WE LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. ❤️❤️ — Our links: Instagram (https://instagram.com/born.again.again) Facebook Group (https://facebook.com/groups/bornagainagain) Your Stories (https://bornagainagain.co/stories) Blog + Resources (https://bornagainagain.co) Merch (https://teespring.com/stores/born-again-again-podcast)…

Being "Unequally Yoked" is a major concern when one partner in a couple goes through a faith change without the other, and our guests today have generously shared that journey with us all. Ben and Andrea are a mixed-faith couple that went through this tricky process and have come out the other side stronger. In this interview we talk about those fi…

“On a base level of what feels right and wrong, rejecting a person for wanting to experience love just didn’t feel right at all.” Today’s episode is an interview with David, who grew up in the southern Church or Christ and left the faith later in life. We talk about what is was like growing up in a southern fundamentalist church, about having doubt…

“Belief is not a choice, and if it’s not a choice then the burden is off of my shoulders” Today’s episode is an interview with Andi + Jeremy, a couple who, similar to Katie and me, started their relationship as committed christians but then headed down the path of deconversion. We talk about their origins and the first dominos that started to fall,…

“For the first time in my life I feel a freedom and a love and acceptance that Ive never had, ever. I can feel my power.” Today’s episode is the first in a series of episodes where we’re going to be turning the mic around and interviewing you - members of our Born Again Again community! And this first episode is with a wonderful personal trainer, w…

Letting go of the promise of heaven is a really hard part of leaving the faith and leaves many of us with a fear of death. In this episode, we discuss this typically heavy topic with death doula Caroline Ingraham Lee. We talk about her story and how she became a death doula, and discuss what that means on a practical level. We end by talking about …

As ex-Christians, we understand better than most what it's like to live with an extreme worldview. In today's episode we talk about the unique perspective we've gained since leaving our faith, and how that perspective empowers us to relate to those that we disagree with. We talk about some common reasons that we can slip back into an 'us' vs 'them'…

Healing ourselves using our own inner resources has been a major source of empowerment for us both. In today's episode, Katie and I talk through our experiences doing 'Inner Child' work, and share some ways that it's been helpful and eye-opening for us. As always, we try to keep things super light and practical. Hopefully our experience will encour…

We all want better sex and relationships. Today’s episode is an interview with Sex and Relationship coach Meg Cowan. During our conversation, we talk about understanding personal agency, autoimmune issues in a repressed body, and untangling from shame. We get into communication, both in relationship AND your communication with yourself, as well as …

Today I have a real-life, honest conversation with my Christian friend Mike. In an effort to get better at having hard conversations, I put out a post on my Facebook account asking if there were any Christians out there who like to have a challenging but respectful conversation with me for our podcast. This episode is a result of that post. We touc…

Today I have a real-life, honest conversation with my Christian friend and coworker Matt. In an effort to get better at having hard conversations, I put out a post on my Facebook account asking if there were any Christians out there who like to have a challenging but respectful conversation with me for our podcast. This episode is a result of that …

Today’s episode is an interview with Jamie Lee Finch! Im sure many of you already know her from her book, You Are Your Own, but she is also an embodiment coach, acting (as she puts it) as a mediator between you and your body. In this episode we talk about that feeling of overwhelm when you are first leaving your faith, we talk about the importance …

We were given WAY too much advice. In today's episode we talk about the importance of being really strict on who's voice you allow into your life. We talk about the abundance of input Christians had in our lives when we were younger and the implications of that. We also talk news, politics, social media, and the overwhelming amount of voices that w…

Season 2 is officially here! In this episode we examine the process of coming to belief in God/Christianity/Bible/etc. We discuss how the process of going from a human to a Christian is broken into many small, easy-to-swallow stages, and how this process allows normal, logical people to believe in things like speaking made up languages, pretending …

Can you be proud of your own humility? Did Christianity make us over-analytical? Let's find out! In addition to a brief update, in this episode we discuss the idea of spiritual materialism, as discussed in Sam Harris's 'Waking Up' app. We talk about how Christian leaders feign humility by bragging about their awareness of their sins, about how bein…

Does "Let go and let God" make you cringe? Us too. In this episode we discuss the idea of surrender and what it was like to have a higher power to surrender our problems to. We talk about the security and comfort we found in giving things over to God, and how jarring it was to lose that ability once we left the faith. To bring it full circle, we ta…

When it comes down to it, does anyone really believe? In this episode we talk about belief, and how it relates to life in the real world. We talk about the corona virus and how we would have responded to it when we used to be Christian. Is there a line where a person’s faith will inevitably take a back seat to reason? We finish the episode by talki…

Today Katie is going to read you some Bible stories (is Katie writing this in the third person? yes). We’re thinking back on our childhood and all the Bible stories we were taught through picture books and children’s Sunday school skits. The Tower of Babel and Noah’s Ark are two such stories that we never batted an eye at, but now we’re re-reading …

Turning the other cheek, being meek, being humble, are not particularly helpful when taken to the extreme. Today we’re so excited to be sharing a conversation we had with Tully O’Connor. Tully is a personal development and relationship coach that I (Joe) have been working with over the last few months, and I have been hugely benefitted by my time s…

We felt like we had to do a lot of studying before we walked away from our faith. In this episode we talk briefly about Rhett and Link’s deconstruction podcast episodes, specifically about how their story parallels ours and many of yours as well. Then we talk about how many people feel ill-equipped to leave their faith. We discuss how Christianity …

We’ve all heard the Christian response: “I went through a period of doubt as well, and the Lord brought me back to him.” In this episode we talk about this common Christian sentiment, and discuss why it’s so dismissive, belittling, and misguided. We talk about how most people who claim to have “explored their doubts” were likely just trying to igno…

It’s our second interview, and it’s with the Reclamation Collective! Today we’re excited to be sharing a conversation we had with 2 wonderful therapists, Kayla Felten and Kendra Synder, who together have formed the Reclamation Collective. In this episode we cover a lot of ground, but we’re focusing on healing without recreating your trauma. We talk…

We're Back! Today we're talking about balance. After taking a few weeks off, we sit down and talk about how difficult (and important) it is to find the balance between active healing and rest. We're finding that, just like all things in life, the real game is in recognizing when we've drifted too far to either extreme and gently reminding ourselves…

You have questions and we have answers. In this episode we answer a bunch of the questions that you all submitted this past week. We talk about Christmas, setting boundaries with family, circumcision, communicating with a spouse who’s not on board, prophetic words and much, much more! Enjoy! Also, check out our new merch store! teespring.com/stores…

A lot has changed for us in the last 6 months. In this episode we check in and talk about the many things that have changed for us since starting this podcast. We feel differently about ourselves, about hell, about Christians, about our families, and more. We talk about how each "part" of ourselves is connected to everything else, and how we've had…

Christians are weird about sex. In this episode we talk about sex, purity, and relationships. We talk about how weird dating was as a Christian, and how our beliefs about sexuality affected every part of our engagement and early years of marriage. Although it’s still an ongoing process, we wrap things up by talking about the variety of things we’ve…

We used to think atheists were sad, hopeless, mean people. In this episode we talk about how atheism is different than we thought it would be. When we were Christians we had a negative view of people who were atheist. We believed that atheists were lost, cold, and selfish people who simply loved sin too much to follow God. To us, it took more faith…

Prayer was a huge part of our Christian faith. In this episode we talk about all the ins and outs of prayer. We realized that we had never really stopped to think about what prayer really is, why we did it, and what effects it was having on us. We discuss the weirdness of prayer, talk about the dependent and submissive mindset it puts you in, and r…

Were you allowed to celebrate Halloween? In this lighthearted episode we have our best friend Sara back on the podcast to talk about all the “evil” stuff we were afraid of when we were Christian. In this spooky conversation we talk about Halloween, ouija boards, tarot cards, night terrors, and more. We share our experience on both sides - how we us…

Is faith in God predicated on faith in the Bible? Today we have a conversation about what Christians really believe; about what it means to believe in God. We talk about how bizarre it is that we never questioned where our beliefs came from, and about how eventually, questioning the Bible caused us to question our entire belief system. We talk abou…

Tongues, Healings, Prophecies, oh my! Neither of us started our Christian ‘walk’ believing in modern-day miracles, but our faith journey took us there and we were along for the ride. By the end, we had little doubt that supernatural power was the calling of every true Christian. Today we have a conversation about all things charismatic. We talk abo…

We’re taking you all to therapy today. This week we visited St. Paul, Minnesota to interview our first ever guest, Kendra Snyder, MA, LMFT, NCC. Kendra is a therapist specializing in supporting those who have been touched by adoption, grief, loss, trauma, and hurt from religion, as well as people who desire increased connection, to explore personal…

We never wanted to lose our faith. In this episode we have a conversation about how we experienced the different stages of leaving religion. From confusion and fear to anger and embarrassment, falling away from Christianity was a wild ride that brought us through a whirlwind of feelings and emotions. We hope that this episode will help you to feel …

We went to church for the first time in 4 years. We attended Hillsong in midtown manhattan last Sunday, and this week we have a conversation about our experience. Enjoy! Links! Instagram (https://instagram.com/born.again.again) Facebook Group (https://facebook.com/groups/bornagainagain) Your Stories (https://bornagainagain.co/stories) Blog + Resour…

I had a hard time being a 'Godly' man. On this episode, we talk about my experience growing up as a man in Christianity. We talk about how "Godly manhood" is difficult to define, and the definitions available are contradictory and impossible to achieve. We talk about how the pursuit of godly manhood affected my self-worth, my ability to think for m…

What does it mean to be a 'Godly' woman? On this episode, Katie shares her experience growing up as a woman in Christianity. She talks about the way it effected her self-worth, her relationships, and her view of feminism. In the end, we talk about how where she's at now and how her view of herself and womanhood in general has changed for the better…

Our beliefs about God, our lives, and our identities were formed long before we were conscious enough to understand them. In this episode we talk about indoctrination: training a person to believe something without any critical questioning. Although we can’t fault our parents for it, we were indoctrinated into Christianity as children, and understa…

Sunday morning worship is a great way to brainwash yourself. In this episode we talk about our experience as worship leaders and as worshippers of God. We talk about how important worship was for us as Christians, and about how our questioning of “God’s presence” in worship led us to question many other areas of our faith. We talk about the formula…

It’s tempting to try to replace the identity that’s lost when you walk away from Christianity. In this episode we talk about the tendency we have to try to find our identity in external things. We talk about atheist groups, progressive Christianity, “I am” labels, and other “boxes” that can limit your perception and cause you to view life through a…

Losing our Christian identity was one of the hardest parts of leaving our faith. In this episode we talk about what we thought it meant to “put your identity in Christ”. We talk about how losing that Christian identity especially affected Joe, what that process looked like for us, and what some of our biggest takeaways are from this part of the dec…

This is our first time coming back home since we told our parents that we’re no longer Christian. We spent 10 days in Wisconsin visiting with both sides of our families. Every time we come home we feel more and more distant from the people we used to be when we lived there. This time we noticed more than ever how big of a role Christianity plays in…

Believing in Christianity killed our ability to think critically. We talk about faith, and why it’s definitely not a virtue, as well as what it was like to have adults train us to believe in loads of nonsensical stories. We discuss some of the ways in which Christianity was training our brains to ignore contradictions, doubts, and criticism. We tou…

Christianity offered a safety net for death, and it was hard to walk away from that. In this episode we talk about what we used to believe about death and the afterlife when we were Christians. We discuss our preoccupation with eternity at a young age, and talk about how our ideas of heaven weren't really based on anything. We finish by talking abo…

We were scared of the word divorce and our vows were written by aliens. We found our old wedding vows, and it inspired an episode about our wedding and the facade we used to present as Christians. The vows got us talking about how much we’ve had to strip away to become our real selves again. We also have a conversation about what divorce meant to u…

Reading the Bible is what finally deconverted us from Christianity. On today’s episode we read the Bible and chat with our best friends and first ever guests, Sara Byrne and Phil Chester. Sara and Phil actually got us back into the Bible after a couple years avoiding religion altogether. It was through this process that we were able to finally able…

Should we believe in God just in case? Family members and others have brought up this question with us. This question is another way to talk about Pascal’s Wager, which states that if you believe in God and God doesn’t exist, at least there are no consequences, but if he does exist and you don’t believe in him, the consequences are fiery. We didn’t…

We served as campus missionaries with Cru, a national evangelical organization that hosts meetings and Christian events on college campuses across the nation. Even though we were deeply committed Christians at the time, we had a number of problems with Cru and the way that evangelical organizations in general treated the students we were supposed t…

In this episode of the Born Again Again podcast, we talk about feelings, faith, and learning to trust our intuition. We talk about the role of feelings in the devoted Christian’s life and how we learned to suppress them on our “walk with God”. We talk about our journey as we learned to feel again, along with some of the benefits we’ve experienced a…

In this episode of the Born Again Again podcast, we talk about anger, resentment, and regret. We talk about some of the reasons we regret our Christian past - from over-respecting authority and being terrified of satan, to shame around sex and guilt for pursuing dreams. We also have a conversation about the best ways we’ve found to move on from our…

"Coming Out" as non-Christian to our family was really difficult. In this episode we talk about what it was like to tell our parents that we're not Christian anymore. We talk about how we worked up the courage, how each of our conversations went, and how we feel now that it's finally over. The books/resources we mention can all be found on our reso…