Slow Train to Heck

Josiah Mahon
  • 4.7 (3)
  • CHRISTIANITY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Conversations with regular people about their deconstruction experiences, leaving toxic religious groups, and what comes next. Maple syrup-flavoured discussions about how authoritarian religion manifests in the Canadian space. Episodes release biweekly on Wednesdays.

  1. 04/26/2024

    Bonus Episode: The Divorced Virgin Project

    Check out a special bonus episode of Slow Train to Heck where I interview Mindy, the creator of The Divorced Virgin Project, about her experience growing up in purity culture and how leaving it motivated her to create this resource for others who are trying to figure out how to deal with the fallout of purity culture in their own lives. The Divorced Virgin Project brings together dedicated psychotherapists and specialists, including divorce coaches, financial advisors, sex educators, and more, providing accessible content to help victims of purity culture to heal. Check out The Divorced Virgin Project at thedivorcedvirginproject.com, @thedivorcedvirginproject on Instagram, or The Divorced Virgin Project on Facebook. Background music in this episode was provided by: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

    33 min

  2. 10/11/2023

    Episode 43 (Finale): The Story You Told

    Welcome to the finale of a podcast about people, sharing their stories of deconstruction and leaving behind toxic religious systems... so what happens next? I've got one more story for you. Podcast episode about Hegel's God: https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/hegels-god Slow Train To Heck - the Substack: https://slowtraintoheck.substack.com Thank you all for listening for the past two years. It has meant the world.

    43 min

  3. 09/27/2023

    Episode 42: Love Really Does Win

    In this final conversation on Slow Train To Heck, Matt and Mandy Ottaway share the story of their lives together: Growing up in evangelicalism, attending Moody Bible Institute, getting into youth ministry in their early 20s... eventually with Matt realizing the restrictive intellectual cage that his ministry position required and Mandy experiencing the burnout of a life dedicated to church ministries while trying to raise their kids. After leaving ministry, they discovered what the world outside of "required belief" was like, and the freedom to be able to "deconstruct", to learn, to grow, and to change.

    1h 39m

  4. 09/13/2023

    Episode 41: The Kid in the Bookstore

    Matthew Burkholder joins the podcast to share his experience of growing up immersed in purity culture, starting all the way back as a kid in a Christian bookstore surrounded by the key texts of that ideology. We talk about the lasting damage that can be done by teaching children to hate the natural things that make them human, and the subsequent roadblocks that are created that can get in the way of healthy spirituality. We also chat about his journey into academia, as he's now working on his PhD in Theological Studies through Wycliffe College, how that has affected his faith, and why he's made the decision to step away from the label "evangelical". Content warnings: self-harm, suicide Theology Jam, Matthew's podcast with Dr. Jon Korkidakis: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theology-jam/id1577928391

    1h 15m

  5. 08/30/2023

    Episode 40: Forced to Betray Ourselves

    Olivia Grigg shares her experience of Christianity and the spiritual trauma that it caused her, and gives her take on religious trauma as a whole from her perspective as a social worker and counsellor focused on helping people navigate changing beliefs, deconstruction, and that religious trauma. She discusses how many church environments force us to betray ourselves in many ways, from an early age, and normalize the lack of boundaries, portraying that lack of boundaries and submission to church authority as a necessary prerequisite to community. Additionally, she dives into the normalization of physical abuse of children in the form of spanking, how that abuse is advocated by Christian groups like Focus on the Family, and how that can have long-lasting effects even into adulthood. Content warnings: traumatic religious experiences, physical abuse of children Find Olivia on Instagram at @oliviagrigg.rsw, or her website https://www.oliviagriggrsw.ca/. Resource list for further reading on Adverse Childhood Events provided by the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/resources.html Articles describing evidence for spanking causing higher levels of stress for adults: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1533&context=senior_theses https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213417300145?via%3Dihub Hillary McBride's Holy/Hurt Podcast: https://holyhurtpodcast.com/

    59 min

  6. 07/12/2023

    Episode 39: The Correlation of Dysfunction

    Laurel talks about the link between dysfunctional families and dysfunctional fundamentalist churches, and how people in abusive situations who are desperate for love are reeled in by the promise of love from leaders who manipulate that desire for the purposes of control. She also shares her own story of growing up in an abusive environment and how she has since found freedom from environments that use fear as a method of control. Content warnings: physical and spiritual abuse of children, mental illness, depression Books Laurel mentioned: Bradshaw on The Family (John Bradshaw): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/223513 The Search For Significance (Robert S. McGee): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406464 Further Along the Road Less Traveled (M. Scott Peck): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7371

    1h 36m

  7. 06/21/2023

    Episode 38: This Was The Grace Of God

    This week I'm joined by Kevin Wilcox (see his previous appearance on the podcast in Episode 6) to talk about how you might be able to maintain or forge relationships "across the aisle" - is it possible for an evangelical and an exvangelical to be friends, and if so, how? What needs to be considered when entering into a relationship like that? What boundaries need to be established, what considerations need to be taken into account, and most importantly, how can we best love and care for ourselves and other people in the process? We chat about these questions and more in this episode! Content warnings: evangelical perspectives, Bible verses, a discussion about abortion debates Kevin's Carl Jung quote comes from the book Psychology and Religion: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123636.Psychology_and_Religion Kevin's appearance on MBC's "Transforming Culture" podcast where he talks about deconstruction: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3VBJLpp4QzXlm4F8BMiLn6?si=FDnsA1q9RdeaSPHMb57Gxg

    1h 48m

  8. 06/07/2023

    Episode 37: We're All Having The Same Questions

    This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Jannah Rulfs, who grew up Pentecostal in Southwestern Ontario and has since left the church. Jannah has a lot of really insightful things to say about the anxiety and fear that Christianity generated in her as a young teenager, the challenges she has with some of what Christianity seems to require of young people in terms of evangelism and certainty, and how she relates to Christianity and Christians now in a positive way.

    1h 18m
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4.7
out of 5
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About

Conversations with regular people about their deconstruction experiences, leaving toxic religious groups, and what comes next. Maple syrup-flavoured discussions about how authoritarian religion manifests in the Canadian space. Episodes release biweekly on Wednesdays.

Information

  • Creator
    Josiah Mahon
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2024
  • Episodes
    45
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Slow Train to Heck
  • Show Website
    Slow Train to Heck