TW: childhood sexual abuse, CSAM

This episode, DL gives an overview of their research on Dobson's knowledge and failure to use that knowledge to protect kids, and instead promoted ideas within purity culture that parallel and affirm childhood sexual abusers. It's a long one, and it's tough content, but we feel it's incredibly important. 

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at⁠⁠⁠ strongwilled.substack.com⁠⁠⁠ or strongwilledproject.com

You can join⁠⁠ ⁠our patreon community⁠⁠⁠ or⁠⁠⁠ join our substack⁠⁠⁠ to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠. You can ⁠⁠⁠follow Krispin on Instagram here⁠⁠⁠.

Here's another Hopecore episode! 

DL talks about why the latest Knives Out Mystery gives them hope. We discussed the way it approaches different types of Christianity, as well as asking whether Christianity itself is helpful, as well as what happens to true believers when they become calcified in institutions. 

We appreciate your continued support and engagement. As always, this is a survivor-led and survivor-supported publication. If you appreciate our work (and our ad-free podcast!) please consider supporting us financially or sharing about the podcast on your social media channels.

You can join⁠⁠ ⁠our patreon community⁠⁠⁠ or⁠⁠⁠ join our substack⁠⁠⁠ to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

TW: Homophobia, corporal punishment / spanking, drug overdose.

Krispin & DL recap and discuss the third movie of The Hunger Games (which was a difficult watch).

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at⁠⁠⁠ strongwilled.substack.com⁠⁠⁠.

You can join⁠⁠  ⁠our patreon community⁠⁠⁠ or⁠⁠⁠ join our substack⁠⁠⁠ to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠. You can ⁠⁠⁠follow Krispin on Instagram here⁠⁠⁠.

D.L. and Krispin take a break from Narnia to reflect on four years of our podcast analyzing evangelical media - and how conspiracy themes are woven throughout!

We discuss how to navigate relationships when you those in your life dismiss the significance of this event.

D.L. explains the relational follow-out that occurred in Germany, as D.L. discusses the book Frauen by Owings.

If you were disappointed with your church's response yesterday (Sunday Jan 10) to this insurrection, it's unlikely to get any better from here on out. It’s super important to find a supportive spiritual community, if you’re able to!

Torri Williams Douglass is a writer, speaker, educator, and activist. She is the creator of White Homework which is a curriculum designed to help people create their own personalized antiracism plan. The courses were developed as a response to the hundreds of requests she got from individuals asking, “I don’t want to be racist, but what do I DO?” Prior to this, she worked in higher ed, doing recruitment for Underrepresented Minorities in STEM. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon. 

Also she’s a great twitter follow. 

“The Chronicles of Narnia was required reading for homeschoolers.”

Anyone else remember Abeka homeschool curriculum?! 

D.L. wrote this piece on reading Little House on the Prairie with kids. 

"Aslan is a drama queen"… (remember how Mr. Whitaker, drama queen for the patriarchy in Season 4 of Prophetic Imagination Station?)

Rereading our childhood favorites actually is a good place to start reading with a decolonize lens. We are already comfortable with them - but it takes a lot of extra time. 

Krispin grew up with Hannah Barbarra Bible videos like these. 

No art is perfect - but sometimes it’s not worth the energy and time it takes to wade through it.

Krispin mentions Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Matt Mikalatos took more time to talk with us about Narnia and C.S. Lewis, with lots of interesting parts we haven't covered in our series - like an eco-critical reading of Narnia, guessing Lewis' enneagram number, Planet Narnia, and how Lewis wrote letters to children explaining the Narnia series in ways he never made public.

Thank you Matt and patrons for a wonderful evening! You can sign up and be a part of events like these, and more, at www.patreon.com/dlmayfield

Paul Pastor is an editor and writer, and has published a collection of non-ficiton essays about the Holy Spirit called The Face of the Deep and some books of prayers & meditations called The Listening Day Volume 1 and Volume 2. You can find him on Twitter. Or go to his website and write him a letter!

Become a patreon of the podcast at www.patreon.com/dlmayfield and join us for a Narnia Q&A Wednesday night, Dec 16 (6pm pacific / 9pm eastern). 

The Highlights:

Aslan’s How: a house put together by Dr. Garry Friesan for male students attending Multnomah University (Multnomah Bible College when we went there).

Paul mentions the best box set being this one and we agree. 

Lewis’ favorite author/theologian was named George McDonald. He was a Victorian era preacher and fantasy writer known for his heretical views. 

Phantastes by MacDonald, Lewis said, “baptized his imagination”. 

The Silver Chair synopsis. The Silver Chair also includes one of the best characters in Lewis’ canon, Puddleglum

Michael Ward wrote a book on the Narnia stories being linked to medieval conceptions of various planets. Check out his website, Planet Narnia. 

Why hasn’t The Silver Chair been made into a major motion picture?

The Silver Chair corresponds to Luna, or the moon. 

The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross is an initiatory moment.

Holy Darkness is different and holds richness because they dwell in obscurity or shadow, which is present in Godself. The Scriptures say that God dwells in deep darkness.

Alireza Shafiee-Nasab, born in 1990 in Dezful, Iran, is an Iranian translator, literary editor and teacher. You can follow him Instagram or visit his website http://shafieenasab.ir.

He holds an MA degree in English literature from the University of Tehran, with a thesis entitled “Christianized Archetypes in The Chronicles of Narnia”, in which he argues that the psychological ideas of Carl Gustav Jung might have influenced Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, while Lewis, as a devout Christian, gives these ideas a Christian touch, modifying them wherever they contradict Christian doctrines. He is currently translating Fernando Aramburu’s Patria into Persian

Calormen is the country south of Narnia in the books--appearing most prominently in The Horse and His Boy and also The Last Battle. Calormen is obviously an Eastern/Oriental culture compared to Narnia’s northern European culture. 

Calormen culturally, according to Shafiee-Nasab, is a mixture of Arabic and Persian and Turkish elements: long beards and dark skin and upturned shoes. 

“Aslan” comes from a Turkish word which means lion. It’s also the name of one of the characters in Arabian Nights, a work which greatly influenced C. S. Lewis. Other influences from this book show up in Narnia, including naming the boy prince Caspian after the Caspian Sea.

Lewis was interested in psychology but was not a fan of Freud. But he found Carl Jung to have a more humane version of psychology. Shafiee-Nasab believes Lewis’ interest in Jung contributes to some of the archetypes in his work, including the figures of Aslan and Tash--and how people end up responding to a false Aslan because of their mental image of his. 

Lewis was also influenced by Dante, and possibly by his depiction of Islam in in works. Along with that, in old Persian Tash (the God of death in the Narnia world) means fire. 

How do we deal with the orientalism/racism underlying works like The Horse and His Boy? One thing we can do is wonder why there was such an appetite for works like Narnia while Persian/Islamic epics continue to be ignored. One such example is that one of the most famous Irianian books ever written--The Epic of Kings--still has yet to be completely translated into English. 

Kat Coffin is a musician and an academic specializing in the works of C.S. Lewis and gender theory. 

Before you listen to the podcast, maybe check out this wonderful summary Kat Coffin wrote on The Problem of Susan here.

Or read this quick Twitter thread summary 

Here’s the passage in The Last Battle that makes people so upset about Susan not getting into Aslan’s Country. 

JK Rowling on Susan Pevensie and Lewis: “There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.”

Neil Gaiman wrote a short story called The Problem of Susan (which we do not necessarily recommend reading as it is . . . intense.)

C.S. Lewis was a lot like Susan!

Lewis eventually became friends with Dorothy L Sayers and then befriended and married Joy Davidman. An American communist from Brooklyn! 

Till We Have Faces--Lewis’ last novel, which was basically co-written with Joy Davidman

A Grief Observed--Lewis’ book on his marriage

“CS Lewis is not as evangelical as evangelicals want him to be but he’s not as progressive as I want him to be.” -- Kat Coffin

George MacDonald, one of Lewis’ main literary mentors, was a universalist. Krispin mentions The Evangelical Universalist, by Robin Parry, which was originally published under the pen name Gregory MacDonald, as a nod to George MacDonald. 

Shadowlands is the film about Lewis’ life and marriage to Joy. As Kat Coffin points out, there are elements of it that have been edited to fit the intended audience, so keep that in mind!

Find Kat on Twitter Instagram Blog 

Episode 7: Interview with Matt Mikalatos on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Matt Mikalatos is the author of the Sunlit Lands fantasy trilogy, starting with The Crescent Stone. He also writes a bi-weekly column about C.S. Lewis at Tor.com. You can connect with him at www.mikalatos.com.

Matt writes about a wide variety of Narnia-related content for Tor. Here is a link to his piece on Eustace and spiritual formation. 

Matt describes The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a travelogue or spiritual pilgrimage novel. 

Books which influenced Lewis in this genre include”

The journeys of at Benedict

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

Dante’s Paradiso

What is the deal with Eustace? Matt says that Lewis was saying that intense secularism is the main problem for Eustace--he doesn’t read the write books, believe in magic, or even know what a dragon is!

Matt mentions the Jewish ritual bath called Mikvah. For more information on that, go here. 

Matt mentions Mark Charles and his numerous books and talks on white supremacy. We are big fans of Mark Charles, go check him out!

You can find Matt Mikalatos on Twitter and Facebook and if you are interested in his books (which you should be by now!) go check out The Sunlit Lands. 

In the introduction, DL mentions reading the book Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus by Reggie Williams. We highly recommend it (Go listen to this podcast episode if you want a taste of the book). 

Emily Metcalf is a scholar and artist who focuses on Tolkein and Lewis in both areas. You can find her website with links to her shop here (we highly recommend checking out her Tolkien inspired watercolors!). In today’s interview, she discusses with DL a recent paper she wrote on Lewis’ view of patriotism. 

C.S. Lewis wrote often about the four loves. Go here if you want to learn more about them. 

Emily describes the various forms of patriotism as understood by Lewis, from what he considers a “normal” love of country all the way to toxic nationalism. 

In her paper, Emily describes Lewis’s understanding of the five degrees of patriotism as: “love of home, veneration of national/cultural history, assumption of superiority, rights to power, and finally, self destruction.”

Just in case you can’t remember the plot of Prince Caspian, use this as a refresher. 

One of the twitter handles mentioned is Diverse Tolkien. Go check it out! 

You can find Emily Metcalf (Emily Austin is her artist name) on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Follow The Prophetic Imagination Station podcast on Twitter or Instagram, or join the fun over at Patreon!

After watching productions of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe by both BBC (1988) and Disney (2004), Krispin and Danielle discuss the differences, as well as the story itself. 

For a stroll down memory lane, you can watch the BBC version on youtube. 

Sign up for our patreon here to hear our patreon-only episode next week about Focus on the Family and how they’ve influenced evangelicals to vote republican for decades. 

Thanks to Rich Villodas for his Dear Wormwood tweet.  

This episode is mostly about what the Stone Table/Death of Aslan meant in the Chronicles of Narnia. Buckle up for a fascinating deep dive into atonement theories and evangelical theology!

Mako Nagasawa served a Spanish-speaking ministry to Mexican immigrants in East Palo Alto, CA and afterward, worked for two startup companies trying to bring technology and jobs to inner city communities. Since 2000, Mako, his wife Ming, and their two children John and Zoe have lived among friends in a Christian intentional community house in a black and brown neighborhood in Dorchester. Mako has done campus ministry since 2001 and founded The Anástasis Center in 2014.

Mako’s website (with lots of links and articles!)

Mako’s FB group: Healing Atonement and Restorative Justice.

He helped develop a financial curriculum called Lazarus at the Gate, as well as a small group curriculum about

Check out Mako’s interview with Almost Heretical about atonement theories and how Penal Substitutionary Atonement has impacted US politics.

Mako has a whole academic paper on C.S. Lewis’ Theory of Atonement, that you can read here! (also, check out Mako’s take on theology and Harry Potter here and Lord of the Rings here)

Mere Christianity quote: Only a bad person needs to repent only a good person can repent perfectly, Jesus is the only one who could push human nature where it needs to be pushed. (12 min). 

We discuss “survival emotions” of anxiety and guilt, relief and gratitude evoked by Penal Substitution Atonement. (14 min)

Athanasius: On Incarnation (CS Lewis wrote the introduction, which you can read here). 

Jesus died to burn away the corrupt nature of humanity. It’s a medical paradigm, not a legal paradigm. 

Krispin & DL recap and discuss the second book/movie of The Hunger Games and talk about strategies of authoritarian governments. 

If you want to hear Part 2 of this episode earlier than the regular schedule, you can ⁠become a patreon subscriber⁠ and listen to part 2 today!

Krispin mentions researchers who see corporal punishment as a symbol of devotion to God; he's referencing Susan B. Ridgley's journal article, "⁠When pain becomes symbolic of commitment"⁠

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at⁠⁠⁠ strongwilled.substack.com⁠⁠⁠.

You can join⁠⁠  ⁠our patreon community⁠⁠⁠ or⁠⁠⁠ join our substack⁠⁠⁠ to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠. You can ⁠⁠⁠follow Krispin on Instagram here⁠⁠⁠.

Important note: I (D.L.) say Dr. Cronin is at the University of Florida when in fact she teaches at Florida State University. Me and my West Coast bias/ignorance showing--sorry about that!

Dr. Sonya Cronin teaches classes both on the Hebrew Scriptures and Fantasy Literature--which makes her the perfect guest for this podcast. You can visit this site to learn more about her, including her books (and she is currently working on one about the gospel of Mark!). 

We reference the recent controversy surrounding JK Rowling and her recent anti-trans public statements. You can learn more about this situation here. 

Krispin references his interview with Connie Baker about interacting with authors who are problematic. You can listen to his interview with her about spiritual abuse here. 

Dr. Cronin references Philip Pullman, saying “Fantasy is a safe space to learn the virtues of the world, in a way that is not quite ‘thou shall’. ‘Once a upon a time’ does something for us that ‘thou shall and thou shalt not’ just doesn’t do.” (11:54)

When talking about Lewis and Tolkein they must be set in their context, the 1950s--including their portrayals of women. 

Lewis was considered safe for evangelicals because before he ever wrote fantasy he wrote apologetics--so we knew exactly what he believed. (25 min)

Harry was created a wizard — the idea of being created to be something is very much connected to the Christian tradition.  

Christian responses to Harry Potter: 

Richard Abanes wrote Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magik

John Granger is a Christian who says we SHOULD read these books. - 35min

A clip of our just-released patreon-only episode talking about evangelicals, politics, and the recent “worship protests” out of Bethel - and how do you talk to family members about why it’s problematic?

Become a patreon here , beginning at $1.50/month and get a monthly episode, access to our facebook group and more!

Link to her biography and faculty page here.

Buy her incredibly detailed, thoughtful, academic book Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children’s Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century

Questions to consider when reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia:

What are these stories, what are they doing, and how did they become so ingrained in American culture? How do these stories both aliant people and enchant them at the same time? How do we re-evaluate classics? How can we get better at interrogating what are classics?

Cecire on experiencing “the moment” when she realized she didn’t see herself represented in fantasy stories: “I looked in the mirror and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I would never be a blonde-haired blue-eyed fairy tale princess and that those stories were just not about me.”

Tolkein and Lewis were anti-modernists, and they were able to overhaul the English curriculum at Oxford to focus on the middle ages--choices that had ripple effects for generations. 

Second wave of the oxford school of children’s literature includes people like Susan Cooper (Dark is Rising) Diana Wynn Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle), Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials), Kevin Crossly Holland (Arthur Trilogy)--and influenced people like J.K. Rowling. 

Thanks to Lewis and his curriculum developed at Oxford we have seen a major push in Children’s Fantasy Writing-- all about Arthurian Legends, Medieval texts,and reworking them for the 20th writing. These books are serious about the magic, but incredibly Northern Euro-centric. 

Peoples of Africa descending from Ham. (28:00) -- this comes directly from Christianity

“I am an academic so I think visiting, rereading, and thinking about books in general is a good thing . . . Remember that humans are complicated and our artistic productions are complicated.” (30:38)

You can identify pleasures or desires in your life that you would not like to carry forward.

Cecire references authors Nnedi Okorafor and the Binti series, N.K. Jemisin and Saladin Ahmend Throne of the crescent moon as different narratives to contrast with Lewis/The Horse and His Boy.

D.L. mentions reading Birchbark House series in conjunction with the Little House books to her daughter. Read her essay on it here. 

Rhodes must fall (39:40)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mscecire

Website: https://mariacecire.wordpress.com/

American Library Association Great Stories Club

Welcome to Season 5 of The Prophetic Imagination Station Podcast: The Lion, The Witch, and The Evangelicals. In this episode Krispin and D.L. discuss what the chronicles of Narnia is, a bit about Lewis’ background when he was writing the books, and their own experiences growing up evangelical and reading them.

For a good overview of the seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia, go here. 

The main biographies D.L. read to prepare for this season were The Narnian by Alan Jacobs (someone who unabashedly loves Lewis and writes his bio accordingly), and The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller (who writes as a non-Christian about her love for the books). 

Fake CS Lewis quotes are everywhere! If you find any good ones, please send them to us at propheticimaginationstation@gmail.com so we can use them in upcoming “My Dear Wormwood” segments.

According to this site, less than 5% of people in England attend church services regularly (and this was before Brexit!). 

Click here to buy The Myth of the American Dream where D.L. mentions C.S. Lewis four times!!!

Come join us on Patreon for as little as $1.50 a month and hear our monthly patreon-only podcasts and join our Facebook group! 

Stay tuned for next week, when we interview Maria Sachiko Cecire, professor of literature at Bard college and the author of Re-Enchanted (an excellent book!). 

Starting September 14, we will launch into a series on The Chronicles of Narnia, interviewing several experts and also discussing our own experiences with this series. We're asking why American evangelicals resonated so deeply with an author who was neither American, nor evangelical - and what still enchants us about this series today.

We decided to make our Patreon-only episode available for everyone this month to get a sense of what our episodes are like. We dissect one piece of evangelical media each month - prior months have been Focus on the Family's Brio Magazine and WOW 1999, as well as others. This month We discuss a 1970's Christian claymation cartoon - Davy and Goliath, and the topic is racism.

Watch Davy & Goliath: Blind Man's Bluff

Watch Phil Vischer's video on Race in America

In this episode we reference:

I Bring the Voices of My People by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes,

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

Divided by Faith by Emerson & Smith.

Krispin and Danielle reflect on the past season of Frank Peretti's America.

TW: We discuss sexual abuse.

Check out Danielle's new book, The Myth of the American Dream! We mention in the episode.

And don't miss our discussion of WOW 1999 on our patreon-only podcast.

Krispin talks with Connie Baker about the psychology of why churches end up protecting abusers and discrediting those who speak up about abuse. She is the author of Traumatized by Religious Abuse and facilitates a facebook group with 500+ members about religious abuse.

Leah Payne a professor of Christian studies at George Fox University, author of Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century and co-host for The Weird Religion Podcast. We talked with her about pentacolism in the broader history of the church and how Peretti’s book led the way for traditions that had previously been disregarded to make a big impact on American evangelicalism.

Joshua Pease is a pastor, author, and journalist, and all-around smart guy. In this interview, we focus mainly on his work in regards to conspiracy theories and abuse within evangelical churches.

Note for those listening, there is some discussion of sensitive topics, including abuse. RAINN is a great resource for sexual abuse survivors, including live chat and phone options for support.

Here is his piece on conspiracy theories and why our brains love them for Popular Mechanics. 

5 min: Brief mention of Janette Oke. For those who aren’t familiar, she is the woman who brought us the whole Canadian Christian mountie romance trope. It’s a real thing! 

9:20: “Our brains want both suspicion and they want simplicity; and that’s problematic because life gives us a lot of reasons to be afraid and life is also super complex. And so what we do is grab hold of shortcuts that make us feel better.”

“We want a simple explanation for life, even if that explanation is kind of horrifying--it makes us feel better, because at least we know where the danger is.”

15: “Conspiratorial thinking is 100 percent about trying to find safety, control, and simplicity in a world that is not that way.”

33: Joshua’s article on narcissism is called Bill Gothard’s Fundementalist Trap for The New Republic.

Krispin & DL recap and discuss the first book/movie of The Hunger Games and talk about how James Dobson and President Snow use the same methods of control. 

Download Pranksters vs. Autocrats by Sophia McClennen and Srdja Popovic for free!

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at⁠ strongwilled.substack.com⁠.

You can join⁠ our patreon community⁠ or⁠ join our substack⁠ to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on ⁠Instagram⁠. You can ⁠follow Krispin on Instagram here⁠.

Welcome to a special quarantine edition of the Prophetic Imagination Station season 4: Frank Peretti’s imagination. Today we break up all the This Present Darkness talk to do a little deep dive into Carman--and specifically, the song Revival in the Land. Watch, and then listen to us jabber about it!

Intro:

Hi, we are going stir-crazy so we did a lip sync to Carman’s song Satan Bite the Dust. And you know what? It’s pretty good! (Here’s a link to the actual Carman approved video for Satan bite the Dust)

12: jack chick Halloween tract

21: yo kids/RIOT/

25: Myth of the American Dream

26: Mid faith crisis exile (episode 79)

28: James Alison On Being Liked

30: T-bone Demon Executor (the electric chair song)

30: Krispin’s rap

32: Todd Bently 

44: sling bang boom (with Hanson!)

45: Addicted 2 Jesus (with DC Talk!)

Brad Jersak is the author of several books, including Her Gates Will Never Be Shut and Incarnation & Inclusion, two of Krispin’s favorites. He’s appeared on many podcasts, this one with Jonathan Martin on Hell, Judgment & Atonement.

Summing up what prayer is in This Present Darkness: “Our prayers were like the batteries that energized the angels”

The title of the book comes from Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (NRSV)

9 min: Jersak mentions YWAM and Fuller Seminary teaching spiritual warfare/classes on signs and wonders. He also mentions Peter Wagner, John Wimber, and Chuck Kraft. Please click on the links for more information. 

On why horror movies and conspiracy theory books are popular: “We like to face our fears in the context of something we have control over.”

16: D.L. mentions Todd Bentley, a charismatic preacher recently in the news again. Do you really want to go down this rabbit hole? OK, here you go. 

35: Jersak mentions moralism in his book, A More Christlike Way.

40: “The weapons of the world are force, and that’s not how Jesus came and overcame everything. He came to surrender to the will of his father.”

50: Book recommendations on connecting to Jesus: Can You Hear me? Tuning in to the God who Speaks

Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel, founder of Freedom Road--a consulting group dedicated to helping people do justice more justly (Check out her excellent podcast here).

“I wasn’t taught to interpret Scripture. I was just given Scripture and told to do it.”

19 min: Peretti’s books were a spiritualization of the culture wars which launched in the 1980s through the moral majority. 

26 min: Viv Grigg says that the “powers” move us away from the ethics of God. What does it mean to be ruled by God? It means to come under the constitution of God. Belief for the Hebrews was not a mind thing, it was in the body, and it has to be lived out in the world. And that’s what ethics are. 

31 min: In the book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America the authors state that the one way for white evangelicals to change their worldview is to be immersed in communities that are unlike themselves

32 min: “The good news is that Jesus, the king of the kingdom of God, has come to earth to confront the powers of the earth who are hell bent on crushing the image of God.”

40 min: Recommendations for people who are deconstructing but still want to be aware of power and principalities: immerse yourself in the teachings of communities of color. 

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can be Made Right by Lisa Sharon Harper

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman 

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by Kelly Brown Douglas

In many ways it is a uniquely European and western project to separate the spirit and the body and to secularize the world. 

48 min: “I think that the unspoken project of western civilization has been to usurp God, to become God, to control everything.”

49:30 Race: A Theological Account by J. Kameron Carter. 

“The only way to live without connection to the spirit world is to think that you are God, and to live at a level where you don’t experience oppression, where you ARE the powers.” 

“I really believe that it was used to forward a political movement, and it was one that was consciously galvanizing white evangelicals to rally around a political ideology that they knew . . . would ultimately result in the winning of the original culture war, which began with Brown V. the Board of Education.” The culture war is not just about sexual politics, but it is also about race. It is about the desired rule and control of white men over space. 

49 min: “The Spirit of God comes against oppression.”

D.L. recommends William Stringfellow’s book An Ethic for Christians and other Aliens in a Strange Land. A white theologian in the 70s, his understanding of principalities in the Bible shifts from the personal to the institutional. 

Hi Friends! Episode 2 of Frank Peretti's America is out now wherever you listen to your podcasts. Listen, then come back here and let us know what you think!

We would also love to share any and all stories you might want to share about your own experiences growing up and learning about spiritual warfare. Drop a story in the comments or email us at propheticimaginationstation@gmail.com.

If you are interested in the Faith in an Age of Fear conference DL mentions, check out the eventbrite here. We would love to see you there! 

Interview with Daniel Silliman, (on twitter @danielsilliman) whose PHD dissertation was on the history of best-selling evangelical novels. He specifically looked at the five novels which changed evangelical publishing in a significant way and sold over a million copies. Those books were:

Love Comes Softly (1979) by Janette Oke

This Present Darkness (1986) by Frank Peretti

Left Behind by Tim Lahaye and (1996) Jerry B. Jenkins

The Shunning (1997) by Beverly Lewis

The Shack by (2007) by William Paul Young

Silliman recounts how the evangelical fiction market primarily courted female book buyers with Christian romance novels, and how Peretti and his “Christian horror” was a new risky genre.

21 min: Silliman mentions Francis Schaeffer and his beliefs on worldviews influencing Crossway publishing to branch out into books like This Present Darkness.

28 min: Silliman gets into the background of Amy Grant and her personal and professional troubles, and why this led to her being so drawn to a little book called This Present Darkness. 

Here’s a link to an LA times piece about Amy Grant being credited for the sales bump, with this particular jewel of a quote from Lane Dennis, CEO of Crossway (Peretti’s publisher): “He has written a book for the so-called Moral Majority. They can hold this up and say, ‘This is how I see the world.”

37: min Jack Chick Tracts and demons.

Trigger Warnings: talking about demons, demon possession, sexual abuse, sexual abuse allegations being dismissed

24 min: TW Sexual Abuse in TPD. Here is a link to R. L. Stollar’s original tweet thread. 

Intro: music by Krispin Mayfield (indebted to the song “Ashton” by Michael W. Smith. Voice clips from pastor Steve Waldon and his youtube channel, where he reviewed This Present Darkness in 2018. 

This Present Darkness Wikipedia page. 

This Present Darkness sparknotes (short summary for those who are curious).  

This Lying Survivor: Frank E. Peretti and Evangelical Fears about False Abuse Allegations by R.L. Stollar for Fathom Magazine. 

39 min: Frank Peretti book on bullying called The Wounded Spirit. 

DL and Krispin discuss what it’s like when you start to notice your partner’s family is dysfunctional, as well as what it’s like when you’re the one in the enmeshed family — and your partner starts to point it out to you.

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at strongwilled.substack.com.

You can join our patreon comamunity or join our substack to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on Instagram. You can follow Krispin on Instagram here.

Listen to the episode we discuss here for free: https://www.whitsendblog.org/2014/06/the-ties-that-bind-part-1/ Also, follow along with these discussion questions: http://media.focusonthefamily.com/aio/pdfs/aio-58-discussion-guide.pdf

TW: child abuse, corporal punishment

DL interviewed Talia Lavin, author of the phenomenal book Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. 

You can follow Talia on bluesky and buy her book here. 

You can read about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at strongwilled.substack.com.

You can join our patreon comamunity or join our substack to support this podcast and join our discord community. 

You can follow STRONGWILED on Instagram. You can follow Krispin on Instagram here.