Sometimes you've just got to laugh at the crazy things you used to believe - Karen Alea

*Apologies for the issue with the background changing a few times toward the beginning of the video. It's a very small percentage of the video, fortunately. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. --Tim

_________________________________________

Today I spoke with Karen Alea, who grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and gave her life to Jesus at an early age, but ultimately deconverted as the truth claims of Christianity fell apart.

We touched on many topics, including:

• Growing up in a very protective and sheltering patriarchal home.
• Answering an altar call at church and giving her life to Jesus.
• Realizing the strangeness of a "revival service" being "scheduled" by church leadership.
• Hearing purity culture messages pushing her to be ultra modest to the point of making her extremely self-conscious about her body.
• Finding, upon getting baptized, that she became extremely aware of her inherent shame and how much her body was tempting the men in the church.
• Being in church many times each week and attending the church's school.
• Finding that she got her purpose and meaning from serving Jesus as she felt that she owed her life to Jesus, yet still feeling that she was never doing enough and that she was disappointing him often.
• Being taught, by age 12, to pray for her future husband.
• Feeling compelled to do full time ministry and to be willing to sacrifice everything for Jesus.
• Focusing heavily on internal purity so god could use her for ministry.
• Recognizing the benefit of the Christian habit of being vulnerable but also realizing that it put her into a fight or flight mode multiple times every week.
• At YWAM's DTS, being guided by non-professional Christians to dig up and even make up personal stories and emotions during regular times of "openness and brokenness" and being urged to find something wrong in her relationship with her earthly father to contrast to her heavenly father.
• On missions trips, realizing that people in foreign countries with very different worldviews were truly joyful and at peace.
• Slowly being shaken up as she began to dig into the Bible more, such as when she realized the two sets of "10 Commandments" in the Bible were different.
• Studying the mythology tropes that are woven into the Bible.
• After deconversion, using humor as part of the healing process.

Thanks to Karen for sharing her story and insights!


_________________________________________

Connect with Karen!

https://www.deconversiontherapypodcas...

https://beacons.ai/deconversiontherapy

   / @deconversiontherapy  

IG:
@deconversiontherapypodcast

TikTok
@deconversiontherapy

_________________________________________


Mentioned in this video:

"Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Erhman
https://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jes...

_________________________________________


Check out the other projects I'm working on and find other ways to connect with me:

https://linktr.ee/harmonicatheist

Tim may be reached on FB (preferred) at: harmonictim
Or by email at: [email protected]


_________________________________________


Your support for my channel, Harmonic Atheist, is needed and appreciated!

One-time donations:
PayPal: paypal.me/harmonictim
Venmo: @harmonicatheist
Zelle email: [email protected]
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-tim-s...

Monthly donations:
  / harmonicatheist  

Thanks!

--Tim

_________________________________________


Ending music by Kazuya / Eyal Raz, "Friends"

https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music...
   • Friends  


_________________________________________


If you are facing emotional distress, please call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline
1-800-273-8255.