Sexvangelicals – Details, episodes & analysis

It's the first week of school for many students and families. The excitement of a new school year comes with new relationships, new beginnings, and setting goals. For many folks, especially those who grew up in conservative religious environments, setting goals can carry an enormous amount of anxiety with it.    This week, Julia and Jeremiah explore what it might look like to engage with the back-to-school season without the pressure of setting goals. We discuss:

• The pressure to be excited
• The anxiety of heaven being the ultimate goal
• The loss of play
• Setting new definitions on success
• Setting boundaries with the urgency desire

Check out Episode #77: Summer Series: Taking a Break From...Setting Goals on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website

Social media has the capacity to bring out the worst in us as communicators. Julia and Jeremiah talk about strategies for communicating as effectively as possible on social media, which can include taking a break from it altogether.   We explore:

• Real life examples of how to not conduct yourself on social media
• Virtue signaling and shame
• How to resolve conflict on social media effectively.
• The dangers of short form content.
• Building community, both virtually and in real life

Check out Episode #76: Summer Series: Taking a Break from...Social Media on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website.

One of the most common targets of Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal (EMPish) communities in the 21st century are queer people. The moralizing of straight, married relationships places people who are attracted to folks of the same sex/gender and folks who are curious about sexual experiences with same sex/gendered people in terrible double binds.   Folks can accept and practice sexuality in alignment with their sexual orientation in the face of name-calling, loss of relationships with family members, and threats of violence.   Or they can squelch or hide their sexuality, or practice their sexuality in more secretive ways, which itself can have negative impacts.   Coming out in EMPish communities carries a ton of undue emotional and relational pressure.    To help us navigate that, we've invited singer-songwriter and founder of non-profit Bad Believer (@badbelievercommunity), Adaline (@adalinemusic), to share how she navigated her own coming out process. We talk with Adaline about her first album, Hymnal, as well as:

• Body Talk and EMPish Communities
• Hierarchy in Sin 
• Binaries and Sexuality 
• Co-Opting Coming Out 
• Stories for Her Songs "Part of You" and "Waist Down"
• Building Personal Strength 
• Trusting Desires
• Family Systems: When Your Pastor is Also Your Father
• Embracing Your Body
• Sensuality and the Music Video 
• Coming Out and Guilt 
• Her Nonprofit, Bad Believer

Check out Episode #68: Coming Out in Evangelical Families, with Singer-Songwriter, Adaline, part 1 of 2, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Show notes and transcript are on the SV website

What are the messages that we wish we learned about masculinity? What are messages that we'd like to teach younger generations about masculinity, and in conjunction, how we might do relationships more effectively, more collaboratively?   We are thrilled to have Zach Wagner (@zacharycwagner), author of Non-Toxic Masculinity, on Sexvangelicals this week. Zach talks with us about:

• The Books of Deconstruction
• The Narrative of Sex and Conquest
• Broadening the Script
• Male Sexuality
• Injecting Shame 
• Shame & Desire
• EMPish Communities and Being “Counter-Cultural”
• Internalized Narratives 
• Desire 
• Starting Sex Ed Early

Check out Episode #67: Banned Books: Non-Toxic Masculinity, by Zach Wagner, part 2 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.    Show notes and transcript are on the SV website.

Healing from Purity Culture involves conversations of how Evangelical communities have created undue amounts of anxiety and pressure for men as well as women.   We talk with Zachary Wagner (@zacharycwagner), author of the new book Non-Toxic Masculinity, about the importance of deconstructing simplistic, reductive practices of manhood and reimagining new ways that men can conceptualize themselves and create meaningful relationships.   Zach talks with us about:

• Why Does the Book Matter Now:
• Generational Understandings of Masculinity
• The Power of the Purity Movement
• Purity Books 
• The Effects of Christian Literature
• Purity Culture and Sex 
• Violence as a Result of Purity Culture 
• Purity Camp 
• Reducing Each Other's Humanity 
• Healing 

Check out Episode #66: Banned Books: Non Toxic Masculinity, with Zach Wagner, part 1 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website: www.sexvangelicals.com

Are you interested in writing a memoir? Then this episode is especially for you!   We're excited to have Tia Levings @tialevingsswriter, author of the upcoming book A Well Trained Wife, as our guest for Sexvangelicals this week.   Tia talks with us about:

• Hero’s Journey
• Not Exploiting Your Own Story 
• Babies and Resilience
• The Nuance in Deconstruction 
• Finding Light in the Dark 
• Honoring Our Instincts 
• Slowing Down 
• Write the Book 
• The Books of Deconstruction 

Check out Episode #65 Banned Books: A Well Trained Wife, with Tia Levings, part 2 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website.

"While this story is my own memoir, the situations in this book are far from unique. With me stands a choir of invisible fundamentalist women, too silenced to tell their stories for themselves."    We're honored to have Tia Levings (@tialevingswriter), author of the upcoming book A Well Trained Wife, as our podcast guest this week. Tia shares her research, wisdom, and immense bravery with us; we focus our conversations around:

• How the Evangelical Church is a Microcosm of a Bigger System
• Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop:
• Perfectionism 
• Books that Encourage Evangelical Family Structures
• Tradwives
• Dating Under Purity Culture 
• Covenant Marriage 
• Cosigning Misery 
• The Wellness Industry and Christianity 
• Assigning Credit to Yourself Instead of God

There's a lot of memoirs, social media comments, and dialogue about leaving the evangelical church. However, as our guest, Sarah McCammon (@sarahmccammon_journalist) says, "you can't really understand the leaving without understanding loving and living the evangelical church."

  Sarah is the author of the new book The Exvangelicals. She talks with us about:

• The history of Christianity and politics
• What religion may offer
• The Bill Clinton Era and Purity Culture
• Evangelical Relationships 
• Performing Gender 
• Loving and Living (and Leaving) the Evangelical Church
• Grief 
• Connection and Trauma Bonding 
• Healing Through Storytelling

Check out Episode #63: Banned Books: The Exvangelicals, with Sarah McCammon, part 2 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website

It's been really fascinating to watch the ways that Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal (EMPish) cultures have begun to be deconstructed and discussed on a wider cultural level.    While some still struggle to accurately name the direct correlation between EMPish cultures and the construction of the modern-day Republican Party, NPR national correspondent Sarah McCammon (@sarahmccammon_journalist) discusses the strategy and implementation of rigid conservative values in her new book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church.   In part 1 of a 2 part interview, Sarah talks with us about: 

• Trump and Evangelicals
• The rise of the religious Nones
• Two target audiences
• The purpose of The Exvangelicals
• Fear of Judgement 
• Empathy and Honesty 
• Why People Stay in EMPish Spaces 
• Lack of Goodbyes 
• Christianity and Inclusivity
• Promises Unfulfilled 
• Salem Witch Trials and Christian Textbooks

The Exvangelicals comes out this week--buy it on Amazon!   Check out Episode #62: Banned Books: The Exvangelicals, with Sarah McCammon, part 1 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the SV website  

One of the most common relational processes that the deconstructing world talks about is boundaries. Evangelical circles encourage the elimination of boundaries. Sexuality is public, as Purity Culture invites people in leadership positions to make a variety of comments about people's bodies. Accountability groups and testimonials favor people who describe the most intimate parts of their stories. 

  When making sense of these harmful systems, it's easy to go the opposite direction with boundaries; in fact, quite a few people in the deconstructing community invite people to do this. But as we talk about with Laura Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You, the construction of boundaries is a complex, nuanced process, something more complicated than just "Setting those boundaries".   Laura talks with us about: 

• Leaving religious spaces
• Trust development post-religion
• Boundary rigidity
• Differences being dangerous
• Pop psychology messages around boundaries
• Trauma in the context of relationships
• The practice of slowing down
• Healing ourselves first
• Accommodations and understanding

Check out Episode #61: Banned Books, with Laura Anderson, part 2 of 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   Show notes and transcript are on the Sexvangelicals website.