I have teamed with a couple of researchers from Concordia University in Wisconsin to add to the research literature on spiritual abuse. We are looking specifically for a relationship between adverse childhood experiences (aka ACEs) and spiritual abuse. Is someone’s “ACEs score” correlated with how much spiritual abuse they suffer? Are certain subsets of my spiritual abuse scale more highly correlated with that score? We’re excited to find out and I’d love your help. Below is the official “invitation to participate” text. Would you consider taking the survey? Do you have individuals in your circles who might also be willing? If so, please share the text below, and thank you so much!

Direct link to the survey: https://northwestupsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e4ih0XhCEb7Ys06

We are writing to invite you to participate in a research study titled Understanding Childhood Trauma and Experiences of Spiritual Abuse. This study is being conducted by three members: Dr. Lisa Adams-Qualls, MSW Department, Professor Kari Klatt, BSW Department; and Dr. Daniel Koch. It has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Concordia University.

The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding of the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and spiritual abuse. We are inviting individuals who meet the following criteria to participate in this study:

• Are 18 years or older

• Are willing to complete a confidential questionnaire

• Have identified as Christian at some point in your life and/or were raised Christian

Participation involves completing a brief, anonymous questionnaire that will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Your responses will be kept confidential and will only be used for research purposes. Participation is entirely voluntary, and you may choose to stop at any time without any consequences.

If you are willing to participate, you can access the questionnaire by clicking on the link below:
https://northwestupsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e4ih0XhCEb7Ys06

If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact Dr. Lisa Adams-Qualls at 262-243-2207 or Professor Kari Klatt 262-243-4538. You may also contact the IRB office at 262-243-5700 if you have questions about your rights as a research participant.

Your time and insights are deeply appreciated and will contribute meaningfully to this area of research.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lisa Adams-Qualls
Assistant Professor/MSW Department
Concordia University

Lisa.adams-qualls@cuw.edu

I’ve enjoyed getting some time away in the last month, including a visit to see some “proper football” in the UK (here’s me in the tiniest hotel room in London — quite comfortable, though!)

In last month’s email, I introduced Anxious Times, a mini-series I co-hosted with Kristen Tideman featuring practical tools from existential psychology to help us understand ourselves and life trajectories more fully while navigating difficult seasons of life.

In this month’s email, Kristen is sharing (in her uniquely warm and thoughtful way) how these tools have had a real impact on her real-life anxiety.

We’ve had some real bangers on the pod in the last month, from Lillian Daniel’s brutal story of denominational censure to Jared Stacy’s take on the Epstein files and conspiracy theories. I also deeply appreciated discussing the balance between skepticism and belief with Chris Beha, and of course, it’s always a good time discussing Religion on the News with Mason Mennenga.

As always, I’m eager to hear what you’re interested in learning about, so submit any requests for topics to cover here:

Submit Your Topic Idea

And now, without further ado, I turn it over to my friend Kristen.

Kristen here. If we haven’t met, I’m a friend of the pod, former Camp Director of Theology Beer Camp, Bon Iver fan, and I have a Master’s in philosophy (I actually met Dan through my grad school advisor). I hope you had the chance to check out the recent Anxious Times series I had the privilege and pleasure of co-hosting with Dan. We just wrapped up the final episode.

My analysis: It was fun! But also deep. What Dan dubbed my “triple crown” of anxieties (new motherhood, a diagnosis, ongoing faith change) is no joke.

With the crisis trifecta at play, I find myself more prone to getting generally bummed out, low on my typical gumption and charm!! The “regular” stress of life weighs on me more, and often unexpectedly. The anxiety of it all fogs my brain, and I have a tough time discerning what steps to take in any number of directions.

So, this series came to me at just the right time. As Dan shared with me the tools of existential therapy, I found them to be helpful in serving as a guide through the fog of anxiety, specifically in how they help me identify my real values and live into what I’ve learned to all “the desirable.”

Here are a few of the most significant gifts this series gave me:

Our values are sometimes hidden behind “the impossible.”

We all have things we “wish” were true of the world, but simply can’t exist. For me these would be things like “I wish everyone had basic media literacy.” Impossible. “I wish I didn’t have MS” Impossible (for now!). “I wish faith change was easy.” Impossible.

But hidden behind these limits of reality, what existential therapy calls “the impossible,” we can often find our deepest values.

Behind my wish for basic media literacy is a value for clarity, critical thinking, and thoughtful conversations—essentially a value for thoughtful connection with people. Behind my wish that I didn’t have MS is a value to not let this diagnosis impede on my life with my family and friends. I want to be present for them and capable of helping and participating in life as fully as possible. That, too, points to connection. Behind my wish that faith change was easy, is my value for finding stability and a working picture of how the world operates—an understandable need.

Identifying these values has been so helpful in understanding my anxiety and making decisions.

These values help us in living towards “the desirable…”

The overarching theme in these values could be summarized by “thriving,” or perhaps eudaimonia, if you want to put it in philosophical terms. While we may not be able to control “the impossible” things in our lives, we can work on living into these values through “the desirable.” I may not be able to control the course of my MS—although I’ll do what I can—but I can recognize the time spent with my family is precious and I can prioritize that in my life instead of stressing out about what I can’t control OR going about business as usual when I need to be more intentional about how I spend my time.

As we mentioned in the episode, this may also involve grief work. Intentional grieving may be difficult, but it’s probably a more mature approach than living in denial!

All that to say, when I focus on thriving, I am much more of a participant in constructing a better future instead of falling victim to the sadness of “the impossible.”

…And sometimes we learn more together.

If you listened to the last episode in the series, you can tell I get excited at the prospect of communal efforts towards thriving. I don’t know if I've circled back on all the ways this relates to anxious times, but I do know that when I am in consistent connection with family and friends, I am less worried about life (you might say “I get by with a little help from my friends”). It also seems that the natural overflow of seeking “the desirable” for myself naturally benefits my surrounding community.

ANYWAY, now I’m getting a little mawkish over here, so I’ll wrap this up.

I’ll not pretend I have life all sorted out (you should see my many laundry hampers full of unfolded clothes!). But I get excited for tools that help me remember and prioritize the important things in life.

I’m grateful for what I got from this series, and I hope it serves you well, too!

Anxious Time Series (episodes 3-5 available in full on Patreon):

Episode 1: Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Anxiety

Episode 2: When Old Systems Stop Working

Episode 3: How to Accept What You Cannot Change

Episode 4: Naming Your Limits As a Tool for Hope:

Episode 5: Facing Anxious Times Together

ALSO ON THE POD…

Skeptical Belief with Christopher Beha

Epstein, Conspiracy Theories & Evangelicalism with Jared Stacy

Western Psychology, Eastern Spirituality with Jeffrey Rubin

Religion On the News (Supreme Court, Conversion Therapy, the Manosphere, Aliens) with Mason Mennenga

Sh*tty Minister’s Club with Lillian Daniel

Trump as AI Jesus & Hitler Repentance

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

Dan here. We are trying out a different approach to emailing you. Rather than sending a brief synopsis every time an episode drops, we are shifting to longer, more genuine communication, sent monthly-ish.

And we’re starting today because we're also launching a new miniseries of episodes that sit right in the warm lap of the topic I’ve been most interested in lately, both personally and clinically: existential psychology.

The topic has been coming up on many recent episodes (like this one and this one), but now it’s time to get supremely practical about it all…

Anxious Times: Practical Insights from Existential Psychology

These times have indeed been anxious, right?

To coin a phrase, Trump’s 2nd administration has been chaosmaxxing since January 2025: immigration, tariffs, DOGE, NATO, RFK Jr., family corruption, crypto schemes, DOJ tomfoolery, and now Iran. But when you’ve tried discussing this chaos with someone on the other end of the political spectrum, how has that gone for you? Even with loved ones, we increasingly fail to find any shared reality from which to build. Oh, and AI is maturing in real time before our eyes, and the extent of its disruption (and potential benefits) seems definitively unknown.

The above are examples of collective instability, but individuals also experience “anxious times.” From health to finances to family stress, life tends to keep throwing curveballs our way. On top of that, many of us here have experienced religious change (deconversion or major belief shift), which, in almost all cases, produces a similar sense of being unmoored from whatever previously oriented us.

I was recently discussing this phenomenon with my friend and longtime podcast collaborator, Kristen Tideman, who is living with what we lovingly refer to as an “Anxiety Triple Crown.” In just the past 8 months, Kristen has given birth to her first child, received a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, and continues to experience religious change. At some point in our conversation, we both realized there is a common theme here… maybe we should podcast about it?

I shared with her that I had recently been digging deeper into the world of existential psychology to help therapy clients with concerns around mortality, meaning, and the limits of human agency. Existential psychology was developed largely out of post-WWII European thought. It tackles anxiety directly, framing it as a natural consequence of the human experience.

Once we reach a certain age and intelligence, humans develop an innate awareness of our own death, moral responsibility, fundamental isolation from others, and freedom. These can be overwhelming, especially at first, and some people spend decades subconsciously avoiding dealing with them in any substantive or direct way. Existential psychology says, however, that these heavy and anxiety-inducing topics can be consciously engaged toward a life of greater meaning and fulfilment. We needn’t escape into denial, unearned certainty, or a life of constant distraction.

Existential therapy is particularly suited to anxious times like ours because it does not promise control where control does not exist. It assumes that instability, ambiguity, mortality, and moral conflict are structural features of reality. Rather than trying to eliminate anxiety, it helps us differentiate between healthy anxiety, which expands our world, and unhealthy or pathological anxiety, which shrinks our world in ourselves. Existential psychology gives us conceptual tools to endure uncertainty without collapsing into denial or nihilism, increasing meaning in our lives even when outcomes cannot be guaranteed.

The end result of these conversations is our new miniseries, Anxious Times, which will be released week by week on the Religion on the Mind podcast feed. Each episode highlights one or two concepts from existential psychology that can be directly and practically applied to living in our current era, at both the collective and individual levels. This miniseries is for anyone who feels unmoored and aware that the old systems no longer work.

We hope that listeners come away with a sturdier internal framework that allows for grief, ambiguity, agency, and meaning to coexist

RECENTLY ON THE POD…

Kristen Tideman and I have a mini book club about C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce.

I talk with Graphs About Religion’s Ryan Burge about religious “nones” and “dones.”

Tim Burnette and I talk about how psychology and contemplative Christianity complement each other surprisingly well.

Audio Engineer Josh Gilbert comes back from paternity leave on our latest GGCH (Generation Gap Culture Hour).

COMING UP…

I’m finding myself interested in having longer conversations about topics that can’t be covered in a single podcast episode, and I’m very curious what ideas are finding a longer life span in your minds as well. If you have something you’d love to hear us take a deeper dive into on the pod, share it here:

Submit Your Topic Idea

Thanks for being here.

Dan

P.S. The Patreon community is still alive and well. For ad-free episodes and full access to everything behind a paywall (and a Facebook community to boot!), join us anytime.

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

I sit down with returning guest Bonnie Kristian, deputy editor at Christianity Today, to examine tensions in contemporary evangelicalism in light of her upcoming book, In Defense of Evangelicalism.

First up, we look at James Dobson’s complicated legacy and how his parenting advice represented both progress and problems for its time, and why his use of psychology credentials to bypass evidence-based research troubles me as a clinician in the field.

We also tackle the media’s panic over “spiritual warfare” language at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, and Bonnie points out that Pope Francis uses the same Ephesians passage about wrestling “not against flesh and blood.” We also get into Peter Thiel’s bizarre Antichrist lectures, which turn out to be less apocalyptic theology and more libertarian fearmongering dressed in biblical metaphor.

Throughout, we wrestle with a core question: how do we navigate religious language in public discourse when biblical literacy has collapsed, and when do passionate warnings cross the line into spiritual abuse?

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

I reconnect with my friend Brian Hall to explore his family’s move from Portland to rural Oregon—driven by their kids’ special needs, exhaustion with sociopolitical polarization, and Brian’s ongoing “reconstruction” of his spirituality. We discuss the tension between liberal values and individual family choices as Brian deliberately exposes himself to conservative religious spaces.

I push back on his embrace of Trump-supporting communities while acknowledging my own growing interest in center-right perspectives, and we wrestle with questions about schooling, how to teach kids about systemic injustice and related issues, and whether spiritual practice requires suspending judgment. Brian describes finding unexpected vitality in charismatic worship with older Black Pentecostals and why Portland’s progressive culture started feeling like a fundamentalist Bible study. We’re both tired of performative resistance, yet neither wants to abandon genuine insights. This leaves us in the messy middle, trying to be present for our kids while staying intellectually honest.

In the Patron-only second half of the episode, we discuss the therapeutic wisdom of Brian’s approach, his specific reasons for leaving Portland’s school system, attempted nuanced takes on gender ideology and trans issues, and Brian’s experience with improvisational worship music services.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

I sit down with our friend Kristen Tideman for one of those conversations that starts heavy and somehow leaves you feeling more alive.

Kristen recently received a complicated diagnosis just months after becoming a new mom—a gut-punching reminder of mortality. We talk about what I’m calling “dying, fast and slow” and how we avoid thinking about death in Western culture, why that avoidance might actually rob us of meaning, and how limitations—whether from illness, mortality, or just being human—can paradoxically give us freedom.

Drawing on existential therapy, C.S. Lewis, Sufjan Stevens’ darkest song, and even the psychology of Mormon communities, we wrestle with questions I keep coming back to, like: What does it mean to face our finitude honestly? Why does religious art sometimes feel less authentic than secular art? Can we find meaning in this life even when we’re unsure what comes after?

This one goes to some vulnerable, uncomfortable places, but I promise it’s worth the journey.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by licensed professional counselor Monica DiCristina to explore the question that haunts so many people leaving conservative religious environments: What can I trust about myself?

Monica shares her thoughts on navigating the messy reality of learning to trust your own intuition, emotions, and body when you’ve been taught that authority figures and scripture are the only reliable sources of “knowing.” We swap stories about our own religious upbringings—hers navigating both Spanish Catholicism and 90s evangelicalism—and how anxiety disorders complicated our ability to discern what was “the Holy Spirit” versus our own mental health struggles.

We explore how naming your pain is different from naming yourself, why wisdom feels expansive rather than anxious, and how Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” actually validates self-trust rather than self-abandonment.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you can trust a gut feeling or found yourself paralyzed by the epistemological crisis of our current moment, this conversation offers a refreshingly non-anxious path forward.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

Religion On the News is back — (thanks to our patron Samantha for suggesting that series title!) Mason Mennenga joins me to round up the latest stories from faith, culture, and psychology.

After acknowledging the tragedy of the mass shooting in Australia, we segue into the absurdity of Skillet—yes, the massive Christian rock band—getting “criticized” for making their Christmas hymn cover sound too demonic (spoiler: the controversy seems manufactured by two Twitter/X accounts with tiny followings). But this leads us down a fascinating rabbit hole about evangelicalism’s century-long panic over music itself, from jazz’s “jungle rhythms” to today’s active rock, and why conservative Christians keep mistaking their aesthetic preferences for theological truths.

Speaking of music, AI-generated gospel music hit #1 on iTunes! We reckon with whether the “art vs. artist” divide holds up when there’s no actual artist at all—just algorithms and Auto-Tune’s logical endpoint.

Finally, we discuss if declining alcohol consumption might actually be terrible news for the American community, drawing on Blue Zones research and my own recent reckoning with using substances to enhance rather than escape.

If you’ve ever wondered whether Process Theology can capitalize on increased cannabis use, why college students don’t party anymore, or what it means that we’re losing our shared vices without replacing the social functions they served, pour yourself a craft beer (or don’t) and listen now.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

You’re invited to get festive with us on our next live Patron Zoom call. We’ll talk about loosely-related Christmas topics, play a few games, Joy and Josh will be there, and it will just be an all-around good time with your fellow Religion on the Mind listeners. TBD if I will acquiesce to Joy’s suggestion that I wear a Santa hat. If you’re a Patron already, you’ll get a link to join as we get closer. If you’re not a Patron, join so you can come to the party! See you there.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by social psychologist Dr. James Pennebaker from UT Austin to explore an uncomfortable truth: we don’t use language to tell the truth—we use it to justify ourselves and protect our egos, whether we’re explaining to our spouse why we didn’t do the dishes or electing presidents based on confidence rather than facts.

We dig into why we’re suckers for confident, simple speakers (explaining the rise of figures like Trump and Obama), how wisdom traditions manage to preserve truth despite our constant self-deception, why we’ve all retreated into communities that confirm our existing beliefs, and whether the 90% of values we actually share can compete with the 10% that’s tearing us apart.

James brings decades of psychological research to help explain several cultural movements, like how politicians have become less logical but more confident over the past century and how evangelical Christian institutions have trained millions of people to tune out challenging information.

We end wrestling with whether AI represents humanity’s next great cognitive leap forward or just gives us shinier tools to build more convincing echo chambers—and why the answer might depend entirely on how we choose to use them.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

You’re invited to get festive with us on our next live Patron Zoom call. We’ll talk about loosely-related Christmas topics, play a few games (maybe with giveaways??), Joy and Josh will be there, and it will just be an all-around good time with your fellow Religion on the Mind listeners. TBD if I will acquiesce to Joy’s suggestion that I wear a Santa hat. If you’re a Patron already, you’ll get a link to join as we get closer. If you’re not a Patron, join so you can come to the party! See you there.

Welcome to a special episode of GenDERation Gap Culture Hour with Joy Vetterlein bringing a female perspective to the conversation with me, Josh Gilbert, and Tony Jones.

We joke about “manifesting” with crystals, then discuss how Tony and Ryan Burge’s work on religious “nones” highlights their lack of engaging in spiritual practices before we each share our Spotify Wrapped ages (guess who is the oldest?). Tony shares why Hans Zimmer is at the top of his playlist.

In the Patron-only second half, Joy airs her grievances about how we’ve discussed Taylor Swift in the past, Dan shares his new nightly ritual of watching the Ken Burns American Revolution docuseries, and we debate whether patriotism and a focus on the Founders is a right-leaning tradition.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

You’re invited to get festive with us on our next live Patron Zoom call. We’ll talk about loosely-related Christmas topics, play a few games (maybe with giveaways??), Joy and Josh will be there, and it will just be an all-around good time with your fellow Religion on the Mind listeners. TBD if I will acquiesce to Joy’s suggestion that I wear a Santa hat. If you’re a Patron already, you’ll get a link to join as we get closer. If you’re not a Patron, join so you can come to the party! See you there.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by writer, rabbi, journalist and fellow “weird religious person” Jay Michaelson for a thought-provoking conversation that already has me scheming ways to have him back on the show!

We articulate the tension between liberal theology and ecstatic spiritual experience: why do people whose politics we agree with have boring prayer services while the charismatic communities offer genuine transcendence amidst their rigid theology?

Jay opens up about overcoming his own “Christophobia” (yes, he wrote an article called “How I Finally Came to Accept Christ in My Heart”), and we dig into his concept of “small-r religion”—the intentional, piecemeal approach to meaning-making that liberal religious folks practice versus capital-R traditional religion. It gets juicy as we wrestle with whether this progressive, open-minded approach can actually compete with conservative religion’s appeal in our current moment of nihilism and meaning crisis. Can pluralistic spirituality be effective at fighting back against the wide road of AI slop, economic despair, and rising authoritarianism??

I push back on Jay’s darker assessments while he challenges my therapeutic optimism, and we land somewhere fascinating between acceptance, the narrow road, and what we can actually control.

This one covers everything from Buddhist meditation to Trump to whether my gay Christian clients need liberal churches. I hope you enjoy.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

I sit down with Dr. Nathan Carlin, professor of medical humanities and author of The Secularization of Medicine, to explore his fascinating thesis that doctors have become the new priests of secular society.

We trace how this shift began—from medieval cathedrals as the highest points in European cities to modern hospital skylines dominating places like Houston’s Texas Medical Center, where people now make pilgrimages seeking salvation of the body rather than the soul. Nathan walks me through the historical intertwining of religion and medicine, from the original Hippocratic Oath invoking Apollo to the 1850s when the American Medical Association’s code explicitly grounded medical ethics in religion, and how the 1960s-70s brought radical secularization alongside movements for patient rights and autonomy.

We explore the moral complexities of medical decision-making through the haunting case of Dax, a burn victim who consistently demanded to die but was kept alive by doctors who believed they knew best, and examine Canada’s controversial Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which now accounts for one in twenty deaths. Our conversation explores the tension between patient autonomy and other moral values, the vulnerability inherent in the doctor-patient relationship that mirrors the confessional booth, and why psychedelic research needs the institutional prestige of places like Johns Hopkins to gain legitimacy—a perfect example of medicine functioning as the new church.

In the Patron-only second half, we discuss cases of medical fraud, vaccine skepticism and institutional trust, and why medicine needs practices of confession and forgiveness to repair the mistrust that plagues healthcare today.

Join Patreon

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

We ease into today’s topic with a Top of Mind segment on two competing narratives: does having children make the future better? Or worse? From right-leaning fears of population collapse to left-leaning concerns about overpopulation and climate impact, both arguments rely on catastrophizing about opposing dystopian predictions, and I myself have not been immune to them.

For our main interview, I’m joined by Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine and author of the “thousand true fans” theory (yes, that Kevin Kelly), to explore his concept of “protopia”—a vision of the future that’s neither utopian nor dystopian, but rather a steady 1-2% improvement compounded over time. We get into the weeds on process theology, the cosmic Christ appearing on trillions of planets, why we’ll need a “catechism for robots” within 100 years, and how AI might actually make us better humans by forcing us to codify what “better than us” even means.

Kevin’s technological optimism isn’t naive—he fully acknowledges that more powerful technologies create more powerful problems—but he argues our capacity to solve problems consistently outpaces our ability to create them, and that technology itself carries something divine in how it expands the possibility space for human flourishing.

From personal anxiety about parenthood to cosmic theology to the future of consciousness itself—this is exactly the kind of conversation we love to have on this show.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

In the continuation of this series examining how cognitive distortions impact our religious beliefs and experiences, I’m diving into one of the most pervasive distortions with returning guest and Internal Family Systems practitioner Molly LaCroix: jumping to conclusions.

This thinking error shows up everywhere: in our relationships (Molly shares a perfect personal example involving this very podcast), our therapy practices, and especially in religious contexts. I break down the difference between evidence-based thinking and filling voids with negative assumptions, examining everything from Job’s misguided friends to prosperity gospel theology.

We tackle some genuinely sticky questions: What’s the difference between jumping to conclusions and taking a leap of faith? How do we hold beliefs provisionally while maintaining committed faith? And when does this cognitive distortion cross into spiritual abuse territory?

Drawing on evolutionary psychology, Christian tradition, and wisdom from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, we arrive at something surprisingly hopeful—that both good therapy and ancient religious wisdom point us toward the same antidote: to slow down, seek fuller information, and approach others with curiosity rather than suspicion.

Whether you’re a therapist, a person of faith navigating deconstruction, or simply someone who wants to stop catastrophizing every time a sent text goes unanswered, this conversation offers practical tools wrapped in deeper existential questions about certainty, ambiguity, and what it truly means to have faith.

Listen Now

Join Patreon

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

We’re back with another Generation Gap Culture Hour featuring myself, Tony Jones, and Josh Gilbert, all representing our different generational viewpoints. As is our regular dynamic, this one kicks off with Tony disagreeing with something I say.

We quickly get into discussing whether genetic analysis of historical figures like Hitler (yes, they sequenced his DNA from blood on a couch) actually tells us anything meaningful. Tony is skeptical, but I find the connection between genetics and legacy fascinating in how it informs our understanding of the balance between nature and nurture.

We debate about whether or not the word “pedophile” is being misused in coverage of the Epstein files, and why precision in language matters even when discussing despicable people. We cleanse our palates with meditative bushcraft videos served up by my five-year-old’s YouTube algorithm.

In the Patreon-only second half, we finish our discussion on the re-emergence of “pedophile” into public discourse, and debate whether modern guys are too self-conscious about nudity in locker rooms (with Tony lamenting his gym now requires swimsuits in the hot tub). I somehow end up moderating while Tony and Josh argue about whether co-ed locker rooms would have more or fewer social norms.

Join Patreon

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

Definitely don’t play this one with kids around! I’m sitting down with journalist Ellen Huet to explore the rise and fall of OneTaste, a San Francisco wellness startup that built an empire around “orgasmic meditation”—a 15-minute sexual practice wrapped in spiritual language and trademark Silicon Valley business savvy.

Ellen, who wrote the exposé that helped trigger an FBI investigation and whose book Empire of Orgasm releases tomorrow, walks me through how founder Nicole Dadone created a company that promised enlightenment through sexuality, borrowed heavily from Buddhist and tantric traditions (while naming their practice “OM”), and attracted a devoted following among tech workers and entrepreneurs. We get deep into the “ick” of how spirituality, commerce, and exploitation all worked together, discussing how implicit manipulation can be more powerful than explicit demands, why people stayed despite red flags, and how OneTaste’s playbook mirrors both traditional cult dynamics and the modern wellness influencer industrial complex.

From “unconditional sex” experiments to forced labor convictions, this conversation reveals how spiritual abuse operates in startup culture and why the future of cult-like control might look less like rural communes and more like your Instagram feed.

Fair warning: this episode includes frank discussion of sexual practices and exploitation.

Join Patreon

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

Matthew Burdette—Episcopal priest, theologian, and editor—joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about theology and culture. We cover a little bit of everything in this one!

Matthew begins by telling me about his Theology of Culture substack and how his approach allows God to remain distinct from culture while still being relevant to everything within culture that we might want to take a closer look at. We consider how both liberal and conservative Christianity can fail with an inordinate focus on either human goodness (liberals) or human sinfulness (conservatives).

Matthew also challenges common assumptions about power and privilege, arguing that gestures like land acknowledgments can often mask—rather than address—real authority, and we wrestle with thorny questions about immigration, marriage, and what it might mean to “bear the cross” of a truly Christian ethic in a world of realistic trade-offs.

In the Patron-only second half, we discuss how paternalism—from COVID policies to climate change messaging to individual codependency/enmeshment—undermines both personal relationships and democratic governance.

Join Patreon

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

I’m sitting down with my friend of 12 years, Sara Billups, to talk about her brand new book Nervous Systems—and all the many meanings implied in its title.

We start with how anxiety gets passed down through generations. Sara shares about her wonderfully neurotic Jewish father and frequent medical “scares” that shaped her nervous system before she could even articulate a worry.

But this isn’t just another Seinfeld episode or therapy session about family patterns—Sara takes us into how anxiety operates at three interconnected levels: our individual bodies, the church body that’s absorbed America’s cultural panic instead of offering an alternative, and our body politic that’s turned every election into an apocalypse.

Sara also introduces me to a counterintuitive Jesuit practice called “holy indifference” that she discovered through nine months of Ignatian spiritual exercises, which maps pretty well onto OCD treatment principles.

We wrestle with impossible questions like whether progressive Christians should keep reaching across the aisle to conservatives when the stakes feel existential and whether learning to lose—politically, personally, physically—might be the only way to stay sane in a world that’s convinced every loss is the end of democracy.

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

Today, I’m joined by my brother-in-law, Cameron Reed, and fellow therapist Gabe Cortez, as we explore fiction through the lens of psychology and spirituality.

We’re planning a series of conversations on Religion & Fiction in which we look at literary short stories and make the case for why fiction matters—not as escapism, but as an essential way of understanding ourselves, building empathy, and accessing truths that nonfiction simply can’t reach.

We begin by discussing the benefits of fiction in general and how stories enable us to both experience and reflect on life. We explore how reading fiction has shaped our understanding of everything from sibling relationships to spiritual experiences, as well as Jesus’ preference for parables over doctrine.

To set the scene for today’s short story, I share an embarrassing college-era memory of coming home to lecture my mom about selling her jewelry after reading Howard Zinn, and Cam and Gabe confess their own pretentious homecoming moments as well.

We turn to Alice Walker’s brilliant 1973 short story “Everyday Use,” dissecting a family drama about quilts, heritage, and what it truly means to revere the sacred objects of our past—a story that hits differently when you’ve been the know-it-all child returning home with new ideas about God, justice, and the world.

In the Patron-only second portion of the episode, we apply these ideas directly to Walker’s story, exploring themes of incarnational theology, appropriation versus appreciation, and the quiet transformation of the story’s most overlooked character.

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.

It’s a Religion News Roundup with podcaster and theologian Mason Mennenga, where we discuss the latest in religion-related current events.

In this first episode trying out this new format, we explore why young people seem more open to spirituality than millennials were at their age, discuss clergy getting pepper-sprayed while protesting ICE detention centers, and unpack the wild story of gay billionaire Peter Thiel giving ticketed lectures about the Antichrist in San Francisco. We also chuckle at biblical comedy series called The Promised Land and analyze the surprising data showing Gen Z might be flattening the secularization curve.

Along the way, Mason and I test our friendship with jokes about his far-left politics versus my centrist tendencies, debate whether progressive Christianity is just politics in disguise, and somehow end up discussing why good climate news isn’t making headlines. We also discover that Mason’s faith actually drives his politics more than I expected, and I admit my own confidence in eschatological hope has diminished over the years.

It’s a wide-ranging conversation that’s equal parts serious theological reflection on current events and playful banter between two friends who’ve finally matured enough to podcast together publicly.

Listen Now

Enjoy this email? Forward to a friend!

As always, you’re invited to join Patreon to support my work and get access to full-length episodes completely ad-free.