Control Freak Christianity

Excellent podcast! Thorough, compassionate and full of biblical truth.

I haven’t listened to most of the episodes, only about five from a variety of release dates. This podcast has an important premise and is hosted by two sincere-sounding people. Two points come up repeatedly as I’m listening: first, the hosts often allude to circumstances without giving a detailed set-up of the topic under discussion. This leads to a vagueness of subject that is hard to invest in as a listener. The vagueness extends to not giving a concrete detail about the vague subject, which makes it hard to understand what they are talking about, their definitions of what they’re talking about, and what they think about what they’re talking about. I have abandoned listening to full episodes because of the elusiveness of what I am hearing. The second point is that the male host takes up an enormous proportion of the talking, including jumping in to discuss things when his female cohost is talking, which she never does to him. This happens in recent as well as early episodes. This extends to the first episode of his sister’s experiences (of abuse), which I chose specifically for the expectation of hearing a female perspective. He takes up the lion’s share of the airtime. The interviewer on that episode (Ben?) does a great job of asking questions and bringing the opportunity to talk back to Bethany, including sitting in silence as she reflects on her responses. But the male host (her brother) frequently starts answering. I’m afraid that these two points make this podcast disappointingly frustrating to listen to, considering the judicious and gentle way they are trying to approach the subject of spiritual abuse.

Thank you Joe and Rachel for bringing to light some really difficult subject matters within the church. This is a very serious issue that unfortunately drives people away from Jesus, not towards Him. This is heartbreaking for me, but this podcast gives me hope that change can happen in the church and people can trust Jesus in their walk of suffering. Again, thank you.

They run a Facebook group and allow favorites to post offensive memes. When asked about it, they shrugged off the concern and then removed me from the group. Unfortunately, people recovering from abuse sometimes tolerate triggering behaviors. They likely mean well but attempts to reach out were ignored. They allowed one person’s laughs to hurt others. Overall, the group demonizes entire denominations rather than recognizing that abusive churches happen everywhere. My advice: don’t trust them.