Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus

Episode Summary: What if humanity didn’t begin with a fall, but with a blessing? What if your original identity wasn’t sinful, but good? In today’s Holy Heretics podcast episode, I’m joined by the renown Dr. Matthew Fox , one of the most provocative and influential theologians of the last half‑century. A former Dominican priest and the author of Original Blessing , Fox is best known as the founder...

Episode Summary: You may have first encountered the Right Reverend Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde in January 2025, when she stood in the pulpit at the Inaugural Prayer Service and spoke directly to President Trump with a clarity that astonished the nation. But that moment was not an anomaly. It was the public expression of a life shaped by decades of priestly courage, intellectual honesty, and a fierc...

Episode Summary: There are places in the world where history doesn’t sit behind glass—it works directly with the present to shape the future. Broughton Hall is one of those places. Set across 3,000 acres in the rolling countryside of Yorkshire, England, the estate has been home to the Tempest family for more than 900 years. Its 97‑room manor house, a vast 16th‑century structure of stone and story,...

Episode Summary: We begin Season Six of Holy Heretics in a world coming undone. Evil is on our doorstep. Our democratic norms are no more. A sociopathic madman and his predatorily ghouls are raping and robbing their way through our common life. An entire system of life is cracking beneath our feet. We are standing at the threshold of an old world that is dying and a new world yet to be born. The o...

Episode Summary: Growing up evangelical required a preoccupation with external behaviors and moral performance, or what I now understand as sin management. My spiritual life was fear based. Behaviors like sexuality, masturbation, swearing, or drinking were litmus tests of spiritual maturity. The more you controlled, hid, or projected your external behaviors onto others, the closer you were to God....

Episode Summary: Today is June 14, 2025, a day that will live in infamy. A sitting United States president is hosting a military-style parade in Washington D.C. that every crack-pot dictator from Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin would admire. Making matters worse, since re-gaining power in January, Trump’s regime has dismantled democracy, extended the power of the presidency, suspended habeas corpus...

Episode Summary: Regina Cates joins me on the show to discuss her latest book The Real Conversations Jesus Wants Us to Have: A Call to Bravery, Peace, and Love . This episode is part memoir, part social commentary, and part call to action for those of us who grew up in religious fundamentalism and have found our way out to a bigger, broader, and more inclusive world. I realize that a lot of our ep...

Episode Summary: You need to sit down for this episode. Mercer University’s Dr. Angela Parker joins me today on the podcast for a heart-wrenching conversation about white supremacy, intersectionality, womanist theology, authoritarian Christianity, decolonization, Kamala Harris, and her sought-after book,  If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I ? According to Eerdmans Publishing House, “Angela Par...

Episode Summary: John Dominic Crossan is the world’s most prominent Jesus scholar. He joins me today on  Holy Heretics  to discuss what we can, and what we cannot, know about the life of this first century Jewish peasant. Unlike traditional theological portrayals of Jesus, which center primarily on his death and resurrection, Crossan’s scholarship focuses on the historicity of Jesus. Who...

Episode Summary: I wrote an article almost two weeks ago titled, Trump’s Willing Executioners . Drawing on my graduate work in Holocaust Studies, I compared and contrasted the MAGA movement and Nazi Germany, and in particular, the glaring lack of empathy championed by both cults. The article went viral, encouraging me to consider a more robust analysis of how cruelty, the lack of empathy, and prop...

Episode Summary: For ten years running, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has been recognized as one of the “ most spiritually influential living people in the world ” by Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine. His work has been featured in many magazines, newspapers and broadcast media, including New Scientist , The Guardian , Discover magazine , The Spectator , The Washington Post , Die Zeit , the Netflix origina...

Episode Summary: Dr. Rachel Wheeler joins me today on Holy Heretics to discuss ecospirituality and the practice of rewilding both our life and faith. Let’s be honest, Christians have a horrendous relationship with the natural world, best understood through a combination of harmful historical, theological, and cultural influences. Growing up evangelical meant believing the world was bad and, as a r...

Episode Summary: I distinctly remember sitting in the back row of sixth grade art class in Jonesboro, Arkansas and saying to myself, “I am NOT CREATIVE!” I couldn’t draw a lick. While my friends brought forth beautiful sketches and lovely paintings their parents would proudly hang on the refrigerator, I looked down at my work with disdain. My parents should burn this. I am not creative. That thoug...

Episode Summary: If I had a guess, I’m betting one of the main reasons why you deconstructed evangelicalism is because of the Bible. Growing up evangelical, the Bible was the center of faith. It was the key to unlocking the Divine. This big black book held all the secrets to a good life. Just open it up, ask it a question, and out popped God’s answer. Easy-peasy. But as you matured from naivety in...

Episode Summary: John Philip Newell is best described as “a wandering teacher with the heart of a Celtic bard and the mind of a Celtic scholar.” Formerly the Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, John Philip joined me from his home in Edinburgh to offer a new, yet ancient way forward in a time when the empire has once again wedded and bedded Christianity. Long before the colonizin...

Episode Summary: Like a dog returning to her vomit, America chose the sexual predator, white nationalist, pathological liar, and criminal instead of an educated, compassionate Black woman to lead this nation into our collective future. This feels more sinister than 2016 because Trump and his henchmen now have a plan in Project 2025 and I promise you, people are going to suffer. How do we sit with...

Episode Summary: We are less than two weeks away from election day here in the United States. The question is - will America get its first female president or a second Donald Trump term? A more pressing question is - will America remain a democracy or will our constitutional republic deteriorate further into a Christo-fascist Trump family dynasty? Kamala Harris has a slight lead over Trump in the...

Episode Summary: In this captivating conversation with mythologist and psychologist Dr. Sharon Blackie, we explore the mythic imagination, the reclaiming of indigenous Western spiritual traditions, and the relevance of our native myths, fairy tales, and folk traditions. Your life is a story, and your story is one small part of a larger cultural story. For good and bad, your individual story is sha...

Episode Summary: [TW: sexual assault and sexual harm language] I am joined today by Rev. Dr. Danielle Tumminio Hansen to speak about the unspeakable. A theologian and Episcopal priest focusing on pastoral approaches to trauma, Hansen addresses the persistent crisis of sexual harm in the U.S., and the “haunting silence” of survivors. Why do most victims remain silent? Why don’t we trust women? Why...

Episode Summary: Liberation theology is a theological movement that emerged primarily in Latin America in the late 20th century, although its principles and ideas have influenced theological discourse worldwide for millennia. It seeks to address the social, economic, sexual, gendered, and political oppression experienced by marginalized and disadvantaged individuals and communities. Liberation the...

Episode Summary: In this unique, collaborative episode of Holy Heretics , I chat with Jude Mills, the creator of the FKD Up By Faith podcast. Jude created the FKD Up By Faith podcast for individuals harmed by religious fundamentalism. She hails from the Southeast of England, and is using her podcast to fuel her scholarly work at the University of Kent. Jude and I are both hosts of our own respecti...

Episode Summary: (CW): Mental Illness, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, and Anxiety) Anna Gazmarian’s new book Devout: A Memoir of Doubt , investigates the overlapping complexities of religious faith, mental illness, and doubt. If you grew up in religiously conservative spaces, odds are you either never talked about mental illness or you were made to believe only people with a demonic spirit could s...

Episode Summary: Interviewing Jonathan Merritt felt like having a conversation with myself. His journey out of white evangelical subculture is an almost mirror-image of my journey. My guess is, you’ll find a lot of correlation as well. Jonathan was a card-carrying evangelical who left his Southern roots and evangelical home to find faith, family, and freedom outside the confines and cult-like comm...

Episode Summary: Do you feel spiritually and physically domesticated? Are you struggling to free yourself from the long-term impacts of spiritual colonization? Do you feel disconnected from the natural world? Are you longing for something more than merely reconstruction? If so, spiritual rewilding might be the next step in your faith seeking journey. Though an environmental term—meaning letting na...

Episode Summary: Author Liz Cooledge Jenkins joins us on the show to discuss the harmful effects of patriarchy on men, women, families, LGBTQIA persons, culture, nations, and spiritual communities. With its ties to domination, violence, aggression, militarism, and white supremacy, patriarchy centers white, heterosexual men at the expense of everyone else. Patriarchal communities often tolerate or...