Hey, it's Aaron. Other Aaron was busy this week doing Intrepid City Reporter stuff. So this week on the pod, Val, Luke, and I dive deep into the topic of deconstruction from Christianity. The act of questioning your faith with the goal of determining whether you really believe in the form of faith you've acclimated to. We felt it was important to start this conversation in a community where many are suffering from church abuse and feel like they need a gut check. I know you're out there. I talked to you in my reporting. You're not alone. This conversation's context is the back and forth of the recent TikTok ban. Curious how that fits together? Listen in. This is Free Range, a co-production of KYRS and Range Media. I'm Range's editor and publisher, Luke Baumgarten, and you may have noticed that voice you heard before me is not Aaron Sellers, it is in fact Range's managing editor, Val Ogier who is sitting in second chair today. Aaron gave Aaron the week off but we do also have other Aaron, Aaron Hedge, our Liberty State Bureau Chief and Chief Christian Nationalism Reporter. Today we're going to talk about something a little different than our usual local news rundown. Although it's not that different than the sort of long discursive conversations we tend to have. Last week Hedge and Val pitched us on a conversation about things that, in first blush, seem a little far flung. The brief and potentially future ban of the social media platform TikTok, and the concept of deconstruction. The idea of people of faith, but in the U. S. most likely and most frequently Christians, breaking apart and re examining their faith, sometimes falling away from faith completely, but also sometimes just finding a different church to belong to. And, you know church chat is not something we normally do around here, but faith is a super important part of people's lives, and both for good and, and sometimes for ill. And we don't really spend enough time talking about it, in my opinion and deconstruction is a term that. I think happened to me, or I began a process of when I was literally pre teen, like, in my, like, earliest, some of my earliest memories were questioning the church I was raised in and the trauma that that led to. So when these two brought it up the conversation they wanted to have and the way that things like the internet in general but social media has also helped sort of connect people who are searching and, and looking for either a way out of their faith community or, or for a different and more meaningful and kind of faith that's truer to themselves. It seemed like a really interesting topic and I think as I feel increasingly cynical as I get older, the I've sort of, I'm More and more just writing off social media in general as a force for ill in American life and maybe world life. But it does also very deeply allow us to connect with communities of interest that we might not otherwise find in our small towns or in our cities, and so. It's a really fascinating conversation that I'm mostly going to take a back seat on as Val and Hedge take foreground. You, you know me, so you know I'll find a way to shoehorn my questions and thoughts in there somewhere, but maybe we'll just let you guys take it away. So Hedge, you wanna, you wanna take it away? Yeah, so I think kind of to start off, might help to just like set the table a little bit both in terms of what's happening with TikTok and kind of defining the term deconstruction. So Val, can you, can you just tell us like super broad level, like concisely, like what, what's, what's happening right now with that platform, just so people know what we're talking, why we're talking about this specific platform right now? Yeah. So at the very, Basic level. TikTok is a video sharing platform. Hopefully, you know that it's okay if you don't, it's okay if you don't, but it's a video sharing platform. And Trump president Donald Trump tried banning it back in his first term that was, you know, carried forward through different legal and legislative hoops. There, I'm not going to go totally into it, but it was taken down for about 16 hours on Saturday. Is it fair to say you had a bit of a meltdown personally when that happened? Oh yeah. Yeah. The last hours of tick tock. Like the last days of disco. It was like, it was a little bit of end times, you know, like everybody. It was posting videos and you know, just like not really censoring themselves because they were like, well, it's going to go away anyways, you know? But a lot of people were bemoaning, you know, like feeling censored because it was getting banned in the U S people were trying to find other ways to connect. But yeah, so basically the app went down for like 16 hours and then it was brought back up and and there was a message when it was turned back on that was thanking President Trump even though he had not been inaugurated at the time that message went back up. So the ban is currently on a 90 day suspension. So anyways, that is super brief, lots of articles about it, highly we'll, we'll link them in our show notes. So, you know, why are we talking about this? I, it's, it's, it's, it was really interesting to me when, when Val and I had a conversation, we were just in the newsroom the other day, trying to put out a story and our conversation veered into Christianity, which, which I, you know, report on pretty closely here around Spokane. And Val and I both started talking about our process of deconstruction and it struck me that, like, a lot of Val's process happened on TikTok. Val really cares about TikTok. It's an important community to her. I'm old. I don't care about TikTok. My process of deconstruction happened over a much longer period of time, and it was really messy, and I don't really know if I thought about it as deconstruction. But it struck me that those, those two experiences were very different, and I kind of, I grew a little wistful. Just briefly, Ed, sorry, let me, can we start by just defining deconstruction? Because I think I was actually using a different definition of deconstruction until maybe an hour ago when you and I chatted on the phone. I had always thought that deconstruction, largely because of the people I had seen who were talking, you know, about deconstruction, either on social media or locally, was about like leaving Christianity entirely, either becoming atheist or finding a new religion. But you, you said something that was really resonant to me that Matt Shea is a deconstructed Christian because he deconstructed his former Catholic faith and is now, you know, whatever he is, it's a sort of form of evangelicalism. So can we just start there with like, what is deconstruction? And it's a, you know, it's a term that comes from postmodernism, but it's That's probably something people have been doing since the Reformation, you know, the first time, you know, oh and even before this when like Martin Luther nailed his 99 theses to the door of that church so maybe let's start there before we, the generational stuff is really, really important, but let's maybe start with the definition. Yeah, so Let's start with a little bit of Academy's try to get through that really fast. Deconstruction is basically a term, it's a term that was coined by the French Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida. Describing ways to unpack texts in, in different contexts. To illustrate the idea that language doesn't really have the same meaning across different situations. Because people come to A text or a thing that's in their life from different perspectives, so that's a kind of just jumping in there. That's kind of our whole philosophy of how we cover the news at range, which is. Interesting. Deconstructing, yeah. No, no, no. Like, We're always deconstructing. Well, a belief in unobjective, or like the inability of humans to be objective, yeah. Yeah. And so, but in the Christian context, it means just kind of critically analyzing the elements of, Yeah. Your faith, and that's different for everybody it can lead people to affirm their belief, or it can lead people to move from one form of Christianity to another, or it can mean leaving the faith altogether. For me, it kind of was, it was, it was the first step in my road to becoming an atheist, which is how I refer to myself today. Some Christian apologists see deconstruction as antithetical to Christianity because you know, the narrow mandate of that faith. is that there's one way to get to heaven, and that's through accepting Christ as your Savior. And if you begin the process of deconstruction, like, there's not, you don't know what's gonna happen after you do that, and there's not really a set place to land. And there's a Christian apologist named Alan Jameson I think he's, He might be from New Zealand don't quote me on that but he did some research in New Zealand and he defines deconstruction in the Christian context. I'm just going to read a quote from his book, A Churchless Faith. The deconstruction of, and he's talking about Christians, the deconstruction of their previously received faith. leads people engaged in this process to successively examine the individual components of their faith. People engaged in deconstruction of their faith remove each article of the belief and value system of their received faith and submit it to a process of ongoing reflection. This process involves a questioning and scrutinizing of the particular belief or value. The important aspect of this process is that each component of their faith is critiqued on the basis of whether the individual will, will appropriate it as part of their own personal belief or value system. So, somebody's just asking, like, is this true to me? Are these elements of Christianity true to me? It doesn't mean you lose your faith, which that's, that's, that's a different thing that Christian apologists refer to as de conversion. The difference is that deconstruction is a process, de conversion is a potential outcome of that process. So that's kind of like the high level Definition. Yeah, definition of deconstruction. I think it's really interesting just a really quick, like, Off road real quick really interesting that you say that a lot of like Christian pastors think that, or there's a belief that deconstructing is like antithetical to Christianity because like there is parts of Christianity that believe in like once prayed, always saved theology where, you know, you know, even if, if you, uh, And I know a lot of different, like different people have different beliefs on that, but it's kind of interesting that there are, there, there's that side of it, and then there's the side that does not hold any space for questions So yeah, that was just like a little tangent that I wanted to chat. Well, and also, it's, it's important to say, this is, so, when you say something like Christian apologist, an apologist is just somebody who defends a belief that they have, so like I, whenever I'm trying to get Val to care about basketball, for example, and I, and I, I am a basketball apologist in that moment. It feels to me, and I guess like, are you using apologists, or when you're saying Christian apologists, are you talking about the sort of biblical literalist strain of Christianity writ large, where it's the folks who are like, and this is the church that I grew up in, where it's like, whatever you read in the Bible is the unadorned Word of God, passed down through man should be taken at face value, and reflected upon, but not questioned and certainly any, you know, Differences or conflicts between scriptures or books is an inability of man to discern God's true will and not The fact that this was written across the, a book that was written across centuries for different communities that, and then like, kind of brought together. Is that, is that fair to say? Yeah, I think that, I think that's the general perception of apologists, and there's a, they, they exist on a spectrum you know, there's, they, I, the, the, the form of apology that, of Christian apologetics that I most frequently come into contact with is like, there are, like, the parts of the Bible that are descriptive are to be taken literally. So the creation story is a literal, like, six days. It's not a parable. It's not a myth. Whereas like, Then there's, like, different categories of literature in the Bible. There's, there's poetry, and that's the Psalms and the Proverbs. And that's to be taken as, as metaphor. And it's hard to, it's hard to parse those things out. But generally, yes Christian apologists are defending they're defending their, their faith through argument rather than Rather than, like, believing in something that they can't prove is true, so it's like, they're trying to get people on the same page by convincing them that it's true through logic and reason. The debate club kids? Yeah, essentially. Yeah. Okay, so so back to why we're talking about TikTok today so for me, I started deconstructing back in 2019. And I got on Tik TOK around that same time. I think I started questioning and deconstructing before I got on Tik TOK and then I got on Tik TOK and then the pandemic happened. And then I was on Tik TOK a lot. And so that was a big part of my deconstruction journey. But for you hedge, like, You didn't have that. And I really like what you called it during our conversation. The conversation that spurred this show that I had an off ramp or that TikTok provided like an off ramp for my faith. And so really like, can you tell us a bit how, about how, and when you deconstructed and what were some of those big moments for you? Yeah, it's it was a really just reflecting on it is very strange because it's not, it, I don't think of it in a linear way, and it was just, and it, and my deconstruction, I would not have called it deconstruction while it was happening it wasn't intentional in the way most folks describe deconstruction, especially within that sort of original Derrida framework. I don't, I don't have a good way of thinking about what happened when, or really any timeline. There are significant events. I know that I started questioning my faith when I was around 17, and didn't really start calling myself an atheist until I was in my mid thirties, so. Really quick, not to like, intentionally age you, but what time, or what year was it when you were 17? Let's see, I was 17 in 2002. Where cars are at. Did we have cars? Well, we didn't have Kohler yet, but the cars were there. Okay. No, I was 17 in 2002. Okay, cool. I just want to, like, kind of track. Yeah, Because we're talking about Social media is a part of this, and the internet is a part of this. Those things are very much As a guy who stayed up until midnight the day the World Wide Web went live, when I was in 8th grade I can trace my growth as a human being to how much time I spend in front of a computer screen, honestly. Yeah, and I didn't get on social media until probably around 2011. So, social media was not, it kind of came into my life. And I didn't think of it, I never thought of it as part of my, like, even related to my faith. And I, like, I don't think it really influenced the way that I thought about it. But I was, you know, I remember, I remember being, there are some significant moments. I remember being in my undergrad and just feeling really bad about myself for not knowing whether I was actually saved. And there was this period of time where, like, there was this guy on campus, he was an evangelist he wasn't a student, his name was Jay, and he would like, Set up meetings to like minister to me because he knew I was having a hard time with my faith. He had Approached me in the in the plaza at Colorado State University And struck up a conversation which is like pretty average like evangelical experience I think you just smell it on you or he was approaching multiple people He was just trying to talk to whoever he could Go to college campuses and I'm well aware Sometimes they're part of like a bonafide cult too. I got one of those. He wasn't, he wasn't real culty. He belonged to a kind of a bigger, kind of mainstream church. But he was, he You know, he was one of the folks who just walk up to people in the plaza and say, Do you know what's gonna happen to you when you die? And I had friends who would look at people like that, and I had a friend who would look at, when somebody would approach him with that question, he would just say, Yeah, I'm going to hell. Just to like, make him stop, you know? And I found that offensive at the time, because there was a big part of me that still had a foot in Christianity but this guy's name was Jay, this evangelist and he would ask me if I believed in Jesus, and I would say yes. The more we talked, the more I realized that what I was telling him about myself felt very, very empty and I really dwelled on it for a long time, and it contributed to a mental health crisis that I was having that kind of, like, led me to kind of wash out of college and join the Navy and And that was a big part of my deconstruction, too, but, but I, that, that's a distinct moment, like, talking to Jay and realizing that I didn't believe what I was saying. So that, that's a, that's one moment. Do you guys mind if I jump in with mine real quick? Yeah. I, I don't, I guess in the context of the way you talked about yours, Hedge, I don't even, I guess it, it, backward looking might be considered, Deconstruction, but it was almost forcible insofar as, I don't remember if I was like five, six, I was young, like barely, probably not in kindergarten, but older, barely, barely older than that. And I remember the church that I went to had, you know, we always had a couple pastors in the time that I was there, but a lot of missionaries would come through and they would always give those missionaries time to speak either about their mission work or about or just give a guest sermon, basically. And I remember, this is all like really, really fuzzy memories of childhood, but I always remember liking the message, or like feeling kind of at home, not necessarily really loving. you know, the, the message the pastors gave, but a lot of the times the missionaries who would come through were just a lot more disturbing in terms of my brother's Mexican American adopted from Mexico and one, one missionary at one time said, you know, it's really in this, we're talking mid to late eighties here because I'm older than both of you. But like the. The communism was in decline and the, the Berlin Wall was falling, and so people started mission, you know, doing missions in China and Russia, and that was like the zeitgeist at the time, and this one guy came up and said, hey, I know that's the hot thing to do right now for missionaries, but we think we're doing the deeper, more important work of and I do remember this quote, like, specifically, we are pastoring the darkest continent. South America, where all the Catholics are. And that's, you know, I didn't know much, but I knew that's where my brother, the part of the world my brother was from, and I just got this overwhelming feeling that this guy doesn't know my brother, but if he were in Veracruz, Mexico, where he was born and not sitting next to me on this church pew, this person would kind of hate my brother until he became the kind of Christian this guy wanted him to be. But the real moment where I kind of had to break from my faith, or maybe have a childhood mental breakdown, was a different person came up, and I actually need to talk to a biblical scholar about this, because I don't even know if this exists in scripture, but somebody said, the only unforgivable sin is questioning God's existence. And as like a six or seven year old, I had already, I had already done that. I had already been like, what is just. One of the things was, you know, I went to a church where people spoke in tongues. And it was, it's this powerfully emotional thing. I never felt moved to speak in tongues myself, but when people start speaking in tongues, it gets wild, and people get really into it, and it becomes, like, there is this emotional release that I felt as a kid, even though I never felt it inside myself. I could feel the room getting super emotional. But there was always like one or two people who were clearly faking it, at least to my child's brain. It's like, wow, this person seems like they're making it up. And then this is also the person that I hear when I'm running around like literally between people's legs with my friends. They're also the ones kind of gossiping and like talking, you know, about each other. Like, that seems like what they're doing is fake. What if that means God is fake? And I just had that thought. It's like a precocious childhood thought. But then when this person, and I don't even know who it was, came up and said that thing It almost broke me. I was terrified. And without, and I was also terrified to tell my parents because my parents are the most loving and kind people I think I've ever met and in a lot of ways whatever good I am as a person comes from their morality, if not their faith. But their morality is also completely underpinned by their faith. So I was terrified to tell them. I even broached the subject that my sweet, sweet parents might have raised a kid who's going to hell before he even knows what he's doing. And so I just asked my dad, like, is that true? And I, what I remember my dad saying was, is it true that if you question God, you can't go to heaven ever? And there's no amount of repenting you can do that will save you. And he kind of said. I don't actually know, but we don't have to worry about that, because we've never, we don't question our faith. And that was like, I think my dad's extremely well meaning way of putting like reassuring me that it was going to be okay, but that didn't actually help, because I didn't also have, didn't have the courage to be like, well I just, I've been doing that, dad, like what does that mean? Like. And so I've, again, like you, Hedge, it took me a decade or more, and again, with the biblical literalism thing, I was in college at Gonzaga when, for the first time, and this is tied to our TikTok conversation, like pre social media, almost pre internet, I took my first religion class at the Jesuit university, a Catholic university, and the professor used the word interpret. And then talked about the different ways the Old Testament stories have been interpreted over the years. And it blew my mind, and I also felt a little scared that I was in the presence of people who were daring to interpret the Bible rather than just reading it and taking it at face value. I think, and I think, I think we have to go to a break in a sec, but I think that's one of the really important things about having this conversation right now, because there are people in. places like that who question, naturally question, and this has always happened. But this conversation is about like letting people know that if they're questioning things, like you're not alone. There's a big world out there where people do question, and it doesn't mean that it's going to lead you out of your faith, but it just, it means that it's okay. That's a human thing to do. And I, I was like, when you said that. Some pastor or whatever said that it was like a sin to question God or like that was the most unforgivable, unforgivable sin. Like the first time I started questioning my faith and like my first, I guess, attempt at deconstruction when I instead went into like down the apologetics rabbit hole. I was really scared about that too. I was like, Oh my goodness, am I going to go to hell? Like what's going to happen? Like I just, I have so many questions. And then my pastor's wife was like, Oh no. Like. Like, it's fine to question God, and and it actually put my, myself at ease, cause, and she pointed to, like The story of Job? No, she pointed to the story of Of after Jesus rose from the dead and the resurrection. Yeah. And I think Peter touched his, his ripples. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he, he had to prove it to himself that he was real. And Jesus was cool with that. So that was the story. And I just like latched onto that. Cause I was like, I have so many questions and I feel terrible. Yeah. I, we actually don't need to go to a break, I don't think, and I, because I also did not set up the break thing before we started, so we're, let's just keep rolling. All right. So, so like, it's 2000, or no, it's not 2002, it's before social media times. What resources did you have, Hedge? This was, this was like 2008, 2010, probably. I didn't have any resources aside from, you know, College roommates who I, you know, drank with every weekend and would say that God doesn't exist. And it was, like, really dissatisfying because, like, I needed to know why. Because it was, it had been such a huge part of my life. And I didn't have, like, I didn't have social media. I didn't have a community to To, like, immerse myself in that really tried to explain things in an intentional way. And I think that that's, that's what struck me so much about how you were describing your deconstruction that was so influenced by TikTok communities. And part of me grew, like, kind of just wistful and, like, wish, wish that I, wish that I had something like that. Because I'm, I'm glad for my experiences and I wouldn't necessarily want to change them. But, it, it was really painful, and it took a long time. It took almost two decades for me to, like, realize where I was going. And you were in a lot of, like, turmoil in that time, like, personal, mental health wise. Yeah, yeah, I was struggling with, like, with drinking, and, you know, just not doing well in life. But So Yeah. Can, can, can you talk a little bit about like some of the moments that, that led, like first that like led you to question your faith and how, and this isn't necessarily this, this conversation isn't about tick tock, but it's about off ramps and it's about like, you know, cause, cause you were describing like, you know, being on the hamster wheel and stuck on it and people like being self referential and how they were advising you and you're questioning your faith. And, yeah, just talk about some of those experiences. Yeah, so I grew up in some really small non denominational churches in Southern California. If you are in the Christian circles it was a Calvary Chapel taught church but not a Calvary Chapel that gives some context to some people, I guess. But early on, I, I questioned my faith around 16 or 17. Kind of, I feel like when a lot of people question their faith when they're like, okay, I'm about to be an adult, like, what do I really believe? And so. At that point, I was pointed to, like, apologetics resources by my pastor and his wife, and his wife was like a mentor to me and like a sister. I, I At that point I felt like I, looking back, I feel like I was in a high control religious environment with how small our church was and how close I was to my pastor's wife. Like I basically nannied for them. That sounds like a term that we maybe need to unpack. What does high control church environment mean? Yeah, and there's a lot, I feel like there's a spectrum of high control this would be on the very low spectrum, like I wasn't in like a fundamentalist environment where I was not allowed to wear pants and not allowed to watch TV. You weren't in threat of like getting excommunicated if you married or, you know, dated the wrong person or anything like that. But. In this relationship, I guess, I would say it was like a high control relationship almost where I, I went to my pastor's wife for every decision I had to make or question I had and so she had pointed me to apologetics resources and she said, okay, these are the, the, theologians who have the right theology. These guys over here, they have some weird theology, so take it with a grain of salt. And then these guys over here, don't listen to them, they have bad theology. And so, like, kind of told me Where to go and like gave me a list of websites and resources and things like that, that I was really thankful for at the time, because at least like some of my questions were getting answered. And I felt like I was learning something sorry, just because you forced hedge to do this. What time is this pre tick tock, right? So what, what, what era is this? This is 2011, 2010. I graduated High school in 2012. So 2011, 12. This is Facebook and Instagram, but maybe pre video Instagram. Yes. Okay, go. Yeah. And so there was you know, a situation that happened when I was getting married you know, that an argument that blew up, it was very stupid, between my pastor's wife and me, and You know, it was, and then it was, looking back on it, I'm like, oh, she was realizing she was losing control over me because I was getting married. Oh, interesting. And it was a very stupid argument about flowers for the wedding. But suddenly she was telling my mom that me and my fiance weren't spiritually mature enough to get married. And she was accusing my fiance of being manipulative because he didn't want to spend. as much money as she wanted on flowers for our wedding. And so it was Specifically because y'all didn't have the budget for it. Yes. We were poor. We were getting married at age 20 and 21 and Okay, so it wasn't that some flowers were Satan's flowers and some were God's flowers? No. We were poor because we were getting married young because that's what our faith told us to do. So yeah, so through that process, like, that was like kind of revealed to me the like control that was put over me. And and you know, a lot of people will say like, Oh, you just have church hurt, you know, which is a term that a lot of Christians use when you know, a specific church or a specific pastor or person in the church hurts your feelings or does something against you. That's a really weird term. I don't actually think I've ever heard that term. Really? Yeah. Kind of. Gives me shivers. It's, it's a really degrading term, I feel. It's like when, and this is more because people didn't know what PTSD was, but when people, like during, we've been talking a lot about World War I for, for reasons, and like when people who came back from the wars that were deeply traumatized, they called it shell shock, like it was temporary, or that it was just like something you would snap out of. It kind of, that's kind of, it, In that case, kind of unintentionally diminishing the lifelong trauma that it has, and this seems like a similar way to kind of take something that is really meaningful and both localize it and it's, oh, you just got a bad church, like, pick another one. And also then sort of, it just, yeah, the whole, it just kind of diminishes the whole experience of, of, and again, outside of faith communities, like, community is all we really have as humans. Yeah. And so when you're that, and for me growing up in the country, it was like, There were granges out in Chatteroi and Milan and Elk, but I only ever went to them a handful of times. Like, those were in rural spaces. Historically, it was grange halls where people would meet, or churches, but by the 80s, the granges weren't in much use anymore, so the majority of, like, socializing I did was either at my church or a different church. So it's like, in a lot of ways, those were the, I think, part of what was so interesting. Tough for me growing up having the feelings that I had was that there was no other alternative except for my grandma's house in North Spokane where I got MTV and cable and as much RC Cola as I wanted to drink and that was really like my, I mean, I feel weird using the word salvation, but it really does feel like that was the thing that allowed me through over a decade of really feeling like a failed person to just momentarily escape. So. I think that's why it just gives me so much pause to, like, hear that term that just has weird mouthfeel. It hits the ear strangely to me, and it just feels like a diminishment of, you know, the most significant emotional thing in my young life, I think, bar none, so. It's a way to gaslight people into Questioning whether they've actually left the faith or if they were ever a real, there's two sides of the coin. Were you a real Christian? Are you a real atheist? Like, if you've become an atheist, which is a guess for me, but yeah, yeah. So it's also a way of gatekeeping. Like our faith is the right faith. Yeah. Yeah. So. You know, after that we, we had already been established in another church because we had moved cities. And so we went to a Calvary chapel that was a little bit bigger. Still a pretty small church. And for those of you who don't know. What a Calvary Chapel Church is, it is not a denomination. I describe it as more of a franchise form of church where there's not really a lot of real accountability that a denomination would provide. But it, but you have that name, that trusted name and that specific way that they teach, which is usually a Calvary Chapel. Church will teach through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, verse by verse, and that's this, I think it's called exegetical teaching. Pete Yeah, well, exegesis is just the study of scripture in general. I think that's a very specific kind of exegesis. Yeah. So, when we were at this Calvary Chapel. We, me and my husband were very involved. He was running sound. I was doing the, you know, slides for the worship music. We were, we helped establish the young adults Bible study group. Like if anyone's doubting that I wasn't a real Christian, then you're rude, but I was a real Christian. And I'm not saying that by listing my works. I'm saying that like I was in community. I was deeply embedded in this community. And I was deeply. believing, you know, in this faith and you made huge life decisions based on that faith. Yes. And so I get, I get really emotional when people are say like, Oh, you weren't a real Christian then. Because I've now deconstructed because I'm like, no, I made huge life changing decisions because of my faith. I got married very young. I, I'm lucky that my husband's a great person and he's been in this walk with me and we're still together and we still love each other. Mom, don't worry about us. And you know, but that's luck, you know, a lot of people deconstruct and they get divorces, which isn't a bad thing. But it's just like another huge life altering thing. So It also does seem not to, I don't want to cut your story off, but I have actually noticed that, and again, this is just me in Spokane with the group of people that I hang around, it does seem like there's a high incidence in my friend group in Spokane of Couples who married young, who deconstructed together. And some of them landed totally non believers, some of them landed in a different faith tradition, some of them landed in a, I can't really handle church anymore, but I am still looking for a personal faith practice, generally with Christianity. And it is kind of fascinating how, and again, I don't, because you're right, people do deconstruct and then get divorced because it's bad, but it also does. I've had this, like, really interesting feeling about, in a lot of cases, at least the ones that I know about, You tend to find the right person for you, even in those contexts. Sometimes, some people do. And then, having, if nothing else, and obviously, and certainly pre social media, maybe, that, maybe your pastor's wife was right, that you, she was losing control, because the bond that you share with a life partner, whether that's a, you know, a technically married spouse, or somebody else, like, that's just one of the deepest bonds we have. And so, If you do find the right kind of person, that, like, it makes sense to me that a lot of couples deconstruct together. Mm hmm. Yeah. And so, when we're at this Calvary Chapel, it's you know, we went there from probably 2015 to 2020. And but then, you know, our pastor His father was the head pastor and he had a very strict no politics policy for him and himself and like anybody who was like on the church board or like the junior pastor, which was his son. You know, he was like, don't talk about politics from the pulpit. Don't you know, put it on social media. And he was pretty strict about that is my understanding. He died and his son became the pastor. Well, because it's actually illegal to do that if you're a non profit, churches are like federally restricted. In order to maintain your tax status, you're not supposed to, that doesn't happen very much anymore. And some of the pastors around here, some of the pastors that Hedge covers are emphatically politicizing the pulpit and nothing's being done about it. So maybe it was a toothless law, but it is still a law that's on the books. If you're going to be a non profit, you're not supposed to be endorsing candidates or whatever. And You know, one of the, one of the, the key moments that I point to that happened is cause at, you know, our pastor, he, he took the helm as head pastor, he was a big Trump supporter, but he would, or he was, he wasn't a Trump supporter yet, I think at that time, but he was a big conservative Republican and he always talked about, and he was very outspoken about it, which was fine. We were like, okay, that's just you. You go over there, you know, like we would just kind of like try to brush it off. But at one turning point. And I had started questioning my faith probably like summer 2019. But in October, November of 2019, he invited a Republican candidate for Congress in our district to Sunday morning to speak from the stage and he allowed her to have like a table with her political signs and stuff like that after church. And me and my husband were like, what the heck is going on? Like, this is outright, like, this is illegal, like, we're gonna lose our tax status, like, what the heck, you know? And we were, like, we felt super icky about it. And, and that was, like, that was a big turning moment, were you both also studying journalism at this time? No, I was a, I was an active journalist. Right, okay, so this is when you, so, that's, that's part of the problem there, too. Yeah. I already had some conservative beliefs or a lot of not conservative beliefs because of, you know, all of the interactions I was having on the day to day basis in journalism or just being a journalist and dealing with the laws and rules matter and knowing what they are. Yeah. Yeah. So the laws of man, I should say. Yeah. And so you know, when, when the pandemic hit it was another moment. You know, the only reason why they really went to Video sermons was because we had met in a public school and all of the schools were shut down. Oh, interesting. So but one of the Sunday mornings when we were watching church it was during the pray time, prayer time. And this is another key moment where the pastor was praying about the pandemic and he said something along the lines of and God, we pray for this virus. We know it's not real. And during the prayer. And me and my husband looked at each other and I said, can I turn this off? And he was like, yeah. And then that's when we were like, okay, we can't even go to this church anymore. Like my husband started like, you know, we, we tried to do the like biblical way of What's it called? The biblical way of, like you know, holding somebody accountable. You know, where you talk to them one on one, and then you bring a friend, and then you bring them before the church. Like, that's the biblical process for accountability. Yeah, it's basically just like, lowest level first. I don't remember the term for it either, but it's like, you go to, like, you try Solve issues interpersonally, and then if it doesn't work out, then you kind of ratchet it up. It's very similar to the military. It's funny, that just sounds like basic mediation to me. It really is. It's weird that you learned it as a biblical way of doing things, it just sounds, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was a real Christian, guys. But yeah, so we, he tried to do that and, you know, talk to him one on one and get coffee with him, and the pastor was like, And he said, you know, you're, you're really crossing a line saying, you know, politics and stuff from the pulpit and pastor said, well, you guys can leave. We're not a cult. And we were like, Okay, that is not their response. And so there wasn't really a second step for that because he controlled the board or he picked the people on the board. You know, other people were openly supporting him too. And so we were like, okay, let's get out of here. We went to another church and we found a community there and we actually really liked it. But by that point in time, I was really like. You know, I don't think I believe this anymore. Yeah. So they, they basically just excluded you. Yeah. And you felt like, shoved out. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, so with about, about ten minutes left, how did you engage with TikTok and sort of like, how did that process of, and what did that sort of What did you find online that you weren't able to find in, like, in person community? Yeah, so, basically, TikTok was, you know, they have a really good algorithm that will find exactly what you like. Whether you know it or not. Whether you know it or not. It also, anyways And so, basically, I heard from lots of different people from lots of different walks of life without a filter. There were people asking the same kinds of questions as me or had already asked them and had the answers. And these answers weren't sanitized for like a Christian blog that I had been pointing to before. There was room for questioning holes in logic. You know, people in the comments holding like, you know, pastors accountable. But what about this? What about this? And these were, and the Tiktokters were encouraging people to ask more questions and read more books. Like they weren't trying to steer people down a specific path. And so there's. There's, they're called exvangelicals, a lot of people call themselves or deconstruction talk. And so there's people on those channels that, who are still Christian. There's people who are agnostic now. There's people that are atheists or Or there, or there's people who are just theists who, you know, who are just kind of like, there are multiple gods or whatever. And then there's people that have turned into witches. So I also met people who are Christian witches and met, I mean, like, saw them on the video. But nobody was trying to convince me of anything other than to keep asking questions until I was satisfied with what I believed. And that is, I think, the key difference between my journey and your journey, Hedge, is that I was able to just keep digging. And I had a place to dig at, and I had resources. And it wasn't just like a, I saw it on TikTok, so it's true. It was real books that I was pointed to and I read. So yeah. Hmm. I love that. 'cause it's like, I mean, that, that, that feels like a lot of people, a lot of people use the term deconstruction synonymously with like, just like becoming an atheist. Mm-hmm Or like, just like leaving Christianity. But like these people are saying, I like question. Question what? You question what you believe. Mm-hmm In a way that helps you learn whether you really believe it or not. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's a beautiful experience to me. Yeah. And, and so, like I'm It's sort of the process of being human, right? And if we weren't talking about a religious context, I think a lot of folks, oh, and even a lot of faith traditions that encourage you to not question the Bible, encourage you to question everything else about the world all around you And not just saying that the world has fallen. There are plenty of people who are like, look to God because the world has fallen and look no further. That wasn't really the church I grew up in either. But there was this, and that's one of the things that I think is so fascinating about, Just the prism of belief that kind of came from the Reformation 500 years ago and then maybe got supercharged in America. By no means a biblical scholar, but it sure seems like the Reformation went on steroids with the Western expansion and super charismatic Christianity and revivalism and And so it's really hard to even talk about these things because I also went to a non denominational church and the whole non denominational part was this idea of, but they, I don't think that the church I grew up in was super cool with like the Calvary Chapel form of non denominational Christian. And the idea, like just the, like non denominational was, I don't want to say dog whistle, but it was like a subtle way of saying. We reject orthodoxy, right? We don't, we're not Catholic, we aren't even Methodist, we aren't Presbyterian, we are non denominational. And we have no accountability. Well, and in some, well, that's, but they still do have control, right? Like, can, it is. Not every church, but the, you know, there is still this assumption that there is a form of control going on outside of an orthodoxy and again, like there have been, all forms of power have done positive things and truly horrific things, so in and outside the context of religion, but it is really, really fascinating how people have tried to recognize, you know, again, starting with Martin Luther, the, the, the sort of stranglehold that At the time, Catholicism, or just Christianity, because there was, you don't have to call it Catholicism, because it was just the only thing there was. And people wanted to break away from that and do it differently. And that's, again, its own form of deconstruction. And then you get down to where we don't even want to give ourselves a label, because what we really have is just this perfect and direct communication with the Almighty. But that's also, that's sort of obscuring what's really going on with these churches as well. It's funny to say that Calvary, Calvary, as a, like you call that a franchise, I think that's an interesting way of putting it. We went to open Bible standard churches, which is a similar sort of thing, where there is, there is a theology behind it that people have generally agreed to, which is kind of a form of orthodoxy, even if you don't want to call it orthodoxy that's pretending to not be, I guess. I think I think we've got, we've got about two minutes left before we got to start the wrap up. But I wanted to ask just like a couple of just really basic questions. Like, like what was difficult about this process for you and what was easy? Maybe just like a couple of little bullet points about those. I'll start with easy. It was most easy to follow my own curiosity once I allowed myself to like really question and go outside of the like, Approved literature, or the approved sources. I'm a journalist, so I'm really curious about the world. But, and it was also most easy to make connections between what I was learning in different areas and topics. Like you know, connecting witchcraft with Catholic practices and psychology. And like, learning the psychology of worship and why we feel so good when we're collective. It's called collective effervescence. And so. All of the stuff I was just learning, I was, you know, being able to learn all of the history and theology and psychology behind it was really interesting. That, that term collective effervescence recalls what Luke was saying earlier about speaking in tongues. Yeah, I didn't want to jump in with that, but yeah, that's very, that's actually, effervescence is a really good way of putting that. And then so the difficult part was definitely the family aspect of it. My mom, I don't, I still don't think my mom's recovered from since I came out to her. From your deconstruction. Or my deconstruction. So I. She has, she, she's still constructed. In her faith. Constructed. Yeah. I came out to her about a year ago. I was no longer Christian. bisexual to top that off. And I think she thought that I was the one kid that she didn't have to worry about because I was so deeply involved in the community and that I had married a good Christian guy and all this stuff. But I really needed to, to set those boundaries in my life. And I really needed, I felt like I really needed like live my truth and that sounds so corny, but it's really true. You know, like having everybody in your life see you for what you are, even if they don't like it is. It's important, I think, to the human experience. Empowering. Mm hmm. Yeah. What about you, Hedge? What was, I don't think any of it was easy for me, so I'm the wrong person to ask, but what was hard and easy for you, hard about it and easy for you? It was really, I had kind of the opposite, hard and easy I'll just, I'll just go with what was easy, because I think I've already talked a little bit about what was hard. Right. Yeah. But. Telling my mom was really easy. She, well she like, she noticed that I was having trouble and she just like asked me she took me on a drive and asked me like if I was still, felt like I was saved. And I was like, no. I don't believe in that stuff anymore, mom. And I have a really good relationship with my mom in terms of our our difference in faith. I really respect her. She's, she's a she's a very good Christian, in my opinion. She's very loving. Very Christ like, and it's probably painful to her on a level that, because like, even with that, you know, according to her faith, I'm going to hell, you know, if I die tomorrow, and it's got to be difficult, but like, that conversation was really easy and clarifying. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of perfect. We got to wrap up here. So if you, do you have questions about local government? Wondering who to complain to about an issue in your neighborhood? Wondering which agency governs certain things, even if those, the things being governed are the spiritual realm? Wondering why something is happening, or how much it costs? Email, email us at freerange at kyrs. org with your questions, and we'll try to answer them next week. Free Range is a weekly news and public affairs program presented by Range Media and produced by Range Media and KYRS Community Radio, Thanks for listening. See you next week, everybody. Bye. Bye.