Episode 309: Evangelicals Shouldn't Be Embarrassing: The Oklahoma Student's Essay and How Our Faith Has Changed

We're coming full circle from our podcast on right-wing authoritarianism to talk about that viral Oklahoma student essay and why Christians rallying around bad arguments makes all Christians look terrible. Then Keith and I get vulnerable about how our faith has changed over the last few years—from realizing faith isn't just about beliefs, to understanding who Jesus actually called out (spoiler: not "the world"), to reframing the concept of sin as form of brokenness that God truly understands and has deep compassion for (as opposed to the angry God who is mad at us all the time). We’ll also share some of the exciting things coming in 2026!

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• The Whole Story puberty course
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LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Our podcast on Right Wing Authoritarianism

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Looking Back at 2025
• 4:28 Full Circle: The Oklahoma Student Essay Controversy and how it reflects authoritarianism
• 13:14 Anti-Intellectualism in Evangelicalism
• 17:16 Why Kids Leave the Faith (It's Not What You Think)
• 23:04 The action step to learning to sit with other perspectives
• 26:14 Keith and Sheila: The gospel is so much bigger than we tend to think it is
• 41:19 Jesus Called Out Religious Leaders, Not "The World"
• 48:10 Seeing Sin as Brokenness, rather than only breaking “the rules”
• 54:51 What if the gospel was about creating wholeness
• 1:01:08 Our 2026 Plans