CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Abuse and Estrangement in Christian Fundamentalism with Stephanie Warren

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of child abuse and corporal punishment. Stephanie Warren was taught that her parents beating her was proof of their love, because in the fundamentalist Christian world she grew up in, that was what love was allowed to look like. She and Whitney talk through how her parents rationalized the abuse, why she eventually went no contact, and what it took to build a life and an education she was never supposed to have. Connect with Stephanie Warren: https://thestrongwilledchild.substack.com/ Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to [e-mail] the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.coFollow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhitFollow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmftOrder Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivitySign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0oThis podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Calling on Podcast. I'm Whitney Goodman. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and every week on this show, we help you untangle your difficult family dynamics. The estrangements, the ruptures, and the relationships that ask more of us than we ever should have had to give. My guest today has written one of the most clear-eyed accounts I've read of what it's like to grow up inside a fundamentalist evangelical world and what it costs to leave it. Stephanie Joe writes for the substack, the strong-willed child, and if you know where that title comes from, you probably already understand a little bit of what she is dealing with. She was born and raised inside the movement on the Dobsonera playbook, and she got out. And now she's putting words to the things

so many adult children never had permission to say, like what it's actually like to be a child in this type of system. She writes about being raised in what she calls a modern-day cult, where kids were abused in plain sight and no one questioned it. She writes, writes about purity culture, conversion therapy, and about the slow unraveling of the relationship between her own parents, a rupture that reached its breaking point around their kitchen island. And she writes about what it means to build a life and raise a daughter on her own on the other side of it all. This is a difficult conversation. It's also really honest. And I think if any of this sounds like poor family, I'm really glad that you're here and I hope you enjoy the episode.

Stephanie, welcome to calling home. I want to start just a lot of by having you describe, you know, the world that you were raised in, especially for anyone that doesn't understand it. You write that you grew up in a modern day cult. And so I'd love to just hear in your own words what it was like growing up in that community. I didn't know anything was any different. I didn't know that the material that I was being subjected to, I grew up inside of Christian fundamentalism in a non-denominational church. And what that means is, churches, there's mainline Christianity, which would be your Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and then there's, and there's an Episcopalian. I don't think Catholicism falls under that

because there's Catholicism and then there's like Protestantism. And then there's evangelical Christianity. And evangelical Christianity is where you're going to find your Baptists, where you're going to find your UPCI. So Pentecostal, your four square and all of those other denominations. And within Baptists, there's independent fundamentalist Baptist. So you'll see that like the Dugger family. And there's different documentaries. And they'll say the acronym is IFB. So independent fundamentalist Baptist. And then there's SBC Southern Baptist Convention. And to be, I think like to be true Southern Baptist, you have to actually attend the convention, but there's a lot of churches out there that one of the things they like under the umbrella. So of it. And then there's non-denomination. And non-denomination is just a

fancy way of saying that they pull all of the worst aspects of the different, they like cherry-pick, terrible aspects of the other denominations. And then they just go unchecked. And that is non-denomination. So there's just not a governing hierarchy. Like in Southern Baptists or independent fundamentalists, they will have a set of bylaws. They'll have like a headquarters and everything is kind of, it filters down from that. But with non-denominational, the buck stops with the pastor. I mean, and the people that are appointed to the eldership and leadership board, which are usually his best friends. So I argue when people say like, not all churches.

No, all churches. All churches. Because just statistically speaking, there's abusers everywhere and they go for churches. So inside of my world, there was a period of time where I remember listening to, so I'm, I was born in 1984. I'm a true, like, I'm actually more of a zenial, but elder millennial. I remember a time when my older sibling would listen to new kids on the block or, you know, we listened to Wilson Phillips riding to the neighborhood pool. And I was pretty young. I was about five. And then all of a sudden, it's just like the lights go out. And we're no longer listening to anything like that. Youth group, church, so much begins to revolve around that. And I don't exactly know what the catalyst was for that. I know that my parents were heavily involved with Amway, but that's a lot. I don't exactly know what the catalyst was for that. I know that my parents were heavily involved with Amway, but that That was prior to me being born. But this was like a new thing that your family got into after you were, after you were five,

not something that started from day one. Definitely I was born into it. Okay. Because my parents were a part of the non-denominational church when I was born. It's just that with this particular space, like with Christian fundamentalism or evangelical Christianity, Christian nationalism, James Dobson ruled the entire system, along with all of his other BFFs. And whatever he put out there, whatever he was perpetuating on his, regurgitating on his media, or in his magazines, in his newsletters, that's what parents believed to be the right way to raise

their children, because at the time they had Dobson or Dr. Spock. And Dr. Spock was the antithesis of Dobson. So where Dobson was like, hit your kids. Dr. Spock was like, no. And parents wanted to be able to spend eternity with their children. And Dobson promised if you raise your children in this way, you're going to spend eternity with your children. And why wouldn't, like you, you birth your children.

Of course you love them. You want to spend eternity with. with them. So he leveraged eternity with your children. He leveraged that to parents. And through that gateway, that's how he created this terrible system where it justified abusing your kids. And so I, like I said, I remember a time where we were just, there was Wilson Phillips, there was new kids on the block, there was neon, there's spandex. There, you know, all the, all the scrunchies and just like, I remember a lot of color in my life. And then it just stops. And I can look at the year and I can look at the material that was being put forward. It was, you know, 1989, 1990,

1991 and there was this heavy emphasis that all non-Christian media was demonic and that's exactly what was being perpetuated. Oddly enough, like just in any evangelical home, what is not allowed in one home might be allowed in the other. So we were allowed to have Disney. I grew up watching Disney movies and I was allowed to have just enough. to fit in with the outside world. I attended, I mean, I attended like a private preschool, but then I went to public school. And I just remember always asking somebody, are you a Christian? Because those were the people that I was told were safe. And those were the people that I knew I could have a friendship with. Because if they weren't Christian, there was a lot of extra

justifications that I had to come up with as to why this person is a fun person just to play with on the playground. So I made sure to make friends with Christians. Like we, you know, we were always at different Bible studies and they call them home fellowship groups at the time. So for those that don't understand what that is, now the term is small group, which it quite literally is a small group. It's like labeling your kitchen kitchen. It's just, there's just a lot of like catchy, kitchy type of phrases that evangelicals like to use, but ultimately it's like a group of anywhere between four to 12, maybe even more than that, people. And you form it around a study or around something that you love to do. Like you could have a small group for golf. You could have a small

group, you know, really for anything. It's just special interest groups. And so I did a lot of that. I went to Sunday school. I went to Awana's VBS. And I just felt like that was a very normal life. And when I would meet people that did not do that, I immediately associated that with like, oh, well, that's because they're going to hell. Like, I feel so sorry for you. You're spending eternity burning. And I'm five. There was, you know, like I said, just restrictions on, on everything, on how we dressed, what we said, always behaving, always, always, you know, hands folded in your lap, always quiet outside the home. I just, I don't remember a lot of joy.

It doesn't mean that there wasn't any, but I don't remember that because joy was synonymous. Like, joy was something that you had while you were going through pain, while you were suffering. You could not experience the joy of the Lord unless you were going through difficult circumstances in your life. Like, that's how you reached or attained grasped onto the joy of the Lord. And the same with peace. You could not feel true peace unless you were amidst a storm in your life. You know, talking about purity, all of that really started surfacing probably around the time that I was eight or nine.

Now, I have to be clear, my mom wanted me to be a lady, right? My mom wanted me to, I loved to wear dresses. So she used to make dresses for me. She used to sew. That was a lot of fun. I went through a whole little house on the prairie kick, you know, as most evangelical girls did at the time, where all I wanted to do is, you know, I begged her to buy me a pinafore, or sew me a pinafore, and I just, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls. And it was just this like, you aspire to to be a lady, right?

You aspire to be a homemaker, to get a husband, to have children. Like, that was always, always emphasized and talked about learning how to bake, learning how to cook, learning how to clean appropriately. I was a very messy girl, so I think that they may have given up hope with that. I'm not sure she's ever going to clean her house. But it was just something that was just very emphasized. And I remember thinking this is so strange to me that others don't, like other girls my age, they don't talk about growing up and getting married. They don't talk about growing up and fighting husband. And but all the girls that I hung out with with church, like that was just our main focus. And, Like we had journals where we wrote letters to our husbands. We had, I mean, I have like a list of, I kid you not, I think it's like 80 or 81 qualities that I want in a future husband. I saved them all and that's a story for another day. But it's really funny to go through. Like I have letters that I wrote to my future husband and they're just really, they're just dumb.

And I can look at it and I can laugh at it now. But I remember the heart that was, you know, where I was. writing that from. But, you know, at the age of 16 or 17, I remember thinking, what have I done that is causing God to not reveal who my future husband is? Because all these other girls, like, they kind of already know if you weren't, if you weren't in a relationship with somebody, like a lot of parents would send their girls off to like Baptist College to find a husband. And most of them never made it past like the first year of college because, well, they found a husband. That's all they needed. Now they're set. As far as practices inside of our church,

I mean, it was mildly charismatic. I think I heard people speaking in tongues like a couple times for those that don't know what that is. Tongues is like a prayer language. It's something that they believe the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God gifts people who asks for it, who ask for it. Like, and it's, it's really just mumbling. And anyway, they're supposed to always be an interpreter. It's, supposed to be used for the corporate body, so for the congregation, and more charismatic churches operated inside of those spiritual giftings or charismatic practices. My church wasn't so much that I think that we adopted more of an independent fundamentalist Baptist perspective, like with church, less, it felt less non-denominational and it felt more IFB. There was a homeschool co-op inside

of my church. And oddly, I was never a part of that, but there was a time where my mom and dad wanted to really relinquish control. They felt like public school was just like a den of demons and sinners. And so one day when I was in eighth grade, they just decided, that's it, you're done. You are being removed from public school. And now you're going to be homeschooled. And I was placed inside of this really bizarre co-op with my childhood best friend who her and I were born just a few months apart. And when she was born first and when I was born, I was like put in the the crib, the playpen with her. So like we were together from from my day one. And she was more, they were very, they were exclusively like Bill Gothard, whereas my parents took the Dobson route. And I had a little bit of Gothard influence.

Like I can, when I Google images, like when shiny happy people came out and I saw some of the things on there, I was, like instant memory flashbacks of, oh, I know what that is. I just thought that we were cool and had the Encyclopedia Britannica. And it turns out we just had the character booklets, wisdom booklets. So we were not cool. We did not have the Encyclopedia Britannica. But yeah, so homeschool was in eighth grade only for half a year. and then ultimately, I guess my mom decided, well, that's not working out anymore. I think that it required more than what she wanted to do. And then I was thrown back into public school. But then I was taken out again two and a half years later and thrown into like a sort of like a hybrid version. So it's a private school, not religiously affiliated, but it was still, you know, I didn't have any real connection to my high school anymore. So it was just like a lot of back and forths. And, it was always placed around this idea that it was my fault because I was making too many worldly

connections. I was getting too distracted. They cared about my heart for Jesus. They wanted me to follow Jesus. And this was causing me to stray away from that. Of course, inside of that, there were things that are called room raids. And they are just that. Like, when the FBI goes in and raids your home, they overturn everything in your home and they find everything. And that's essentially what evangelical parents would do if they ever suspected, like you just did not have any autonomy or privacy. If they ever suspected any type of thing that was going on in your home, they would just go in and totally turn over your room and read every single note, read journals. I mean, I remember going into their room and all of my private belongings were just all over their bed. And they would just

yell at me for my personal thoughts. So you just learn not to, you know, like I was told diaries are for secrets, but I could have a prayer journal. And so all of my journals from the age of like 16 through 30, gosh, like 38, 39 years old are literally the same thing, just every single day. Thank you, Jesus for this day. Because they have to take away language. That's so important. They have to take away your thoughts. Like in order to establish, in order for a cult to establish themselves, they have to have complete control over everything, including what you pray, what you think. They have to make you believe that if you think on thoughts, anything other than what the cult perpetuates, you are a sinner and you are going to hell.

You are being disobedient. You are being rebellious. You're dissenting. And so oftentimes when people leave these spaces, they don't even have language because it's been taken from them from the earliest stages, even in toddlerhood. So it, again, I just, I thought this was 100% normal. I thought it was 100% normal. I mean, the thing is, is like, with corporal punishment, speaking was normal at that time. So I can't, I can't say that that is specific to the evangelical movement, but Dobson took it to another level. And Dobson said that you are not Christian parents,

unless you beat the shit out of your children. Right. That's the part that is so interesting to me is that, you know, you mentioned this. Like these parents believed that they were saving their children, right? From eternal damnation, from going to hell, whatever it was. That they sort of had this mindset of like, I'm doing this. And I imagine that even if some of them felt a little bit conflicted about it, because all of us have that feeling of like, you.

you don't really want to hurt a child. I think most people will feel that way, but it seems like they were encouraged to override any type of instinct that they had in order to find salvation for their child. And I'm so curious about how you think these parents managed to do that day in day out. Like, is it just the conditioning that my child going to heaven or being saved is so much more important than anything else that I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Is that sort of the mindset? I can't begin to speak on behalf of my parents. I'm no contact with my parents. I have been for a few years, but I think that they truly believe that they love their children. And we were conditioned to believe that love is not what we view as love.

So their belief of love, like there's that saying, like there's no hate like Christian love. Because they believe by love, they believe loving somebody is literally abusive. That is love. There's just no, there's no other way to categorize what that word is. Like, I remember having a conversation with my dad. And I said, dad, I don't know how this relationship can move forward. I don't know how it can continue because on a foundational level, you and I disagree what it means to love someone. Yeah, yeah.

So in their frame, in their framework of what it means to love your child, it's, I will beat the shit out of my child because that's loving them. That's disciplining them because God disciplines us. What the Lord gives, he also takes away. So much of all of this is, was psychological torture along obviously with sadistic corporal punishment, sadistic punishments. Dobson enjoyed the torture of humans. Dobson enjoyed the torture of animals. And he taught parents how to do that. And he justified his own actions by teaching parents how to do that.

Because if enough people are doing that, then what he's not, what he's doing is not wrong. What he's doing is not illegal. And he pushed physical boundaries. He pushed legal boundaries all the time. He trained and taught parents how and where they could hit children so they don't leave marks. One of the things that I say is an entire generation was abused in plain sight. And it was okay because we were Christians. The Christians are the good people.

Oh, there are a kind Christian neighbors. They would never do that. Even my own family, my extended family, has approached me and said, we had no idea. We knew that your parents were extreme on their ideology, but we had no idea that this was going on. Is that accurate or you feel like they knew? I think that my parents did a fabulous job of making sure that we never had close enough contact with people because they weren't Christians like them, because they weren't evangelical like them. So we were told to, you know, like, oh, that's the crazy aunt over there. Or they're not

Christians. Remember, when we go over there, they're going to do some things that we wouldn't agree with as a family. But we are Christians. We are light bearers. We are the bearers of Jesus Christ. We bear the name of Jesus Christ. We bear the name of heaven. We're part of the kingdom. They're not. And so they were not safe people to us. They were they were the ones that would be abusive, right? Because they are not Christians. They don't speak the same language. My mom used to always say this thing, like, it's spirit speaking to spirit. And what that means is when somebody is correcting you and somebody's holding you accountable, that they're wrong because they have the bad spirit and you have the good spirit. So it just means Christians can never be wrong. So yes, I don't think that they knew specifically.

I do believe that because my parents never let them get close enough. Well, it sounds like too, if they would have called it out. And I see this even among adults now who are looking back on their childhood of like, was it abusive, wasn't it? It's all through this lens of like intent. And was it being done for the pursuit of something good? Right. So many adults whose parents, I believe under any definition, were physically abusive

to them will often say to me. me, yeah, but I was being a bad kid. They needed to teach me. Or I learned everything that I know today because of what they did to me. And for more religious parents, maybe, well, that was the way that I could make, you know, ensure that you were going to be a good person or a good Christian, that there's a lot of rationalization within the community, I feel like that you may not have even listened to a dissenting voice at the time to say like, hey, this shouldn't be happening to you because of the way it was being framed, it sounds like. Yeah, that's accurate. Because listening to anything other than the voice of your pastor, your leaders, James Dobson, the moral majority, was going against

in their belief. And still, right? Like, if you're not listening to Trump, you're going against Jesus. And that's the thing is the entire, the reason why Dobson did this, the reason why the moral majority did this, was to create Christian nationalist soldiers to take the country back to place people like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell in the highest positions of authority and power so that they could gain access and they could continue victimizing people. They could continue having power. They could continue having wealth. That's what it was about. It was never about being like Jesus or in his likeness. It was just about being foot soldiers for Jesus.

And my job as a girl was to grow up, get married, and have as many Christian babies as I could. Because we are going to outpopulate non-Christians. That's the whole point of the quiverful movement is to out-populate and make sure that there are enough white Christian babies, that the ratio is stronger. And I think, you know, what you're seeing now is people taking a step back and realizing that's what I was supposed to do. And then starting to pick that apart. I think that I know, I know that there is a point as a parent because I remember being faced with it parenting my own kids when they were younger. There is point that you know that you're doing something wrong. Yeah. And I know that my parents certainly

reached that point and they chose to override their natural instincts to not harm a child. They chose, they made that choice. They were very much complicit in perpetuating this harm. And however they chose to justify it, that's between, you know, that's, that's whatever they, that's between them and whatever it is. There is no justification because if what you are doing to a child becomes a felony the day they turn 18, it's a felony before, in my opinion. It's abuse before. 100%. And this is the debate or the argument that I get into often with parents, especially those who defend those types of practices. It's like, well, you know, I thought I was doing the right thing or I didn't mean to or it's what we were being told to do. And I agree that there's,

as a parent, I know there are times where I have maybe yelled or given a certain punish or something and like, oh, I don't like how that felt that I can't imagine, you know, what it takes to override that instinct to get to that point. And when you finally do that, it's almost like they have to double down and remain part of the community because the idea of being excommunicated or kicked out becomes even more important to them than the connection with their own child. They don't care about the relationship that they have with their kids. I believe that they genuinely do not have care and concern because they believe that if they raise their children the way that they should go, that they will not, that's the scripture,

if you, you know, raising your children in the way that they should go, when they are older, they will not depart from it. They truly believe that, fine, we're going to spend eternity with them. We'll reconnect with them in eternity. They can be, they can be angry. That's about whatever. Because the Bible also says in the New Testament, it talks about how family will turn against family. And in the last days, family will turn against family, children against their parents. You know, children will become unruly and there will be disobedience and all of that, right? I'm not quoting verbatim. But in essence, that's what that's saying.

And they believe that. So, like, my mom believes I am persecuting her. I'm being held hostage by the enemy, Satan, and that I am allowing the enemy to speak for me and that I am persecuting. But really, my soul belongs to Jesus. So don't like, you know, take heart because Jesus has overcome the world, right? So she, she believes that we will spend eternity together in heaven. And everything that she does is justifiable. So all the narcissistic behavior and passive behavior that she displays, well, that's fine.

Because she is convicting, right? She is in the right. She is showing love and devotion and kindness as Christ would. she is placing a holy, a kingdom boundary all to win my soul back for Jesus. So everything that they do is justifiable. And I think that, you know, there's a lot of questions. How did we get to this point? How do we get this point politically in our society and how there's just this massive chasm?

And inside of Christian nationalism, parents are taught immediately to dehumanize their child. they're taught that as soon as that child comes out of the womb, it's not your kid. It's God's kid. And your job is to raise God's child in the way that they should go in whatever means necessary that you need to do that. And even when a woman is pregnant, you're consistently told, like I remember being told over and over, oh, it's a blessing to be carrying the Lord's kids. It's a blessing. Like, that's not your kid. Remember, that's not your kid. Remember, that's not a kid, God will take care of it because it's his kid, not yours. You are only a caretaker for X amount of years. You're the one that's supposed to train that soldier for Jesus. Even better if you're

having a boy. And I believe that if you can dehumanize your child, you can dehumanize anybody. And that's what we're seeing right now is those who are part of that generation that were able to dehumanize their children. And now we're seeing that dehumanization in their voting, in their rage, in their storming the capital, because they don't care. because they believe that that's how you win the nation back for Jesus. And it's, and I, I can imagine for listeners how wild and insane that sounds. And yet as I'm saying it, it still doesn't, like, it makes a hundred percent sense in my brain. I know that it's, like, of course, I know that it's complete lunacy. but I know I was entrenched in that space for so for almost four decades that I know what that

means to them like the the chasm that is cognitive dissonance for them is so wide that it is an alternative like I remember what's her face saying alternative facts why I am my, like I picked Kellyanne Conway. When Kellyanne Conway said, it's alternative facts. To them, that is facts. To them, we are liars because we are speaking on behalf of the enemy. And the enemy is the author of lies. Satan is the author of lies, whereas Jesus is the author of truth. So in their world, they can have their truth, which they believe is the absolute truth. Like, there is no dissenting from that. There's no disagreeing from that. Like, that is their truth. And whatever the world is doing, that's the lie.

So it makes sense to me when people are like, oh, you know, that's fake news. To them it is because it's not Christian. It's not what they believe disciples of Jesus are saying. And it's mind-blowing to me that they can be told this guy is neon green. And they will believe instead of the color blue that that is neon green that they're looking at. And one of the ways that I described the world that I grew up in is it's, it's like you travel the world through, you travel through your life with like inside of a plexiglass box. It was like you can see everything. And you have the ability to still engage with it.

But you are in that. That is your world. And your world is parallel. And everything that how you see the world outside of the plexiglass is shaped. by whatever's going on inside of the Plexiglass. It's very Truman's show. I feel like one of the, there's two movie clips that come to mind when I think of the world that I grew up in. One is the Truman show at the very end when he discovers the truth. And it's just this, this, are you for real? I have been living inside of this world where everything has been curated.

everything has taught me how to think, what to think, where to go, how, you know, how everything is done. Are you telling me there's another world? What? And then, I mean, I wish that they would have like a continuation, right, a part two, a sequel, because I want to see how he interacts with the real world, because that's where we are all at. Those that have been disenfranchised have escaped Christian fundamentalism. Like, we're trying to figure out how, heck do we interact with this world that we were taught to be so terrified of. And then the second clip is the part in Forrest Gump, where Forrest and Jenny are walking past her old house and she just starts throwing rocks. And he says, sometimes there's just not enough rocks or something like that. And that, like the two of those combined is, I think, this tension that we as people who have escaped hold all the time. I saw you posted a video. where you said, if you're a strange parent came back and asked, you know, like wanted to talk to you. And my, my response was just like, no. No. And I think that for those, because there's something going on with the boomer generation as a whole. I don't know, I don't know what the fuck that is. But there is something that is for another time, another place. I have my theories. But my friends that were not raised inside of fundamentalism have the same. have similar issues, sans the fundamentalist aspect that I do with, you know, my boomer parents.

So that's, that's a generational thing. But for those that grew up with the fundamentalist aspect of it, I think at across the board from what I have, from the research that I have conducted, the hours spending listening to people, the podcast episodes that I've done, we're all saying no because we know that there is always an ulterior motive that they unless they leave fundamentalism unless they leave christian nationalism right there is no way forward yeah it seems well it seems like they'd have to completely denounce what they have lived in and remove themselves from it to fundamentally become a different person. Because in order to survive in one of those communities,

like where you're describing, it requires you to be all in. There is no like one foot in, one foot out. And so I think that's what makes this so challenging. I have a book coming out about adults who have difficult relationships with their parents and also who subsequently become estranged.

And I spent a lot of time looking at the focus on the family Facebook page, which has now and like their group, which I don't know if you've looked at it recently, but it's essentially become just a place for estranged parents to talk about their adult children. Like it's full of it. They've almost completely transitioned from talking about parenting to talking about estrangement. And it's very fascinating to me because it does seem like there is no way to have sort of a surface level relationship with a parent like that. And those parents can't have sort of half in half out relationships with their adult children that are not part of the community. Like it's it's not possible. They are taught that if they are not walking in the

ways of the Lord, they turn their back like they are not allowed to associate because they believe that their absence is a form of love. And it's kind of like, so in the addiction space, and I cannot, I don't have experience with extreme addiction, with a loved one having extreme addiction. So I speak from complete, I mean, I, in a, I speak from a place where I have head knowledge, but I do not, I'm ignorant because I don't have firsthand experience. But there comes a point where you have to cut. cut somebody off because it's just that that's kind of the last place. They just kind of feel like

that in general. Like, okay, that's how I love them. That's just, it's just tough love. Like, I think that's even when Adopson's books, tough love. They don't realize that it just confirms everything that they're doing. Like, there's this one gal, my God, she's on YouTube. She's insufferable. remember her name, but she's older. I bet you, you know who she is. She has a child who's estranged as well with her. And she is constantly going on and giving the dumbest advice. Like, no, it's okay. I reach out to my kid. It's fine. There's quite a handful of those creators that are. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, oh, cool. So you know that a restraining order will eventually happen. Right. Because we don't want community.

communication. Thankfully, my parents have not contacted me. I mean, my dad wrote a Facebook post because I didn't, I didn't block them. Actually, prior to going no contact, when I initially started on social media speaking out, my parents thought it was really cute. They thought it was a ministry. That was the best way. Like, they had to call it something, right? So it's my ministry. I'm like, you know that I'm like speaking out against the show. Anyway, whatever. My dad said, it's fine if you block me because I want you to be able to have the space just to be able to talk and know that, you know, I'm not like peeking in or sneaking in or whatever. So my parents have always been blocked from my social media because I wanted to have space. And I didn't block them

from Facebook when I went no contact because I didn't see the point. Like I, I already had restrictions on my content anyway with like who could see what I posted and that sort of thing. So it just didn't anyway. My dad posted something about him being. He's like, I may have made mistakes as a father, but dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And I just thought, you enabled the worst abuser out there. And you did it because you believed that's what being a Christian husband and father was. You enabled your own abuse.

You justified your own abuse through the cross, through Jesus, through religion. No, actually, you're a piece of shit. Like, that's full stop. Like, actually, you're just a really shitty human being. And that's sad. It's sad that they are fed these lies, that they are doing the right thing, that they are loving their child back to Christ. And if they want to use the example of Jesus, Jesus never did this.

Jesus didn't hit children. Jesus didn't. The only thing that I can think of that Jesus did is when he wasn't welcome in a town, he said, we just dust the dirt off of our shoes and walk on. But he didn't do the things that they do. I'm getting a little sidetracked and carried away. No, no, I think it's helpful. I think it's helpful for people to hear sort of the like granular experience.

of one person that has lived this because we talk about this a lot, I think, from like a macro level. But there are so many individual stories within leaving a fundamentalist religion. And that's what I get tripped up on as like an outsider in this is like how do you rationalize a lot of this behavior in the name of Jesus when, you know, that's not the Jesus that I ever really learned about or that I knew. or that I hear about. And so that gets, I imagine that that's got to be very confusing as the child in this situation to be like, I've read all of this. I was there. I know what Jesus has done and said.

And I don't, I can't reconcile that with how you're treating me. That's such a fair question. And I hope I'm able to break this down. So there's the Trinity, father, son, holy spirit. The best way to say it is it's like an orange. and orange has the, you know, all the, whatever. It's three and one, one and three. It really, it really is that ridiculous.

But, you know, you're taught that from a young age, so it always makes sense. God. God is also a God of wrath. And that's the Old Testament God, where he, there's this creator, she doesn't create as much anymore. Her name's Karen, and she made this t-shirt that said it's a symbol of the rainbow. And she's like, remember that one time where God drowned all the babies? But there's some really funny ones out there. But that's the God, that's the Jesus.

Because they believe that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit are all the same, right? And so that's what they have determined Jesus. is that Jesus is actually the God of wrath, the God that if you don't follow him, he destroys, that if you don't listen to the Christian apologetics of, no, you can't be gay, you can't have sex before marriage, you can't do this and this and this and this, if you don't listen to that and abide by that and surrender your life to your pastor, to your leaders, to God, to the, to Christian nationalism, like, you are awaiting destruction. And that's, that's who they have started to, to follow. That's, that's the Jesus, you know, the six pack or eight

pack with huge muscles and a machine gun. Like, that's their Jesus. Who's white? He always has to be white, right? That's their Jesus. And it couldn't be further from the truth, but it doesn't matter to them because that has become their truth. And a fantastic book if people have not read it is by Kristen Kobe Dumas and it's Jesus and John Wayne. And I think that she just does a remarkable job of explaining the beginnings of this and how we got to where we are. And I know she has a new one coming out, live, laugh, love that explains like how basically the white Christian woman was created. And it's also a phenomenal book. That sounds very interesting.

Yeah. It's the two complement one another so well, but could also be. read individually. I recommend people reading that if they have all the questions of like, how did we get to like ultra masculine, hypermasculinity, toxic masculinity, the Pete Hagseths, Doug Wilson, all of that. And when as a society did we give permission to this? Because that I feel like that book really answers. I mean, there's so many books that I've reviewed and authors that I'm friends with that answer so much of that question. And I'm so thankful that we're, we're seeing a period of time where so many media outlets, whether it be through video,

vlogs, writing, you know, substack or podcasts, because people are able to tell their stories. And that is, that's how this project was really born is I was starting to hear from people. And in fact, the way that it started was I was talking about summer camp. And I asked on TikTok, you know, what are you? summer camp stories. This was my experience. What's your experience? And then the podcast that I do came as I was collecting those stories and then shiny happy people came out. And everybody was like, oh, let's talk about the Duggers. Let's talk about it became more about the Duggers, less about Bill Gothard, which is unfortunate because we're all really missing the mark. Like we need to be going

after that rather than the sensationalism that the Duggers bring. But, you know, know, media marketing. And I came on, you know, I went on TikTok and I was like, what about Dobson? And I held up a wooden spoon. And it, I was on my way to my kids lacrosse practice and I just like quite literally pressed upload and I walked away. And it just like the numbers of that started racking up and it, it was going everywhere. And the, voices that were coming through of that man is pure evil, what my parents did because they followed him. He gave permission to my narcissistic parents to become even more sadistic. It just begged to say, that's it.

Every voice needs to be heard. And I don't know if those who survived Dobson are ever going to get a doctor. humanry, but I wanted to make sure that their voices were represented and that I could put a collection together because on that, you know, focus on the family web page, on their Facebook page, it's, I just don't understand. We were loving parents. We loved our kids in the name of Jesus. And this is why. Yeah. Because I wanted to sit down at a kitchen table. and have a conversation. I wanted to say, hey, a kid in New Jersey and a kid in San Diego, a kid coming from Arkansas

and a kid coming from Seattle or Kansas or Oklahoma, we all experienced the exact same thing. Just different, maybe different socioeconomic backgrounds, maybe different regions. but ultimately we experienced and had to go through the exact same indoctrination and the exact same punishment and sadism that existed inside of this space and I felt like those stories, those voices had to have a way out. They needed to see the light a day. And for the limited amount of voices that I that I that have gone into this that that will end up being you know going on sub stack there's dozens and dozens and hundreds more they're everywhere and that was kind of the purpose even with my podcast is I just I didn't care I wanted to hear from the the checker at

my grocery store anybody that survived this space I want I need I feel compelled to get their stories out there because people need to know the why behind the what people need to know yeah why why we don't why are we not talking to our parents why have we completely gone no contact and i wanted to answer that whether or not they're going to listen i don't i frankly don't care at this point but this helps at least those that are questioning what's the that are saying what's the big deal this helps those people. This helps answer those questions for people even in the media that don't necessarily understand it. It's like you all need to understand what room raids were. You need to understand how our language was taken from us, how we could not even have a talent without that being

exploited for the use of pastors or the kingdom. Because I think a lot of times, the that's another thing that I want to emphasize is a lot of times people just see the sexual abuse or the physical abuse that exists within Christian fundamentalism within high control spaces. But it's not just that. It's that every part that makes you a human, your language, your natural talents, your thoughts, your body, the way that you dress, the way that you feel, physically and emotionally express yourself, every part of that, every part of the human experience is taken from you the minute you're born and used, however, they shifted, molded, and used.

Like, the idea in the Bible is that you're a pot of clay. You're just a lump of clay, and you are supposed to allow God to mold you. The problem is, is you're supposed to view those that are your caretakers as God. And so you're allowing sometimes the most evil abusive people to be the ones to mold you and shape you. And nothing that you have, not your thoughts, not your possessions, like nothing, nothing belongs to you. It all belongs to God.

And somebody else is the voice and the decision maker on behalf of God. because you're not allowed to hear for God, especially if you're a girl or woman, like you are never allowed to hear from God for yourself. That has to be filtered through the man who has placed an authority over you. So part of what my mission has been from the very beginning when I started TikTok, when I started really acquiring these stories and listening to people, I mean, that was even back in 20, probably 2019, 2020. I was still actually going to church when I started really like diving deep into this. I was part of some Facebook groups way back then. Part of it has been, okay, I see the abuse. I acknowledge the abuse. How can we stop it? And the way that we stop it is we

as as a whole refuse to let them take ground. And the way that they take ground is children. So they marry children off at a very young age. And they're, and their, and they're finances. And if you can stop the flow of income and you can stop the flow of bodies, you stop their movement. They can't go anywhere. So in the state of Washington, I worked with a fantastic, with a fantastic group called Unchained at Last. And we ended child marriage in Washington state. And I think that they're, I want to say they're in like, maybe the 30s now. Anyway, their goal is to end it in all 50 states. But this is something that evangelicals use as a form of human trafficking. And it's amongst other religions, amongst other high control groups as well, right?

But those who wanted to oppose it were evangelical, were part of evangelical districts in my state. That's what the mission is. You know, we're not just out here screaming about being no contact with our parents. We're telling our stories for a reason. We need people to hear this. We need people to listen because if somebody listens to one story out of a hundred that they hear, then that story is going to stay with them. and they're going to think twice about sending their child or their grandchild to church.

And I guess, yeah, we don't say these things to wine. Absolutely not. And I want to thank you for all of the work that you do. I think you sharing your story has obviously inspired a lot of others to do the same. And I think for those listening to this today, I hope that people feel seen and understood. And maybe, I know for some people, it's like they're just starting. to see a little bit of light coming in through, you know, the door that has been closed for so long. And it can be very dizzying and overwhelming to start, as you know, as someone who's

been going through this, you know, to start to break out of something that has been your entire life. So I want to thank you so much for coming on here today. And I am going to link your substack and all of that in the show notes as well. Thank you. Yeah. And if people are looking for resources. My friend Tia Levings is a phenomenal, phenomenal resource. She grew up inside of high control evangelicalism and then was part of the like the Doug Wilson, CREC, trad wife, deep Christian fundamentalism, a quiverful type thing. And she writes her harrowing story of escape in a well-trained wife. And then she just came out with,

she's released another book. And that one talks about, you know, helping people heal from it, helping people move forward. Because when you escape this space, and I want to use, I like to use that language.

Because regardless of whether or not you escaped somebody that was holding you at knife point or gunpoint, or you left in the way that I did, which was knowing, leaving behind your entire community, knowing from this point on you don't have friends, you don't have family, you and your husband and your kids are literally starting over. In the community that you live in still, but now you are on the outside.

Now you are the world. That's escaping too. And it is incredibly disorienting to navigate. to attempt to navigate a world that you were taught to be afraid of. And having to have, especially they try to keep teenagers about the age of 14 or 15, particularly girls, and undereducated. That's why they have a heavy emphasis with like trying to remove the ability for teens to go to college. They don't want people to be educated.

So exiting that system, I mean, I met my husband at 18. we got married when we were 20. We started having kids at 22, 23. And neither of us went to college. It wasn't until our 30s that were like, well, no, we're going to college. And he got his degree. I got mine. And that opened the world up to me. And I began friendships with my professors who told me that I was intelligent, who told me that I had greater things to offer society. And then it, allowed me to have hope to have dreams. It generated this excitement just by the exchange of ideas. And anyway, so to navigate a world outside of fundamentalism is terrifying. And so for anybody that's listening that just left, you are okay. And you can put one foot in front of the

other. And I know it's scary, but you're going to be okay. There are so many people out there who have pleased the trail before you that are here to welcome you. And there's an entire community of people that are online, that are even inside of your own community, that are there, that can hear you and listen to you and give space for your pain and for your thoughts and they can validate you and you're not alone. And I think that that's a big thing is to know that you're not alone. Thank you. I think that's a perfect message to leave everyone with. Stephanie, thank you so much for your honesty, your courage, and for putting language to so many things, that I think listeners of this podcast were never allowed or able to say.

If you're listening to this and something landed for you, I want you to know that you are absolutely not alone in it. Leaving a family system that harmed you is not betrayal. Naming what happened out loud doesn't make you bitter and it doesn't mean that you're always the villain in the story. Sometimes you just have to be honest about what has actually been happening. You can find Stephanie's writing on Substack at the Strong Willed Child. I will link that in the show notes as well.

It's some of the most clear work I have found on what it actually means to grow up this way and what it's like to be on the other side. And if today brought something up for you, I want you to know that we have resources for you inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home. That is our membership community for people who want to build better families today and heal generational patterns of dysfunction in their own families. You can visit callinghome.com to join the Family Cycle Breakers Club today, and I would love to see you in a group sometime soon. Please don't forget to like, subscribe, leave us a review.

It really, really helps. Comment on this episode. Let me know if you have any questions or things that you'd like me to cover in the future. Thanks, and I will see you all on Thursday for another Q&A episode. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider. and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Collingholm or Whitney Goodman.

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