104 - Meghan and Cortland | TwitBits and a Conversation About the Ashley Madison Docuseries

[00:00:00] This is a Dauntless Media Collective podcast. Visit dauntless.fm for more content. I think she endured verbal abuse for a season and she endured perhaps being smack one night and then she seeks help from the church.

[00:00:17] There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Marseille bus and by God's grace it'll be a mountain, by the time we're done, you either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus. Those are the options.

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[00:01:49] We're here to break down the binaries, deconstruct the dualities and wander through what it looks like to live in the gray. In church we were told that life after leaving would be a better wasteland of unfulfilling hedonism. We've discovered quite the opposite.

[00:02:06] There's actually a vibrant community of people on the other side of faith, we're finding and co-creating space for hope and healing. Come along as we explore the all-too-opt in uncharted experience of evangelicalism evolving faith in the life and the after.

[00:02:36] Welcome back to another episode of the thereafter podcast. We're here, we're back, we're very inconsistent these days but we are still putting episodes up to life man. They're just... They're surprised episodes. Yeah, well in its summer, you know what?

[00:02:55] It was my kid's last day of school today. June 18th, it just... It feels like summer's over and they're just finishing school. That's wild. My kid has been out for almost four weeks. Yeah, well and there was a teacher strike in the year but

[00:03:15] they, you know, and there were some snow days but and we typically start after Labor Day so we're pretty late when we start so. Okay, yeah so it's typical for you guys to go into June a little bit. Not this far.

[00:03:26] We're always out before June, like Colorado Schools and it seems very regional. Like New York, New Jersey. I got friends up in that area. They're like it's pretty normal for them to be finishing school like this week. Yeah, and the second even maybe third week.

[00:03:42] When I taught in Illinois, I was always out before Memorial Day so just depends. Yeah but then they don't start until September. Whereas we're always starting where I live in the first week of August is like the first week of school usually.

[00:03:58] Um, second week at the latest so yeah it's weird. I don't know who decides those things. You're the education person. You, you, yeah. We're going to come from. Stay touching cycle I think but this is, you know we're diving into maybe we should have had more

[00:04:13] conversation before we started recording. This is, this is, we actually did catch up already but this is very like work catching up. We just saw each other for the first time in three weeks conversation that the listeners usually don't get to be a part of.

[00:04:27] So welcome to this part of Megadized really. Yeah and we'll the other thing I got to say is we just recently made a switch from our podcasting platform. We were using squad cast and we moved to Riverside and we were having so many tech issues.

[00:04:42] We couldn't even talk like this. Like Cody, our editor is just a tech genius because I don't think our listeners really knew how bad it was but we were dropping calls.

[00:04:53] It was just we're talking over each other because there was a delay and so I think we're just kind of finally relieved to be able to look at each other and have a continuous conversation without it. Be in super chat. It's awesome.

[00:05:05] We're not that we are not the level of podcasts that has like a coupon code but like if you want to go to Riverside.fm use coupon code it's the best. It won't get you a discount but it is way better this one. So far.

[00:05:21] Maybe they'll come to us. It's fun. Okay. Riverside if you want to get in on this reach out to us. Have your people talk to us? Yeah seriously. Well we don't have a guest today.

[00:05:32] We have something that we want to talk about but before we get into it we're going to get back to Twitter. We have a major content warning at the top of this just because we're going to be talking

[00:05:42] about a situation that involved some sexual contact with a minor and just want to let people know at the top because there was a situation people were talking about on Twitter and

[00:05:55] want to talk a little bit about it but want to make sure people have the space if you need to step away or jump to the interview or jump to our conversation later we'll put a timestamp in our show notes. So absolutely. Yeah. So yeah.

[00:06:10] But Robert Morris pastor of Gateway Church there's been a lot of chatter about him because he had previously said oh I had yeah this moral failure in the 80s with a young lady

[00:06:22] and the story came out on Friday that this was not a young lady this was a 12 year old girl and it happened repeatedly over years and he's still been the pastor of this church all this time he was a spiritual advisor for Trump.

[00:06:38] He also was somebody that really supported Mark Triskell when he left Marseille and so there's been just a lot of outrage and fuel from all sides I would say even evangelicals were raging about this right

[00:06:53] Yeah, I mean it's it is not surprising I mean anybody within the machine who is outraged or I mean it's not outraged but like surprised by this I you know question the authenticity of that

[00:07:10] because this stuff is so prevalent it's so becoming so much more exposed and talked about and there's just a deep culture of a covering this sort of thing up that I think we've talked

[00:07:30] about in lots of cases before and this is just another example of that pattern and that culture of cover up and abuse and protecting abusers and protecting systems of power that feel threatened by acknowledging victims stories and the reality of the victims that the

[00:07:58] absolutely and I think there were a couple of things or a few things about this story particularly because it was never reported to authorities they quote unquote handled it in house with a couple

[00:08:10] years of again air quotes restoration and healing and it feels like and you know I was tweeting about these are mandatory reporters in the church so these are people that have a legal

[00:08:23] obligation to report child abuse just in the last couple hours before we hit record you had seen on Twitter that he has resigned and the elders are saying oh we didn't know the whole story

[00:08:34] we didn't know she was 12 and it's so wild to me that they would claim that knowing that the law with the law says and I actually it's been murky of you know people have been saying

[00:08:44] different things about the statute of limitations in Texas but still like just the way that they're like yeah we handled it oh we didn't really know what happened and it was like okay so did you handle

[00:08:57] it and if you handled it and you never talked to the person that was the victim in this situation if you're claiming which I don't believe for a second if you're claiming you didn't know who it

[00:09:07] was then you you didn't handle it because all you did was work with you know Robert or whatever you did you know and it's again it's a it's a PR it's it's just like a okay let's see where the liability

[00:09:20] is and handle it and in the 80s the internet didn't exist the way that it does now and so now stories spread and stories get told and stories are heard and seen and I'm glad this story is coming to

[00:09:34] light but I just think about all the years of trauma that this woman has probably gone through as a survivor yeah yeah and again this is this is not uncommon for things to be handled I mean anyone

[00:09:51] who watched the dugger stuff and the docu series that came out about that and how you know they shipped Josh off to a um doesn't any of the dugger Josh's memories that the older one he you know

[00:10:05] shipped him off to some sort of little like work camp boys camp thing and they're like yeah this is how we're handling it essentially just kind of covering up the molestation of his like sister various other situations

[00:10:18] I mean all throughout I know a very prevalent large church pastor in Texas who married his wife when she was 16 he was a youth pastor with you know parental permission who knows what happened that spurred that on typically when people you know grown man or

[00:10:40] marrying 16 year olds there's something that happened like like we've talked before about and again not to just lump all these people together but it's patterns of behavior we've talked about who's the guy who to go for acts 29 uh Chandler also a Texas mega church pastor right I mean

[00:11:03] Matt his wife she was a camper at a youth camp that he spoke out again this is not saying that anything per se inappropriate happened but this pattern of 20 something I think Robert Morris

[00:11:15] he said in the story was 20 something his in his 20s this is a child who's 12 at the time the first time of this abuse that apparently went on for several years over several different occurrences and occasions

[00:11:32] I was a part of a ministry where a guy in his 20s was courting a girl in her teens early teens you know like like this this type of pattern is not an exception it's not a weird outlier a rare

[00:11:51] thing that happens in these like you know really ancestral backwards Arkansas churches with 12 people I mean these are lots of big mega church mega ministry pastors who have very similar over you know overlay in these stories so um I think that there is this culture of

[00:12:16] excusing not asking questions not kind of talking about the fact that this is these are children even at 15 16-year-old you know regardless of what weird okay a clause exists about child marriage

[00:12:34] it's these are children well and here's my question too along with that yes 100% I agree with you one thing that I want to just talk about before we move on to the bigger conversation we're wanting

[00:12:45] to have today is um my surprise was not in that this happened it's my reaction of evangelicals that especially because I tweeted out hey if you're wondering why we're deconstructing exhibit

[00:13:01] a and so many people were in my mentions like oh this is just a fallen man this is not representative of god you know and so then I ended up writing a whole thread because I was like no there are things

[00:13:14] in evangelicalism this is a system that upholds abuse and celebrissive users and there are patterns here that are problematic this is not like you said an outlier this is not a one-time thing

[00:13:26] and you know in addition to all of these patterns of abuse there's also toxic theology there's so much racism and bigotry and quafobia and misogyny but also as you're saying like the system itself

[00:13:41] is designed to up to have this abuse happen and have these power dynamics be you know abused and taken advantage of and so that was my surprise in this whole thing was yes people are raging

[00:13:55] from all sides but also there's a lot of evangelicals at the end of the day we're like well that's too bad for that one pastor at that one church glad my pastor at my church is safe quote on quote

[00:14:06] safe and it's like I'm not saying every pastor is a dirt bag but I'm also saying the system itself is what's fucked yeah and I mean this is just like permeates all conservative ideology this like failure to acknowledge systemic problems and this like fierce independent ideology about like

[00:14:33] every individual is you know my relationship with Jesus is this individual thing my salvation is this very individual personal thing the which is which is like a new concept right like like outside of like traditional christian dumb and like traditional biblical like Christianity

[00:14:57] and then going back even further to like Judaism like like sin and salvation and repentance and all of these concepts are communal systemic concepts right there things that like we're not an individual thing and christians love to individualize conservatives love to individualize when it

[00:15:18] when they're protecting their systems and then they love to institutionalize when they're demonizing something right like all queer people are institutionally right all uh and again trigger warning kind of warning we're we're talking about a lot of really touchy things but like all

[00:15:38] drag queens or pedophiles right all you know it's just like they love to create a very false narrative around these systemic fear mongering you know that they do and yet then if you

[00:15:52] know there's an individual you know oh it's if a cop shoots somebody a person of color it's like oh it's a bad out it's a one it's a one time thing right and again it's just it's just basic justification

[00:16:04] right like we just it's the reason that these patterns of protecting abusers exist it's because people are like these institutions we need to protect to them right we need to protect the church we need

[00:16:17] to somehow protect God this idea that like oh well that doesn't represent God yeah of a fucking course like like like that's what we're saying the church that he was the pastor of anyway so let's just smooth

[00:16:32] on like no one is no one is arguing you with you about that right like sure maybe there is like a very aggressive anti-theist person who is going to really argue with you about the evil of your

[00:16:47] God most people are gonna go yeah like you like you don't get God to begin with we see that that's another reason we're leaving of course yeah well speaking of corruption and scandal we're going to segue I thought we would segue when you brought up Josh Jagger but

[00:17:08] we had a little bit more to talk about but we're gonna segue into talking about the Ashleigh Madison documentary there's a couple documentaries out there but there's just one that just released in 2020-24 and I have a new love for all things documentaries especially cold documentaries but this

[00:17:24] one's I mean it kind of is a little coolty but this is you know it was fascinating I don't know let's talk about Ashleigh Madison yeah yeah I know somebody named Ashleigh Madison by the way

[00:17:38] the whole name that's like first and last name that's her name is Ashleigh Madison yeah yeah which has got to be a wild experience to live to live with that name because it is it is so culturally

[00:17:53] like I don't think there's very many people that you can say that name to and they don't know at least somewhat what you're talking about which going into I thought was kind of interesting because

[00:18:04] I was kind of of that like I know what it was I remember the scandal but I really did know too much about the details of the history of it the what exactly happened with the scandal like I I

[00:18:19] remembered the billboard I remember a pastor at a church that I was going to did a sermon series on billboards of course it's like a very secret church so it was like it was like six

[00:18:33] popular billboards from around the city yeah and yeah real mega church shit and one of the billboards was the life is short having a fair billboard and so like before the scandal I remember I think that

[00:18:51] was my first hearing about Ashleigh Madison was that sermon series about the billboard that they had put up like a short having a fair and so it was interesting to see how the

[00:19:04] company came up how you know how it fell it was fascinating there's a lot of weird things to get into and to talk about about this particular documentary they chose some interesting angles right

[00:19:18] I I haven't done any research and I should have like you know you watch the documentary that's a good semester I mean like digging into like where the money like who made the documentary like

[00:19:33] like who produced it where you know like I I have to think there's a possibility that that YouTube couple that was a primary feature in the documentary who from what I could tell I

[00:19:50] spoiler alert I can seem very evangelical still I kind of wonder if they like helped to produce or fund or or if like part of it was like a PR piece for them to like kind of re-brand or reframe

[00:20:06] their image from the scandal or create some sort of because it was definitely like their story was central to the like kind of our art story arc narrative and it was like definitely had a

[00:20:21] an agenda right like there was a very kind of like pro evangelical marriage redemption arc narrative that was happening there that feels like somebody and a producer somebody was like trying to

[00:20:37] yeah okay there's so many things that I want to talk about especially now that you bring them up but first I need to say life is short having affair and the way that the guy said he was like you

[00:20:51] know I looked at that tagline and I thought life is short that's true so having affair that must be true too like there are so many things you could follow up life is short with like life is

[00:21:02] short ghost guy diving life is short read a book every day like there's so many things that you could say and it was just interesting that the tagline is like having affair and it's like

[00:21:15] so that but also juxtaposed with like this illusion for you being unhappy in your marriage is to have an affair like is to like have more secrecy have manipulation have this private

[00:21:34] you know situation and I that's where I kind of want to start because I feel like you know why didn't they market themselves as like life is short get it to worse or life is short

[00:21:45] you have therapy with your partner and have some really great communication like life is short life is short beyond it with your spouse like so can we just for a second unpack that because I

[00:21:58] just I I know it's like the very beginning but I just need to get that go there absolutely I mean I think that there is this there's this underlying kind of like compelling logic behind like you don't have to necessarily get divorced it just like obviously when

[00:22:18] the wrong direction right it could have been like no keep going with that train of thought though you don't have to get divorced like a lot of people don't want to get divorced but you want

[00:22:27] to like fuck other people or you want something different or your board or your tired or your things have gotten monotonous or whatever it might be this idea that like we should be talking

[00:22:42] about that and not just like telling people to like buckle down you know push through whatever it might be but obviously to like to lean into this idea of a secret relationship and having an affair

[00:23:03] like I think for for most people I want to say everybody but it's like I do try to avoid being totally prescriptive but I think for 99% of people your life is going to get less enjoyable like like secrets

[00:23:22] are not enjoyable like it is not it is not I don't think anyone really improves their life that way and feels like their quality of life goes up by having a secret to keep having something

[00:23:37] living a double life all that all that sort of thing but also I think that there is an element of like this was obviously marketed very heavily towards man it was very much a cash grab as you

[00:23:50] know here as you kind of watch the documentary it was very much set up to like get men spending money and chasing this idea of you know sex even if you know they're really warned that many actual

[00:24:08] women on this website to hook up with or talk to these fake accounts and fake women that they were producing and creating a site to get men to pay to be able to message etc so I mean they're

[00:24:25] so much making you tell me that's I could ramble about this because yeah obviously no I you're you're going in a direction that I want to go into though because one of the things

[00:24:36] as I was watching I'm you know a lot of our listeners know that I in the last couple years went through a separation and then a divorce and so as I was watching I was really thinking about their approach

[00:24:48] to marriage and their values with when it came to marriage and especially because it was monogamy that they were I mean it was like it never even entered into their minds the concept that

[00:25:00] non-monogamy exists because they even highlight one couple that there was a woman on there that was married and had what she called permission to cheat on her partner and it was like okay that's

[00:25:14] not monogamy like that exists that's not like this innovative like big reveal of a documentary and then you know what you said because it was making me reflect just on marriage in general

[00:25:25] and what you said about like okay you know people sometimes they don't want to get divorced but they have things that they're navigating and I feel like instead of like solving that problem

[00:25:36] with an affair maybe like society is a whole should do like an every five year check-in to like I mean when I was a teacher I had to renew my teaching certificate every five years do a little like

[00:25:49] brushing up on you know how things were going and make sure I was up on everything and I feel like couples could a kind of a format too like a nice little like our our values aligned

[00:26:00] our goals and our desires and our wants aligned and if not like how can we figure that out and I just think that there's not a framework that exists right now in relationships for those cameras I think non-monogamous folks do that really really well they communicate really well

[00:26:17] about you know all of the relationship agreements that they have and I think monogamous folks get married and they just say we're going to be married for life and they don't ever do those kind of

[00:26:29] check-ins unless unless they get to a point where they're forced to you know like it just seems to be the trend I when I say don't ever I mean like generally I don't know so that was my thought

[00:26:40] kind of walking it's compulsory right it's it is and and I really do think that compulsory monogamy but compulsory heterosexuality like like is is bad is like harmful is unhelpful creates negative outcomes and you know you'll hear conservative folks be like oh man you just like

[00:27:08] hate straightness and you hate you know marriage and you hate monogamy and you hate you know and and no I don't like like like I'm not out to destroy straightness as a concept or marriage

[00:27:24] as a concept or monogamy as a concept or the you know nuclear family whatever whatever it might be I'm but I do think that those things being compulsory is problematic and is harmful right

[00:27:42] because we don't talk about what fidelity actually is right and that was like watching this documentary the way we talk about these things the the the way we frame the conversation says something right in the same way we've talked about on this this podcast a shit time

[00:28:05] that like the questions do you ask say something like like sometimes you're asking bad questions sometimes you're asking the wrong questions that like specifically our embracing or affirming a bad concept

[00:28:24] like it's baked into the question right and so in the same way when we talk about like all throughout this thing it was like there was this idea that like monogamy equals fidelity or faithfulness

[00:28:40] right and unfaithfulness equates to the opposite of monogamy right and and that is infidelity right and and these binaries were like framed in such a way that all of the conversation was like oh like like the op the infidelity unfaithfulness dishonesty cheating you know all of those things

[00:29:11] were just framed as the same thing right and then monogamy faithfulness fidelity loyalty right and and the reality is that like being monogamous doesn't make you like doesn't mean fidelity it doesn't mean like like there's so much more to that and so when you're framing the

[00:29:36] conversation even the couple that was like oh permission to cheat or we openly cheat or we openly you know like the way that they even framed or talked about open marriage was innately it was through the lens monogamy yeah it was it was it was legitimizing this like

[00:30:01] false binary this compulsory idea of like like I am you know in the same way that sometimes people will talk about queerness through the lens of straightness right it's like no it's that's a different it's a different thing we don't have to like make our queerness palatable

[00:30:19] through the lens of heterosexuality it is like that is not the foundation right straightness whiteness is not the foundation that all things then get get measured by because when we framed things that way we inherently bias those foundational things that we are using as the

[00:30:43] measuring stick as the as the ruler by which we you know justify or explain these other concepts and these other things and so the whole thing had me kind of like ringing my hands frustrated about

[00:30:56] like the way in which they were talking about relationship and honesty like there was there was no real conversation about the dishonesty and outside of tying it to a step outside of monogamy

[00:31:21] right or some sort of interdality yeah and I think and and I want to give a content warning too because there was a situation that happened in the story that involved a death and somebody

[00:31:35] taking their own life and so we'll talk about that here in a minute here but um i think one of the scariest conversations when you don't have that framework and when everything is through the

[00:31:45] lens of this like married for life i think one of the scariest conversations is to say to your partner i'm not okay or i'm not happy or in my case i used the language that i was having divorce

[00:31:57] ideation right like that was the framework that i like i just didn't know another way to express it and that was one of the most difficult conversations i ever had but i think what happens is as a society

[00:32:09] and i also think there's generational things too because i feel like you know our parents generation are grandparents generation we're like oh yeah people aren't okay in marriage that's just marriage like that's just how people live that's how people function we suffered you suffer that's marriage

[00:32:24] and i'm not saying marriage is bad i'm please hear me like i have a partner now that we're monogamous like i'm not anti monogamy i'm not anti being with somebody but i'm just saying like there's not a

[00:32:34] framework to be honest and to be open about your struggles and so to the degree that not only are you taking these pathways to have these like this this even further secrecy it's

[00:32:48] not just like and i'm not okay but it's like okay now i'm going to take steps to keep everything private but then with that story line with the seminary professor that you know he

[00:32:59] got fired immediately he was on the list when they released it and then he took his life and i in the they interview his wife throughout um and she talks about like she knew what was going on

[00:33:11] she didn't ever talked about it but she had a pretty good clue and she was mad like she was like you know this didn't have to happen but he didn't have to get to this point like we could have

[00:33:21] made repair like he and but the thing was the thought of having that conversation and the thought of facing those struggles that was how difficult that was you know and i'm sure there were lots of

[00:33:33] other things going on but i just think how awful is it that we don't as a society have a framework to have conversations when people are struggling and that you know and and this documentary

[00:33:43] pitches it like just cheat you know we'll give you that support and i know it's like that's our business that's their gimmick right but also i just again because of my context that was kind

[00:33:54] of how i was approaching it while i was watching it because i was like okay like there are so many things to unpack just about marriage and monogamy and not having that framework you know

[00:34:05] yeah and again it's just like i don't think it with this couple that they highlight the Christian vloggers the kind of the Christian vloggers that they highlight throughout the whole thing it's like the way in which they framed the entire thing was like it makes this

[00:34:35] it's the same it's the same thing and this is another like current event i guess it's the same did you watch any of the carol lents like any of his like most recent he just started to play

[00:34:45] something he was on documentary but i have not listened to it this is like the last couple weeks he has a new podcast out he was on ABC nightly news or something doing an interview talking about

[00:34:57] how you know his killed his marriage and you know his his struggle with sex addiction and that's always the thing right oh it was sex addiction my sex is gone yeah and and drug use right and i'm like oh so you were like

[00:35:18] um watch on a porn banging random people and taking a lot of out of all like every mega-turt past right ever met that was like like like you and every other white guy running a

[00:35:28] mega-turt right like literally like that is the description of every mega-turt past or i ever met so you're not unique Carl yeah for one but two they probably have a club like senior society

[00:35:42] they probably have a legit and Ashley Madison from mega-turt pastors to talk about their cheating with yes yeah in their outer all addictions like it's like it's it's it's unhinged

[00:35:54] but here's the thing is like the way in which he frames this like it is the again it's about the drugs it's about the sex it's about the sin the the sin it's about the porn it's about the

[00:36:12] hand jobs it's about and it's like none of those things are the problem like none of those things like you can have none of those things and still not be faithful to your partner right like

[00:36:29] it is not about avoiding these things and it was all framed in the idea of like I just wish I wouldn't have set up this website I wish I wouldn't have you know gone to the strip club

[00:36:41] I wish I wouldn't have you know he talks about these things I wish I wouldn't have you know all of these things were such a betrayal of my wife you know of my relationship of my vows whatever it

[00:36:53] might be and it's like all of those things were just symptoms of the thing that you refuse to talk about which is your shame your dishonesty your failure to be an authentic human being and literally you're just trading out porn and strip clubs for Bible study and prayer

[00:37:14] yes like it's the same thing like you are just as disconnected and I hate to this is going to come off really judgy but you're just as disconnected from yourself in your wife as you were when

[00:37:24] you set up that profile you've just traded the one thing for the other it's like now instead of like watching porn and going to the strip club I go work on my motorcycle and hang out with my

[00:37:36] you know hang out in the garage it's like like cool you just found a different way to like stay disconnected from your partner because none of those things are the problem okay I have to

[00:37:48] interrupt for just a minute and talk about influencer culture because number one that video of him supposedly telling his own wife that she was pregnant because he tested her urine by like

[00:38:02] he felt like that that was something that I saw when it went viral like I didn't follow them as vloggers then and beyond but at the time I was like this is bullshit like there is no way

[00:38:15] that this is an absolute setup and you can tell like I might just looking at kind of their content I was like okay there's and I you know if there's people listening that know them and think

[00:38:29] they're just the most authentic people I apologize but like just when I'm looking at this I'm like these people are very desperate for content and for likes and for that whole influencer vibe

[00:38:43] when they were out of fucking like vlogger convention with the Ashley Madison story broke and so I guess my next question is if people weren't like semi viral famous whatever like there were millions

[00:38:59] of people on this list and like how did how did they find the like 10 people that were on this documentary because I feel like there's hundreds and thousands of people that just went unnamed

[00:39:10] that probably we know right that just people never either heard about it or didn't know or didn't think to look or they didn't verify email addresses so some people were like oh yeah that was a fake

[00:39:22] email like I don't know how my name got on that list like how did that I just have so many questions about that type of thing and then you know it's like if these guys hadn't of

[00:39:33] fought so hard to become influencers they never would have been dragged publicly anyway for being an Ashley Madison yeah and that's why I think that they were a part of some some part of

[00:39:45] the production of this thing because even in throughout this whole thing it's framed in this way where there's still a it's still a PR stunt like this whole this whole documentary of them

[00:40:00] telling their story and it's the same thing again it did make the correlation with Carl it's the right like like this whole like I've healed my marriage I'm you know I'm in recovery I

[00:40:12] you know look you know what a testimony I mean oh man he has a really hard name to say Tulian um and it starts with the tea he's a pastor he was a grandson of Billy Graham okay

[00:40:32] I forget for he was a popular author pastor mega church big church pastor I'm a mega church but big church pastor had an affair ended up writing a book about grace redemption right it's I mean the the

[00:40:47] arc the narrative of pastor has a fair has moral failing of some kind comes back God redeems makes him some so you know now he's running you know I think Tulian like brands like a ministry for man who

[00:41:04] have affairs or you know whatever right like it's it is healing marriages after affairs or whatever it is it's it's a grip right it is like like like Carl if you really like were like like fixed and healed

[00:41:19] you'd sit down you'd shut the fuck up you'd you'd go work somewhere you would you would not be positioning yourself like this this product this this story right you're setting yourself up for a book deal

[00:41:33] you're launching a podcast like like like that is the same thing to me like I said it's it's just you've just come up with a new way to not be authentic and I feel this also about deconstruction people

[00:41:50] I was just I was just thinking the same thing I'm talking to her but like you you you you know it's like oh man I left you know my big evangelical job and I just wrote this book about why

[00:42:03] I was wrong it's like you are sit with yourself young man yeah I agree and the thing is like the things that are happening are such a product of the like suppression of just being able to

[00:42:20] be your authentic self right and and I think like I think about um well I was gonna go down a road that I don't know if we should go down go down let's do it I haven't talked about this

[00:42:36] on the podcast but I know I and I've told you this story before but um when I was first I had watched a sermon series about you know God and homosexuality and they had interviewed

[00:42:49] somebody throughout that series that was like the side be celibate for life gay man that was like a hymn gay and I have you know quote unquote same sex attraction but I don't act on it you know

[00:43:03] but it's so great because families from the church invite me over to hang out and I get to play with their kids even and I was like oh my god there's so many problem matters about this but like a few

[00:43:13] years later I was like I wonder what that guy is doing I'm gonna look him up his name is Matt Moore and you've talked I've talked to you about Matt Moore because he had like a grinder scandal for a

[00:43:23] little bit and then when I looked him up he had just got married to John Piper's daughter and I was like I remember I texted like four people and I was like I don't want to put this on Twitter

[00:43:35] because I feel like they just got married and I don't want to like you know I feel like they're almost victims in this all thing too you know but I was like this is kind of like this

[00:43:48] this thing happened where somebody's like okay I you know celibate for life you know then I actually did seek out gay men on dating apps and then now I'm gonna marry the daughter of like one

[00:43:59] of the most prominent complimentarian evangelical like whatever and I was like there's so much to unpack here but I also didn't want to like publicly say anything and so I didn't at the time

[00:44:11] and now you know they've gone on the if kids like that's great but I just think about like the level of suppression it's like or you could have just been a gay man and lived as a gay man

[00:44:23] and had your partners and gotten married and had this full authentic life and you know again maybe he is having a full authentic life with Tilly the Piper but I you know I just all of these

[00:44:36] things it's like or maybe he's bisexual or maybe like who knows like who knows it's not or maybe you go and you live as a gay man and you still never get over the internalized homophobia

[00:44:52] that you live with and you constantly chase for some validation from straight people in all of your gay relationships and you never unpack you know like like it's not about thing

[00:45:06] it's not about like it is it is about getting real with yourself and figure out what the thing actually is because it is not that's why there are people who are polyamorous

[00:45:20] who are still shitty people because and and I had a tweet that I tweeted out and I put it in a local poly group and I got a bunch of like discourse around I just said like if you couldn't

[00:45:31] be ethically monogamous odds are you're not being ethically nominators because nominography is not for people who just like couldn't fucking stop cheating like like there are plenty of people who see themselves as having a non-monogamous orientation and orientation to love many people

[00:45:50] monog I'm one of those people I don't feel like monogamy is for me I don't think I would ever be in a monogamous relationship again but I did not cheat on my spouse it's not like like

[00:46:05] and I'm not I'm not saying if you did you I mean sometimes mistakes happen sometimes people you know whatever but it is not like oh the reason I was a cheater is because I'm actually polyamorous no

[00:46:18] it's probably because you don't know how to like be honest with yeah you don't know how to be honest with yourself or with your partner you have like some type of internalized shame about your

[00:46:29] sexuality whatever it is being being polyamorous is not going to fix that if you don't like address it right like it is not like you can just ignore it and this is where people like

[00:46:44] oh man what's his name Justin Randall who hosts a podcast called We Recursion Kids he talks a lot about his sobriety and coming out growing up even juggle being told the gay lifestyle

[00:46:54] as drugs and clubs and sex and hookups and you know and then becoming an addict and coming out becoming an addict living kind of that lifestyle and then dealing with a shame about like oh

[00:47:07] this is why they said like you know gay men are you know addicts and drug addicts and alcohols and they have STDs and he's like it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy because I never dealt with the

[00:47:18] fact the shame about being me and so when you tell somebody that they are inherently evil they internalize that turned drugs and alcohol and then you blame the lifestyle on their you blame their addiction on the lifestyle and it's like this

[00:47:38] oh yeah again self-fulfilling prophecy well and think you're getting to the heart of what made me so uncomfortable watching the documentary because I was like it's exactly what you're saying is they're not actually handling anything they're actually just making things worse

[00:47:54] and they think that they're making things better they think like oh I have this like I can compartmentalize and have this little life you know to the side like a hobby and it's like

[00:48:05] no you're actually not getting to the crux of the problem and that's that's I think what made me so uncomfortable notches with a documentary but also with spoil spoiler alert

[00:48:15] what happens in the end when they kind of had this big reveal that in the end the vlogger couple like made repair and decided to stay together and it's not like I root for people to get divorced

[00:48:25] but I'm looking at them and I'm like I feel like they have so much work that they need to do this does not feel okay at all like I just yeah I don't know it's it is it is to me

[00:48:44] it's scapegoating right you're scapegoating it's the sex like you joked like it's always sex addiction right it's like it's a problem with my sex addiction yep yeah yeah I had an internet porn addiction

[00:48:57] and that was you know once I once I I mean recovery now and once I beat that can I say and this is kind of a heavy thing and I'm just gonna say this I think the same thing happens

[00:49:06] with people saying that they struggle with anger I think there's some abusive situations where it's like oh I I have an anger problem and it's like you know there's I think sometimes it goes a little deeper

[00:49:19] than that you know and I just know in some stories that I have heard too and I'm like I think it has the same thing it's like we're not gonna like actually deal with me and the problem that I

[00:49:28] have internally we're just gonna kind of buck at this over here and think like oh I can just manage this quote unquote sex addiction or quote unquote anger problem when it's really like no you have

[00:49:38] some work some real fucking work that you need to do yeah yeah and and just going back to the compulsory aspect of relationships in general like we we have to unpack the compulsory narratives around

[00:50:04] who we are in relationship with each other culturally in society especially if you know you're listening to this and you're a white person especially if you are a cis gendered person if you are a straight person like like there is so much about like why we relate

[00:50:29] with the world the way that we do that like we need to like take apart an unpack and it's not just the one thing we talk about those all the time of the podcast is like leaving Christianity

[00:50:44] I left Christianity and it's like yeah you're still a piece of shit like I like I don't like you you don't learn any of like that you didn't unlearn the toxic misogyny you didn't unlearn

[00:50:53] the patriarchy you didn't unlearn anything about you know your whiteness you didn't learn anything about power dynamics you just like let go of some bad theology and that's great but that's not

[00:51:07] like there's so much more to take apart here um I hate and it's so frustrating when people simplify things down to these like oh I just you know you know I just got rid of this you know

[00:51:25] this problem I just recovered from this one thing it's like baby you are still in prison like you are still like you are still a like deeply in the system that is that is controlling the

[00:51:41] outcomes you know and you've got to step out without telling like you know a red pill like one somebody said just you got to step outside of the system and the documentary was like propaganda

[00:51:53] for monogamy like it's somebody said that and and that's mentioned there was so much other corruption like with the you know chat bots that they were supposedly women talking to men that you

[00:52:03] know and just like to be honest the shock that I had to know that this site still exists and still like go and strong but what you just said you said something that I just want to say

[00:52:17] respond to because you were talking to my context and I think it really matters and I know we've shut on the Billy Graham rule a lot on this podcast but then we were having a conversation this

[00:52:26] morning in clubhouse and we were talking about the Billy Graham rule and we're talking about boundaries and we had a black man say that he was raised differently not in the context of like this is the

[00:52:40] Billy Graham rule but like this is what can happen when a white woman makes an accusation against you so I just appreciate that diverse perspective because yeah it matters there's there's so much about

[00:52:57] and tear-moss Mosler has talked a ton and has a whole podcast series on the intersection and connections between purity culture and whiteness but I mean it is it's it's it's right those things are deeply tied together the idea of this like very gendered nuclear family is very

[00:53:22] deeply tied to whiteness it's deeply tied to patriarchy and I think it's almost it can be almost more dangerous when you unpack one of those things without looking around at some of the other things right the people who really try to unpack

[00:53:48] purity culture without acknowledging its location within culture and whiteness supremacy can like do unknowing harm by just not being perceptive of that social location well and not be open to feedback too because I think like sometimes you don't know what you don't know but then

[00:54:14] somebody and we've had this happen within the context of friends of ours like have had conversations where they've like tried to call someone in and say hey like can we have a more nuanced

[00:54:24] perspective or can we take you know and the reaction is becomes more problematic than the original thing that happened you know so it's like you know as if if somebody comes into club house and says

[00:54:36] hey this is my approach to the Billy Graham rule and I'm like no fuck you the Billy Graham will shitty like it's like no like we have to also be open to those perspectives and to understand like

[00:54:47] having a new understanding and being like oh maybe this thing that I thought can be challenged and maybe I can have some growth here and so even if we don't know everything at the top it's like

[00:54:58] okay well we can we can learn and we can grow and again do better you know my Angela yeah and and hopefully folks who listen to this I mean I haven't we haven't talked we didn't talk

[00:55:10] a ton about polyamory really in this episode um even though that's always kind of a subtext when we're talking about these kinds of conversations and we've talked about it a lot on the podcast but

[00:55:22] like I'm hopeful that people listening to any episode where we're talking about things like divorce from your perspective Megan things like polyamory from my perspective um there may be hearing more of a nuanced personal experience versus this like like apologetics of like you know

[00:55:47] we're not trying to be productive at all ever yeah like I would be curious like I bet you at one point in your life you would have gone through your divorce and been like very like oh I need

[00:56:01] to like prove why it's okay and a pot and like you didn't like you were just like this is what's good for me like like watching you go through that it was so natural and nuanced and so like just

[00:56:11] like you weren't trying to justify yourself or like come up with like you know away and I've seen people come out that way too and it's like so many people I knew came out through like deep

[00:56:24] clover passage research you know and then other people are like yeah I just think that you know being gay is actually cool now you know well and it's like hopefully we're providing that space

[00:56:34] I'm gonna credit my therapist to a lot of that because I um yeah I sometimes joke that I'm in our open relationship with my therapist like just because I don't know what I would do with

[00:56:48] out our but I do think that I had to work through a lot of that like how is how are my life decisions going to be perceived by other people and just like oh if that like okay I can't control

[00:57:01] the narrative that's out there I can't control how people perceive or like you know what they think about my decisions but um I don't care anymore you know yeah and that's so that's so

[00:57:14] I think so freeing and it's not to say that like it's not understandable like why people want to frame these big changes in their life in a certain way right but like it's so

[00:57:29] freeing when you're like okay like I don't have to you know even with like being by and we talked about that for both of us on it's like I don't have to prove anything I don't have to like I never even

[00:57:40] had like a big coming out I just was like yeah I think everyone kind of knows I've been a little fruity my whole life and it's unsurprising so like yeah like I'm just gonna keep leaning

[00:57:53] into being me and not having to be so rigid about how we define every single thing because God that was exhausting living in that I mean you're already in any of your one it's like you don't need any more of that energy in your world.

[00:58:14] That was in percent yeah so but I think I think we got to what we wanted to get off her chests you know like I just feel like we had a lot that we wanted to unpack and we probably could

[00:58:27] do a whole another episode on this but I do feel like I wanted to highlight just the disconnect between you know having a healthy healthy relationships that don't have to look like a cookie cutter

[00:58:41] you know societal version of monogamy and I also think just the the wholeness and healing that you mentioned of like hey let's get to the root of what the actual issue is instead of have these like band aids of affairs might fix it you know.

[00:58:55] Yeah yes and more liesing every single thing instead of like holding it all like together in in context because outside of the context like you can't like more lies individual like

[00:59:15] factors and behaviors like they don't exist in a vacuum or we're all interconnected and all these things are are interconnected and it's why for us on this podcast we really are you know trying to have conversations

[00:59:30] with hopefully voices that we're not used to hearing from or don't haven't gotten it's on a stage time don't have the microphone that often because just hearing from the same people is

[00:59:47] fine but it's your missing so much and so um yeah absolutely this has been a good conversation um well I think people know what are find us at this point if you've made it to this far in the

[01:00:00] episode I'm the person in life courtlands yeah i'm Portland coffee the only one out there that I've been able to find uh finding me in all the places I'm still on Twitter yeah I am too I can't I can't

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