Description

This week on Premeditated Opinions, we’re doing something a little different.

We’re not here to drag anyone.
 We’re not here to start a denomination.
 We’re definitely not starting a cult (Substack jokes aside).

But we are talking about church hurt, purity culture, deconstruction, and what spirituality looks like on the other side of it.

After attending an event featuring Dr. Hillary McBride and Joshua Harris — yes, that Joshua Harris of I Kissed Dating Goodbye fame — we realized it was time to offer some clarity about where we stand spiritually… and how we got here.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Growing up in high-control evangelical environments
• Purity culture, modesty policing, and the damage it does
• Being on church stages while quietly unraveling inside
• Getting “dress-coded” for worship leading
• Discovering affirming churches and asking better questions
• Deconstruction: what it actually means (and what it doesn’t)
• Why Christian nationalism feels like a breaking point
• “All my theology is written in pencil”
• Why you can sing worship songs without agreeing with every lyric
• And whether you can just declare yourself a frog (you cannot)

This isn’t a takedown of faith.
It’s not anti-spiritual.
It’s not anti-church.

It’s a conversation about how spirituality can be formative, beautiful, and grounding, without being harmful, exclusionary, or weaponized.

We talk honestly about:

• Why some of us still speak Christianity as a “native language”
• Why others don’t want to use that label at all
• And why asking questions doesn’t make you broken, it makes you awake

If you’ve ever wrestled with religion…
If you’ve ever felt betrayed by church culture…
If you’ve ever tried to reconcile faith with politics…
If you’re spiritually curious but institutionally skeptical…

This one’s for you.

We’re not offering answers.
We’re offering context.

And maybe a little breathing room.

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