled somewhere else, church lost its purpose for me.
I think it's interesting to hear people's stories about what's getting burned out and just kind of like stopping going to church because you do you start to not feel can.
I feel like for the majority of people start to feel just like not connected to the community of the church.
And so you just kind of start to slip away slowly. They say that it's, you know, the devil tempting you away or like if you stop going.
It's true, though, if you like stop going to church regularly, you start to realize what you're looking for is community and you can find that in other places.
So you start to read other times you lose the religious aspect of things.
What's interesting to me, though, is how the Christians around you will react when they realize that you're no longer part of the clique.
So I think we should get into that a little bit with how Christians reacted to some of your deconstruction content on tech specifically, even not even on TikTok.
You had mentioned that even like former classmates at Lakewood had started to bully you as well in really mean ways.
Yeah, I actually like just very recently had someone who was like a prominent leader in my life when I was younger message me on Instagram because I posted about I compared the forgiving of the ten thousand dollars student loan to Jesus.
Because I shared a post that it said, if you're a Christian and you're big mad about the possibility of loan debt being canceled, let me remind you that the entirety of your faith is built upon a debt you couldn't pay that someone stepped in and paid for you.
And it was someone like getting up in arms and she said, are you saying the sacrifice you made is the same as the student debt thing?
I don't know if I'm reading it right, but I was a little shocked that this would be your view.
And I just like went in and talked about like how Jesus actually like uses debt forgiveness as a parable and all these things throwing Bible knowledge at her and just said, also, I'm deconstructing my faith.
So it's not that surprising. So then she was like asking me what that was.
And I was kind of telling her about it. And she was like, so do you still believe in Jesus? Are you rejecting traditions you were raised with like Jesus?
Just like I get that question so much of like, are you rejecting the Lord?
But I just like kind of told her where I was at and told her that I'm just like, I'm exploring what it looks like to not be a Christian.
I'm exploring what it looks like to be a Christian and see it differently.
I'm just kind of like exploring avenues of what I can be outside of the straight white male evangelical Christian.
And her last message she said to me was, well, I'll be praying for your journey, my friend.
So that's like, and that conversation was like pretty stereotypical of like all the comments I've gotten are always like, you're rejecting the Lord.
I'll be praying for you.
But yeah, she was one reason that I was as soon as she I saw that I had a message from her.
I was like, OK, here we go. But yeah, the other one from he he literally makes it his life.
I hate this because I also want to give up, but he literally makes it his goal to like argue with people on social media.
Like I've talked to multiple most a lot of women to talk to a lot of women who have been bullied in comment sections by him.
My boyfriend can't stand him. Yeah, he is.
Seems like I guess we mentioned that earlier about like it's almost like a dominating women kind of thing.
Yeah, he gets off on trying to prove people wrong.
It is cool because there's there is a girl who she was like a couple of grades above me that was on the soccer team with me.
And she has seen like what I've been posting.
And so she's like started sending me posts of things that she sees on Instagram, which has been cool because I don't I don't have like a super close relationship there.
But she like sends me funny like ex Christian memes.
So like just kind of like I actually did have someone from Lakewood that went to Lakewood comment on that video that I posted.
Give me a sec. I gotta find it. She said we attended the same school.
Finding I'm not alone is comforting, but seeing photos from places I know hits differently.
And I knew I knew she was. I told her I said I definitely recognize you.
I think you're around the same age as my brother's the most comforting conversation I've had with other former students.
She said, Yep, I think between two of them, I worked at the same small company briefly with she said named my brother.
She said my husband was in my graduating class. We have each other sitting through it all.
I think it's that's a cool aspect of like ex Christian women supporting each other.
I think that's that's nice, especially you have a lot of bullies.
Seems like a lot of bullying women. I don't I don't really like that.
I'm a shitty. Yeah, I mean, I that's what makes posting all of these videos that I do and getting the dumb comments that I do worth it,
because I also get come at and like I have ones here that it's like recovering Southern Baptist at the church in twenty teen for everything I lost when I left.
I've gained so much more raised Baptist pastor's kid homeschooled attended Christian University left the church in twenty twenty and I've never I get comments like that.
That make all the dumb comments worth it because it creates a space for shared experience.
It's really nice. Let's get into some of the bad comments.
What's your what's your favorite? The one I made a tick tock with it because so horrible.
The so you never really accepted Jesus, your savior of your sins.
You just faked being saved without true repentance. Question mark exclamation point.
This is something I mean, I find a lot of things interesting.
And that's probably like my buzzword is this is so interesting.
But this is like a fascinating thing where it seems like evangelical Christianity can't maybe just product Protestantism in general can't deal with people leaving their faith.
And so they say that you were never saved in the first place. Right.
It gets like, yeah, if you would have actually known Jesus and like felt his love and you obviously wouldn't have left him like that would be impossible.
Like they just like can't wrap their minds around the fact that like it's not necessarily like they have a lot of toxic theology, but it's not necessarily God's possible love.
That's the problem. It's all the baggage they've wrapped around it of like the political charged issues that shouldn't be politically charged issues are like just patriarchy in general.
Like being women is less than like stuff like that.
That's causing the issue. Like it's fascinating to me that they don't seem to want to confront actual issues the church have.
And so they just like pass the blame off on to the person that's leaving.
So it's just victim blaming like so much we've talked about tonight. Right.
It's like, oh, yeah, they were never saved in the first place.
They can't possibly leave the church if you were saved.
What's funny is there before this comment came on the Tic Tac, there was a guy that comment, you know, how do you like do some small caps and some caps to like show sarcasm?
He like posted it was like, but you were never saved.
Like, and he joked that. And then I got this comment. So I tagged him in it. I was like, well, there you go.
There it is. It has to be so normal.
What I'm curious about is how these people even found your Tic Tac and like on top of that decided to even comment.
Like there's one comment that I saw on your one that went semi-viral.
It was like by progressive views, you mean homosexuality is OK.
But by your photos, don't blame the church or Christianity for accepting your lifestyle.
Yeah, like they totally assumed my sexuality just based on a short video.
And I'm like, what? Like, I don't care.
Like, you can assume whatever you want, I guess, about. Oh, and not that it matters.
But, dude, what the fuck?
There is even one recently that I like it came within the last couple of weeks.
I think I screen shot it where some girl was like saying that you can tell you can tell that my life is going downhill because of the video goes on.
My physical appearance spirals as well.
And I was like, you mean, because I gained weight because I'm not the one hundred and forty pounds that I was when I was in.
I got older and my body changed.
Which like happens, I think. But and it's just so funny how like they try to pick apart anything they can.
So it's like, yes, she's probably gay. That's why she left the church. Yeah, look at her.
She's fat now. Like they try it like, like, yeah, I do weigh a lot and I've come from my body than I've ever been.
And also, my sexuality is none of your business.
So, like, I don't know, these people, they they I call them tick tock pastors, tick tock comment pastors, because they're just dumb.
This this comment from RK Schwartz says, I can't believe you didn't open yourself up completely to emotional manipulation and didn't let yourself be indoctrinated.
Unbelievable. Heartbreaking.
You can imagine who would say that. I don't know. It's pretty funny. Great guy.
I got a lot of these. You were just in a bad place. That's not God.
However, he was ten twenty six to thirty is I didn't even look it up. I didn't bother.
Hebrews 1026, it said, however, Hebrews 1026 to 30 is apparently a good church.
You respond to a lot of those. I don't think I would.
I started to and I responded to like really ridiculous ones like the one saying that basically me getting fat was showing that I'm lost without the Lord.
But I'll respond to it like that. But I've stopped responding to a lot of them on my like smaller tick tocks where I get feed.
I'll respond some and try to engage if I can. But yeah, I kind of give it up.
My brother told me I need to just stop. And I was like, but what if I reach one person?
But I know I won't. Church mentality, too.
One life at a time. I think I still probably would have that memorized if they played it for me.
Yeah, I've been recently listening to county line sermons just because I wanted to see what they're saying.
And it's changed since I was been there since I was there. But it's still like I have a lot of it memorized.
Yeah, but you meant the church changed. But you're talking about the slogans probably.
Yeah, they have like a video that they play before the service that like tells all their beliefs.
We believe in God's radical, unconditional and unwavering love for all people.
They you or water down that message. That's why do they do that?
Do you know why is that video exists? I don't know.
Because you know, but they do it in it. But they have a kid dub, a kid's voice dub over it for Youth Men Sunday.
Sticky Sunday. Yeah, that they do once a month. Second Sunday of every month.
Yeah, I think we're going to be responding to the podcast that county line has the like, I remember you telling me that.
Yeah, Jesus Center Family podcast or whatever. I sent Chris the episode.
I'm trying to see. I got this comment a lot. But small is the gate and narrow is the road to life and few ever find it.
But I feel like a lot of Christians take the easy route.
I'm sorry to hear this. People hurt people and not even on this causes confusion, discontent and hurt.
How do you how do you feel about people saying that it was just a specific church but not Christianity in general?
Oh, I made a whole video telling people stop saying that it's not their church.
That video. So that was the first video like thoughtfully scripted and didn't just like talk about it.
I like actually sat down and kind of wrote out my feelings and beliefs on it and did some actual research with it.
Because to me, when people say not my church, I equated a lot to the not all men saying that was going around.
And that's kind of the argument that I tried to use when I very soon to when the Me Too movement came around,
men started using the hashtag and were completely discrediting these victims that are trying to share about their experiences and what they've gone.
And that's that's the thing is like, I know that when I'm telling stories about these things that Christians did,
I know that not all Christians have done this.
But when you come in and you say, well, my church doesn't do that, you completely take what someone is trying to say and you make it about yourself.
And you're just completely taking away the fact that there's a victim trying to explain what has happened to them.
And you're trying to make it all about you.
And for some reason, Christian attitude to that, like they can't take responsibility.
It comes back to that scapegoating Christians like to do that with every if they feel they're being accused something they need to scapegoat it.
And they need to prove that they're wrong and they need you to absolve them of blame.
And sometimes it's OK to be like, yeah, that happened.
Like that that is something that happened.
And that sucks. And I'm really sorry you experienced that.
And but people coming in my comments and saying, well, my church isn't like that.
You should try that. My favorite comment was someone that said you should try Catholicism like fuck.
No, that's so horrible.
Like Catholicism is the last branch of Christianity I'm ever fucking trying.
It's completely workspace.
But I just like was getting so aggravated because every single video I was posting was, well, I didn't experience that.
Well, that didn't happen to me.
And like, I don't care that that didn't happen to you.
I'm sharing about my experiences and my experiences alone.
So shut up and listen to me and don't tell me that your church didn't do that.
Don't tell me that you'd experience it. I'm not talking about you.
I'm talking to me.
Yeah, I thought that was a really thoughtful video.
It's not something I ever thought about before.
So I really appreciated your viewpoint on that.
I don't so yeah, I don't really know many people that I'm not a Christian.
My parents don't know, which is fine if they just we don't talk about it ever.
My brother knows and he's been down a similar path.
But like it's just it's not worth me telling people usually unless they start a conversation.
But like a lot of times it doesn't seem like it leads into a good place.
I tried to just ignore it and let people talk and listen.
It was a really interesting perspective for me to look through some of your videos
and get different perspectives from people, different life experiences during deconstruction than I had.
But also a public response to them was interesting.
How was the response to this specific video about Not My Church?
There weren't like too many comments on it or anything.
I got I was just pulling it up. I only had like got like 1400 views.
I got 40 likes, but people said like one person said perfectly said, Becca.
Another said that with all periods. Thank you so much.
Someone else said, amen. Some other lady said, she give a psychological. I don't know what that means.
I didn't engage with it, so I didn't get any further clarification.
But I mean, like decent response to it.
Usually I'll get at least one comment on these about like people disagreeing with what I say.
So that's kind of what I figured that she give a psychological answer was probably about.
But I don't know that I felt really good about that video because that's something that happens in the church all the time is like victim stories are just ush or discredited.
And I think people commenting that on my video a whole bunch.
It was just like, this isn't your story. I'm not talking about.
I'm sure there are churches out there that probably do some great work and are affirming of most people and all people, hopefully.
But for you to come into my experience and make it about yourself is so selfish and so just dumb.
I don't know what else to say.
Just spit because that's not the point of the video.
The point of the video is for me to hear about all these places where it's perfect.
The point of the video was I experienced something that sucked and I need an outlet for it.
Yeah, they're commenting on literally you telling your story that it wasn't like that at all churches.
Yeah. And then I just don't know what a real church is.
I I commented on a lot of them saying like bold of you to my journey because they just assumed a lot from a 60 second video, which is fine.
I feel like that's tick tock comments in general. I don't know.
Well, and like my story is like a stop in 2020 during the pandemic.
Like conservative churches around here were just ridiculous. So I started attending virtually a church in Portland, Oregon.
It was recommended to me by some people. It was very progressive and it's really great.
I was like going to a church for almost a year and a half virtually like talking with the pastor, like being in a virtual small group there.
Like this really small church in Portland was like a safe space for me to finally stop struggling and just give up with Christianity in a way.
If that makes sense where it's like I went to one of those churches that's not like normal evangelical church and I still didn't end up staying being a Christian.
Like that was OK. Right. Like the pastor was fine when we had conversations about it.
Like it's like, yeah, I'm glad I was able to create a safe space for you to decide this isn't for you kind of thing.
Yeah, like he like they provided the space for you to explore it comfortably without feeling the shame and guilt of like coming to that decision.
It's kind of ridiculous to say to someone's personal story that like you just would have gone to a better church, then it wouldn't have been like that.
Could be true. Yeah, you know, it's probably not true. Right. Like it's not how everyone's stories.
Well, and like I thought so highly of County Line for a really time.
And it wasn't until I was working there that I started to kind of see the issues that were there.
And honestly, even still for a church like it's half decent compared to a lot of places.
Decent, which is sad, given some of the things that I talked about.
Yeah, it's a low bar to compare County Line to. Yeah. Yeah.
So and like just these people that are saying like, like, well, you've never really had a true experience encountering God.
Like I thought that I did. I thought I had those true experiences.
And like in your eyes, you would see it as a true encounter with God.
And everyone around me saw the encounter with God. I don't know what I would call those things now.
It was interesting. I was talking with a friend yesterday where we were saying like there was a mission trip that I was on.
I remember like feeling so heavy and like just feeling the weight of all the fun me.
And it was anxiety for sure. Back on it, I was having a panic attack on it and they told me it was a demon.
Like I had three people talking about your saying that a demon was oppressing me and they like prayed over me.
And now looking back on it, I'm like, no, that was fucking anxiety.
I was having an anxiety attack. Yeah.
Just like the people that are commenting on these videos, they don't like I probably went to the church that they would have loved.
Like they probably would have agreed that it was a demon and all this stuff.
But like you can't see that in a 60 second video.
You don't know the extent of what I went through, but I'm trying to find more comments to read.
This one was funny. One for Satan.
I don't think I can respond to that. Possibly true. We don't know.
It was one of my favorite ones.
This one made me uncomfortable. God still loves you. Husband creation still calls out.
I don't like the phrase husband creation. I've never heard that before.
This girl said this is giving eye woo.
Let me see. I'm so sorry.
I wish you were around people that were true Christians so that they could give you what God is really like.
God loves you. Okay.
I mean, it just goes back to all the earlier stuff.
Like, why did you say that? First off, yeah, feeling free doesn't mean it's right.
Sin feels good. It feels pretty great.
To be honest, I'm okay living.
Jesus still loves you. He's calling you.
He uses a still small voice most of the time.
Look inside your heart, not inside the church. Christ is in your heart.
He's knocking at the door. Answer.
And on the last day, every knee will bow and tongue confess Jesus is Lord.
Like we haven't heard all these things already.
People trying to say their churches aren't like that, yet saying the same exact things that we've heard.
Be careful in assuming that your happiness is the standard at which you should live.
What?
If you reject the gospel and you've been exposed to it, how are you ever going to get saved from once you've rejected it?
Now, that's an interesting comment. I think we should talk about that one a little bit.
So the premise is that you've seen the gospel, but you didn't get saved.
So they're like questioning, right? It's almost like they're questioning their own beliefs more than you.
I know, that's what the question... I felt like the question was supposed to be directed at me,
but it was more directed at like, well, how has she been exposed to the gospel but not saved?
You tell me, sir.
A fundamental belief of like, if you expose them to the gospel, they'll believe, right?
It might not be now, but it'll be at some point, right?
For a lot of people that were saying like, I was still saved.
Yeah, which like I know my parents believe that.
My parents, because like I've had a conversation with my parents about my oldest brother
because I asked them like, he walked away from faith and they were like,
well, he was saved at one point, so he's always saved.
So this is a lifetime membership.
You can't cancel.
You cannot cancel your subscription to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
How does that make you feel?
I think it's just something they say to make themselves feel better, to be quite honest.
I think that they just want to feel okay about it, so it's something that they tell themselves.
Better than them constantly witnessing, do you?
Yes, I will take that. Yeah. You ready for more?
No, we should wrap it up.
Let me find one more good one.
Okay, and it'll be my last one.
God, some of these are so funny though.
Okay, I'm sharing two because I'm sharing a funny one first.
This one just says you are a very sad person.
Thanks.
Okay, well then the one I actually want to share says pray for her in the spirit of delusion that has captured her.
She's rooted in fear and the enemy traffics in fear.
Apparently I'm delusional.
I'm not here beforehand.
Like leaving Christianity is like getting rid of the fear.
That's kind of how I feel. It gets rid of the shame and crap.
Yeah.
You got rid of your shame? How'd you do that?
You left Christianity. Yeah, me too.
There it is.
How do I get rid of it? It's still here forever.
That's trauma. Oh, that's just trauma.
I don't know if that's better or worse. Maybe both.
Oh, to wrap this up, I noticed one from the former principal of Lakewood.
I'm just going to read it here.
It was actually the principal at the Christian school where she attended.
I'm proud that she is thinking critically and I doubt this is for attention.
Do you want to talk a little bit about how that made you feel?
I honestly cried when I read that comment and it had a huge impact on how I felt about the whole post.
It reassured me that I was doing it for myself and that it really is healing for me to think through these things and go through these things.
Having someone that really was such a prominent figure in my life, I truly looked up to Mr. Krisner.
I still do, especially after him commenting that.
It just proved to me that I talked about how I know not all Christians can be like that.
That is the kind of response that I want when I post things like that is for people to be encouraging and to ask questions and talk with me about things and not just assume who I am as a person.
But to meet me with some sort of empathy of like, I'm kind of going through some shit right now, like I'm really trying through some stuff and it sucks and it's difficult and it's hard.
And to have people that were such a prominent figure at our school was really cool to have him come in and kind of like defend me.
It is very cool that he was on TikTok and found you.
I know. I don't even know how.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
End it there. The Lord works in mysterious ways. We're done.
Well, God, I don't know why I just said that.
That's what we've just learned to believe.
There's no such thing as coincidences.
Everything is God ordained.
That was all over my comments too.
Alright, well, thank you for coming on again.
Glad to be here. Glad to process my drama.
That's what we're here for. It's what we do best.
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We'd love to hear any thoughts you might have, any encouragements, prayer requests.
I'm not open for that.
Oh, it's so late. I'm so tired.
Good clarification.
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And thanks for listening. Good night and we love you.
Love you. Hail Satan.