Slow Train to Heck
Conversations with regular people about their deconstruction experiences, leaving toxic religious groups, and what comes next. Maple syrup-flavoured discussions about how authoritarian religion manifests in the Canadian space. Episodes release biweekly on Wednesdays.
Episodes
45 episodes
Bonus Episode: The Divorced Virgin Project
Check out a special bonus episode of Slow Train to Heck where I interview Mindy, the creator of The Divorced Virgin Project, about her experience growing up in purity culture and how leaving it motivated her to create this resource for others w...
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32:52
Episode 43 (Finale): The Story You Told
Welcome to the finale of a podcast about people, sharing their stories of deconstruction and leaving behind toxic religious systems... so what happens next? I've got one more story for you.Podcast episode about Hegel's God: https://www....
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Episode 43
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43:16
Episode 42: Love Really Does Win
In this final conversation on Slow Train To Heck, Matt and Mandy Ottaway share the story of their lives together: Growing up in evangelicalism, attending Moody Bible Institute, getting into youth ministry in their early 20s... eventually with M...
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Episode 42
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1:39:21
Episode 41: The Kid in the Bookstore
Matthew Burkholder joins the podcast to share his experience of growing up immersed in purity culture, starting all the way back as a kid in a Christian bookstore surrounded by the key texts of that ideology. We talk about the lasting damage th...
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Episode 41
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1:15:01
Episode 40: Forced to Betray Ourselves
Olivia Grigg shares her experience of Christianity and the spiritual trauma that it caused her, and gives her take on religious trauma as a whole from her perspective as a social worker and counsellor focused on helping people navigate changing...
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Episode 40
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58:56
Episode 39: The Correlation of Dysfunction
Laurel talks about the link between dysfunctional families and dysfunctional fundamentalist churches, and how people in abusive situations who are desperate for love are reeled in by the promise of love from leaders who manipulate that desire f...
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Episode 39
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1:35:33
Episode 38: This Was The Grace Of God
This week I'm joined by Kevin Wilcox (see his previous appearance on the podcast in Episode 6) to talk about how you might be able to maintain or forge relationships "across the aisle" - is it possible for an evangelical and an exvangelical to ...
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1:48:29
Episode 37: We're All Having The Same Questions
This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Jannah Rulfs, who grew up Pentecostal in Southwestern Ontario and has since left the church. Jannah has a lot of really insightful things to say about the anxiety and fear that Christianity generate...
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Episode 37
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1:18:02
Episode 36: The System Is Broken
Alexandra and John share their experiences growing up Christian and the fear-based narratives they lived within. Eventually, they entered the mission field, living in China for some time, and eventually worked for Christian nonprofits. What the...
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Episode 36
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1:43:26
Episode 35: Hope Is Very Punk
Cassy shares her story and talks about her mental illness and sexual assault, and processing these heavy things while also processing her faith deconstruction. Cassy is an incredibly strong person who has come through a lot of really hard thing...
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Episode 35
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2:09:12
Episode 34: The Endgame
The Slow Train is back, and with it comes David Hayward, a.k.a. the Naked Pastor. David is a former pastor who has since become an artist, creating amazing paintings and cartoons that challenge aspects of religious environments in ways that pro...
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Episode 34
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58:04
Episode 33: The Best Tag Team Ever
Walter Schultz hops on the Slow Train to Heck to share his story of being required to attend church as a child, the confusion that caused him when presented with two wildly opposed worldviews between Sunday School and public school, and how his...
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Episode 33
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1:31:14
Episode 32: A Paper Wall of Fire and Flames
This week Marie Wall shares her story of joining, living in, and ultimately Escaping the Church of God fundamentalist Christian cult in Aylmer, Ontario. She shares her harrowing experience of being slowly worn down by the church until she joine...
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Episode 32
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48:25
Episode 31: A Skewed Definition Of Love
Jake Kroeker chats with us this week about his time at Trinity Bible Chapel, a fundamentalist evangelical church in the Waterloo Region of Ontario that has been increasingly positioning itself at the forefront of a growing Christian Nationalist...
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Episode 31
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1:04:33
Episode 30: There Are No Wrong Notes [Part Two]
We rejoin Luke Williams this week as he shares the remainder of his story, detailing the changes in his life after he left Christianity. Luke covers a whole bunch of life experiences and viewpoints, including exploring polyamorous relationships...
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Episode 30
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2:04:49
Episode 29: There Are No Wrong Notes [Part One]
Luke Williams joins the Slow Train to Heck to share his journey through and out of Christianity. Luke has lived through many different experiences in his life, and the message of suffering, and the expectation of suffering both now and in the f...
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Episode 29
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2:00:30
Episode 28: On The Land
Andrew Benson is a freelance writer, entrepreneur, pastor, and hiking enthusiast, who has worked in ministry all over Canada. Andrew and I have a great chat in this episode about what deconstruction looks like as a pastor, what deconstruction m...
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Episode 28
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1:12:07
Episode 27: The World As We Know It Has Ended
Carly Butler is an indigenous woman who was born in the US, but now lives in British Columbia. Carly grew up in a Christian environment characterized by fear: Fear of government, fear of persecution, and most of all, the fear of the apocalypse....
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Episode 27
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1:45:28
Episode 26: Didn't Fit The Mold
Amanda joins us this week to talk about her exit from the church and how she never fit the mold the church wants her to. She also shares her experiences as a mom of autistic children, and the challenges of being part of a church community who e...
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Episode 26
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1:12:02
Episode 25: Searching For Sarah
Rev. Sarah Heath, author, designer, pastor, life coach, and host of great podcasts like Revcovery, joins us on the Slow Train to Heck this week. Sarah grew up in Ontario working at Christian camp where she discovered her own innate leader...
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Episode 25
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1:24:25
Episode 24: Externalizing Indoctrination
Zac Schraeder is a psychotherapist based in Toronto with a focus on helping folks process religious trauma - and particularly those of the LGBTQ2S+ community who grew up in the church, as they often receive so many deeply damaging messages from...
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Episode 24
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1:17:53
Episode 23: Living In The Question
This week Jax shares her story and asks the question "Who is Jax?" Growing up in a conservative Christian environment, and having her personality and everything deemed to be of the "self" suppressed and replaced by Christian dogma, Jax is now w...
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Episode 23
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1:09:02
Episode 22: Now I Get To Live
Jeremiah Chapman shares his story of coming to accept his sexual orientation this week on the podcast, and details his experiences growing up in a Charismatic Christian community where his sexuality was unacceptable, and drastic measures were t...
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Episode 22
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1:26:44
Episode 21: You Don't Need The Church For That
This week, Angela Keeley joins us to chat about her experiences of growing up in small-town Ontario as a Catholic, and how she found freedom in exploring her spirituality on her own without the box the Church built around her. She also talks ab...
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Episode 21
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57:39
Episode 20: The Church's Problem With Truth
Jeremiah Pacey joins the podcast to talk about his experience growing up in evangelicalism, going through seminary, and eventually becoming an evangelical pastor. Today, he has left that environment, is fully LGBTQ2S+ affirming, and now leads a...
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Episode 20
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2:01:21