Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
because I put my hand on a book and made
a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: With July Fast approaching Real Fast on July the eleventh,
that's a Saturday from two to five, No Illusions and
myself on stage in Cincinnati, and then the following day
is the big ARC Encounter protest in Williamstown, Kentucky. Ken
Ham's gonna love his special guests on Sunday as we
go out midday and have a big protest right there
at the entrance of his ARC Encounter and a bunch
of other stuff coming up with Nanocon Baha kon the
Freedom from Religion Foundation. We just announced the Unholy Trinity
Tour with me and Matt Della Hunty and arn Raw.
That's going to be in Fort Worth, Texas, August twenty ninth.
Get the details on everything at the Thinkingatheist dot com
slash events. There is video of this interview. That YouTube
link is in the description box of the show. Joining
me today a friend of mine and fellow ex vangelical.
Her name is Promis Becklund, and we've been talking about
the upcoming release which is finally released. It is a
book called Gospel of Lies. Surviving and Resisting Evangelical Extremism Promise.
So good to see you again, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me back again. I feel very honored.
Speaker 2: You got pretty good ranking when it released. That had
to feel good, right that did it feel really good?
Speaker 3: It felt especially nice, obviously, like you want something that
you do to be successful, but it felt really nice
to see it taking over books like Toxic Empathy and
you know JD Vance's pre orders for Communion, those kinds
of things, because I just know that that means it's
in a section where religious people are having to see
Gospel of Lies, and I hope it sparked a little
curiosity for them.
Speaker 2: JD Vance has a book coming out called Communion. That
sounds horrifying, horrified. Yes, that guy just leaves a bad
taste in my mouth. I mean the whole thing does.
But there's something uniquely bothering, kind of creepy about that. Gud.
My wife calls it the spirit of ick. Does that
resonate with you?
Speaker 3: Chlems so good?
Speaker 2: The spirit of ic?
Speaker 3: Do you feel the spirit of ic? That's I'm going
to use that from now on, because getting the ick
is totally a thing. But I think when it comes
to people like JD. Vance, there is just a general
spirit of ick happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, You and I recently co hosted again on
a debate channel called The Line The Sunday Show where believers,
I don't know spiritual people God defenders is maybe a
better way to say it, because they're on the gamut.
But they dial in and they give us all their
reasons to believe in God and for three hours promise
and I do our best to field. Some of the
calls aren't bad, and others, yeah, are really bad. Validate
me right? Really?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there are some painful ones. And it is
difficult because sometimes it's very hard to tell the difference
between a sincere believer and an absolute trull because the
arguments from somebody who is being genuine and honest are
sometimes on par with somebody who's trying to just make
a mockery of it and is not being honest and
all of that, because the indoctrination can go so deep,
I think that it turns people dumb. Basically.
Speaker 2: Let me start with a few comments from that show.
I just had to show these tow you. This is
from the Sunday Show, which aired on the seventh of June.
The comment from Ronald said, Seth and Promise are a
great pairing and this was a great show. The hosts
are smart, thoughtful, and don't engage in the shouting matches
that have become so common. They shared the time well,
ask insightful questions and covered a nice wide range of topics.
Love to see them do another show. Look at us,
look at us getting validated plea and then it was fun.
Speaker 3: Hellowed by his comments, I've seen.
Speaker 2: Promise is not sufficiently educated to handle a show like this.
I know Catholics and Christians don't think each other are right.
This is something that you said. He's like laughing my
fucking ass off. What's question mark times two Okay. When
I was growing up, Catholics were not Christians, at least
in my home, you know, a fundy Protestant home where
there was Christianity and there was Catholicism. So no, I mean,
they weren't even cousins. That Catholics were a false faith.
Speaker 3: I grew up being taught that Catholics are probably going
to Hell and that we should be praying for them.
So I hate to break it to the Catholics, but
there is a lot of Christians out there who don't
believe that you are quote true Catholics. And I hear
from Catholics regularly that say, the reason I've fallen away
is because they grew a Protestant instead of Catholic.
Speaker 2: How much of that do you suspect? Is you being
a woman because you didn't come after me? And I
don't know. It's hard to really know, but you see
a lot of that, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very I mean, I honestly err on the
side of caution, maybe more than I should. And I
try not to assume that it's because I'm a woman,
because it's so obvious so often that it is that
I think I would just be really depressed if I
went ahead and believed all the times that it's misogyny,
that it really is that. But I mean, I think
you noticed we've talked about this. We'll be talking and
you know, you or Matt or somebody will be having
a conversation with someone and you know, y'all will be
starting the conversation off, and then I'll jump in at
a certain point, which is how we sometimes do these calls,
and suddenly that person one sentence out of my mouth,
they can't handle it. They don't want to hear a
word I have to say. And it's so obvious to
me when it happens repeatedly. It's got to be because
I'm a woman, that is the difference that's going on.
And either that or these people just personally don't like me. However,
most of them have never heard of me before, or
so they come on the show, they call, they're happy
to not happy, but they'll let they'll let a man
talk for a while. As soon as a woman jumps
in and says something, they're interrupting me or saying that
I'm interrupting them, or that I'm being emotional. And that's
just one sentence into the conversation.
Speaker 2: You said in your book that you were aware that
Jesus loved you at the age of three. I don't
have a memory that young. Like I think I remember
things when I was five, but I mean, at three,
you had an understanding in some way of Jesus.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I know there's videos that exist from before that
time that I don't remember, but I have actual, unique
memories that aren't on video and stuff that I've recopted
family and they're like, oh, yes, that did happen. But
even before then, there's a video of me about two.
I was two years old and it was Christmas time
and I was so excited to be opening my presence
and one of my parents, who was behind the camera,
was going on and on, but what's the reason for
Christmas promise? Before you can open more presents, you have
to say it, you have to say And I'm like,
I'm two years old, and so I'm trying and I'm going, uh, okay,
and they're like, whose birthday is it? And I'm answering,
It's Jesus's birthday And it's just this wild video. It
goes on for quite a few minutes and the other
parent is like, hey, she's like, let her open her presence.
But that is how I was raised with this. Every
single moment was supposed to prioritize the Christian belief and
the Gospel and Jesus or Satan if you know, if
somebody was sick, we were commanding the demons to leave,
or you know, participating in spiritual warfare. But it was
ingrained in my head from a very young age, so
especially right when I started, you know, having memories that
I can look back on. Those memories are things like
saying that Jesus loves me, or that I love Jesus
and feeling like I really felt like Jesus existed like
an imaginary friend. I didn't actually grow up with an
imaginary friend. A lot of my friends talk about, oh,
I had an imaginary friend as a kid. I didn't.
I had Jesus.
Speaker 2: When you're in the church, it's charming little children, you know.
Bring me the children and let them understand the love
of Jesus. And so when they this is a true story.
Promise people are going to think this is horseshit, But
it's Oklahoma. I'm driving out of my neighborhood and at
a house near the exit of the neighborhood, standing on
the lawn are like three four kids and they're all
super young, and they are holding up these little cardboard
homemade signs that say honk if you love Jesus, and
so they're shouting at the cars, Honk, honk if you
love Jesus, honk for Jesus. And I had a moment
of conflict because I was like, well, sweet, kids want
me to honk the horn and it'll make them smile.
But I don't love Jesus. I don't believe in Jesus,
so I don't want to validate that. So like an asshole,
I mean, I just drive right by as the kids
are shouting in my window. But I see I see
them as victims, right, because yeah, they're being told the
answer before they're old enough to genuinely ask the questions.
Would that be a fair way to phrase that promise?
Speaker 3: And I just thought about that situation if I were
to have been in it as a child. If you
do honk, then I'm validated in my faith, and if
you don't, then I'm also validated in my faith because
I've been told over and over and over again that
there are people that hate Jesus and they'll be offended
just at the mention. And so either way, your faith
is being bolstered by everything happening around you, because it's
already been just you know, you've been instructed that if
something goes in the category of bad, it's a sign
that Satan is real. If it goes in the category
of good, it's a sign of God. So yeah, it's
it's wild how how deep indoctrination goes, and it just
sets you up to continue to believe these things.
Speaker 2: I was talking to No Illusions a few shows ago,
and I am kim all right, if you could grab
one of the lesser known and more alarming Bible stories
to teach Christians like Sunday Christians, what would it be?
And I think his was the time in the Old
Testament where Moses wasn't able to see God's glory. So
God said, look, you stand here, and I'll walk by,
and you can see my ass, you can see my backside.
But if I was to sit down with the young
children and teach them the Bible, it would be hard
for me not to go there to say, hey, there's
crazy shit in here. So I guess I'll segue into
now that you're out, is there a Bible story that
most Sunday Christians aren't aware of that you would like
for them to be aware of.
Speaker 3: There are so many. I mean, in my book, I
actually have a little section where I go through some
of them, and I think, at least for me, I
was aware of all the Bible stories, but I wasn't
really paying attention. And there's, for whatever reason, one stands
out to me is just so wild and hilarious because
it sets us up for a lot more stories like
this in the Bible. Is I call it the story
Touched by a Foreskin, but it's where God gets super
angry at Moses and decides that he wants to kill him,
and Moses's wife somehow figures out and decides that the
solution is to circumcise their son and touch the foreskin
to Moses, and somehow this basically like protects him from
God's wrath. And as we know, God really likes foreskins
or hates them. I can't tell which in the Bible
because he demands them over and over again, and that
is just such a wild thing to me. There are
you know, There's also like the story of the bald man,
who the kids make fun of. The bald prophet and
then a bear comes out and mauls them to death.
I think it's like forty two kids or something that's
crazy too, but that one where it's just like, imagine
your god of the universe and that's what prevents you.
First of all, imagine wanting to kill one of your career.
That's already crazy, but then imagine a foreskin being what
stops you.
Speaker 2: There's a great resource called the Brick Testament. I think
it used to be called the Brick Bible, and it
displays literally in lego form, stories like these out of
the Bible. And it's interesting because when you see it
depicted in this way, it really brings home how crazy
it is. And there is a lego depiction of David
going into battle against the Philistines and slicing off two
hundred Philistine foreskins and bringing them back to King Saul
as a dowry for his daughter in marriage, and in
lego you see this pile of plastic foreskins being counted out.
It's crazy, promise crazy.
Speaker 3: That is absolutely wild. Yeah, And what's funny, I wouldn't
have been able. I wouldn't have been allowed to watch
something like that as a kid. That would have been
absolutely forbidden, and yet it's in the Bible, and that's
they want to ban all kinds of books. But of
course they want the Bible to be accessible to children
at all times, and they're not talking about, well, maybe
this part of the Bible is okay, and as partisan
they want the whole Bible. They're available to kids anytime.
Speaker 2: I can't get away with that. One more comment from
our appearance together on the line it is uh Kakaweese said,
I've tried, but I just can't stand seth. They comes
across as someone who fell in love with his own
voice decades ago and never looked back. And are there
really no conservative atheists? And you and I were talking
about humanist progressive values. I don't buy that all atheists
subscribe to these radical left political views that's being pushed
down our throats on all of these shows. I'm liberal too,
but Jesus Christ, now, I don't think you and I
said anything like atheists can't be conservative. I do tend
to think. I mean, I've met some atheist conservatives, and
a lot of them are they have some very tragic ideas.
There's an atheist MAGA group and somehow they're supporting Donald Trump.
I mean, atheism is not a guarantee of rationalism, but
I do tend to think that while atheism isn't a
world view, it opens the world where I'm probably going
to be more humanist, solving human problems, pro science, you know,
those types of things, pro LGBT people, pro liberal values.
I tend to think that the reason that a lot
of atheists lean more left, and this is true statistically,
is because humanism is more progressive. And I know conservatives
hate that, but I'm just I don't know what else
to say in the question. I just want you to
take this over promise progressive liberal atheists, conservative atheists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Reading the criticizing
you in your voice was so confusing, and then I see, oh,
they actually dislike him because of his political views.
Speaker 2: So that actually, now that may be fair. That may
be fair. Maybe I talk too much and it's all subjective.
Maybe the tone of my voice of the cadence. Some
people said I sound like a pastor. That turns them off.
I get that. Some people say it sounds performative. He
sounds too much like a radio DJ, which is strange
since I did it for fifteen years. But I mean,
if I'm not your cup of tea, I get it.
Speaker 3: I get it right, promise well if that had been
left alone as that comics or whatever. But to go
on and say that about, you know, us being radical
leftists is so funny to me. I think what I
think is most likely is that when somebody specifically leaves
religion and changes their mind in such a big way
and then becomes whether it's progressive, Christian or atheist or
whatever it may be, because you've actually had to examine
what you believe and why and figure out if you
have good reasons behind it. And I think that little
bit of skeptic that desire to abandon dogma is what
can lead people to a more progressive way of thinking
and caring about fellow humans around you, because otherwise you
are just kind of relying on dogma. And I've noticed,
and I wonder if there are stats to back this,
but it's a lot of the atheists that have kind
of been lifelong atheists that are more susceptible to this
right wing extremism or to be annoyed about us being
radical leftists because to them, they don't understand the bigger picture,
and they're more prone to dogma because they haven't questioned
their own before.
Speaker 2: I come out of a fundy faith where I was
told what my position ought to be. I leave that
faith and I say, okay, well, how do I feel
about the death penalty? Now? I was pro Now I'm against,
And that's more of a progressive value. I don't freak
out about marijuana et cetera. Right, why should alcohol be
legal and we'd not be legal? What's the big dust up?
You know? I get into LGBT rights, that's an easy one,
because the fundy faiths say almost actuals or sodomites. I
get into whether or not foreign policy should be about
America is God's country and we're superior. Does that make
any sense? Well? No, we are all the human condition.
I can love my country but also see the rest
of the world as equally valuable. Right, I mean, time
and time again, when I go down all of these
I just think these are I think they're more humanistic,
and I don't think I'm being defensive when I say that.
Speaker 3: So many of the things that you have conservative conservatives
in general in the US against things like abortion or
gay gay rights, and now of course they've turned trans
people into the the demon of the year. It requires
dogmatic beliefs, It requires some big sky person telling you
that you should be against this because if you actually
examine reality and put things like well being and personal
autonomy at the forefront and consent, which is totally anti
religious extremism, if you put those things at the forefront,
you're going to go towards a humanist perspective. That's that's
what humanism ends up becoming as people that care about
the well being of others, basically. And it is crazy
to me to have when we get these phone calls,
and you and I have taken quite a few of
these together, people wanting to argue about morality with us.
And there, you know, we have people calling in claiming
that Catholicism is the most moral way to live your life,
and they're supporting the Catholic institution, which is, you know,
protecting predators all the time and hoarding wealth. And we'll
get people calling in who end up it throughout the
phone call, they end up defending slavery because instead of
actually examining reality for themselves actually you know, deciding that
they have values, they look to a two thousand year
old text.
Speaker 2: In Oklahoma, they recently barely passed a resolution a law
of banning child marriage. Almost every Republican voted against that
measure to ban child marriage, and the excuse was Mary
in the Bible. And so I think we see that
a more progressive position on that is one that is
more tethered to human rights and the rights of children.
Speaker 3: And I think part of the issue is that when
you're a humanist, your morals can progress as the world
around you changes and as we learn more so. Yes,
it used to be much more acceptable to, first of all,
to entertain marriages where consent wasn't happening. It was a
property exchange. Now we've figured out as a society like, hey,
that's actually not that's not conducive to a happy, healthy society.
It's going against another person's personal autonomy. Children can't consent
things like that. But again, it requires letting go of
dogma and and moving towards progress.
Speaker 2: I remember that guy on the line talking about Catholicism
being pro woman, and I think we asked, like, why
can't women be in the priesthood? Why does the Catholic
Church ban women from leadership? And I don't remember what
the answer was, But it was a tap dance. It
was a game, a twister, right to defend the indefensible.
Speaker 3: Well, we asked him why I couldn't be a priest
and his answer goes. His answer was, well, you could
be a nun.
Speaker 2: There are other roles that you could feel as a woman.
Promise yes.
Speaker 3: Then we asked why a woman couldn't be pope, and
he finally conceded that he didn't know, but he was
sure there was a good reason behind it. And that's
the blind trust, the blind faith, where instead of acknowledging
that we were making really good points and that that
is not equal rights, that is not something a woman
should feel inspired by, they say, well no, because God
has to be right. So I have to twist in
turn and go against sense and logic in order to
fit into this narrative.
Speaker 2: And you brought up a great point about the Catholic Church,
and I go back and forth on the Catholic Church.
I to a degree do appreciate Pope Leo. He's pushing
back against some of the oligarchy, but at the same
time he's part of the oligarchy. I think the papal
throne itself this gold gilded throne is worth seventeen eighteen
twenty million dollars. So if you're looking at an institution
that is supposed to be advocating for the poor, how
do you defend a multi, multi, multi billion dollar tax
free corporation with a twenty million dollar throne. And you
made that point as well, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean if you are advocating for morality, and
then you're turning to the Catholic Church where they are
claiming to care on the values of the guy who
said it's easier for a canal to go through the
eye of a needle than for a Richmond to enter
the Kingdom of heaven, and like you said, then they're
sitting on golden thrones. The hypocrisy is just right there
on display for everyone to see. And things like not
allowing women in positions of leadership and not advocating for
equal rights and recognizing all marriages and all of that.
So it is sad how people will contort their views
in order to agree with their religion.
Speaker 2: When I come back, I'm going to talk to Promise
about religious bigotry and discrimination and the attitudes about the other.
We'll do it next. Speaking here with author promised Backland
it is Pride month. I was a bigot. When I
was an evangelical Christian, I didn't see it that way.
But gay people are perverts, They perverted God's model, they
are aberrant. I think they may be going to Hell right.
They should be avoided. So I don't know how else
to ask the question, but were you a were you
a religious bigot? Promise?
Speaker 3: I definitely was in a lot of ways. I was
also really young. I left religion when I was about
twenty five twenty six, and it was in my early twenties,
kind of late teens, that I started actually even knowing
that gay people exist. I was very sheltered and you know,
didn't consume a lot of pop culture content other than
Christian stuff, and so it wasn't until I started actually,
you know, meeting gay couples or having gay friends that
I had to start thinking all of this through. And
I've always just I love people so much, and so
I would get to know these amazing people and I
was just scratching my head, like, wait, why am I
supposed to be bothered by this? And that was distressing
to me, and I felt really torn. I think the
most my bigotry showed up in this kind of like
all these poor people, I think they're probably sinning, but
that's between them and God, and I'm sending to in
all kinds of ways, and so you know, we'll all
figure it out, and Jesus loves us, and I don't
want to have to think about it, basically, but it
was still a really condescending way of thinking. And but
for me, a big part of starting to question my
faith was that my values were exceeding that of my faith.
So I was I was having so much love for
people that I was told I shouldn't be loving towards
And to me, being loving meant being accepting. It meant
advocating for them to have equal rights like gay marriage.
So that was one of my controversial moments as a Christian.
I remember posting something celebratory when the Equal Marriage Act
passed and got a lot of, you know, messages from
Christians saying that that was really wrong of me and
that I was promoting sin and all of that. But
but for me, I just was like, I can't be
more loving than God, right, so I must be on
God's side about this.
Speaker 2: You wrote in your book about another condescending attitude toward
other people. When it came to warning others about Hell, right, well,
you weren't necessarily saying you sinner, you wicked thing, you've
abandoned God, you deserve to burn. It was considered, I mean,
health teaching was considered an act of love, right for sure.
Speaker 3: And that was also part of what led me to
deconstructing is. I was very convinced that people around me
were going to go to Hell because they didn't believe,
and I wanted to figure out ways to convince them,
and so I was trying to learn as much as
I could. I was reading Lee Stroble all of that,
and I thought it was very very important that I
not just tell them, you know, hey, Hell, it's going
to be real bad. You don't want to go there.
I wanted to be able to convince them to not
go there and how to go about that. But it
was all falling apart very quickly. It was a huge
part of my childhood was especially believing that people who
were getting abortions or who were pro abortion, that they
were actually evil and demonic and they were definitely going
to Hell. And that's the time when I was a
child that I was most heavily, you know, being judgmental
and you know, wearing the life tape and carrying the
weird signs and going to the protests and stuff. And
it's sad to me that as a child I was
taught to be hateful in that way.
Speaker 2: You said the word demons scanning the horizon, I mean
demon demons, we talking demons promise.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I very much believed in demons just as much as
I believed in God. And I was terrified all the
time of them. I mean, if you think about it,
you're a child. So children are constantly afraid of all
kinds of stuff anyways, like a monster in your closet
or whatever. But I remember going to sleepovers and not
just struggling with you know, you go to sleepover and
you're like, oh, I miss my mom and I want
to go home. I was terrified that there might be
demons that live in this person's house because they aren't
as good of Christians as we are. And so now
I have to stay up all night in spiritual warfare.
And that was a huge part of childhood for me,
is constantly feeling like I was warring against demons. And
then on into my adulthood when I first started experiencing,
or even just being able to put a name to it,
really intense anxiety and my OCD was manifesting in new
ways when it came to health issues or thinking that
I had health issues that I didn't. And I was
told by all of the adults and family members around
me that I needed to go to war. I needed
to get in my prayer clauset every day, I needed
to be reading the Bible out loud, and I needed
to be commanding these demons of depression and anxiety to leave.
I wasn't encouraged to take the medication that I was given.
I wasn't encouraged to talk to a therapist about any
of this. In fact, I was told to go to
deliverance sessions instead.
Speaker 2: So an anti science home, I mean, did that lean
into vaccines or the rejection of vaccines? Right? Just pray
and God will protect you.
Speaker 3: I didn't experience the anti vaccine side of things. I
think that is now the position of a lot of
my family members. I think I was lucky and that
I was born to such young parents that they just
went with whatever the doctors were saying at the time.
But we definitely ended up going very anti science very quickly.
I was homeschooled, as I said, using Christian curriculum, and
that included you know, Kent Hovind. At one point I
was being taught dinosaurs didn't exist at all. Then I'm
being told that they existed and they walked alongside of us.
Anytime we did happened to go to a secular museum
as we would call it, I was being told that
it was full of lies. This is the agenda from
the enemy. There are demonic scientists out there who want
to fool us and the big lie of evolution. I
even went to a school that had the word science
in it, like a Christian homeschool co op school where
you'd go once a week, and they claim that they're
all about science, and the whole thing was just creationism,
which as we know, is extremely anti science. And I've
watched how over time that has leached into family members'
lives and especially came to fruition during COVID nineteen, which.
Speaker 2: Takes us back to the rights of a child to
have a proper education. There's some tragic videos showing can't
Hoven younger creationism. He is in a church auditorium with
very young kids, and they called him doctor Dino, which
is fun. What children don't like dinosaurs? So they come
in and this adult expert teaches them that. I think
his thing. Was it humans and dinosaurs lived at the
same time or was that ken Ham or both? I
can't remember, but holy shit, you know, and you know
now I look back and I'm like, as a child
that I have a right to properly understand the world,
which gets us into a weird spot because you don't
want other people raising your kids, right. Parents have a
right to be able to guardians have a right to
raise their kids, but don't kids have a right to
be raised correctly. I don't even know how to solve
that problem. Promise. I know.
Speaker 3: It's it's funny you say that because I remember growing
up my mom would tell people would ask why are
you homeschooling your kids? And my mom would always say, well,
because I don't want someone else raising them. I want
to be the one that's influencing them the most instead
of sending them off. Which is a really privileged position
to be able to say that you can stay home
and homeschool your children. I think I was really lucky
and that my mom had. She was educated. In fact,
she was a first grade teacher before she had children,
so there was at least that much. However, then you
bring in these curriculums that are absolutely designed to indoctrinate.
The point of those textbooks was not to give me
an education that would set me up for success in
the real world. It was specifically to quote protect me
from the real world and to make sure I had
a firm foundation in Christianity, which meant rejecting a lot
of basic facts about the world, like even just the
age of the Earth. So I grew up thinking that
the Earth was about six thousand years old and thinking
that anybody who said otherwise was either deceived or they
were a deceiver. And so yeah, I think there's a
fine line between wanting to allow for freedom and for
people to raise families how they want to raise their family,
but also there has to be a standard for education.
And I don't know if that looks like laws about
what curriculum you can use. I don't know if it
looks like better testing, but I do think there have
to be regulations around things like that. I live in
Finland now and they have very strict regulations. When it
comes to things like homeschooling or even the idea of
a Christian school, they have to use the same curriculum
that the public schools are using.
Speaker 2: What's the attitude in Finland about us? In the United States?
How are people talking about us there?
Speaker 3: I can't obviously speak for all fans, but the general
vibe is that it's an absolute joke. And I what
I hear a lot is I'm constantly being asked by
my finished friends and family, how is this even happening?
How are people letting this happen? How have you guys
let it get to this point? Who is even acting
this way? So here, I'm kind of this circus freak,
and they find out that I grew up in an
evangelical home because I don't think they realize how pervasive
it is. I think they think it really is this
fringe group, and so they're like, well, how has it
taken over so much? They don't understand that evangelical culture
is almost a part of American life at this point.
It is taken over in so many states, and it's
you know, you can see people on street corners preaching
all the time. You see there's like fifteen churches to
choose from in every little town, and it's not the
same here, and it's hard for Finns to understand because
they have I think it's seventy percent of people here
are a part of the Lutheran Church, but only thirty
percent of Finish people even believe that God exists. So
to them, religion isn't actually about these like deeply held beliefs.
It's more about traditional culture and and the Lutheran Church here.
You know, during Pride month they have like big rainbow
flags out and everything, so it's much more progressive. It
is not the same, and so I think there's a
lack of understanding. How could you guys let this happen?
Speaker 2: Basically, there's a common argument when people visit my comments section.
I like Seth when he talks religion, but I tune
out when he talks politics. But how can you divorce
the two in this country? Because if you are raised,
especially in a fundamentalist, evangelical, dominionist faith, I mean we
were trained as kids to go out be soldiers in
God's army. We want you to spread the gospel and
change hearts and attitudes and run for office and be
a part of you know, godifying all of our laws
to make us more one nation under God, to save America,
so one bleeds into the other. I'm often struck by
how people think, well, I can talk religion in the
United States, but I shouldn't talk politics. It makes no
sense to me.
Speaker 3: I get told the same thing, And it's so funny
to me because every now and and I will make
a blatantly political post where I'll mention someone like Trump
or something, and I'll inevitably have people show up and say,
why are you talking about politics. I'm not here for that,
And I always say, well, I've messed up somewhere then,
because me even creating this account and talking about these
things and writing a book where the tagline is resisting
evangelical extremism, that is political. You're right, you absolutely cannot
separate the two in the US, and me criticizing evangelicalism
is a direct result of the Christian nationalism that's forming
in the US and how I grew up under it.
So it's wild to me when people think that those
things aren't almost one and the same. At this point,
in the.
Speaker 2: Subtitle of your book, you just have the words evangelical extremism.
There are some who would say they're the same thing.
If you're an evangelical, you're an extremist. How would you
respond to that?
Speaker 3: It feels that way a lot. I never I never
like to get into the game where you're saying everyone
always never this that. So there's there are exceptions to everything.
But there is this specific brand of American evangelicalism that
I believe is extreme at its core. The very idea
that you are called to evangelize to convert people, which
is a huge part of evangelicalism. It's in the name
that entire people groups are going to hell if they
don't believe exactly as you do and live the lifestyle
that you think is appropriate or that you think your
God thinks is appropriate. That is an extreme position, and
I find that to be extremism.
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to women in the Bible.
Your former handle or the one that you still use,
I think is what promise it's.
Speaker 3: Eve was Framed. That was when I first started talking
about all of this publicly. I didn't want to share
my name. I thought I could somehow stay anonymous, and
so I went with Eve was framed.
Speaker 2: Okay, so a woman in fundamentalism and a woman outside
of fundamentalism. Can you think of the first or one
of the first times in your life that you, as
a woman felt or did something that your church would
have considered transgressive, like a liberating moment where you were like,
you know what, I'm a woman and I'm going to
say and do it anyway, and I don't care what
religion thinks. Can you think of an example.
Speaker 3: It actually happened when I was still in the church.
I was nineteen years old and I had been married
very young because that was part of the purity culture
and all of that, and the marriage was so bad
that Eve and I had figured out it was dangerous
for me to stay in it at this point, and
I was like, I value my own life. I have
to leave, I have to get out of this. I
will not do this the rest of my life. And
I remember going to my family in tears saying that
I needed to file for divorce. And one of the
first things being said to me was, well, what is
the church going to think about you? And that was
the response from then on is just, well, you have
to call it an annulment, then we can't call it
a divorce, and I kept saying, no, I'm calling it
a divorce. I am getting a divorce. I was very
married and now I don't want to be married anymore
because it is harmful to my well being and it
is not good for this marriage to continue. And that
was one of the first times I had like this
little fire in me where I was like, I don't care.
And my church that I had grown up in for
most of my life, the people, the leaders around me
that knew me since I was a little girl, they
had all basically rejected me for this in one way
or another. In fact, they had had my ex husband
come up front on a Sunday morning so they could
all pray for him. And meanwhile I wasn't even allowed
to move back home. And I remember sleeping on friends'
couches and I found another church that was more progressive
that I started going to, and that was one of
the first little moments I felt empowered. But that was
still as a Christian, and I ended, you know, I
got some apologies and all of that. But I think
after that when I first started feeling empowered is I
remember moving in with a boyfriend when we weren't married,
and that was like this wild you harlot, allow.
Speaker 2: You, harlot. Oh my god, you're shacking up. You're living
in sin.
Speaker 3: Promise terrible, absolutely to.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about sexuality inside and outside of the church.
We were taught, I mean, my sisters were taught that
women are less sexually activated than men. Like for men
it was more of an impulse, and for women it
was more of a I don't know, obligations, not the word,
but are you you get the spirit of where I'm going?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I was actually taught that for men
it was a need and basic women we were special
because we could fulfill that need. But I was also
taught if you don't fulfill that need and your husband
goes outside of the bounds of marriage, that's basically your fault.
Like they're still kind of responsible, but it could have
been prevented if you were doing your job. Basically, I
was never taught that women can even experience pleasure. I
wasn't taught that women even have a sex drive. It
was all about the man, and it was you know,
they use these words and talk about this beautiful oneness
and this connection and all this, and that's what you're
supposed to get out of it, but it was like
men need water and food and sex. Basically nothing was
said about women being any kind of sexual beings at all.
Men were sexual and women could fulfill that.
Speaker 2: I think one of the ways that it was framed.
I don't know if this is religious in nature, but
it was women need a reason to have sex, but
men just need a place. I don't know if you
ever heard that one promise.
Speaker 3: I've heard that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, that was very much perpetuated by the purity culture
that I grew up, and it led to me being
in situations that were extremely abusive. And I hear from
women all the time that have been in these relationships
where they were being abused and it was very coercive.
And it's really sad how that plays out. But that's
what happens when you don't teach consent, when you don't
even value consent, and you have a god that doesn't
value consent, that plays out in every area of life.
Speaker 2: Is that the reason you got married so young? I mean, right,
it is better for someone to marry than to have
lust in their heart. I can't remember I'm paraphrasing the verse.
I'm sure I butchered it is that the reason you
were still a teenager.
Speaker 3: I was taught very early on that getting married would
be the first step in fulfilling my calling. That if
God was going to use me to do anything, I
basically needed to get married first. And I'm either under
my dad's rule or I'm under my husband's rule. And
so if you want to get out of the house,
if you want to have a career of any sort,
even if it's within the church, I was told I
was called to be a worship leader, so in order
to begin my ministry, I needed to come under the
covering of my husband. And I was also taught just
ridiculous things about like crushes are not okay. That's cheating
on your future husband. Dating is not okay. You're supposed
to court. So basically you're supposed to ask God, is
this who I'm supposed to marry. Turns out, when you're
a teenager and you have a crush on someone like
you're going to you're gonna think that that means God
wants you to marry that person, because why else would
you feel so strongly, And turns out, when that person
also has a big crush on you, they're going to
be like yep, God told me I'm supposed to marry
you too, So that was you know, it shows how
there's no conversations about picking a partner that you're compatible with.
There's nothing about like, hey, maybe get to know each
other for a couple of years and see how your
relationship dynamic plays out. There's no conversations about what kind
of life do you want to live together? Where do
you want to where do you want to live, what
do you want it? Do you want to have kids?
Do you not? Because your life is mapped out for
you and you're supposed to just follow that and basically
go under someone else's covering on that journey. And I
was very independent. I wanted to be independent, so I
was like, I guess that means I'm supposed to get
married young. And I had parents and religious leaders telling
me they felt God was calling me to get married
young because I was so mature for my age, which
that's just I was the oldest child in a pastor's family.
That was just trauma playing out.
Speaker 2: No, that's it's a great excuse to you know, the
Lord is saying that I need to that we should
not see each other because he has other plans for me.
And it's kind of an ingenious way out or how
creepy is that to say God told me I'm your destiny,
Because what is the supposed part ander's supposed to say
to that, if they don't agree to be your partner,
what they're violating what God wanted? It seems like kind
of a scamp. Purity culture exists in many forms, but
it certainly exists within the church. I'm going to ask
Promise about her experience with true love weights and purity culture. Next,
speaking here with Promised Backland, who is an exvangelical and author,
did you take the True Love Weights abstinence pledge when
you were young?
Speaker 3: Yes, I had a ring.
Speaker 2: Would you describe it? For everybody? I set you up?
But I didn't describe it? What's true love weights?
Speaker 3: Sure? True love weights for me. I remember hearing about
this first from Rebecca Saint James, who was a famous
Christian artist at the time. She was kind of supposed
to be like the Christian Alanis morseet slash Britney Spears
slash you know, Christina Aguilera. She was supposed to, you know,
take on that role. And I was obsessed with her,
and so she had this song. I think it was
called I Will Wait or something like that, And the
whole teaching was basically that we are called to save
ourselves for marriage. For some that meant just virginity. For me,
I was taught that meant saving myself in every way.
No hand holding, no kissing, no crushes. I was supposed
to basically act as though I was married to someone already,
even though I wasn't in a relationship. So I was
supposed to to behave at all times and not let
my heart wander, not have physical contact, not even be
alone in a room with a boy, because that could
lead to who knows what. And so what we had
were these rings, and mine my ring specifically said for
you I wait, because when I got married then we
had it engraved with for you I waited. We just
added the D on to the end. And that was
supposed to be like some romantic thing. But I look
back now and I think it is so creepy that
they had a bunch of twelve year old girls walking
around wearing rings to signify, to give off the message
that we were sexually pure and waiting on our husbands.
Speaker 2: I did a speech about purity culture where I showed
examples of these, talk about creepy wedding ceremonies where dads
would take twelve year old girls in tiny wedding dresses
and they would bring them into a ballroom and they
would exchange a promise ring where the dad says, you
are now essentially married to dad because you are going
to keep yourself pure. So you're promising Dad and you're
promising God that you won't have sex. And these little
minnows with wide eyes in wedding dresses are nodding and
crying and saying yes, I promise not. And of course
this teased them up for years, perhaps a lifetime of
sexual disc function. You know, they're wrestling with desire, you know,
what they want, what they were inclined to do. They
don't understand, and they feel terrible about. Welcome to fundamental religion, right,
Welcome to dogmatism in the faith.
Speaker 3: Yes, I remember growing up and naturally having crushes on people.
I mean, that happens, and I would never talk to
a parent about it because I was I had already
been programmed to feel shame about that, that that was
something wrong with me, that I was supposed to reserve.
Those sorts of feelings of affection for my future husband,
and so I would have a journal, and I would
you know, right in there about a crush. And I
remember one time one of my parents coming across it
and confronting me, and I remember at that time feeling
like I had done something so horrible, so evil, and
so wrong. But if I had just been in a
healthy household where we could talk about crushes and stuff,
I don't think I ever would have gotten married. The
first time I would have understood that you can date,
I would have been like, oh sucks, I don't want
to spend any more time with him. And instead, you know,
you're taught to be, you know, to feel shameful for
very basic, natural, normal, innocent little things like a crush.
Speaker 2: I love the fact that on the line, especially when
guys call and mansplain religion, God, spirit's faith, et cetera
to you. I don't know what you were like earlier,
but you take no shit. I mean you're not a
jerk about it, but I mean you shut him down
and say, oh, hell no, you're not going to talk
to me that way. And so there must have been
the seeds of that young I mean, did that manifest
it mean, did you have take no shit moments even
when you were a submissive woman in the faith?
Speaker 3: I think so. I mean I was still much more submissive,
but it would reach a point my tolerance would finally
hit a point where I couldn't anymore. Like I said,
when I got a divorce. I think some of the
seeds of that. I actually think we're planted from my mom,
who was a pastor and that was frowned upon in
a lot of circles and watching her kind of try
to come into her own and I just felt so
bad for her because she was never fully taken seriously,
and you know, as a teenager, i'd feel kind of embarrassed, like,
you know, like maybe we shouldn't take my mom seriously,
like this internalized misogyny. And over the years I've now
replayed all of that, and I just my heart breaks
for her that she was fighting for her equal rights
basically within the church and had to work so hard
to just get the basic little you know, just to
be able to share a message on a Sunday morning.
And so I think that little part of me was
always there, But once I hit my thirties, I really
stopped giving a shit. I don't care anymore the whole.
I think evangelicalism also programs women to be these kind
of pick me where you want to make men happy
and think that you're cool and you want men to
like you, and that somehow is the best thing that
could ever happen to you if you have the approval
of a man. Once you go through the process of
completely losing your faith and starting your life over again,
where everybody hates you, including men and women in your life,
you kind of like the exposure therapy is just like, ugh, Actually,
I don't have to care what other people think. This
is my life, and if I want to say some say,
I'm going to say it. If i'm if somebody is
mistreating me in a conversation, if they're not letting me speak,
if they are accusing me of something, if they're lying
about something, I'm going to say something. And I wish
I would have been more like that earlier on, because
I definitely let a lot of things slide. So probably
what's happened is I'm now speaking up for the part
of me that couldn't speak up all those years.
Speaker 2: And you're probably hearing from a lot of women and
men who were in a similar position, right, submit, obey,
don't trust your own mind, trust not in your own understanding,
defer d woman's shame, all that, And then they get
into your story, your book, etc. And then the feedback
comes in. You want to talk about that before I
let you go.
Speaker 3: I've been loving the feedback on the book. I was
so nervous to put it out because, you know, you wonder,
is this going to come across the way that I
intended it to. But the feedback has been just continually
people saying thank you so much for validating my experience,
or thank you so much for educating me on what
people are going through that grew up differently than me.
And more than anything, what I've really loved is a
lot of people have reached out saying that they just
went ahead and bought another copy to gift to a
family member to help them better understand their journey and
their process and the religious trauma that they've experienced. So
I'm very grateful that that is the message that's coming
out of all of this. And then it's been a
helpful tool to people already to communicate what they've experienced.
Speaker 2: You release it on in the wild and you just
think that's going to happen well with the am. I
loved that. I saw one single star Amazon review by
someone who is condemning your understanding of things, and it
was obvious they had not read the book, but they
knew it deserved one star. Those are always fun.
Speaker 3: I love it. I think that's an indicator that I'm
doing something right. If you feel the need to go
ahead and leave me one star and say that I
am destroying hope, I think is what they said, and
you know, saying that I'm talking about other stuff, and
then I am. If you have to write a review
on my book without reading it, I've done something really shit.
Speaker 2: Let's put that on the promo page, Promise Backland author,
expangelical destroyer of Hope. It just makes you sound badass.
Speaker 3: I can't bring Satan too. That one's come up.
Speaker 2: Agent of Satan. Yeah, I get that. Like I post
something and it requires five ten minutes of your time,
people will not even bother watching it, and they'll tell
you that at the beginning, I didn't even click play,
but I know he's wrong. And that tells you the
difference between someone who wants to be right or someone
who wants to simply be proven right, and there's a
big difference right. Promise Backland, author of the new book
Gospel of Lies, Surviving and Resisting Evangelical Extremism. I'm so
happy for you. Congratulations. It is a well written book.
And I'm not saying I'm supposed to say it because
we're friends, but it's good. I mean the way you
lay it out, it's in every person language, it's relatable,
and I think it's enlightening. A lot of people don't
get it. They don't know what it's like behind the walls,
behind closed doors, this alternate reality, and you paint it
in full living color. It's just so good. Congrats and
all success promises.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Follow for Thinking Atheists on Facebook and Twitter. A complete
archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and t
shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo, links to atheist pages
and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events and conventions.
Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.