Rohadi 0:14 Faith in a Fresh Vibe podcast. I am your host Rohadi coming at you from Treaty seven lands in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We are in the midst of season six. And the theme for season six is Deconstruction. So the hot rage right now, in the spheres of social media, you are familiar with the various hashtags of deconstruction. And most likely you've heard of the #exvangelical. Well, I invite the creator, the founder, first person to use exvangelical back in 2016. Mr. Blake Chastain. This series on deconstruction is one to help those who are filtering and processing through their past church experiences wondering if there is a Christianity worth reclaiming. I don't know what your experiences but my hope is that through this series and this season, you will be able to capture some pieces worth reclaiming. And to help you along the journey of processing some bad experiences in your Christian or church experience. Blake comes to us from just outside Chicago, I believe. He is a writer and a podcaster. He has two podcasts, powers and principalities and the X van Jellicle podcast. He's also a writer with a newsletter called The Post evangelical post. I think there's a joke somewhere in there. And then this year in 2022, I believe coming from convergent will be his book, speaking a little bit about the life and times of the X van Jellicle movement and the hashtag and his own story. So that's what we talked about in this podcast. In this episode, we draw his story into the forefront, but also talking about the trends around x van Jellicle. past present and maybe what's in store for the future. Hey, before we jump into the podcast, don't forget you can support this podcast by liking it by sharing it. Sharing is always the greatest way to tell all your friends about the ideas that you've heard on the faith in the fresh vibe podcast. This is a part ministry out of Cypher Church, which is my church here in Calgary but we also do online stuff as well given the craziness that remains in the global pandemic. I invite you to connect in find me online at roe Hattie. And you can also support the podcast by visiting rowhani.com and just checking out the links. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate the notes that you send in so if something resonates with you, or you'd like to see a particular topic discussed here on faith in the fresh vibe, don't hesitate to write in. You can even send snail mail. That'd be really neat. You got some letters, the address is somewhere on the website. Without further ado, thanks so much for subscribing. Being here. It will jump into this fascinating conversation of internet history with Blake chesty. Welcome Blake, to the faith in the fresh fire podcast. I am so excited to have you because there's going to be in the land of social media. There is some history that you can draw us into around x evangelicals that right exvangelical accident What? Blake Chastain 4:06 Either one, either one works. Rohadi 4:08 Well which hashtags should I be using? Because one has the E. And oh man we've already Speaker 2 4:14 as far as the as far as the as far as the hash tag. I think the one that is used more often is the one with without the extra e so xvangelical. Yeah. Rohadi 4:28 Good morning. America hasn't called you yet to come on to talk about the launch or the coining? I don't know does the internet send you some type of acknowledgement or a war of when these things when hashtags are coined Speaker 2 4:46 now? No, not really. I mean, I mean, Twitter won't even verify me It used to be something that was listed on like, if you are widely attributed to, you know, having having played a part in some sort Have hashtag related community or what have you. That used to be something you could get verified for, but not anymore? Rohadi 5:07 That's been a lot. She could get verified. Yeah, Speaker 2 5:11 they they opened up the applications earlier this summer. But even with the new guidelines, it's still not something they've done. Yeah. So. So yeah, I mean, it is sort of an interesting thing, right? Like, we all use social media. And it's sort of the ways in which things like hashtags gets get credited or not credited, or are just how they spread is really, really interesting. So most people who use it, there's a very, very high chance that they don't know who I am. You know, like, because there there are folks with much larger audiences on on any number of platforms that use that hashtag. But it really started back in 2016, and has grown far beyond what I ever would have thought. So Rohadi 6:09 the growth of that 2016 That's a that's longer than I have known about the hashtag. And it's kind of the beast of hashtags and social media that when you don't attribute something like that to yourself was you didn't do pull it, you know, put your name or something into it. It can do its own thing. Blake Chastain 6:31 I do know that, like, I think just culturally, I think a lot a lot of people are more aware of like the value of crediting, even if you know it doesn't need or attribution. But that that's, you know, that sort of gets navel gazing in a way that that I don't know whether to entertain, Rohadi 6:55 just do feel, it might lose some level of its organic nature. Like in what way because you, maybe you can tell this story. Did you intend for it to hit viral? Do you have a plan behind it? Like, what's the doesn't seem like you exert any control around it? Speaker 2 7:19 Right? Yeah. And I mean, that's the thing, once you place something online, and I did talk a couple of years later, or I can't, I can't remember in the moment whether it was 2018, or a different year, but around the time that church two started, and I think I had the year wrong. One of the things when I talked to the two women, Emily, and Hannah, who now uses the term the name River, who's who started that hashtag, they, when I talked to them, they were like this belongs, you know, this isn't entirely ours anymore. And that what whenever something is glommed onto by the internet, the larger culture sort of sort of makes a claim to it. And I think that's sort of how these things work. And I do, but I do also think that there's a bit of there's like all these different, interesting interplays. Between what when something like that happens when communities, multiple plural communities form around something like this. What's the difference between a community and like, a following, like when someone follows a certain particular account or creator? And what's the difference between community following and overall culture? Like, all of these things are are sort of things that my experience and being both a participant and an observer in this space for the past few years has made me be very sort of introspective about it in that respect. Rohadi 9:09 I guess it matters if you have some merch. Sweaters if you don't do it, somebody's gonna steal it. I mean, like the art around your podcast, which we'll get to in a second. Here, I'd wear that T Unknown Speaker 9:25 shirt. Yeah. Rohadi 9:27 But that T shirt. Speaker 2 9:30 Yeah, I I do have some shirts. I don't hock them very hard, I guess. Rohadi 9:37 We'll throw that in the show notes. Have you tracked the stats of it at all, to Oh, I'm gonna track the the use see if there's any, uh, trends that you've Yeah, Speaker 2 9:51 yeah, um, some of the tools that that I've been able. Generally, like, right now the ones that I can recall At the either top of my head, Mike, whenever you look on, I think tic tac has been the biggest surprise just because it has generated so much exposure. And just that platform, I think took everyone including Mark Zuckerberg by surprise. And, you know, now a billion people use that, use that app. And it's got somewhere around at this point 400 million impressions there. There's around 45 to 50,000 public posts on Instagram, using the hashtag, it's got around 100,000 daily impressions on Twitter. Rohadi 10:44 So tick tock is the is the beast. Yes. I mean, tick tock, but definitely not there. That is massive. Speaker 2 10:53 Yeah. And I mean, the interesting thing is like, John Piper's son Abraham Piper has a really, really big on tic tac has over a million followers uses the hashtag sometimes like, and I mean, that's, that's an example like, I have not had any interaction. But it's something that you can stumble across and and you'll find a different different people that are exploring different facets of deconstruction, which I know is the focus of of, of your series that you're working on. And and I think that that is really valuable, because the num, because the different perspectives that you can bring to this. My My hope is that whatever this becomes long term, it won't just be some new, liberal, progressive version of what we learned in evangelicalism and white evangelicalism in particular. Because, because if we're just carrying those same power structures and everything else forward, then I'm, then I'm not, then I'm not sure we've, we've done enough. So the fact that there are multiple people using using terms like exvangelical, to to describe their perspectives and find like minded people, then I hope that that I hope that that continues, because that's not some, if it if everybody that was using it was just another sis white guy like me, then I think that would be that wouldn't be as powerful. Rohadi 12:40 I think that's one of the criticisms of deconstruction, the movement, the not so much the hashtag, but I mean, if you could do demographic stats on that, that would be fascinating. Fascinating, but, you know, we read, we see different influencers, I guess I could use that term that are co opting in many ways, or just people who are working through their own deconstruction. But it's typically been dominated by white folks, and probably because they're pulling out a white evangelicalism. But to echo you and the call to disrupt and dismantle power structures, we need far more voices and wider voices at the table to do that. I'm not sure that's reflected in the current iteration. Because I think historically, like all this kind of deconstruction, but by another name maybe has been happening and happening. That the, our reality now is one that calls us into into disruption and perhaps leaving the whole thing, but I don't know if the contemporary movement has the right voices in it to do that. It's hard to ask white people to pull yourself out of white supremacy, if you are the prime benefit benefactor of that at the same time. Speaker 2 14:22 Yeah, yeah, definitely. And there's a lot of internal work that needs to happen. And for white people like myself like that, as part of, you know, I think Tory Douglass's work is perfectly named because they use the, the, the podcast title, the white homework, and that's what a lot of it boils down to is white evangelicalism, by and large, perpetuates lots of lots of whiteness, and and emphasises it and that As a that is should be a major part of it. And I think that's why even things like x angelical, and people that are sharing that I, I think that's why you see this constant dialogue between terms like deconstruction and decolonizing and what is and what is the best terms? What are the best types of communities? If it's just making white people more comfortable with like, you know, having sex when they want to, or not feeling? You know, that's that I've seen that criticism, and it's like, oh, X angelical just want to have premarital sex. Rohadi 15:38 It's supremely shallow. I see how you get there. But, Speaker 2 15:42 you know, no, I know, I'm, you know, that's just like banter on Twitter and places like that. But, um, but nonetheless, to your point, like, if it is just going to perpetuate whiteness, then it's not, it's not doing the doing what we socially need it to do. So, I think that is something that can never be really lost in the shuffle like, Rohadi 16:09 yeah, you know, the challenge, as you say that, and it's great to hear is, there's no central voice, of course to any of these, if there was then it would cease to be the a suitable vehicle for deconstruction of institutions. And because of that, there is no central voice or reason that says, foundationally, you have to disrupt these, these, I'll use the word again, foundations of white supremacy and patriarchy. Like, you could just keep rolling through and not ask those questions. And then I wrote down, I think I'll tweet it, you can deconstruct yourself right back into whiteness. Speaker 2 16:50 And then that doesn't need to be a major, major part of it. And by no means is that mean that like, if someone is just looking for that part, if a white person in particular is looking for that part to be one of the comfortable parts of deconstruction, that's let me disabuse you of that notion like as, as another white person that's, that has done some of this work and just recognising and it's going to be a lifelong type of thing. And that you're gonna have to you know, practice a lot of humility. But even so, I think one of the things that, that people find out when they keep that keep going through this process of deconstruction is that a big part of it is addressing that whiteness. And if it's if you're a person of colour, then then that also means understanding how you may have, how you how you have been oppressed, or, or finding ways to connect to other parts of your, your heritage. But I can't speak to that I can speak to what it means to address whiteness, and how it's been perpetuated through white evangelicalism. And even in that respect, I'm still working through how to best do that. Rohadi 18:17 And it's not just evangelicalism, whiteness, vaids, all the institutional forms that have roots in in Europe. From those thinkers, all of them, all of them, and you must contend with those things and learn how you've been shaped and formed. That's where I think a lot of people of colour are racialized minorities, at least, to figure out how you've been shaped and formed by this type of thinking and beliefs. It's one that calls you into an interrogation of your belief systems and that challenges your understanding of self and faith and challenges, where all those things came from, you need to have an alert moment like awareness needs to be lifted, I think particular in Asian folks kind of caught in between in the racialized struggle. There needs to be an alertness developed about your racialization on one hand, but also how a lot of your traditions come out of white supremacy. Let's take a step back and talk about what catalysed the hash tag. Speaker 2 19:34 Yeah, I think really the that's a great question. And I think really did start with this idea for a podcast that that explored these things and then the actually the hashtag came from came from that but essentially, it just to really briefly summarise my own sort of experience and Evan white evangelicalism Raised in the, in the United Methodist Church, what I use, how I usually describe that is that even though a lot of people can consider that a more mainline tradition, it takes on a lot of local flavour. So growing up in small town, Indiana, it was a more conservative type church environment than say, if you went to a UN Church in downtown Chicago, was really deep into youth group culture in the 90s, you know, felt the call to ministry at the ripe old age of 17. went to Indiana Wesleyan University and the first full week of my freshman years when 911 happened. And actually, that sort of changed the tenor of things. And that's where I felt sort of caught between this tension of developing my own initial first political, you know, personal convictions and awakening, so to speak, and was at odds with the majority Conservative colleagues that I had in in the history department in which one of the main teachers there was a Christian Reconstructionist. So like, things like Dominionist theology and things like that was very prevalent there, and felt a lot of cognitive cognitive dissonance, because I was also studying like, Greek and taking church history classes. But nonetheless, I after all of that, I decided, I had too much of a faith crisis to feel comfortable pursuing seminary, worked full time and went to grad school part time, and continued to wrestle with evangelicalism trying to find out whether I could have a place in it. Study studied things like creation care, which is like an ecological stewardship narrative of theology in grad school. And eventually, like, we were in a more concert, and I had gotten married, and my spouse and I were in a community, a church community that was more conservative than than we were, though we, we stayed for the reason that a lot of people stay, which is that we loved the people there. But when that became untenable, that was the last like Evan Jellicle. community that was part of the reason why I ran through all that is just to say, what really made me think about evangelicalism and in these in this way, was that both myself and some of my close friends and some of my friends that I knew, just from college and high school, that were deeply involved in white evangelicalism in one facet or another, had moved away, had distanced themselves from that church tradition that in that tradition, that cultural tradition and all of everything that white evangelicalism entails, and it touches every part of your life. But we all had made these decisions to not continue that tradition, and couldn't. And I really wanted to be able to explore why we all left. And that was really the impetus of developing the show, but I mean, it took me another year and a half, like we left that church in 2014. The first episodes of the podcast didn't happen until summer 2016. So you know, that idea germinated for a while. But then just as part of trying to find a way to share things online, it was just a, it was easy to you know, try to turn it into a hashtag and those early months and things like that. People like my like Chrissy Stroop, and others that I met in those in those periods like we we started using that hashtag to develop some of that community there, then it just snowballed from there. But really, the hope was just trying to explore why we are left. Rohadi 24:15 That's a fascinating approach because it's really an expose a and a capturing of stories. The catalyst is is storytelling, the y which I find really, really neat because that's a different take than what I often see, both in ministry but you can find it anywhere on social media, that I'm reacting from a place of hurt. Someone wounded me, they wouldn't be bad, I'm hurt and I'm mad. Then we can kind of dwell in that space and it can become toxic. That doesn't sound like that was your initial approach, but maybe, you know, were there wounds there that catalysed a move out? Speaker 2 25:16 Yeah, I mean that that to me was was the interesting thing. And the reason why I thought podcasting would be a good medium for it is that, you know, I could have started, what I don't know what was popular in 2016 medium, like I could have done, like a medium publication, or something like that, that explored this and 1500 word posts that no one would read. But the idea of having a conversation like this, and letting someone tell their story and talk about that hurt, in their own voice, in their own words, with just largely, you know, open ended questions, that's, to me, felt more, I don't know, it felt more real, it felt more approachable. And so yes, like that. I think that is one of the things that that does bind this community together is that it is a shared familiarity with a lot of thing like, you know, people the in this in this subculture, which like, I don't even I sort of baulk at calling it a subculture when it's when some people say it's 25% of the US population. Like that's just a full blown culture. Rohadi 26:37 evangelicalism. Yes, yeah. Speaker 2 26:40 Yeah. And so, so yeah, a lot of like, I would say that it, the thing that binds us a lot is is like a sort of sense of shared shared traumas, like similar traumas sometimes. And some, and, you know, just awareness of who the VeggieTales are, and DC talk and like, you know, some of this stuff that, that we all have these similar experiences, and, and that in and of itself is powerful. It does make you have to think through what the value is, and whether it's long term or whether it's more transitional, does this mean that you stay in this in this space forever? Or is it a space that that is more like a triage centre, and you shepherd people from where they're where they're processing this prior identity before they they move into another one. And being more explicit and aware of that, I think is, is really valuable. So I sort of see a lot of you know, my work now as being open to letting people explore when they're in those early stages, and they don't know you know, they don't know what they believe or, or what have you, or what community they're looking for. They just know that they've left this one. And they are no longer being fed. That's a very churchy thing no longer being fed there. Rohadi 28:18 There's your you're in pieces. Yeah, yeah, you're in pieces. Blake Chasteen on the podcast here said we all trauma bond VeggieTales. vegetales was the source of that trauma. Speaker 2 28:40 So Visscher is on Twitter a lot. You can you can go at mentioned him the Creator. He's and see what he thinks. Yes. Rohadi 28:50 He's okay. But Metaxas right for right for them. Unknown Speaker 28:56 Yeah, yeah. Briefly, Rohadi 28:57 something Unknown Speaker 28:59 sent. Yeah, yeah. Rohadi 29:03 I'll throw in the VeggieTales clip there. When you're bonding around shared either suffering or abuse, or you're just coming to a realisation that you need to pick up the pieces, maybe you don't actually, maybe just walk away from it all. Makes sense. Just walk away from it all. But I think that there's also a piece within us call it whatever you want. Spirit of God, spirituality, that there's a piece that is still grounded in some type of connection to something greater. So a lot of some things and we don't have the pieces we don't have previews. But when I say answers, we don't have pass through Is into what might be a new thing. Like right at the top, we talked about how Oh, big deal, if we do this initial, it would be faux deconstruction, if all you did was iterate yourself right back into whiteness, for example, or right back into the next progressive thing. So what is the next thing I want if we can spend some time? Now just switch gears and spend the rest of our time talking about some previous like, I don't know if there's a whole roadmap there. And I don't think you can do that. I think it's unique to the land that you're situated on and the people who are in it. But what kind of practices? What kind of directions or pathways? Are you seeing thematically through most of the work that you're doing on the podcast, but also, you're filtering a lot of the key trends within the hashtag itself? Right. What are you seeing that's giving life? Speaker 2 31:09 Yeah, well, I think that's a great question. And I think one of the things you are seeing is, I think the key word you used was practice. Like, it's not necessary. It's not what people aren't looking for a new belief system. Because the one that was foisted on them, or the one that they developed, was one that eventually buckled under the pressure of this expectation that it was supposed to give you all the answers that it was supposed to, to guide your personal development in a particular way, moulded you into this person, but no, you people break the mould all the time. And if like, sis white guys can't fit into it like that, that difficulty is compounded when you're not as this white guy. That's why I think you're seeing a lot of this, a lot of exploration of things like the Enneagram, and things like tarot, and astrology. These are broad, like spiritual practices that I think, are just gaining a lot of popularity on social media in general, other things like witchcraft and things like that, you're seeing those things be utilised, because they are practices that draw you more back to yourself than to this idea of a perfect guide that despises you. When you don't, when you you don't reflect that same perfection, I think you're seeing the other people may be discovering some of the spiritual practices of their of their own ancestors. Yes. And that is extremely valuable you there are things like the mystic soul project, which which is POC, lead and POC focused. Talking to those things, you have other other writers and, and workers on like Caitlin Curtis, who talks about indigenous indigenous belief, and what that means to to reclaim that or to discover that for oneself after leaving evangelicalism. So I do think it is the emphasis on practice, I don't think that we're going to see something that leads in one particular path. Like I think that was, in retrospect, maybe that's what was happening with say, like the Emergent Church 20 years ago, is like they wanted to move evangelicalism forward, progressively through like moderate steps. And that you know, I wasn't I was a kid back then. So like, but I'm sure that that was something that they that they fought for, and then they thought through and all of that. But I think what will happen now is that hopefully we can develop these acceptable coalition's where we can understand one another's differing theological positions, but still affirm everyone's autonomy, have some shared values in regards to autonomy and the value of human humanity and spiritual practice, but not insist that you have to have this set of supernatural beliefs or still believe in the divinity of Jesus? Like I'm not I don't I think it necessarily needs to stay a Christian thing, and I don't think it is. You have people that are interested in spiritual practices and those that just aren't. And I think being non religious is clearly an option as well. But I think, by and large this this like post Evangelical, extra angelical landscape, Will, people will disperse into multiple, multiple traditions and route themselves there. But though, that I think what happened joke was minutes proven that it's pretty hostile to anyone that doesn't toe the party line. Rohadi 35:47 Well, if you don't have suitable answers, then that's a threat. Yeah, it's interesting that you talk about me to use this word, but pathways that were deconstruction could take us some religious, some spiritual, some not. Would you say? One of the pathways of deconstruction is actually pulling yourself out of Christianity? Speaker 2 36:17 Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think that is a legitimate path. Yeah. Like, I don't know, to me the question. Are you still a Christian? is one of the less interesting questions on this. On on this sort of deconstruction journey, that the your listeners that I'm on, you know that, that? Well, I mean, are you still a Christian like, that is still limiting, limiting you to what you think about the Apostles Creed? Or, or, or the Bible, I mean, and Rohadi 36:56 mostly have the dominant picture in our mind when we mean that, Speaker 2 37:00 right. Yeah. And to me, it's the the more interesting question is what? What's giving you what makes you flourish? Like what is affirming? Affirming you in what is making you value the the world and the people around you? Because if, if you're, if your beliefs aren't serving you, then why why are you serving them? I'm, if that makes, if that makes any sense. Like, Rohadi 37:34 if they're not permitting your, the possibility for you to live out your whole self, as you said to flourish, then it's not giving life. Speaker 2 37:45 Right. And I mean, Jesus talked about abundant life. And did did we live an abundant life and evangelicalism and if you did, then why the hell are so many people leaving? I Rohadi 37:59 would certainly created in my argument across many intersections with the primary ones around races you just never going to fit if you're not white for white evangelicalism. But where's the to get churchy? Now? I'd understand the Christianity baggage associated with it. Can you deconstruct yourself? I mean, of course you can. Of course you can. But where does Jesus fit and all that? Which is like, I have to preface this. I don't know why I have to. But we have to because it's okay. It's the it's the it can be interpreted as the typical evangelical response to alarm bells going off of oh my gosh, you just worked yourself into something profane, profane thing here. Yeah. Yeah. You're advocating for this. And sometimes, that's perhaps is yes. But other times? I'm not sure if that would be my my take, but what are you seeing in terms of okay, Christianity, the religious stuff? We've heard that within evangelical constraints as well, but no language. Right? Where does that fit into the work of deconstruction out of the thing? Are you out of being Jesus to? Speaker 2 39:24 Yeah, I mean, for I will speak for myself and I'm not in regards to Jesus, I think, I think that for myself, personally, I will always find value in in a lot of Jesus's teachings. And that's not I'm not That's not me dodging the question. Now, I will elaborate here. For me, that means Rohadi 39:51 that was, I mean, that was it counts. Speaker 2 39:56 But even even to elaborate a little bit more or one of the key sort of things that, that guides my ethics is, is actually some teaching that that I received in college about the, what's called the Philippian. Him and that's in Philippians. Two, this passage that in Philippians, two it's in, it's in verse, it's not in paragraph because they believe that it's, and some scholars believe it was an early Christian hymn. And it talks about how Christ took on, didn't want didn't seek equality with God, but took on the village of a servant and messing up the language, I'm sorry, but he took on the image of a servant and, and served people. And that was something that that was deeply imprinted on me. And it was this idea. It's this idea, you know, very churchy of kenosis of self emptying. And I think one of the things that someone someone like me can, can take from that as that, that is recognising things in a different language, like privilege, like, that's not something, you know, but abdicating or being aware of white privilege and, and even though it's not something you can give up being cognizant other and working and working to address that in your own life and in society. And that is something that, that I think I'll always carry with me, even as my theological beliefs shift and change. And then I mean, other elements of, of care, Christ's teachings in the gospels, those teachings that I think remain radical. Rohadi 41:56 Yeah, I would agree. I would. I am compelled by Jesus. And I press against the notion that we have to discard Christianity that we certainly have to discard Jesus, like no, because I believe they're both worth reclaiming. I don't know how much of it is privileged to say I can just walk away. But I want to say that we can reclaim these things, because what we have now the expression rooted in the centre of privilege connected to Empire. That's not the way things ought to be. And so there's a little bit of fighting there. Well, that doesn't. I mean, I say that on one hand, we're on the other hand, if you gotta go, you gotta go. Like, right. Yeah. No, gotta stay. Speaker 2 42:54 Right. Yeah. And I think that's a tension, right, is that some people even, even if they, you know, respect Jesus a lot, it seems like a great guy, your followers are kinda crappy, and we're not. And I was traumatised by them, and I can't be in community with them. And recognising the validity of that, I think is an important thing that a lot of people need to make peace with. If they are in, you know, working in Christian spaces that that even even despite all that, despite their Yeah, they're just some people that it just can't it's a it's a non starter. But I agree. And I'm one of the one of the things that I think makes deconstruction so personally difficult is the is coming to terms with the fact that the type of Christianity that was presented to us as essentially eternal, immutable unchanging is a very particular historical expression of Christianity, and there are a lot of other pathways to take. But we were taught that those were all they all missed the mark. And, yeah, and like, if you can reclaim that, I think there is there is power there. There's a lot to do there. Rohadi 44:28 I'm reticent to use the I'm reticent to say that even though I declare it I declare it Yeah. Yeah, cuz it's also a term that was used in our traditions, like leaders in evangelicalism would have called like, come on back. Like there's still room for you at the table. There's, there's options for you, God won't forget you. And all those things are true, but just not in that package, and to use and reiterate the language that raises the hair on the back of your head and, you know, is tinged with pieces of power and future abuse. It's hard to say no, no, no, but not that kind, the better kind. I'm wondering, as we wrap up here, you gave us examples of some of the larger trends that you're noticing that you've picked up from this movement, expand Jellicle. Let's bring it closer to home. And community, your own practices, perhaps, but also ones in your community? What is Community Church? If I can use that term? Let's use it. let's reclaim it. What does it look like? Like? What are the those practices that we talked about? Look like closer to home? Speaker 2 46:00 Yeah, yeah. Great question. I think what a lot of these spaces if they are going to be primarily made of people that have come out of evangelicalism, they need to be sort of explicit about their purpose. And why I say that is just, I, I help administer a Facebook group with over 10,000 people I didn't know. And that's a difficult sort of task to the how the group has been moderated and has changed as as its as the group has changed. But one of the things that that we, as a moderation or moderation team have to do is really try to ensure that things like emotional triggers and are accommodated as as best as possible that we don't let sort of whiteness go stay centred. Even though even though a big portion of the of the group is is white, the grip is two thirds female or more, and the moderation team, sis men are the minority, intentionally, those sorts of things need to be need to be important. But a lot of times whenever these spaces are primarily online, I think the value from being explicit, is really is heightened is because we're communicating primarily by text. And we have no idea how the algorithms that are opaque to the user are affecting what is being surfaced for folks. So like, there's, there's lots of lots of things at play there. But I think the reason why you need to be explicit is just that some places need to have a lot of rules or say this is the intent of this space is to be as safe as possible. It's not a freewheeling space where you can say what you know, where we don't have that many moderation rules, there can be spaces like that, too. But it's just not all of them need to be need to be explicit. So I think that that is something and I think if for, for communities, church communities or other communities that are looking to, to integrate people from this from the background or other similar backgrounds, they also need to, to have a bit of sensitivity and understanding about what someone may what someone's reservations about participating in another spiritual community might be. And I think I think that awareness is growing. And I mean, I've, I had a pastor who was extremely, extremely understanding of my experience, and in my experience, there was better for it. So like, those are sort of the two paths, if that I think of specifically is the ones that are like whether it's something specifically made of and for people who have been traumatised or are extra angelical. And for those that are extra angelical, or however they self identify, and wanting to participate in a broader community Rohadi 49:59 Thank you for sharing those two ideas. I think it's interesting that and confirm this for me. When you think of your community, close to home, you're thinking primarily of online communities, maybe not the hashtag itself, but people who are being brought together through the power of the interwebs. Speaker 2 50:31 Yeah, I mean, I think that there is, I think there is a lot of value there. And I think it's not. That's probably I think that that position has has probably been more accelerated and accentuated over the last two years, certainly. Just as, as churches and other forms of community have moved online, but I don't ever, I don't really want to discredit the sort of role that identity exploration and community exploration has in online spaces, just because it's, it's not, it's not as clear as that as a distinction as it as it may once have been. Those sorts of online relationships that you foster online and that are mediated through online platforms can be very meaningful. That's not to say that, that, like the local churches is, is assigned to history. Right now, for me, like we moved during the pandemic. We were. And so we don't have that. That facet of life right now. We may again someday, but we don't right now. Rohadi 51:57 Let's finish our time with a little bit of sharing with your work. You have a book coming up and two podcasts. Is that right? Speaker 2 52:09 Yeah, yeah. When my my primary podcast is exvangelical. And then I had a season based show that it's called powers and principalities, that first season was about what of angelical ism and Christian nationalism. And then the expunge, Jellicle typically comes out twice a month. I got a bit off that cycle in October for various reasons. But But yeah, those are the two podcasts. And then I'll be it was just announced, I'm working on a book that will be published in I believe, 2023. So always, thank you. Rohadi 52:48 What's the book about? Speaker 2 52:50 It's about what we've talked about here. It's about recognising the that people have been leaving evangelicalism for a long time. But also the last few years, things have been fueled and accelerated because of what we've been how we've been able to connect online. And what will come next, because after the Trump administration and the insurrection here in the United States, I'm thinking that we've reached the end of what I call white evangelical hegemony, and that the religious discussion and social discussion will not and should not be dominated or led by white evangelical voices in the future. Rohadi 53:38 Power grass won't go away. Unknown Speaker 53:41 Oh, no, no, no. Rohadi 53:44 It'd be fascinating to get the data for your book, somebody will have it. How many people came back? I know America is a little different than then many places in Canada where we're still slow. America's a little bit faster in in coming back together for some churches, maybe not all but yeah, I'll be really fascinated to notice in read that in your book of if you put it in. How many people actually came back if that is an indicator of the collapse? You speak to? Speaker 2 54:15 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll definitely be be working some of that in as well. Rohadi 54:21 Anything else you'd like to share or point listeners to that you're creating? Other than your sweet t shirt merch? Hashtag exponential it? I swear I've seen it. Speaker 2 54:35 Yeah, yeah, you can find you know, links to merch and everything at the at the website for the podcast. Excellent. Jellicle podcast.com. I also do a newsletter called The Post evangelical post, because all my ideas began as pawns. So that's that post evangelical post that substack.com There's free and paid things that I'm doing focusing on that, instead of Patreon right now 25% Of, of net revenue after processing fees and things like that is donated to groups that serve communities that have been harmed by wide open dhoklas. So you can find out more about that. As opposed evangelical post.