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Johnna Harris:Hello and welcome back to the bodies behind the bus podcast I'm super excited for the conversation we're going to have today. We have with us Margaret Bronson and Eric Isaac, Professor Eric Isaac, who's also one of our board members. Margaret was a former storyteller and she has been doing a ton of work in the deconstruction space and particularly coming alongside men and women, but I would say predominantly women. Out of the specific brand of evangelicalism that she was raised in, which we're going to give her a little space to talk about the nuance of that. I think some of the things that she introduces are going to be things that many of us can relate to, talk But what she is has come out of is like the most extreme version of that. So that's like the end of the theology that many of us were baked in as evangelicals. So we're going to give you a second to do that. But I did want to just give an update on why Jay's not here. His Community and family have experienced like some deep loss and tragedy connected with the fires in Los Angeles. I'm posting updates about that on our Instagram as frequently as I can with just correct information and ways that you can come alongside their community and support them. But right now that's where he's needed. So that's where Jay is. With that, let's dive into this conversation. Part of the reason that we're here today is because I would love to have Eric interacting with the data that Margaret has been compiling in her community. And see where his research, which I'm going to link in the show notes, our episode we did with Eric. So you can hear more about his research and the findings from that, how that can intersect with what Margaret is seeing. And even what we're seeing at bodies behind the bus, Margaret. This kind of all came together because of some of the work you're doing on your social media, particularly surrounding how there needs to be a little bit more nuance regarding the community you are coming out of when we're talking about religious trauma and spiritual abuse in general. Like that is kind of a community that is not included in the conversation in a way that really honors the depth of destruction that's happening there and the depth of need for people that are coming out of that space. So can you just give us like high level, I know that's really hard, high level what that community is and why you describe it the way you describe it?
Margaret Bronson:Yeah, absolutely. Um, so last time I was here, I was coming as a SBC pastor's wife, but I also was raised in a cult and so for me, the SBC was actually part of my deconstruction, right? That was a move towards moderate for me, um, from my very fringe experience growing up. In that space, I was processing my own deconstruction, um, as well as seeing issues and trying to address them as they came up. Uh, it was really interesting because I was in a church, an SBC church with a lot of young seminary students who were discovering the same books that my parents discovered when I was little that sent them down a very extremist. route. And so I'm like, Oh, you know, maybe don't read that book. Let me just like give you some examples of how I've seen the, uh, side effects from this book, you know, five, 10, 20 years on. That was early conversations. But then, you know, 2015 happens, the Me Too movement that comes into the church, the SBCs, um, squarely in the middle of that. Sovereign Grace was also a big part of that. And My church was associated with that to some degree, and um, the way the conversations happened back in like 2015, 2016 was very not great, like there's lots of education that needed to happen, but there was still a level of like, I do care about this, like I could assume that everyone did care. That doesn't feel like the case anymore. If, as soon as I start talking about women in the church, the way women are treated in the church, whatever I've said seems to get reduced to, like, women are sad they're not invited to the big boys club, or like, girls want to do fun things too, or like, Women are discontent with motherhood, and that's really frustrating to me as someone who, so I, I did grow up in a cult at this point in time, the vast majority of my closest relationships are also people who grew up in the same fringy extremist Christian patriarchy, um, and I can talk a little bit more about what that is in a second, but, you know, to have it reduced to like women are sad or frustrated when I'm going to bed. Snuggled up safely next to my husband knowing dozens of my closest friends are not even safe in their own beds that they are truly financially enslaved in their own marriages that if they could get out, they would not because they don't like their husbands, but because they're having to like, make sure he doesn't have access to the gun safe and make sure that, you know, they're watching his behavior around the other, their, their children. Um, a lot of my women don't have social security cards or driver's licenses, far less work history, education, all of these things. And all of that is intentional and success in the cult's mind. That's, that's literally, um, I remember the church that I, the church that I grew up in, um, saying that, Women shouldn't be like girls shouldn't be educated past eighth grade because you're setting them up for a life of discontentment because you're lying to them By telling them that they are going to need more than that education and that was backed by Essentially believe I've been going back and listening to old sermons. Um, they're still in sermon audio, which is like bonkers to me, but Like women are not made in the image of God They're made in the image of man who's made in the image of God and the dominion mandate was given before the creation of women. And so men partner with God and women are just there to like support that situation.
Johnna Harris:And as you're saying this, I think what I would love for our listeners to understand is, um, like our episode with Tiffany Thigpen right before the election was a choice on our part. Like, mainly due to the fact that these fringe things you're talking about right now are believed by people that this administration is empowering. So if you hear these things and you think, that's wild, that is fringe stuff. It was fringe when Margaret was growing up. It is becoming mainstreamed now. It's becoming mainstreamed in America. our government now. So it's something that we all need to be aware of in general. I just wanted to give that caveat to y'all. Like, this isn't something that's far away from you. This is something that is actually going to be affecting your and your kids lives now.
Margaret Bronson:It has been. So, such a bizarre experience to get myself personally, ideologically, further and further away from the cults each year while around me, the church is slipping closer and closer to my cult. It's this really actually very triggering constant experience of I can't get away. And that's how my whole community feels. Yeah. And then, you know, we go to the churches that we assume are healthier. This is another part of the conversation, right? Why are we, why are we confronting the church when it's cults that are doing it? First of all, it doesn't say cult on the sign outside the door. It says church. These are SBC churches, E Free churches, OPC, PCA, AOG, like the major denominations in America. Some of them don't have this in them, but you don't know until you get in there, and the same words are used, submission, in all contexts, you have to be there for a while to figure out, like, how seriously, or, like, how far do they take this, an image I really. I'm drawing a lot from right now is the idea of a poisoned well, like what we have is people obediently going to the well, faithfully going to the well, whether that's looking for direction or comfort or clarity and the wells poisoned and. Everyone who's saying, guys, we're pouring poison into this well, are being silenced.
Johnna Harris:So, I think oftentimes, when someone hears the word cult, they think like, Netflix documentary, everybody drink the Kool Aid, or something like that. But the reality is, is, um. Even like when we heard from Daniella, Daniella, right? Vestanek. She came on. She was awesome. She's a cult scholar. And she talked about how, like, organizationally, cults are actually a spectrum. But, like, oftentimes, like, most organizations fit somewhere on that spectrum. So it's finding out, like, how that, um, How that manifests within it and what are the things that are being set up, similar to like, Eric, with your research, like, what are the ways that we can de incentivize this so that the communities that we are in, the organizations we are in, don't lead to lean towards this high control, coercive space. And this can happen within startups a lot. Like it, it happens outside of religion. But when you. When you are in a space like the one that Margaret is talking about, you, the sacred is tied to the coercion and the manipulation and the control in a way that keeps everyone in it trapped, but it really puts at risk the most vulnerable people in that community, which are children and women. So, Eric, as you've been listening to this, I've seen you, like, writing furiously. Yes. Do you have any thoughts? I would love to just kind of, like, open the floor to hear some feedback from you.
Eric Isaac:Um, yeah. I mean, well, thank you for sharing, Margaret. You know, when I, when I hear, I think about a lot of things, um, one of the things that I found really interesting was when you talked about submission, um, you said that you basically alluded to going to all these different churches, and you're hearing this word. And when you go to these different churches, you're hearing this word, and you're trying to figure out what, what do these people mean by this? Right? And you've discovered that, at least what I'm assuming, is that it means different things to different people. And what you're experiencing is actually spiritual power, which is really interesting. So when we talk about spiritual abuse, we kind of have an idea of what that is. What's being abused? Well, it's the power to define those concepts. But those concepts are like They're really important, because when you say, oh, well, submission, that's tied to the definition in those contexts of, like, what it means to be, like, a faithful woman, I guess, um, I'm not saying that that should be anything, it's just, I don't think that's what it is, and so I think that, you know, when we, when we think about this idea of submission, the word submission is not submission, it's a symbol for the reality, and then spiritual power is the ability to define that, and so the SBC person might have a more moderate view compared to, like, uh, Someone who's big on NPR right now would be like Doug Wilson. Um, and that's spiritual power. You brought up something that's interesting, um, which I do think does fit the definition of cult in terms of religious studies. Um, which I figured I should, I should say characteristics of cults are a couple of things. The first one is unorthodox beliefs. Um, Women not being made in the image of God. That's a pretty unorthodox belief, uh, uh, seclusion, uh, which I think you mentioned in one of the reels, you said, like, you can leave the cult, but the cult doesn't leave you. We can talk more about that, uh, authoritarianism, for sure, hostility and, and demanding extreme devotion. And that's, that's the first thing that I, that I think of, you know, when, when you talk about experiencing spiritual abuse, they're shaping these concepts in your mind. And so, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You leave the high control patriarchy cult at 16, but the ideas put in your brain by those people don't leave you. And so you go to the SPC church, you go to the E free church, you go to the OPC church or PCA church, and your symbol is interacting with the pastor's new definition of it. So it's like a really vexing concept because you don't know what's up and what's down. Am I getting that correctly?
Margaret Bronson:Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's another layer to it, which is. One of the first things that I encountered as like, I mean, I got married at 19, so like 2021, is all the caveats only came from one side. So there was only like, in this context, caveats against egalitarian and like feminism, essentially. There was only like, well, don't go too far that way. There was never, ever. any staying hand or protection against going too far the other way. So even the complementarian folks who had functionally egalitarian marriages would say, well, if in your marriage your husband says he doesn't like your haircut, you shouldn't get your haircut that way anymore. Even though they would never do that to their wives. Consistently, constantly, my experience has been, but that should be okay. And all the marriage books say that. The main marriage books, all Christian marriage books, all have that.
Johnna Harris:And I think something, um, interesting about that, that I have noticed because as we're doing so bodies behind the bus, you know, As a listener here, if you've been here for any amount of time, you'll know that we have stories at this point out of so many different, I mean, internationally, but very, um, influenced by this like very strong Western evangelical, predominantly white view. And like, you're going to see these themes in those places, but something that I've noticed that I thought was interesting and part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation with Eric and Margaret is when we're talking about where the United States is right now, where the church is right now, there is a, a tone and a rhetoric towards white women and The group of women coming out of this space that Margaret's talking about are white women, and yes, that is because of white supremacy. That is a huge part of it. But in order to have a full conversation about the needs and the realities of what Women have internalized and believe and, um, the freedom that they, they have been taught that they don't have, uh, if we don't have those conversations and educate ourselves community wide about how far reaching these beliefs are, then we can't have an honest conversation about why the church is where it's at and why the American, why the American church is where it's at for sure and why America is where it's at for sure and why like people voted the way they voted and All of those things, like this actually affects that conversation, and I think it would behoove us as an organization to take the time to really look at this demographic of women because it really does inform so much of our culture now, like in its mainstream culture, not even just evangelical culture. So. So, when you're talking, Margaret, about the stuff that you're seeing and the stuff you've experienced, can you take a little bit more time, you've kind of hit on them as you were introing, talking about some of these theological concepts that were utilized, um, and how they were utilized within the cults that you were a part of and the people that you work with the most were a part of, and how that is utilized in maybe like an SBC context versus How it was utilized within a cult context, because what I would like to start doing is drawing those lines that you may, like you were saying, you may be in a more egalitarian marriage, but you need to understand that the way that you talk about it, there's a large swath of people that are Actually living this because they're taking you seriously as their pastor that this is how you're supposed to live it. So, some of the things that I'd like you to just dig a little bit deeper on are appearance, uh, motherhood, and, um, in particular, like, what it, what it means to be a quiverful. And, and I'd also like to know, like, how mainstream are you seeing those, those concepts becoming, and then also education. If you could dig a little bit more into those, and then, um, we'll hear a little bit from Eric in response to that.
Margaret Bronson:Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Um, so first of all. Real quick, because you mentioned white supremacy, um, so Doug Wilson is one of the major thought leaders of this cult network situation that I was a part of. Um, and he has a book, uh, I believe it's called On Slavery, where he talks about. Chattel slavery in the South being the most beautiful picture of interracial relationships ever. And he paints the whole thing as this like very white saviory, like kind masters, just like helping and basically being family with their enslaved. Um, with the, the people they enslaved and so growing up in that is a big part of it and it fuels a lot of this and, um, talked about Daniela earlier, she talks a lot about how that ties into appearance. So, let's go on to appearance, um. Weirdly, I'm pretty sure my cult ripped off the Mormons because when I watch Mormon documentaries and I see the pamphlets that they had with like, what were appropriate hairstyles, necklaces, necklines, shapes of, um, outfits, et cetera, like those are the same ones that were passed around at my Baptist church. There's actually a lot of crossover with very, like, fundamentalist Mormonism as well. Um, so, appearance was, girls shouldn't cut their hair, must be long, very soft. Everything had to be soft. So, like, no, no androgyny, no edge, no, nothing hard, all very soft. Clothing. Covering your entire self, um, skirts only for girls, um, and so, I mean, that led to a lot of, as kids, as little kids, girls having to sit on the sidelines while the boys played games, girls having to stay in the house while the boys swam in the pool, things like that. Um, you also wanted to hear about motherhood. Um, that was the only thing that we were supposed to do with our lives. And so everything before motherhood was training for motherhood. So you were taking care of siblings. I, my family was bad at being a cult family. This is a big part of my story is I was part of the cult, but I had a lot of privilege that my peers didn't, which is why I'm able to today be where I'm at. Um. That my friends didn't have and so I have the ability to Try and like advocate for us in a way that others don't so I didn't have younger siblings I didn't have ten younger siblings. So I just nannied. I worked full time nannying from age 13 on supporting other women as they and actually was the best thing ever happened to me because the people that I worked for were outside of the cult but um, That didn't happen for most. It was other women within the cult. Um, and then, if you don't get married, you just continue doing that until you die. Just supporting the other mothers in the community. And then you have your own children, and then we get to the quiverful situation. Um, so, actually, before that, These are, dating was not allowed, we had to court, which means essentially, um, the community would be like, these two people are good together and kind of like slowly like push you together and it like kind of feels inevitable, it's not like anyone's like you will marry this man, but it's just kind of basically that in subtext.
Johnna Harris:What would a girl that's in that situation that's being Lead by her, um, leaders towards a boy, like what recourse would she have if she did not want that? I mean, I
Margaret Bronson:can tell you, like, from, I'll give you three examples. So one girl, I mean, she's married to him, you know, like, There she didn't have she tried and eventually was like talked into it. Here's the other thing is if you don't get married, you're stuck living with your 10 siblings and your parents for the rest of your life. And the dating pool, the not the dating pool. Again, we don't date. Um, the Fish in the sea are few. It's a cult. There ain't many people around. And so if you are experiencing any degree of like, I need to get out of here, it's really hard to not take a, an exit door. Um, especially if you, gosh, they just weaponized our faith in God against us. We believe that God was going to have our backs, that it was going to work out because we were obeying and following. Sometimes the dads would take. Mercy on them and help them find somebody else and hopefully someone closer to their age because that was a big problem is a lot of 15 20 years older situations. Yeah, it pretty much was dependent on the dad basically how much of a jerk your dad was was
Johnna Harris:and I think that's something that that so many of us can't relate with because even though I classify what I was raised in as high control. Um, and it, it would be classified as high control to the religious studies department at FIU, but even with that, I was attached to, like, I, I was able to go to public school, which was actually a big deal, but like I was attached to normal middle Secular culture enough to know, like, I have freedoms. I can rebel. Like, there's a space for me to rebel, but I had, like, the privilege of rebelling, I guess, is what I should say. So, like, was I supposed to have a boyfriend? No. Did I have a boyfriend? Yes. Like, those types of things, I think, are just, like, a common experience for most. youth in America, but this is not even possible in the spaces that you're coming out of. And again, spoiler alert, those spaces are not just like little one offs anymore. They are becoming more and more than the. mainstream accepted views. So, you're trapped as a little girl, maybe a boy too. We didn't talk about
Margaret Bronson:the boys. They did not have a good time either.
Johnna Harris:Are the boys also, are they having say? Do they have more say? Because they're
Margaret Bronson:It's like the boys were seen as these gifts. Their manhood was a gift. And so everything about their upbringing was about adults. Um, nurturing that manhood specifically in the very Doug Wilson sort of understanding of manhood, which is no softness, no empathy, um, lots of wild rough and tumble, like conquering and. They were told to go outside and play, while the girls were told to keep house. If they got into a fight, that might have been praised a lot of times, very, very rare, or it'd be like, now this is, you know, let's just help you come up with a way to do this that's like a little more insulating to you as far as like getting in trouble with other people outside of the community sort of thing would be the kind of direction given. So the boys Were truly neglected, truly and completely neglected and left absolutely on their own to just develop as they did in a very like with the other boys out playing in the woods and then listening to sermons that galvanized their mission to conquer.
Johnna Harris:And this all has huge repercussions when it comes to sexuality and the sex lives of anyone coming out of this space, but also that hyper sexualization has created this storm, this uh, extreme crisis of sexual abuse and sexual assault starting so young and perpetrated by people that are so young because it's so normalized and so put on a pedestal. Would you say that I'm describing what you had was
Margaret Bronson:girls who didn't even know what sex was. I didn't know what sex was 13. Um, not really. I knew that people did something. I just didn't know what it was. Right. Um, I knew what rape was before I knew what sex was, you know, girls who are so sexually repressed, they have never experienced attraction or arousal at like 14, 15, 16. Meanwhile, you have boys pouring over and sharing pornography with each other at 8, 9, 10 years old. And of course, it's becoming more and more, um, escalated behavior there. They've been neglected and so they're working their own stuff out and the pornography use gets escalated very quickly and often became quite pedophilic very quickly. And so what you have is then this bubble. No one can go out. These are the only people you know, the only people you can hang out with. And the girls are truly, not just has no one told them how to tell a boy no, or how to like be safe in a situation. They don't even know what the boys are talking about, but you just have this, have this feeling of. Yeah. of being unsafe, right? And the boys know everything. They know things that, like, I probably still don't know, right? And so it's just so dangerous. And it's failing all the children.
Johnna Harris:And the conversations from the pulpit, again, are being reinforced that a women's only value to society is breeding. Uh, like conquering also applies to women in these spaces. Like that is backed up and they utilize. biblical language in order to normalize that. So we really have this huge crisis and it's women that are not, they're not educated and they're not empowered and they will do whatever they are told to do because their literal lives are at risk if they do not. Eric, when you're hearing all of this with your research talking about spiritual abuse, um, Power incentives. How does this kind of relate with that? And like, what are some of the things that you're thinking as you're listening to this?
Eric Isaac:Yeah. Um, so I, I think it comes back to this idea that the power that pastors have is to construct meaning. Um, and when I say that people are like, Oh, well, you know, movies construct meaning. It's like, no, it's not the same pastors define. They interpret sacred texts. They teach you how to look at these things and then they define ideas to you. Right. So good, bad, right. Wrong. Uh, male, female. Um, and so we saw that with the earlier comment that women are not made in the image of God, but what, what they're doing here is they're defining a norm. So what does God want from, from a woman? And you all just talked about it. It's horrifying to hear, like, they want you to be, um, seen as, you know, essentially someone that's used for breeding, um, someone with no power, which is why you're not made in the image of God. It's interesting that Doug Wilson brings up slavery because that was the exact justification. Um, these people are not made in the image of God. That's how we can treat them this way. Christian, can't enslave a Christian. Um, and What this allows them to do, especially with the masculinity femininity thing, is they probably define Jesus as hyper masculine, like Mark Driscoll's definition, but on steroids, because it's Doug Wilson. Um, and so they are able to gain more and more spiritual power, because they can live in line with what is sacred, because they defined it that way. And then what they do to women, is they make them They basically cut them off from any chance of escape. So Margaret brought up, uh, appearance and she brought up the way that you dress and covering your entire self and having no job, um, as part of that appearance. So that's intended to kind of, like, almost like you would a candle, right? Like, the brand you, um, they then set up this goal in your life for, for motherhood and everything is about training to be a mom and there's no dating and there's no, you don't ever get the experience of making bad decisions because you don't make decisions. Um, so you don't have any experience in dealing with people, so it's not just the way you look now. It's also social skills. And then, you know, the, I mean, the sex thing is, it's probably the, the, the hardest one, I think, for Americans to hear, but it's, it's right in line with that. And then a question that I've, you both have alluded to this, and this is in a bunch of Margaret's videos, is why can't people get out? I think the first video I saw from Margaret was when I talked to people, they don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Well, the reason why you can't get out is because they make you so different. You don't fit into the norms of society. But what are you going to do? You have no skills. They essentially made you powerless. And all of this is set up under the framework of what? Well, you have to be obedient to God. And so they they teach you that this is virtue. And so it's like it's programmed in your head and you you can't get out of it. So I imagine, Margaret, when you were 19 and married and you were an SBC counselors, what you're getting a timeline. You still had all that coding in your head because, like, I work with 19 year olds every day. They're, respectfully to the 19 year olds who will listen to this, they're babies. Like, you don't know what the world is, but you're even further behind those people. And I think that, you know, when you look at what they're protecting, um, I mean, it's, it's definitely a fundamentalist space. So I think they're protecting religious incentives to preserve power. Like for Doug Wilson to, uh, write something crazy, like Chattel's, uh, Shadow Slavery is a, is a, you know, a positive picture of the relationship between people like that's, then you have to be high off your own supply. Like you actually have to believe that. So, um, but the problem is, is that Doug Wilson is very charismatic. I don't mean like a spiritual case. I mean that. People like him, um, in the same way that like a super villain is charismatic. Um, and I, I think that what that creates is a bunch of women who are just absolutely trapped and then a world that doesn't understand those women at all, because it's like, Oh, like, what are you still stuck in the 11 hundreds? Like, this is your fault. You can just choose to leave. And it's like, no, I can't choose to leave. And even if I do choose to leave, I have to spend the rest of my life trying to figure this out and work this out with no one understanding me. And in fact, they're judging me for
Johnna Harris:Eric, these women have 10 kids. They can't get out. They have to feed these 10 kids. They don't have jobs to feed them. And the, their community is not going to support them. Not only are they not going to be supported, but they will, the. heads of households, so the husbands, if a woman's trying to leave, are going to have legal support, communal support to take all of those kids from these women. So you are literally stuck there. And that like, I, we cannot. You know, like that is a huge fact. I have women
Margaret Bronson:who are trying to decide
Johnna Harris:if
Margaret Bronson:they leave and leave their children with their husband, who's not safe, but mostly he's not safe towards her. And so like, maybe just if she removed and they saw less. violence, that'd be better or try to fight and take or stay and try and like, just make this work. But the other piece that's really important is most of these couples didn't spend any time together before they got married. So now they did not choose each other. I kissed dating goodbye, went super extreme in my World and like the little siblings were chaperoning every text message, every email, everything has read you're getting married within three months of starting courting for the most part. And then let's jump to quiver full. There's no birth control. So people are getting pregnant in the 1st, month of marriage with someone who's still a stranger. And so they're trying to navigate who they are as individuals because I've never differentiated from their parents or figured out who they are, because it hasn't been a possibility who their spouse is, how the marriage works. Oh, also now I'm pregnant and throwing up. Oh, now I have a baby and we're trying to navigate that. Um, let's add in the submission piece. So, most churches will talk about submission, it's in the Bible. It's what do you mean by that word? In my world, I saw women at church get screamed at and chastised by their husbands as if they were their children who'd been running around and doing something during the service. I heard sermons and knew that it was happening all the time in my church, that when wives weren't submitting to their husband or weren't performing to the level the house wasn't clean enough, the food wasn't whatever enough, um, their husbands could give them spankings, like a child. Um, and that the elders were prescribing these as the solution to marriage problems.
Eric Isaac:Yeah. So that's an example of, I think is, is like an intense form of making God complicit in coercion. So they're saying this is the divine way of doing things, which is like such a bastardization of the Genesis narrative and what you actually see there. Um, but, you know, it's like, well, I'm going to use coercion to change you because it's going to change you to be a submissive wife is literally physically beating you or shouting at you or something. And that on its own, like, if, uh, you know, someone just did that, I mean, that could be an abuse of power, but when you make implicit in it. And the counselor says, this is normal, like, you're essentially like, you know, before in World War One, you would jump out of the trenches and you would go and assault the other side. They would just like, shoot massive amounts of artillery at them to soften the mood. That's basically what you're doing to, to continue to allow this, this, this abuse of, of women, which is like, it's so multifaceted that they're just completely trapped and there's nothing they can do to get out. And then you have the ultimate book, and I'm, I'm not a mother, nor a woman, but I can imagine that you love your children more than anything. And once you. Which is, like, think about how, like, disastrously effed up this is. The idea is to get you pregnant and have a kid, so now I have that to lord over you. So that you cannot leave, so I can continue to sexually exploit you. And financially exploit you, and socially exploit you, right? Like, that's I
Margaret Bronson:don't know how it's not enslavement at some point. At some point, I don't know how it's not. When they're financially have no other recourse. And what keeps happening, is somehow they leave the cult. Um, as far as like the actual church building, and they just go to a different church. And what happens at that church is when she starts to ask for help, I don't know if it's just ignorance and not understanding the language, because submission can mean so many things. Um, authority can mean so many things. What happens is they go to regular churches and people don't see the problem and reinforce it even at the most normal of churches.
Johnna Harris:That's what's so hard for people that aren't staring at this like we all are every single day For just like an average person that's living their life. They go to work They they maybe take their kids to school drop them off pick them up and they go to church Maybe they have like a weekly dinner with their Bible study and something maybe feels off But they still love the community. And like, we still have sports and we have all these other outlets. Um, people can't really grasp that the things that are being normalized within that community that has other outlets, that other, I guess, tentacles into other spaces, those theological, that theological framework. Regarding, I would say predominantly surrounding the biblical manhood and womanhood and the marriage relationship, um, roles, all of that, the end of that, like the real end of those teachings is what Margaret is describing, like that is the ideal of those teachings, but people don't realize that they think the ideal Like what Sheila Gregoire has talked about is that most of the people that they sample when they're in like church leadership positions teaching this are actually in egalitarian relationships. They cannot fathom what, uh, what they're teaching being practiced because they think they're practicing what they're teaching, I think, but they're not. So it's important for us to all understand that. And I'm not trying to say this in a divisive way, like you have to be complementarian or you have to be egalitarian, like, we need to understand the full, um, fruit of what that conversation is and how we engage it, because the fruit of it is what Margaret's talking about. About and the fruit of it is legitimately believed and championed by our next Department of Defense. If things go the way it's going like these are people that are making decisions about women's bodies about women's jobs, their ability to have education, their influential people at the highest level of our government right now that I deeply believe this fringe stuff that Margaret's talking about, and it's reinforced large scale in less high control, but still high control, mainstream evangelical churches across our nation.
Eric Isaac:But when you go from essentially experiencing this and having zero sex education when you're of 15, 16 year old girls are being married off at 18 or 19. And then you're trapped in this space. Society has failed you. You've been groomed, um, by, you've been groomed by your pastor, and then you're getting physically exploited by a member of his church that's probably between the ages of, like, he has to work because it's part of masculinity, which, you know, But he just works for his dad. He hasn't been to college.
Margaret Bronson:He just works for his dad at their family little, like, take over the world business.
Johnna Harris:Because college is evil in these spaces for men and for women because they're going to teach you to be more worldly. This
Margaret Bronson:is what classical education is all about. Is that we want to mobilize and not lose anyone along the way. We want to control how everything they read, um, everything they get access to every idea they come in contact with. That's what classical education is about.
Eric Isaac:Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a failure societally, right? Like at this point, we're not talking about just in the church. We're talking about like, we have an obligation. I think that we've well established to educate people. And part of that. Is educating them about their bodies and part of that is educating them about reality and about history. And when we give up control to these people, um, at the schools or at these church schools, I imagine this happens a lot at you're essentially allowing them to to continue this. And like, it's harsh power when you come up against it and you oppose it, but it's very soft when you're telling a young woman, like, your whole job is to have 10 kids and if you can't have 10 kids and submit to your, like, rock star, amazing husband, then you have no value and no worth. You are not meeting the image of God, which means you get none of the rights afforded to you. Like in the West, that's the mythological framework of all the rights. Like you're so corrupting that person, it's so grooming them to be a victim for the rest of their life. Which is not, you know, you're now you're 20 and this is the other part. Like, the rest of society sees you as a 20 year old young woman making bad decisions. So there's no, there is, there is zero help for these people. Um, outside of maybe what you're doing well, specifically what you're doing. Yes. Um, but like, you're trying to put out like a giant fire with like a bucket of water. Like, it's.
Margaret Bronson:Like I, yeah, the level
Eric Isaac:of health that, listen,
Margaret Bronson:I'm all, I'm, I grew, I grew up in the cult. Like I, I have the same mental health and physical, um, infirmities from it. Like we all have the same diseases. We all have the same mental health issues. Um, the difference is I wasn't born into it. My family didn't join the cult until I. It's in middle school. And then I got excommunicated and shunned by 16. So I had much less time in it. And also I am whatever brand of neurodivergent I am and like just that, man, that really took me a long way. I studied everything and asked, I mean, it caused a lot of harm while I was in it. I was in trouble all the time. Um, and then I happened to marry someone who. Was on a very similar path to me, and so all of that meant that I. Like, I'm able to say things and to, and to, like, speak to, to this stuff, but I'm also just a girl and I've been begging for 20 years for somebody who actually isn't just a girl to help and we keep going to normal churches and being told, Well, that's a cult problem. And then having all the same behaviors reinforced at the normal churches. And then my girls are told that they don't have enough faith. When they married someone, they didn't know they had so much faith. They kept having sex with no birth control because they had so much faith. And that's another piece of it is they created this whole TLC TV show, The Duggars. That's part of the cult. This woman who apparently never. Gets upset or discontent has 20 children. And so what's your problem with your five children, 10 children, 12 children. Look at how Michelle does it. She doesn't raise her voice. She's so calm. She's so sweet. Look at how calm and collected is her house is clean. What's wrong with you.
Johnna Harris:And when they have all these kids, Margaret, you saw this all the time, and I think you even probably experienced this in a lot of ways, but like they become your workforce. So as a young child, and I do think Shiny Happy People actually does a really good job explaining what's happening within these contexts. And I. Again, I know I keep hammering at home, but like you watch that on your comfortable, normal American couch. And even with your religious trauma, like maybe you watched Hill songs documentary and you're like, that hits home. Like I understand that I can feel that maybe you listen to rise and fall of Mars Hill or you listen to bodies behind the bus and a majority of the stories like you hear them. You understand the cost that those storytellers pay. have born and like what they have experienced and the trauma associated with it. This level feels unfathom, unfathomable. That's the right word, right? Unfathomable. For like, Just an average person. So, what I, what I want people to understand is like, this is happening. And, and I do believe too, Margaret, with like, this community, the prime targets for this cult, for this, um, Denomination. Is it, like, all underneath the CREC umbrella at this point? No.
Margaret Bronson:There's even people who don't like the CREC who are part of this umbrella. They're truly
Johnna Harris:Oh, yeah. I've been hearing that it's two air quotes, woke. The CREC. Yes.
Margaret Bronson:Yes. That's a take.
Eric Isaac:That's crazy. That's a
Johnna Harris:take. Yes.
Eric Isaac:That's, that's wild.
Johnna Harris:Yes. It's But that's scary, too. Like, what we're talking about right now is, like, stuff that was not even in, like Here's what feels real. I didn't even think this existed.
Margaret Bronson:So, like I was saying, 2015, you know, there starts to be this conversation around abuse in the church, right? And since then, it feels like Churches have stopped talking about it, and Fox News is talking about it, and Fox News is discipling the people in the pews who are responding to people who have been spiritually abused. And so the response isn't Christian, it's Fox News, which is
Johnna Harris:But Fox News is using Christian verbiage to do it. So you are 1000 percent correct, like this is, like it's a discipleship problem in the mix of all the other problems. But like, rural, poor White America is the target for this group and, like, there is an education problem within that community already that is an under resourced community. It is honestly a forgotten community in the conversation surrounding, um, like, socioeconomic issues because It's really, no one is advocating for that group and, and it's an angry group. It's a group that was told and is told that they have all of these privileges and, um, all of the things that should make them more successful than minority groups, yet they are not experiencing those in our society. This brand of Christianity that is being sold to them tells them that the people at fault for that are people that vote differently than them, women. Anyone that believes anything air quotes, feminist and minorities. So it keeps people really racist. It keeps people really misogynist and it keeps people in a cycle of hate and a cycle of poverty, because when you start. Living out these values that are being taught from the top down in the pulpit at the church that you go to, which is part of being American. This is the fruit of it. You have 10 kids you have to feed now, but you couldn't go to college because that was evil. So you work maybe for a family company. Maybe that family company is actually out of business now because of Amazon. Like, the cycle is so bad. The conversation surrounding spiritual abuse has completely also neglected that whole people group. And so part of our reasoning for wanting to have this conversation today, um, is to kind of shine a light on that. Like, hey, alert, alert, like red flags everywhere. This is becoming more mainstream and we're not doing anything about it.
Margaret Bronson:Truly? Like, all that we need is conversations. Like, I think that's really the only action step is like, can we just talk about it, like educate, um, become aware, like maybe we've come up with action steps after that, but like, we can't even have the conversations.
Johnna Harris:Eric, what do you see? Like when I say that stuff, I mean, as someone who works within. Like, a predominantly Latino community, like, how, how far off is this when you're like hearing this stuff? Are you like, what in the hell is happening right now? Yeah. Or is this like, because you were PCA too, right? So like, you're like, oh, this all tracks, like, that's in that community too. It's in the well, like, the, the thing is, is it's not its own well. Like, what we're talking about is in the evangelical well, and it is poison in the well, so we all drank it. And, like, Eric, you drank it, too, right? Like, what, what do we, what are your thoughts?
Eric Isaac:Um, I think that when I hear those things, you know, I say this in my My, my classes at FIU, um, Americans are religiously illiterate, like that's not 100%. Like, oh, I grew up in church. I'm not religiously illiterate. Now you're extra religiously, religiously illiterate because you don't see that you're blind. At least someone from a secular household will be like, yeah, probably. And I still don't give a damn. Um, but that makes you really vulnerable, right? Um, and so whether you're at a more moderate space, like maybe where, where John and I come from, whether that's Latino or, or, um, More Anglo, um, you don't, you don't see the power that these religious leaders have, um, and I think oftentimes we don't see the, the way that that power affects people negatively in different ways than us. So, like, something John and I have talked about a lot is that survivor discourse tends to have blinders, which you brought up, like, it's only Mars Hill, it's only X 29, or it's only the PCA, or it's only the SBC, but no, it's, it's everywhere. And people like Doug Wilson and people like, um, The dude who wrote a kiss dating goodbye that, you know, then change his mind and all that stuff like those, those ideas are so influential. Maybe a positive version of that could be like some of what Tim Keller did from the PCA, right? Like, that's a person who transcends those boundaries. Um, but what he's doing is he's using that influence that power he has to define these terms. So the word submission is in evangelicalism everywhere. Broadly speaking, right? Let's say 85%. The way that that gets distilled is a lot like what Margaret talked about at a micro level where each head of household is like the leader of their own little spiritual community and they have almost unfettered and unchecked power. And this is something I had written down earlier when you were talking about people being trapped. Um, and then you go to another church thinking that that's your salvation. What makes Protestantism so different than Catholicism and Orthodoxy, broadly speaking, is that you can go from one pastoral, let's call them a fiefdom, to another pastoral fiefdom, and they will be in the same denomination, and you will experience that power and the way that they define things differently. Because individuals are meaning makers. So we leave our mark on people. So every pastor that has shaped you negatively has left their mark on you. Which is a horrible thing to think about as a survivor. But, it's like, you have to face the demon to get it into your life. And so, you might have had a really healthy SBC for all things considered. Um, and then after that, you go to a really unhealthy, narcissistic SBC expert. If you were to, like, mix those two ingredients, they would create an emulsion that defines what submission means to you today, for example. Or defines what womanhood means to you today. And when I think about the way to liberate people, I get this. It's odd, because I think this was the original idea of Protestantism. Like, You have to get educated and read the damn Bible for yourself, which is really complicated because it's a 2, 000 year old document. And then you need to be educated in terms of religious studies to know how to appreciate the nuances and how to, and how to kind of construct this patchwork quilt of your own theology to get yourself out of it. Which is a hell of a lot to ask for a woman who's been groomed and then probably maritally raped and or has 10 kids. Like, you can just say she has 10 kids and it's totally healthy. That's still a lot to ask a woman to do. You know, but it's it's the way and it's like outside of that, you know, um, these people just sit there and they suffer in silence and then I'll come in a little bit on the overlooking poor white people. Um, this is a and I'll say this because I work at a university. Um, and I'll say I'll qualify this further, not the religious studies department by you, but other departments that shall go on names. Completely overlooked. Like, no one gives a damn about poor white people because they're part of, you know, white supremacy and XYZ and it's like, yeah, they're a part of it, but they're excluded from it, right? You see this even at the beginning of the U. S. Like, if you didn't own land, you were cooked. Like, you were just done. You didn't, you know, like, you couldn't vote. And so, yeah, I think it's And it also makes sense to, um, sorry if I'm, I'm rambling, but, you know, when we talk about fundamentalism, it always does a couple of things, in my experience. Number one, it's anti modernity, and it sets itself up as a counterculture, so it's sexy to people who have been disenfranchised. The second thing it does is it reacts to that. modernity, fervently and militarily. And sometimes that can be like a, I'm going to get a gun and shoot somebody, but a lot of times it's just social. And then the other thing it does is it pushes, it's more about what you hate than what you love. There's a guy that comes to FIU, um, and I refer to him as sign guy. And he comes with all the signs of all the people he hates. And it's very broad, right? Um, you know, he hates trans people and hijabis, which is like two very different spectrums. And I use him as an example of what a fundamentalist is because Like, does he love Jesus more? Does he hate people more? It's like, no, he hates people more. He makes God complicit. And so you have this fundamentalist element to this that kind of just locks these people into this little space, if that makes sense. You know? So that's, that's what I'm thinking of. That's like my, I didn't take notes at that point, just like that stream of consciousness. It's so
Johnna Harris:helpful. It's so helpful to hear you put it in that framework because that rings true to me. Does that ring true to you, Margaret? I think, um, so many of us that weren't as entrenched in a cult like Margaret, uh, we might have lost everything. You might have been shunned. You might have experienced all of the same behaviors in the sense of like, I know women who lost their children. Leaving an abusive marriage that the church sided with him. I, I mean, we have like, like the, another extreme example, the reporting that Julie Royce did on MacArthur's church and the way that that woman, it, it, was it Eileen? I hope I'm getting your name right. If not, I apologize. But, um, like that church sided with a sexual. sexually abusive father who was sexually assaulting his children over her and actually shunned her. She was able to maintain, um, her, her parental rights as the parent because the state put him in prison for sexually assaulting their kids and she was still excommunicated. Like, this is happening. John MacArthur's church. Is a mainstream, huge evangelical church. It is highly impactful within evangelical culture in America. Yet, I don't think we can still like, she was able to leave and still had some framework for what it is to exist. I'm guessing like she, because of living in Los Angeles and because of being in a, just in a city at all, had resources available that. The community that Margaret is working within, and particularly, like, in the more rural you get, these resources just don't exist. Like, either they don't exist, or there is zero people educated in their space that aren't 30 to 50 miles away that know about it to connect them. So, there are like layers here where I leave my church. I get shunned. I lose my whole community. It is devastating. It's a bomb in your life no matter who you are. Eric, you've lived this too. Like it blows your life up and you're in therapy. I'm still in therapy. Thank God for therapy. Thanks to Eric for always championing me being in therapy. Um, but like I have the The resources to know I need therapy and like how can I get that or I have insurance? Like these things are not available to this community. So that layer is like
Margaret Bronson:yeah They've lost their families. They've lost the communities. They've grown up in they're also so raised separately from the rest of the world that creating inroads into community is going to be very difficult. And even if they do, even if they make friends, this part of them, this cult part probably isn't part of the friendship. That's probably a part that they have to keep on the DL because there's no way to talk about it. That's understandable. Um, they have no sense of self. They've never differentiated. And what I mean by that is they're not thinking and making decisions as autonomous individuals. They are still, everything they believe is, I'm afraid I'll get in trouble if I don't, or this bad thing will happen if I don't. It's still very much childlike. It's not progressed past that because Teenagerhood was not allowed. So anything that happens in teenagerhood, expression, experimentation, individuation, differentiation, all of that completely bypassed. Now they also have no financial resources. Housing tends to be, there's a lot of, uh, housing instability and then being forced to move back in with family members, like, don't care about anything to do with, you know, who you, who you're becoming. Um, and so, yeah, there's the level of vulnerability is so intense, but I, Man, I deeply want this community to be studied because what I think is an interesting piece. So rural America, absolutely. I'm in Missouri right now. It's bad here. It's bad. And women and LGBTQ and education has been blamed. It's corporations. It's like our economy, you know, the way we're choosing to legislate our economy and everything. Anyway, in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, the parents who were drawn to these communities were mostly drawn in, um, through homes, like the homeschooling movement was a huge part of it. Um, and then like the targets were first generation believers. So like people who just recently came to faith and almost exclusively neurodivergent people who haven't found a place in society that they really fit. The neurodivergence is, like, the rates are insane. Um, and so then you also have their children are neurodivergent. And so you're neurodivergent, going to struggle socially anyway, and then raised in a cult. Yeah, it's just, it's just a mess.
Eric Isaac:Yeah. I think it's pretty predatory too, right? Like, People know this, right? And this is hard for people to think about, but the way that people who are narcissists, um, and, and we just start with narcissists, right? Like, they kind of have this, like, cold deadness to them where they see you almost like a tool, like a screwdriver. Um, and they're looking at you as an opportunity, and when you're neurodivergent, you're like, a lot of neurodivergent folks don't get good social cues, um, or they don't understand social cues. And so you're extra vulnerable to these things, and you're young, and you're a first generation Christian. I was a first generation Christian in my family, at least a Protestant Evangelical, let's call it that, because my family, half of them are Catholic, the other half is another Abrahamic religion, but yeah, I was extremely vulnerable because I didn't know what was up and I didn't know what was down. And the thing that Jonna identified so well is that I grew up in a huge city. Yes, Miami is neglected and, you know, in terms of church and we tend to be behind in a lot of areas and, and the Doug Wilson stuff has kind of been kept out by like the Hispanic version of that, which has been around forever. But it's, I don't want to say it's more benign because I don't want to minimize folks. But. Again, we're in a big city, so the women have access to other resources here, right? Um, but I remember being taken advantage of in that way, and a lot of kids in the youth group are groomed to do this here because they don't, you know, because they're first generation, so I don't have a dad or a mom who can look at, you know, church like a lot of my friends do and say, Hey, that's not good. This guy's crazy, right? Like something that simple. And I think that When I think about all of this, and I think about these people, like, I do think that it needs, it needs to be brought forward, um, which, which is a failure, not just of society. Like, society has failed these women specifically, and these men, but the men don't bear the scars as much as I think what we're looking at right now. Uh, but it's also a failure of the church. We fail to influence these people. And we fail to reach them, um, in whatever way, you know, we should or we can. And you know what's really interesting? You bring up the rural area. In the PCA, do you know what was a huge deal from 2009 until 2022? City to
Johnna Harris:city!
Eric Isaac:We're going to care about cities and that's where people are safe and here's my sermon cherry picking verses about cities because Abraham and these other people were never in the wilderness and that wasn't, uh, you know, like, and it's like you, you create a theological reality where people are like, I have to move to cities, I have to move to cities and I need to be in cities and we need to be a conservative movement in a big liberal city like New York. And then who gets neglected? Well, these, these poor white folks, um, and, and then you have
Johnna Harris:radicalized and not only neglected but radicalized. So I think. Like, I think that's what's so hard about this moment for me as I look at bodies behind the bus is I can't have this conversation now and have it not be political because our churches have made this our government. So it's like we can't take those things apart because when we talk about when the left political left talks about the radicalized right, this is where it's happening right here and it's happening because of these factors and you're right the church not only has neglected it and abandoned it I'm using air quotes church because what the F even is the church when we're all talking about meaning makers I think I might have a different definition of what the church is than sometimes what like it. Uh, you know, the president of the SBC is saying maybe, but like. Um, we, we have also failed because we have mainstreamed the voices that are being latched on to in these rural American spaces. We mainstreamed, uh, Doug Wilson did that first. We normalized on paper
Margaret Bronson:who was super, he was back in like you know, 2010, like he was like as normal as every Christian, like as vanilla, every Christian can agree with some part of Piper as possible. And he's the whole reason Doug Wilson has a platform today.
Johnna Harris:And Piper, we talk about that, and I think all of us, I, all of us on this call are within the same age of like one or two years, I think. So we're all like firmly in the millennial space. I think all of us looked at Piper at one point as like the gentle version. Of teaching like we were taught that I'm sure Eric, I'm sure you got fed that a lot as a dude pursuing ministry and you go back and listen to his sermons or his answers and he's talking about it being okay to stay like you should still stay in your marriage if you get hit once or twice like this was normalized and this was the gentle version so but like what Oh You don't just get to be like, that's the fringe outside. That's not what it is because you gospel coalition, you pastors conferences, you passion, whatever we want to say, have normalized these voices and enjoyed them. And propped them up and then take in the pieces that you think fit into your comfort level and disseminated it into your community. While we have fully abandoned the communities that are taking it completely to heart and living it out. And it is a huge demographic of people that have been, and that have been fed a false gospel. This isn't actually Jesus. So what we're combating now as. Believers and Jesus is there's a gigantic swath of people that believe they are Christians and it's not our job to judge one way or the other, but they believe they are Christians, but do not know the core tenants of like historical Christianity and what the church has always like held to and believed. So now we're sitting here like we can't, there's not a bridge built theologically because. We're not educated in the same way about the Bible, like what you're saying, Eric. Yeah. Is this bringing, I'm sorry, I just like grandstanded, but Margaret, like, when I say that, what is that? How does that hit you?
Margaret Bronson:My brain went too many places at once. Maybe somebody else talk and I'll collect myself.
Eric Isaac:One of the things I'll do, uh, to add on to what you're saying is, So, I think there's a lot of good hearted people, and this will get me in trouble, but whatever. Join the long list of people who hate me. Um, there's a long list of people who would say, well, Christian nationalism, and immediately you think of people on the right. Another form of Christian nationalism is Christians who use politics on the left to do the exact same thing. And so they'll baptize their progressive leanings in the name of God and then say the government should enforce those. You're guilty of the same thing because the government is coercion. That's how the government does things. You don't pay your taxes because they suggest it. You pay your taxes because if not, you end up in jail forever, right? That's coercion. And when you make God complicit in it, which is the reason why Christianity is like, part of the core tenet is to separate church and state and there's great evidence in the New Testament of that. It's to separate those things, but those self same people on the Christian left that are also active in survivor spaces Then condemn the people that Margaret are talking about as part of the white Christian patriarchy And I don't mean the Doug Wilson's of course that guy like first curse word of the whole podcast. That's right But the people that are under them That might even be perpetuating that. Like, those people are victims. And the most, like, allow me to educate some of you, as a person who's read Marx, like, people on the left, you believe people are a product of their environment. You believe they're a product of their material and financial reality. Which Margaret and John have just completely identified. These people suffer from a lack of education, and if you demonize them All you're going to do is create siloing. They're going to go deeper and deeper and deeper into the darkness they're in. And the most Christian thing you could do is embrace them, even if you are their enemy. And a caveat, like, of course, like, if you've been victimized by these people, take responsibility for yourself and don't engage with them and don't go if, like, they're going to call you some sort of racial epitaph and you're not comfortable with it. But just because that's not your cross to bear doesn't mean that someone doesn't have to go and meet these people. And engage with them, even though they might be hated by these people, and build that relationship and have those dinners and have those really hard conversations that will get people out of here that will actually change this reality. And so it's this weird dynamic where the people who could be doing something about it are mostly not doing something about it, so they can politically grandstand on their like, look at me, I'm so like, progressive in a city, and like, I espouse Jesus the right way, but I'm also a Christian nationalist. It's just instead of being a Protestant, so like a conservative person, I'm going to be on the other side. I'm going to be a liberal Christian nationalist. And not see that I'm doing the same damn thing, keeping those victimized poor folks in that same space. And it's, and I see it everywhere, especially in the survivor space. And maybe this is a bad way to introduce myself to the survivor space. But like, I mean, I'll get, I'll get scotched with you and have a conversation about this, but like, yeah, the conversation needs to be had and people need to be called out on this because you're just doing the same thing, but like you're, you're, you're holding like why and switching teams like you're, you're just doing it with different colors. And it's, and it's scary to me as a person down here, Manny, who's kind of like, I'm pretty insulated from those things just because like. The progressives and conservative nationalists, like, you don't speak Spanish, so, like, like, I'm getting, but, like, it's, it's, I know, yay, leave me alone, but, but, yeah, man, it's, it's, it's, it's a terrible thing, and I think that, like, for Margaret to have the support she needs, people need to be willing to have the conversations with, with these women, and they'll, they need to understand that they're going to walk into a room with these women who are going to say some, like, really wild things that might trigger their, their more feminist progressive sensibilities. Please. But the most loving Christ I think to do is to embrace your enemy. Um, a good example of this, by the way, so you know I'm not just talking about it, would be like that dude that is a black man who went and engaged with the KKK, Daryl Davis. He actually made a difference, and I guarantee you it was scary. You know, you need, you need those relationships in order to get people out of there. Because it, what are you going to do, change the government? Now you're doing the same thing on the other side, right? Like, it's, it's, I don't know. And I've been thinking about that this whole time, because it's like, well, who's, like, who's going to answer this call, right? Well, and what's
Margaret Bronson:interesting is, That's my thoughts. for my girls, It's never been the church, but it has been the government. Like the government has locked some people up. It has given them programs and support. Like, and so honestly, the majority of the work that I do is deprogramming. So it's trying to teach people how to think for themselves and not just go with groupthink. How to, um, you know, Remove that, like, scrupulosity that a lot of us had, like, we didn't even have privacy in our own brains. And so we, like, wouldn't even let ourselves think down certain paths because, like, God's always watching and we're going to get in trouble. And, um. And then, yeah, like fundamentalist thinking, not just going to the other camp and using the same, John and I've talked about this a lot, like deconstructing the beliefs, but not deconstructing the methodology of those beliefs. And to touch on several things that were said, this cult, really what it's about at the bottom of it is colonialism and white supremacy. Because what it's really about is about. Gosh, I mean, they talked about it very openly when I was growing up, like outbreeding the Muslims and like making Christianity the world religion. And while simultaneously talking about how some time someone would come who would start a one world religion, it would be like the worst thing ever.
Johnna Harris:You got to keep that rapture just looming to keep us all in check.
Margaret Bronson:So You know, it really is about this very conquering idea of the spread of the gospel. And so, I think what happens is like the more mainstream normal churches. Their mission benefits from having extremists, their mission benefits from having religious fanatics. And so that's, I think, a large part of why they don't address it is because Doug Wilson gets ish done.
Johnna Harris:Yeah, he has a whole army of people that just do what he says. He's got a whole city,
Margaret Bronson:soon a whole state, and he's working on a country. You know, and that country's working on other countries, right? It's, it's, it's all about this never ending growth and conquering.
Johnna Harris:Somewhere I wasn't expecting this to go, but I've been thinking about a lot lately, so maybe this fits, maybe it doesn't, take this how you want or not, that I've been thinking about is like, you know, I think partially because of social media, but also partially because we are kind of like the frog in the boiling pot right now, just like in general as people that. As people who believe in Jesus, I think, but really like the whole country. Um, something I've been thinking about, though, is like, how do I personally take responsibility, along the lines of what Eric was saying, for like, how I engage with this, what I do with this information, how do I, it's, it feels like so much in so many places, um, And I think the biggest thing that I would love to see from the survivor community, from our listeners, from anyone that is, um, wanting to become more Christ like, and yes, I'm being a meaning maker when I say that word, is to learn and to learn. nuance and to understand that those of us that were raised in this, something I'm working on in therapy, vulnerable moment, is that I've been trying to connect with some emotions and I'll tell my therapist, it's just a white wall. I can't, I think I've talked about this in the past on the podcast, if not, I've talked about with Eric and Margaret, I'm sure, but, um, Like, I can't connect with anything there. Is there some trauma keeping me from it? What is that? And we've recently uncovered through therapy that because of what I was raised in, I actually don't have those. Like, they're not accessible because to be angry, like, I can feel anger. You've heard me feel anger if you've listened to this ever. But to connect with it, like embody it in myself. I was taught that to be angry is to be in sin or to be bitter or to have grief is to not be trusting the Lord or to have, uh, questions or concerns is to not be submitting to leadership. So all of those emotions. I'm now building that relationship internally with me right now as an adult, where a lot of people in society that weren't raised in these high control spaces, they, they did have access to those things growing up. So from the time they were a child growing up, they now have that file folder is what my therapist calls it in their head. They can pull that and then reference it where I, I have to build that file out. It's not accessible. I say this with so much love that maybe you too, if you were raised in this space. And so as you're engaging these conversations, step back and realize that some of the things that should be available to us. emotionally, empathetically, relationally, we do not have that tool and we have to build it. So instead of having like the next big movement or progressive idea or like grandstand on social media, which I mean, I, I include me in this. Take a step back and realize the inner work that needs to happen right now is what's going to sustain us as we look towards what the future is. And I think, I mean, Margaret, Eric, you guys know me enough and I think I know you guys enough to know like all of us sit there and we're like, what the crap do we do now? Like what's next? Like, you know, it's, it's important to study this, but there's this like human, maybe it's a missional, maybe it's the Holy Spirit, like feeling in you, like, I just want to do something. Like, I don't want to, maybe it's, maybe it's like what we, how we've been conditioned. Like, you just don't want to sit in it. You want to do, but we can't. Do if we don't properly examine and be honest with ourselves and even have the input of someone else to help us be honest with ourselves to move forward. So if you are so disgusted by the beliefs, which I am, and I think all of us on this car that, that Margaret has described, if that disgusts you so much that you dehumanize people that are saying that. They are no longer a human to you. They are disgusting dirt. They need to be put out of society. They need to be like, if it's their humanness, that is, that's in question in your mind right now. If you feel that rising up, that is what we were raised in. That is. How we were taught to view other and we cannot do that and appropriately be Christlike in our society today. We have to fight for the Imago Dei in each other, no matter who each other is.
Margaret Bronson:My women, most of us are in our twenties and thirties, forties, and we joke about it because like. We've never been teenagers, and that, in order to get to whole and healthy, is developmentally a stage we still have to go through. And so, then we get to normal churches, and they're judging us for all the ways that we're like figuring things out, and like clumsy, and also we're neurodivergent as heck, and we don't know how to act in normal. Situations because we've only ever been around neurodivergent people our whole lives, um, and in the cult. And so I, I think like one action step is like swallow your bile. And also, I think there's a big shame piece because I think everyone feels. A degree of defensiveness when I start talking, when any of like my community starts talking because they are complimentary or they, they do spank their children. And like, there's such a spectrum to be able to hear that someone has had adverse. Experiences with something that you might be tangentially related to. You might not even be at all, but you're not even getting to that part of the conversation. It's just a constant silencing, censoring, and honestly shunning again, constantly.
Johnna Harris:And it happens on, and I think a huge part of this, the reason we had this conversation is I want to see the survivor community, I want to see the bodies behind the bus community, sacred wilderness, become a space where Women that are escaping this would be able to find safety in the content that's being released, so they don't feel othered by it, they feel seen and valued and loved by a creator that created them in their image. So. It's gonna take work. Like, it's so much easier to hate each other. Like, Eric, when you were talking about, like, are we more united in what we hate than what we love? That is so true on the spectrum. Like, on the far left and the far right. And what works is pushing you further to that spectrum. So, Like the work right now for us, I think all three of us in our different spaces, um, is like, how do we bring people together and how do we continuously remind each other that we are image bearers of God and that we are. That our, like, value is intrinsic to that, and that we, we can love each other despite the horror that is the, the lived beliefs that Margaret is talking about, and how they are actively harming all of us, like, we can still see your created in God's image, and I refuse to play by the rules of the world, which tell me to hate you.
Eric Isaac:Yeah, I think it's also a really important thing to like realize like. Like, if you're treating your ideological enemy as if they're less than human, you are literally doing what Doug Wilson and those slave masters did. And so, like, the neurodivergent person that's leaving those spaces that might espouse those things and is still trapped right now, like, that person might, as Margaret said, like, have the, it might cause you to have the bile come up, but the reason why you're doing that is because you're not seeing them in the image of God. And so like a really good exercise, like if I was preaching a sermon at my church, I would be like, look, think of that person right now. Think of the ideal or unideal, like, avatar of that person in you. Let me pray that God helps you think of them in the image of Him. I mean, that's a great first step. Because it, it, now you're engaging with curiosity and you're engaging with compassion. And you're seeing that person as a, as a product of, of, of their horrific environment that like, thank God you weren't, you weren't raised. And I think when we do that internal work, number one, it shows us, okay, well, there's some darkness in me too, because I just, Doug Wilson, like, not Doug Wilson, but what the cult did to women where they're not made in the image of God, which is, this hasn't been said, like, that's actual heresy, like, that's what makes cults cults, right? Um, what are the parts? Yeah, that's wild. But if you're hitting your ideological enemy because they're poor white conservatives who are ruining this country, you're doing the same thing. If you're, if you're doing that in your mind, which Jesus talks about, right? Like you, you know, when he talks about like, you know, adultery and things like that, there's this idea that you say in your heart, um, you break the commandment in your heart. And so, yeah, I think that's, that's the first thing. And then I, I think the second part after that is, is actually for us, Janna, like we have to be able to hold space. For folks like this, um, and, and to include them in the abuse conversation because they're, they're part of that community and they probably feel excluded because a lot of folks, well, number one, they've been trained to think that all of us are like, you know, woke devils, um, which is not their fault, but that might be the way that they see us because that's the way people in my super conservative Latino community see us sometimes, um, number two, I think that, okay. There's a rural experience that's not talked about so much in the survivor community, because the rules are different. Life is different. Your day is different. What you do, like. Everything from the way the seasons affect you, you know, and so they don't, they're not in sync with people in cities. And I think that John and I have talked a lot about this, like, we left fundamentalist evangelicalism, our version in big cities of this. And then we went into the survivor space and we're still reacting against fundamentalism, like fundamentalist evangelicals. I think that part of that deconstruction is also realizing the city coding in that, um, and the, and the The middle class, like, rich experience that we've had compared to these, these folks. I'm not saying that, like, I grew up rich. I didn't, but I grew up in Miami. Right. And that's a huge city. And so I think we have to include those folks in this, in this space. I don't know how we do that, but I just, I really feel like. Like, we don't have to do that because I don't know a lot of people. Outside of reporting on, like, whatever crazy thing Doug Wilson says that gets big because
Johnna Harris:I agree. I think that's, like, a really good, uh, action item for us as an organization and for us as individuals, too. And, like, as you're listening to this, I, I'm hesitant to even say this because like, can you even listen to something like this if you're in that space, but if somehow you are listening to this episode right now, by the grace of God, again, using Christian language, but truly, and you're like, I need help, and I'm stuck. Margaret, are, can we put like an email for you? Do you, I think that there is, there are options that are confidential that can give you help if you need it. Like, either Sacred Wilderness or Margaret, like, we will do what we need to do to find the things that we need to find to get you resourced, to get you help. You're not alone. It feels like you're alone and it feels like you're alone by design. There are, there are things to do to help you. There are people that can help you, but please be safe while you do it. Make sure that you're safe to reach out.
Margaret Bronson:Yeah. And I think the other thing that I want to say as far as action steps is. And I want to be careful how I say this, cause I want to be understood. We need to stop being so afraid of deconversion. Some of these people are going to have to freaking deconvert and break up with the version of God they grew up with. Or they're never going to have a healthy spirituality. And that has to be priority numero uno is getting them to break up with it. And so however that falls in their brain is how it falls in their brain. And like they can, we're not done growing and changing and all the things and so who knows where that goes. But like what I tell my girls all the time is like, I see you searching for good. I believe that the God of the Bible is the good thing, the only good thing. That we can turn to in this mess. And so I believe that as you search for good, that's what you're going to find. And like I, at that point, like what you call that, what, how you, like whether or not you use the label Christian or not, because what does that even mean today? Is Trump a Christian? Like, what does that even mean today? What does Christian mean? So, if we can just stop being so terrified of the cliff that we might fall off. And I don't even know, we don't even talk about what's at the bottom, we're just terrified of the bottom. We don't even know what's down there. And other people's space to wrestle, to. You, to meditate on scripture, to wrestle with what it means to be human, to be in a world where there's a divine, if that divine is, uh, moral or amoral, like there's so much to be figured out and we need to stop being afraid of that process.
Eric Isaac:I think that speaks to, to, like, the incentives that people have, even in the spiritual abuse survivor community, where, like, you still need something from the people you're serving, um, and that thing might be, well, religiously, I need you to stay a Christian because that fits my, my version of it. And, you know, people are allowed to be sad when folks deconfer. I think that's totally fair. But, you know, if you're still seeing that person as an object. Right, to be exploited so that you can get more spiritual benefits, or maybe financial benefits, or social ones, like. You know, it's not just in the church, it's also in our space, too, where people benefit from these things. And I won't say any names, but I've seen people in the deconstruction space, and the, like, you know, the stay, like, the recreational Christian deconstruction space, where, like, they would hate what Margaret just said, but it's true, right? Like, A lot of survivors will completely break up with it, and whether or not they find it, again, is not the idea here, like, our responsibility is, is, let me, let me help you, let me serve you, because what you've experienced, yeah, it's not Christianity, for sure, but however you interpret that, and you experience that, and you choose to do that, is there, and I think it speaks to the idea of incentives to preserve power, right? Like, how can you serve these people if, if you, if you need to use them? Like, it, it's just like the pastor, who was like, I need you to show up to church, and put your butt in the seat, and give me 10 percent of your income, even though you're starving. Right? And you're doing the same thing to these survivors if you're saying like, Hey, I need you to stay in the faith. And that feels weird, you know, because like, for me, when I went through all that, like that never was my experience that I was going to leave the faith, but I have friends in that, in that. But again, if I believe they're made in the image of God, like, what am I going to do? Like, I'm going to treat them well, and I'm going to love them. Yeah, you know, so I think what you're saying is, it's really fair and needs to be said in the, in the survivor space as well. Especially because the biggest voices are still very much like, Hey, dog, you gotta stay a Christian because I get clout in my semi deconstructed space.
Margaret Bronson:Deconstruct the right way. Make deconstruct. That's lovely. What a sweet idea. That's not real. Brains work the way brains work. And there's no controlling how your brain works. You know, like.
Eric Isaac:I think that, you know, the, the, it's weird being a really big professional in the religious studies department because like. I'm definitely going to show my students this when it gets put out because it shows you the value of being religiously literate, um, which I think is a lot of like, if there is deconstructing a right way, it's like, okay, well, let's use science and social science and history to actually talk about this. And I experienced this in my classrooms. I asked, I asked everyone's Latino. So like 98 percent of the students come from Catholic families. And I'm like, Oh, so most of you are Christian. The first thing they say is no. Um, we're Catholic and it's like, Oh my God. Um, and then I ask, Well, what's a Christian? And no one knows the answer. Like in the simplest historic sense of like, we believe these three things. Um, and so I think that that's, that's another conversation too that could benefit folks all around the U. S. Um, because that religious illiteracy, you don't even have a framework to process what you're going through because Christianity is whatever, you know, some idiot shapes in your head and that's not fair to you.
Johnna Harris:Yeah. I think this was really awesome. I appreciate you guys so much having this conversation. I would love to do this so much more often, even just with the two of you. I think that our listeners. If you've held on for this episode. Thank you. Um, I think that they would probably agree. This is just like a really beneficial conversation to be having. Um, I think that we all need to practice having these conversations and being able to not be on the defense while we talk about these things and to hear, uh, nuance and empathy. during these topics being talked about. If you're listening and you have deconverted, I get this question a lot in, in take calls for storytellers who are wanting to share their story on the podcast. Like, do I still have to be a Christian? Do I have to be a complimentarian? Do I have to be straight? Like all of these are questions that are asked. And just so you all know, if you didn't, Bodies Behind the Bus's policy is We tell stories of people who have been harmed or abused in the church or by the church. And it does not matter where you are at right now in your beliefs or the, or your sexual orientation. All of that stuff does not matter to us. We want to hear you. We want to bear witness to you. We want to see you and your story matters. And your voice is not any less valuable or needed in this conversation than someone who is pastoring a church right now or, you know, back in the swing of things and found a healthy community. Maybe air quotes healthy is what I'm going to willing to say right now. Like you can reach out. We are not going to judge you. We are not going to other you. Like, we want to tell your stories too. So with that, thank you, Eric and Margaret. This conversation was awesome. I'd love to have this again to, to, to go even deeper with this. Thanks for spending a little time with Bodies Behind the Bus today.