Mar 1, 2015
Guest: Dr. Marlene Winell , author of “Leaving the Fold,” and founder of journeyfree.org. Marlene was the daughter of Christian missionaries in China with the Assemblies of God. She left Christianity later in life due to the sexism, the notion of original sin, the dichotomy of saved and damned, and the broken promises within scripture. She now counsels people and leads retreats for those damaged by religion. She calls it Religious Trauma Syndrome or RTS.
Leaving one's religion can be a difficult, painful and lonely pilgrimage, but the payoffs are great. As Marlene writes in her book, “…there was no turning back. The mental and emotional doors to the future had been opened. The honesty and gut-level confrontation with my humanness - the good, the bad, and the ugly - was delicious.”
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Credits:
"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" introduction by Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU"Never Know" by Jack Johnson“Fix You” by ColdplayWe discussed:Religious Trauma SyndromeChristian FundementalismThe Jesus MovementCalvary ChapelThe perpetual urgency of the return of Christ(aka Bad Prom Date)The pain of leaving religion is correlated to the degree in which one was invested in itShattered Assumption TheoryWalt Whitman – Song of MyselfQuote from Charles Eliot Norton: “One may sigh for all that one loses in giving up the old religion…but the new irreligion is the humaner, honester, and simpler thing, and a affords a better theory of life and a more solid basis for morality.”extra:Marlene’s open letter to Sarah Palin 2008