This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Morgan Piercy

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Morgan Piercy is a therapist based in the Kansas City area.  She was kind enough to come on the podcast to talk about Christian nationalism, the dangers it represents, and how to break from its control.  She even talked about her own history with the Christian nationalist movement. Morgan's links: morganpiercy.com deconstructionkc.com

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Just press play, we're on our way. Voice is sharp opinion bright. Talking through. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of this podcast is Uncalled for, and I've got another great guest with me today. Go and introduce yourself, please. Yes.

So I'm Morgan Piercy. I'm a therapist in Kansas. I specialize in religious trauma from a neuroaffirming perspective. So a lot of my clients have ADHD, autism, or both. And I think that really informs somebody's deconstruction journey for sure. I personally came from a conservative Christian background. And so navigating all of the sociopolitical stuff, navigating those anxiety thoughts, those thoughts about yourself and your identity and what life looks like now that you've broken free from a high control church.

That's just, that's my jam. I love acceptance and commitment therapy and helping people design a life that fits where their values are now that they've evolved. All right. Great. Great. So before we do guarantee our discussion, I will, and may be right off the bat, I am on the autism spectrum.

So we'll probably be talking after this about stuff. But the bulk of our discussion today seems to be religious control and this whole thing about Christian nationalism and all that. So yeah, let's start with your background in Christianity, or in that particular form of Christianity, which I would maintain is not exactly Christian if you're thinking about evangelicalism. Yeah, it's messy. And I think evangelicalism is very doctrinally broad, and there's some doctrines under that umbrella that sometimes contradict each other. And I think sometimes that broadness of all the different doctrinal stances can kind of keep people trapped because it's not like you're just disproving one one view here. It's like you've got to chase them all and none of them quite have all of the puzzle pieces.

And so my own personal background, I grew up in the Christian school movement and I think that impacted me more than church. You know, the Christian school movement, that was every day. I have memories of writing Genesis 128 until my hand got sore. It was very based in Dominion theology. And I think really that's what I see is the core of the issue and what's impacting us now. This idea based on Genesis 128 that we are to rule over the world and subdue it. And we are basically like acting as God for the earth. And on the surface, that is a beautiful idea.

I do believe that human beings play a special role in the world. I mean, come on, animals could not build all these buildings and iPhones and all of these amazing things that we've come up with. I'm very on the side of being pro-human being. But with Dominion theology, it goes a little bit too far. And it turns into us stomping on other people's rights just because they don't agree with us. And so that's really what I slowly got to see over time. The first really group of people that I felt like got stomped on were women. And that's just because of my own experience.

I'm a girl. So I'm going to notice that first, you know. So the views of women are not really great. And I've seen that in political interviews recently. There are a lot of folks that get up and talk about, okay, well, if the U.S. was really a Christian nation, women wouldn't be able to vote, right? We would just have the one head of the household that votes on behalf of everybody.

And so that's what really sparked my waking up kind of process. And that was, I mean, I was still a little kid at that point. But I remember thinking, okay, no, like, I am equally a human being just as much as the guys. Okay. Like, if I can beat them at math, you know, I should be able to vote as much as they're able to vote. That's not fair. And so I'm Gen Z. So that very much shapes my story.

I'm 27. And so, you know, I know there's a long history of Christian nationalism that I just was not aware of at the time because I was too busy being a child. But when I was a senior in high school, it was 2015. Gay marriage had just gotten legalized. And my community was freaking out. And I think that was something that really caused me to wake up, too, because I wondered, okay, well, how does this actually affect us? Right. There's a difference between us living out our values and living this lifestyle that we feel like it brings us closer to God, that we feel like gives us purpose and meaning, and us telling other people what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do and who they're allowed to own property with and not allowed to own property with. Right. And so kind of seeing that. And then I think like a lot of people, I really thought that the evangelical church had good antipaterally. bodies against Donald Trump. You know, I was I was taught a lot of fear mongering type of stuff about

the end of the world. I was taught that it was going to happen randomly and there's going to be the rapture and all that stuff. And then in time theology kind of shifted over the course of my childhood and then it turned into that more seven, seven mountain mandate type of things. We called them Spheres of Influence, but whatever. The seven mountain mandate and it kind of turned into this whole, okay, now it's our responsibility to bring about the end of the world. And so if Jesus hasn't come back yet, whose fault is it that he hasn't come back? And that can be really deep for kiddos. That can get internalized really easily. And so just seeing that theology that it's our responsibility to make everybody else just like us.

I really thought we had the antibodies against people like Donald Trump because we'd been talking about the antichrist my entire childhood. We talked about those red flags of just the group polarization and the group think and somebody who claims to hold the values but doesn't actually hold the values and things like that. And so I think it's been it's been a rough time to grow up Christian. And I think, you know, that cognitive dissonance was really what inspired me to go into religious trauma work. Great. Yeah. So my religious background, I was raised Roman Catholic.

So not as certainly if the occurrence Pope is any indication or the Pope before him is any indication, a lot more Christ-like than the evangelicals because they teach about, yeah, take care of the poor,

take care of the needy. Yeah. Of the sick. Yeah. Things that Christ actually did. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, you read the, particularly the four gospels in the Method and Mark, Luke and John, Christ would be dismissed as a damn dirty socialist today.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And so there's this disconnect, right? I think about like, okay, Bob and Larry. from veggie tales, right? I can be your friend. Doesn't matter what you look like.

Right. I think about just like the little songs that we sing, Jesus loves the little children of the world. That's not really the theology that's being lived out right now. Right. So as growing up now, when I was a senior in high school, I converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Oh, whoa.

Which is also very, they're very conservative, most of the other side, closer to the evangelical side in terms of their political I look on life. Yeah. They have interesting doctrines as well. Yeah. Including their belief that the Garden of Eden was right in our backyard and independence. Yes. Yeah.

And it was in Jackson County. I didn't know specifics. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I remember with the Community of Christ's RLDS Temple in Independence, which I do recommend for my listeners just go there and they'll give you a free tour of the place. But it's that site that they say, you just walked in the spiral and everything. But of course, a lot of what we're talking about with anti-theology stems from the fact that these people are taking reveling. a little too literally.

Yes, it raised like a fever dream. But let's think about the context of when that specific book was written, it was written Roman occupation of an Israel-Palestine area. And it was an allegory for the fall of the Roman Empire. It was not... It was not...

everything's going in and all that. So, so, so that's the big mistake. I think that a lot of these people make is taking it hilarious. And one of the things that led me out of the Mormon faith was 9-11. I was in college at this time. So I'm 47, so I've got 20 years on it. Yeah. I had a, I was in school.

and had a LDS employer. So I did go to the classes that morning, but that evening they canceled classes, obvious reasons. Yeah. And I still had to go to work. So I get out to work, my boss shows up and says, well, the world's ending.

Kind of a freaky thing to hear in your early 20s. Yeah. All that. So that led me down to eventually getting out of the LDS faith. And that was a common one. Like 9-11 was interpreted in a very spiritual way. And I don't want to downplay how devastating that was for everybody at the time. But out of that came a lot of faith-based conspiracy theories.

Is that fair to say? there's a lot that came from that that I think my generation doesn't really realize because we weren't super aware of it at the time but I see people trying to make meaning and trying to make sense from this tragedy but it's in a way that just perpetuated more religious trauma.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, let's put a little more context in that's George Sovey Bush was president at the time. he is the he's really the first president of Reagan did this a little bit

but not nearly to the degree that Bush did trying to weaponize Christianity especially evangelical Christianity

I mean Reagan had his a moral majority helping out with Jerry Falwell and all that and I think that's what's got us

started down that path path but really accelerated under Bush. And specific to our case in Kansas, we had Sam Brown back for governor for two terms. Oh, okay. And he would have been

Bush on steroids if he had ever been a president. He ate a terrible job running Kansas. I swear to God. Okay. Okay. I'm newer to Kansas so I, yeah, don't know those historical pieces of it.

But that makes sense because everybody's loving the direction we're going in now. So often. Yeah, I'll have to fill. Now if we just get marijuana legalized. It's fine. I'm sitting in Missouri where it is fully legalized. Yeah. But on my way home later today, you know, I'm going across that state line.

And all of a sudden, it'll be illegal. It's weird. Yeah. And I just, I don't know. I can't help but think about the opportunity. to tax it like crazy and give the money to the schools. I don't know. That's where my mind goes.

Yeah, that's a good place to put that type of money. But once again, it's that Christian nationalist thinking, you know, happening. Yeah, we're Christians. So we believe what the Bible says, but have they ever actually read the Bible? I would argue they haven't. Yeah. I mean, that was such a turning point for me. It's like actually reading the Bible covered cover.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I try and doing it in English and stuff, the Hebrew and Aramaic and ancient Greek that's actually written in. Yeah. Yeah. It's important because, you know, it kind of begs the question, okay?

like if your theology is telling you that all truth is God's truth and it's safe to go seek the truth, why would you not want to? Like, you know, I grew up my whole life. I was told that the Bible's a love letter from God. And so why would you not want to read it and receive that? But, you know, those of us that are social justice oriented were the real cherry pickers. Okay. I would say if you're into social justice, you actually understand what's actually in the Bible and what Jesus actually taught.

And it's not what's Christians claim. You know, right now we're with this whole ICE thing, you know, with immigration and crackdowns. Jesus said welcome the stranger. And if you think about it, that's what these immigrants are, legal or otherwise. They're strangers looking for an opportunity. And we are at end up. You would think as Christians,

they would have gotten that. But no, they're out there beating these people, deporting them, torturing them, and shooting anyone who disagrees with. them. It's been interesting because ICE has kind of set up camp in Olathe, I guess, last week, and there's been some ice activity. I'm actually... I heard about that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm the admon at the Walmart there, yeah. Yes, yes, it is as well. But there's Facebook group. Ice sightings and activity near Overland Park, Kansas. Shameless blog. Go join it. I added a lot of therapists to it.

And we're, you know, trying to figure out the rapid response training and what do we do and like all that kind of stuff and it's weird um and i think it makes me look back on what i was taught as a kid about world war two a little bit differently i think i always wondered okay well you know what about the the german non-jew people like weren't they all startled i mean their life was very different but i honestly if it weren't for the internet i wouldn't i wouldn't know i my my life wouldn't be that different if it weren't for the internet and so um That's kind of an eerie feeling to, I don't know, it just makes me look at things differently. That it's not super in my face, but it's big and it's happening and it's really wrecking some other people's lives.

But I have privilege. And so that's not really touching me quite yet. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely see the parallels between what's going on in the U.S. right now and what happened. in Nazi Germany. Yeah. You know, only replace the Jews with people who speak Spanish or people who have darker skin

or people who practice Islam. Yeah. Same thing. Just different skin, different application. And in both cases, run by an absolutely madman. Yeah, it's rough. And I think a lot of people, even in like the evangelical and deconstruction communities,

are trying to make sense of, okay, why are there all of these images comparing Trump to Christ? Why is all there? You know, I think about Vanessa, I'm blanking on her last name. Hurabino? I don't know. I don't know if that's right. But got up on stage in a worship service and painted. Donald Trump and everybody singing amen, amen, amen over and over.

If you have not seen that clip, I would encourage anybody to go look at that clip because I think that's pretty telling. I mean, as far as the blasphemy goes, I think it's been really eye-opening how First Amendment rights to assemble and practice whatever religion you want to used to apply to to everybody, right? We used to celebrate whatever religion that you want to practice as long as it's nonviolent, as long as you're not infringing on other rights. And there's been this shift over time that now First Amendment rights only apply to the Christian religions.

And I think that's been pretty telling. Another resource for the deconstruction community that I think is really spunky and really thought-provoking and a little uncomfortable, but really awesome is there's a documentary on Hulu called Hail Satan, question marks. Hail Satan. And it's about Satanism in the United States and how they're really addressing the double standards head on. And, you know, anytime I mention Satanism, I get crap for it. But I would encourage people who are really resistant to thinking about Satanism or like normalizing Satanism to go read their tenants, honestly. Go read their tenants and see what you think.

because they're a religion. They are just as valid in their existence and in their practice as anybody else who has First Amendment rights in the United States. And I know that's a hot take, but there it is. I have to agree with you. Yeah. It might not be a religion. Most people agree with, but it's still a religion and people are still practicing. Yeah.

Doesn't matter if you're Christian or Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. I could go on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Let's see, are you familiar with George Carlin at all? Check out his kind of the Lake George Carlin. He's probably best known for his civil words you can never say on television.

But a lot of his comedy dealt with society and religion. He had a great routine on, on one aspect of the religious, right, that'd be the abortion issue. Which he opened. It's why is it a day that all these people who are against abortion are people you want to fuck in the first place? Yeah. And then continue to say, well, they're not pro-life. They're anti-woman.

Anti-b bodily autonomy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would recommend that check. at his comedy. Another comedian, I don't think he's funny anymore, but Bill Marr back in about 15 years ago. Yeah.

He did a documentary called Religious, which I do also highly recommend where he. It was cute. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just saw him perform at the Maristar in 2010. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's awesome. Again, back when he used to be funny.

Yeah. He actually did tell an audience manager to shut the fuck up. Good. Well, the infantic dude was twining him. Okay. Okay. I'll have to go look that up. Yeah.

Oh, bless his heart. Okay. So, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't see how anyone can be Christ's like. call themselves a Christian the way Christianity has been bastardized in our country. And while then, I still think it is possible. It is possible.

And just remind the of what would Jesus do? You know, would he prosecute these people for coming into the country illegally or would he actually go out of his way to help them? Yeah. Oh, for sure. And there's some good apples in there. And I'm about to say something that ex-phangelicals are not going to like. I don't think many of them listen to his podcast. Oh, really? Okay. But, or I guess just the deconstruction community in general. But I do think this is going to sound crazy. But I genuinely think that our society needs progressive Christians to speak their language, right?

to be able to level with these folks and to be able to explain things like in the framework that they've grown up with in the framework that they understand in the framework that they adhere to. And so I think that's, yeah, that's where I'm at because it's like, okay, seems like almost all of Christianity is going that direction. You know, there's some boomerunitarians out in Shawnee. But besides that, you know, it seems like that's just that's where the mainstream is going. And I definitely, I always love to see those Christian Facebook groups that are against ICE, you know, Christians against Christian nationalism, fabulous organization. And as much

as I hate to say it, I think we need them. I think we need Christians who see it, right? I think there are, there's a lot of that AI art out there that compares Trump to Christ. And that's obviously very bothersome and very disturbing. And those Christians are bothered by it too. Yes, very wrong. And I think, so hot take here, I think that in the evangelical mindset, Trump isn't actually Jesus Christ. I think he's King David.

And so hear me out for a second. King David was a rapist. King David was like not really a good person. Like, you know, you think through the Bathsheba story, she's minding her own business. Okay, the king wants to have sex with you. Are you actually able to consent? That's called power rape, right? Because he's the king. He could behead you. Whatever. It was rape. That's a whole other thing. But I think Trump is, said that he was a fan label for. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think Trump is King David because King David has this redemptive story. And it's like he's still a good person in despite of all of this. Right. Those that, that, that, that, him being a rapist makes him more masculine. That makes him more human. And so I would really encourage people who are trying to make sense of all this Epstein-file stuff

to really understand that evangelicals see him as King David. And so it doesn't matter what he does as far as sexual sin or sexual immorality. Excuse me. He's still a redemptive figure. And so I know that's kind of a hard one to swallow, but there it is. It's funny that Clinton was accused of doing the exact same thing and they impeached him for it. Which, as they should, I mean, I cancel anybody who's on the list. Who cares?

I don't care if they're Democrat or Republican or socialist or whatever. Like, they're all the files. Of course, the other thing funny about Clinton was that it was Newt Gingrich, who himself was cheating on his first wife who was dying of cancer. at the time on his second wife. Which is all too common. It's all too common.

And yeah, married women who have cancer and that's a whole other thing. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah, fun times. But yeah, I do agree with you

that if there is a progressive of strength of Christianity out there. It's embodied in certain people like the Pope. Yes. And we need those people to speak out. And tell these people who call themselves Christian and say, hey, you got it all wrong. Yeah. There's a lot that got twisted along the way for sure.

All right. So I guess we're going ahead and wrap it up here. Are there any resources you can recommend to my listeners? And where can people find you if they want to reach out? Yes, for sure. I got resources out the wazoo. So I have a blog on my website, deconstructionkC.com. And then DeconstructionKC is my handle on all sorts of different social

media platforms. On Twitter, it's, it's Morgan Piercy, but on everything else, it's Deconstruction KC. And I try to join the little niche ones. And so if you think it's too niche for me, I don't know, go ahead and try. But I post a lot about Christian nationalism and religious trauma kind of from that perspective. And then also from an acceptance and commitment therapy perspective. And so a lot of my resources are rooted in act. I would describe it as kind of like a secular Buddhism. I don't really know a lot about Buddha and what heated up on the hill and the Enlightenment and all of that kind of stuff. But the breathing exercises, the separation between pain and suffering, all of that kind of stuff.

That's just my psychotherapy style. I have a blog on my website. I have just so many self-help resources for religious trauma. I also have other clinicians who work with religious trauma in states that I can't help people in that come and write guest blog posts as well. So as far as that, that's my resources. anybody who's listening who might be a therapist or be thinking about being a therapist, I have a channel on YouTube called Becoming a Therapist.

I have free test prep and free professional development resources. As far as resources outside of me, Dr. Laura Anderson is wonderful. Dr. Stephen Hasson has the bite model for recognizing authoritarian control versus a healthy influence. I think it's important to remind folks like Colt is a cult defines a sociological structure, right? A cult is not dependent on you got wacky beliefs or whatever. It is focused on the authoritarian control and how much people have autonomy over their own lives. Another resource that comes to mind is VG Michaels. She has a website for surviving religious narcissism.

That's just her passion project that she does on the side on top of like everything else in life. And it's amazing. She has clinicians come in and write for her and stuff like that. So there's a lot of therapists that have like a, you know, have something on her website. The book, Jesus and John Wayne, huge, if you're trying to understand just this incestuous relationship between evangelical Christianity and the GOP. It's hard when you don't know anything outside of that. It's really hard to recognize it. And so that book referenced a lot of people that like, you know, a lot of pastors that like my

grandparents listened to or something like that. So that, that's a good one as well. And then I would say, okay, if you're just in this beginning stage of just starting to question things, I usually don't get people in that stage, but people that are just trying to figure out, okay, what would life look like if I were to even like start thinking about leaving MAGA or something like that? I would highly recommend Sarah Bessie and Rachel Hald Evans just from that feminist standpoint to just kind of dip your toes in there. Leaving the Fold, always a great book, just normalizing. like existing outside of that ecosystem. Those are the big ones that come to about healing roots on up.

Steve, he's so sweet. He's a friend of mine. And he's a retired vet who just has his own experience with religious trauma and deconstruction. And he recently came out with a memoir. Steve Francie CZ. And I'm trying to think of who else. top of my head. Deconstruction Doolah's Margaret Bronson. She is fabulous. She's got, actually,

this Sunday, so the 22nd, she's got a segment airing on CNN. So Doug Wilson got on CNN and said some stuff. And she and some other people have something to say back to that. And I'm just so proud of her for speaking up. I'm sure there's folks that I'm forgetting. That's just off the top of my head. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And with the limited time that we have to. So, yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, I want to thank you for coming on and, yeah, check out Paul Morgan's stuff. And I'll try to leave some of that in our show notes. And for everyone at home, thanks for listening. And we will talk again soon. This podcast is Uncalled for. is hosted produced and edited by myself, Mike Chernevsky.

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