Reclaiming the Garden

Note: there is discussion of child abuse in this episode In this episode, we have a conversation with our friend Starchild, a queer autistic somatic psychotherapist, poet, musician, mystic, and ex-pastor. Starchild talks about their Southern Baptist upbringing, their journey from autistic Wonder Church Boy to renegade mystic to inclusive orthodox Methodist to the joyful queer ecstatic dance enthus...

In this episode, we reflect upon what’s happened in the faith/religion/spirituality and deconstruction world in 2023 with our dear friends Briana and Artie (who, along with us, make up the QCF Squad group chat). We talk about the Asbury Revival, the Pope’s recent “LGBTQ Blessing” statement, the Ruby Franke case, and the queer Christian music wins (Semler and Flamy Grant making history, hell yeah!)...

In this episode, we talk about three conspiracy theories that are unfortunately very popular in many Christian communities: The “War on Christmas,” Zionism, and QAnon. While poking fun at the ridiculous nature of these beliefs that are not rooted in reality (Taylor Swift being named TIME person of the year is part of a 2024 election scheme, apparently!), we also discuss the real threat these fear-...

In this episode, we have a conversation with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, author, speaker and LGBTQ+ advocate Jennifer Knapp! Jennifer shares her faith journey, her career in the contemporary Christian music industry, and the burnout that led to her leaving it. She also talks about her coming out journey and the ways she has advocated for LGBTQ+ people in the church. We have some nerdy theo...

A note about this episode's content: we discuss disordered eating and body image issues, if you're not in a good place to listen, take care of yourself! During a month where many of us host feasts (that are rooted in a history of colonization), we’re talking about theologies of food, and food ethics. Anna and April share stories of struggling with body image and unhealthy policing of our f...

In this episode, we have a conversation with YouTubers (and damn good researchers on fundamentalist Christianity) the Reverend Jen and King James of Fundie Fridays! Jen and James share how they grew up non-religious but adjacent (literally and figuratively) to religion in their conservative hometowns in Missouri. Anna and April share our own stories that resonate with some of their experiences. Th...

In this episode, April and Anna discuss our experiences of how disability and neurodivergence were viewed in the churches we grew up in and how those views changed as we came to realize our own neurodivergence and grapple with ableist theologies. April was planning on discussing more of her realization that she is autistic but her frazzled brain just didn’t; she does have a post about it on her Su...

In this episode, we have a conversation with therapist, podcaster, author, and theologian Matthias Roberts! He shares his faith journey of being raised in a non-affirming church, then going to Side B (queer-folks-are-called-to-celibacy) theology as he came to terms with being gay, to realizing that LGBTQ+ Christians existed and that he could have a romantic partner and still be Christian. He also...

In this episode, we get down and dirty and nerdy with Paul’s long Epistle (letter) to the Romans (more specifically, the early Christian community there). This text has been used to justify bigotry towards LGBTQ+ people and the awful doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, and to manipulate people into converting, but it also has empowering passages about the love of God, and guidance on how...

In this episode, we have a conversation with our friend and political scientist Chalen Aleong! Chalen shares his faith journey and feeling like he was “too religious for queer people and too queer for religious people” and how he got involved with Q Christian Fellowship. We also discuss the Barbie movie and the weird conservative response to it, and how the movie actually shows how the patriarchy...

In this episode, we discuss our first impressions of the apocrypha–both the texts that come from the Greek Old Testament that some Christians hold as canon Scripture (such as Sirach, Judith, or 1 Maccabees) and the early Christian texts that did not get canonized in the New Testament (such as several strange Infancy Gospels, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla). These tex...

In this episode, we have a conversation with queer, autistic, leftist Christian pastor Chloe Specht! She shares about growing up as a pastor’s kid in the holiness/Church of God movement, pursuing ordination in that tradition (which technically ordains women but not really in practice) and wanting to bring about change, and then realizing it wasn’t where she felt belonging (because they basically k...

In this episode, we discuss a topic that April wrote a 15 page paper about over her spring term: what is the human being fully alive, in light of God/the Divine? We explore what it means to be humans made in the image of God, what it means to bring the fullness of ourselves to God and one another and live authentically, and how the sharing of our stories and our diversity celebrated in community c...

In this episode, we have a conversation with Ugandan humanitarian, educator and human rights defender Samson Turinawe! He shares his experience of becoming a Pentecostal preacher and then being excommunicated after he started preaching about accepting LGBTQ+ people and he shares his experience of realizing he is gay. He discusses the dire state of LGBTQ+ people’s safety and well-being in Uganda af...

In this episode, we discuss many examples of LGBTQ+ folks in religious history, from gay nuns to a non-binary Quaker in the 1800s to the deeply prayerful Marsha P. Johnson, and all kinds of other queer saints. April also brings up some of her favorite LGBTQ+ Christian scholars such as Marcella Althaus-Reid and Patrick Cheng. We encourage folks to look at the two main websites we used, LGBTQ Religi...

In this episode (our 50th!!!), we have a conversation with Karen Huckaby, co-founder of The Reclaim Therapy Collective, a group of therapists specializing in helping folks heal from adverse religious experiences and spiritual trauma. Karen shares about her faith background and her intense experiences of evangelizing to people on the beach, her journey of questioning that led her to become a therap...

In this episode, we have a more casual (but still passionate) discussion about current events, which inevitably was centered on the legislative and cultural attack on trans and gender-expansive people in the United States and the conservative moral panic over “wokeness.” We also discuss our disappointment with Megan Phelps-Roper’s podcast that paints J. K Rowling in a positive light, and April dis...

In this episode, we have a conversation with freelance writer, film producer and playwright Peter Fenton! Peter talks about his experiences as a gay man in the evangelical church, including his time as a Christian camp counselor, and how he came to terms with accepting himself and how he has explored his evolving faith through his writing. We are so excited for Peter’s play, Abandon All Hope, to m...

In this episode, we get down and dirty and nerdy with Paul’s letter to Philemon, his shortest letter in the New Testament. We discuss the historical background and the gaps that the letter doesn’t tell us (why do people assume Philemon’s slave Onesimus was the one in the wrong?). We also rant about how Paul could have been clearer in his words that slavery is wrong. Although we can take some moral...

In this episode, we have a conversation with our dear friend, bookstagrammer and aspiring author Briana Michelle Meyer!!! Briana talks to us about her upbringing at a Christian school, her love of literature and how that has impacted her faith, and her life as a teacher in South Korea. We'll be cheering her on as she goes to grad school in London in the fall! You can find Briana on Instagram @...

Just in time for the release of Greg Laurie’s vanity film that erases Lonnie Frisbee’s queer identity (Jesus Revolution), we’re talking about films with religious (mostly Christian) themes! We discuss the God’s Not Dead and Left Behind movies, the Jesus Camp documentary, and films that explore religion in more nuanced ways, like Boy Erased, Philomena, Carrie, But I’m a Cheerleader, The Eyes of Tam...

In this episode, we have a conversation with worship pastor and queer Christian podcaster Jess Grace Garcia at the 2023 Q Christian Fellowship Conference! Jess talks about their faith journey and with it their evolving relationship with worship music. Likewise, we also dive into Jess’ journeys with gender and sexuality and how it has impacted their life, and we learn about the amazing concept of “...

In this episode, April and Anna share our coming out stories (which are still always unfolding, never one and done). From our first crushes and “oh my God, how did you not know” moments, to the times we first spoke aloud that we might be queer, to openly living our joyfully queer lives, we talk about our journey towards accepting ourselves and having the bravery to start telling others. We hope th...

In this episode, Anna and April recount our experiences at the Q Christian Fellowship Conference. We got to meet (and hug!) so many dear friends in-person for the first time, hear talks from folks we admire, goof around in DC, hit up gay bars, and of course do a live podcast show! It was so much fun (even when we felt exhausted at times) and we can’t wait until we can be together with our queer Ch...

In this episode, we have a conversation with author and religious studies scholar/professor Brad Onishi (who also is a co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast)! Brad talks about his upbringing in evangelical spaces in California, his journey from being a youth pastor to deconstructing to becoming a scholar on white Christian Nationalism, and also a little about his experiences in Pari...