Reclaiming Faith After Betrayal: Erin Moon on Deconstruction and Care

81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016—and for many lifelong churchgoers, that moment was a spiritual breaking point. In this episode, author and podcaster Erin Hicks Moon joins the show to talk about what happens when the faith you inherited no longer feels like home. Erin, co-host of Faith Adjacent and author of I’ve Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God, unpacks what it means to deconstruct, grieve spiritual loss, and stay tethered to Jesus in a time of disillusionment. With honesty and humor, she explores questions around religious trauma, purity culture, Christian nationalism, and how to find peace without pretending the damage never happened. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering whether faith can survive doubt—or whether you can still love Jesus after being hurt by his followers—this episode is for you.

👤 Guest Bio
Erin Hicks Moon is a writer, speaker, and co-host of the Faith Adjacent podcast, where she brings theological insight and a sharp wit to questions of faith and culture. She is the author of I’ve Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God, and writes a popular Substack newsletter called The Swipe Up. Erin serves as a senior creative at The Popcast Media Group and is known for creating welcoming spaces for spiritual honesty and curiosity.

Transcript

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Well, hi there, Faithful Politics listeners and viewers. If you're joining us on our YouTube channel, guys, thanks so much for coming out for another great episode of the Faithful Politics podcast. My name is Josh Bertram. I am your faithful host. And of course we have our political host, Will. It's good to see you, Will. I gave you the prompt, Will. A rare moment of kindness Josh. Good to see you too. Well, thank you so much. And guys, we're just so happy to be able to do this, bring you great content. So please like, subscribe, do the things that hack the algorithm because we want to get this great content out to more people. And you let us do that. And today we're super excited to have Erin Hicks Moon on the show with us today. She is a writer, podcaster and storyteller who serves as the resident Bible scholar. and co-host of the Faith Adjacent podcast and works as senior creative at the Popcast. Is that the Popcast or podcast? Popcast. I got like, I was like, wait, am I reading this correctly? Sorry. At the Popcast media group, she authors the popular sub-stack newsletter, The Swipe Up and her forthcoming book, I've Got Questions, the Spiritual, well, I guess it's out now. I've Got Questions, the Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God. through Baker, and she invites readers to wrestle honestly with faith and doubt. She's a Texan now living in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband and three children. And she's known for helping people disentangle faith in a kind, curious community that welcomes honest questions. Erin, thank you so much for coming on the program. I'm so happy to be here, thanks for having me. Absolutely, we're so happy to have you. And so, of course, there's a story behind the book, and we always ask our guests to talk about that. But I am particularly curious about this. I've got questions, this spiritual practice of having an out with God. I love the title. I love the subtitle. How did you guys, how did this book come about, essentially? What's your story that brought this? to fruition. Yeah, so I mean, I think like a lot of people my age, I'm 42. think we millennials specifically, we have gone through a lot of change. have seen particularly here in America, we've seen the ways that American Christianity has been maybe commodified, maybe weaponized in the public sphere. And unfortunately, we also went to VBS and we saw the uh felt board Jesus um and we had the goldfish crackers and we believed, uh we bought in to the whole thing and we thought the people teaching us bought in to the whole thing. And uh turns out uh some of them may have been uh excited about the power that American Christianity uh offered as opposed to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and that type of a thing. And I think that was a very jarring experience, particularly maybe uh the 2016 election was perhaps a moment for some of us. um And other world events, I think, were this kind of cross-section of power and American Christianity. were really difficult moments, I think, for a lot of us. And maybe that happened on a global scale. Maybe that happened on a personal scale. But I think a lot of people my age, people around my age, were really dealing with this, hey, what do I believe? And do I believe the things that I grew up believing? What should go? What should stay? And I started having these conversations with people through my podcast, through my newsletter, in my offline life. And people were really, really struggling with, I don't fully know what I've got here when I look at my faith, when I look at what I believe, like my church life, my faith life, God, that kind of a thing. so I wanted to, I was also going through that and I was maybe just a little bit ahead of. of other people. And there were some people who were also ahead of me that I was, you know, kind of looking at as well. And so just kind of leaving some lanterns on the pathway is kind of how I see this book a little bit. And so um that is the the process of that. um I went through a couple of um like, kind of processes, a sort of a framework in a way to say, Hey, let's pick up some pieces of our faith. Let's examine them. Let's see if what's good, what needs to stay, what needs to go. know, Richard Rohr talks about the three boxes of order, disorder, and reorder. And that is essentially kind of what I think a lot of us are going through as we look at our faith and as we try to decide what's good and uh what's bad and what needs to stay and what needs to go. Is what you described um categorized as deconstruction because I'm really fascinated by deconstructionists and those that are going through deconstruction because I came to the faith much later in life, 2008. I never went to VBS. I never did all those fun things. I don't know that you're missing a ton. Maybe you got out of some religious trauma. Maybe. While we're in VBS, what he's saying here is that while we're in VBS, he was high on drugs somewhere. kind of trauma. Yeah. yeah. mean, I mean, I I've made plenty of mistakes before I came to the faith and came to the faith really with somewhat open arms thinking, hey, this is this is going to be better for me. uh My wife, on the other hand, what as a pastor's kid and, you know, has a much different experience with the church than than I ever did. I mean, I always joke with her like, don't know why she even married me, you know, like, because I wasn't necessarily a Christian when we met. Maybe she was being rebellious. But um so like, I don't understand, like the things that people are deconstructing, but it sounds like what you were talking about kind of fits in that realm. Could you maybe just unpack like what it means to deconstruct for folks like myself that don't really understand. absolutely. So I think the concept of deconstruction and reconstruction is, it's a very, well, it's one, I think it tends to be a very white construct. I think it tends to be a very American construct. think it tends to be a very evangelical construct. And it is the idea of, you know, we were handed a faith that was deeply entrenched in things like purity culture, in um, complementarian, like deeply complementarian, theology. Um, these, these kind of ideas that were, that were a, uh, that were kind of given from a one's very specific perspective, um, that is not necessarily off base or not scriptural, but one really, really heavy deeply entrenched perspective. And without knowing that there is a full spectrum of theological beliefs across the board that, you know, you can find a lot of different perspectives in scripture of different, you know, different ways to love. There are a million ways to love God, right? And so I think a lot of times deconstruction is just a little bit of this. And I think, I think a lot of generations have done this. I just don't think they gave it a label. Millennials, we love a label. We love to like put, you know, put something in a file folder and be like, okay, I'm doing my thing now. This is my era. And you know, we love that. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But you know, I was talking to my dad about this and he was just like, we just didn't do this. Like this is not. And I'm like, no, you did. You, you at some point took the faith that my grandfather gave you because you grew up in church. You grew up in Sunday school. And at some point you decided whether or not that was something you wanted to keep that that is this something that you decided that this was what you wanted in your adult life as opposed to keeping the faith of your childhood. You decided, okay, do I believe the things that were handed down to me? And I think that's all deconstruction is, is kind of like, okay, I was so entrenched in this as a child. Have I even bothered to kind of examine and prosecute the things I believe as an adult. It's taking that like that, you know, Adam and Eve narrative. Okay. Here's the story I was told as a child. Here's the Noah's Ark story. was told as a child. Okay. Now let's look at this through an adult lens. Okay. What, what do I actually believe about this? The Bible was given to me as an instruction manual as a child looking at, at it as an instruction manual, as an adult is, is a wild concept because you can clearly see that it's not an instruction manual. is and it's or or it is an instruction manual on how to not human. Like you would be a that would be a a wild thing to be like no this teaches me how to be a person. No it doesn't. That's that's the teaches you how to murder people. That's that's a crazy thing. Like no and so I think it's just this process of like growing up in your faith a little bit and saying okay I don't I don't know that the things that I was taught, maybe they were simplified. And I don't necessarily also think that uh that was like an ill-intended thing. Sometimes it was, but not all the time. Sometimes you grew up in a high control religion and that was the intention. It was the intention to control you and to manipulate you and to conformity or whatever. But a lot of times it was just like... uh, my parents, they don't know what to tell me about sex. And so we're going to go with true love weights. And now we know because we've been to therapy now and we've had, you know, some of us have been married for 20 years and we're like, well, now we know that that wasn't, maybe that wasn't the best thing for us. Maybe that did not work out as well as we wanted it to, but now we know. And so we're just, it's just that unpacking. I just, I see it as that unpacking of, let me examine this. Let me pay attention to this. Let me be intentional about this. And then I'm gonna unpack all of these boxes. I'm gonna lay all of this out. What stays, what goes, and now I'm gonna pack it back up. It's that order, disorder, reorder. keep going, mean, Richard Wars said it so much better really than any of us ever could, so. He's pretty great, he's pretty great. I love uh that definition because I think that whenever people hear the term deconstructing, think, okay, well, uh deconstructing means tearing down, right? Because if you're not constructing, you're demolishing. But based on my understanding of deconstructing, it almost would be better named re-evaluating. uh Than than deconstructing and I and I and I especially like what you said how this is just the same thing but the different name because as you were talking I was like, you know blacks and slaves used the Bible to help their cause to end segregation, you know and slavery like which means that some at some point time somebody looked at the Bible and said what I'm reading here does not comport with what I'm seeing in the environment and then You know, and you see sort of these instances throughout time where similar groups are doing that, you know, whether it's Martin Luther King or whether, you know, it's like a lot of the LGBTQ folks that we actually have on our show will say, hey, like, I know there's a lot of thoughts about LGBTQ inclusions in the church, but the text that I'm reading and the way I'm interpreting it, you know, says something different than what the public is saying, you know? So, like, I do think that deconstructing Excuse me isn't bad. It's actually probably necessary for the church to grow. if you look through the history of Christianity, you see this pattern throughout it. mean, you can go back to, I mean, take something like the Reformation. That is a deconstruction of what Christianity had been. Okay, we're gonna take some of these indulgences. That's not scriptural. All right, let's unpack some of that. Let's unpack some of what we're doing. If you go the Counter-Reformation, if you go the Great Schism, if you... I mean, you go back even tech. mean, people, people get frustrated with me when I say this, but I think Jesus was technically a deconstructor. We're taking the, you know, at that point it was, Hey, the Messiah is going to be a, like, he's going to, uh, release us from Roman rule. We are going to be free from Roman rule. That is the freedom that Messiah is going to offer. And Jesus comes in and it's like, Hey, actually love like love that you interpreted it that way. But actually, I'm doing something completely different. am I'm about your heart. I'm about your soul. I'm about your spirit. And I'm doing something completely different than that. And so I think that it is a it is a it is just it's it's in our it's in our DNA as a as a religion. It's in our DNA spiritually. It's something that everyone has been doing corporately and individually. I think that's such an insightful point because when I've looked into church history, and I'm no expert, but you know, I do enough reading to have a pretty decent understanding of it, at least the major movements, right? And I look at church history and I think, yeah, and I've heard this said, Christianity has this built-in reformation kind of... Yeah. Yeah. reevaluating itself and constantly. And I think part of that is how Jesus came in and did it. He set this model of coming into a system that was supposed to please God had turned into oppressive in its institutions and its rulings and the way that it treated people, especially those on the margins, right? absolutely. And so what happens, Jesus comes in and he is deconstructing, dude. He's literally saying, we're going to tear down this temple. dude, and that got them so angry that they killed him, right? mean, this is, they were so mad about it. And what I love even thinking about like us, like the Christian history, but even thinking about that as a... macrocosm to our microcosm of ourselves. There's a process to this and I love how your book moves through that. You have the first movement origins. I'm just putting a movement second movement lament third asking questions fourth the pressure points fifth pushing boundaries six making peace seventh rebuilding and rewilding and what I love about it, well, I like the language. I think it's really, it's catchy, it's compelling, it creates interest, but I also love the idea of process. And how did you come up with that and talk a little bit about that process as we're moving through these, you know, from where you were to... the place we are now, what was that process like? Well, I think for me, it was just sort of the process that I identified as I went through it myself. I love a step-by-step guide. I love a checklist. I'm a checklist culture girly. um That was a big part of growing up evangelical. It was do your 30-minute quiet time. Do your ABC prayer. you know, have you have you shared the gospel with somebody this week, you know, that type of a thing. And it was like, check, check, check, go into heaven. Everything's great. um But I so there was that tendency for me to be like to just kind of transpose that over to a more as to do that, to deconstruction and reconstruction. And so I didn't I knew that that wasn't that was the temptation, but I didn't want to do that. But I knew that there There was a framework that, you know, as we ask questions, as we walk through this, I did want some sort of, like, I knew that there was a process, there's a grief process, there were things that I knew I needed to do, and I am not good with feelings, I'm actually enormously, uh historically, famously bad at feelings. You can ask anyone that knows me personally. oh And so I knew that I would need some sort of like, um, like a trip wire to be like, okay, you have reached this point in the process. Now we need to focus on, need to focus on being sad now because you are sad because you know, the first thing is like lamenting, lamenting the things that you have lost in this, you know, maybe your church has hurt you. Maybe you have experienced some sort of loss in uh faith or spirituality or the thing that you thought was going to happen, uh, you know, in your spirituality did not happen and that in mourning that loss. And I would much rather just forget about that portion of this. I don't like to be sad. I would, I'm very bad at the sads and, um, but I think, you know, kind of walking through that process and I, I really did try to skip over to the next thing and just be like, Oh, we don't have to worry about that. But when I started the next part of the process without grieving and without like honoring that part of me that was very sad, was like, I can't, I like actually, I actually cannot move on. I actually am getting tripped up here because I have not grieved this huge part of my life that I am heartbroken about. Um, that I have watched like my faith be just bastardized on a you know, an international platform. I'm watching the words of Jesus be twisted. Um, these words that have meant so much, like genuinely so much to me, I believe them. I believe that they are the words of life and they are being twisted and weaponized by people in power to make oppressed people more oppressed. And it's, it is, it is shocking and it is really, it is awful. It's gut wrenching. And if I don't grieve that, if I don't mourn that, I cannot move on. just going to be, I'm going to continue to descend into resentfulness and bitterness and anger. And, um, and that's okay. Like I can be mad, but I also need to pay attention to what's underneath my anger, which is really just grief. And so I knew that there was going to have to be a process that, and so it was just really just kind of me, um, like running into a lot of walls over and over again, and, uh figuring out like how I could move forward. And I think, and what's interesting about the process is I'm not just going through it once and we're done. It's like I have to keep going through it because it's always like, okay, something else has come up. I'm okay, now I'm hurting again. I'm in lament again. And now I want, okay, but now I've, or I need to go back to a space and I need to push another boundary because I'm still uncertain about something here. And I just think that's our life in the spirit. I think that's just life with Holy Spirit and life in community with people. We're always brushing up against people. We're always, you know, learning more about God and we're always experiencing God and being in community with God and other people. And that's just, I think that's just our life. And that's the work of our life is to continue to get close to God and be in communion with God. And so we're always kind of walking through that experience, I think. I'm really interested in, um like, surgical, the spiritual surgical precision uh it takes for a deconstructionist to, like, say all this other stuff is bad, but, my faith in Jesus is still true. And I'm super, like, curious because I spoke with, uh she's a content creator, April LaJoy. ah I think she's fabulous. So we were talking about like this deconstruction and then she had mentioned, um you know, that she's still a believer. And I'm just I'm fascinated by this because, you know, if a pastor preacher, the same pastor preacher that's telling you about purity culture is also telling you about the goodness of Jesus. So like, so how do we pick out this part we don't like and then stick with this part? I'm really curious on how you do that. Well, I think that happens for some people and I think for some people it is the thing that kills it for them. And I think both of those em responses are valid. know lots of people who like I was at my one of my book events, a gentleman stood up and he was like, Hey, love the book. It's great. um I had to leave the faith. Like I cannot do this anymore. I cannot be a part. of whatever and he used an expletive that I won't use here but he's like I cannot be a part of um I cannot be a that's fine that's fine well that's great that's great okay good great um that he was like I I I cannot be a part of what this group is perpetuating and I don't and I don't want that label associated with me and I think that's a completely valid thing to say. But for me, and I don't judge that. And I also don't know that that is a forever thing for him or anyone else. Just like I don't know it's a forever, like I assume that I will be a believer for all of my life, but who knows? I hope so, but who knows what'll happen? Who knows how I'll change? But I also don't know that that's a fixed point for that guy either. And I, what I want more than anything is I want to be open to movements of the spirit. And I, but I think what's hard is that for me, I don't want to let somebody walk out the door with Jesus, Jesus's name in their mouth in a, in a way that is weaponization. can't, I, I, it makes me ill. It makes me, it, it, drives me insane. I, I don't, I don't want it. It is wrong to me. It feels, it feels evil to me. It feels, like I, I'm like, my heart rate is going up right now, just thinking about it. And I, I want to not save it, uh, but, but be a counterweight to what is what is on offer right now, which is American Christianity can bring you power. can bring you wealth. It can bring you, um, this certain amount of, uh, like you can, I mean, you can do whatever you want. We, we can have whatever we want now. And that's, that is not the, that's not the faith that I see in scripture. That's not it. And so, um, I think for me, I want to separate the BS And I want to go back to this, this, what I see in scripture, this Jesus, that's not what I see out here. And that's not what I see in purity culture. That's not what I see in A, C, and D. And so I want to be able, because this is the thing that I actually do believe in. This is like the words of Jesus, the sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the fruits of the Spirit, all of this, this is good. This is the words of life. Like I always go back to that story about Peter. Um, when Jesus like, and all the disciples are, he's like, Hey, are you like all the disciples leave and Peter's then Jesus asked, Peter's like, are you going to leave too? And Peter's like, Hey, where else am I going to go? Because I genuinely do think that you have the words of life. Uh, subtext, I do think you might be crazy, but I do think that, that this is the, this, you are the guy. So no, I'm not leaving. Do I feel great about staying? I don't know, but I, I'm not leaving. And so that to me has always kind of been my, my deal. It's like, no, I'm here because I do believe that this is, this is where the words of life are. Do I like what everyone else is doing? Not always. I would love to have a family meeting with some of you. uh, maybe you want to have a family meeting with me, but that, that to me is there is something very different. are two Christianities in this country and I, I really, and there's probably more, but there are definitely two. And I really, really, really want to salvage the one that I see in scripture. I really love that. You know, I want to focus in a little bit on the lament piece because I think it's so powerful and I think it's a lot of times misunderstood about what we mean by that. And I just love the name of the chapter White Lion Hot Dog, Jonathan Jesus. I think that's like, just again, like if someone read that like, OK, what are we doing here? Let's like. here? So, but you talk about biblical lament, right? And then you talk about bringing in Jewish mourning rhythms and looking at Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount, the blessed are those who mourn. um And even as this is a template, not just for personal, but even congregational lament, can you dig into that a little bit for us? What did you find as you were researching? How did this... work out in your own life. And this is I know it's several questions here, but really it's about what was this grief and lament? Why is it so? Yeah, I think, you know, every other culture has a robust grieving uh rhythm and ritual. uh We do not. And we did as Americans. We did mainly because we brought we brought a lot over uh from, you know, our home countries when we when we immigrated uh Native Americans. had indigenous people here had a robust culture. Obviously, we have destroyed that. um And but we have really sanitized our grieving process here. It is almost non-existent. anytime that we experience loss, we have so removed ourselves from that loss that we, and we kind of copy paste that into anytime we experience any kind of loss, whether it's a loved one dying or getting, you know, kind of having to remove ourselves from a community, a faith community, anything like that. So we don't know how to grieve. I certainly don't know how to grieve. I find myself that, you know, that moment in Talladega Nights when Will Ferrell is like, I don't know what to do with my hands. That's how I feel every time I'm being asked to be sad about something. So it was going into uh Amanda uh held Opel. She wrote a fabulous book about the rhythms of grief. can't remember the name of the book off the top of my head, but grief in uh like rhythms of grieving in other cultures. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. But one of the one of the uh rhythms that I have always really been interested in is the Jewish practice of sitting Shiva. And it is it has such beautiful symbolism. within it. And it has taught me so much about how you can, especially within community, because I think uh we have also individualized our grief so much. um We have kept it to ourselves because we love, uh we love to, you know, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do it on our own um and to our detriment. And so that there's this communal aspect of it, that there is this It is a process. You are not asked to just jump right back into your job a week later after someone has passed away. There is a slow process and you are not asked to fake it. You are not asked to spiritually bypass your grief. You are not asked to say stupid platitudes about God. got, you know, it's all in God's plan and, know, God gained another angel. Nobody says that BS in Shiva. it's not allowed. Like you can barely, like no one even gets to talk. So it's just like everybody shut up, stop saying stupid things. It's just, there's so much in it that I think we can learn from because we have, we have so sanitized ourselves from the actual process of grief and it, is, it is rich and it is robust is, is beautiful. It's really lovely. You know, we've spoken to a lot of authors um on the show and I've learned a couple things. that authors don't always get to choose the title of their books. um Most books get released on a Tuesday. Weird. Because our episodes post on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so that's the only reason I know that. um And the third thing is that there's always more that authors wanted to put in their book um than the editors allowed. So I'm curious on like what stuff didn't make the cut when you were putting the book together. Well, I had an excellent editor, Stephanie Smith, who I would give my firstborn to if she wanted a 15-year-old. She doesn't. But so she did such a great job. And everything that was supposed to be there is there. And everything that definitely didn't need to be in there is definitely not. But I did write a really terrible uh chapter that uh really went hard in the paint about The farmer and the cow man should be friends a song from Oklahoma the musical like I went really hard in the paint for that And she was like hey, I love this We do not need 7,000 words about this and you can take this out. So that was I did leave that out And then I think what's what's hard about this is that? so many stories They're they're mine, but they're also someone else's and you know, you don't, you don't want to blow up somebody's spot. You don't want to be a jerk, uh, you know, because maybe you were hurt and maybe that person didn't intentionally hurt you, but that, that is a part of your story. So you do have to kind of be careful about that. You do have to, know, and also I wanted to be very careful because so much of my, you know, so much of my religious trauma. I had a wonderful childhood. had an excellent, like my parents are amazing and I had a lovely home church. I still talk with my childhood pastor. Um, and he is an amazing person. I, that is something that I do not take for granted. I still had, uh, you know, childhood religious trauma, but I never wanted my parents or anyone that I grew up with to feel like I was blaming them or that was an indictment against them. So that was a really hard, like line to, you know, kind of line to walk. I, you know, my parents said that we did it. So we did an okay job. But I think those kinds of things are tough. And you have to really be careful when you're when you're writing kind of memoir style stuff, especially when everyone is still alive. You got to be really careful with that. Yeah. Yes. I can imagine the difficulty of that and just being, I haven't written a book yet. I keep telling Will we should write a book, but then I'm always just saying it because I mean, he writes sub stacks all the time. So he would be writing it and I would be like, oh, I need to get my chapter. And he would be like, dude, when's your chapter going to be in? we will get that figured out because I just have ADHD all over the place. But. I love the idea that you bring out about asking questions. I think questions are very, very important. I think questions get us to, like they get our brain moving in directions, like, know, when you, that we wouldn't normally go maybe. And it's funny because you ask a question and your brain can't help, but start to process the answer and try to figure that out. And so, I mean, we're kind of built that way, right? But also questions have a cost. You know, and I've thought about in my own life, you know, I've had to make some difficult decisions. One of them was I resigned from or essentially left a denomination that I had been in my whole life. m And some of the support structures there, especially at a time when we were planting a church and. um I think about that and the questions that I had about is this true? Is that real? Should I be there about certain theological positions and all that? They had a cost. They had a real cost later on, right? They start here, but the cognitive dissonance that it creates, I think part of it is the anticipation of the cost. And you invite people to be curious and but curiosity has a price. And I would just love What was the cost for you? And you can even just reflect on the cost in general if you want, but what do you think about that concept really that our questions um can have a cost? I that is why a lot of people don't want to ask the questions. And I would say that is anecdotally what I hear people say often. They say, look, I know I need to do this. I know I need to prosecute some of what I believe. But I know the second I do, I'm going to have to leave my church. I'm going to have to put boundaries down in a relationship that's going to be really difficult. I'm going to have to change the way I do A, B, and C. And that is hard. Like I'm not, I am absolutely 100 % not denying that that is difficult and scary and painful. And I think for me, the cost happened. I mean, the cost was there were some relationships that did not survive. There were, there was a job that did not survive that. And there was a community that did not necessarily survive that. And now I can say, because I'm a good bit on the other side of that, those things were restored, not 100 % in the same way, but they were restored. And, I, I, in, in great ways, in very, very valuable ways and very robust ways, but that took a while and it was, it does not take away from the pain that incurred, think. I am 100 % sure that honestly asking questions and losing some of that stuff is better than knowing that you need to ask the questions and living inauthentically in that, even when you're living in community and in safety. And I know the tension there, and I know that that's hard. But to stay in an authentic place, knowing that when you ask those questions, you're going to have to change, that's a tough place to be. That is where you're going to start having panic attacks and indigestion. you're going to need to go to the doctor for that. That's a tough place to live. That's a tension-filled place to live. I am curious and I don't know if a lot of the conversations we're having already, it's just a conversation in subtext, but I'm going to ask about the role that politics played into just your awareness of your spirituality. Because it is weird. When I think about liberal people I know that may be deconstructing, it's like, yeah, know, purity culture, complementarianism, all that's bad. Republicans that are deconstructing are like, yeah, that stuff's bad, but also like we've got a president, we've got a Republican Party, we've got Christian nationalism, we've got all these other sort of factors. So uh talk to us about like politics in your life. Well, I grew up conservative. um I grew up in the Panhandle of Texas, which I don't know if you're familiar, but it's extremely red. um And ah it's the buckle on the Bible Belt. um that to me, it was uh marketed as this is how Christians vote. We vote for compassionate conservatism. And I I believed that I saw that was a very, that made sense to me. And, and it wasn't, and even as I went to college and the first time I actually voted and the first, you know, the first couple of times I was like, yes, this makes sense to me 100%. And then as I got older and I started to, I started to read about like, I started to have more nuanced views and not, and hear me say this, I do not think. that just because you grow up and you start reading and you start having more nuanced views, that that means you should become more liberal or you should become more progressive or whatever. But for me, what happened was I had been handed in the same way as religion, but I'd been handed a very black and white version of, let's say, abortion. OK, oh we don't kill babies. OK, yeah, I don't want to kill babies. Yes, I don't want to be. Yes, I don't kill babies. I don't want to kill babies. 100%. Yeah. So yes, I am pro-life. Yeah, that makes total sense to me. Well, later I'm learning more about what that means. And it's like, oh, this is way, way more nuanced than I thought it was. the, the, the, the, don't kill babies that, that, that is, that does not encompass, uh, hardly any of this. So It is a, it was a process for me to go, okay, wait, what, what, what do I actually believe? And then I, and then I started having sex because I got married and then I was like, I could be pregnant. And then I, you know, then, then a whole other world opened up to me and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on just a second. Now it's actually affecting me and that, and so it was like a whole It was like a 10 year process of pulling some of this apart. And then I think it was all of that and then it was 2016. 2016, I will never forget where I was when that Access Hollywood tape dropped. I will never forget it because I was on our back deck at our old house and my husband came through and he was like, did you see this? And I said, No, what is it? And he showed me and I was like, that's it. That's it. We're done. We don't have to listen to this anymore. We don't, he's not going like, we're not going to have to deal with him anymore. This will be it. This is it. Because I remembered, I remembered when I was a child and Bill Clinton and it was like, no, we need, we need, we need a president with character. Like obviously like, yes. And I was like so excited. And then, and then, and then nobody, nobody cared. Like none of the people that taught me in Sunday school on Facebook, did not care. In fact, they doubled down. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is happening? And it was like, I mean, it was like that 24 hours, everything changed for me. And it was so jarring and it was so upsetting. And I remember sitting on the couch with my daughter the night of the 2016 election. because she was so excited because I mean, she was like in third grade and she was like, is the lady going to be president? And I was like, maybe, I don't know, very exciting. And she fell asleep and I was like, I can't wake her up. I cannot wake her up because I cannot believe this is happening. And then we woke up and it was 81 % of white evangelicals voting for him. And I was, I, I, I was never the same. It was just never the same. And I could not believe it. I felt betrayed. I felt so disconnected from the people that I sat in the pews with. I could not believe it. And it is still, I still feel so betrayed by it. And it has, has, it has broken me. I mean, if I can be really honest, it has absolutely broken me. I really appreciate you just being honest and candid about that, because... We have heard similar stories from other people about kind of like their breaking point ah with the things that Trump does and maybe the GOP more broadly. And I don't say that in a way that celebrates it because I know there are some people that are so connected to their political identity that to just even wrestle with that is hard because they've been Republicans or conservatives their whole life, you know, and they don't want to get canceled. So it's like they kind of hold. and keep all this sort of stuff to themselves. So yeah, I definitely just wanna just thank you for that. um And that's all I wanted to say. I know Josh had a question. You're welcome. My mental spiral is an open book for sure. totally understand what you're saying. I remember just seeing that he was even running for president. I'm like, this is a joke, right? This is just a joke. And then I would, it was a joke. And then I see, and then he's like putting out these videos and he's like in New Hampshire, like, New Hampshire, you're not going to have any more drugs. The drugs are going to be gone. And I'm like, what is he? As a theater major, let me say. show, I would like show people, I'm like, are you serious? This is his position? Where he's going to get rid of drugs everywhere? And it's like, of course that didn't happen at all. And like any of the things he said didn't really happen. Many of them, shouldn't, anyway, I should calm down. But I remember I was just looking at this. I'm like, this is crazy. And yet here, here, here we are. And, You know, go ahead. blame, like, I understand conservatism 100%. Yeah, like I understand conservatism. What we see now is so far away from conservatism. It is so far away from John McCain. It is so far away from, you know, Mitt Romney. It is extremism. It is fascism. It is white Christian nationalism at its core. And it is... And I feel for people like you, Josh, people like my parents, people like a lot of people who I grew up with who are like 100 % adrift. There is no place for you because you aren't MAGA, you aren't this extreme, but you still hold the conservative values. that is a tough place to be in right now because there is no spot. Yeah, I definitely have felt that way as a political, you know, uh pilgrim. That's not the right word, um I don't have a home team. I just, I have nobody. um And a refuge, no, refugee. Yes, I'm not saying the right thing. Yes, I do have you and I do appreciate it. That's not true. I don't have anybody, but. I'm just talking about in terms of those broad political um movements. so, so, all right, this is, we're getting up to time. So this is one of the last questions, but I just think it's fascinating that you chose Judas as a, as a partner. Now, now I will say that I, I have thought, I have gotten to the place where I'm much more compassionate on Judas. And I kind of am like, man, he was probably pretty disappointed. And I'm not saying he's a great dude, he was stealing money from the coffers and stuff like that. And who knows why he's doing it, but he was stealing money and all that. But I wonder if part of that was that he's like, wait, I thought Jesus was gonna, he made all these promises and now he's gonna go die and he's gonna go do all this stuff. I thought I was gonna be in power. And I see myself in Judas quite a bit when I think about the expectations I had. that didn't get met by God or by Jesus or whatever it is. I always, Judas was the enemy, right? He's the guy in the play. When you go to Easter play, he's like horrible and he becomes deformed. Yeah, he's like horrible and evil and you Judas and everyone just booze him, you know, off the stage. And yet we're all kind of Judas. So could you just talk a little bit about why did you choose Judas? to walk alongside, you talk about in your book, what was it about Judas that compelled you to work with him as um an imaginary, he's not an imaginary, but you know, partner in this, and as opposed to like Paul or Peter or you know, Philip or one of those other guys that no one boos off the stage necessarily. I mean, it's what you just said. Like, it's so easy. know, Meredith Ann Miller, who is one of my favorite uh writers, she talks a lot about like kids and uh like handing them a faith that they don't have to heal from, ah which is fabulous. She's an excellent, excellent follow, but she talks a lot about how it's so easy for us to cast ourselves in scripture as the hero. And that's something that um I was listening to, this was forever ago. It was a liturgist podcast episode and propaganda was one of uh the guests. And he was talking about how when white people read the uh Exodus narrative, they often cast themselves as uh the Hebrew slaves. Like, that's us. We're being freed. And he's like, no, no. You got no, you guys are the oppressor. Like you guys need to start reading it as the oppressor. Like that's you're in the wrong spot. Like you've cast yourself in the wrong role. And that that changed so much for me. And I have always thought about that. And I think about that when Meredith says that that we often cast ourselves as the hero. It's easy for me to pick my favorite disciple to take like a BuzzFeed quiz and like, which disciple are you? I'm, I'm Peter. I'm so crazy. Like I, I chopped a guy's ear off. Well, I'm a nut. No, I am Judas every time. Like I am so impatient. I am so greedy. I am so, I have such a complex needing, like I need to be seen. I need to be understood. Um, I, I, I want things that God does not want. Um, and I want my purposes to be fulfilled. And I think I see myself, just like you said, I see myself so much in Judas, in just that desire of, and Judas got, Judas was forced into a deconstruction. If, mean, I mean, he thought, my gosh, like exactly what you said, like, you know, Jesus is going to come in, we're going to, we're going to take these Romans down. I'm so excited. And, uh, you know, we're going to be free and I'm up here. look at me, got the, I got the money. I'm in the, I'm in the inner circle. And Jesus was like, Hey, my guy, we're not doing that. Actually, uh, stop being mad about this oil. This is like, yeah, we're going to have the poor forever. So you need to chill on this. And you, and Judas is like, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, this is about power. This is about, this is about, uh, about taking people down and you getting lifted up and us being a part of that. And Jesus is like, no, incorrect, my friend. And he like that was a loving position. And I think Judas loved Jesus and wanted like he ready, but he just, missed it. He missed it so, so much. you know, you look at Peter and Judas did the same thing. They both betrayed Jesus. Same thing, exact same thing. The only difference is how they responded to it at the end. I'm convinced that if Judas had hung around just a little bit longer, Jesus and Judas would have had the exact same conversation that Peter and Jesus, I'm sorry, Peter and Jesus had at the resurrection and everything would have been chill. But he just, he couldn't, he couldn't handle it. He, it just, he, it was too, he was racked with too much guilt. And so I, I think there is so much of Judas in me. I just, I, I love focusing on him because I, I still just think it was, it was a completely normal human thing for him to want. And he just, just wish he had held on a little bit longer, you know? That's really awesome. I've got one more question for you, um before I do, where can people get a hold of your book and um learn more about what it is you're doing? Yeah, so you can get, I've got questions anywhere you buy fine reading materials. If you can go to your local indie bookstore and ask for it there or bookshop.org. Don't, you know, support the oligarchy, but um if you have to, it's okay. um But, and then I am on Instagram at Aaron H Moon and I write on sub stack at Aaron H Moon dot sub stack.com. So come hang out with us. We're a lot of fun. super, super awesome. Last question. If um you were to get a piece of fan mail from somebody that read your book um and they wrote to you about the ways in which their book or your book affected them, like what would you want that letter to say? I actually got it the other day. This was so cool. Okay, so I got this, I got this email from this 70 year old woman. Oh, yeah, okay. It was a seven year old woman and she was writing on behalf of her and her husband. And she was like, Hey, our granddaughter was reading your book on vacation and she was talking to us about it. And we were like, just kind of talking about it. And we picked it up because we don't understand. what she's going through. Like she's going through this crisis of faith where we are very like, were like deconstruction, that sounds evil. Like our pastor said that's evil and we don't, we're like worried about her, right? And so after vacation, we asked if we could read it, we took it and it like, we, number one, we understand what she's going through now. And also like it has helped us. Like we are kind of now asking our own questions and we are kind of working through some stuff. And I was like, okay, this is the business. Like I love this. This is so great because that's what I want. It has been so fun. like, I mean, I say fun, but I've heard a lot of really heart wrenching stories about genuine religious trauma, church trauma, painful stories, but it has also been really cool to see how it has been a friend to people and been able to walk alongside people who are going through something like that and helped kind of midwife them out of it um to more community or a faith that they did not know that they were going to be able to go back to. um So that is what I really love to see has been a really cool byproduct of this. So yeah. what an amazing story to end on. Well, thanks again for stopping by, Aaron. This was a phenomenal conversation. Just love. it so much. Thank you all so much for such great questions. Yeah, I love your energy, love what you're doing, love the book. Definitely recommend people go out and buy it, you know, help your local bookstore um and all of that fun stuff. And make sure you like and subscribe to me for watching this. Yeah, it really helps us out if you want to get this message out and especially if you want to. Yeah, that's right. an idiot. Yes, I yes, please. We have the podcast faith adjacent. Yes, we do not take ourselves very seriously. We take the faith aspect seriously, but we are very silly and slightly heretical. So if that's your vibe. we are too, actually. ah I mean, what's really interesting is like, get a lot of I get I don't get as much slack as Josh does because I'm I'm the liberal, I'm a Democrat, I'm a believer. Like. Yeah, I mean, when I when I when I led worship for a time in my early my early days, um I had people in congregations say I couldn't lead worship because I like to wear hats, which is true. I do like to wear hats, so. And for me, know, early in my Christian days, I'm like, I guess that's true. I haven't read the whole Bible yet. Maybe there's like a secret catchphrase or something, you know. But anyways, yeah. Thank you again for everything. And to our audience, thank you for joining us. And remember, keep your conversations not right or left, but up. And we'll see you next time. Take care. and