Michael Frost (the kiwi version who hosts 'In the Shift' podcast) and Shane-Meyer Holt join me for a rich conversation exploring their own stories and experiences around high control religious settings and their attempts to create much more open, gentle and generous communities these days. We talk about power dynamics, coercive control and the risk these things can pose to communities of all sizes - mega to micro. We also talk about embodiment, processing trauma and the kind of spirituality that embraces and listens to the body. There's so much good stuff in this one. Enjoy.
Check out the excellent 'In the Shift': https://intheshift.com/
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https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/
Send us an email:
Spiritualmisfits@outlook.com
View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com
Michael Frost (the kiwi version who hosts 'In the Shift' podcast) and Shane-Meyer Holt join me for a rich conversation exploring their own stories and experiences around high control religious settings and their attempts to create much more open, gentle and generous communities these days. We talk about power dynamics, coercive control and the risk these things can pose to communities of all sizes - mega to micro. We also talk about embodiment, processing trauma and the kind of spirituality that embraces and listens to the body. There's so much good stuff in this one. Enjoy.
Check out the excellent 'In the Shift': https://intheshift.com/
Sign up to our mailing list:
https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/
Join our online Facebook community:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcast
Support the pod:
https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/
Send us an email:
Spiritualmisfits@outlook.com
View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com
Will (00:01.078)
Alright, well I am delighted to welcome to the spiritual misfits podcast today, Michael frost and Shane Meyer Holt. And for any Australians listening, I have to clarify upfront here. This is, uh, this is not the Michael frost that some of you may think about, though. I'm sure that this comparison occasionally happens, but this is Michael Frost of In the Shift podcast and Shane Meyer Holt. Welcome Michael and Shane.
michael (01:28.11)
Thanks, bro.
Shane (01:31.45)
Thanks. Thanks for having us.
Will (01:33.854)
How about we just start with a just little intro, however you feel comfortable from each of you. Who are you? Give us a bit more texture on the picture of who this Michael Frost is with us. And then, and then we'll go to Shane, but yeah, who's Michael Frost?
michael (01:49.674)
Well, yeah, look, there's various versions of that story, I suppose, depending on what part of myself I want to reveal to you. But yeah, look, I live in New Zealand, in Auckland.
Shane (02:03.244)
It's a pants on podcast, I think. Yeah.
michael (02:04.958)
Pants on. Okay context is important. Got to know which audience I'm speaking to. This is not my only fans crowd so Yeah, look I What can I tell you? I have lived in New Zealand my whole life grew up here grew up within like Pentecostal Christianity relatively sort of small town Pentecostal Christianity in many respects Small community churches our pastors kid that kind of thing
And then over time, I ended up moving to the big city and became mega church Michael Frost, which was another version of myself. And that was an interesting time, full of much excitement and then much tiredness later on. And sort of during the process of exiting my 20s and into my 30s, I ended up studying theology and doing a PhD. And that combined with a bunch of experiences in church caused me to...
reorient the direction of my life, I guess you could say, in many respects. So I find myself moving between co-leading a wee faith community, still doing a bit of lecturing and teaching theology and then podcasting as well along the way. And yeah, that's roughly me and my life.
Will (03:23.146)
I mentioned me and Shane were chatting before that as Shane is a Kiwi who's lived in Melbourne for quite a while, he can be the translator where needed. And so a wee faith community, I believe is a small faith community, but in case these kinds of misunderstandings happen again, Shane, would you, would you take on the mantle?
Shane (03:40.792)
I'll do my best to interject. Yeah, yeah.
michael (03:42.806)
Mm-hmm.
Will
Wonderful. Who is Shane Meyerholt?
Shane (03:46.674)
Um, well, you know, I contain multitudes, so it's difficult to answer that in a sentence, obviously, um, no, I'm a very simple man. Um, much more simple than the good Dr. Michael Frost anyway. Um, but yeah, we actually share a whole ton of background. Um, I, I am less pure Pentecostal than he. I started off a brethren as a kid, um, and became a Baptist when we moved down and then became a Pentecostal. Um, when I wanted to go to a
cool youth group later on. But that, I'm shaped by all three of those traditions, heavily shaped by my family. I am not a pastor's kid. Yeah, just a regular pleb at the church growing up, which was, yeah, wonderful in lots of ways and traumatic in others. Yeah, so I, yeah, similar to Michael, ended up kind of in mega church, I ended up in mega church aspiring places rather than.
mega Church places. And yeah, did great at that until I didn't. It was wonderful until it wasn't. And I'm still unpacking all of that now. Yeah, so now I also help co-lead a small faith community in Melbourne. And I have worked in hospo.
Will (05:04.406)
That's a wee faith community for you, Michael.
michael (05:06.884)
Okay, thank you.
Shane (05:10.466)
And yeah, I do that. I study a bit at the moment. Just wrapping up a thesis hopefully soon. And a dad, and that takes quite a lot of my life force and energy, most of it. Yeah, and then try and be a good friend and drink beer also, yeah.
Will (05:28.75)
Oh, wonderful. Would love, would love to be drinking a beer right now with a new friends, but I am, I am grateful for, for your work. I've, I've listened to many episodes of in the shift. So, um, Michael, thank you so much for your energy, your time creating that. And, uh, Shane, you're, you're on a bunch of episodes as kind of a recurring cohost, which sounds like it's somewhat happened by accident, but, um,
Shane (05:35.69)
I'm not telling you what's in my cup.
michael (05:37.998)
Hehehehe
michael (05:51.182)
Mm-hmm.
Shane (05:58.226)
Yeah, it was a trap, but here we are.
michael (06:00.642)
He elbowed his way in, basically, is what happened. I'm still trying to find the courage to tell him he's actually here.
Shane (06:08.392)
I've outstayed my welcome.
Will (06:09.55)
You've outstayed your welcome. Well, you've done good enough work there that I invited both of you to come on spiritual misfits for a chat. So I love to ask people kind of early in the conversation, you know, this sort of phrase, spiritual misfit, um, is this a phrase that resonates with aspects of your story and if so, can you kind of pinpoint moments where maybe you began to feel like a spiritual misfit, um, and became aware of it or kind of, yeah, what that phrase, um, means as you hear it. Um, how about we start with you, Michael?
michael (06:14.753)
Wow, dude.
michael (06:39.914)
Yeah, I mean, certainly, I think that as an identity is something that has fitted at times and certainly does now in many ways. I think my time in particular, like growing up, I was pretty, I don't know, I just had inherited a faith system that made a lot of sense to me in many respects and that I embraced and there was a lot of kindness and goodness in there along with some of the beliefs I might question now. I think we're.
first hit for me and it kind of went in cycles probably. So when I was, so when I was Mega Church Michael, for the first few years that was Mega Church Mike, you know, it's kind of like Magic Mike, it's like Magic Mike, but no one wants to see that. So I would go through these kind of cycles. So the first few years definitely I was just so excited to be a part of, you know, having been in kind of small
churches longing for the days when, you know, the multitudes would come to Christ. I was excited to be a part of this big thing and I found my place there and I found a sense of belonging and a sense of confidence and voice and I sort of became somebody in many respects within that space and that was incredibly kind of meaningful and affirming for me in lots of ways. And then I'd go through these cycles of kind of starting to question some stuff and
and feeling a bit like maybe I'm not the same as everybody here, or maybe I'm sort of betraying the rules by having these thoughts and these questions. And I would go through these cycles of having those for a while and then finding a way to push them down or push them away and kind of re-embrace the thing and then go through another period of enthusiasm and being sold out for the vision.
and all of the lingo that came with it and all of the identity that came with it and then going through another cycle of questioning. I guess what happened over time is those cycles became... There was longer in the cycle spent in the questions than there used to be and it became harder and harder to push them away for lots of different reasons, I think just getting older and starting to see that people's life stories weren't playing out the way that kind of we all...
Will (08:50.722)
Mm.
michael (09:01.942)
believed they would when we were young and getting prophesied over about our successful sports careers. In my case, still waiting. Oh, right, yeah.
Will (09:07.455)
Hmm.
Shane (09:09.618)
Do I need to translate to Baptist for that one?
Will (09:17.37)
I went to enough friends, youth groups that, uh, I got in on the occasional prophecy.
Shane (09:19.09)
Okay, good, that's good. Yeah, yeah. So you two are a profit to the nations, good.
michael (09:25.774)
It's a curious thing to kind of start out with a group of people who are all sort of sold on this big idea of what life is going to be like and then to sort of just watch the way life actually turns out for everybody. And that raises a bunch of questions that get harder and harder to avoid. My own theological journey started to unfold and that raised a bunch of questions for me. And so, and then I started, I think I sort of, I was developing like an empathy muscle or gene or something.
Will (09:38.408)
Hmm.
michael (09:54.882)
that didn't seem to be very in vogue. And that was causing me to ask a bunch of questions about the kinds of experiences people were having, the way people were being treated within those spaces, some of the ways in which the theological constructs were causing people to understand themselves and be treated by others and so on. So in all of that then, I sort of moved from insider who was kind of liked and known and important.
to kind of sort of insider but who's got some funny ideas. And a lot of those ideas were sort of hidden and secret for quite some time. So the misfit identity was probably more, was internal before it was external, I think. It was a sense that I knew I didn't fit, even as I was sort of still playing along in many respects. And then certainly as I began to name some of the stuff more clearly, get more comfortable asking the questions that needed to be asked, and then.
Will (10:39.296)
Hehehe
michael (10:53.866)
And then later on, I guess, doing what I kind of do now, which is very much on the fringes of kind of the kind of Christianity they used to belong to. So yeah, there's certainly, there was a movement toward being someone who didn't fit anymore versus someone who had found their fit. And that's an interesting transition to go through, but it can be interesting as like another way of saying painful.
Will (11:15.14)
Mm.
Will (11:18.994)
Yep. Ah, that was, that was really actually helpful. I can relate to that. You know, I fit on the outside, but on the inside there's these questions and then there's kind of this like, yeah, I'll express a few of those and that, you know, but still mostly okay. And then as you kind of, it flips it in versus as you begin to bring more of what's on the inside out. So yeah, but I honor your, your pain and again, not to get too Pentecostal. Geez, accidentally.
Shane (11:19.028)
That's dramatic.
michael (11:39.906)
Mm.
Shane (11:45.986)
Oh yeah, that's a trigger word, I'm afraid.
Will (11:46.542)
I mean, it's not, I don't have, I don't have that kind of baggage with that language from being in those spaces, but, uh, I dignify the pain of your journey and appreciate you sharing it.
Shane (11:55.47)
Michael, that's the one that doesn't come with a love offering. So, yeah.
michael (11:56.898)
Thanks. Oh, I'd rather honor. I'm looking out the window for my package of goodies to turn up. No, no, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Will (12:01.717)
Hahaha
Shane (12:05.394)
Mm-hmm.
Will (12:08.318)
How about, how about yourself Shane? What, how does, uh, is your journey similar or how does the phrase of misfittery kind of resonate?
Shane (12:12.726)
Yeah, yeah, overlap and difference for sure. When you ask how, you know, to describe myself, tell me this, tell the story of myself, I think I automatically translated that into, you know, semi-Christian podcast land. If I was to tell another description, you know, I live in a suburb where you definitely don't tell people you're a Christian until they've already know you well enough to know you're not an asshole. But another way I could have described myself.
you know, is that I'm a neurodiverse person. So I have ADHD and that has profoundly in hindsight, shaped my journey with all of this stuff because in lots of ways I didn't do the kind of minor vacillations that Michael did. I am all in or all out and managed to suppress for long enough how things weren't working that I would have told you that things were working very, very well.
Um, the entire time until they didn't. Uh, so I guess my, um, invitation into spiritual misfit land happened. Kind of was a multi-pronged life breakdown where I had been working too many days and nights a week, um, trying to do the good work of the Lord for such a long time and had run myself into the ground. I had got married incredibly young to a person who was also incredibly young. And neither of us were ready or equipped for that relationship. And that had.
major strains in it. There was mental health complexities in that marriage on both sides. I had begun to ask a few curious theological questions, having not really dipped into that world in a long, long time in any meaningful way. And I also had started working with a bunch of young people. I spent years working with a bunch of young people. And as my relationship with them...
And my understanding of their world developed. The gospel I was handed down, the faith I was handed down, just didn't function any longer. And so all of those things together provided a rupture for me that I couldn't contain. And then in hindsight, I was able to realize that lots of it hadn't been working for me for a long time. I, you know.
Shane (14:34.678)
I had never been a person who had the capability of doing daily devotions. I couldn't actually live out a lot of the spirituality that I would have professed to of living out. I always kind of had a view to outsiders and a real compassion because of some of my own family history to people who didn't fit and who couldn't make it work. And that had shaped my faith and spirituality and made me uncomfortable with lots of the things that we were about.
burning out majorly in lots of ways. But on the surface, it all worked for me really well. I'm straight, white, mildly charismatic. And so the doors opened for me and I was able to kind of take positions of power and influence and stuff that fed my ego in ways that really excited me and gave me a sense of dignity that I didn't have as a scrawny Christian kid wearing a Just Jesus T-shirt at school.
I wasn't doing well on life before kind of entering into this form of spirituality. And it suddenly really, really worked for me until it didn't. And it all came crashing down. So yeah, I think each of those kinds of components had a major rupture point for me. Um, the biggest one in some ways probably being, yeah, my own mental health, um, kind of crashing at the same time as realizing that I was trying to tell young people who were the victims of systemic and personal.
violence of various forms that God would love to be able to be with them and look at them. But because God's pure and the truest thing about them is that they're evil riches, that God needed Jesus to be able to do that because otherwise, you know, quote unquote, he couldn't. And I remember a very distinct moment of just not being able to say that anymore. And that I didn't have any other answers, didn't have any other options. I just knew that
Will (16:24.702)
Hmm.
Shane (16:30.426)
that wasn't true and that wasn't good and that wasn't something I could be a part of anymore. And so that started a massive spiral for me to find another way or find a way out. Yeah.
Will (16:41.139)
Mm.
Will (16:44.974)
Yeah. I really appreciate both of you sharing those little snapshots of your stories. Um, you, you get, you get dignity, you get, you get choose, choose your word. Um, yeah, yeah. You get, uh, what's another synonym that, that we could use. You get, uh, I'm holding space. That's one that people like to use in these sort of hold space for your story. Um, between, so both of you just described, I guess, uh,
Shane (16:51.526)
Do I get some honor also? Just double honor. Okay, dignity's fine, we'll take that.
michael (16:54.582)
Hehehehe
Shane (17:05.027)
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I do like that. Thanks.
Will (17:13.474)
snapshot of moments in life where you were all in, where it made sense, where it was your framework, it was the way you made sense to the world. And then that journey led towards a point where it no longer made sense. It ruptured, it fell apart, a whole lot of different reasons. At this point in time, you're both kind of nurturing faith spaces. You're doing kind of public work that is helping people to navigate, um, spirituality and hopefully healthy ways bring healing.
Shane (17:39.586)
You, you sound as surprised as we are about that. Cause we are genuinely.
michael (17:41.61)
Hehehehehehe
Will (17:42.35)
Well, this is what I want to know between like that point B where it falls apart and it ruptures and it no longer makes sense, or it seems like there's a whole lot of hypocrisy and then choosing intentionally to walk with people, hopefully into healing. But again, not, not a certain kind of healing, you know, more holistic, gradual kind of, yeah, all of that. What, what kind of happened in between?
Shane (18:01.928)
Hmm.
Will (18:07.41)
What, you know, did you, did you chuck it all in for a season or did you just kind of walk with a limp? Uh, what was some of like between kind of point B and today, if you're happy to fill out a little bit of that.
Shane (18:22.422)
Well, I met Michael, which obviously, as anyone who's met Michael, will know that transforms your life. No, part of our story was finding a bunch of, I guess, misfits that were all in similar systems. Again, kind of, our story is highly centered around megachurch and megachurch aspiring, which had been our entire world and our entire existence and our entire hopes and dreams for so long.
michael (18:29.346)
Hahaha
Shane (18:50.522)
And then when we realized that maybe we couldn't exist in that space anymore, somehow call it Jungian synchronicity or the spirit or something, we found, a bunch of us found each other. Um, and since that time, we've all gone in kind of our own directions with this stuff. Um, Michael and I are much more similar directions than others, but, um, we, we found a space where we could be honest, where we could vent and drink whiskey and rage and...
do all of those things. And I say that, I guess I just wanna acknowledge the privilege that all of us had in that place, in that system, because all of us were people who held power and influence and had a voice in that system, which a lot of people don't. We were kind of able to kind of process out loud in a way that other people don't necessarily get the protection to be able to do. Yeah, and so, and our stories are probably slightly different in exactly how that all unfolded for us and how we left and...
you know, I had an excuse in some ways because I had a marriage that was kind of falling apart that I was, you know, really hoping to rescue. Um, so I, I ended up trying to, um, help speak into and shape the community as a part of for a long time and then realize that it wasn't going to make a place for the, either the kind of faith that I wanted, but also more importantly, for the young people I was looking after that they were never going to become tithe paying middle-class white people. Um.
as young Maori and Pacific Island kids. And so I realized that when they didn't have a future there that I could no longer really keep being a part of that. And I also knew I had to do a lot of work to deal with some of the stuff that was coming up for me. So I went through a phase when I got my brain back instead of really thinking and reading about things that I was convinced I was gonna become a smart new atheist because that's...
where people like me ended up where they could kind of like take cheap shots at stupid people of faith and things like that. And did a bunch of reading around that and thought that's the direction I'm going. Um, and then realized it was a form of fundamentalism, you know, that, that form of atheism, not atheism in general, but that form of atheism was held the same overtones and caricatures and, um, yeah, pettiness that the faith I come from had in many ways, and that wasn't.
Will (20:57.839)
Mm.
Shane (21:08.866)
And I also thought that I would be able to shake my sense of spirituality and kind of like rationalize it away. And I tried hard to do that. And I could never do that authentically. And I think, you know, I've probably said this on Frosty's podcast before that I, you know, in some ways, I really wanted to kind of lose the embarrassment of faith for a while there. Because I was really embarrassed about what I'd taken apart, taken part of. And I could come up with rational.
explanations for everything I had experienced, these possibilities of being able to explain them in various ways. But in the end, none of it felt authentic and none of it felt like a vision of life that I really wanted to be a part of. And I felt the most life and the most goodness and the best story inside this faith tradition that I'd spent so much time in. And not in a way in which I needed to pit it against other stuff. It was just so rich for me and held so much meaning that I...
didn't want to abandon it in the end. And I shifted by then to a context where that was actually really costly because to be a person of faith in my suburb, or to be a Christian at least anyway, carries a lot of baggage. It was much more convenient for me to leave it all behind. But yeah, I wasn't able to do that. And I have since...
become much more comfortable with the fact that theism and atheism runs down the center of me. And on some days, agnosticism fits just fine. And in other days, faith is vibrant and alive and wonderful and beautiful and is a good way of being. And I don't feel like those are at war in me anymore in the same way that they used to be.
Will (22:38.838)
Mm.
Will (22:51.666)
That is a beautiful way of putting it.
Shane (22:53.546)
It helps when you don't think that eternal conscious torment is on the line. You have a lot more flexibility in being authentic.
Will (22:57.685)
Mm.
There's a lot more possibilities when we chuck that one in the can. Yep. Yeah. How about you, Michael?
michael (23:08.69)
Yeah, it's interesting to reflect back on the potential to go in a number of different directions at that point in life. I think in addition to the privilege Shane spoke about of us all finding connection and friends and people with whom we could share, because I know for a lot of folk this is a very isolating experience in which they feel very alone. That's the...
Will (23:35.898)
Mm.
michael (23:37.262)
typical story, but we were fortunate to sort of, yeah, and privileged to be able to find the people that we did and have some communities to process in. The other aspect that I think, you know, again, was another level of privilege for me at least, and I know it was for a few of the others of us, was I got to study theology. And in studying theology, while I was processing all of this, I had a space where I could work
what I was wrestling with and thrash it out and be exposed to different ideas and to experience the breadth of the tradition in ways that were surprising to me. And so the thing I'd experienced this very narrow slice of a much bigger, broader tradition and found that some other parts of the tradition were actually very resonant for me, even if the slice I'd been exposed to had an outsource having some real problems.
And I know, again, a lot of people just don't have the time and space to be able to work through those questions. And so there's a level of privilege to that, again, for sure. But I'm very grateful for it. I'm very grateful that I got that opportunity, not just because it meant I got to sort of hold on to being a Christian. As much as it was, I was able to, I guess, process through what I saw, what I felt.
what I didn't believe anymore and whether there was anything left that I did want to pick up or anything new that I wanted to pick up. And yeah, just a lot of people don't have the time or energy to be able to go through that process. And what that meant for me over time was that I was, I think, I probably didn't contemplate atheism to the same degree Shane did.
Will (25:21.546)
Mm.
michael (25:34.879)
at that time in my journey.
Shane (25:36.518)
Michael doesn't have as much need for me being smug. He's just a much more generous person.
Will (25:41.27)
Thanks for watching!
michael (25:44.935)
I think I...
michael (25:49.218)
I, the idea of, of for whatever reason, and this is not, again, like Shane said, this is not about pitting one thing against another. For whatever reason, I was unable to shake this, the spirituality that I, that even as it was changing radically, was still connected to the same tradition. And I didn't like the idea of just jettisoning it and becoming just another, just, just becoming, no, again, just for me. I didn't want to.
Will (26:06.899)
Mm.
michael (26:18.666)
become just a neoliberal individual making my way in the world. I'm sort of, yeah, I'm still drawn to meaning and to spirituality and to the idea that there's something more going on here. And even on the days where I couldn't necessarily tell you all of the things I believed about that, and this would still be the case, I suppose, for me, on the days when I'm not sure about all the metaphysical claims of faith, I am able to go...
I think there's still something more going on here that matters. I feel connected to that in some way. And I find the story of Jesus and the way I understand that now to be a compelling, confronting, challenging, inviting path to pursue in connecting with that. And so even if I'm not able to tell you, like theologically as a theologian, I can tell you the two natures, Christology and the Chalcedonian definition and the...
the difference between the Cappadocians and Augustine and their Trinitarian formulations. I'm not sure what I think about any of that for real. I can tell you what all the bits of the tradition are sort of arguing about, but sort of putting all of that aside, I still find something compelling about the story of Jesus and the way in which it at its best, I think, challenges and subverts power and amplifies the voice of those on the margins. So there's stuff in there that...
Will (27:26.944)
Mm.
michael (27:45.41)
that has drawn me and keeps me maybe more engaged than I ever thought I would be in terms of all of this. And so yeah, as Shane said at the beginning, where he's like, it's a surprise in many respects, it is a surprise that I'm involved in helping to lead a faith community. And maybe some people who listen to my podcast will find it also find it a surprise that because I'm willing to voice.
Will (27:52.158)
Mm.
Shane (28:06.662)
I mean, some people in our faith communities are very surprised we're leaving, helping to lead a faith community. Yeah, yeah.
michael (28:09.278)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it is for some, it's a super unusual thing to have someone who's willing to voice doubts, to also be, you know, helping to lead a church community. But I've...
Will (28:11.355)
Yeah.
Will (28:22.838)
I think it's an incredible signal to a lot of people that will be listening to this. Like it's such a signal of safety because it immediately communicates. Well, if, if those who are shaping and nurturing and leading the thing, um, are just as comfortable to have days where they are more confident in days where they're more unsure and everything in between, then it's okay for me to have that too. So just, you know, I wish, I wish that was the story of every leader in any kind of faith based group, just, uh, cause I think if we're honest.
Um, that's probably where most people actually are. It's just how well we put on masks that communicate a level of certainty. That's maybe we're clutching to it, but it's not really there.
michael (28:55.37)
Yeah.
michael (29:01.142)
Mm-hmm.
Shane (29:02.47)
Yeah, could I maybe just as well name for Michael, I don't presume to speak on behalf of Michael Evelyn, I know him reasonably well. Like we both, in telling our stories, there's a shared sense of discomfort in that it might diminish other people's authentic following of their sense of faith and goodness and justice. And that for some people, the trauma that organized spirituality and religion has brought for them.
michael (29:07.458)
Hmm, that place do.
Will (29:24.479)
Mm.
Shane (29:32.646)
is too much, even if they want to overcome. For others, it will mean that is something they don't actually want to overcome, they need to jettison. For other people who have grown up in these spaces will realize actually for them, there was a little authenticity and connection to the divine at all in any of this and that they want to try and forge a good life that doesn't involve any sense of transcendence and that...
michael (29:36.635)
Mm, yeah.
Will (29:37.481)
Yep.
Will (29:53.549)
Mm.
Shane (30:02.082)
really matters to them and to pretend that they have something less than what I have or that they should, we should just kind of be able to bully people or diminish their experience into ways that they're ashamed into having the same experiences that we have. Like I think during my deconstruction journey, like right at the very start when I first started asking questions, I remember very distinctly.
wondering how far is too far. I think that for lots of us who are kind of prime loyalists and enthusiasts, like, you know, I always wanted to be a very good boy. Like, I always wanted to be the absolute model of what it was to be a faithful Jesus lover. And, you know, like all of that kind of language is, you know, that stuff that, you know, as much as, you know, I am a misfit, I also have a really, really strong goodness streak and not in a good way in the sense of wanting to please and wanting to...
Will (30:49.661)
Mm.
Will (30:58.358)
show.
Shane (30:59.334)
keep people happy. I remember asking how far is too far? Like how will I know if I've abandoned God in this? And I remember the two kind of subconscious answers were, you know, hell and homosexuality. If I change my mind on those things and the whole thing's in the bin, which is kind of like, it says a lot about the subtext of the communities we were in. But then, a hole in the heels of that was the sense of going, if truth is truth, then surely you'll follow it wherever it goes. And going, oh, okay.
Will (31:18.217)
Yeah.
Shane (31:28.87)
that might take me, so there was times where my ego wanted to take me outside of faith, but there's other times where actually I felt like going outside of faith was where I was gonna find truth. And you know, there's big philosophical and social arguments around the kind of authenticity experience and individualism and all that kind of stuff. I don't really wanna delve into that. Other than to say, I do think there is something in honoring the dignity of people's story of saying, like, I don't wanna be.
a voice that is used to say, if your experience is different than mine, then you are less than me. I just think that's unhelpful.
Will (32:04.858)
Yes. I think that's really helpful. And I guess it sounds like we'd probably share the sense that the desire is not to, yes, sort of recreate a system where people must end up back in some rough approximation of where they started. But what I want to do and what I think I hear both, if you want to do is just make the journey to wherever less violent, less harmful, and that there's a piece.
michael (32:18.174)
Hmm.
Shane (32:20.073)
Hmm.
Shane (32:26.414)
Yeah.
Will (32:30.414)
If it's coming back to faith or never leaving faith or finding oneself kind of without faith, that it's a journey that can, can be marked by a sense of peace and connection and non-judgmentalism. Yeah.
Shane (32:33.65)
Mm.
Shane (32:40.018)
And, and, and kindness. Like I think a friend of a colleague of mine, you know, who helps co-lead the space as well, just talks about our role as being the midwife to the death of people, the kind death of people's faiths, like for some people, our, our role is to help them, you know, um, let something go in a way, which is kind in a way that they can process in a way that if they ever decide to return, that there's a kind door for them to return to.
michael (32:42.07)
Hmm.
Will (32:52.694)
Mm.
Shane (33:09.294)
Um, and our job is not to kind of save their faith against their will, um, but to actually help them process what this might mean for them and give them permission to follow that authentically. Um, with, with always with the invitation and possibility that if they change their mind, there's some, there's somewhere where they can show up in the same way and reconnect if they wanted to.
Will (33:14.186)
Yeah.
michael (33:33.819)
Yeah, there are a couple of things we see a bit, I think, in spaces that are trying to navigate this and help people navigate this. And certainly from some, there's this idea like, it's okay to deconstruct is like one of the things would be as long as you've got a good idea of how you're going to reconstruct. And I just, I think maybe that works for some people, but for a lot of folks, if you've already got your reconstruction in mind, then you're not really actually allowing yourself.
Shane (33:51.833)
Mm.
Shane (34:00.494)
It's okay to break up with this toxic partner, as long as you've got a plan of how you're going to get back together with them. Yeah.
michael (34:05.771)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what that is, is I think often is just, it comes from a fear of losing relevance in people's lives or of what happens if people actually let go of their faith and how do we get people to hold on to it? And yeah, like you've just said, well, it's not about trying to get people to hold on to their faith as much as it is going, what is gonna help people flourish and find wellbeing, both personally and in community with others and whatever that looks like is...
Will (34:06.552)
Yeah.
michael (34:35.335)
There's got to be good for them. And sometimes that very much is not reconstructing actually. Um, but as, but as finding, finding other parts, the other thing is sometimes I hear is it's okay to deconstruct, but don't deconstruct Jesus, you know, just all the, just all the other stuff. And it's like, you can't actually kind of pass it out in that way. You can't separate those bits out and sort of say that some bits are a sort of unassailably, you know, unquestionable, whereas other bits you can question. Um, and, and really, yeah, that that's just like, actually what.
Shane (34:41.03)
Hmm.
michael (35:04.603)
We need to find a path forward with honesty, with kindness, with a desire for wellbeing for one another. And if it means that for some people, and I would be one of these, my faith has remained important to me. And so how can I journey that in a way that's good for me and with kindness and how can we, and how for those others who don't want to let it go, what does it look like to help?
Shane (35:26.619)
Hmm.
Will (35:28.105)
Mm.
michael (35:33.811)
create some healthy forms of that for people. But they don't have to sort of convince them to stay. But simply for those who still want something, let's talk about how to make it meaningful and kind and good. Yeah.
Will (35:37.145)
Mm.
Shane (35:45.298)
Hmm. And knowing that for some people, like the process for some people, a lot of our work has been in the areas of spiritual abuse and abuse under coercive leadership and a huge part of our role, I think both in our kind of faith communities, but also in the work that I think the podcast that we've been a part of is doing is to help people find a voice again. And for some people until trying to just...
michael (36:09.087)
Mm.
Shane (36:12.654)
If you imagine a kind of like tangled ball of yarn and say, you know, untangled the bits that you want to hold onto, um, it's actually impossible. There's need to cut the whole thing in half, spread the bits out and then go like, what is there any of this they want to reconnect with and until they have some voice, some self-efficacy, some power themselves to be able to say, I get to choose, I get to name and with whatever community I want.
what is actually harmful and what is helpful for me in a way that I actually have a voice until I get to that place, then I can't deconstruct healthily because if you have been put in a position where you haven't actually had any self-efficacy for a long, long period of time and you have spoken over your own body, when your own body's telling you that something's not right and you have suppressed that, when you haven't learned to listen to yourself, when you haven't...
You don't even know what your own voice is. You don't even know what healthy conflict looks like. To tell someone in that place, you know, don't go too far, actually it's just impossible until they actually, sometimes it's actually throwing the whole thing away that gives people the power that they need to be able to go, I can safely pick up this dangerous thing again and know that I can handle it in a way which isn't gonna harm me and it can actually be helpful and healthy again.
Will (37:30.788)
Mm-hmm.
Will (37:39.638)
Yeah, lots of that touches on the kind of next question I wanted to explore a bit with you guys, which is around, you know, um, we're not just beliefs, uh, we are bodies and the kind of intersection between bodies and beliefs. And maybe in some ways we've been taught to think about those kind of in compartmentalized ways, um, comes into all of this. You know, I think about, for me, I can relate to Michael, the sort of theological
Shane (37:49.958)
Hmm.
Will (38:06.954)
lens of deconstruction or changing faith for me while I was kind of working as a pastor and studying at Bible college. I felt like the gap between, you know, in the theological space where here's how five different views on X thing and then nobody knows about any of those four other views on the ground in the local church. But for me, that was all partly a personality thing, but also probably partly a tradition as a Baptist. I think about it all as belief oriented.
ideas and all of this stuff we're talking about is just the changing, the swapping out of mental propositions. But for both of you with a background in kind of Pentecostal spaces, there's probably more of a sense of what the, like the involvement of the body. And it's a bit of a false dichotomy because Baptists have bodies too. And in every, that's right. But I'd just be interested in.
michael (38:55.333)
No. Do they?
Shane (38:56.386)
As long as they don't wiggle them about too much, then they're allowed to have them in a suggestive manner.
Will (39:02.854)
some of your reflections on, um, yeah, like the, going on this journey and, and framing it not as just beliefs or bodies, but how you think through your experiences and through the experiences of others that you've kind of been on this journey with, how is it helpful to think about, you know, a changing spirituality within our body, just as much as within our kind of mind.
michael (39:27.123)
Hmm. Yeah. How long you got? I think you know like My tradition was in many respects like a paradoxical one like Pentecostal charismatic spirituality is both Antagonistic toward the body and also celebrates it like it and it's and it's a it's a pretty confused relationship between the two
Will (39:27.219)
Huge question.
Will (39:31.424)
Hehehe
Shane (39:32.114)
What's the drama do you want to see?
michael (39:56.719)
that is good recipe for a wild ride. And I think I can reflect on it and see the ways in which the embodied experience of my faith, the emotionality at times of my faith, how those things have both been a rich, meaningful part of my faith and also a site of trauma. And I think that's kind of interesting to...
Will (39:59.893)
Mm.
michael (40:26.623)
intriguing in many respects to kind of reflect on. I think there's a lot of gifts that the embodied nature of like that's form of spirituality gives you. I think it does at its best right help you overcome that pretty classic Western dichotomy of kind of mind and body and say that you know emotions are okay in spirituality actually they're healthy. Now admittedly only the right only the acceptable forms of emotion
are okay, right? So, at least we're allowed to have emotions, not like you Baptists who had to sit and just believe things. And you know, we'd have to, as well certainly as Pentecostals, have to tolerate sort of the criticism from sort of, I don't know, like reformed folk or whatever saying, you guys are all too emotional. And actually, I don't think the problem with Pentecostalism was that it was too emotional, like that's for me, or that it was too embodied, you know, I think it was that actually it probably wasn't enough, like as in it wasn't
Shane (40:54.29)
Hehehe
Shane (41:02.738)
Poker faced.
Shane (41:22.043)
Yes.
Will (41:22.41)
Mm.
michael (41:23.715)
it was only these kinds of emotions that were allowed to be experienced or given voice to. And it was only these kinds of messages from your body that were okay. And so, yeah, I don't think it was too emotional and too reliant on the body over the mind, as much as it was not enough of those things in many respects. And so...
That's a weird thing for me to say because I'm also deeply cynical about lots of spiritual experience and embodied experience now. But I'm also, you know, mindful that one of the big problems we have, I think, in the West is that dichotomy, is that split. And so what I'm finding in my own kind of journey through, and I'm a bit shit at this to be honest, but what I'm finding in my own journey through trying to process my spiritual past.
Will (42:05.75)
Mm.
michael (42:18.859)
is that actually in many respects, it's paying more attention to the body that is helping me kind of process. And that's hard work to overcome kind of the programming of like, these are the, you know, I was talking with my wife the other day because somebody was saying, yeah, no, the one in New Zealand. Yeah, but we were just observing someone else who got angry about something.
Shane (42:28.579)
Hmm.
Shane (42:37.552)
Which one?
Shane (42:41.208)
Oh, that one, okay, here.
michael (42:48.655)
Isn't it amazing how people can just get angry at stuff? Like people can get angry about things and it seems like they don't even have a problem like with that. They're not even, you know, feeling guilty about that at all. And I'm still sort of so trained to like see that as a negative like emotion because of my tradition, you know, that it's very difficult to access. So all of this is not a very straightforward answer to your question, but it's a very complicated relationship. Right.
Will (43:10.998)
Mm.
Will (43:15.842)
It's helpful. It's a helpful exploration of the general territory. That's what we want.
michael (43:21.928)
I've got three points for you, they begin with P.
Will (43:24.852)
Yeah.
Shane (43:26.51)
One of the threads that you're touching on is, you know, that stands out for me is that, is what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, bodily experience, and what is expected bodily experience, emotionality. And the traditions we come from have a lens in which certain things are to be suppressed or denied and other things are to be engaged with and explored. And it just so happens very conveniently that all the things...
michael (43:35.462)
Mm.
Shane (43:56.102)
that are to be suppressed and denied are things that might work against your active and enthusiastic participation in growing the church. And all the things, I mean, like we didn't write the book, Jesus did. And all of, well, we prefer Paul, but still we'll say it's Jesus. But, and all the stuff that's to be encouraged are positive expectations and positive experiences and stuff. And it's really interesting.
michael (44:04.987)
Ha ha ha.
Shane (44:25.558)
again, being in some ways, you know, I guess, collators of stories. I don't know if we'll get into this bit about kind of how we ended up in this, but one of their experiences of talking about megachurch dynamics last year after a investigation into a church in New Zealand came out, is effectively we just had six months of just receiving hundreds and thousands of people's stories of their experiences in these places.
Will (44:52.473)
Mm.
Shane (44:55.426)
And look, I upfront, I think we hear enough from straight white men. So even doing podcasts like this makes me so profoundly uncomfortable on some levels, but I think at least kind of getting to represent the multiplicities of stories that we, that have found their way to us of going so many people in these places, it's actually their emotions and their bodies that leads them out of it. Because after so long denying experiences,
michael (45:21.779)
Mm.
Shane (45:24.95)
I mean, for some of the stories we have is that people's bodies literally save them from coercive environments because they would be driving down the motorway, very excited about going to church, and then the car would pull over and they would go into a near catatonic state and their body would say, I can't drive to that place. I'm not going there. And they would be willing to enthusiastically go to the house, you know, or it's when their
Will (45:42.354)
Wow.
Shane (45:54.642)
worship service where there's so much proclamation about, aren't we all feeling the spirit so heavy and thick here? So, sexualized language, but you know, aren't we all experiencing something so wonderful here? And it's people going, actually, I'm not anymore. And I need to tend to that. It's actually sometimes bodies and emotions in these spaces that give people the rupture that allow them to follow that. Sadly,
Too often it's so far down the road that it's absolutely destroyed the rest of people's lives. You know, people who are contemplating taking their life, people whose bodies no longer work and function in the ways that they used to. Huge amounts of bodily and emotional trauma. You know, sadly for most people who are heavily invested in particular systems, they don't and cannot leave until they've reached a point of absolute overwhelm.
Um, and that's the sad price. I think of, of lots of these faith constructs is that they can push you to deny something until you take on so much harm that your body can't actually metabolize it anymore, which is, it's just really, really heavy and really. Tragic. Um, I mean, we've reflected a lot on our experience with things about looking back of just going, I just feel tired thinking about that.
Will (47:08.584)
Mm.
Shane (47:21.358)
It's not just my Pentecostal spirituality, it's the Baptist spirituality I grew up beforehand where my primary expression of spirituality, I think, was just guilt and the exhaustion that comes with a person who actually took really seriously being good and having to, I just feel so tired thinking about searching for every nook and cranny for where sin might lie.
Will (47:30.6)
Mm.
Shane (47:49.498)
That is just such a heavy load.
Will (47:52.424)
Hmm.
Yeah. Oh man, this.
Shane (47:55.802)
Have I backed us into enough of a cul-de-sac yet?
Will (48:01.61)
There's, there's so much more we could explore there, hey, but, um, I think what I'm taking from that is that, um, the earlier that people can hear the message. And I think we're in a time of like damage control in a sense, but as I think forward about what, what does, what do I want spirituality to look like for my kids and for their friends and the next generation, like the, the earlier that we can kind of build in messages of, you know, trusting and, and being in relationship with the body.
Shane (48:15.072)
Hmm.
Shane (48:21.513)
Such a good question, yeah.
Will (48:30.538)
So obviously it's, it's enormous. And that was not a messaging that I was sort of given as a kid. Um, and I'm, I'm aware and grateful that I definitely do not have, you know, the significant trauma stories that many others have picked up in the same space as I was in, you know, in some ways. I've been lucky and as you named, like in some ways I'm, I'm the person who that system was set up to be successful for, like as a, as a straight white man, like there's a lot.
Shane (48:53.991)
Hmm.
Will (48:58.542)
less risk for me in those spaces. Um, but yeah, I think I'm, you know, they're just so conscious of wanting to continue to ask the question of what does it look like if we're going to continue in the project of these kinds of spaces at all, how do we start that conversation from the earliest days of people's lives? This is not that buildup of, um, of the, either body carrying the score type thing, you know, um, yeah.
Shane (49:11.919)
Hmm.
michael (49:20.808)
Hmm.
Shane (49:20.914)
Hmm.
Will (49:24.186)
sort of, uh, switching lanes slightly, but also in the same kind of territory. You know, you talked earlier, Shane, about that, the risk of the parallel fundamentalism and you sort of leaving Christianity and going to a kind of similarly rigid kind of atheism or, you know, people can do that in all kinds of traditions. And I think there is, we have to be aware of that risk, even, you know, having a microphone, doing a podcast.
It's not quite the same. We joked at the beginning, the recording software we're using, it does a little countdown at the beginning, five, four, three, two, one, which brings back memories of being in a dimly lit auditorium and seeing the countdown on the screen, not the same thing, but in some ways there's the capacity that we would reinvent some of the same patterns of, well, I'm now, I'm now a person of authority in this space, or I'm now a person who wants to tell you the bandwidth of which it's okay to question within or, you know, all of those things.
How do you think about, um, you know, being conscious of the potential for abusive, coercive leadership in spiritual spaces, how do you kind of think about safeguarding against that while still being people that speak into and, and try and nurture and try and use responsibly whatever influence you may have. Um, and that's a question for me just as much as anybody else, but I'm interested in, in some of your thoughts around just navigating some of that.
michael (50:50.087)
It's a really important conversation, I think. And the temptation toward, we've spoken a bit about it on in the shift, but the temptation toward Guruism is strong, especially among people with a certain expectation about their role in the world because of a certain set of characteristics they hold. And...
Will (51:02.078)
Mm.
Shane (51:02.566)
Mm.
Shane (51:13.29)
And probably mirroring that for people who often are drawn to these spaces on the other side, who want, who have been, who have kind of had a, a spirituality of certainty ruptured for them and really want someone else to fill that role, um, of giving, of being able to provide, you know, a safe, a safe option.
michael (51:23.539)
Mm.
michael (51:26.895)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Will (51:27.122)
Mm.
michael (51:31.239)
Hmm.
Will (51:33.151)
Great point.
michael (51:34.567)
So yeah, what Shane and I are about to do is go on a world tour of three ways not to be a guru. We've got a little course you can sign up for on that. For only $2.99.95 a month, you can learn how not to be a guru like us. I think that's always the push and I think capitalism has a lot to do with this as well, which is that everything is defined by its influence and its growth and its moving forward and its reach.
Shane (51:34.599)
Thank you.
Shane (51:39.558)
Hmm. Yeah.
A good merch stand.
michael (52:03.167)
and whether it's moving upward and whether you're hustling to make it a thing. And I think.
You know, there are a few different ways that we've tried to navigate that. Certainly, I've tried to navigate that. I know when I first started in the shift, some advice given to me by people who worked in online spaces and stuff was that you shouldn't just be essentially naming it after yourself. You should be building the brand around you because people want to attach to you and all that kind of stuff. And I just resisted that strongly because I...
I am not a brand. I'm, you know, I'm a person. And the last thing I want to be doing on Instagram is thinking, will this photo of my child please my podcast followers? That's, you know, I guess the last thing I want to be thinking about instead of the blending and merging of identity that so often happens and can in particular happen in spiritual spaces because spirituality is so personal.
Will (52:56.054)
Mm.
michael (53:08.715)
And so one of the things I've tried really hard to do is to maintain a level of distinction between who I am as a person and the work that I do, to resist the temptation to hustle. And that's something that is still a part of me that's like, you should be probably hustling, you could probably really turn this into something, you know.
Will (53:19.048)
Mm.
Will (53:33.988)
Mm.
michael (53:34.947)
And that's just because I think that's the message, both of my church background, but also just a wider kind of, you know, liberal Western society, as that everything should be like turned into something. And the number of people I've talked to over these are like, oh, it's cool that your podcast doing so well, but how do you monetize it? You know, all of these kinds of questions, like everybody's always interested in that. And then just becoming, yeah, how do you speak about, how do I speak about things? Like, how do I, when I want to present my perspective on something, what is the way in which I'm going to talk about that? And
Sometimes I'm more forthright than others. I certainly want to be able to own what it is I think and what it is I want to say. But I also want to be mindful that I am one voice and one perspective, and I'm speaking from a set of experiences and from a context. And that in a lot of different ways, you know, whether that's like in a faith community, like should I be speaking 90% of the time? No.
Am I the person with the PhD in theology in the church? Yes. Does that mean I'm the only voice that should be heard? Definitely not. And when we start to prioritize singular voices within spaces, I think that does become really problematic because it's actually the multitude of experiences, the multitude of perspectives, the diversity of those who are able to collaborate within a space. You know, when Shane and I actually first started, so I've been running the podcast, but I don't know.
I don't even know how long, three years or something maybe? I'm not sure. Before the whole Mega Church kind of stories started to hit in Hillsong and Arise in New Zealand and a bunch of other stuff. And so Shane and I started talking about some of this Mega Church stuff and picking it apart in ways that I think people really needed and so there was this kind of massive surge in terms of the podcast itself, in terms of the audience and who was tuning in and where they were tuning in from and like Shane said the overwhelming kind of correspondence.
It was funny, I think, for us, because we were just trying to keep up, really. But what was it? Was it about five episodes into that series of conversations? When we suddenly got a flurry of messages saying, so, um, when, when is some woman going to get to contribute to this conversation? Um, and you know, as that was a, just a good thing for us to like, to not be like, oh, what do you mean we're doing them? You know.
Shane (55:48.805)
Mm.
Shane (56:00.19)
We're just tired dads who aren't getting paid for this. We're doing the best we can.
michael (56:03.344)
We're doing the best we can. Don't you understand? Plus, we've got real experience in this. That could be one response. On a certain level, there's a certain amount of that. We're just sort of in our lives. But to another degree, it's really important we hear that perspective, pay attention to it and fold that in and increase the diversity of voices. And so, yeah.
Will (56:14.454)
Mm.
Will (56:25.382)
I think that is part of the beauty of the podcast format compared to the weekly sermon in a church format is, um, it's just, it is such an easy way to, to highlight a diversity of voices and to kind of curate a much more rich expression. Um, yes, yes. Does it, it's not automatic, but I guess in my reflection of like when I was part of a regular kind of preaching roster.
michael (56:29.211)
Mm. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
michael (56:38.565)
Mmm.
michael (56:42.623)
Mm. Yeah.
Shane (56:43.031)
If you lean into that. Yeah.
michael (56:51.921)
Hmm.
Will (56:52.702)
compared to trying to put together like the podcast episode, like it relies on, I don't always have smart stuff to say. I'm just here to ask questions to other people, which is, is quite freeing, um, to be able to just go, yep, let me, let me find all the people I should be hearing from rather than just always being the person other people should be hearing from. Yeah.
Shane (57:13.528)
Yeah. Look, in many ways, I kind of think about us, our role as, I mean, I, I never, I've very intentionally stayed away from podcast land because, you know, largely there's lots of ways in which it's not good for me and which my voice is represented enough already. Um, and, you know, taking nothing away from what either of you, you have done because you've done really beautiful things with it, but I really felt like.
that's not a space I want to be into. And then as penance for participating in abusive megachurch systems felt like, Michael and I, we've talked about the stuff that over a decade privately lamented the stuff. And so when the stories came out in New Zealand and the church by and large just did not respond, there was no ownership from the wider church, despite everyone knowing that systemic...
coercive leadership and abusive interns and abusive staff members and abusive, you know, of all kinds in, um, in churches was a massive problem. No one said anything because no one wants to give the church a bad name or fuel the fire. And we felt very strongly like we needed, needed to be people who, who put ourselves out there to say something and say, this isn't an attack on the church. This is people holding the church accountable for what it claims to be. Um,
Will (58:05.462)
Mm.
Shane (58:31.878)
But then as that kind of went on, I feel like in lots of ways, our role is as co-commentators of being people who can bring stories which are being shared with us by people who aren't in a position to share them publicly and speak to that. But then coming down to kind of church community, in some ways, for me, it's so much less dangerous than podcasting because there's human accountability. If you set...
up those structures. So one of the things that we have is, we have a collaborative team, technically employed by a board which is voted and made up of by our church. Third, we have a we have dialogue and nearly every service that we have where, you know, we kind of invite people into speaking into the space and pushing back and sharing perspectives and stuff. I've become more and more convinced that harmful
not just harmful theology, but harmful philosophy, harmful economics, harmful everything. Everything harmful for human beings is the incapacity for it to consult voices of the people who are most affected by it. And, you know, yeah, like my thesis book is around economic systems and care structures, which have effectively marginalized the voices of people who are doing the caregiving in the world and told them what their value is.
Will (59:40.904)
Mm.
Shane (59:54.522)
without actually listening to what they contribute to the world. And same with in the church level, like if we were to be able to be honest about our experiences of our proclaimed theology across the board, I feel like we'd have much healthier theology by problematizing it with people's real lives. And so yeah, in some ways churches, depending on how you shape and structure them, have an accountability built in to them of
Will (01:00:14.23)
Mm-mm.
Shane (01:00:23.962)
relationships where people can name, you know, that your voice is dominating or that you're representing perspectives that don't match their lives. You know, of course, being clever leaders, everyone knows how to subvert those things or make have the appearance of accountability and transparency and vulnerability without it actually functioning. So it's not a magic bullet of any kind, but I think there's a real possibility there that if that's something that you're actually trying for.
And you're able to keep on naming your privilege and you keep on naming your authority and responsibility in a way that opens people to, who invites people to push back on. Yeah, I certainly think that's a, I guess for me there's more accountability on the ground level than there is in the podcast space because unless you're doing the active inviting of other voices in, it's so easy to end up career-wising that again in a way where
you aren't actually publicly accountable to anyone who knows you on the ground, you know, and that's a bit fraud.
Will (01:01:24.125)
Mm.
Oh, that's a great point. I mean, part of the interesting dynamic that I exist within is this podcast grew out of a community that is intentionally small and intentionally like hard to find and like we're not putting up billboards or signs or, you know, advertising on a website, how you can get to a gathering, like you got to like, you got really got to find your way in through kind of the back door somehow, but, um, this was kind of our way of going, how do we
Shane (01:01:36.731)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Shane (01:01:45.934)
Hmm.
Will (01:01:54.298)
keep that, we don't want that to turn into the mega thing, but we do want, do want people to hear if they're in that isolated space, which we named earlier. That's the biggest, you know, the gift of community to process, whatever your journey looks like, if you don't have that at the least, if you can have some encouraging voices saying, you're okay, you're not, you haven't gone off the deep end, you can trust your body. Um, is so helpful. So I think that there's, there's a real, you know, in sort of like aiming to, to be small and like,
Shane (01:01:55.782)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shane (01:02:23.31)
Yeah. And low profile. Yeah.
Will (01:02:23.826)
local, ultra local and low profile while kind of balancing it and communicating clearly that like this can never replace that, but if you're lacking that, maybe it can kind of fill a little bit of a gap or it can, yeah, I don't know, just help fill out the picture a bit, but I think it's such a good point.
Shane (01:02:33.496)
Hmm.
Shane (01:02:41.35)
Oh, and look, it's vital work. I mean, one of the things that, one of the common threads with the emails we got of people who had, you know, suffered under coercive leadership is that nearly every single one of them started with either or both of these lines. I thought I was the only one, and I've never told anyone this. Like, when you look at the sophistication of a communication management system that can marginalize people to the point where people, where thousands of people are having the same experience.
michael (01:02:58.282)
Hmm.
Will (01:02:58.567)
Mm.
Shane (01:03:09.742)
and they think they're the only person and thousands of people who are having the same experience and they've never been able to tell anyone. You know, one of the gifts I think that spaces like this can give is being able to say you're not alone and being able to share experiences which make you feel like you're less stupid because so much of the, you know, like lots of people who have been victims of, you know, cult adjacent spaces or coercive relationships.
michael (01:03:11.123)
Mm.
Will (01:03:12.437)
Yeah.
Shane (01:03:39.122)
leave and go, how could I be so stupid to be a part of this? And one of the things we've tried to do is articulate the very sophisticated ways in which very smart, very good, very instinctive people can be drawn into a system where they've got too much to lose to ask questions or too much to lose to leave. Um, and so that's, I think some of the work we try and do is just name the complexity of the systems, name other people's experiences, bring
Will (01:03:57.108)
Yep.
michael (01:03:57.818)
Mm.
Shane (01:04:08.814)
other theologies and other representations to the work and include other voices where possible so that people can go, oh, I'm not the only one. And I think, yeah, I think there is massive value in that.
michael (01:04:17.29)
Hmm.
Will (01:04:17.894)
Mm.
michael (01:04:19.603)
I think the other thing we got in the mountain of feedback was that the tendency toward power, and I should say that maybe what I've also seen a lot is in the kind of theological community is a bunch of sort of much more nuanced, either deconstruction or theological reevaluation and all kinds of stuff without a sufficient analysis of power and that.
continues to propagate a lot of that. And so in some respects, to go back to our earlier conversation, I'm glad for the bodily trauma in the sense that what it didn't allow me to do was simply unplug those beliefs, stick these new beliefs in, and then just carry on behaving like I was behaving toward people. Because what my bodily trauma has told me is that it's not just the beliefs that get plugged and unplugged.
Shane (01:05:03.512)
Hehehehe
Will (01:05:04.735)
Mm-mm.
Will (01:05:08.359)
Mm.
Shane (01:05:08.391)
Mm.
michael (01:05:13.555)
switched in and out, it's actually the systems and the cultures and the communities that we're setting up and how they function and how they do or do not listen to people's real lived experiences and how they make people feel. So that thing is one thing to say and the other is that we also got a lot of talk from people in small communities where issues of power and ego and guruism and control and coercion
Shane (01:05:34.267)
Mm-hmm.
Will (01:05:38.442)
Mmm.
michael (01:05:40.067)
were just as rife as they were in different ways. You know, they weren't necessarily people getting on the celebrity preacher circuit and earning, you know, 50 grand for a conference talk, but they were controlling their community of 60 people in ways that were very familiar and similar. And so like site.
Will (01:05:43.091)
Yep.
Will (01:05:53.397)
Hmm.
Shane (01:05:56.398)
And even recognizing that for the part of the kind of like apostolic leadership, kind of guru preacher thing came out of situations where ministers were trying to serve communities, but being controlled by onerous boards who were controlling the entire thing from behind the scenes and weren't even touching the pulpit, but were coercive and abusive and horrible humans, you know. And again, most
Will (01:06:22.07)
There's just so many ways to fuck it up.
michael (01:06:23.971)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, what I think I'm hoping to help contribute to is to give people and communities vocabulary for seeing and naming power where it's functioning harmfully. Whether that's from a community towards the leadership, from the leadership towards the community, to the hidden leadership in the board, or to the patriarchal nature of that, or the cisgendered straight people in the way, you know, all of those ways in which...
Shane (01:06:24.002)
Yeah. And there's so many ways in which straight white men are doing that work.
Shane (01:06:36.358)
Hmm.
Will (01:06:38.249)
Mm.
Shane (01:06:44.934)
Mm-hmm.
michael (01:06:53.843)
power is functioning within communities. If we can get better at having vocabulary for naming that, then it's not just like, okay, we've all decided now that senior pastors are assholes, and so we're not going to have them anymore, and that will fix the problem. It's actually, no, what we're trying to do is say, that's actually just an example of the way in which power gets used in all sorts of ways. So let's get better at identifying that, naming that. And for...
Will (01:07:18.681)
Mm.
michael (01:07:23.291)
people who do lead within spaces, whether that's podcasts or church leaders or whatever, giving their community that vocabulary that should and could then come back, return and then name the ways in which that leader might be actually using that. That's in some ways got to be a part of the healthy dynamic of being able to name the stuff and make some sense of it and see it with clarity rather than what many people experience is just a big muddle of feelings that they don't know what to do with.
Will (01:07:42.014)
Mm.
Will (01:07:52.178)
Mm. Ah, that is so helpful.
Shane (01:07:54.042)
But yeah, I guess even just being embedded in a community that you are accountable to while doing any kind of public work, like increases the chances of someone being able to call you on your bullshit or name when it's getting out of control. Like I think, you know, we often joke about, you know, now that we're formed, you know, a semi-functional like little altie community of some kind that's queer inclusive and that, you know, the best thing we can do is quit and then travel the world.
Will (01:08:02.381)
Mm.
michael (01:08:05.063)
Mm.
Shane (01:08:22.666)
writing books about how to do it, so we don't have to do it anymore. And so that people can tell us what experts we are at doing this thing. And that kind of longing to get to a place where you are no longer doing work alongside others that might be able to push up against you. It's such a massive temptation to end up in a place where you effectively just don't...
michael (01:08:26.303)
Hehehehehehe
Shane (01:08:50.778)
have anyone on the ground that isn't incentivized to tell you that what you're saying is brilliant. Like, it's just a really dangerous place. And I'm not saying no one should do that, but I should maybe would say that given the never ending scandals of people who are in positions of where the power differential in every relationship in their life is so great, that maybe it's not good for us.
michael (01:08:56.179)
Hmm.
Will (01:09:08.008)
Mm.
Will (01:09:17.558)
Hmm. I do think like what that makes me think is that, um, if you're gonna adopt or continue any spiritual practices, whether individually or as a community, the best ones are the ones that help you to become aware of that stuff. And that to me is so much of the value of, um, you know, actual practice based spirituality is it's about being able to take a step back and look and see.
michael (01:09:33.02)
Hmm.
Will (01:09:45.374)
ego games, the power games where things need to be redistributed. Um, yeah, conscious of your time. And it's been, it's been a massive, it's been really fun. I mean, not everything we've talked about is fun, but talking about it with the two of you today has been a lot of fun and I really appreciate your time. Um, but I love to always give the last, the last word to the guests. Um, so I guess just thinking about our audience, which would be.
Shane (01:09:46.658)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
michael (01:09:58.099)
Hehehe
Will (01:10:13.778)
Um, yeah, there'd be some, some overlap in the audience that, that you guys speak to, even that word audience, right? Like what's a better way, our people, um, our fellow travelers, um, let's kind of shift the power dynamic. Um, what would be the kind of words that you would want people to, to continue to, I don't know, ruminate on a bit. Um, coming out of this, this kind of conversation, which has been, I think quite, quite broad, but also quite rich. But yeah, what will be your kind of final, keep thinking about this.
michael (01:10:21.191)
Hehehehe
Shane (01:10:23.89)
acolytes.
Shane (01:10:46.022)
Guru Mako.
Will (01:10:48.342)
Thanks for watching!
michael (01:10:49.635)
There are certain things I'd like to say.
michael (01:10:56.74)
Ah, I think I'm...
michael (01:11:03.535)
You can edit out this long pause. Oh, that's right. He's going to say something. He's taking this long to think about it. He's going to say something amazing. Yeah, yeah. Still pausing. Yeah. I guess I want, for those who have had experiences of real pain within church, or within religious systems, I guess I just want to...
Shane (01:11:06.458)
Yeah, make it seem like it's got it right there.
Will (01:11:06.958)
Oh, it just adds its anticipation to, you know, yeah.
Will (01:11:14.098)
Powerful communication technique.
Shane (01:11:17.509)
Lean in everyone, lean in.
michael (01:11:32.179)
To reiterate what we've already said, which is that you're not alone. That if you have been bullied, coerced and manipulated, if you've been handed an inner critic and told that that's an important part of your spirituality, that that's not okay. It wasn't okay. It isn't okay. And you deserve much better. So
I'd want to say that perhaps in the first instance and then to continue to, you know, to those of us with more privilege. The invitation is to keep taking up the challenge to be confronted by the way that privilege functions and to seek an open, curious and...
kind way of being in the world, rather than one that seeks just simply to elevate our own status. So in a sense, my message is like, and sometimes we are both of those things. Sometimes we are both the traumatized and the privileged, and that those threads run through both of us. That's certainly part of my story, I think. And I kind of need, I still need to hear both of those things. I need to hear that the way I was treated at times was not okay, that I shouldn't have experienced that.
that pain or that trauma and also that I need to continue seeking out ways of being in the world that are kind and that do not propagate harm toward others through sometimes the blindness to my own privilege and power in the world. Maybe I just gave a message. All right.
Will (01:13:20.99)
The pause was justified.
Shane (01:13:25.148)
Hmm.
Uh, yeah, I don't want to add to that. I'm always cautious kind of giving generalized answers to suggestions to people that I don't know. But, um, yeah, I think one of the things that one of the threads for me that is really important in my own D reconstruction continuing journey is, um, it's just realizing that this is a process that's been going on for a long time and that spiritual traditions are never one uniform thing from start to finish.
And our job is just to hold on to that no matter how much it hurts us. But just realizing that this process of working out which threads need to be repaired and which ones need to be cut off, which things need adapting and changing and which things are no longer a faithful witness to the goodness of the divine, that process has always happened. And don't let anyone tell you that it's always been this way and we just know what the truth is, so we just need to hang on to it.
And then if Michael gets to talk, speak to power as well, then I guess I do too. So I would add to people who are in places of leading spiritual communities or places of privilege and influence, it's just to keep on listening to the pain. Keep on, just pause before you try and minimize anyone's experience of where something has caused them harm or before you try and advise them, even as I give advice. But just keep on leaning in to.
the ways in which our beliefs and our theology can bring death instead of life. And keep on reconsidering where, what a better, kinder, more loving God might look like in the face of that. Yeah.
Will (01:15:10.79)
Lovely. Thank you, both of you, very much.
Shane (01:15:14.791)
Pleasure.