Haystacks & Hell

As a former SDA (4th generation), I was thrilled to find this podcast. Santiago leads with such compassion and empathy as he tackles some difficult and nuanced aspects of growing up in the SDA church. I appreciate his compassion to those who get so much meaning from the SDA belief system while also creating an intentional space for those of us who have chosen to leave. This podcast is helping me in my on-going journey to deconstruct and deepen ways of connecting with those in my life who remain in the SDA bubble. Well done, my friend!

A friend told me about this a few weeks ago and I listened to all 20 episodes plus the 3 extras within 48 hours. I then tried to find as much as I could by the guests on the show. I was a 4th generation Adventist and I started questioning in college in the early 90s and stopped going around 2000 but didn’t really “deconstruct” I just was a a badventist and Adventist that eats ham & shrimp, drinks occasionally and doesn’t go to church though I did go to church twice in 2022 to support a relative and old teachers getting an award. There were a lot of thing I never really thought about, listening to people talking about the same experiences I had felt comforting. We shared experiences that so many of us never talked about. I was so programmed to just say we are just basic Christian’s who keep Saturday Sabbath but are basically just Baptists or Methodists without really confronting all of the very different parts of the SDA church.

The last podcast is not working. Disappointed because I really wanted to listen to it.

When I was deconstructing my Adventist worldview, I didn’t know how to find others going through the same thing. A book here and there, but I longed to hear other people tell stories that I could connect to and that was lacking from Adventist spaces. I’m a big fan of this and can’t wait to see where it goes.