FreedHearts Susan & Rob Cottrell, FreedHearts

Today, we talk about how the church teaches us to have contempt for our own free will. 

And, in particular, how we have contempt for, interact with, and treat our children.

This may sound harsh, but, based on their teachings and beliefs, it’s the truth: The religious, rules-based, behavior-focused, conservative church hates its children!

One of the biggest brainwashing con jobs from the church is that our children are sinful and we need to break their will.

Beloved... bullshit!

Let’s break free from that teaching of contempt for our free will, and contempt for our children.


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We have started to ask the question: Who is God?

It’s certainly NOT the old white man in the sky, with all the feminine aspects ripped out.

Something has been stolen from us. Our sacred interior has been ransacked and we have lost the understanding of God who loves us, delights in us.

This is vital because when we know God feels this way about us — we are free to feel this way about ourselves — and we were meant to feel this way about ourselves!

Religion has stolen that God and replaced it with a god who is volatile, masculine, transactional, and abusive.

Whatever bristling feeling you may have when you think about God is because you have been robbed of this full-on love fest!

Beloved, it’s time to fix that.  


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Today, we talk all about an example of how gender plays out in real life. How masculinity and femininity are perceived and received, and the impact it has.

When you reduce the feminine, you reduce all the feminine traits: of caring, healing, listening, loving—which are indispensable as a balance to the masculine.

What happens when you do that is toxic masculinity—when masculinity is not balanced by the feminine, and so it runs amok.

Beloved, in this episode we talk about how important it is that we embrace both. 
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What is masculine and what is feminine? What is our understanding of what they mean? Why does it matter? And why is the culture, and especially the church, holding so hard to traditional definitions?

Gender has been turned into a false binary that has assigned roles based on gender with very little tolerance for crossover—even though all of us have masculine and feminine in us, and both are necessary for balance.

And we pull the rug out from under the whole thing and talk about God’s gender! Maybe instead of a gender reveal, we’ll call it a gender revelation!
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Here we go! We begin our deep-dive into deconstruction by talking about the core of the false teachings coming from the ultra-religious, non-affirming, conditional-love church. It is the root of our racism, queerphobia, xenophobia, misogyny—so much of our problems and issues today.

What is it? It is the Teaching of Contempt. Us versus them.

So, what is contempt? Contempt means to view someone, a particular group, or something as beneath you, beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn. It means: to despise with intensive force.

Yeah. Sound familiar?
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It’s important to deconstruct – especially when your faith has been rattled by religious abuse. You likely know exactly what I am talking about.

If we do not deconstruct, we can be left with a lot of baggage. It’s vital to separate the God of Religion from the truth of God. 

Today we have some fun – and we pose a pretty big question.

Beloved, gather round for Bible Story Time! We share with you the story of the whole Bible… yep, the whole thing in one episode. All that we have been asked to believe.

And we pose the question: Does this sound absurd??
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