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Hello and welcome to Evangelical, a show that, for over 8 years now, explores the world inside and outside the evangelical subculture. I’m your host, Blake Chastain.

I’m recording this episode on January 20, 2025. It’s Martin Luther King Jr Day, as well as Trump’s second inauguration. The mood is very different than it was during the first inauguration. During that first go-round, there was a lot of anger and shock that someone as dishonorable, vulgar, and loose with the truth. In retrospect, it seems like a much more innocent time. In the intervening time, Trump has completely transformed the Republican Party. His first administration was prone to normalizing chaos. He stacked the Supreme Court with a conservative majority. He completely fumbled the COVID-19 pandemic. He incited an insurrection. He stole confidential documents. And throughout all this, very few people within his own party tried to hold him accountable to any measure of ethics or commitment to anything beyond himself; those that tried to were ostracized, called RINOs, and forced out of the good graces of Trump’s political machine. When he won re-election in 2024, there seemed to be a resignation to the reality, but also a quiet resolve to meet that reality.

But oddly, Trump himself is the constant here. What’s surprising is the way that the rest of our politics has molded around him. Trump has emboldened the most powerful in our society to be even more blatant about their goals. The masks are off and gathering dust. In 2022, during Elon Musk’s messy acquisition of Twitter that he tried to back out of, Elon claimed that he wanted to “upset the left and right equally.” By 2024, he Elon said he was “dark, Gothic MAGA” and spent over an estimated $250 million on Trump’s campaign. Mark Zuckerberg, who has made a concerted effort with his latest edgelord-coded rebrand—getting into MMA, streetwear, and lying up a storm on Rogan—has gone all-in, too, completely gutting the fact-checking apparatus that Meta had built to manage misinformation, and rolling back hate-speech guidelines, such as making explicit cutouts for calling LGBT people mentally ill. Meta has also decided that its apps are for politics again now that a conservative administration is in power, after downgrading what they considered “political” content during the Biden administration, and done some blatant culture-war type things like removing the transgender and queer theming options from Facebook Messenger.

It’s not just Elon and Zuck, though. The entire tech oligarchy is falling in line, paying to play by donating at least $1M to Trump’s inauguration. Companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and their respective CEOs have all lined up to play ball. While it’s not a surprise, it’s also not encouraging.

This very show has its own relationship with Trump. I released the first episode during the 2016 Republican National Convention, when Trump secured the nomination. At the time, I believed that the evangelicals who had such a formative influence on me would not give Trump their vote; history has proven otherwise, with them supporting him at a steady 80% in the three elections he has been part of.

The truth is that the most powerful factions in government, and increasingly, the corporate philosophies of some of our most influential and powerful companies, are far more palatable for and amenable to conservative white evangelical notions than it was when this show started. And I am not sure where things go from here. Over the weekend, access to TikTok was disrupted due to a law that demanded the app be sold to a US-based company or face a ban that was upheld by the Supreme Court. The ban was ostensibly due to national security concerns, though the details of those concerns have never been made available to the public. Service to TikTok was reinstated after Trump insisted he would find a solution and after TikTok’s leadership made fawning comments about Trump.

By the time this is posted, Trump will have already started taking action through a flurry of executive orders that will disrupt the American way of life. In the past, activists would take to a platform like Twitter to raise concern, organize, and develop public responses, with the opportunity to create counter publics. One thing I’m not certain about is where such counter publics can take root today, and whether they will have the same opportunity to grow as they did previously. What does it mean when the owners of so many of our supposed public squares align themselves with thin-skinned individuals like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who show no concern for bias or altering their algorithms to whatever they dictate?

But the uncertainty of this moment also presents an opportunity. There is already some momentum behind Bluesky, the twitter alternative that began as a research project at Twitter itself that is based the AT protocol. There is an effort called Free Our Feeds that wants to build upon the same AT Protocol. Bluesky is launching its own video feed, and third party apps like Flashes are sparking a lot of interest, even as established companies like Flipboard create apps like Surf to build upon the fediverse. I’m not sure if any of these services will see mass adoption. But there is a hunger among the most online of us to have a bit more independence over our digital experiences, free from the whims of billionaires who have made a habit of showing their disdain for the people who make their networks worthwhile.

There is much more at stake than whether or not a noisy online public can find its place online. We face multiple simultaneous crises—a housing shortage, food insecurity, the changing legal status of immigrants, climate crises, and further threats to democracy here in the US and abroad, amongst others. But one of the crises we face is an information crisis—one that is only looking to get harder and harder to navigate. We will need a counterpublic, or multiple counter publics, to respond.

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The day has finally come: Exvangelical & Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back is now available everywhere. The book officially launched last night with a reading at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL - a sixth-generation, women-owned independent bookstore.

I’m so excited for this book to be out in the world. I don’t take a single moment for granted. I’m so thankful to Tarcher Perigee for the opportunity to publish with them, to Lauren O’Neal for being an incredible editor, and to my agent for your guidance. I’m so thankful to all my friends and colleagues who encouraged me along the way.

I’m very thankful to all the writers who endorsed my book: Reza Aslan, , , David Gushee, Katherine Stewart, , and .

I have so much gratitude for all the friends and family who have encouraged me along the way: in particular everyone who has been part of Irreverent, the current and former modmins of the Exvangelical facebook group, to Dan & Mike, and to everyone I’ve met because of the podcast and those who have shared a small part of their stories with me.

As I’ve written recently here, I hope that my book can be a helpful addition to the growing conversations we have about faith, personal identity, and society.

I’m overflowing with gratitude. I’ll be sending notes and making public posts expressing my thanks for a long time to come.

In the meantime, I’m going to make the most of enjoying today, and share some of the great conversations I’ve had on podcasts recently.

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Recent Press & Podcast Appearances

I was interviewed for The Daily Beast’s The New Abnormal podcast, which was released today:

An excerpt of the book has also been published in TeenVogue today:

And I returned to the inimitable ’s show, Chapel Probation to discuss the book:

Be sure to subscribe to keep up with all the other appearances!

White Too Long by Robert P. Jones

11 Facts and Charts from PRRI's 2023 Census of American Religion

Today, PRRI released its 2023 PRRI Census of American Religion, providing an updated analysis on religious trends in America, including new, comprehensive county-level estimates on religious affiliation and diversity in the United States…

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2 years ago · 36 likes · 2 comments · Robert P. Jones

Right out of the gate, Jones notes that “White Christian America continues to shrink, while the ranks of the unaffiliated swell.”

These aren’t vibes gleaned from an algorithmic social media feed, this is quantitative data based on half a million interviews.

Further, this isn’t just “the youth” being led astray by strangers on the internet using hashtags. PRRI notes that every age group has seen an increase in being unaffiliated.

Yes, the age cohort that I am a part of—the 30-49 year olds who comprise a mix of Gen X-ers and Millennials—sees the largest increase in disaffiliation. But also consider that this age group was also those raised in the increasingly politicized environment that followed the formation of the modern Religious Right. While I am definitely making a correlation here, it is one based on my own personal experience as a podcaster who has helped document this growing disaffiliation as well as just a regular degular human being who has seen the people in my own private life move away from the religions of their youth (evangelical and otherwise).

And yet - while I am dwelling on the bump in my cohort that, by coincidence, helps this chart take the shape of a normal distribution curve,1 the ‘gray hairs’ are also disaffiliating.

Which brings me to my own speculation:

Decades of institutional decay in both public and private sectors, coupled with a rapidly evolving dialogue about identity means that individuals will likely not adhere to the same beliefs or affiliations for their entire lives. We see that reflected in findings like these.

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In my own life, I’ve gone to a number of Protestant churches, and currently hold no strong affiliation with or regular attendance at any of them. But such patterns aren’t limited to fellow white ex-evangelicals. Online, I follow people who were raised atheist and are now practicing Christians, evangelicals who are now Catholic, former Christians who are now Wiccan, and people of other faiths who are now simply secular. Everywhere you look, you can see people who have had faith, lost it, and found it again or reconstructed a new way of life that doesn’t adhere to any specific dogma.

Most of our “identity” outside of where and to whom we were born is up for negotiation and exploration. That includes our spiritual practice (which includes secularity) and the communities we find belonging in, but our ability to articulate this reality lags behind other aspects of our selves. Collectively, we have become more open about discussing our gender and sexual expressions, our romantic and familial relationships, our neurodiversity, and so on. But belief in general and religion in particular are not usually mentioned alongside the others. I think they should be.

I don’t pretend that this is a simple proposition. I know it’s a thorny problem. Shared beliefs provide bonds of commonality and nurture a sense of belonging. But what happens when you can no longer declare Jesus Christ as Lord, or that there is no God but God? You likely know—a rupture—because communities of faith often have systems that exclude those who can no longer affirm what is deemed orthodox.

Yet instead of seeing this as some harbinger of doom, I see it as possibility. I’ll even drag out a Tolkienism: eucatastrophe. It’s not some cataclysmic, sudden thing like the final defeat of Sauron. But the breakdown of these things means that new things might grow.

I explore the need for new metaphors in the latter portions of my book, which is less than a month away. Don’t forget to pre-order.

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Come See Me in Naperville, IL on 9/23/24 at Anderson’s Bookshop

I am having my first book event on 9/23/24 at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL! This store isn’t very far from where I went to high school, so it’ll be like one of those “I’m Sorry for What I Said As An Evangelical Teenager” stickers came to life.

Register Here

On the latest episode of Exvangelical, I spoke to , author of the memoir A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. You may know Tia from the Amazon docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, or from her newsletter, .

Buy the Book

Her memoir is visceral and powerful, and just joined the bestseller list.

Content warning: Tia's story is a survivor story and includes aspects of trauma and abuse.

Please note that Descript (my editing software) was over-zealous in removing "filler words" so while I usually remove my "ums" as much as possible, I had to publish this episode with them intact.

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Did you know my podcast now publishes to YouTube as well? Here’s this episode:

There’s no video as yet - but don’t count it out in the future!

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Just Over 1 Month to Exvangelical & Beyond

Pre-order my book, Exvangelical & Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back, which hits stores on 9/24/2024!

Pre-Order on Bookshop.org

Follow me on Instagram/Threads: @brchastain_

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC

In this episode, I talk to from Clusterhuck. We go deep into the X-Men comics, especially the Krakoan Era (the most recent status quo in the X-Men line that ran from 2019-2024. Start with the House of X / Powers of X collected edition.)

This is just a fun nerdy time.

Subscribe to Tyler's newsletter, .

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Book News

I will be having an event at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL on 9/23/24 at 7:00 p.m.! Register here.

Support my work via a subscription to The Post-Evangelical Post. 25% of net proceeds are donated annually.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC.

Support My Work

Direct support has been declining lately. If you are able to help support the show, please do so with a paid subscription.

In this episode, I got to speak to Timothy Morton. They are the author of over 20 books, including the most recent, Hell: In Search of A Christian Ecology. Timothy is a recent convert to Christianity after decades exploring Buddhism and other philosophies, and their prior book Hyperobjects was very helpful in the development of my manuscript.

We talk about environmentalism, neologisms, hyperobjects, and much more.

This is a wide-ranging and lightly-edited interview. Content note: this conversation includes discussion of child abuse, sexual abuse, and complex PTSD.

Learn more about Timothy Morton's other books and works here.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC.

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Exvangelical & Beyond received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews!

My first book (which comes out this September), has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews!

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

“In his highly readable first book, Chastain explains why the term found such deep resonance, especially in online spaces, among populations of people leaving the evangelical church and losing their faith, though not always both and not always in that order. As he carefully points out, “the term [exvangelical] acknowledges personal autonomy because, although it does define past experience, it...doesn’t try to dictate what people who leave evangelicalism should believe.””

You can read the rest of the review here.

Pre-order my book, Exvangelical & Beyond, here.

Be sure to subscribe for more updates about the book and new episodes!

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Today I'm sharing my recent conversation with , author of Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy. It’s available on Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts.

(If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to this newsletter. Hit that subscribe button below 👇🏻)

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This is a great debut memoir from West and a wonderful addition to this growing genre of books. I was very grateful to be able to talk to her. You can buy the book (and support this show) by using this affiliate link.

Follow Blake on Threads & Instagram @brchastain_

Follow Cait West on Threads & Instagram @caitwestwrites.

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Exvangelical & Beyond Goodreads Giveaway!

TarcherPerigee & Goodreads are doing an advanced copy giveaway for my book, Exvangelical & Beyond! Enter to win 1 of 25 advance copies today through 6/21/24.

Enter the giveaway here.

Capitalism Corner

If you want to support my work, please do so by upgrading to a paid subscription. I’ve lost a lot of direct support over the last six months, and every subscription helps cover the cost of producing the show as well as costs I cover for IMG. 25% of net proceeds are donated. Read more here.

In today's episode I talk to , author of the novel Hell Is a World Without You. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to be a hormonal evangelical teenage boy in the late-90s/early oughts (or want to revisit your mindset if you were that teenage boy), this is the book for you.

This is a fun conversation. You can purchase the book through your local bookseller, via Post Ev Post's bookshop.org page, or via this Amazon link if you are in the Kindle ecosystem.

Subscribe to Jason's newsletter here.

Support this show with a paid subscription to Post-Ev Post.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post Evangelical Post, LLC

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I was reminded of the importance of this book and others like it after reading a Wired article titled "‘In 24 Hours, You’ll Have Your Pills’: American Women Are Traveling to Mexico for Abortions." These are the lengths people who need reproductive care must go to in a post-Roe world. Becca's book details the stories of people in need of reproductive care and their allies, both before Roe and in places where abortion and other care was restricted prior to Roe's fall.

Content note: I want to note that this episode deals directly with abortion and other aspects of reproductive care. For people in my age cohort—Elder Millennials and younger who grew up in conservative white evangelicalism, abortion was absolutely vilified, as were the people who needed them. This conversation starts there, and then looks at the history of reproductive care in the United States from the 19th century through today.

I mention this near the end of my conversation with Becca, but I also want to mention it at the top - her book tells the stories of people in need of reproductive health care—including abortion—with tenderness and compassion. They are told in their contexts within the book; we do not appropriate them for this conversation. I highly recommend that you go out and purchase this book to read them for yourself. 

Learn more about Becca's work at https://becca-andrews.com/

Purchase the book via PEP’s Bookshop.org page or via this Amazon affiliate link to support the show - and subscribe below to keep up to date with my work.

You can purchase her book, and support this show, by purchasing it from The Post-Evangelical Post's Bookshop.org page here.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post.

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This week I'm joined by from . We discuss Mormonism & evangelicalism, his experiences in right-wing media, and the 2024 election. It's a broad-reaching conversation that I hope you enjoy.

Follow Matthew's work at Flux, including the podcasts Theory of Change, Doomscroll, and So This Just Happened.

Show Notes/Links:

I appeared on Theory of Change last October, check it out here.

We discuss the findings from this CNN article re: the SC GOP primaries and Matthew's piece about authoritarianism.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC. Support my work with a paid subscription at $5/month or $50/year at postevangelicalpost.com

Follow Blake on Threads @brchastain_

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In full transparency, I am still settling back into regular publishing after the tumult of last year. Thank you for your patience. If you appreciate my work, you can support it with a paid subscription.

I want to drop a few quick updates here: on my manuscript, on my podcast, and on the future of this site here on Substack/some creator economy punditry.

The manuscript is complete!

As long-time readers of this will know, I’ve been working on a manuscript over the past two years, and it is finally done and proceeding along to the copyediting phase as it readies for market. The book will be released in the fall, and I will absolutely be writing and talking about it more in the near future.

For more, you can read this post from last September that I’ve linked to below. I spent the last three months of the year completing this, and I’m excited for you to read it.

❌ + 📚The podcast is back!

I also started the new year by releasing two episodes, both of which are author interviews.

I spoke with Kevin Garcia about their new book, What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Divine Self. It’s all about establishing new spiritual practices after leaving rigid fundamentalism, and I hope you check it out.

I also spoke with lenny duncan about their latest book, Psalms of My People: A Story of Black Liberation as Told through Hip-Hop. It’s a fascinating exploration of hip-hop as scripture. I hope you check out both conversations.

You’ll notice that I am carrying over The Good Books term I’ve been using here for some time as one of PEP’s site sections into the podcast realm. I am soft-launching this as a more-explicit focus on author interviews, and should soon have a new feed for that purpose.

Interviewing writers & authors is one of my favorite things to do, and at the same time, who I am interested in speaking to isn’t always limited to the exvangelical/deconstruction area. I’ll have more to share as this develops.

On Sticking With or Ditching Substack

Finally, in the months while this newsletter lay fallow as I finished the manuscript, Substack found itself yet again in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Here’s the TL;DR summary of events:

• In November, The Atlantic published an article called “Substack Has a Nazi Problem” that drew attention to the fact that Substack allowed paid subscriptions to be collected on explicitly-Nazi/white nationalist publications.

• This led to the publication of “Substackers Against Nazis” led by Marisa Kabas, in which hundreds of publication owners signed a letter petitioning Substack leadership to enforce stronger moderation.

• In response, Substack leadership basically said “yeah, no” and refused to systematically ban Nazis or other white nationalists from earning money on the platform.

• This has led lots of publications, including Marisa Kabas’ The Handbasket and Platformer (founded by Casey Newton) to decamp for services like Beehiiv or Ghost, respectively.

• It also presents an annoying problem for smaller publishers like me, hoping to adhere to our own values while also recognizing that additional costs will be incurred with the shift to a new platform.

Each social platform (and Substack is now a social platform—it has a social feed in Notes and promotes things algorithmically) harbors speech everyone will disagree with. What distinguishes Substack from others in the space is that they have repeatedly and explicitly expressed a higher tolerance for extremist speech, which is what white nationalist speech is.

Their reasoning—moderation equals censorship, and censorship is bad, so we will not moderate—lacks any nuance and is willfully ignorant of how information networks work. Moderation is in itself an exercise of one’s rights, and where that conflicts with one’s views on freedom of speech is where one’s values come into play. A simplistic libertarian view does not do well in that scenario.

Moderation requires the resolve to say: “You may be legally free to say that, but you’re not free to say that here without consequence.”

It does not appear at present that Substack as a company wants to have that resolve.

So yes, I am planning my exit from Substack. It is unfortunate, given that the tech platform they created is actually well-suited to an independent writer and podcaster like myself, who has built a reputation in my area of expertise, but which has not yet led to the financial success that would enable me to be a full-time creative. I have benefitted from Substack’s ease of use, its ability to quickly set up paid subscriptions, its focus on offering both web publishing and the ability to build an email list, its recommendation engine, and to a degree the Notes feature.

I have already lost some paid subscribers in the ensuing months since this all began to happen, though I don’t know if that is due to readers leaving Substack or due to my lower content output as I finished my manuscript.

I am looking at Ghost & Beehiiv as alternatives, but this shift may take a bit of time and planning, as my full-time work has increased again. Ghost may be prohibitively expensive for my list size and my revenue, so Beehiiv may be the winner on cost alone. Whatever I choose to do, those who do support me with paid subscriptions should hopefully not experience any interruptions.

I’m glad to be writing online again. It’s just bittersweet that this has to be yet another instance of navigating something that should be rather straightforward—web publishing—because what should have been an easily principled resolve against not lending financial support to white nationalists could not be mustered by a company’s leaders.

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Over the last several years, I have spent a lot of time dwelling in painful stories. I’ve listened to, read, and shared so many of them—through podcasts, posts, retweets, etc. I’ve kept just as many stories, the ones that are honored by being held privately rather than brought to broader light.

The majority of these stories have to do with “deconstruction,” the catch-all phrase that has become internet shorthand for the messier individual process of questioning inherited belief. Similar metaphors abound, too: faith shifts, faith transitions, faith unraveling, etc.

But sometimes faith doesn’t just falter or shift or transition. Sometimes it dies.

Death can come in a moment, from a long illness, from a grave injury, at the end of a long life, well before or well after its time, as a mercy, or as a curse.

The death of a faith is the same. It is not always a choice, but because it is death, it is a final, undeniable reality.

Sometimes that faith simply cannot carry on.

The grief that follows isn’t simple. It’s an admixture of anger, sadness, relief, black humor; sometimes these feelings come all at once, and sometimes they visit alone.

With a combination of luck and work, we can come to an uneasy peace with this grief.

Grief doesn’t ever leave. It lingers, like a shy housecat. You don’t ever know where it goes, but you set out food for it all the same, knowing it will visit again.

I often think of the words that we say when we try to address death & loss. I’m no snyasethete, but those words feel hollow. Words of consolation alone cannot respond to the solidity and finality of death; it is why we show up to shed tears together, to share food, and to remember.

But we say them, even when we know they are not enough.

When faith dies, no matter the cause, there is a void. Some experience a rebirth, a resurrection of sorts, that imbues their world with a similar energy as the faith that passed. Others may just carry on, feeling no compunction to “replace” their former faith. Still others find their way along this spectrum on a more circuitous path, exploring what they need in a given moment.

There is no right answer.

Those faiths did not survive. But we did.

We remember the things that that faith did for us, for good and for ill. We carry that legacy, now tinged with grief, forward in our lives and do our best to learn from it.

And we carry on.

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This week's guest is is Dr. Laura Anderson, author of the book When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion. We talk about the definitions of trauma and abuse, what drew her to this work, the importance of embodiment, and more.

Find all the ways to follow Laura online at drlauraeanderson.com.

As noted in the intro, I want to acknowledge that two days after my last episode was published, the war in Gaza began. I'm not the person to listen to in this moment. Here are some essays that have spoken to me and helped me understand this moment:

"a lot of things are true." by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg.1

Life is a Sacred Text

a lot of things are true.

This is Life as a Sacred Text, an expansive, loving, everybody-celebrating, nobody-diminished, justice-centered voyage into one of the world’s most ancient and holy books. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here.🌱…

Read more

3 years ago · 761 likes · 143 comments · Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

"Speech and Speechlessness," by Talia Lavin.2

The Sword and the Sandwich

Speech and Speechlessness

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3 years ago · 180 likes · 11 comments · Talia Lavin

"The Children Are Ours," by Camille Hernandez3

thique theopoetique

The Children are Ours

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3 years ago · 47 likes · Camille

Churches for Middle East Peace, October 12th letter.

Here are the portions of the letter I read in the intro:

“We unequivocally condemn Hamas’ attacks and call for the immediate release of all hostages in captivity. We also condemn the indiscriminate and violent Israeli response that has already claimed hundreds of civilian lives.  The Israeli government’s decision to shut off power, water, and fuel will have a disastrous impact on millions of civilians in Gaza, including over a million children, especially those who need immediate medical attention…

Year after year, we have seen that increasing violence begets more violence. Our past responses have failed to end the bloodshed. As these horrific events unfold, we are reminded once again that only by addressing core systemic issues, including decades of institutionalized oppression and collective punishment of Palestinians through brutal military occupation and a 16-year Gaza blockade, will Israelis and Palestinians live in peace.”

Thoughtfully and responsibly providing context for this war is best done by those most qualified to provide it; I will limit my own comments to how white evangelicalism relates to Zionism, as that is my lane. Here is one TikTok that speaks to this as well:

@nerdypriest#stitch with @David I am staying *firmly in my Christian lane* here but this is something more people need to be aware of #progressiveclergy #exvangelical #exsouthernbaptist

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Meanwhile, if you want to see an historical sampling of the persistence of Christian Zionism in the last several decades, please read this post by & :

America’s Apocalyptic Cheerleaders, by Talia Lavin & David Swanson.

The Sword and the Sandwich

America's Apocalyptic Cheerleaders

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3 years ago · 58 likes · 2 comments · Talia Lavin and David Swanson

We talk about Matthias' story, the language we use to describe our experiences, 'progressive fundamentalism,' and the reality of ~ the slippery slope ~.

Let me know what you think - email me at contact@exvangelicalpodcast.com

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Learn more about Matthias's work at matthiasroberts.com.

What I wrote during hiatus

I did continue to write during my podcasting hiatus. Here are some updates:

The Extreme Self

The Impossibility of Fallow Periods Online

An update on Exvangelical & Beyond

The Comfort of Fictional Religions: The Spark

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The game follows a heartbroken young woman through a series of fantastical worlds. When the game first came out I played it with my daughter on the iPhone. The soundtrack is composed by Daniel Olsen & Jonathan Eng, and vocals are sung by Linnea Olsson. Here is the gameplay for the level featuring the song:

The hook for the song is just the repeated line “Begin Again,” and while the rest of the verses are about falling out of love, the hook has been bouncing in and out of my head for weeks.

As has been evident in my writing here over the past few months, I have struggled with just how much my public-facing creative work has dropped off as I’ve had to tend to things closer to home during the spring and summer.

I have had to take breaks from publishing before, notably in 2019, when Exvangelical was put on hiatus. At that point, I announced it on Twitter; this summer, it simply happened because it had to. This has been a period of minimal output that has required more rest from one type of work to allow for others.

But hopefully, that period is coming to an end, and I can begin, again, to publish more regularly.

Over a decade of social media use has conditioned me to think that if I am not present online, I (seem to) cease to exist to swaths of people. Further, I think that Facebook and other social platforms have conditioned all of us to become our own PR agents, issuing life updates like marriages, divorces, births, and other things as if they are press releases.

This is something I’ve always had trouble relaying to folks, but that I have been committed to sharing small glimpses into. From the consumer standpoint, every person you read or follow online is one of an infinite number of people you could read or follow. On the creator side, a creator may or may not be able to make a living from their output, for any number of reasons: smaller audience, lack of time needed to produce, edit & publish content because of work/family/life commitments, under- or un-monetized work, and on and on.

All that being said.

I am going on a long-planned vacation this week, and will be back later in the month. I am excited to begin work here again, and to start publishing work, speaking with authors of interesting books, and who knows what else.

Thank you for reading and following along. I’ll have more to share soon.

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Happy Pride, everyone!

While my schedule hasn’t allowed me to book, record, and edit a new interview lately, I still wanted to recognize Pride month in some way. So I'm re-releasing this 2021 interview with Erin Green and Paul Southwick of The Religious Exemption Accountability Project. (CW: this conversation includes discussion of sexual and gender discrimination and other forms of abuse.)

We talk about how LGBTQ+ students are treated by college administrations, how LGBTQ+ students end up at religious colleges, the history of religious colleges resisting civil rights, and why a formal legal challenge is important.

In March 2021, REAP filed "a historic, class-action lawsuit representing 33 LGBTQ students and alumni from religious colleges demanding that the U.S. Department of Education to stop granting religious exemptions to taxpayer-funded religious colleges and universities that discriminate against and abuse their LGBTQ students. Learn more about the lawsuit and meet our plaintiffs here." In January 2023, that initial complaint was dismissed, but an appeal has been filed. For the full timeline of their case, visit https://www.thereap.org/lawsuit.

REAP is also very active on social media and recently ran a #cantpraythegayaway campaign. Follow them on Instagram.

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REAP is also one of the two organizations I donate part of my Substack revenue to. You can read about that here on the PEP’s About page.

Read my latest essay, "I Still Haven't Socially Recovered from Lockdown," that I mentioned in the intro.

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC.

This week I welcome back to the show to discuss his book Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University. We talk about his life as a professor at an evangelical college, the classroom experience, pushing back against Whiteness as an Asian American man, and how he found community on and off campus.

Scott is also the host of the Chapel Probation podcast. I was a guest! Check out Scott's prior appearance on Exvangelical.

Buy Scott's book from Bookshop.org and support this show. Use Kindle? Use this link.

Support this show via a paid subscription to The Post-Evangelical Post at $5/month or $50/year. Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC.

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📚What I'm Reading: May 2023

The Post-Evangelical Post is home of the Exvangelical podcast & a newsletter about belief, tech, & society—with a focus on US white evangelicalism—by Blake Chastain. Subscribe here…

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In this episode, I catch up with Holly Laurent from MEGA, the satirical improv show about a fictional megachurch. We last spoke in 2019, and a lot has changed since then.

We talk about improv, comedy & satire, and the upcoming MEGA spinoff, The Rise and Fall of Twin Hills.

Find out more about MEGA at their website, and be sure to check out their TikTok featuring clips from the show:

@megathepodcastJesus in Sucession 😜 #Comedy #Podcast #Jesus #ChristianTiktok #Succession #kendall #HBO #FYP #Funny #podcastsuggestion

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