Deconstructing from Religion is Shit2TalkAbout S3 EP 7
“ I wish that somebody would have encouraged me to ask more questions and I hadn’t been so afraid to question things.”
Transcript
Jenn: Hello. Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to another episode of Shit You Don't Want to Talk About, please welcome Tai. And what shit do you want to talk about today, Tai?
Tai: I want to talk about deconverting from Christianity.
Jenn: And that is quite a big topic. Can you tell us a bit about what that means to you and who you are, how you, how you got to this point of the shit you want to talk about?
Tai: Yeah. You know, after spending about 30 plus years wrapped up, diehard Christianity, um, I walked away, um, from it and it's been a 20-year journey to really do the work in and really reconnect. with myself and with my own spirituality. And now I am pretty excited about helping other people who are finding their own spiritual path and finding their own spiritual.
Jenn: Thank you. And where to start, because I know before this, we were talking about a lot of different ways we could take this. I, I am curious because this is a question that I have been asked before as well. What is the difference between religion and spirituality?
Tai: Oh, wow. Um, you know, religion to me is based on, uh, a man-made structure, dogma, belief system, and it usually has some form of organization, some form of hierarchy, um, that's very much man-based.
Tai: Right. We put this structure in place. We put these people in place that we are a religion. We are a group. We have rules. We have regulations. You got to follow it to be part of this religion. And I don't think that spirituality has religion, right? Spirituality is above and beyond a man-made rule or way of being and way of thinking.
Tai: And you got to do it this way. You got to follow these rules. That's not spirituality to me. Spirituality for me is really being able to connect with our own sense of the divine, the creator, whatever you want to call it. But I believe that there's something in us and through us. Do I have all the answers?
Tai: Absolutely not. What I do know for sure for me is that Christianity is not the answer to spirituality.
Jenn: That hits home for me. And I, I know I mentioned it to you, but, uh, on season one, we did an episode called the, with the host of the cult of Christianity and went into more, he studied a lot, uh, um, he studied theology.
Jenn: Theology? No.
Tai: You got it right. Yeah.
Jenn: Okay. Uh, and the history of, um, religion and what he was planning on becoming a pastor and we went a lot more into what went into religion to, and a lot more about the, uh, colloquialism, colonialism, colonization. And those types of things. And I. And so I don't want to spend too much time on that.
Jenn: And anyone listening, if you want to go check it out, we'll put it in the show notes, but one thing that even before this. I mentioned, and for our listeners, as a heads up, I am not always the best at my calendar. I have a very busy calendar, but I'm not always the best and I forget when things start. And then I turn my phone on, do not disturb, because I get too many notifications and then I forget that I had an appointment.
Jenn: It doesn't work very well. And I was late to the intercall with Ty and I'm So used to being reprimanded on like, why am I wasting time? Or like, uh, why am I wasting God's time in those types of things? And Tai was so kind and gracious that it made me think of a question that we talked about previously was what does Christianity and fear-based religions do to people?
Jenn: Could you go a bit into that?
Tai: You know, I'll, I'll. The first thing that comes to mind is my experience with my daughter, which kind of spawned, you know, this, this journey, um, at the time, she was maybe about four or five years old and, um, no, not four or five, she's maybe around seven or eight years old, and I had taken her to a church.
Tai: Now, before this, though, before she was born, I had thrown away all my Bibles. Right. And I'm talking about, I had like five or six different Bibles. I had Thomas Concordia's chain reference Bibles that were, you know, this is how you look up the Hebrew words and the Greek words and you really get into the meaning of the Bible.
Tai: Like I was like deep into it. I had hundreds of books. Charles Stanley, you know, all these guys, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oswald Chambers, I got this huge library of Christian books. And I got rid of all of it. And I said, I really want to know you for myself. That was my simple print started me on this journey.
Tai: Um, and so even though I had stepped away from church services, I took my daughter because I'm like, okay, well, I need to kind of give her something. Right? Because you don't want spiritual vacuum for kid, but I take it into this church and these people were screaming and shouting and jumping and my daughter's face was terrified, like, pure terror and I took one look at her and I said, we've got to go.
Tai: And here's what I realized. I'd grown up in such a fear of religion, right? If you don't believe you're going to go to hell, the devil is out to get you. And you know, you got to stay freed up and you know, you don't want to do the wrong thing because you don't want to, you know, lose your salvation. You don't have all those things, all this fear of God is a, you know, he loves you, but you got to follow the rules.
Tai: And it had been so much fear. And in that moment, I realized I don't want my daughter to know. God from a place of fear, but I'd spent so much of my life that way. And, you know, just realizing how much of what we grew up with in terms of Christianity, in terms of church was based on fear. You know, you don't want to go to hell.
Tai: You don't want people to disapprove. You don't want to get judged. You don't want people to be mad. You don't, it's don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. And I think that takes a toll on so many people's self-esteem. It takes a toll on how we really connect with who. We think created us and I'll never forget this, Jen.
Tai: Um, you know, one day I was meditating slash praying, you know, I didn't have a word for it at the time and I heard as clear as day. What if we've never seen you as anything but hope and the waterworks just came because what I grew up with in that fear-based tradition was. You're, you were born as sinner.
Tai: You know, you're unholy, you're unworthy. You're not right unless you believe in God and then he takes away all your sin. Without that, you're nothing. And that's what I believed about the person that created me, that I was created. This is this sinner, this. That's how I came into the world. And I was just so unworthy.
Tai: And the minute that perspective shift about what if we've never seen you as anything at whole? And I thought to myself, could you imagine what women, what people would be like? If they had a perspective that whatever created them only ever saw them as something that was home, never saw them as less than, never saw them as unworthy, never saw them as sinners that need to be saved by grace and sacrifice, would, how would we live?
Tai: How would we be? And that to me is a difference between this fear-based thing where I've got to get it right, I've got to do this, I've got to work, I've got to, I want to be saved, I've got to, as opposed to, I was created divinely, and I'm seen as whole. And how would we walk and how we live and how we be if we kept that perspective?
Jenn: Damn. I'm a little stuck on which, which way to ask questions on this. It's. So much of what you mentioned really hit me in. a big part of what I've had a hard time deciphering about what to do with a podcast of I had like doing the previous episode like I talked about earlier and now this is a lot of it does have to deal with my own journey because I'm like, what if I have somebody from Um Islam, uh on the show.
Jenn: Um And someone who's Islamic and being able to talk about being Muslim. And then what if I have somebody that's Jewish on the show and what? I've come to realize is a big reason why I'm more interested in that was because I've met people like This is definitely an overgeneralization and there aren't Not all and by any means, I wouldn't say all Christians are bad and vice versa.
Jenn: All other religions aren't all good but my overall experience of these people have been and I've really struggled with the fact that I've never, growing up, I was always like, you have to go to church. Like I was told that you have to go to church. You're going to be in trouble. Like you have to, in the religion I was in, um, did tithing.
Jenn: So you have to pay your tithing. If you don't pay your tithing, like you're going to go to hell. Like you're not going to go to XYZ. You're not going to get everything. And then I would meet these other people from other religions that were like, yo dude, you want to talk about it? Cool. Whatever, whatever you want to talk about.
Jenn: I look great. And they, they would have these, yes, they might be more, uh, complex practices, meaning that there might be more steps than I was used to and. At growing up in Christianity, yet they would be like, so accepting of themselves doing their what they did for religion and still accepting me as I was not trying to make me be what they do in religion.
Jenn: And I was like, wow, what is this? That's why I'm what you're not going to like force me and guilt me into going to church with you. What, what, and something that you, you called on, on, I, I loved how you, um, talked about what if we were just whole and it, for myself experiencing talking to these other individuals who just saw me as whole, like I'm my own human, I can do what I want and it's not going to, the Holy Spirit isn't going to leave me if I do too many things wrong.
Jenn: You mentioned, uh, praying or your meditation and then coming to this fact of like what our question of what if we were just whole, how did you start distancing yourself from the, the day in day out that a lot of religions are? Because we, we talked a bit about the, the free time. Yeah. And as much as, yes, I think there's, uh, more time available, uh, when we take something out of our lives, but also changing that mindset to being okay with not being as, for myself, a lot of it was like almost codependent.
Tai: You know, yeah, when I was in college, you know, I clung to Christianity. Partly out of fear. Well, actually a lot out of fear because I didn't know what else, you know, to do. But that was a time when my calendar was most booked. I was in college for five years. It was a school that had a five-year kind of program.
Tai: So it wasn't like I was just kidding around or something like that in college. But the entire five years, I did not attend a single party other than the orientation welcome event. I was in college for five years in Philadelphia, and my life was Sunday morning church service, most often a Sunday afternoon church service.
Tai: You know, Bible study on Tuesday, choir rehearsal on Wednesday, gospel choir and the white Christian fellowship on Thursday, the black Christian fellowship on Friday, Saturday was choir rehearsal, um, and that was my life for about five years when I was in college. That's all I did. Uh, you know, outside of school and work.
Tai: Um, and when I stopped that. you know, a lot of my time, a lot of my time was mine again. But there was also a tremendous sense of isolation because I've spent so much time in that community with those people. Um, and so now I was, I didn't have that anymore. And I think that's one of the hardest things. If you spent a lot of time in a church, in a community where all of your relationships or the majority of your relationships are based on those people, and then you step away from it, it's.
Tai: It becomes very isolating and it becomes very lonely. Um, and so I do remember that period of time where it was just. You know, I spent a lot of time by myself thinking and rethinking, and I went through a really, really bad state of depression, um, you know, and trying to figure things out and not having answers, not having people to talk to, because not only were my friends, not only were my friends, uh, you know, Christians in church, but my family, you know, um, my mom, you know, Um, and her five sisters.
Tai: My grandmother was an evangelist. My grandfather was a deacon. So, I mean, I grew up when I say I grew up church. Um, my family was church. Like, I cannot remember a single family wedding where there was alcohol and dancing. Yeah, we, we just didn't do that because it was a godly thing to do. Right. And so that's the, that's, you know, kind of how I grew up.
Tai: And so, um, that isolation, when you don't believe that anymore, when you choose to walk away from that, um, it was really hard thing to do, but I'm so glad that I made that decision.
Jenn: When you started to stop going to these events, did you Slowly start going away from them, like one by one stopped showing up? Or was it like you gave an almost like an announcement? Like this isn't your thing anymore?
Tai: No, I didn't give an announcement at first. And I remember I had stopped going to things and there were a couple of young The young women that I had gone to college with, and we also gone to the same church that came to talk to me about, you know, you know, you should really be involved in this and you should come back and don't do this and don't do this.
Tai: And I just kind of gave them the right act like, you know, I've been struggling with certain things for this amount of time for these years, and you never came to talk to me about the things that I was struggling with. But when I stopped going to church, this is what you come and talk to me with. You want me to come back to your services and come back and be a part of your team.
Tai: But all the things that I've been dealing with, they're working through. You never want stop to have a conversation with you about that. And I still remember that like right now, like I remember how angry I was that it was more of a concern about the ministry And, oh, you need to be here because you're, you know, you, you know, we're concerned about your soul.
Tai: I'm like, I've been showing up every Sunday, you know, depressed and dealing with stuff. And you were never concerned about my soul as long as you saw me leading worship or on stage or doing the things that you, you know, the church wanted me to do. Nobody was ever concerned about that. But now because I'm not showing up, you know, you're concerned, you know, and there were, there was so much anger about that.
Tai: It was my family was a little bit more, you know, Um, you know, how can I say it? It was it was subtle and not subtle. One of the things that I did was I actually moved away. I moved to a whole different geography. Um, yeah, and part of it was because I, um, I needed to have that separation. I couldn't be who I couldn't be.
Tai: I couldn't become anything else as long as my family saw me as a B or C. Um, and so that distance. You know, you know, kept me from some of it, right, you know, cut me from some of the questions or those kind of things because I wasn't going to the same church because I couldn't geographically go and show up.
Tai: You know, so that gave me a little more space with that.
Jenn: We had a two-part episode with, um, Todd Libby, and he, he talks about how having to change his complete community because he was recovering from being an alcoholic. And it's interesting hearing that as well, like having to disassociate from communities in general that are unhealthy for us, having to like possibly physically move to get out of it.
Jenn: I, I am really curious because this is something that I've heard a lot of people, I could say dabble. In Christianity, uh, for the band, for the choir, for music in general, were you able to find that kind of community at least to be able to fulfill the, the music side of things outside of church?
Tai: Um, you know, it never really was about the musicality of anything for me.
Tai: It was the fact that I was leading worship. You know that I was, you know, corralling people, you know, me being part of like the discipleship team and that kind of stuff. It was it was never about the music for me, you know, so that didn't I didn't need that part of the community. I didn't miss that part of anything.
Tai: You know, that makes sense. Yeah. And at some point, and at some point, though, what I realized was the music was really more about the emotion and the some to some degree kind of like the brainwashing, you know, with things. And so that would have what happened is that became an immediate turnoff. To me, because I realized that we're seeing these songs and we're attributing this worship and it's all, um, a lot of it is an attempt to get the dopamine rush, right?
Tai: To get that emotion flowing. And you do feel something when you sing because music has that ability and we attribute that ability to God. But the reality of it is, you could be in a hip-hop club dancing and have the same kind of emotional connection experience to a song that you do in a church. Same thing.
Jenn: Yeah, and you going through this, it's, it's always interesting, uh, recording these episodes because I'll, I'll have, like, people are talking, I'm like, Oh shit, I just remembered something that I wasn't planning on remembering. Uh, there, there was a time where I lived with some family and they did definitely get me out of a really hard spot that, but to live with them, I was required to go to church and accept Jesus.
Jenn: And I ended up going to a, the church I found was a non-denominational and it had, you know, the music and the band and I never felt so lonely in a sea of people. Nobody knew I existed. Nobody ever acknowledged my existence. Nobody. And I went there for almost a year.
Tai: Wow.
Jenn: And it was one of the loneliest.
Jenn: Things I had ever done and I'd always hear people say that they Love church and they always wanted to go and I'm like, you know, what? It's not it's not my cup of tea. It's a…when I went through some abuse as a kid, I even told church members and they ignored it We're yeah, it's it's It's something that I, I personally want people to hear about how you started deconverting and things because to me it was always like a, I never really much liked religion and it was pretty easy for me to be like, nah, I'm too good with religion.
Jenn: Goodbye. Um, but for others, they go through these experiences and they, they don't know where to When I, I remember instances of, um, if girls didn't trust dress modestly, and this happens outside of religion as well, but it was specifically like if young men made advances, it was still blamed on the women, even if they were completely modest.
Jenn: And I am, I'm curious on you learning to, uh, you went a little bit into like how this. affected those around you with, um, some people trying to come up and save your soul and, you know, going to, uh, moving away to detach a bit from your family doing this. But what was the dynamic in your family when they realized you weren't going back?
Tai: Um, I think by this point I had become a little bit of a black sheep in my family. You know, we, we, we had, I had some, I had a lot of questions. And, you know, I had a lot of anger because I wasn't getting answers to the questions. Um, and it wasn't just about Christianity, it was about a few things that were happening, and that had happened in, you know, my family.
Tai: And, um, so, it wasn't, how can I say it? Um, there wasn't like this big come to Jesus moment for me. You know, with my family in terms of you don't believe anymore. Um, because I just, I just had had enough conversations that they kind of just started to know that, you know, she's not, you know, she's not doing a thing and nobody bothered me.
Tai: However, I do have a family member. Um, I have a little brother. Um, my brother is a Grammy-nominated Christian hip hop artist. Um, who has preached all over the world, and I'm talking like, from Australia to, you know, Indian, Native American reservations, right? Um, but preached all over the world. Written books was in graduated from Bible college and while he was in Bible college that led to him deconverting and you know, and that really shook my family because you know, when I would, when we would go, you know, and have family dinners, you know, we'd have family Christmas and family Thanksgiving and family Easter dinners and those kinds of things.
Tai: He was the one that everybody would look to to pray over the food. Right. Because he's the, you know, he's just doing so much of God's work and, oh, you know, you're so this and you're so that, and they had a lot of esteem for him. Um, and so when he stepped away, that created a lot of really interesting conversations.
Tai: Um, and it's interestingly enough, because I de converted first and I, and at some point knowing that the work that he was doing and knowing the ministry that he was in, I was hesitant to talk about it. In public like spaces like on Facebook and those kinds of things because I didn't want his followers to think that his sister was like this heated.
Tai: Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so it was, it was really interesting, you know, when, you know, and I did a whole podcast, you know, with him, cause he, he actually has a podcast and it's a great resource for anybody looking to, you know, to have, um, on their own journey of deep conversion because it specifically focuses on that topic.
Tai: Um, and so. But he says, you know, he got to a point where we would have these conversations and I had no idea that he was deconverting during this time, but we would have these really intense conversations that he said at some point he got to a place where he just could not bullshit me. He stopped trying to tell me these answers that he had had, you know, learned in, you know, in school or that, you know, he would give to other people because he was like, you know, I can't do that to her.
Tai: It doesn't, the answers that I'm giving her don't make sense. Um, and so watching him go through this, you know, has been really interesting because so many people, man, I listened to your music and I became a Christian because of you, I followed because of you, I read your
Jenn: books.
Tai: Yeah. And he had such a heavy heart.
Tai: Like he toiled with this for like years, like, I'm talking like five, six, seven years, um, because of that. Because he, you know, he felt the weight of how many people he had brought into this. And now knowing what he believed about it, he felt responsible, you know, for all those people that he had brought into something that he no longer believes.
Jenn: You said that your family had a hard time and had a lot of conversations around that because of him deconverting. And how did that. affect you and your relationship with your family if he was It almost makes it sound like he was almost the golden child and having that fall.
Tai: Well, I think if people were disappointed, you know, and whether it's in my family or people that knew him and kind of grew up with him, you know, I'm praying for you.
Tai: I'm praying that God still loves you. And a lot of those kinds of things, which, you know, is, is kind of, is very annoying to say to a person who has. Declare that they no longer believe in that. You didn't now tell them I'm praying for you. And, you know, God still loves you. That's very annoying. So, you know, for those of you that are listening, if, you know, somebody who's going through that, please don't continue to to say those things to them because it's not helpful at all.
Tai: But, you know, the conversations. You know, there was some disappointment and there was a lot of questions. Um, and, and I will say this, that the conversations that my brother and I had started to have, we actually were able to pull that into our family. Um, you know, I share a lot about my journey and a lot about things, you know, on social media, and I'm a big believer of practicing what I teach.
Tai: And, uh, maybe about a couple of months ago now, I had, we have a family chat. Right. Just for family. You know, we always think about birthdays and you know, who's going to cook for Easter and all that kind of stuff and game night. And, uh, you know, I wrote in there, I say, you know, I experienced something when I was younger, right?
Tai: Has some abuse, you know, stuff. So we can share that, you know, kind of connection. I said, I experienced this and I'm still trying to navigate my way through this. I needed to say this here with you because it is ridiculous to me that I can talk about some of these things on social media, but I cannot talk about it with this family that we have these amazing gay nights and we have these amazing dinners, but I cannot talk about the things that matter.
Tai: I don't think that's right. Um, and. And starting that conversation in that family thread, I was expecting the worst because like I said before, I've probably been a black sheep. She's always going to call it out or she's always going to, you know, say something. She can't let things rest, you know, kind of thing.
Tai: But it ended up being something where my brother and I both got the opportunity to not let her. Family sweep it under the Christian rug. That's why I gave it to Jesus. I prayed about it and da da da da da. No, no, no, no, no. This is a song that you sweep under the Christian carpet. This is something that's real that we've not talked about.
Tai: We've not addressed it. And I had And people who had been quiet and cousins actually start sharing about things in their experience. And so it turned out to be really, um, healing spot. And I'm not saying that, you know, um, you know, it was like people deconverting or people come to Jesus all over the place.
Tai: It wasn't anything like that, but I say this to say, I'm sharing that to say that. Being able to have those hard conversations about de-converting, um, about why we're choosing X, Y, and Z, about what we need, we need to be able to have those conversations with the people that matter most to us. So whether it's de converting or anything else, um, if you're trying to live authentically and you're trying to really heal, but you cannot have those deep conversations with the people that matter most to you, That is a really, really hard place to be in.
Tai: And it takes guts and it takes courage. Um, but it was well, well worth it for us to have those conversations. And continue to have those conversations.
Jenn: Thank you for going into that. I, I realize that I, I don't think I asked my last question exactly the way I wanted to. Yet, also got a good response from it.
Jenn: I'm an only child and I've always been the one that I'm like if my family and I can't be respectful to each other and respect each other's like views. I'm like, okay, we're like, that's just who I've been my entire life. And that's not something that a lot of people willing to do, want to do anything like that.
Jenn: I, in a more direct way of asking this, because you were the first one to deconvert, did your family blame you for your brother? And that's, that's cool.
Tai: No, no, not at all. Um, you know, not, no, not, not at all because they watched him go through it. You know, they watched him go through seminary. Um, and, um, you know, my brother, he did a really good job of having those small conversation, having those conversations with people, like one on one conversations with people and kind of sharing about where he was and what his journey was.
Tai: You know, and I, quite honestly, I don't know if I ever officially came out to my family as deconverted. What more, what more the real thing that happened was I was so geographically separated that they didn't know anything about my life. Okay. They didn't know anything about my life and you know, and except, and then when we would have conversations, I would kind of be like the, the, you know, the ant or the mosquito bite.
Tai: Cause when they would say something, I would question or challenge it. Oh, you should go, you know, that kind of thing. And, and they would probably want to leave the conversation alone. Um, and yeah, sometimes I would, you know, start a conversation because I did want to pick the scab of something that we needed to talk about as a family, but that was just more because I refuse to, I didn't like that.
Tai: I don't like the idea of not being able to be who I want to be. And I've worked really hard. And again, if I can't be all of who I am with the people that matter to me most and what am I doing? And that was just, that was just how I decided to live and how I decided to be.
Jenn: Thank you for going into that. I,
Jenn: you had conversations with yourself and you had conversations with your family and this might be taking us a bit backwards, um, to a previous part in the conversation. Are there, what questions did you start to ask yourself and like, what were some of the feelings that came up during this journey?
Tai: There was a lot of sadness and a lot of anger, you know, before I got to the place where I kind of threw out everything. I remember, um, in church and, you know, I've dealt with depression for years because there was abuse, there was trauma, there was all these things, um, you know, that, that weren't being addressed.
Tai: that, you know, were never being addressed or talked about or dealt with is, of course, you're going to have depression. Of course, you're going to have, you know, things that trigger you and go on, you know, and do those things. And so dealing with that. But I remember I got to a point where I'm looking at the women in the church that was apart.
Tai: And every single Sunday, it was the same thing. Women, the same women coming to the altar, coming up for prayer. God, please pray for my husband. My husband's not saved. My children are safe and they're cutting up and they're, you know, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. Please help me with a job.
Tai: Help me get a car, help me get a husband, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me every single Sunday. And it got to the point where I said, are you kidding me? If we're coming to this altar every single Sunday, we're getting people laying hands on us, people putting oil on our heads, you know, we're, you know, dancing and shouting and having that emotional high that comes from being in one of those kinds of church services, but every single Sunday, nothing is changing.
Tai: This is ridiculous. And then I looked at my family. You know, and like I said, you know, on my mother's side, you know, five sisters, my grandmother was an evangelist. I mean, she was the vacation Bible school lady and, you know, friend, like long prayers and always Jesus this and Billy Graham and Jim Baker and Jerry follow.
Tai: I mean, she was. That was all I knew of her. And at the same time, when I looked at my family, out of those five siblings, five, well, six sisters, if you include my mom, and six siblings and 11 cousins, two marriages that are intact, and only one family that had kids while they were married. Everybody else, out of that whole gaggle, we've all had kids out of wedlock.
Tai: All the broken marriages and broken relationships, all kinds of things related to addiction and all kinds of stuff. And I, and I sat to myself and I said, so this is what all that prayer got my family. Oh, wow. Right. We've been doing this for how long? My grandfather was a mason in a baton in the baptist church.
Tai: My grandmother's an evangelist. She's got these long prayers. This is the result of that God you've been praying to for all this time.
Tai: I don't want that. I, there has to be something different. And that's what got me to that place of, I was so angry, right? We're putting all of our trust in you. We're doing all these things. And it's not bearing any result. It's not bearing any fruit. This cannot be real. I need to know for myself. And that's when I got rid of everything.
Tai: And that was my simplest prayer. I want to know you for I didn't know the youth that I was talking to. I just knew that there was something different than what I'd been exposed to. And that was, you know, that's what was what got me there. And then it became this anger. And then the more I thought about things and the more I read things, and the more I started looking at things from a logical perspective.
Tai: The more angry I got right, you know, and I had to, I had to really get in touch with, you know, allow myself to be angry, you know, like when I started looking at, you know, one of the examples I used to have this conversation with my mom and I know I used to torment her because she's such a believer. Like my mom, um, my mom to this day, I am, I'm 51.
Tai: My mom is 72 to this day. If there are more than five curse words in a movie, my mom will get up and walk out. Okay. We'll be sitting here as a family watching, you know, watching something. The fifth cuff word, she's going to go start cleaning something somewhere. You know, that's, you know, how she, how she's lived her life.
Tai: Um, and, you know, I said to her, you know, we had this conversation about Joe, but I don't know if you know the story of job in the Bible, you know, where, you know, Joe gets test gets tested, you know, because the devil comes and talks to God and says, Joe only worships you because, you know, you gave him all this stuff.
Tai: If you took all his stuff away, Joe would curse you. And so what does God do? He takes all job stuff away. And I'm not talking about like, just like houses. He like jokes, children are gone. Oh, wow. So he takes away all of his children. And I said to my mom, I said, but what about Joe's wife? She had absolutely nothing to do with this.
Tai: And now all of her children are gone. And I will never forget what my mom said. She said, yeah, but God gave him more children after that. I said, are you fucking kidding me?
Jenn: That's like taking you and your brother away and saying you'll have more.
Tai: Exactly.
Tai: Like she had nothing. Why would, why would you take her house away and her children away?
Tai: Why would you take everything away? Because the devil wanted to see if Joe would still worship you, but you're an all knowing God. Who already knows that he would what did you have to prove to the devil. And why would you take all of those, those lives away as if they were nothing to prove a point that you already knew the answer to.
Tai: And the fact that his wife's kids were now gone. Imagine grieving because I think he had like seven kids. So imagine you are now grieving seven children as a mother. And I said, that doesn't, that makes sense to you. God would be that way. How does that make sense? And so there's a bunch of stories like that.
Tai: When you look at the Old Testament that just don't make sense of a God who you say is loving. And a God who is all knowing and who is all powerful. And that's how he operates. So there was a lot of anger when I started looking at those stories and questioning like, I'm not buying that. That's not love.
Tai: Another, you know, example of that is the story of Abraham and, you know, when he takes his son, Isaac, and there's this, um, this gospel and going back to the songs. You asked me if there's a song that we used to sing about Abraham taking his son to the mountain. And that whole scenario is God tells Abraham to kill his only son, so he takes him to the mountain.
Tai: And as Abraham is getting ready to sacrifice and kill him, God provides a deer. That's caught in the bush. It says, okay, you don't have to do it. Just sacrifice the deer or, you know, sacrifice the thing that's in the bush instead. And all I could think about was, imagine you're the kid and you see your father like this because he's heard from God.
Tai: And I thought, I said, the kid would have nightmares. The kid would be traumatized by that. But that's the story we teach to talk about Abraham's faith. He trusted God so much. He was willing to take his kid and kill him. And just in the nick of time, God provided something else.
Jenn: Sounds like a master manipulator.
Tai: It's, it's, when you think about some of the stories that they tell us that makes this almighty God, it just doesn't make sense.
Jenn: Yeah.
Tai: It really doesn't make sense. So there was a lot of anger. Um, there wasn't as much confusion as much as there was anger and then there was sorrow. Because, okay, if I don't believe this,
Tai: what is there? You know? And I felt like I needed something to believe. Okay. I need a book, right? You can't do it without a book. You know, I remember the funny thing is, I remember when I first made that decision, um, and this was in Minnesota when I was living in Minnesota at this point, this was after the situation with my daughter at the church.
Tai: I hadn't left the church, but I hadn't left Jesus, so to speak. But by this time I had said, no, I'm not buying any of it. I don't want any of it at all. And somebody sneezed and I was like, what do I say? Right? What do I say? Who do I pray to? Now, you know, what do I do? Um, and so there was a lot of, there was a lot of me trying to figure things out, but I'll tell you this too.
Tai: There was a lot of peace and I did not expect that. Um, there are two situations where I got peace. So you mentioned this about, you know, your experience with, you know, Jesus and, you know, you gotta believe or you're gonna go to hell if you don't do X, Y, and Z. And so for a long time, forever, you know, at the time I was saved, you know, I would always think that if I did something wrong, or if I committed a sin, that meant that maybe I really wasn't saved.
Tai: So how many times did I keep going up to the altar asking for forgiveness? So I was really saved. I wouldn't have these thoughts. I was really saved. I wouldn't do X, Y, and Z. So I must not be saved enough. And when I, the day I gave away, I threw away all the Bibles and threw away all the books. That was the first time I did not have a single question about my spiritual health.
Jenn: How
Jenn: did you learn to trust yourself and trust the new feelings compared to the brainwashed feelings?
Tai: I kept looking for evidence. You know, I kept looking for evidence, um, and once you, and, and part of it is you really do have to let go of what it says. I wrote a whole, a poem about this. And one of the things that the, the Bible and that they teach you, and it, it, it literally says, you know, lean not to your own understanding.
Tai: Don't trust what you think. Die to yourself daily. Right? That's what we're taught. And once I took that out of the equation, okay, yeah, no, I'm, I'm going to lean to my understanding. And. I'm going to use my intuition. I'm going to use my common sense. And I'm going to take a look at the evidence. What does the evidence say?
Tai: You talked about, you know, the majority of Christian folks that you've encountered, and I think this is true for a lot of people. And I'll say, I can say this cause I was one of those people. I can't tell you how many people I judged, how many people I was harsh against because they did not believe as I believe.
Tai: I was telling someone this the other day that, um, when I was in college, I took a woman in religion class. Right. And I specifically took that class because I was going to tell those people about Jesus. Right. And I was so arrogant, and I was such an annoyance that the teacher actually told me, she said, if you just write a paper and not come back to class, I will give you a B.
Tai: Just don't come back to class. And of course, I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm going to show up in class because I've got something to say and right. I was so I know what that's like. And we're so judgmental. We're so critical. You know, everybody has to tow the line like we took the line you have to believe what we have to believe and we can't trust ourselves because we trust the book.
Tai: Let me trust all the other people that that were supposed to believe and follow to. And so it did take some time for me to trust myself but I just kept following the evidence. The second, you know, piece of evidence I had, I went to was then Buddhist service. And Jen, I kid you not, I was so prepared for, like, this guy to open lightning to strike because I was going to this Zen Buddhism and as a Christian.
Tai: Oh, my gosh, that's just, you don't do that. And I had another 1 of those experiences where I walked in and immediately. You're welcome. The most peaceful thing I ever experienced in a communal place. There was no, I didn't know anybody there. I didn't have any friends there. I just went to participate and experience it.
Tai: And the minute I was in that, you're welcome. And it was the most peaceful thing. And I had never experienced that kind of peace when I was in a Christian church. Never experienced that. And so I just kept looking for the evidence. I kept looking for the evidence in the people that I would talk to and experiences that I had in my own growth.
Tai: I just kept looking for that evidence and trusting that my fear was sincere. I want to know for myself and asking that question of I want to know for myself. That led me further and further away from everything that I grew up with. And I honestly know that my life is better for that. My daughter's life was better for that.
Tai: And the beautiful thing about it is that everybody that I'm connected to, they're better for it because I'm better. And I honestly believe that you know, that's something that, you know, Christianity teaches us that our purpose is to serve somebody else's purpose. Right. We're here for the glory of God.
Tai: We're here to glorify God. You're here to serve other people. And what that teaches us to do is that we never work on ourselves and we never get our own healing because we're so focused on serving other people. And I had an epiphany about maybe three years ago at this point where I realized that my, my, my main purpose is to be the become the best person I can be.
Tai: My main purpose is to become the highest version of myself because when I'm there, everybody wins. That's my purpose. Everybody around me wants me to do that work.
Jenn: You're,
Jenn: you're hitting home with a lot of this stuff and also putting words to so much of what I've struggled with, with putting words to. And these actually be, because I feel like so many of us, when you're in, we could say even fight or flight mode, you don't always know how to. Remember what it took to get through it or what these instances were or what these small moments are and telling somebody just do it because it's going to be better for you is not a way to get people to, you know, think for themselves and actually dig deeper and it's.
Jenn: There are words that I see as, yes, they are religious in origin, but oddly, I think not religious in, uh, regular vocabulary now. I say that as, and I, and this is something that I used to have a really hard time with of when I find out somebody is sick and I say I'm praying for them. It's an easy way to say, hey, you're in my thoughts you and something that is like more globally accepted and Saying bless you that totally makes me go I'm just gonna bless you that somebody has given you that you've survived your sneeze bless you on whatever bless you want to bless with and but it's interesting because When I say, I, I've used the term come to Jesus, I'm like, I'm not saying go be religious.
Jenn: I'm saying like, that is a really difficult conversation and you got to like, face yourself and face what's going on. And it's, it's been hard for me to always be okay with. These words still being around me and I know that we need to start wrapping up soon, but have you noticed you mentioned the bless you one when somebody sneezed, but have you noticed struggling with those words or do you notice those words when they're around you still?
Tai: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, I don't struggle with them. Um, as as much as I'm very mindful of what I say. You know, like if somebody posts something online, you know, and everybody's like, Oh, I'm praying for you. I will say, you know, I'm sending some, some, I'm sending some comfort your way, you know, I'm sending some healing energy your way.
Tai: Cause that's what I believe. I don't, I'm not going to, there's nothing for me to pray to for you, but I do believe that, you know, you could use some healing energy. You could use some comfort. Right now, you could use some, some thoughts of, you know, some thoughts of encouragement right now. So I'm going to send that to you.
Tai: And I'm very, I'm just very mindful of my words because I don't want to, I don't want to be inauthentic. You know, I don't want to just say it because this is what we're taught to say, but then I'm also mindful to know that everybody doesn't believe, you know, the way I believe. You know, so that's been the, you know, trying to be diplomatic and, you know, where they might say, well, how come you didn't say you're praying for me?
Tai: Well, I'm not praying for you. Right. But, but, you know, but I still want to, um, I still want to send, you know, something to you that I do believe in. Um, so that's probably been the, the, the way I've handled those situations. That makes sense.
Jenn: It does. It does. And thank you for going into that.
Jenn: Before I go, uh, start fully wrapping it up, um, is there anything you want to talk about that we missed?
Tai: Oh, um,
Tai: you know, one of the things, the reasons why I started talking about this more and more, um, is because We grew up with something, and I don't know if you've heard this phrase, you know, tell the truth, shame the devil, right? Um, and I, that's one of the things that started to bother me because telling the truth should never be about shame.
Tai: Telling the truth is about liberation and I wanted to encourage people and I want more of us to speak our truth because I think it can change and transform lives. It doesn't mean that everybody's journey and everybody's path is the same way, but it does mean. That we don't have to hold on to stories and narratives that don't serve us.
Tai: We don't have to hold on to stories and narratives that shackle us and keep us Keep us living less than what we're capable of. And that's what I feel like a lot of religion does, you know, religion and the hierarchy that we've been given, you know, a lot of it is very, very, very man made. And I, you know, and I, and I, I've learned to accept that the Bible is some really good literature.
Tai: It's really good stories. And it was humans at that time, writing about what they experienced and what they thought they were experiencing with the best That they had at that time. They didn't know any different. So they the stories and things that they had to make to make sense of their world. It fit then.
Tai: It does not fit now.
Jenn: Thank you for that. Um, I mean, what, one of the, the, the next parts and I feel like You're talking about changing our mindsets almost went into it, but do you have words of wisdom for our audience or something you wish you told yourself when that would have helped you get through this?
Tai: Yeah, ask more questions.
Tai: You know, I wish that somebody would have encouraged me to ask more questions. And I hadn't been so afraid to question things. You know, I spent so many years, um, you know, chastising and judging people who didn't believe the way I was and didn't believe the way I believed and who were sinners and going to hell.
Tai: And I wish I would have asked more questions. I wish I would have been more curious. Instead of criticizing or judging people and I really that that's a big piece of wisdom is to have more curiosity. And even now, you know, when I'm writing things and I'm sharing things and people don't agree with me, and there are people that are coming to my try to come to my rescue and say, well, that's not what time in and I responded to say, you know, I get it because I was where they were.
Tai: And if I believe like they believe right now, I'd probably have the same attitude. I'd probably have the same judgments. I'd probably have the same harshness. I'd probably be just as defensive as they are because my life is staked on this stuff, right? So I get that. So what I've learned is, and what I wish I would have learned earlier, was how to stay curious and how to have more compassion for people.
Jenn: I love that. And I, I love how you went into earlier about learning to trust yourself and when things felt right and being welcomed to do things. I, I was at a workshop once and someone mentioned there's a difference between
Jenn: I don't remember exactly how she said it, but, um, join us or you're welcome. Meaning like join is more of like a forceful thing where welcome leaves it to the opinion or the option of whoever is receiving it of the same with like giving something and offering something. Giving is like making them take it.
Jenn: Offering is giving them the choice. And that really hit me while you were saying that you were welcome somewhere because I was like, Oh, that, that does make such a big difference. And, and thank you for that. I, is there, uh, what resources do you have for the audience and how do people reach out to you?
Tai: Um, you know, the best way to reach out to me for, for this topic is to follow me on Facebook.
Tai: You know, I talk about a lot of this. They're talking about business up to, but I talk about a lot of this there. Um, and, you know, I've got some things that are in the works, but I do have two really good resources there from two sides of the same coin. Um, like I mentioned, my brother, um, he's actually written a book called Let There Be Gaslight.
Tai: Um, I watched him pour through 70 plus different books to really do research on, you know, taking apart the stories in the Bible and the history and the accuracy of things and really, really like do deep dives into it. And Let There Be Gaslight is. amazing at unearthing where the stories came from, where the history came from, like really pulling things apart.
Tai: So that's a resource. If you're that kind of person who you need the statistics, you need the science behind it, right? You need that kind of proof to kind of, you know, make you question or to inspire you to look at things differently on the opposites. On the other side of that coin, I recommend Jim Palmer.
Tai: Um, you know, I, you know, I've recently come across his work, um, but the short story about Jim Palmer, he has a, um, you know, he's on Facebook too. Both of these guys are on Facebook. Brady Goodwin's my brother. He's on Facebook, but to be gaslighted. And then Jim Palmer, he was a pastor at a pretty big church and he walked away from it.
Tai: And he's got a lot of writings that compassionately talk about, um, like some of the things that he's written recently talk about, you know, why Jesus wouldn't be a Christian. Right, or how the things that we teach children under the tone of Christianity, how that does more harm than good. And he's got this great compassionate, but very thoughtful way to approach the teachings that we've been given in the doctrines that we've been given as a religion.
Tai: And so, like I said, there are two sides of the same coin. One is this very scientific and logical, and one is this very heartfelt and logical still, but very heartfelt and spiritual path. And I think both of those roads kind of get you to the same place where we think we've got to start asking some different questions.
Tai: And we got to start saying, yeah, that answer just doesn't make sense. And we've got to give ourselves permission to do that.
Jenn: Thank you. And I know I'll be definitely checking out those resources. And, uh, what is something that you're grateful for?
Tai: Oh, um, I am grateful for, you know, the first thing that came to mind are the folks that love me.
Tai: You know, I am so grateful to be loved and to be accepted, um, by amazing people. Not everybody gets to have that, you know.
Jenn: You're right, and I would say something that I'm grateful for is finding out that I'm not alone, feeling that religion, Didn't serve me that it, it really harmed me and hearing that I'm not alone is something that I'm really grateful for.
