Allan and Kattie were guests on Richard Ostler’s Listen, Learn, Love podcast. Listen, Learn, Love largely focuses on LGBTQ issues, but Richard also likes taking on faith crisis, mixed faith marriage, and other difficult topics. He is a faithful member of the church and is a wonderful example of a LGBTQ ally.
If you are familiar with the basic timeline of Allan and Kattie’s story, skip to around the 35 minute mark.
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It’s not often one gets to hear a true believing member interviewing someone who doesn’t believe. So to me this is an important step to helping those in faith transition. However, Allen has to be so careful when he talks about his reasons why he doesn’t believe. It feels like he gets just a few crumbs in that might help believers have more compassion. I guess for now I will just appreciate the crumbs. But it is still unsettling that Allen and I and so many others hardly have a voice. This to me is the biggest cause of pain while trying to stay active while not believing the same.
Thanks Nadine. What have you had success with when talking to believers about why you no longer believe? In my experience, diving into the specifics of truth claims just doesn’t work. Goal posts are moved, interpreting the data differently, etc. I’ve found that focusing on the new information learned contradicting with my personal spiritual experiences works best.
When not in a podcast setting I usually add the question, “How would your faith change if you learned irrefutable information that contradicted what the Spirit had told you?” We lay our entire belief structure on those spiritual experiences. If those experiences can’t be trusted as a way to find truth, the entire thing crumbles. That’s why I focus on that.
I loved the discussion! The only part I had real issues with was the assumption that Allan would’ve been ok if only the messy history would’ve been taught while he was growing up. I laughed at bringing up ISIS, but it totally is the data that’s problematic, not that it wasn’t taught (of course, hiding the info creates more problems than it solves). I hate when people assume that I only have issues because early leaders made human mistakes or the history wasn’t taught to me. It totally misses the mark, but I get that those are safe places for the TBM mind when confronted with dissonance.
Super dooper!!
This is a great episode!!!
So much to learn from what a healthy argument and resolutions can look like.