S2 E8: The Bob Jones University Chapter with Nate Nakao

[00:00:01] This is a Dauntless Media Collective Podcast. Visit dauntless.fm for more content.

[00:00:07] Oh, it was so awkward. A lot of the couples on campus, they would stand in like the designated

[00:00:13] dating zones. And since they weren't allowed to hold hands, they weren't allowed to touch,

[00:00:18] there was no kissing. They would stand in the middle of the student center and they would

[00:00:24] like get inches from each other's face and just stare into each other's eyes. So like my friends

[00:00:31] and I would call that making eye babies, which is pretty gross, but you know, it just, you'd have

[00:00:40] like five or six couples all standing around student center gazing into each other's eyes,

[00:00:46] like an inch from each other.

[00:00:50] S-T-R-U-C-T

[00:01:11] Gotta Deconstruct

[00:01:23] Hello Deconstructionists, this is Maggie, the host of our podcast, where we'll collectively

[00:01:27] share our stories and experiences of leading high control religion, along with what it's been like

[00:01:32] for us to find new practices that help us feel good and confident in ourselves. I hope that hearing these

[00:01:38] stories reminds you that your deconstruction is valid, and most of all that you are not alone on

[00:01:42] this journey. You are good, you are loved, and you are worthy, just as you are.

[00:01:47] Hello Deconstructionists

[00:01:52] My guest today is Nate Nakao. Nate is the co-host of the Full Mutuality podcast with his wife,

[00:01:58] Gail. He co-founded the Dauntless Media Collective with his friend, Jessica, and is the writer behind

[00:02:03] the blog titled, All the Different Christians I Have Been, from Bob Jones University to Hillsong

[00:02:08] Church and everywhere in between. So, Nate, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:12] Thank you for having me.

[00:02:14] Yeah, I'm so excited. You've had like, so many different flavors, flavors of shit as you said

[00:02:21] it in your podcast. So many different flavors of Christianity that you've been through. So,

[00:02:27] I feel like this is like a whirlwind tour of all the different flavors you could be.

[00:02:33] Yeah. I think it's funny though, my trajectory has always been to slightly more expansive than before,

[00:02:40] kind of. I mean, there were some like, you know, twists and turns along the way, but you know,

[00:02:46] we can get there when we get there.

[00:02:47] Yeah. I mean, early on was IFB and Bob Jones. So you started like pretty conservative,

[00:02:55] about as conservative as you can get.

[00:02:57] I did. So actually before I, I mean, I guess for me and my story that that's kind of where

[00:03:02] I trace my, you know, Christian roots, quote unquote. But I would say that, well, my family

[00:03:08] actually started in more of a mainstream evangelical kind of environment. They attended a church that was

[00:03:16] in the Southern Baptist convention, though it wasn't explicitly Southern Baptist. It was a Filipino

[00:03:24] church, you know, that started here in kind of a sort of urban area of Northeast Jersey. And then

[00:03:31] my immediate family moved out west towards Pennsylvania to a more rural white kind of area of,

[00:03:42] of New Jersey. And I say rural, it's like just, I guess, relatively speaking more rural because

[00:03:48] for New Jersey, it was, you know, more rural. New Jersey is a very, very urban type of state,

[00:03:55] especially up in the northern half of Jersey. So yeah. So then when we moved to that part of Jersey,

[00:04:02] we were looking for a church and there was a family friend of my mom's who had found this. At the time,

[00:04:09] all we knew was that it was a Baptist church that was, you know, strong in the Bible. You know,

[00:04:15] they were very intense with their Bible teaching. They had quote unquote sound doctrine. And we ended

[00:04:22] up there when I was probably around five or six years old. And then that kind of became our home.

[00:04:28] And like you alluded to earlier, it was an IFB church, the independent fundamentalist Baptists,

[00:04:34] which are, I know you, you said on, on our podcast that you come from a Baptist light environment.

[00:04:40] That's like, you know, uh, I guess bud light for Baptists and IFB is kind of like, um, Johnny Walker.

[00:04:51] Yes. Okay. I was going to go with like a super hoppy beer, but that's even more accurate. Like

[00:04:56] Johnny Walker. Uh, yeah. Okay. So can you tell us, like, give us a little background about

[00:05:05] IFB and what makes it so strong and heavy?

[00:05:11] So I think the way I would characterize IFB and like every time that I think about my past and sort

[00:05:18] of process it, different little facets pop out at me. And I think the, the thing that stands out to

[00:05:25] me and has stood out to me the most over the last several years, as far as what differentiates IFB

[00:05:31] from the rest of evangelical Christianity, or even from, you know, the rest of the Baptists

[00:05:36] is its emphasis on what they call the doctrine of biblical separation. And I don't remember who,

[00:05:43] uh, actually came up with it. I think I had written about it in, in, in my blog or, or, uh,

[00:05:48] somewhere. And there was a, um, uh, a Baptist scholar who came up with this idea of biblical

[00:05:56] separation that essentially you were supposed to have degrees of separation from worldliness.

[00:06:01] And so you were supposed to separate from your friends who were non-believers except in those,

[00:06:09] uh, circumstances where you were explicitly witnessing to them or sharing the gospel with

[00:06:14] them. But then if you had friends who were believers, but who were in close fellowship with non-believers,

[00:06:21] you were supposed to separate from those people and so on and so forth. So like, uh, the other thing

[00:06:26] too is there, they considered any church that allowed drums or, um, electric guitars, or, I mean,

[00:06:35] we can go into music standards a little bit later, but, um, any church that allowed for,

[00:06:39] you know, what was considered worldly or sinful music, even if it had Christian lyrics, even worship

[00:06:46] music by, by, you know, evangelical standards, those churches were considered heretical. They were

[00:06:53] allowing demonic influences into their church. And so if we had friends in those churches, attending

[00:07:00] those churches, we were supposed to separate from them as well. So it was this, the IFB is this

[00:07:06] basically environment that, that, that cloisters itself off from everything else around it, all

[00:07:14] forms of even its own sister religions within evangelical Christianity.

[00:07:20] It's like, as I'm hearing that, I'm like, that's a fucking cult. Like it is, that is a textbook cult.

[00:07:26] You know, it's like you are not allowed to look outside of your little bubble and like, there should be,

[00:07:32] um, levels of separation between you and these other less good, like people that aren't reaching

[00:07:39] the standard of like biblical soundness or something.

[00:07:43] So what I find kind of interesting to actually just to kind of paint a little bit of the picture

[00:07:48] of my own childhood. So my, my parents weren't super active in the church. I mean, they were,

[00:07:54] they were there when necessary to essentially give my brother and me the Christian upbringing that we,

[00:08:03] that they wanted for us. And my mom worked at the Christian school that was attached to our church.

[00:08:10] Um, she was a financial bookkeeper for the church, uh, for the school. So she was there five days a week,

[00:08:16] but she wasn't involved in teaching or the curriculum or anything like that. And my dad worked in Manhattan

[00:08:24] as a, as a banker. So my dad wasn't doing a whole lot of indoctrination at home and neither was my mom

[00:08:32] per se. I mean, when I was really little, she'd probably read Bible stories to us, but I didn't get,

[00:08:38] fortunately, I didn't get the religious indoctrination at home that I did at church and school.

[00:08:44] However, church and school were essentially six days a week, you know, cause we had Bible class

[00:08:50] every day. We had chapel every week on Wednesdays. Our church had prayer meeting and there was an

[00:08:57] expectation that you were there whenever the church was open. So even my parents, even though they

[00:09:01] weren't really, you know, at home indoctrinating us, uh, they were attending all of the various services

[00:09:08] that my church offered. So on Wednesday nights, that was our prayer meeting and youth group and

[00:09:13] you know, Saturday mornings, they had like a men's breakfast Bible study. And of course all day on

[00:09:20] Sunday because we had multiple services, but they were different services. So it wasn't like, you know,

[00:09:25] these modern churches that had identical services five times on a Sunday. No, this was different

[00:09:30] services on Sunday. They were different services and we were getting different sermons from the

[00:09:35] same pastor, different Bible passages. So we were expected to be there for all of it because

[00:09:39] good Lord.

[00:09:42] And why did your parents start going if they weren't really like, it seems like they weren't totally

[00:09:48] buying into it.

[00:09:49] I think there, I think there was some buy-in. There was also this sense that there was nothing else in

[00:09:56] the area. So it kind of, I think just became the place for us to, to go. And my mom had a family

[00:10:07] friend there whose kids were also my age and my brother's age and they were our, you know, primary

[00:10:13] playmates. And so for a while it just felt like, well, this is our family church and we have friends

[00:10:19] here and we're connected with people here. And then, you know, I started attending school there

[00:10:24] in kindergarten and that just became my school. My mom got a pretty hefty discount on the tuition

[00:10:32] because she worked for the school. And the other thing too, ah, that's right. There's a requirement

[00:10:38] that if you're on faculty or staff, you were attending that church.

[00:10:41] Okay. So she had a job there and it was like, so now we go here.

[00:10:46] Yeah.

[00:10:47] Okay.

[00:10:47] Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:48] Interesting. Do you remember much difference between the Filipino church that you were going to or was that

[00:10:54] like before this or were you too young?

[00:10:56] I was.

[00:10:57] Do you really remember much?

[00:10:58] So I was very young when my family, I mean, I was born at that church. My family was attending

[00:11:03] that church when I was born. I wasn't actually born at that church, but.

[00:11:07] You never know with the.

[00:11:09] Exactly.

[00:11:11] It was like in the baptismal pool.

[00:11:16] They were filling it up with water and the doula showed up and.

[00:11:20] They laid on the hands, you know.

[00:11:23] Yeah. Um, so I don't have very many memories of that church from when I was little, but that was

[00:11:31] my grandma's church and a lot of my relatives were there. And my uncle for a number of years was the

[00:11:37] music director at that church. So we were constantly going back and forth. My brother and I were also

[00:11:42] very involved in music growing up. And at one point, you know, when we got old enough, our grandma

[00:11:48] would would ask us to go visit their church and and sing in different specials or whatever.

[00:11:55] So. So, yeah, so that's that's how I got kind of connected to that church a little bit.

[00:12:00] But I had so I had a lot of internalized, internalized racism and internalized white

[00:12:06] supremacy and being raised in a heavily white environment that saw itself as superior to

[00:12:14] everything else, even though they wouldn't say racially superior. They saw their doctrine and

[00:12:18] their teaching as superior to everyone else around them. And so anytime we visited my grandmother's

[00:12:24] church, I always got this sense that, like, they're teaching a watered down version of the gospel.

[00:12:30] And so I mentally kind of put myself in this place of all constantly looking down at the people

[00:12:38] at that church, which in turn kind of became this. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was sort of a

[00:12:44] disdain for Filipinos and it's disdain for that that part of my identity. And even like as a little

[00:12:51] kid at my church and school, I have memories of trying really hard to fit in with all the white kids

[00:12:57] and being made fun of very young. So that became sort of a thing I wanted to do. I wanted to fight that

[00:13:04] part of my identity. Yeah. I'm thinking about the doctrine of biblical separation that you were

[00:13:10] taught, which is like, if you are viewing this as a watered down version of the gospel, then of course

[00:13:16] they are like that church, those teachings are less than, you know, and just adding to this like

[00:13:23] hierarchy of goodness almost. And the Filipino church and then consequently part of you was put

[00:13:30] on a lower, in a lower tier. Yeah. And I think even growing up, there was another, you know,

[00:13:37] so the other half of my family is Japanese, but my, my Japanese family, there's no real Christian

[00:13:42] influence there. I mean, after my grandfather passed away on my, on my dad's side, my Japanese side,

[00:13:47] my grandfather was, I would say, you know, a practicing Buddhist in Japan. They don't really

[00:13:53] see their religious practice as a religious affiliation. It's just sort of how their society

[00:13:57] functions. And so my grandfather was, you know, outside of Japan, he would have been seen as sort

[00:14:04] of nominally Buddhist. My grandmother had sort of been intrigued by Catholicism, but didn't start

[00:14:11] practicing until after my grandfather passed away. But even then it sort of just incorporated into her

[00:14:17] own approach to spirituality. So there was a blending of Roman Catholicism with Shinto and Buddhism,

[00:14:26] but the rest of my dad's family are pretty, you know, either nominally Buddhist, or I have one cousin

[00:14:34] whose family is pretty devout in their practice of Shinto. And that to me is right now, currently very

[00:14:43] fascinating. And I find all of that just incredibly engaging as a sort of way of navigating society and

[00:14:53] life. But at the time, I saw all of that as sinful. When I was, when I was a kid, Pokemon came out and

[00:15:03] became really popular. And I remember, I think one of our Sunday school teachers talking about how evil

[00:15:11] Pokemon was. And I didn't know anything about it, per se. But then, you know, taking multiple trips

[00:15:18] back and forth to and from Japan, I saw like, oh, it's connected to Japan in some way, shape, or form.

[00:15:25] And then, you know, as I got older, I started learning all the connections. And oh, this is owned by

[00:15:29] Nintendo. Nintendo is a Japanese company. And part of the reason that I think Christians were freaked

[00:15:33] out by Pokemon was because all of the little monsters in Pokemon are connected to the various

[00:15:40] Kami in Shinto. And so in the fundamentalist mindset, the Kami are demons. And that was seen.

[00:15:51] So if you're inviting Pokemon into your home, if you're playing the games, if you're watching the TV

[00:15:56] show, you are inviting demons into your home. So of course, that started freaking me out a bit,

[00:16:03] because that's a whole, a whole part of my identity. Yeah. And so that's something that I then had to

[00:16:11] kind of navigate and try to extricate from, from myself. Does that mean that my whole Japanese side,

[00:16:17] my entire Japanese family was going to be going to hell? And they all believed in the religion that

[00:16:24] inspired Pokemon, all of these demons. So are they praying and worshiping demons? Like, is that what my,

[00:16:30] what my family's doing? And I mean, that way, that weighs on a little kid's head.

[00:16:35] Yeah, of course. And it's like your, it's your family.

[00:16:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So how did you embrace your whiteness? And I say that

[00:16:45] knowing that like, that's not what, what it is, but you know, in these evangelical spaces, it is,

[00:16:52] it is white and you should pretend to be white if you're not. And so how did you do that? What was

[00:16:58] that like for you? Um, so a lot of that was, so my, my parents, um, my mom has a very slight

[00:17:05] Filipino accent, but every, all of my Filipino family, uh, for the most part, they've, they've

[00:17:10] been able to sort of mask their accents, but whenever they got together, they were speaking

[00:17:15] in Taglish and I would pick up on little intonations and mistakes that my mom would make in her English

[00:17:23] English that I would work very hard to eradicate for myself. Um, my dad's English when I was growing

[00:17:31] up was pretty broken. He had a pretty thick Japanese accent. And so I did everything I could

[00:17:35] to not pick any of that up. And to be fair, you know, a lot of the absorption that I had in church

[00:17:39] and in school prevented that from happening. But I, I still had, I had a couple of Taiwanese friends

[00:17:45] who, even though English was their first language, I could hear the, the, um, Taiwanese,

[00:17:50] or the Chinese inflection in the way that they, that they spoke. And I wanted to avoid that as

[00:17:56] much as possible. So I worked that out of the way I spoke, which then turned into, I never learned any

[00:18:01] of my languages of origin, um, which I'm pretty upset about to this day that I never picked up

[00:18:08] anything. Like I can understand a little bit of Tagalog in context, especially since my family

[00:18:13] speaks Taglish. I can just figure out what's going on based on, on what the context of the conversation

[00:18:18] is. And then respond. If somebody says something like, uh, I remember once my mom was talking about

[00:18:24] me and about a girl that she wanted me to date and I had no interest in, and I picked up immediately

[00:18:33] what she was saying and what was going on. I, I called her out and like, mom, uh, no.

[00:18:42] Uh, so, so there is that, um, there was also just that belief that my family, my overseas family were

[00:18:52] all definitely going to hell and that even my family here, even though they were evangelical

[00:18:58] Christians and said that they believed in Jesus, I had concerns about the things that were being

[00:19:05] taught at their, at their church, that it wasn't the meat of the, of the gospel. You know, especially

[00:19:11] when I was in high school, that became a big thing for me because I was starting to, to get sort of

[00:19:17] excited by systematic theology. And I saw what was going on at my, uh, my family's church, my extended

[00:19:24] family's church. And I started to feel like, ah, they're really not, they're not digging in.

[00:19:30] And they're, they're not maturing in their faith. They're not digging in. That's like such a,

[00:19:36] such a Christianese, um, phrase digging into the word. Yep.

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[00:20:30] So what led you then, this is like kind of high school, what led you to Bob Jones? How'd you end

[00:20:35] up going there? So I wanted to go away for college. You know, my, my parents, even though they weren't

[00:20:44] doing a whole lot of indoctrination at home, my mom still did the kind of stereotypical Asian

[00:20:48] tiger mom thing. And I wanted to get out of that environment. And so the only opportunity for me to

[00:20:54] go away to school was to attend one of the approved colleges or universities in my church.

[00:21:02] Okay.

[00:21:03] And one of them was Bob Jones University. There were a handful. There was Northland Baptist Bible

[00:21:07] College. There was Cedarville University, although-

[00:21:11] Oh yeah, I remember that one.

[00:21:12] I had friends go there.

[00:21:13] Oh wow. Okay. Cedarville was actually seen as potentially problematic because they didn't

[00:21:21] have the strict music standards that Bob Jones did. And my church was very big on that.

[00:21:26] Okay. I was going to say, I didn't remember it being as conservative as I would have imagined

[00:21:31] the list being for what would be approved. So that, that makes sense. That was not conservative

[00:21:36] enough.

[00:21:37] Yeah, no, they were not conservative enough. And one of my high school classmates whose family

[00:21:41] attended our church, she attended Cedarville University. And it was sort of the unspoken,

[00:21:49] like, oh, she's not as devout as the rest of us.

[00:21:53] She wasn't digging in.

[00:21:54] No, no. Yeah. So, I mean, we had, I had friends that went to Northland, which no longer exists

[00:22:02] anymore. I think it's basically just a camp and a conference center now.

[00:22:05] Okay. I was going to say, I haven't heard of that one.

[00:22:06] Yeah. That, that one disappeared. Clearwater Christian College was another one that we were

[00:22:12] allowed to attend, but they've, I think they've since closed. And then Pensacola Christian College

[00:22:17] was a funny one because they were even more conservative than my church.

[00:22:21] Okay.

[00:22:22] So you would think that would be okay, but my church was not a King James only fundamentalist

[00:22:28] church.

[00:22:28] Okay.

[00:22:29] We used the King James Version for morning services, but in the evening, my pastor liked to use the New

[00:22:36] American Standard Bible. So, so that put us on Pensacola's blacklist.

[00:22:43] Okay.

[00:22:45] Which was-

[00:22:46] So you were not conservative enough for Pensacola.

[00:22:49] They were like, we don't want you.

[00:22:50] Right. Exactly.

[00:22:51] Which worked out fine because Bob Jones University, out of all of the, the colleges that were available

[00:22:58] to me, aside from staying local, which I, you know, looking back, I wish I had done, but

[00:23:02] I didn't. I wanted to go away. Bob Jones University was the biggest of those schools. It had the most

[00:23:07] degree programs. It had a full liberal arts program. It had the best, the best music program,

[00:23:15] ironically enough, out of all of the, this, the universities in that milieu.

[00:23:20] And so that's where, that's where I ended up. And I think part of it too was I was very familiar

[00:23:26] with the campus already. I had been there multiple times for various reasons. I had attended basketball

[00:23:32] camp and music camp and drama camp there. My high school was part of the American Association

[00:23:38] of Christian Schools, which had an annual fine arts competition held at Bob Jones University.

[00:23:43] And I had gone there every year in high school for, for that competition. So I was very familiar

[00:23:48] with the campus. And so it kind of just felt comfortable. So when I did the campus tour as

[00:23:53] a potential student, that just to me was like, oh yeah, duh, I'll go here.

[00:23:58] Yeah. I know my way around.

[00:23:59] Yeah.

[00:23:59] Did you realize when you were there for camps and stuff that it was as conservative as it

[00:24:04] was?

[00:24:05] I mean, I recognized the teaching and I recognized the style and some of the rules, because my youth

[00:24:11] group had a lot of the same rules like around dress codes and whatnot. But I didn't know

[00:24:16] about the extent of it until I got to campus.

[00:24:20] Okay.

[00:24:21] And in my mind, there was no turning back as a freshman. Sorry. In my mind, there was no

[00:24:26] turning back there. Technically, there was. I probably could have called home and said, yeah,

[00:24:31] this is not for me. There were things that I just wasn't aware of. Like I didn't realize

[00:24:37] they had rules against watching any movies at all. So I assumed because I knew the standards

[00:24:44] of my church that anything above PG was off limits. So I brought some DVDs. I had like the

[00:24:51] 1978 Superman DVD, which was my favorite movie as a kid. So I brought that one with me.

[00:24:56] I brought a few other movies and they were all rated PG. But it turns out that anything

[00:25:02] above a G rating is considered off limits at Bob Jones, you know, for 18 to 24 year olds.

[00:25:13] Um, and the other thing is you weren't allowed to have movies if you lived on campus and you

[00:25:19] weren't allowed to go to a movie theater off campus. The only times you were allowed to watch movies

[00:25:24] were if you were visiting a faculty or staff members home with a group and they happened to show a G

[00:25:34] rated movie at the home. I feel like you need a class to learn all the rules, like when you can do this

[00:25:44] and when you can't. And like, like a flow chart, like you can watch a movie if is it rated G? Yes.

[00:25:51] Is it rated PG? No. Are you at a faculty member's house? No.

[00:25:55] Oh, and I just, I want to say that like, I'm an elementary school teacher. Those are our rules

[00:26:02] for elementary schoolers. Like, I mean, I teach six year olds and that's the standard that we have

[00:26:09] for our six year olds. Like, you know, before vacation, if you're going to show a movie, it has

[00:26:13] to be G. Right. Right. And we were not university standards. Yeah, no, not university students. Although

[00:26:18] yeah, when we were technically, even during break, we were technically not allowed to go to movies,

[00:26:23] but like, I wasn't going to adhere to those rules. Although my church had similar rules,

[00:26:27] but my family, my family liked going to the movies. So what we would do is we would go towards

[00:26:34] New York city. Okay. Because the, the people in our church were all Western Jersey and anywhere

[00:26:41] towards New Jersey was getting closer and closer to sinfulness geographically. Sorry, towards New York

[00:26:47] city. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so my family was just like, well, if we go East, like to where my,

[00:26:52] my, my grandmother lives, she lives like, you know, 15 minutes from, from New York city. So

[00:26:56] like, if we go in that area, we can go see movie, go to a movie theater and we're not going to run

[00:27:02] into anybody from our church because you know, they're all too scared to venture into that part

[00:27:07] of New Jersey. So like the watered down Christian family has like a maybe burning in hell,

[00:27:13] but also you get to watch movies. So, you know, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of, I think one thing

[00:27:21] that I was able to do was compartmentalize a whole lot. I think my, my mom had a little bit more

[00:27:27] difficult of a time with that. I think part of it was that often her job would have been on the line.

[00:27:33] And when I got into my, yeah. When I got into my high school years, I started my, my act of

[00:27:38] rebelling was music because I had grown up playing music and I wanted to expand my tastes. And that's

[00:27:47] when I discovered pop and rock. And yeah, if I think if anyone had found out, my mom could have

[00:27:54] lost her job, which is probably why she reacted. So it was one day we got home from church. My mom

[00:28:01] didn't go. It was the evening service and my brother, my dad and I had gone and we got, we got home.

[00:28:06] And when we got home, I heard Evanescence blasting in the house. And I'm like, immediately I knew,

[00:28:12] oh, my mom found my CDs. And I was grounded for like a month.

[00:28:22] But I like that she told you that she found them by just like blasting the music or was she like

[00:28:28] listening to it? Cause she didn't think anybody was home. I think she was, well, interesting.

[00:28:32] Maybe she liked it. No, that was definitely not in her style. My mom, after we left fundamentalism,

[00:28:40] my mom started opening up about her upbringing and what she listened to as, as a, as a kid and as a

[00:28:46] high schooler. And she was very much in the, um, the Beatles crowd. She listened to a lot of Beatles.

[00:28:54] Oh, she was big on ABBA. ABBA was her, like her, that was her jam. Actually at, at, at, uh,

[00:28:59] Gail and my wedding for the, the mother son dance, I did dancing queen with my mom,

[00:29:05] which was, she was having a blast. And I was, yeah,

[00:29:09] that's so cute. Yeah. Which I was, you know, after everything that we had been through and

[00:29:14] everything that my, that our church took away from my mom and even from my dad to a degree,

[00:29:20] although my dad, because he worked in the city, he wasn't home a lot. So he wasn't as exposed to the

[00:29:26] church, uh, as the rest of us were. So I don't know that my dad really even realized what was kind

[00:29:34] of going on internally. Yeah. Um, and my mom, my mom would never have really talked about that because

[00:29:39] I think she just sort of took all of the, the teachings that we were getting from the church

[00:29:44] in. And I think they also, like my mom probably saw their parenting as, as potentially suspect,

[00:29:51] like, but we weren't, my brother and I weren't really taking to the attempts at cracking down

[00:29:57] that my parents was, my mom tried with us. We just became more clever at keeping things hidden

[00:30:04] from the school and from the church. Um, you know, and my mom, my mom would say, okay, you can't

[00:30:10] tell anybody at church that we are seeing this movie or doing this thing or whatever, you know?

[00:30:15] I'm like, I feel for your mom, you know? Yeah. I might, my, honestly, my mom has come a long way

[00:30:21] and there's still some things that we clash on, but by and large, one of the things that I've noticed

[00:30:26] about my parents is that they see their relationship with, with me and my brother as more important than

[00:30:33] the teachings that they're getting from their church. So, you know, whenever there's a clash,

[00:30:40] my parents tend to evolve, which has been helpful. You know, it's been a little bit more challenging

[00:30:46] since, since I left evangelicalism altogether. And when I started attending our local UCC church,

[00:30:53] it's like got the biggest pride flag in town. So it's hard to miss. And my mom was very uncomfortable

[00:31:00] with that. I think she's since sort of gotten used to it. We had like, Gail and I had our wedding

[00:31:04] there. So, and my mom was completely fine with it. She didn't say anything. I think she's sort of

[00:31:09] gotten used to it. She often will bring up, oh yeah, I had a gay best friend. I'm like, mom,

[00:31:13] you were, you were his beard. So she tells you all these stories and I'm like, oh my God, mom.

[00:31:18] Yeah. You, you were, you were his beard. What is that?

[00:31:25] Oh yeah. I think I've talked about this. I don't remember if I talked about this on,

[00:31:29] when I was on your podcast, but my parents too have always valued their relationship with my sister

[00:31:37] and I over whatever the church is teaching. And I feel very lucky in that because, you know,

[00:31:43] they went to church for, for a while after I stopped going, but it wasn't this like, if we leave

[00:31:48] the church, we're going to lose our parents kind of feeling for, for either for, yeah, my sister or I,

[00:31:53] and that's not true for a lot of people. So I feel, I feel very lucky that, you know,

[00:31:58] that that's the case. Yeah. Same. Yeah. So like, I mean, one of the,

[00:32:03] the first steps that we took was, I mean, there were a lot of things that were happening at our

[00:32:08] church after my brother and I had graduated from, uh, from high school. After I graduated from college,

[00:32:14] my, my brother ended up coming to Bob Jones for two years. And then when I graduated,

[00:32:18] he's like, Hey, no way in hell I'm going back there. So he, he started attending like community

[00:32:26] colleges, um, and just tried to, tried to finish up school locally, which was frustrating for my

[00:32:34] parents because they, everyone in my family has extended degrees. You know, they've, they've got

[00:32:39] their, their bachelor's, their master's tertiary degrees. So it's like my brother not finishing

[00:32:44] college was sort of a big deal or going to local community colleges over a university.

[00:32:51] Ironically enough, nobody ever said anything about the fact that I was attending an unaccredited

[00:32:55] university. I was going to say, was the community college an actual better education than Bob Jones?

[00:33:04] Exactly. I look back and I'm like, yeah, I should have done that. Cause then I might've had a degree

[00:33:10] worth something. Um, luckily now I work for a state university and so I'm able to, to like,

[00:33:16] they, they just took my transcripts and they're like, all right, yeah, you want your master's here?

[00:33:20] Sign up. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Then I will. I'll take you up on that. So, so yeah, I'm,

[00:33:26] I'm currently in a master's program, which I'm, I'm excited about, but I think the,

[00:33:31] the bigger thing that's exciting me is like, it will erase my BJU degree. Um, but Oh, going back to

[00:33:41] first year at BJU. So yeah, I want some more BJU stories, which is, is a great, uh, nickname by the

[00:33:48] way. Oh yeah, absolutely. So what's funny is when I was attending, I, I was afraid to use the phrase

[00:33:56] BJU. A lot of people did the, the, the, what we call, we called them bojos, the, the people who

[00:34:02] were like really hardcore about the rules and they, they would refer to, I attend BJU. And I'm like,

[00:34:07] why are you so proud about that? Like, do you know what that stands for outside this world?

[00:34:13] Maybe they don't. Yeah. No, they probably don't knowing, knowing those people.

[00:34:18] Like I, I went to a, I worked at a summer camp and it was called beaver camp and it was,

[00:34:25] it was established in 1969 and they put that on all of their like merch and stuff. So it was like

[00:34:33] beaver camp 69 with like a beaver, like a picture of a beaver chewing on a piece of wood. So it was,

[00:34:42] but nobody knew. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was a Mennonite summer camp and I don't think they had any idea.

[00:34:48] Anyway. Okay. I think that's probably the case for, for a lot of people. Um,

[00:34:53] me, I, I kept that all to myself because, you know, any knowledge of porn or any knowledge of sex

[00:35:03] was, was seen as like you were world, you were perverted and sinful. So I couldn't let anybody

[00:35:09] know that I, that I had this idea about what BJU could stand for. Um, so, so yeah, while I was there

[00:35:17] and even for a while afterwards, I would refer to it as Bob Jones university, even after I left,

[00:35:24] um, evangelicalism, I was like, Oh, I attended Bob Jones university. And then at one point I'm like,

[00:35:28] why do I actually, it's funnier. If I say BJU, I tell people that I attended BJU,

[00:35:35] that's funnier. So I just, I just own it now. Like, yeah, I attend BJU. I attended BJU. I got my

[00:35:46] old BJU logo was this B and a J kind of formed together. Okay. And then in that was like a U,

[00:35:56] but it was basically, if you, if you didn't look at it long enough, you could be forgiven to think

[00:36:01] it just said BJ. Okay. Um, I'm like trying to draw it. Yeah. So that was the old logo. And it was what,

[00:36:12] when you were a first year student for your first, I think for your first month or your first three

[00:36:17] months, they gave you a pin and they expected you to wear it around campus sort of to signify that,

[00:36:23] you know, if you break a rule, you were supposed to be given a little bit extra leeway because there

[00:36:29] are a lot of rules here and we can't expect all of our first year students to pick them up right away.

[00:36:33] You haven't finished your rules class yet. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So we were expected to wear this

[00:36:39] pin that I did not wear because the pin said first for first year student. And then the logo BJ.

[00:36:54] So there is a whole class of people walking around with first BJ pins.

[00:37:03] Oh, neat. That's fantastic. I, uh, after, after this, I'll send you,

[00:37:07] I'll send you a picture of it. It's yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Yep. And I, I, and it comes up in

[00:37:16] my memories every so often because I think last year or two years ago, I might've shared it to my

[00:37:20] story. Just like, just a reminder that, uh, the, you know, all first year BJU students wore this pin

[00:37:27] as a way to let everyone know that those rules were tough to swallow.

[00:37:36] Oh, and like, it wouldn't be, it's like, okay. Yes. Things are sometimes labeled BJ in the world

[00:37:43] or like you see the number 69 places. Okay. We don't need to laugh at it every time. Like it's,

[00:37:48] it's funny, but like, or you can laugh at it every time, but like, but what makes it so funny is that

[00:37:53] they're so intense about not knowing anything or doing anything sexual or just like purity culture.

[00:38:03] to the nth degree. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, but you guys don't realize that you're,

[00:38:10] you're all walking around with first BJ pins on

[00:38:15] looking back, you know, if I, if I were there with the brain I have now, I would have worn that

[00:38:23] thing with, I would have walked around town. I would have left campus and walked around town

[00:38:27] with that. Can we get one? I have an idea. The, the most recent podcast to join Dauntless,

[00:38:36] which right now would be me, which is why I'm going to say this should get a first BJ pin.

[00:38:42] And then when we add someone else, we will hand over the pin.

[00:38:46] Yeah. Hand over the pin. Oh, that's a great idea.

[00:38:49] Yeah. Please. Can I have one? Maybe we, we force you to, to put that on your podcast artwork.

[00:38:56] You're my designer. So it's up to you.

[00:39:02] Yeah. I might make you an alternate, uh, alternate cover art. We'll see.

[00:39:06] An alternate cover. Oh my God. For your, for your episode cover. I need a first BJ on there.

[00:39:14] Okay. Can you give us some, some of the other weird BJU rules?

[00:39:19] So, I mean, let's see. Oh, there, and there were incongruous rules. Um, for instance,

[00:39:26] if you were living on campus, so if you, if you didn't, you know, you didn't live in town,

[00:39:31] if you were going on a date with somebody off campus, you had to have a chaperone with you,

[00:39:37] which was usually a grad student or, or older. And you could only do that if you were, I think,

[00:39:43] a third, third and fourth year student. If you were a first and second year student,

[00:39:46] you weren't allowed to leave campus on a date. Okay. Yeah. So there was that rule. However,

[00:39:51] there were some loopholes there. So if, and this is where the, the school gets real patriarchal.

[00:39:55] So if you were a girl who lived on campus and you were dating a guy who lived in town,

[00:40:03] you would have to have a chaperone with you. But if you were a girl who lived in town,

[00:40:11] dating a guy who lived on campus, you could leave campus without a chaperone. Because I think the

[00:40:18] expectation was you are under the care of your father as a girl in town. Ew. Yeah. I took advantage

[00:40:27] of that and dated a girl who lived in town. And we just went off campus. And one thing that was

[00:40:34] great about her was that she was very, um, in tune with the world, quote unquote. So like,

[00:40:40] and there were all these, uh, these various ways that the university could pick up on what was going

[00:40:45] on. So for instance, you know, you had your little parking sticker that you put on, on your,

[00:40:50] on your car, but people going around town would check for the, the BJU parking stickers on,

[00:40:56] on people's cars. So if they were policing each other, yeah, everyone's it is. It's a,

[00:41:01] yep, exactly. It's a culture of everybody policing. Like students were, were empowered to

[00:41:05] basically turn each other in for stuff. So the, the girl I was dating, she, uh, would borrow her

[00:41:13] dad's car that didn't have a BJU parking sticker. And she would use that car to pick me up. And then

[00:41:21] we would go into town and we'd have like a change of clothes so that we wouldn't look like BJU students

[00:41:27] when we were wandering around, around town. So yeah. And then we could go to places that we weren't

[00:41:33] allowed to go to. We could go to restaurants that had bars. We could go to, uh, there was a coffee

[00:41:38] shop that had live music that we were not allowed to go to as students. Um, it was called coffee

[00:41:43] underground, which is hilarious. When you think about the name, it's like tailor made for BJU

[00:41:49] students to like sneak in there. Um, and it's not like they even served alcohol or anything at the

[00:41:56] time. They might now, but like back then they, you know, it was a coffee shop that happened to,

[00:42:01] you know, have live music. Um, and we were not allowed to go there, but we would go there.

[00:42:05] So yeah, that was one of the, one of the things there was also, you know, no physical contact

[00:42:09] between guys and girls. So, you know, Oh, it was so awkward. A lot of the couples on campus,

[00:42:15] they would stand in like the designated dating zones. And since they weren't allowed to hold hands,

[00:42:22] they weren't allowed to touch, there was no kissing. They would stand in the middle of the

[00:42:29] student center and they would like get inches from each other's face and just stare into each

[00:42:33] other's eyes. So like my friends and I would call that making eye babies,

[00:42:41] which is pretty gross, but you know, it just, you'd have like five or six couples all standing

[00:42:48] around student center gazing into each other's eyes, like an inch from each other.

[00:42:55] I just, I, I have so many questions. Like, why is there a dating zone? I mean, I know why,

[00:43:03] but like, why is there a dating zone?

[00:43:05] Yeah. Cause everywhere else on campus, guys and girls were not allowed to like

[00:43:09] hang out with each other socially. Like if you were together, you had to have either a chaperone

[00:43:16] or be working on schoolwork. So like in the library and like, even those areas were designed

[00:43:21] in a way with like lots of glass everywhere. And like, so there was, there was no corners that

[00:43:28] students could hide in and make out.

[00:43:30] See everything.

[00:43:31] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, the, I like, I call them dating zones. There really was only one

[00:43:38] area that was referred to as the dating parlor. I think now all of this stuff on campus looks

[00:43:43] completely different. But when I was there, there was an area of the student center called the dating

[00:43:48] parlor. And that was essentially like, it looked like a furniture store. It was just couches and

[00:43:54] couches and couches. And then a couple of chaperones walking around and couples sitting on these

[00:44:01] couches, staring at each other.

[00:44:03] It's like, why do we care so much what other people are choosing to do with their bodies?

[00:44:07] Why? Why do we care?

[00:44:10] I mean, this is evangelicalism we're talking about. And now, you know, fundamentalism that takes

[00:44:17] everything from evangelicalism and ratchets it up to 11.

[00:44:21] Yeah. Okay. Can you tell us why it would maybe have to be underground that you would go and listen

[00:44:29] to music? What weird music rules did they have at Bob Jones?

[00:44:33] Huh? I'm glad you asked.

[00:44:35] I'm already seething because I know the answer.

[00:44:37] Yeah. So, so at Bob Jones, I mean, there's all sorts of like history behind this. It's,

[00:44:43] it's not just Bob Jones, but it's fundamentalism at large. They believe that any music that emphasizes

[00:44:50] the two and the four beat of a four, four measure. So for those of you who are not, you know,

[00:44:55] you don't know music, the standard time signature is four, four. So that basically means four beats

[00:45:03] to each measure. So you think about it in like any song that you, that you hear almost any song

[00:45:08] is going to go one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. So an emphasis on the two and the four

[00:45:17] beats sounds like one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And it's a good bop. Most pop and rock

[00:45:25] is based on that. Now, most classical music that isn't a waltz has its emphasis on one and three.

[00:45:32] And sure, classical musicians and artists were able to work within those parameters because

[00:45:38] that's all they knew, but also they got creative outside of that. But, but essentially two, the

[00:45:44] emphasis on two and four was considered sinful. So emphasis on one and three was what was considered

[00:45:49] sacred or holy or godly. So that would sound like one, two, three, four, one, two, three,

[00:45:57] four, incredibly boring. And so that was what was allowed for us. And so anywhere you would go,

[00:46:07] if you were seeing an act play, even just like a regular ass church would have music that's sitting

[00:46:15] on that back beat because that's upbeat, that's fun, that's engaging, that can get your blood flow going,

[00:46:22] that can get your heart rate up a little bit. And so we weren't allowed to listen to anything like that.

[00:46:27] And just like for an example, I'm pulling like one song out of my mind. Shout to the Lord.

[00:46:32] Emphasis is on two and four. Okay. So like shout to the Lord. Yeah. You can't sing. That's like

[00:46:38] standard 90s song, right? Not allowed. Sinful. Yeah. It was, it was my favorite as a kid.

[00:46:46] But I, so I found ways around it. One of the ways, well, since I was dating a girl in town,

[00:46:52] I gave her my CD collection to keep with her so that during like dorm inspections, my CDs weren't,

[00:47:00] weren't going to get found when the iPod came out. Uh, I think the iPod was already up, but when I got

[00:47:05] my first iPod, I kept that in my, in my book bag with me all the time. And I had the little ear

[00:47:12] wired earbuds under, in my pillowcase. So when I would go to sleep at night, I would, you know,

[00:47:18] stick an earbud in and listen to whatever music I wanted to listen to. So sad. And like, I,

[00:47:26] I'm a music teacher. I have two degrees in music education. How do people learn? Like,

[00:47:33] how was there a music program at BJU? Did they, could they listen to it for class? Do you think?

[00:47:39] There were certain, like some of the music faculty were able to get around some of those restrictions

[00:47:44] for like example purposes? Okay. Um, but they would kind of stop, not, not necessarily stop in the,

[00:47:55] you know, uh, romantic era, but I think at the point where they would hit the 20th century,

[00:47:59] they would ignore anything that wasn't 20th century classical. Yeah. I mean, I'm just like,

[00:48:06] the tritone interval is like satanic back in the day. Do they play a dominant seven chord? Like that has

[00:48:13] a tritone in it. I'm just like, I have so many questions. I need like a, I don't know. I,

[00:48:19] I have so many questions. I have some friends who were music majors. Cause I, I was in choir and

[00:48:24] orchestra there. I, I didn't study music. So like beyond high school and I, I, my music theory stops,

[00:48:31] but if you ever want me to put you in touch with any of my friends who were music majors,

[00:48:35] I do. Yeah. Yeah. I could, I could do that. And you can ask them all sorts of questions

[00:48:42] and like, like Scott asked, what about five and seven? Can you do a song in five? Who knows?

[00:48:50] Possibly that again? I don't know. Now, now I mean, you're saying all this stuff out loud. I wish I,

[00:48:56] now I wish I had a, so my brother was a voice performance major for a couple of years at Bob

[00:49:01] Jones. I should ask him. Let's get him on the podcast. Yeah. I doubt he like, he doesn't want

[00:49:05] to talk about his evangelical past at all. Um, he's, he's fine with me talking about it,

[00:49:11] but he's just like, yeah, I want to pretend. I mean, I'm putting words in his mouth, but it,

[00:49:15] his, the way that I perceive the way his, uh, his reaction to all of it, he's like,

[00:49:19] kind of wants to pretend that none of that ever happened. Yeah. Which I'm like, dude,

[00:49:24] that's like 30 years. And everybody processes it so differently. Like I love talking about it. I find

[00:49:28] it super helpful to talk about and like interesting. And I love being like,

[00:49:31] what bands did you listen to? My husband and I love talking about it together, but like,

[00:49:37] it is his worst nightmare to be on the podcast. So, you know, it's like everybody has a different

[00:49:41] like level of, of what is helpful to talk about. So, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So that was

[00:49:48] actually one of the things that I got into a lot of trouble for. So we had these mandatory,

[00:49:55] basically fraternities and sororities at Bob Jones. They were literary societies, quote unquote,

[00:49:59] because they're not worldly like that. But we had one event for my society where I was leading the,

[00:50:06] the hymn singing. They don't call it leading worship because apparently that's sinful. That

[00:50:11] phrase doesn't apply. And it's all like worship music, but we don't call it that. Is it all hymns?

[00:50:16] It's gotta be, right? It's, it's all hymns. And then like whatever is published by Bob Jones

[00:50:20] University or like their sister organizations that also write and record music. Okay. So they have their

[00:50:27] whole like, yeah, it is a cult. Yeah. And there, there are other groups like the wilds, uh,

[00:50:32] Christian camp and conference center that they publish music as well. And that's allowed at Bob

[00:50:37] Jones. Okay. So I was, I was pushing the limits. I knew I was, but I wanted to do it anyway because

[00:50:44] it was fitting with the theme of the evening. We, we, we did it for like a Valentine's event and how,

[00:50:50] how awful to have like a Valentine's event and you're like having, you know, a devotional and,

[00:50:56] and him singing. But anyway, so. Cause all you could do was look in each other's eyes.

[00:51:03] So, uh, so I led a number of the songs and one of the songs, I chose a bunch of songs that had to

[00:51:07] do with love. And one song that I chose was, um, Michael W. Smith's above all. And I mean,

[00:51:14] a lot of people loved it. There were people in the group who knew the song and they sang along.

[00:51:19] So clearly I wasn't the only one who was familiar with this, but a couple of weeks later, I got an

[00:51:26] email from the Dean's office and I was asked to come into the Dean's office and they, well,

[00:51:31] the Dean of the Dean of men. Sorry. That's, that's a thing they have there. They have,

[00:51:35] they have a Dean of men and they have a Dean of women.

[00:51:38] This is a school. Like we should all be just getting education. Why, why are we,

[00:51:43] why do we need a different Dean for women?

[00:51:47] These are the Deans that ensured that the students were adhering to the rules.

[00:51:51] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:53] So the campus policing Dean.

[00:51:56] Mm-hmm. Yep. So I got an email from, from his office and I got called in to discuss my choice of

[00:52:03] music. Now I played it off. I think I told him that I wasn't aware of who wrote the song. I,

[00:52:10] and the way I played it on my guitar, my strumming pattern was very, I, I did what I could to ensure

[00:52:16] that it fit within their standards. And that's a relatively easy song to pull it back and scale it

[00:52:22] a little bit.

[00:52:24] There's definitely a one in three emphasis in case anyone was worried.

[00:52:27] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:30] So, um, so he asked me if I, if I was familiar with the song, where it came from. I said, no,

[00:52:35] actually, um, I, I bullshitted him. I told him I, I heard it at my church back home. And so I asked

[00:52:43] for the sheet music from my church and then that's how I got ahold of it. So he, so he told me this is

[00:52:48] from a contemporary Christian music artist who his other songs are in very, um, what they refer to as

[00:52:57] uncheckable styles. So like, because you were not aware of who this musician was and the association

[00:53:05] of the song will give you 50 demerits. Oh yeah. The demerit system. That's a third of your demerits.

[00:53:12] Yes. So yeah, we have 150 demerits. Yeah. It would have been a hundred if I had done this

[00:53:17] knowingly quote unquote, but it was, it was almost kicked out for playing Michael W. Smith.

[00:53:22] Yeah. Michael W. Smith people. Yeah. Yeah. And not even one of his fun songs. No.

[00:53:31] Yeah. So that was, that was one example. And then going back to my, my first year,

[00:53:38] one of the things now, Bob Jones has a very sketchy history when it comes to race. I've talked

[00:53:45] about this a bunch on my own podcast, but suffice to say that they didn't admit black people to the

[00:53:51] school until they were essentially forced to, uh, they lost their tax exempt status because of several

[00:53:58] race related rules that they had on campus. And famously during George W. Bush's campaign,

[00:54:05] he had a stop at Bob Jones university and they came under fire under scrutiny because of their,

[00:54:11] uh, interracial dating rule. There was no interracial dating on campus. So, and that was,

[00:54:16] you know, you remember the, the George W. Bush campaign was the year 2000. So Bob Jones, the third,

[00:54:21] who was the president of the university at the time, he went on Larry King live to basically talk

[00:54:26] about the school and what was going on. And Larry King asked him about this rule and on the spot

[00:54:32] there, probably because of the pressure that he was facing, he decided to announce that they were

[00:54:36] getting rid of the rule. Wow. So the, the school had to scramble to figure out a process and a system

[00:54:41] and all of this, because for basically the entirety of his, of its existence, I mean, not quite, they

[00:54:46] didn't start implementing the rule until they were kind of forced to, because of the fact that they were

[00:54:51] now having to admit black students. But for most of the school's history, you know, there was no

[00:54:57] interracial dating. You dated within your racial group essentially. So when I got there, I don't know

[00:55:06] if this was actually a rule or not. Yeah. Cause I wasn't the white person. So I didn't, I didn't have

[00:55:10] to get this thing, but like the, a girl that I went out with for one event told me that she had to get

[00:55:16] her parents to sign a permission slip in order to go to this event with me as her date. So no, yeah,

[00:55:24] because I'm not, you know, for, for, for all the listeners, I'm not even remotely white passing. So,

[00:55:31] so yeah, she had to get a permission slip to go on this date with me, which I don't know if that

[00:55:36] was part of the rules or if that was a vestige and there was, there were misunderstandings or if

[00:55:41] that was just something that her parents wanted her to do. I don't know what the story is behind

[00:55:46] that specific scenario, but I know that, that the reason for that was because of Bob Jones's history of

[00:55:53] banning interracial dating. Wow. And that's in like, what year were you there? I started in 2003.

[00:55:59] So I was there from 03 to 07. And 2000 is when they changed the interracial marriage rule. That

[00:56:06] is like, that is so recent. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. It's, and, uh, they didn't actually get their

[00:56:15] tax exempt status as a higher ed institution back until I think 2017 or 2018 or something like that.

[00:56:22] Wow. Yeah. So they've, they've got a, a messy, a messy history, but yeah. So I think while I was at

[00:56:30] Bob Jones, that was when like one of the first steps, some of the first steps in my own deconstruction

[00:56:35] came about and I, I sort of lost interest in really being a devout Christian at that point. I got back

[00:56:41] home, went back to my old church because that was my entire social circle. Like I grew up in a cult

[00:56:45] essentially that was a very small cult. So I had no social circle outside of that.

[00:56:49] Mm-hmm. So when I got back to, to Jersey, I just went back to my old church and those were my old

[00:56:54] friends, the young adults group there, but things were going on at that church that were pushing my

[00:57:00] family away. Like my brother decided not to get a haircut for a while and he got like unofficially

[00:57:07] kicked out of choir. Wow. Yeah. And so that kind of put my family in this sort of uncomfortable

[00:57:13] position at the church, especially because we were so active. Like my brother and I were

[00:57:19] part of the glue of that church's music program. And I mean, there were a handful of us that were

[00:57:25] musicians, but like we were the ones that were the studied ones that went like I, I didn't learn all

[00:57:32] my music within the fundamentalist system. Like my parents enrolled me in various like secular music

[00:57:36] programs when I was in school. So I got some music training outside of that environment. My brother

[00:57:42] went to college and studied music, you know, further. And there were a handful of us in,

[00:57:49] in my generation at that church that were musicians. And they, the church loved to pride itself on how good

[00:57:55] the music was because of all of these young people that were at the church, including my brother and me.

[00:58:02] And when they were like, yeah, you can't be in the choir anymore because of your hair,

[00:58:06] that sort of turned into this like, well, what are we as a family going to do? And so we up,

[00:58:12] we up and left my dad, uh, who was the treasurer for the church. He had a meeting with the pastor

[00:58:19] and some of the deacons and basically told them like these standards that you're enforcing at this

[00:58:24] church, they're unsustainable. And if you keep doing this, you know, my sons are not going to be

[00:58:30] the last ones to walk out. And yeah, we were the first of a, of several people who, uh, who left that church.

[00:58:39] So that's how we ended up leaving, leaving Parsippany Baptist.

[00:58:55] Nate's story doesn't end here after Parsippany Baptist and Bob Jones University. He goes on to find

[00:59:00] slightly more progressive churches, or at least ones that appear to be more accepting and inclusive.

[00:59:05] And one of those churches was Hillsong, New York, which you might remember hearing about on Janice

[00:59:09] Legata's episode a few weeks ago. So next week, Nate will be back to share about his life after the Bob

[00:59:15] Jones chapter, during his Hillsong chapter and where he finds himself now. If you'd like to hear more of

[00:59:21] Nate in the meantime, check out his podcast, Full Mutuality, which he co-hosts with his wife, Gail.

[00:59:26] And you can check them out on Instagram at Full Mutuality. See you next week.

[00:59:33] Thanks for listening to another episode of Hello Deconstructionists.

[00:59:37] If you enjoyed this episode or any others, please follow, subscribe, rate, or review the podcast

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[00:59:58] in the top banner. As always, you can find me over on Instagram at hello underscore deconstructionists,

[01:00:04] where together we are building community after evangelicalism one story at a time.

[01:00:10] Huge thank you to Amy Azera for writing the theme song for this podcast. And when this sweet little

[01:00:15] bop inevitably gets stuck in your head, I hope it reminds you of this wonderful community that's

[01:00:20] here with you. Thanks to all our guests for sharing these parts of their stories with us. And of course,

[01:00:25] to you for listening. See you next time.