Faith after Faith

Katie Langston
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Christianity

Faith After Faith is a weekly podcast from Pastor Katie Langston exploring the terrain between losing your faith and finding it again. Through honest conversations, theological reflection, and storytelling, Faith After Faith creates space for deconstructors, reconstructors, and spiritual seekers to explore Christian faith in ways that are intellectually curious, scripturally grounded, and rooted in grace. Whether you’re healing from a high-demand religious tradition, rebuilding after doubt, or just looking for something deeper, this podcast meets you where you are—no pressure, no pretense, period.

  1. 3d ago

    Reading Exodus Through 10 Lenses — The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 4)

    In the fourth episode of "The Scary, Scary Bible," Katie takes the ten lenses from last week and puts every one of them to work on a single story: the Exodus. The episode covers what archaeology can and can't say about 600,000 men leaving Egypt, why the story may have taken its final shape in Babylon, the one place a sparse narrative stops to say what God feels, how enslaved people and the civil rights movement read it, why Luke calls Jesus' death his "exodus," and what Paul Ricoeur meant by a second naiveté. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Resources Faith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 1): What Is It?Faith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 2): What's the Story?Faith After Faith, 10 Ways to Read the Bible — The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 3)Robert Allen Warrior, "Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians," in Native and Christian (Routledge)Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (Orbis)Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book IPaul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Beacon Press)Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror (Fortress Press)Chapters 00:00 Welcome, and why the Exodus 02:06 The story in a nutshell 04:44 Lens 1: historical-critical 09:31 Lens 2: literary 10:36 Shiphrah and Puah 12:43 The one place the story says what God feels 13:54 Lens 3: liberation 15:33 Lens 4: suspicion 17:24 Lens 5: canonical 18:52 Lens 6: Christological 20:39 Lens 7: the fourfold sense 22:22 Lens 8: fundamentalist 23:20 Lens 9: generosity 25:15 Lens 10: Augustine's rule of love 26:21 Beyond the desert of criticism 30:57 Thanks, and how to support the show

  2. 6d ago

    A Therapist on Faith, Death, and Leaving Mormonism — Amy Pooley

    Amy Pooley grew up Mormon in Florida and tried as hard as a kid can try to be good. She figured out she was gay in eighth-grade gym class, and by college she was gone from the church. Years later, as a happy atheist with a wife and a whole adult life, she lost two friends to cancer and had an experience of God she hadn't asked for. Amy is a licensed clinical professional counselor in Chicago who works from psychodynamic and existential approaches. She is also one of Katie's favorite people to talk with about life, the universe, and everything. The first half of the episode is her story. The second half explores universal questions of meaning from her seat in the therapist's chair. This conversation covers religious OCD, the day Amy's parents read her diary, why she still calls herself a Christian with no spiritual practice to speak of, Irvin Yalom and the givens of death, meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom, and what a good parent, a good therapist, and a good faith tradition all have in common. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Resources International OCD Foundation, Faith & OCD Resource CenterEdna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music (The Buck in the Snow, 1928)Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy (Basic Books, 1980)Jeffery Smith, Psychotherapy Lab (Substack)Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be (Harper Wave, 2022)Chapters 00:00 Cold open: "I was like a happy atheist" 00:53 Meet Amy Pooley 02:05 Growing up Mormon in a family that didn't look the part 05:29 Scrupulosity, or religious OCD 08:13 Realizing she was gay in eighth-grade gym class 12:38 Her parents read her diary 13:36 "Well, that doesn't work" 15:49 A happy atheist at Northwestern 17:14 Two friends die at twenty-seven 18:48 Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Dirge Without Music" 22:39 The sparrow, the lilies, and trying church 24:46 Where Amy is with God now 28:18 Psychodynamic and existential therapy 32:19 Irvin Yalom's ultimate concerns 35:26 When faith is too rigid 38:48 When faith is too soft 42:27 Death 46:07 Meaninglessness 48:35 Isolation, freedom, and Sartre 51:10 Making peace with uncertainty 53:38 Jeffery Smith on empathy and understanding 55:49 "A good faith tradition is sturdy" 57:35 What does faith after faith look like for Amy?

  3. Oct 23

    10 Ways to Read the Bible — The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 3)

    Everyone who opens the Bible reads it through a lens—whether they know it or not. In the third episode of "The Scary, Scary Bible," Katie walks through ten ways of reading scripture (called "hermeneutics"), from historical-critical to Augustine's rule of love. For each one she names what it does well and where it leaves a gap that another lens can fill. The episode covers what the historical-critical method does to the Book of Mormon that it doesn't do to the Bible, whether God has a preferential option for the poor, what a hermeneutic of generosity asks of a reader, how to find Christ in the Old Testament without erasing the Jewish reading of it, and why the fundamentalist lens is the newest one of all. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and review 01:45 "Hermeneutic": a fancy word for how you read 03:46 Lens 1: historical-critical 08:18 Lens 2: suspicion Lens 3: liberation 13:49 Lens 4: generosity 16:00 Lens 5: literary 17:51 Lens 6: canonical 20:07 Lens 7: Christological 23:04 Lens 8: Augustine's rule of love 24:19 Lens 9: the fourfold sense 27:38 Lens 10: fundamentalist 30:38 There's no one right way to read the text Resources Faith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn SchifferdeckerFaith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 2) — Kathryn SchifferdeckerFaith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 1): What Is It?Faith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 2): What's the Story?Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror (Fortress Press)Elisabeth Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (Crossroad)Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (Orbis)James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (Orbis)Martin Luther, Preface to the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude (1522)Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book IOrigen, Homilies on Joshua (Catholic University of America Press)Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (Paulist Press)

  4. Oct 20

    Is There Proof for God's Existence? — Alan Padgett

    Alan Padgett taught theology at Luther Seminary for more than twenty years. He grew up in Huntington Beach, California, and his family believed that religion was for people who struggled with critical thinking. Later, he came to faith as a teenager, without giving up on his commitment to science, philosophy, and reason. This conversation covers the difference between science and scientism, how a long-haired Marxist ended up being mentored by a Baptist pastor in Costa Mesa, Kurt Gödel and the limits of proof, the fine-tuning of the universe, whether the Bible says the earth is six thousand years old, and why God doesn't just use a galactic megaphone. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Alan Padgett and episode overview 02:36 Alan's background: secular upbringing and skepticism 05:09 Exploring world religions and philosophical questions 08:51 Encounter with Christianity and the gospel 12:02 Alan's early involvement in Christian community 15:20 The rational basis for belief in a creator God 20:12 The fine-tuning argument and the constants of nature 25:36 The question of why there is something rather than nothing 30:31 Interpreting scripture: literal vs. symbolic 34:50 The history of biblical interpretation and allegory 40:22 The concept of divine hiddenness and epistemic distance 43:30 The nature of faith and spiritual growth 46:13 Attraction to Jesus and the Christian life 49:23 Living with ambiguity and trust in God 50:44 Conclusion: faith as a deliberate, ongoing journey Resources Alan G. Padgett, Luther Seminary faculty pageAlan G. Padgett, Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science (Eerdmans, 2003)Alan G. Padgett and Patrick R. Keifert, eds., But Is It All True? The Bible and the Question of Truth (Eerdmans, 2006)C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperOne)Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (HarperOne, 2007)Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)Pew Research Center, Scientists and Belief (2009)J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell University Press, 1993)John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (1966; Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)Faith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn Schifferdecker

  5. Oct 16

    Does the Bible Have a "Plot"? — The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 2)

    Most of us received a short version of the story of the Bible that goes something like this: God makes the world, people ruin it, Jesus dies for our sins, and we go to heaven. Katie's argument in this episode is that the short version skips almost the entire library of literature. In the second of a six-part series called "The Scary, Scary Bible," Katie walks the narrative arc of scripture from creation to new creation. The episode covers why a monotheistic creator God was a new idea in antiquity, what "myth" means when a scholar uses the word about Genesis, why being chosen looked more like a burden than a prize, what the tabernacle has to do with a nuclear power plant, what 587 BC did to a people who had been promised a place, why nothing Jesus says about a kingdom makes any sense without all this context, and why the story ends in a city instead of a garden. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Picking up where part one left off 01:09 A library and one story: is that a contradiction? 03:22 Creation, fall, Jesus, heaven 04:49 “I will walk among you, and you shall be my people” 06:04 The ten beats, in one fast run 07:01 Creation: one God, and not one of many 14:49 A God who wants to be with his people 15:53 One family, blessed to be a blessing 18:18 Exodus, the tent, and the nuclear power plant 19:41 God is the king, and kings are stewards 22:23 587 BC: Babylon, the temple, exile 23:20 “Where is God now?” 25:06 A messiah is coming 27:29 Jesus is Israel’s Messiah 32:39 The Gentiles enter the story 35:07 Now and not yet 37:55 New creation 39:17 Conclusion and resources Resources Faith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 1): What Is It?Faith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn SchifferdeckerFaith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 2) — Kathryn SchifferdeckerKatie Langston, The Story of the Bible: a one-page timeline

  6. Oct 13

    The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 2) — Kathryn Schifferdecker

    Last week, Old Testament scholar Kathryn Schifferdecker pointed out many of the of the Bible. This week, we tackle the question of difficult texts: why they're there, how to read them, and what to do with them. The conversation covers reading with a hermeneutic of generosity instead of suspicion, Hagar as the only person in the Bible who gives God a name, the suffering servant and why a text can mean more than one thing, reading with the rabbis, the student from an evangelical Black church who told Kathryn that Joshua is a book of hope, why it's okay to say "that text is not the gospel," and where the authority of scripture comes from. Content note: around the fourteen-minute mark this episode describes a story from the book of Judges involving rape and murder. There's a spoken warning right beforhand. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest 01:02 What the Bible is and how to read it 02:02 Not all parts of the Bible hold the same weight 03:23 The cross-cultural experience of reading scripture 04:42 Hermeneutic of suspicion vs. hermeneutic of generosity 07:00 Approaching difficult texts with humility 09:27 The layered meaning of Isaiah 52-53 14:05 Judges 19 and the problem of violence in scripture 17:01 Joshua and the conquest of Canaan 23:33 Joshua as a story of hope and promise for oppressed communities 27:12 The authority of scripture and community discernment 40:55 Words of wisdom for those hurt by the Bible 44:51 Wrestling with scripture and asking questions of God 45:00 Faith after faith: reconstructing trust in scripture Resources Kathryn Schifferdecker, Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job (Harvard Theological Studies 61, 2008)Enter the Bible (Luther Seminary)Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cowley Publications, 2001)Martin Luther, Preface to the New Testament (1522; in Luther's Works, vol. 35)The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)Athanasius, Letter 39 (367)The Talmud (William Davidson Edition)Faith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn SchifferdeckerFaith After Faith, The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 1): What Is It?Scripture Starting Points: Genesis · Exodus 1–15 · Ruth · Psalms · Jonah · Philippians · 1 John.

  7. Oct 9

    What Kind of Book Is This? — The Scary, Scary Bible (Part 1)

    One of the most common questions Katie hears from people in the middle of a deconstruction is: "What am I supposed to do with the Bible?" In the first of a six-part series called "The Scary, Scary Bible," Katie explains why we should stop thinking of the Bible as a "book of instructions" and instead replace our default image with something else entirely: a library. The episode covers how the Bible came to be written and compiled, nine different genres of literature in the Bible, what to do about places where the Bible argues with itself—and why the answer isn't to try to get it to agree, and how ancient literary conventions can make it difficult for modern readers to understand what the heck is going on. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: Why understanding the Bible's genres matters 01:00 The Bible is a library, not a rulebook 02:29 Reading verses out of context and what they reveal about genre 03:52 Overview of the Bible's structure and canon 06:03 The Jewish Tanakh and Christian Old Testament differences 07:51 The process of how the Bible was written, transmitted, and edited 14:11 Recognizing seams and contradictions in biblical narrative 16:01 Main genres in the Bible: narrative, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, apocalyptic, short stories, gospels, letters 20:58 Understanding narrative: stories, myths, and historical memory 23:54 The genre of law and its interpretive nuances 26:03 Poetry and wisdom literature: expressions of human emotion and life advice 29:05 Prophecy: forth-telling versus fortune-telling 36:50 Short stories and gospels: storytelling and biography in scripture 40:57 Letters: biblical correspondence and community life 45:06 The Bible's internal argument and diversity of voices 46:08 The human element in scripture and its enduring relevance 48:08 Conclusion: Embracing the complexity and beauty of the Bible Resources Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Fortress Press, 1997)Martin Luther, Preface to the Old Testament (1523)Origen, in Eusebius, Church History VI.25The Talmud (William Davidson Edition)Faith After Faith, The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn Schifferdecker

  8. Oct 6

    The Bible: Not As Bad As You Think (Part 1) — Kathryn Schifferdecker

    Kathryn Schifferdecker is Professor and Elva B. Lovell Chair of Old Testament at Luther Seminary. She taught Katie's year-long Intro to Bible class, and she is the reason Katie can read the book at all. This is the first half of a two-part conversation: what the Bible even is, and why the Old Testament, of all things, might be worth going back for. The conversation covers an organist's kid in the balcony at St. Paul Lutheran in Farmington, Missouri, being too scared to take religion classes at St. Olaf, a call to ministry in a church that doesn't ordain women, the Bible as a library of sixty-six books written over more than a thousand years by mostly anonymous people, why the Psalms made no sense to Katie before seminary, Jonah as a comedy, and holding on to God with one hand while you shake your fist with the other. This is part one of two. Part two — Joshua, Judges, the texts with the violence in them, and what "the word of God" can honestly mean — airs Tuesday, October 13. To support Faith After Faith, visit faithafterfaith.com. A recurring donation of any amount will give you access to exclusive bonus content and full, unedited conversations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Bible and Faith Deconstruction 01:03 Katie's Journey with the Bible and Kathryn's Role 02:16 The Two-Part Conversation: What the Bible Is 03:14 Growing Up in a Conservative Lutheran Context 04:34 The Impact of Biblical Scholarship and Faith 05:58 Different Lutheran Denominations and Beliefs 09:13 Literal Beliefs and College Challenges 10:27 Faith and Academic Study of the Bible 12:20 Resilience and Personal Stories in Faith Journey 17:48 The Culture Surrounding the Bible 18:33 What is the Bible? A Collection and Library 22:21 The Number of Books and Different Canons 23:26 Genres of Biblical Literature 28:42 Understanding the Genre of Jonah 31:44 The Mercy of God in the Old Testament Resources Kathryn Schifferdecker, Luther Seminary faculty pageKathryn Schifferdecker, Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job (Harvard Theological Studies 61, 2008)Kathryn Schifferdecker, Enter the Bible (Luther Seminary)Faith After Faith, How and Why You Should Yell at God: The Practice of Lament

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About

Faith After Faith is a weekly podcast from Pastor Katie Langston exploring the terrain between losing your faith and finding it again. Through honest conversations, theological reflection, and storytelling, Faith After Faith creates space for deconstructors, reconstructors, and spiritual seekers to explore Christian faith in ways that are intellectually curious, scripturally grounded, and rooted in grace. Whether you’re healing from a high-demand religious tradition, rebuilding after doubt, or just looking for something deeper, this podcast meets you where you are—no pressure, no pretense, period.

Information

  • Creator
    Katie Langston
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Katie Langston
  • Show Website
    Faith after Faith

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