In this episode, we dive into the not-so-wonderful world of Youth With a Mission, aka YWAM. We chat with our pal (and Lindsay’s sister), D.L. Mayfield about the history and horrors of the cult-like organization that began with one white guy's vision of young people sweeping the globe for Jesus. (Totally not creepy, right?)

Fast forward a few decades and YWAM is one of the largest missions organizations on the planet, with 1100 locations in 180+ countries and over 18,000 (unpaid!) staff.

It should come as no surprise to our listeners that YWAM is super problematic.. We get into all the cultiest aspects of this organization - from their Discipleship Training School to the forced trauma bonding that they call “Plumbline”. YWAM’s entire model is recruiting young people - before their prefrontal cortexes are fully formed - and they make it VERY hard to leave. If you do manage to escape the cult of YWAM, chances are you’ll be left with zero real-life skills with a side of religious trauma. 

We’ll be back in a few weeks with a part 2 where we hear from friends and listeners about their about their firsthand encounters with YWAM. (Spoiler alert: the reviews aren't exactly glowing.)

Links

-Check out DL and Krispin Mayfield’s brand new project, Strong Willed (all about recovering from religious authoritarian parenting) -

-DL Mayfield on Instagram - @d_l_mayfield

-Tiktok - @dlmayfield

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In our latest episode we jump into the turbulent waters of gendered messages and purity culture with a critical eye on the Christian advice book, 'For Young Women Only'—or as we like to call it, “How to NOT Cause a Guy to Stumble.” Published in the early 2000s, this book perpetuates harmful beliefs about gender, sexuality, and the role of women in the church, echoing through youth groups and beyond.

We dissect the enforced performance of masculinity, the unjust objectification of women's bodies, and the dangerous overlap of rape and purity cultures that unjustly places blame on women. Our discussion goes deeper, challenging the control exerted over thoughts and visuals, the male gaze, and the relentless standards set by modesty teachings and visual temptations, all underscored by eyebrow-raising survey results from teenage boys.

This episode is an unflinching conversation about the impacts of sexual assault and harassment, underscoring the urgent need for autonomy, consent education, and a seismic shift in attitudes toward women's bodies and choices.

Get ready, Ghosties, to break free from the shackles of high-control religion. It's time to unravel the mess, advocate for bodily autonomy, and maybe, just maybe, start healing.

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What happens when a homeschooled horse girl feels “god put Africa on her heart?” Well. It could be a lot of things. In fact, your own fave Ghostie Hostie, Lindsay, was exactly this kind of girlie. And yet! Just as two paths diverge in a yellow wood, so do our choices take us to different places. Lindsay, for one, went on a medical mission to Uganda, wore scrubs, and - shockingly - didn’t perform a single medical intervention that would require training, certification, or licensure. 

For Renee Bach, the white missionary who is the subject of Savior Complex an HBO Original Documentary Series, she chose a path (hopefully) less taken and went full speed ahead providing services that were way beyond her training and competency - with dire results.

Join your thrilling throuple, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai, as they discuss the second half of the Max docuseries, Savior Complex.

Listen to Part One of our Recap Here

They get down and dirty into the accusations surrounding Renee as No White Saviors picks up momentum online, talk a whole load of shit about Renee’s doting mother, Laurie Bach, and wrestle with the centering of white voices and behaviors that are rife within this story (including ours!)

While it’s useful, at times, to wrap our minds around something by defaulting to narratives with good guys and bad guys (or…good homeschool horse girls vs bad ones?), real life is much more complicated than all that. What we end up with is a very gray story with a lot of problematic white women centering themselves in it. Which you can hear more of while your ghostie hosts do a little of that too, hopefully in a helpful way. 

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Just when you think you’ve had your fill of problematic white women, Renee Bach comes along. Look, your Murder of MILFs (hey! It stands for “Mom I’d Like to Friend,” get your head out of the gutter!) watched “Savior Complex,” a documentary detailing the ascent of a young missionary, Renee Bach and Serving His Children, the organization she founded and operated in Uganda. At the wise and totally reasonable age of 19, she discovered she had “a heart for Africa” and was called by God. 

What started out as a feeding program rapidly mushroomed into an unlicensed medical clinic. Renee herself, homeschooled horse girl with no medical training or credentials took it upon herself to conduct medical procedures on malnourished children with disastrous results. 

We watched this horror so you don’t have to! The docu-series is on HBO Max and is 3 episodes in total - in this episode, we tackle the first episode and part of the second. (Part 2 will be out soon!)

Know this: you’re going to need to gird your loins (or ears), because the conversation includes extremely ill and malnourished children, infant and child death, white supremacy, and Renée’s mom, Laurie Bach, who might be the biggest trigger of all…

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In this episode, Meg and Lindsay chat with Crystal Britt, a licensed clinical social worker and actual therapist about the famed book, ‘The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts’ by pastor (NOT therapist) Gary Chapman. We talk about how the Five Love Languages are reductive, gendered, and heteronormative and how there are many better resources for communication in relationships. 

Christians especially love this read and recommend the Five Love Languages as if the Lord himself wrote this book. Why is that? Welp, we get into it with the lovely Crystal Britt throughout this episode. (Spoiler alert: it’s the misogyny.)

Follow Crystal Everywhere@itscrystalbritt 

Podcast: Time To Lean

Recommended:

Bell Hooks:  All About Love 

The Gottman's:  7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work 

Dr. Rachel Vanderbuilt on TikTok - Queer Focus

Dr. Stan Tatkin:  Wired For Love

Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.:  Come As You Are & Come Together

Jessica Fern:  Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Marisa G. Franco PhD:  Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends

Fresh Starts Registry - A resource place to share your post-divorce needs

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Have you ever felt like you didn't have a voice? Or that you didn't feel safe to talk about your needs or interests in your relationships, workplaces, your home -- uh, church, maybe?

Well, today your favorite Apostolic Apostates, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai join forces with Meredith Holley of Eris Resolution to dig into the basics of Empowered Communication.

Learn how to find your voice, how high control religion taught us disempowered communication strategies, and get ready for some juicy gossip about how Meredith's first betrothal (at the age of 7) worked out.

Meredith is the cohost of The Empowered Communication Podcast, which focuses primarily on workplace communication. Meredith was also a civil rights litigator, expert shit talker, and - Oh! Also? This woman was raised in a cult, so she knows a thing or two about how to find yourself and speak your truth after high control religion.

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Happy New Year Ghosties! We're back with an update and then we're sharing one of our favorite episodes where we talk to DL Mayfield in the midst of their deconversion from Christianity and we reflect on what the impact is on kids like us raised in high control religion.

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What happens when you're deconstructing with your middle-aged mom friends...and you get to a point where you're like, cool, I'm no longer a part of this religion, but how do I live now?

Short answer: Howsoever you fucking want; but more specifically, it's something you get to work out with fear and trembling, just like you probably did with your own salvation.

Join your fave apostates as they discuss what this strange post-pandemic peri-apocalyptic year has wrought - at least at a micro-level.

🔍 Lindsay's Leap: From the tangled threads of faith, Lindsay's been unraveling a spirituality that's as authentic as her favorite pair of jeans. Spoiler: It's a perfect fit.

🌈 Sarai's Shift: Breaking free from a long-term relationship, Sarai embraced her full, fabulous queerness. It's a story of transformation, glitter, and growing into her own.

💫 Meg's Metamorphosis: God, the universe, and everything in between - Meg's been reshaping her beliefs and sexuality into a mosaic that's uniquely hers.

Be it laughter or lamentation, your hosts unwrap the lessons learned, hopes for the future, and the reality that sometimes...it's just gonna be dark for a while, even while you're living into your fullest, biggest self.

Dare to jump into the fray and reflect on the places you've been this year - and where you hope to walk in the coming journey around the sun.

If you're anything like the Unholy Trinity (Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai), you might have occasion to peel back layers on healing generational trauma, tap into your own power, and maybe even learning how and when to ask for help. Join with all Ghosties everywhere to co-create an inclusive community, dreaming up vibrant futures, and setting those oh-so-important boundaries.

Let's celebrate the journey of being wonderfully, messily human together.

#SelfDiscovery #FaithJourney #QueerPride #GenerationalHealing #HolyGhostingPodcast

Support Here

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It's beginning to look a lot like X-mas - you know, with the silver bells, the Santa at the mall, the carnage left behind when people utter the phrase "Happy Holidays..."

Your Bible Busting Besties, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai are joined by the man behind the myth, the legend, The Original Sinfluencer, Joshua Colburn. Get in on the delightful hangout and learn who *really* canceled Christmas (spoiler: The Damn Puritans, good lort, those people), why Bill O'Reillly should be crowned a patron saint of Evangelical Christianity, and get a little sample of what post-Evangelical holiday tunes sound like.

We all know Evangelical Christians are amazing at Scrooging away at everybody else's everything while claiming they are persecuted by the heathen masses. This is one space where they do it so extra well.

A Brief History of the War on Christmas, Alex Altman, Time Magazine, December 24, 2008

https://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868542,00.html 

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In honor of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and All the Buying Things Days from now until approximately December 25th, your Queen Ghosties, Lindsay, Meg, & Sarai bring you a deep dive into all things Christian bookstores, products, and marketing. They also take a perplexing look at why Christians are such brilliant capitalists whilst claiming they follow a broke carpenter who, apparently, "never asked for a raise" (listen if you want to be extra grossed out by what this actually means).

Bottom line: we get into what we thought and bought as young Christian babes. Hear how Lindsay worked in not one, but TWO Christian bookstores. Learn how Sarai does real time podcast research to confirm her suspicions that the White Jesus Gets Us (erm, "He Gets Us") ad campaign has something to do with politics (shockingly, it does!)...and enjoy as Meg reveals her strange and wonderful journey from coveter of "the hottest Bibles" to Christian Bookstore-eschewing crone.

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Just when you thought we were done with ghouls and horrors for the year, we're here to point out that the holidays are just around the corner...so beware! Because they love you, your terrific trio of hosts asked Dr. Laura Anderson back to give us all some tools to use at the dinner table and beyond.

Dr. Laura has an array of ways to handle family communication around challenging, triggering, and re-traumatizing topics, so you can come home whole and unscathed. Everybody can pick up some great strategies for maintaining harmony - and if not that, prioritizing your sanity when it comes to family.

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Don't get spooked!

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The specter of Halloween is upon us yet again! And so is this Best Of episode - To Hell with the Devil's Holiday or: Suck it Harvest Parties! Learn about Lindsay's quest to become Queen of Halloween, and hear some spooky stories of youth group shenanigans gone awry. Joyous references include: Hell Houses, Heaven's Gates/Hell's Flames, and other completely ridiculous "scared straight" tactics Christians loved using in the 80's and 90's to get the youth to secure their own eternal salvation. Pretty creepy, actually, good Halloween vibes.

Content Heads Up:

Mentions of animal cruelty and death, and probably a bunch of other triggery things, so...religious trauma! Take good care of yourself.

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For kids who grew up during the Satanic Panic - especially those of us raised in Good Christian Homes - talking about, thinking about, worrying about, or wondering about demons was just an everyday thing. Join your Unwholesome Homeschoolers (and Meg) as they remember their personal demonologies and the way we really did think we always had demons scratching at every "foothold" to get in and influence (?) or possess (?) us. Phew! Wild times! Come along for this spooky season episode all about our demon upbringings.

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(Ultimate Spoiler: Oops, All White Supremacy - AGAIN?)

Have you lost some people you love to an internet conspiracy theory? Is your weird aunt saying wild shit about Jewish space lasers at family dinners? If so, you might be a human being who still believes the earth is a globe that orbits the sun, or, say, that gravity exists...and your friends and relatives and people from church, in particular, are doubting those generally agreed upon realities.

What gives? Why do Christians seem to fall for this stuff? And you know what - it's not because they already believe some pretty mind-boggling things - it's much deeper, more sinister, and perverse than that.

Join Cynane Shay and your unholy trinity of hosts as they discuss the rapid unraveling of reality, thought reform, fascism, and why do Christians believe this stuff? (Once again, the answer will be disappointingly obvious).

Cynane is the mastermind behind Taking Off the Tinfoil Hat. Find her work at:

https://takingoffthetinfoilhat.com/

Instagram: @taking.off.the.tinfoil.hat

TikTok: @takingoffthetinfoilhat

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CW: child abuse

Of your three Holy Hosts, two of them were homeschooled. Both take a perverse kind of pride in being not like other homeschoolers, but if you really think about it, that may be the most homeschool thing about them. All that said, homeschooling has been on a meteoric rise since the 1980’s (coincidentally, when the Christian Evangelical right wing marriage was consummated with the election of Ronald Reagan). It has been driven by conservative Evangelicals (a hilariously redundant thing to call them), who wanted to train up their children in the way they should go, according to these parental minds, and hope they don’t depart from it. 

The problem: Sometimes they don’t depart from it. 

Also problematic: the lack of regulation on homeschooling laws inadequately protect children from a heinously vacuous education, and also makes them susceptible to abuses that thrive in isolation and disconnection. Yet another exciting example as to why Focusing on the Family is a bad way to build a healthy society. Listen as your buds, Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai arrive at no final conclusions, but talk about stuff and find that ambiguity is sometimes just alright.

Links: 

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/

https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/62-1/62arizlrev1.pdf

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-homeschoolings-rise-during-the-pandemic-has-impacted-traditional-school-enrollment

https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/advocacy/policy/abuse-in-homeschooling-environments/

https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/advocacy/policy/homeschooling-abuse-concealing-abuse/

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CW: Child Abuse, IBLP and Bill Gothard Abuse

If you're a survivor of IBLP please find support at: Recovering Grace

Shiny Happy People gave us a tiny glimpse into the realities of the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) cult. *Sidebar: be sure to listen to the Too Many Cults mini-series on this feed if you want to deep dive with our very own Lindsay and Krispin Mayfield from The Prophetic Imagination Station podcast! 

But even with 4 episodes, Shiny Happy People barely scratches the surface of daily life when you’re a kid in a cult. And so, we are thrilled to welcome Chad Harris, an IBLP survivor who shared his experiences on Shiny Happy People, to give us his testimony of how he Holy Ghosted IBLP and high control religion. 

Not only will you learn more about “encouragement” (read: “corporal punishment with mind games”), the Joshua Project (Christian Nationalism through political and military-esque training), and more; you’ll get insider tips on why white bread is the evil kind of bread, how the IBLP business model works (kind of), and whether snake oil really works or not.

(Our sincere apologies to Aubrey Gordon for forgetting to fangirl about you in this episode WE LOVE YOU TOO!!)

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