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70. Can Christians Vote Democrat? Rethinking MAGA, Evangelicalism & Faith | Carter Brown, Leigh Larson & Alexis Rice

How fun is this? We were on Leigh Larson's Podcast, Follow the Leighder!

Can you be a faithful Christian and vote Democrat? What happens when your conscience no longer agrees with the politics you were taught were Christian?

Former MAGA supporter Carter Brown, theologian and veteran Leigh Larson, and The Sacred Slope host Alexis Rice come together for an honest conversation about Christianity, abortion, voting, and the courage to change your mind.

Drawing on their different faith journeys, the three women explore conservative evangelicalism, Christian nationalism, the pressure to vote Republican, and why no political candidate perfectly represents our values.

From single-issue voting and reproductive freedom to deconstruction and reclaiming faith, they ask what it means to think critically, respect other people's choices, and vote according to conscience.

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?

Christians questioning the relationship between faith and political identity, former evangelicals, people navigating deconstruction, and anyone reconsidering beliefs they once held with certainty.

GUESTS + FOLLOW

Carter Brown | Former MAGA, former evangelical
Instagram/TikTok: @thisiscarterbrown
Substack: https://growthisaspiral.substack.com/

Leigh Larson | Theologian, veteran, host of Follow the Leighder
Instagram: @followtheleighder
Podcast: https://www.followtheleighder.com/
Substack: https://followtheleighder.substack.com/

Alexis Rice | Host, The Sacred Slope
Instagram: @thesacredslope
Website: https://thesacredslope.com/

MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Dan McClellan | @maklelan
Monte Mader | @montemader
Tim Whitaker / The New Evangelicals | @thenewevangelicals
Deconstructicon: https://deconstructicon.com/
After Jesus Before Christianity | Westar Institute scholars

Also discussed: James Talarico, Raphael Warnock, James Dobson, and Adam Clark.

EXPLORE AFFIRMING CHRISTIANITY

Discover conversations with Christian leaders, scholars, clergy, and people rethinking inherited beliefs at https://thesacredslope.com/

Books: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

EPISODE CHAPTERS

04:25 Meet Carter Brown, Leigh Larson & Alexis Rice
06:14 Christianity, Politics & Hope
10:55 Abortion, Voting & Political Identity
21:58 Growing Up Conservative Evangelical
26:56 Single-Issue Voting & Changing Your Mind
35:16 Deconstruction & Challenging Religious Authority
43:10 Faith, Reason & Christian Traditions
51:26 What Does Deconstruction Mean?
56:08 Voting, Conscience & Community
1:00:24 Making Progressive Christian Voices Visible
1:08:52 Reexamining Early Christianity
1:12:15 Where to Follow Carter Brown

#TheSacredSlope #Christianity #Deconstruction #ChristianNationalism

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

69. Robert G. Callahan II (Christian, Former Evangelical) | Fire in the Whole: Righteous Anger & Reclaiming Faith

What if your anger at the Christianity you inherited isn't evidence that you've lost your faith, but evidence that you still care about what Jesus taught? Can you reject harmful Christianity without rejecting Jesus?

Attorney, author, and Christian advocate Robert G. Callahan II joins Alexis Rice to discuss Fire in the Whole: Embracing Our Righteous Anger with White Christianity and Reclaiming Our Wholeness.

After nearly a decade deeply involved in a conservative church community, Robert confronted racism, political idolatry, and the contradictions between the gospel he believed and the Christianity he experienced.

Alexis and Robert explore righteous anger, spiritual trauma, Christian nationalism, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and the cost of leaving a church community. They discuss why white Christianity isn't synonymous with global Christianity, the importance of listening to marginalized voices, and how to reconstruct faith without abandoning Jesus.

Robert offers encouragement to anyone feeling spiritually homeless: give yourself permission to question, grieve, rest, and heal.

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?

Christians, exvangelicals, pastors, people deconstructing or reconstructing faith, and anyone concerned about racism, religious trauma, justice, and belonging.

GUEST + FOLLOW

Robert G. Callahan II | @rcallahan_waco
RobertGCallahan.com
Friday Fire | Robert's Substack
Callahan & King | Waco, Texas

MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Fire in the Whole | Robert G. Callahan II
When God Became White | Grace Ji-Sun Kim @gracejisunkim
Lisa Sharon Harper | @lisasharper
Diana Butler Bass | @dianabutlerbass
Jemar Tisby | @jemartisby
David Hayward, The Naked Pastor | @nakedpastor
Wilda Gafney | Womanist biblical scholar
Michael Che | @chethinks

The Sacred Slope Guest Reccos Bookshop:
https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

EXPLORE AFFIRMING CHRISTIANITY

Hear from guests around the world

TheSacredSlope.com | Episodes, guests & resources

EPISODE CHAPTERS

01:27 | Introduction to The Sacred Slope
02:51 | The Intersection of Faith and Politics
04:43 | Challenging Christian Nationalism
07:09 | The Pain of Deconstruction
07:32 | Reclaiming Faith
01:37:07 | Introduction to The Sacred Slope
01:37:07 | Nomination Process for Clergy Members

#Deconstruction #WhiteChristianity #ChristianNationalism #Christianity

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

Introducing The Sacred Slope Highlights! 🎙️

We're launching our new Highlights series with the most popular episode in The Sacred Slope's history!

Our conversation with historian and New York Times bestselling author Kristin Kobes Du Mez (@kkdumez) is resonating with more of you than any other episode. And now, here is the snackable edition.

Some of you love an hour-plus deep dive. Others want 20 minutes for your commute, your run, or while cooking dinner. Now you can have both!

What if the Christianity you were taught wasn't simply inherited, but deliberately constructed?

Who decided what Christians should believe, which books they should read, what music they could listen to, and what roles women were allowed to play?

And what happens when the people who faithfully upheld those rules begin questioning the system itself?

In this Highlights edition, Kristin, author of Jesus and John Wayne and Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, joins Alexis Rice to explore the history behind the evangelical world so many of us grew up in.

In this Highlights edition, we explore:

• The system: How American evangelicalism developed a self-contained culture of approved books, music, beliefs, and authorities
• The women: Why well-intentioned Christian women became defenders of systems that could also harm them
• The forgotten history: Christian feminists who fought for women's rights and interpreted Scripture as a message of liberation
• Purity culture: The promises of marriage, happiness, and blessing that left so many women carrying shame
• Beth Moore (@bethmoorelpm): What happened when one of evangelicalism's most influential women challenged abuse, misogyny, and Christian nationalism
• The bigger question: Why leaving or challenging a religious system can feel like abandoning Christianity itself

Kristin reminds us that evangelical Christianity has never been one uniform tradition. There have always been women who questioned authority, challenged injustice, and imagined another way.

"Real women's lives just do not fit in the neat boxes that fundamentalists draw."

And perhaps the most liberating realization of all?

The Christianity you inherited is not the only Christianity available to you.

🎧 Check out The Sacred Slope Highlights on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Substack, and Spotify!

Want the entire conversation? Listen to Episode 56: Kristin Kobes Du Mez | Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made.

https://youtu.be/mb5j_wGpMbY?si=kCWjH-IqNz_AQJDt

We'd love to hear from you: What resonated most about this conversation? Why do you think it connected with so many people? And which episode should we highlight next?

⏱️ Highlights Chapters

00:05 The Closed System of Evangelical Culture
01:19 Personal Reflections on Faith and Regret
03:31 Understanding Power Dynamics in Evangelicalism
04:18 The Role of Women in Shaping Evangelical History
06:07 Concluding Thoughts on the Future of Christianity
07:12 The Totalizing System of Evangelicalism
10:08 Purity Culture and Its Impact
14:43 Beth Moore: A Voice of Change
21:51 Nomination Process for Clergy Members

✨ Guest + Books

• Kristin Kobes Du Mez | @kkdumez
• Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made
• Jesus and John Wayne
• A New Gospel for Women
• Publisher: Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company

📚 People & Resources Mentioned

• Beth Moore | @bethmoorelpm
• Sarah Bessey | @sarahbessey

#KristinKobesDuMez #LiveLaughLove #Christianity #Evangelicalism #Deconstruction #ChristianNationalism #PurityCulture #WomenInChurch

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

68. Dr. Robert P. Jones (PRRI) | Backslide: Christian Nationalism, Trump & America's Moral Reckoning

What happens when Christians are taught that one political party speaks for God? What happens to democracy when faith becomes a tool for political power? And how do we reclaim our moral conscience?

Just before the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, Dr. Robert P. Jones (Robby), founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), joins Alexis Rice to discuss his book Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation after the Christian Turn Against Democracy.

I believe Backslide is one of the most important books of our time. Whether you're in America or elsewhere, it offers a way to understand the history, research, and choices shaping this moment.

Tim Whitaker of The New Evangelicals has a cameo joins the episode to reflect on some findings from PRRI's new American Values Survey.

Alexis and Robby discuss Christian nationalism, white evangelical support for Trump, biblical authority, religious formation, and what happens when Christians hand their moral conscience to a party or pastor. They explore the stakes of the midterms, democratic checks and balances, protest, civic engagement, and why American Christian nationalism affects people far beyond U.S. borders. Amid the troubling data, where can we find hope?

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?
Christians, exvangelicals, pastors, scholars, voters, and anyone concerned about faith, democracy, religious nationalism, and human rights worldwide.

GUEST + FOLLOW
Dr. Robert P. Jones | @robertpjonesdc
PRRI | @prripoll | prri.org
Cameo Tim Whitaker | @thenewevangelicals @timwhitakerspeaks
The Convocation Unscripted | convocation.substack.com

MENTIONED + RESOURCES
Backslide; White Too Long; The End of White Christian America | Robert P. Jones
Get it on The Sacred Slope Guest Reccos Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
PRRI American Values Survey | PRRI & Brookings
Diana Butler Bass | @dianabutlerbass
Kristin Kobes Du Mez | @kkdumez
Jemar Tisby | @jemartisby

EXPLORE AFFIRMING CHRISTIANITY
Hear from guests around the world
TheSacredSlope.com | Episodes, guests & resources

EPISODE CHAPTERS
02:18 | Christianity's Global Impact
07:24 | Robert P. Jones & Backslide
10:01 | Religion, Media & Politics
14:39 | Why Backslide Matters
16:59 | When Data Breaks Your Heart
19:47 | The Welcome Table
21:38 | What Americans Are Feeling
24:19 | Stakes of the Midterms
29:23 | Reclaiming Moral Conscience
40:48 | Scripture & Religious Formation
43:12 | Christian Nationalism
46:51 | Protest & Civic Engagement
49:32 | Finding Common Ground
56:43 | A Moment of Reckoning
59:55 | Moral Responsibility
01:05:06 | Humanity & Hope

#ChristianNationalism #Backslide #RobertPJones #Democracy #Deconstruction #christianity

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

67. Tracy E. Gilchrist | Holding Space in Hollywood: Queer Media, Advocacy & the Power of Human Connection

What does it take to make some of Hollywood's biggest stars feel truly seen?

For Tracy E. Gilchrist, it starts with a simple question, genuine curiosity, and the willingness to hold space for another human being.

The longtime LGBTQ+ entertainment journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Advocate became a viral sensation after her unforgettable "holding space" interview with Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. But there's so much more to Tracy than one viral moment.

After decades of interviewing Hollywood's biggest names and amplifying LGBTQ+ voices, Tracy is bringing her distinctive warmth, empathy, and love of storytelling to Holding Space with Tracy E. Gilchrist.

In this episode of The Sacred Slope, Tracy joins Alexis Rice for a heartfelt conversation about Hollywood, queer representation, the importance of independent LGBTQ+ journalism, and what it means to create genuine human connection in a world that too often divides us.

Tracy shares her coming-out journey, reflects on the importance of The Advocate and the It Gets Better Project, and explores why visibility and authentic storytelling matter - especially when LGBTQ+ communities face growing hostility.

They also discuss Christianity, the impact of Christian Nationalism on queer lives, meaningful allyship, and where Tracy finds joy, courage, and hope.

Beyond the viral moments and celebrity interviews is a woman who has spent her career helping people feel seen, heard, and valued. This is her story.

In this episode

• The viral Wicked interview and the meaning of "holding space"
• Hollywood, celebrity interviews, and the art of human connection
• Tracy's new show, Holding Space with Tracy E. Gilchrist
• Her journey through LGBTQ+ entertainment journalism
• The Advocate and the importance of queer media
• The It Gets Better Project and uplifting LGBTQ+ youth
• Tracy's personal coming-out story
• Queer identity, Christianity, and Christian nationalism
• Threats to LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment
• Finding hope, joy, and community in challenging times

Explore more

The Sacred Slope: https://thesacredslope.com/

Explore searchable conversations with pastors, scholars, artists, and cultural voices about faith, identity, belonging, and the world we're creating together.

Chapters

00:19 Introduction to Tracy E. Gilchrist
01:33 The Art of Holding Space
03:26 Getting to Know Tracy E. Gilchrist
09:53 The Impact of "Defying Gravity"
12:30 Tracy's Journey in Queer Media
19:53 It Gets Better: Uplifting Queer Youth
22:19 Holding Space as a Personal Ethos
23:43 Tracy's Coming-Out Story
26:09 The Advocate: A Lifeline for the Community
35:49 Why Queer Media Matters
39:41 Navigating Queer Identity and Christianity
39:52 Christian Nationalism and Its Impact on Queer Lives
41:55 What Meaningful Allyship Looks Like
43:56 Threats to Queer Representation in Media
46:12 Hope and Resilience in Queer Communities
47:04 The Role of Money in Church Dynamics
47:18 Finding Joy and Hope in Public Figures
52:26 Community Support and Personal Resilience
56:04 The Sacred Slope and Clergy Nominations

Media Credits: Photos courtesy of Tracy E. Gilchrist’s press kit. Additional video and images sourced from Tracy E. Gilchrist’s Instagram and original media publishers. All rights belong to their respective owners.

#LGBTQ #QueerMedia #deconstruction

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

66. Meghan Tschanz (Exvangelical) | How Purity Culture Fuels **pe Culture & Silences Women

What happens when Christianity teaches girls that their bodies are dangerous—and men's behavior is their responsibility?
What if purity culture doesn't protect women, but helps create the conditions for abuse?
And what happens when Christian women trust their own voices?

Meghan Tschanz, author of Women Rising and host of Faith and Feminism, joins Alexis Rice to explore purity culture, rape culture, patriarchy, sexual violence, consent, and Christian feminism.

Raised evangelical, Meghan learned that a good Christian girl should be modest, submissive, obedient, and responsible for men's desires.

Together, Alexis and Meghan examine how purity culture can normalize victim-blaming, protect male power, and teach women to distrust their intuition. They challenge biblical patriarchy, the manosphere, tradwife ideology, and the claim that male dominance defines Christianity.

They also discuss feminist theology, seminary, diverse Christian traditions, and replacing purity culture with consent culture.

What if questioning harmful teachings isn't abandoning Jesus—but following him more faithfully?

And what if girls never had to shrink themselves to please God?

The slippery slope doesn't have to lead to hell. Sometimes it leads to sacred ground.

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?
Women healing from purity culture, sexual shame, or religious trauma; evangelicals and exvangelicals questioning patriarchy; survivors; and parents, pastors, and men seeking healthier conversations about consent, equality, and power.

✨ GUEST + FOLLOW
Meghan Tschanz | IG: @meghantschanz
Faith and Feminism | meghantschanz.com

📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES
Women Rising | Meghan Tschanz
Jesus and John Wayne | Kristin Kobes Du Mez
John Fugelsang | Jesus and Women
Mattie Mae Motl | Feminist Theology
Amy Moses | Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
Mark Driscoll | Biblical Patriarchy Discussion
Matthew 5 | Jesus on Lust and Responsibility
Sacred Slope Book Reccos: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

⛪ EXPLORE AFFIRMING CHRISTIANITY
Church Clarity | @churchclarity
The Episcopal Church | @theepiscopalchurch
United Church of Christ | @unitedchurchofchrist
ELCA | @elca
PC(USA) | @pcusa

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS
02:45 | A Difficult Conversation for Christian Women
04:41 | Growing Up in Purity Culture
18:33 | Are These Really Christian Values?
25:01 | Leaving Evangelical Patriarchy
35:10 | Purity Culture vs. Consent Culture
37:19 | How Church Culture Harms Women
39:12 | The Myth of Biblical Womanhood
42:23 | Seminary and Questioning Authority
47:35 | Discovering Diverse Christian Theology
52:46 | Finding Healthier Christian Communities
56:24 | Reclaiming Your God-Given Voice
1:03:01 | Spirituality, Nature and Healing

#PurityCulture #RapeCulture #ChristianFeminism #ReligiousTrauma #Exvangelical

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

65. Rev. Darrell Hamilton II (Baptist) | Healing Religious Trauma: Tending to Open Wounds

What happens when the Christianity that was supposed to heal you is what wounded you?

What if questioning your faith isn't a slippery slope to hell, but the beginning of liberation?

And what if the image of God you inherited shapes how you see women, LGBTQ+ people, race, and power?

Rev. Darrell R. Hamilton II is an ordained Baptist minister, preacher, writer, and advocate for faith-rooted justice. A graduate of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, he has served at Middle Collegiate Church and worked with Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People's Campaign.

Rev. Darrell joins Alexis Rice for a powerful conversation about religious trauma, deconstruction, Black liberation theology, decolonizing Christianity, Christian nationalism, and what it really takes to heal from harmful Christianity.

Raised in Oklahoma, Rev. Darrell grew up believing that questioning certain Christian teachings could threaten his salvation.

Then he met a gay Christian whose church wouldn't allow him to sing in the choir.

How could a church silence someone's praise to God?

That question changed everything.

At Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Rev. Darrell discovered an enormous Christian theological world he had never been introduced to. Black liberation theology. Queer theology. Feminine images of God. Perspectives that challenged everything he had been taught about who God is and who belongs.

Together, Alexis and Rev. Darrell explore why so many Christians never encounter these perspectives, how white-centered theology became normalized, and what happens when Christians imagine God exclusively as a white man.

They discuss James Cone, the power of Black preaching and worship, and why liberation theology invites us to understand Christianity through the experiences of people who have been oppressed.

If the way we imagine God shapes how we treat one another, what happens when we change our understanding of God?

And then there's the question of healing.

Some people have scars from harmful Christianity. Others are still carrying open wounds. Not everyone is ready to reconstruct their faith, return to church, or even talk about God.

How can pastors, churches, and those who understand multiple Christian traditions help people heal without causing more harm?

Rev. Darrell also shares his hope for his daughter and the next generation: a Christianity rooted in love, justice, dignity, belonging, and the beloved community rather than fear and domination.

The slippery slope doesn't have to lead to hell.

Sometimes it leads to sacred ground.

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?

Evangelicals in distress, exvangelicals, and anyone navigating religious trauma, deconstruction, or disillusionment.

Christians who still love Jesus but are questioning the theology, politics, and power structures they inherited.

LGBTQ+ Christians, women in ministry, and people who have been told they don't belong.

White Christians seeking to learn from Black liberation theology, decolonization, and Christian traditions beyond their own.

Cradle mainliners and progressive Christians who want to better understand the experiences of those leaving fundamentalist Christianity.

People of any faith or none seeking healing, justice, and hope.

Pastors, seminarians, scholars, bishops, and church leaders who want to create communities where people can question, heal, and belong.

✨ GUEST + FOLLOW

Rev. Darrell R. Hamilton II (Baptist) | IG: @blackandeducatedpreacher
Wake Forest University School of Divinity | IG: @wakedivinity
Middle Collegiate Church | IG: @middlechurch

📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Rev. Dr. James H. Cone | Black Liberation Theology
A Black Theology of Liberation | James H. Cone
The Cross and the Lynching Tree | James H. Cone
Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas | Womanist Theology
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God | Kelly Brown Douglas
Gustavo Gutiérrez | Liberation Theology
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis | IG: @revjacquilewis
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III | Trinity United Church of Christ
Bishop William J. Barber II | Repairers of the Breach
Repairers of the Breach | breachrepairers.org
Poor People's Campaign | poorpeoplescampaign.org
Rev. Dr. Bill Leonard | Wake Forest University
John Mark Comer | IG: @johnmarkcomer
Practicing the Way | John Mark Comer
Diana Butler Bass | IG: @dianabutlerbass

Find these books and more on The Sacred Slope Book Reccos List: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

⛪ EXPLORE AFFIRMING CHRISTIANITY

Church Clarity | @churchclarity | churchclarity.org
The Episcopal Church | @theepiscopalchurch
United Methodist Church | @theumc
United Church of Christ | @unitedchurchofchrist
ELCA Lutheran | @elca
Presbyterian Church (USA) | @pcusa
Disciples of Christ | @disciplesofchrist

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 | When Christianity Causes Harm
12:45 | Meet Rev. Darrell Hamilton II
14:58 | The Future of Progressive Churches
23:04 | The Slippery Slope to Hell
29:30 | Deconstruction in Seminary
37:28 | Finding an Open-Minded Seminary
42:00 | What Christian Bookstores Didn't Teach Us
44:48 | Questioning Traditional Theology
47:41 | Discovering Feminine Images of God
51:11 | Is God a Man?
55:42 | How Theology Shapes Society
1:00:17 | What Is Liberation Theology?
1:06:36 | Understanding God and Jesus
1:07:22 | Theology Through the Eyes of the Oppressed
1:08:11 | Deconstructing White-Centered Christianity
1:09:10 | Seeing God in Others
1:09:55 | Confronting Whiteness in Christianity
1:11:43 | Why Black Preaching Matters
1:13:10 | Divesting from Whiteness
1:14:39 | Entering Sacred Spaces
1:15:11 | The Beauty of Black Worship
1:16:32 | An Invitation into Black Churches
1:18:39 | Reclaiming Identity Through Diversity
1:20:33 | The Path to Transformation
1:21:35 | Building the Beloved Community
1:23:11 | Hearing God Through Diversity
1:26:04 | The Sacred Slope Community & Clergy Nominations

#ReligiousTrauma #Deconstruction #LiberationTheology #BlackLiberationTheology #DecolonizingChristianity

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

64. Healing After Evangelicalism & Finding a Beautiful Faith | Diana Butler Bass (Methodist → Evangelical → Episcopal)

What if the Christianity you were taught was never the only Christianity that existed?

What if leaving evangelicalism didn't mean leaving Jesus?

And what if the people best positioned to help heal Christianity are those who understand more than one Christian world?

Dr. Diana Butler Bass, historian, theologian, and bestselling author, joins Alexis Rice for a conversation about religious trauma, deconstruction, Christian nationalism, and finding beauty and belonging beyond evangelical fundamentalism.

Diana shares her journey from a Methodist childhood through evangelicalism and into the Episcopal Church. Together, they explore the theological diversity many Christians never knew existed and why mainline churches can offer an alternative to the faith systems people are leaving.

At the heart of this conversation is the urgent need for TRANSLATORS.

People who understand evangelical culture AND mainline Christianity. People who can explain evangelical beliefs, fears, and wounds to progressive Christians, pastors, and scholars, while helping those leaving high-control religion discover other ways of following Jesus.

WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?

For evangelicals in distress and exvangelicals seeking healing.

For cradle mainliners and progressive Christians who want to understand the evangelical world.

For people of any faith or none who are carrying religious wounds and longing for hope.

And especially for seminarians, scholars, pastors, bishops, and church leaders who want to welcome people shaped by religious trauma and learn from those who can translate between Christian traditions.

Diana reminds us:

"Mainline theology is not a Jenga Tower. Mainline theology is a mosaic."

We also explore her new book, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance, the Christian calendar, and the beauty of quiet faith.

There are other ways to follow Jesus. There is still beauty to be found.

✨ GUEST + BOOKS

Diana Butler Bass | @dianabutlerbass
A Beautiful Year bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
The Cottage | dianabutlerbass.substack.com

⛪ EXPLORE MAINLINE CHRISTIANITY

Episcopal Church | @theepiscopalchurch
United Methodist Church | @theumc
United Church of Christ | @unitedchurchofchrist
ELCA Lutheran | @elca
Presbyterian Church (USA) | @pcusa
Disciples of Christ | @disciplesofchrist

🎙️ PEOPLE + COMMUNITIES

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde | @mariannbudde
Kristin Kobes Du Mez | @kkdumez
Jemar Tisby | @jemartisby
Robert P. Jones | @robertpjonesdc
Theology Beer Camp | @theologybeercamp
Tripp Fuller | @trippfuller
Dr Jennifer Garcia Bashaw | @jgbashaw
Homebrewed Christianity | @theologynerd
Bible for Normal People | @biblefornormalpeople
Pete Enns | @peteenns
Jared Byas | @jaredbyas
Brian McLaren | @brian_mclaren
Sarah Bessey | @sarahbessey
Jen Hatmaker | @jenhatmaker
Nadia Bolz-Weber | @sarcasticlutheran
Barbara Brown Taylor | @barbarabrowntaylor
Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) | @rachelheldevans

⏱️ CHAPTERS

03:51 | Meet Diana Butler Bass
11:48 | Methodist to Evangelical
14:46 | Taking Jesus With You
23:21 | Why Christianity Needs Translators
28:54 | Evangelical vs. Mainline
33:43 | Finding a New Church Home
39:48 | Translating Religious Trauma
45:59 | Why Young Adults Leave
52:13 | Jesus, Politics & No Kings
58:02 | Jenga Towers vs. Mosaics
01:03:53 | Deception & Responsibility
01:06:19 | Healing After Evangelicalism
01:10:01 | The Beauty of Quiet Faith
01:14:20 | Empathy & Shared Grief
01:17:36 | A Beautiful Year
01:22:48 | Opening Our Minds
01:36:48 | The Sacred Slope Community

#DianaButlerBass #ABeautifulYear #Deconstruction #ReligiousTrauma #MainlineChristianity

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

63. The Vote is Sacred: Faith, Christian Nationalism & the Fight for Democracy | Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

What happens when a form of Christianity is used to decide who belongs in America?

Christian nationalism. Religious freedom. A democracy under extraordinary strain. And Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, people of many faiths and people of no faith choosing to stand together.

What could interfaith solidarity teach us about protecting democracy?

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is an ordained American Baptist minister, President and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, host of State of Belief, and former founding executive editor of HuffPost Religion.

And right now, he’s taking that work on the road with Vote Is Sacred, a nonpartisan, multi-faith campaign traveling across America ahead of the midterm elections.

Paul joins Alexis for an urgent but hopeful conversation about the state of American democracy, the rise of Christian nationalism, separation of church and state, and why no political movement gets to “own” Jesus or religion.

They explore what Jimmy Carter understood about faith and government, why some Christians feel politically homeless, what some politicians can learn about trying to engage with faith communities, and what Jesus actually taught about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and loving our neighbors.

Rev. Paul also shares what decades of interfaith work have taught him about something increasingly difficult:

How do we deeply disagree with someone and still show up for them?

From Jewish-Muslim dialogue to solidarity across religious traditions, Rev. Paul makes the case that protecting our neighbors does not require agreeing with them.

Our futures are intertwined.

And for anyone wondering whether one vote really matters, Rev. Paul has a message:

“We are democracy.”

🗳️ THE VOTE IS SACRED

Go to VoteIsSacred.org to learn about the Vote Is Sacred bus tour, trainings and resources.

If you’re eligible to vote in the United States, make sure you’re registered to vote and know your state’s voting requirements at Vote.gov.

✨ GUEST + FOLLOW

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush @raushenbush
President & CEO, Interfaith Alliance
Ordained American Baptist minister
Host, State of Belief

Interfaith Alliance | IG: @interfaithalliance

📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Vote Is Sacred | VoteIsSacred.org
Interfaith Alliance | IG: @interfaithalliance | InterfaithAlliance.org
State of Belief | InterfaithAlliance.org/state-of-belief
U.S. voter registration | Vote.gov

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

03:16 | The Global Impact of U.S. Politics
05:28 | Interfaith Solidarity & the Midterm Elections
06:44 | The Sacred Vote: A Call to Action
11:16 | Faith, Democracy & the Role of Religion
16:14 | Challenging Christian Nationalism
23:53 | Bridging the Divide: Democrats & Faith
27:20 | The Intersection of Politics & Faith
30:38 | Navigating Political Outreach to Christian Communities
33:22 | The Power of Interfaith Collaboration
37:22 | Understanding the Importance of Voting
42:34 | The Stakes of the Midterm Elections
46:15 | A Prayer for Listeners

#InterfaithAlliance #VoteIsSacred #ChristianNationalism #ReligiousFreedom #Interfaith #Democracy #MidtermElections #TheSacredSlope

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

62. Kathy Baldock (Evangelical) | The 1946 Bible Mistranslation Behind Anti-Gay Theology

What if one of Christianity’s most consequential teachings about LGBTQ people was built on a translation mistake?

Plant sex. A bizarre U.S. Navy sting operation. Nazis burning decades of sexuality research. And a Bible translation decision in 1946 that would reverberate for generations.

What could those things possibly have in common?

Kathy Baldock is an evangelical Christian, author, researcher, LGBTQ advocate, founder of CanyonWalker Connections, and one of the researchers featured in the documentary 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture.

Her new book, Forging a Sacred Weapon, traces 5,000 years of history to ask a deceptively simple question:

How did the word “homosexual” end up in the Bible?

Kathy takes us from ancient sexual ethics and the medieval Church to emerging sexuality research, the U.S. military, McCarthyism, Bible publishing and the archives at Yale—where researchers uncovered correspondence showing that the head of the Revised Standard Version translation team acknowledged a problem with the translation.

The RSV eventually changed it.

But by then, the language had spread.

We explore how American ideas about homosexuality traveled into Bible translations around the world, why Kathy believes both conservative and progressive Christians sometimes get the 1946 story wrong, and what pastors, parents and LGBTQ Christians need to understand now.

And Kathy has a message for queer people who have been told they must choose between their faith and who they are:

The door to God is open.

⚠️ CONTENT NOTE: This episode includes discussion of suicide, sex and sexuality. Not for littles.

Help is available Speak with someone today
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Languages: English, Spanish Hours: 24/7

✨ GUEST + FOLLOW

Kathy Baldock — IG: @kathyvbaldock
Founder, CanyonWalker Connections

📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Forging a Sacred Weapon: The 1946 Bible Mistranslation Behind Anti-Gay Theology — Kathy Baldock - get it on The Sacred Slope Book Reccos List: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

Walking the Bridgeless Canyon — Kathy Baldock

1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture — IG: @1946themovie
Sharon “Rocky” Roggio — Director of 1946 — IG: @1946themovie
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez IG: @timothysrodriguez book Conversion Therapy Dropout https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope

🎬 Watch 1946: 1946themovie.com
📚 Kathy + CanyonWalker: canyonwalkerconnections.com

⛪ THE SACRED SLOPE LABS

Three virtual labs, 2 options per lab, open to everyone, everywhere.

LAB 1: I Thought This Was Christianity
📅 October 22 & 23

LAB 2: Who Formed Us?
📅 November 5 & 6

LAB 3: Speaking Across the Faith Divide
📅 November 12 & 13

🎟️ Register: thesacredslope.com

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 — Can You Be Queer & Christian?
05:07 — Plant Sex, Nazis & a 1946 Bible
09:56 — Meet Kathy Baldock
17:37 — 5,000 Years of Sexuality & Christianity
26:17 — What Really Happened With the RSV?
37:16 — When the Translators Realized the Problem
45:21 — The Dutch & German Bibles
52:47 — Kathy’s Message to LGBTQ Christians
57:16 — Sex, Pleasure & the Medieval Church
59:03 — The Wild History of Masturbation
1:05:11 — The U.S. Navy Sex Sting
1:11:18 — Why Churches Struggle to Change
1:17:14 — Where Kathy Finds Hope

#KathyBaldock #1946TheMovie #LGBTQChristian #BibleTranslation #QueerChristian #Deconstruction

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

61. Lisa Sharon Harper (Episcopal) | White Supremacy, Evangelicalism & Decolonizing Christianity

What if the Christianity many Americans are deconstructing isn’t Christianity itself-but a version shaped by whiteness, empire, and power?

Lisa Sharon Harper is a public theologian, author, activist, playwright, founder and president of FreedomRoad, and is currently discerning ordination in the Episcopal Church.

Lisa traces the complicated history of American evangelicalism—from the Black church and abolitionist movements to fundamentalism, the Southern Baptist Convention, segregation, and the modern political power of white evangelicalism.

Then she challenges one of the central ideas of modern faith deconstruction:

Christianity was never a white faith.

Jesus and the earliest Christians emerged from colonized people in the ancient Near East. Lisa argues that abandoning Christianity because of white Christian racism can leave the supremacy of Western Christianity itself uninterrogated.

She doesn’t call us to deconstruct Christianity.

She calls us to decolonize it.

We explore Acts 2, implicit bias, the Black church, fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, religious certainty-and what happens when we rediscover Jesus outside the version of Christianity we inherited.

Lisa leaves us with three words:

“Seek brown Jesus.”

✨ GUEST + FOLLOW

Lisa Sharon Harper (Episcopal) IG: @lisasharper
Founder & President, FreedomRoad @freedomroad.us

📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES

Christena Cleveland (PhD) — IG: @christenacleveland
Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee — IG: @d_pgushee
Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas — IG: @revdrkbd

Sojourners — Independent Christian magazine exploring faith, culture, politics & social justice.

📖 Lisa’s 2015 essay that opens this episode:
“Four Easy Ways to Be a White Supremacist”
https://sojo.net/magazine/septemberoctober-2015/four-easy-ways-be-white-supremacist

📰 Explore Sojourners: @sojogram
https://sojo.net/

⛪ THE SACRED SLOPE LABS

Three virtual labs, 2 options per lab, open to everyone, everywhere. Attend one, two, or all three.

LAB 1: I Thought This Was Christianity
📅 October 22 & 23

LAB 2: Who Formed Us?
📅 November 5 & 6

LAB 3: Speaking Across the Faith Divide
📅 November 12 & 13

🎟️ Register: thesacredslope.com

🥚 Listen all the way through for an Easter egg revealing our first guest speaker for Lab 1.

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

02:42 — White Supremacy: Explicit vs. Implicit Bias
09:56 — Meet Lisa Sharon Harper
12:23 — PhD in Womanist Ethics
18:56 — Evangelical ≠ Republican or Democrat
21:48 — What Does “Evangelical” Mean?
28:00 — The Black Church & Second Great Awakening
32:43 — Slaveholder Faith & American Christianity
36:38 — What’s Behind “Non-Denominational”?
41:36 — Should We Save Evangelicalism?
44:00 — Fundamentalism & Certainty
45:23 — What Happens After Deconstruction?
47:06 — Christianity Was Never a White Faith
52:51 — Decolonizing Acts 2
55:47 — “I’m Not for Deconstructing. I’m for Decolonizing.”
57:13 — “Seek Brown Jesus”
57:20 — Sacred Slope Labs + Easter Egg

#LisaSharonHarper #DecolonizingChristianity #Deconstruction #Evangelicalism #ChristianNationalism

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

59. Theology Beer Camp Preview (Ilia Delio, Tripp Fuller, Sarah Heath & Josh Patterson) | We Shocked a Theologian With What We Were Taught About Christianity

What happens when you tell a theologian what millions of American evangelicals were taught they had to believe in order to be Christian?

Ilia Delio was shocked. She's not the only one. I have done this exercise with several pastors, theologians, scholars around the world outside of conservative fundamentalism and they are almost all shocked. And those in fundamentalism are shocked at the responses outside of conservative evangelicalism. So what's going on here?

In this special Theology Beer Camp preview, Ilia Delio, Tripp Fuller, Sarah Heath, and Josh Patterson join Alexis Rice for a conversation about evangelical fundamentalism, deconstruction, Christian nationalism, science, evolution, curiosity, AI, and what happens when faith becomes bigger than the beliefs we inherited.

The conversation begins with a simple experiment:

Put your finger down if you were taught…

That the snake in Genesis was a literal talking snake.

That you needed to pray the sinner’s prayer to escape eternal conscious torment in hell.

That the rapture could happen at any moment.

That you cannot be gay and Christian.

That women cannot be pastors.

That evolution contradicts the Bible.

That questioning any of this meant questioning God.

Alexis and Josh put every finger down.

Ilia, Tripp, and Sarah largely don’t.

Ilia’s reaction?

“My God… I can’t believe you guys really followed that stuff.”

And then comes the question underneath this entire episode:

“Is this stuff still going on?”

Yes.

And that disconnect matters.

Together, they explore how Christians from different traditions can inherit radically different understandings of the same faith—and why people leaving conservative evangelicalism may have no idea that other faithful expressions of Christianity have been here all along.

Tripp reflects on how 9/11, Islamophobia, war, and militaristic nationalism changed his relationship with the Christian world around him.

Sarah shares what happened when she moved from a questioning Christian home in Canada into conservative evangelical culture in the American South—and why curiosity may be one of the most important things Christians can offer one another.

Josh talks about letting go of theological finality and embracing the idea that being human means always becoming.

And Ilia explores evolution, science, inner freedom, AI, and a God she understands not as a power over us, but as a presence and embrace within us.

By the end, everyone has all ten fingers back up.

They still don’t believe exactly the same things.

They don’t need to.

Because maybe changing your theology doesn’t mean losing your faith.

Maybe asking questions isn’t something Christianity needs to fear.

And maybe people who thought they had to choose between the Christianity they inherited and no Christianity at all need to hear something much simpler:

Christianity is bigger than what you were taught.

✨ GUESTS + FOLLOW

Ilia Delio
Franciscan sister, theologian, scientist, and founder of the Center for Christogenesis
IG: @centerforchristogenesis

Tripp Fuller
Theologian, author, host of Homebrewed Christianity, and founder of Theology Beer Camp
IG: @trippfuller
Homebrewed Christianity: @theologynerd
Theology Beer Camp: @theologybeercamp

Sarah Heath
United Methodist pastor, author, speaker, creator, and professional asker of good questions
IG: @revsarahheath

Josh Patterson
Theologian, podcaster, and host of (Re)thinking Faith
Podcast IG: @rethinking_faith

🍺 THEOLOGY BEER CAMP

Alexis, Ilia, Tripp, Sarah, and Josh are headed to Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City, Missouri, October 8–10, 2026—a gathering for people willing to ask big questions about God, Christianity, culture, science, and the world without pretending they already have all the answers.

In-person tickets are sold out, but virtual tickets are still available at theologybeer.camp.

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Andrew Whitehead — @andrewwhitehead
Sociologist and author whose work examines Christian nationalism in the United States.

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

06:05 — The Experiment: Were We Even Taught the Same Christianity?
09:58 — Ilia’s Reaction: “You Really Followed That Stuff?”
11:50 — Growing Up Christian in Very Different Worlds
14:33 — When Evangelicalism Becomes the Only Christianity You Know
15:20 — Can Christians Believe Differently and Still Belong?
17:55 — Is God Bigger Than Our Beliefs?
19:59 — Evolution, Genesis & Faith
22:28 — What Happens to Faith After Deconstruction?
24:38 — Curiosity, Freedom & Making Room for Each Other
27:27 — AI, Christianity & What It Means to Be Human
30:02 — Can Science and Religion Learn to Talk to Each Other?
31:21 — After Deconstruction: What Do We Believe Now?

#TheologyBeerCamp #IliaDelio #TrippFuller #SarahHeath #JoshPatterson #Deconstruction #ProgressiveChristianity #FaithAndDoubt #ChristianNationalism #ScienceAndReligion #TheSacredSlope

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

60. Raised Pentecostal vs. United Methodist | Deconstruction, Doubt & Finding God Again with Colten Barnaby & Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams

What happens when two Christians grow up in almost completely different versions of Christianity?

Colten Barnaby grew up in a strict Oneness Holiness Pentecostal world, speaking in tongues at five years old and believing other Christians still needed to be saved.

Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams grew up United Methodist, where he was encouraged to question, evolution wasn’t controversial, hell was rarely discussed, and faith was rooted more in grace than fear.

Same Christianity?

That question opens a fascinating conversation about Pentecostalism, United Methodism, deconstruction, religious trauma, progressive Christianity, evolution, scripture, doubt, Christian nationalism—and whether questioning your faith can actually bring you closer to God.

Colten shares how studying theology and church history at Oral Roberts University complicated the certainty he grew up with. Instead of atheist professors destroying his faith, he encountered serious Christians who accepted evolution, disagreed theologically, and still respected one another.

Today, Colten sometimes describes himself with a sentence that would have terrified his younger self:

“I’m a Christian who doesn’t believe in God.”

What does that even mean?

Together, Colten and S.C. explore what remains when certainty disappears—and why seeking truth may matter more than protecting the theological system you inherited.

They also discuss religious trauma, LGBTQ+ inclusion, harmful theology, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Christian nationalism, debating Doug Wilson, progressive Christianity, and one of the hardest questions for people rebuilding faith:

How do you know who to trust again?

And for anyone afraid deconstruction will lead them away from God:

Maybe God is on the other side of your questions too.

✨ GUESTS + FOLLOW

Colten Barnaby — Christian thinker and creator exploring theology, politics, philosophy, and faith after certainty.

Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams — United Methodist pastor and creator exploring scripture, theology, church history, and harmful Christian teachings.

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Brian Recker — IG: @berecker
Tim Whitaker / The New Evangelicals — IG: @thenewevangelicals @timwhitakerspeaks
Tripp Fuller — IG: @trippfuller
Homebrewed Christianity — IG: @theologynerd
Theology Beer Camp — IG: @theologybeercamp
April Ajoy — IG: @aprilajoy

🍺 THEOLOGY BEER CAMP

Alexis, Colten, Tripp Fuller, and other Sacred Slope friends are headed to Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City, Missouri, October 8–10, 2026—a gathering for people willing to ask big questions about God, Christianity, theology, culture, and the world without pretending they already have all the answers.

In-person tickets are sold out, but virtual tickets are still available at theologybeer.camp.

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

07:29 — Meet Colten Barnaby & Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams
08:24 — Growing Up Oneness Pentecostal
11:45 — When Education Complicates Your Faith
14:20 — Pentecostal vs. United Methodist Christianity
17:15 — Religious Trauma & What the Church Owes People
19:02 — “I’m a Christian Who Doesn’t Believe in God”
23:48 — What Is God?
25:20 — Progressive Christianity & Questions
29:30 — Debating Doug Wilson
33:54 — Why S.C. Williams Does Theology Online
35:34 — Recognizing Harmful Theology
36:42 — Apostasy, Fear & Religious Trauma
43:00 — LGBTQ+ Inclusion & Reading the Bible Differently
44:35 — Reinterpreting Scripture
47:07 — Why Church Tradition Matters
51:34 — Doubt, Truth & Seeking God
01:02:40 — What Deconstruction Actually Looks Like
01:03:24 — Historical Context Changes Theology
01:06:04 — The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
01:09:49 — Reading Scripture Through Jesus
01:16:26 — Who Can You Trust After Religious Trauma?
01:21:40 — Can Doubt Bring You Closer to God?

#Deconstruction #ProgressiveChristianity #Pentecostal #UnitedMethodist #ReligiousTrauma #FaithAndDoubt #Exvangelical #Christianity #TheSacredSlope

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

59. Theology Beer Camp Preview (Ilia Delio, Tripp Fuller, Sarah Heath & Josh Patterson) | We Shocked a Theologian With What We Were Taught About Christianity

What happens when you tell a theologian what millions of American evangelicals were taught they had to believe in order to be Christian?

Ilia Delio was shocked. She's not the only one. I have done this exercise with several pastors, theologians, scholars around the world outside of conservative fundamentalism and they are almost all shocked. And those in fundamentalism are shocked at the responses outside of conservative evangelicalism. So what's going on here?

In this special Theology Beer Camp preview, Ilia Delio, Tripp Fuller, Sarah Heath, and Josh Patterson join Alexis Rice for a conversation about evangelical fundamentalism, deconstruction, Christian nationalism, science, evolution, curiosity, AI, and what happens when faith becomes bigger than the beliefs we inherited.

The conversation begins with a simple experiment:

Put your finger down if you were taught…

That the snake in Genesis was a literal talking snake.

That you needed to pray the sinner’s prayer to escape eternal conscious torment in hell.

That the rapture could happen at any moment.

That you cannot be gay and Christian.

That women cannot be pastors.

That evolution contradicts the Bible.

That questioning any of this meant questioning God.

Alexis and Josh put every finger down.

Ilia, Tripp, and Sarah largely don’t.

Ilia’s reaction?

“My God… I can’t believe you guys really followed that stuff.”

And then comes the question underneath this entire episode:

“Is this stuff still going on?”

Yes.

And that disconnect matters.

Together, they explore how Christians from different traditions can inherit radically different understandings of the same faith—and why people leaving conservative evangelicalism may have no idea that other faithful expressions of Christianity have been here all along.

Tripp reflects on how 9/11, Islamophobia, war, and militaristic nationalism changed his relationship with the Christian world around him.

Sarah shares what happened when she moved from a questioning Christian home in Canada into conservative evangelical culture in the American South—and why curiosity may be one of the most important things Christians can offer one another.

Josh talks about letting go of theological finality and embracing the idea that being human means always becoming.

And Ilia explores evolution, science, inner freedom, AI, and a God she understands not as a power over us, but as a presence and embrace within us.

By the end, everyone has all ten fingers back up.

They still don’t believe exactly the same things.

They don’t need to.

Because maybe changing your theology doesn’t mean losing your faith.

Maybe asking questions isn’t something Christianity needs to fear.

And maybe people who thought they had to choose between the Christianity they inherited and no Christianity at all need to hear something much simpler:

Christianity is bigger than what you were taught.

✨ GUESTS + FOLLOW

Ilia Delio
Franciscan sister, theologian, scientist, and founder of the Center for Christogenesis
IG: @centerforchristogenesis

Tripp Fuller
Theologian, author, host of Homebrewed Christianity, and founder of Theology Beer Camp
IG: @trippfuller
Homebrewed Christianity: @theologynerd
Theology Beer Camp: @theologybeercamp

Sarah Heath
United Methodist pastor, author, speaker, creator, and professional asker of good questions
IG: @revsarahheath

Josh Patterson
Theologian, podcaster, and host of (Re)thinking Faith
Podcast IG: @rethinking_faith

🍺 THEOLOGY BEER CAMP

Alexis, Ilia, Tripp, Sarah, and Josh are headed to Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City, Missouri, October 8–10, 2026—a gathering for people willing to ask big questions about God, Christianity, culture, science, and the world without pretending they already have all the answers.

In-person tickets are sold out, but virtual tickets are still available at theologybeer.camp.

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Andrew Whitehead — @andrewwhitehead
Sociologist and author whose work examines Christian nationalism in the United States.

⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS

06:05 — The Experiment: Were We Even Taught the Same Christianity?
09:58 — Ilia’s Reaction: “You Really Followed That Stuff?”
11:50 — Growing Up Christian in Very Different Worlds
14:33 — When Evangelicalism Becomes the Only Christianity You Know
15:20 — Can Christians Believe Differently and Still Belong?
17:55 — Is God Bigger Than Our Beliefs?
19:59 — Evolution, Genesis & Faith
22:28 — What Happens to Faith After Deconstruction?
24:38 — Curiosity, Freedom & Making Room for Each Other
27:27 — AI, Christianity & What It Means to Be Human
30:02 — Can Science and Religion Learn to Talk to Each Other?
31:21 — After Deconstruction: What Do We Believe Now?

#TheologyBeerCamp #IliaDelio #TrippFuller #SarahHeath #JoshPatterson #Deconstruction #ProgressiveChristianity #FaithAndDoubt #ChristianNationalism #ScienceAndReligion #TheSacredSlope

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

58. Interfaith Comedy (Yasmin Elhady, Carmiya Weinraub & PT Bratton) | A Muslim, a Jew, and Two Christians Walk Into a Podcast

Comedians Yasmin Elhady, Carmiya Weinraub, and P. T. Bratton join Alexis Rice for an interfaith conversation about faith, comedy, stereotypes, friendship, and the questions people are often too nervous to ask out loud.

Together, they are part of Interfaith Comedy, a nationally touring project that brings performers of different faith traditions together to laugh, challenge assumptions, and build real human connection.

Carmiya, an observant Jewish comedian and founder of Interfaith Comedy, shares why she wanted Muslim performers in Jewish spaces - and herself in spaces beyond the Jewish community. Yasmin, an Egyptian American Muslim comedian and attorney, reflects on being welcomed to the United States as an asylum seeker by Catholic charities and on why faith, humility, pain, and comedy belong together. P. T., a Christian comedian, former pastor, and military veteran, brings humor and insight about Christian culture, church guilt, and the many ways people interpret the same sacred text.

This conversation is not about convincing everyone to believe the same thing.

It is about what happens when we stop talking about one another and start talking with one another.

People become much harder to fear - and harder to hate - up close.

✨ Guests + Upcoming Shows

Yasmin Elhady @yasminelhahahady
Egyptian American comedian, attorney, speaker, and storyteller
Known for Hulu’s Muslim Matchmaker and NBC’s True Story with Ed Helms and Randall Park
Performed at the Kennedy Center
Upcoming: Not Exactly a Nun at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., beginning September 25
Website + tickets | Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Carmiya Weinraub @carmiya.w
Observant Jewish comedian, producer, mother of five, and founder of Interfaith Comedy @interfaith.comedy. Creator of a nationally touring comedy project connecting audiences across faith traditions
Interfaith Comedy

PT Bratton @ptbrattoncomedy
Comedian, storyteller, military veteran, and former pastor
Has performed nationally, from comedy clubs to the Kennedy Center and the White House
Website + upcoming shows

#InterfaithComedy #YasminElhady #CarmiyaWeinraub #PTBratton #Interfaith #FaithAndComedy #TheSacredSlope

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

57. Matthew Boedy (Baptist) | The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy

What if something many Christians dismiss as fringe is actually an organized framework for changing American culture?

Religion. Family. Education. Government and military. Media. Arts and entertainment. Business.

These are the Seven Mountains.

Dr. Matthew Boedy, Baptist, professor, scholar of religious rhetoric and Christian nationalism, and author of The Seven Mountains Mandate, joins Alexis Rice to explain the history of the Seven Mountains Mandate and why he believes this movement matters far beyond conservative evangelicalism.

Alexis grew up in evangelical Christianity. She knew about Christian schools, Christian media, Christian politics, Campus Crusade, apologetics and the culture wars. But she had never heard anyone explain that there were seven specific areas of culture Christians were supposed to influence or “take.”

Matthew traces the framework back to Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ and Lauren Cunningham of Youth With A Mission, and explains the later influence of Lance Wallnau.

They talk about Turning Point USA, Project 2025, public schools, the Ten Commandments, spiritual warfare, pastors and politics, “marketplace apostles,” conspiracy thinking, social media, Christian media, and the difference between sharing your faith and seeking political or cultural power.

But this conversation is also about Christianity itself.

Matthew is Christian. Alexis is Christian. And the Christianity being discussed here is not all Christianity.

What happens when one expression of Christianity becomes so visible that people begin confusing it with Christianity itself?

And what responsibility do pastors, scholars, professors and other Christians have to make the larger Christian tradition visible?

CHAPTERS

02:56 Introduction
04:12 What Is the Seven Mountains Mandate?
08:37 Understanding Christian Nationalism
17:39 How Large Is This Movement?
23:10 The Global Movement
27:10 Spiritual Warfare & Strategy
30:06 Which Christianity?
32:36 Media & Counterpoints
35:18 Mountain 1: Education
41:41 Ten Commandments in Schools
44:54 The California Narrative
47:21 Mountain 2: Government
49:58 Mountain 3: Religion
53:36 Mountain 4: Family
01:01:51 Mountain 5: Business
01:05:15 Mountain 6: Media
01:09:40 Mountain 7: Arts & Entertainment
01:13:11 Hope & What Comes Next

✨ Guest + Book

Matthew Boedy
The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
Professor, University of North Georgia
Westminster John Knox Press
Thanks to @aprilajoy, author of Star-Spangled Jesus, who makes a cameo in this episode, for alerting me through your book of the Seven Mountains Mandate

#MatthewBoedy #SevenMountainsMandate #ChristianNationalism #Christianity

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

56. Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Christian) | Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made

What if the Christianity you were taught was never the only way to be Christian?

For millions of women raised in American evangelicalism, the rules felt inseparable from the faith itself.

Be pure. Submit. Don’t question authority. Stay inside the lines. Follow the right leaders. Read the right books. Believe the right things. Shop at the right stores. And if you do it all faithfully enough, you’ll be safe, happy, and blessed.

But who made those rules? Where did they come from? And what happens when you discover that some of what you were taught as timeless biblical truth has a history?

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, historian, scholar, and New York Times bestselling author of Jesus and John Wayne, joins Alexis Rice to uncover that history in her new book, Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made.

For women formed by evangelical Christianity, this one may feel deeply personal.

Purity culture. Biblical womanhood. Submission. Christian bookstores. Megachurches. Beth Moore Bible studies. Political power. Christian nationalism. And the promise underneath so much of it: follow the rules and you will be safe, prosperous, and happy.

But Kristin’s history reveals something many women were never taught. Christian women have also challenged patriarchy, fought for women’s rights, preached, led, questioned authority, and imagined faithful Christianity differently.

Together they explore:

• How evangelicalism became a self-contained cultural ecosystem
• The surprising history of Christian feminism
• Purity culture, shame & the “sexual prosperity gospel”
• Christian consumer culture, belonging & control
• Why questioning the system felt like questioning Christianity
• Beth Moore, abuse, Trump & the cost of speaking out
• Gender, politics, power & Christian nationalism
• Rachel Held Evans, Sarah Bessey & women imagining another way
• Why seeing the system clearly is the first step toward changing it

Kristin is careful to distinguish this history from all Christianity or even all evangelicalism. There have always been dissenters.

“There were always people inside the system who began to see the system for what it was.”

What becomes possible when you realize the Christianity you inherited is not the only Christianity available to you?

✨ Guest + Books

• Kristin Kobes Du Mez, @kkdumez
• Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made
• Jesus and John Wayne
• A New Gospel for Women
• Publisher: Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company

📚 People, Books & Resources Mentioned

• Beth Moore, @bethmoorelpm
• Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) @rachelheldevans, Evolving in Monkey Town; A Year of Biblical Womanhood
• Sarah Bessey, @sarahbessey, Jesus Feminist
• Jen Hatmaker, @jenhatmaker
• Amy Grant, @amygrantofficial
• LifeWay Christian Resources, @lifeway

05:05 Introduction to the Sacred Slope
06:54 Expanding the Christian Faith
08:44 Understanding Christian Nationalism
09:11 The Movement of Women in Christianity
10:00 Introduction to Kristen Kobes Du Mez and Her Work
11:52 The Impact of 'Jesus and John Wayne' and Cultural Phenomenon
14:53 Exploring White Evangelical Womanhood and Purity Culture
17:46 The Complexity of Evangelicalism and Dissenting Voices
20:35 Historical Context of Christian Women's Involvement in Feminism
23:33 The Closed System of Evangelical Culture
25:59 Personal Reflections on Faith and Regret
28:25 Understanding Power Dynamics in Evangelicalism
31:26 The Role of Women in Shaping Evangelical History
33:51 Concluding Thoughts on the Future of Christianity
41:03 The Totalizing System of Evangelicalism
44:49 Purity Culture and Its Impact
53:13 Beth Moore: A Voice of Change
01:04:01 Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity
01:15:17 Introduction to The Sacred Slope
01:15:17 Nomination Process for Clergy Members

#KristinKobesDuMez #LiveLaughLove #Christianity #Evangelicalism #Deconstruction #ChristianNationalism #PurityCulture #WomenInChurch

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

55. Birdy Mae (Southern Baptist) — When Evangelical Christianity Stops Feeling Like Home

Birdy Mae knew how to be a good Southern Baptist woman.

Know the Bible. Serve constantly. Believe the right things. Raise your kids the right way. And be certain.

“I was desperate to be like her. Because I thought she knew Jesus.”

Eventually, Birdy became her.

Then the certainty started cracking.

Women. LGBTQ+ Christians. Church abuse. Race. Political power. Christian nationalism. And finally, January 6.

For women raised inside conservative evangelical Christianity who still love Jesus but increasingly wonder, How did the faith that formed me become something I barely recognize?—this conversation will feel familiar.

Birdy joins Alexis Rice for a funny, vulnerable conversation about what happens when changing your mind costs you relationships, certainty, and belonging—but not Jesus.

Together they explore:

• Becoming the “good Christian woman” she thought she had to be
• Hell houses, purity culture & fear-based Christianity
• Beth Moore, women preaching & cracks in Southern Baptist certainty
• Church abuse scandals & institutional power
• Realizing she had been wrong about LGBTQ+ Christians
• Travel & discovering Christianity beyond an American lens
• January 6 and Birdy’s breaking point
• Christian nationalism & political identity
• Women, gender roles & what younger women are inheriting
• Losing relationships after publicly changing her mind
• Why questioning your faith doesn’t have to mean losing Jesus
• Why Birdy still attends a Southern Baptist church

Birdy calls her journey “untangling”—pulling the threads of Jesus away from the rules of religion.

Can you grieve what your Christian world has become without giving up the Jesus you found there?

“You have the right to question everything.”

✨ Guest

• Birdy Mae (Mary) — Southern Baptist storyteller & creator — @birdymaesays
• Substack: The Back Row

📚 Books, People & Resources Mentioned

• Kristin Kobes Du Mez — @kkdumez — Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made; Jesus and John Wayne
• Pete Enns — @peteenns — The Sin of Certainty; The Bible Tells Me So
• Beth Allison Barr — @bethallisonbarr — The Making of Biblical Womanhood
• Rachel Held Evans — @rachelheldevans — A Year of Biblical Womanhood
• Sarah Bessey — @sarahbessey — Field Notes for the Wilderness / Braving the Wilderness of Faith
• Beth Moore — @bethmoorelpm
• Andrew Whitehead — @ndrewwhitehead — American Idolatry
• April Ajoy — @aprilajoy — Star-Spangled Jesus
• Cody Deese — @codydeese My Internal Universe
• Kathy Baldock — @forgingasacredweapon1946 Forging a Sacred Weapon
• 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture — @1946themovie
• Oprah Winfrey — @oprah

📺 Movies, TV & Culture Mentioned

• The Handmaid’s Tale — @handmaidsonhulu
• The Righteous Gemstones — @HBO @therighteousgemstones
• Mrs. America — FX @
mrsamericafx

#Christianity #Deconstruction #Evangelicalism #SouthernBaptist #ChristianNationalism #ChurchHurt #WomenInChurch #LGBTQChristians #Faith

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

54. Father Dan Storrs (Old Roman Catholic) When Following Jesus Makes You the 'Wrong Kind of Christian'

What happens when a gay Catholic priest keeps following Jesus - even after Christians tell him he doesn’t belong?

Father Dan Storrs is an Old Roman Catholic priest whose journey has taken him through the Assemblies of God, the Baptist church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and eventually the Society of Mercy.

And after all of that?

“My journey has made me certain that certainty is the opposite of faith.”

Father Dan joins Alexis Rice for a conversation about what happens when following Jesus means refusing the boundaries religious institutions have drawn around who belongs.

Together they explore:

• Why becoming more rooted in ancient Christianity made Father Dan more committed to mercy and inclusion - not less
• Being gay, married, and called to the priesthood
• What Protestants often misunderstand about Catholicism
• Old Roman Catholicism and how it differs from Roman Catholicism
• Why Father Dan believes the sacraments are for everyone
• Mary, the Eucharist, and finding Jesus again after church hurt
• Creating spiritual community for LGBTQ+ people wounded by churches
• Why progressive Christian voices need to be more visible
• His work with Endless Mountains Pride and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Commission
• Why clergy must stand beside survivors of sexual violence and abuse
• What following Jesus this way has cost him

This isn’t a conversation about deciding whether Catholics or Protestants have Christianity right.

It’s an invitation to ask: What beauty might we have missed because we were taught to be suspicious of someone else’s way of following Jesus?

As Father Dan says, “If Jesus could make space for Judas, then we can make space for each other.”

✨ Guest

• Father Dan Storrs - Old Roman Catholic priest, Society of Mercy; Pastor, Holy Name of Mary Catholic Chapel; President, Endless Mountains Pride
• Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube: @FatherDanStorrs

⛪ Church & Organizations

• Holy Name of Mary Catholic Chapel - Facebook & YouTube: @holynamemary
• Society of Mercy
• Endless Mountains Pride
• Pennsylvania Governor’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Affairs - @GovernorShapiro
• Abuse & Rape Crisis Center of Bradford County

⚠️ Content Note

This episode includes discussion of sexual assault, abuse, church trauma, and survivor advocacy.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault or abuse, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline provides free, confidential support 24/7:

• Call 800-656-HOPE (4673)
• Text HOPE to 64673
• RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Ministry for people the Church left behind
07:06 Meet Father Dan Storrs
15:28 “Certainty is the opposite of faith”
20:10 Following Jesus into unexpected places
26:33 Gay, Catholic & making room for everyone
30:02 Finding home in Catholicism
35:56 What is Old Roman Catholicism?
42:49 Communion, Utrecht & Alexis’s Catholic surprise
47:20 Why inclusive priests need to be online
53:42 Mary, church hurt & finding Jesus again
57:40 LGBTQ+ advocacy & Governor Shapiro’s commission
1:06:02 Standing with survivors of sexual violence
1:12:04 “Following Jesus has cost me everything”
1:15:44 A prayer for people wounded by the Church
1:22:07 Antiquing, running & Father Dan beyond ministry

#Christianity #Catholic #OldRomanCatholic #LGBTQChristians #GayChristian #ProgressiveChristianity #ChurchHurt #Deconstruction #Exvangelical #Faith

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com

🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail

53. Dr. Samantha Bise (Lutheran, ELCA) Tongue in Church, a Liberating Primer on Christian Vocabulary

What if the Christian words you have heard your entire life do not mean exactly what you were taught?

Dr. Samantha Bise joins Alexis Rice to unpack the history, translation, culture, and power hiding inside familiar words like virgin, salvation, gospel, Savior, and born again.

An author, educator, researcher, and adult convert to Christianity, Samantha studies how language shapes belief. Her new book, Tongue in Church: A Liberating Primer on Christian Vocabulary, asks Christians to slow down and learn what our own words have meant across thousands of years, cultures, empires, and translations.

Together they explore:

• How “young woman” became “virgin” in the story of Mary
• Why questioning Mary’s virginity does not have to unravel your faith
• How salvation became primarily about escaping hell, even though its biblical roots include healing, liberation, safety, and freedom from oppression
• Why Lord, Savior, Son of God, and gospel were politically charged words in the Roman Empire
• How “born again” became an identity marker in American evangelicalism
• What mission trips can teach us about Christianity, colonization, and conversion
• Why churches that control women often disregard the earth too
• The difference between faith that manipulates through fear and faith that makes room for mystery
• Why “the Bible is clear” is rarely as clear as people claim

Samantha also shares her unexpected path from outspoken atheist to ELCA Lutheran, the church that fed Appalachian Trail hikers without trying to convert them, and the painful altar call at her grandmother’s funeral that inspired this book.

This is not a conversation about tearing down scripture. It is an invitation to take scripture and its language seriously, loosen our grip on false certainty, and discover a faith spacious enough for questions.

As Samantha says, “There’s not one pure Christianity.” From the beginning, Christians have debated, negotiated, wrestled, and wondered. That wrestling is part of the tradition.

✨ Guest

• Dr. Samantha Bise: Author, educator, researcher, professor, co-host of Church Chatter, and ELCA Lutheran | IG: @dr.bise

📚 Book & Resources Mentioned

• Tongue in Church: A Liberating Primer on Christian Vocabulary by Dr. Samantha Bise | @thepilgrimpress
https://thepilgrimpress.com/products/tongue-in-church-a-liberating-primer-on-christian-vocabulary

• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America @elca
• The Sin of Certainty by Pete Enns @peteenns
• Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett
• Marcus Borg on salvation

#TongueInChurch #Christianity #Deconstruction #Exvangelical #ProgressiveChristianity #Bible #ELCA #Faith

Support the show

About The Sacred Slope
https://thesacredslope.com
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)

🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: https://linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
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🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit: ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control