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64. Healing After Evangelicalism & Finding a Beautiful Faith | Diana Butler Bass (Methodist → Evangelical → Episcopal)
What if the Christianity you were taught was never the only Christianity that existed?
What if leaving evangelicalism didn't mean leaving Jesus?
And what if the people best positioned to help heal Christianity are those who understand more than one Christian world?
Dr. Diana Butler Bass, historian, theologian, and bestselling author, joins Alexis Rice for a conversation about religious trauma, deconstruction, Christian nationalism, and finding beauty and belonging beyond evangelical fundamentalism.
Diana shares her journey from a Methodist childhood through evangelicalism and into the Episcopal Church. Together, they explore the theological diversity many Christians never knew existed and why mainline churches can offer an alternative to the faith systems people are leaving.
At the heart of this conversation is the urgent need for TRANSLATORS.
People who understand evangelical culture AND mainline Christianity. People who can explain evangelical beliefs, fears, and wounds to progressive Christians, pastors, and scholars, while helping those leaving high-control religion discover other ways of following Jesus.
WHO IS THIS EPISODE FOR?
For evangelicals in distress and exvangelicals seeking healing.
For cradle mainliners and progressive Christians who want to understand the evangelical world.
For people of any faith or none who are carrying religious wounds and longing for hope.
And especially for seminarians, scholars, pastors, bishops, and church leaders who want to welcome people shaped by religious trauma and learn from those who can translate between Christian traditions.
Diana reminds us:
"Mainline theology is not a Jenga Tower. Mainline theology is a mosaic."
We also explore her new book, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance, the Christian calendar, and the beauty of quiet faith.
There are other ways to follow Jesus. There is still beauty to be found.
✨ GUEST + BOOKS
Diana Butler Bass | @dianabutlerbass
A Beautiful Year bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
The Cottage | dianabutlerbass.substack.com

⛪ EXPLORE MAINLINE CHRISTIANITY
Episcopal Church | @theepiscopalchurch
United Methodist Church | @theumc
United Church of Christ | @unitedchurchofchrist
ELCA Lutheran | @elca
Presbyterian Church (USA) | @pcusa
Disciples of Christ | @disciplesofchrist
🎙️ PEOPLE + COMMUNITIES
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde | @mariannbudde
Kristin Kobes Du Mez | @kkdumez
Jemar Tisby | @jemartisby
Robert P. Jones | @robertpjonesdc
Theology Beer Camp | @theologybeercamp
Tripp Fuller | @trippfuller
Dr Jennifer Garcia Bashaw | @jgbashaw
Homebrewed Christianity | @theologynerd
Bible for Normal People | @biblefornormalpeople
Pete Enns | @peteenns
Jared Byas | @jaredbyas
Brian McLaren | @brian_mclaren
Sarah Bessey | @sarahbessey
Jen Hatmaker | @jenhatmaker
Nadia Bolz-Weber | @sarcasticlutheran
Barbara Brown Taylor | @barbarabrowntaylor
Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) | @rachelheldevans
⏱️ CHAPTERS
03:51 | Meet Diana Butler Bass
11:48 | Methodist to Evangelical
14:46 | Taking Jesus With You
23:21 | Why Christianity Needs Translators
28:54 | Evangelical vs. Mainline
33:43 | Finding a New Church Home
39:48 | Translating Religious Trauma
45:59 | Why Young Adults Leave
52:13 | Jesus, Politics & No Kings
58:02 | Jenga Towers vs. Mosaics
01:03:53 | Deception & Responsibility
01:06:19 | Healing After Evangelicalism
01:10:01 | The Beauty of Quiet Faith
01:14:20 | Empathy & Shared Grief
01:17:36 | A Beautiful Year
01:22:48 | Opening Our Minds
01:36:48 | The Sacred Slope Community
#DianaButlerBass #ABeautifulYear #Deconstruction #ReligiousTrauma #MainlineChristianity
Support the show
About The Sacred Slope 
thesacredslope.com

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.
🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
     LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
     FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)
🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com
🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit:  ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail
63. The Vote is Sacred: Faith, Christian Nationalism & the Fight for Democracy | Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush
What happens when a form of Christianity is used to decide who belongs in America?
Christian nationalism. Religious freedom. A democracy under extraordinary strain. And Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, people of many faiths and people of no faith choosing to stand together.
What could interfaith solidarity teach us about protecting democracy?
Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is an ordained American Baptist minister, President and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, host of State of Belief, and former founding executive editor of HuffPost Religion.
And right now, he’s taking that work on the road with Vote Is Sacred, a nonpartisan, multi-faith campaign traveling across America ahead of the midterm elections.
Paul joins Alexis for an urgent but hopeful conversation about the state of American democracy, the rise of Christian nationalism, separation of church and state, and why no political movement gets to “own” Jesus or religion.
They explore what Jimmy Carter understood about faith and government, why some Christians feel politically homeless, what some politicians can learn about trying to engage with faith communities, and what Jesus actually taught about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and loving our neighbors.
Rev. Paul also shares what decades of interfaith work have taught him about something increasingly difficult:
How do we deeply disagree with someone and still show up for them?
From Jewish-Muslim dialogue to solidarity across religious traditions, Rev. Paul makes the case that protecting our neighbors does not require agreeing with them.
Our futures are intertwined.
And for anyone wondering whether one vote really matters, Rev. Paul has a message:
“We are democracy.”
🗳️ THE VOTE IS SACRED
Go to VoteIsSacred.org to learn about the Vote Is Sacred bus tour, trainings and resources.
If you’re eligible to vote in the United States, make sure you’re registered to vote and know your state’s voting requirements at Vote.gov.
✨ GUEST + FOLLOW
Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush @raushenbush
President & CEO, Interfaith Alliance
Ordained American Baptist minister
Host, State of Belief
Interfaith Alliance | IG: @interfaithalliance
📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES
Vote Is Sacred | VoteIsSacred.org
Interfaith Alliance | IG: @interfaithalliance | InterfaithAlliance.org
State of Belief | InterfaithAlliance.org/state-of-belief
U.S. voter registration | Vote.gov
⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS
03:16 | The Global Impact of U.S. Politics
05:28 | Interfaith Solidarity & the Midterm Elections
06:44 | The Sacred Vote: A Call to Action
11:16 | Faith, Democracy & the Role of Religion
16:14 | Challenging Christian Nationalism
23:53 | Bridging the Divide: Democrats & Faith
27:20 | The Intersection of Politics & Faith
30:38 | Navigating Political Outreach to Christian Communities
33:22 | The Power of Interfaith Collaboration
37:22 | Understanding the Importance of Voting
42:34 | The Stakes of the Midterm Elections
46:15 | A Prayer for Listeners
#InterfaithAlliance #VoteIsSacred #ChristianNationalism #ReligiousFreedom #Interfaith #Democracy #MidtermElections #TheSacredSlope
Support the show
About The Sacred Slope 
thesacredslope.com

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.
🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
     LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
     FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)
🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com
🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit:  ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail
62. Kathy Baldock (Evangelical) | The 1946 Bible Mistranslation Behind Anti-Gay Theology
What if one of Christianity’s most consequential teachings about LGBTQ people was built on a translation mistake?
Plant sex. A bizarre U.S. Navy sting operation. Nazis burning decades of sexuality research. And a Bible translation decision in 1946 that would reverberate for generations.
What could those things possibly have in common?
Kathy Baldock is an evangelical Christian, author, researcher, LGBTQ advocate, founder of CanyonWalker Connections, and one of the researchers featured in the documentary 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture.
Her new book, Forging a Sacred Weapon, traces 5,000 years of history to ask a deceptively simple question:
How did the word “homosexual” end up in the Bible?
Kathy takes us from ancient sexual ethics and the medieval Church to emerging sexuality research, the U.S. military, McCarthyism, Bible publishing and the archives at Yale—where researchers uncovered correspondence showing that the head of the Revised Standard Version translation team acknowledged a problem with the translation.
The RSV eventually changed it.
But by then, the language had spread.
We explore how American ideas about homosexuality traveled into Bible translations around the world, why Kathy believes both conservative and progressive Christians sometimes get the 1946 story wrong, and what pastors, parents and LGBTQ Christians need to understand now.
And Kathy has a message for queer people who have been told they must choose between their faith and who they are:
The door to God is open.
⚠️ CONTENT NOTE: This episode includes discussion of suicide, sex and sexuality. Not for littles. 
Help is available Speak with someone today
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Languages: English, Spanish Hours: 24/7
✨ GUEST + FOLLOW
Kathy Baldock — IG: @kathyvbaldock
Founder, CanyonWalker Connections
📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES
Forging a Sacred Weapon: The 1946 Bible Mistranslation Behind Anti-Gay Theology — Kathy Baldock - get it on The Sacred Slope Book Reccos List: https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
Walking the Bridgeless Canyon — Kathy Baldock
1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture — IG: @1946themovie
Sharon “Rocky” Roggio — Director of 1946 — IG: @1946themovie
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez IG: @timothysrodriguez book Conversion Therapy Dropout https://bookshop.org/shop/thesacredslope
🎬 Watch 1946: 1946themovie.com
📚 Kathy + CanyonWalker: canyonwalkerconnections.com
⛪ THE SACRED SLOPE LABS
Three virtual labs, 2 options per lab, open to everyone, everywhere.
LAB 1: I Thought This Was Christianity
📅 October 22 & 23
LAB 2: Who Formed Us?
📅 November 5 & 6
LAB 3: Speaking Across the Faith Divide
📅 November 12 & 13
🎟️ Register: thesacredslope.com
⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 — Can You Be Queer & Christian?
05:07 — Plant Sex, Nazis & a 1946 Bible
09:56 — Meet Kathy Baldock
17:37 — 5,000 Years of Sexuality & Christianity
26:17 — What Really Happened With the RSV?
37:16 — When the Translators Realized the Problem
45:21 — The Dutch & German Bibles
52:47 — Kathy’s Message to LGBTQ Christians
57:16 — Sex, Pleasure & the Medieval Church
59:03 — The Wild History of Masturbation
1:05:11 — The U.S. Navy Sex Sting
1:11:18 — Why Churches Struggle to Change
1:17:14 — Where Kathy Finds Hope
#KathyBaldock #1946TheMovie #LGBTQChristian #BibleTranslation #QueerChristian #Deconstruction
Support the show
About The Sacred Slope 
thesacredslope.com

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.
🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
     LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
     FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)
🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com
🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit:  ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail
61. Lisa Sharon Harper (Episcopal) | White Supremacy, Evangelicalism & Decolonizing Christianity
What if the Christianity many Americans are deconstructing isn’t Christianity itself-but a version shaped by whiteness, empire, and power?
Lisa Sharon Harper is a public theologian, author, activist, playwright, founder and president of FreedomRoad, and is currently discerning ordination in the Episcopal Church.
Lisa traces the complicated history of American evangelicalism—from the Black church and abolitionist movements to fundamentalism, the Southern Baptist Convention, segregation, and the modern political power of white evangelicalism.
Then she challenges one of the central ideas of modern faith deconstruction:
Christianity was never a white faith.
Jesus and the earliest Christians emerged from colonized people in the ancient Near East. Lisa argues that abandoning Christianity because of white Christian racism can leave the supremacy of Western Christianity itself uninterrogated.
She doesn’t call us to deconstruct Christianity.
She calls us to decolonize it.
We explore Acts 2, implicit bias, the Black church, fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, religious certainty-and what happens when we rediscover Jesus outside the version of Christianity we inherited.
Lisa leaves us with three words:
“Seek brown Jesus.”
✨ GUEST + FOLLOW
Lisa Sharon Harper (Episcopal)  IG: @lisasharper
Founder & President, FreedomRoad @freedomroad.us
📚 MENTIONED + RESOURCES
Christena Cleveland (PhD) — IG: @christenacleveland
Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee — IG: @d_pgushee
Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas — IG: @revdrkbd
Sojourners — Independent Christian magazine exploring faith, culture, politics & social justice.
📖 Lisa’s 2015 essay that opens this episode:
“Four Easy Ways to Be a White Supremacist”
https://sojo.net/magazine/septemberoctober-2015/four-easy-ways-be-white-supremacist
📰 Explore Sojourners: @sojogram
https://sojo.net
⛪ THE SACRED SLOPE LABS
Three virtual labs, 2 options per lab, open to everyone, everywhere. Attend one, two, or all three.
LAB 1: I Thought This Was Christianity
📅 October 22 & 23
LAB 2: Who Formed Us?
📅 November 5 & 6
LAB 3: Speaking Across the Faith Divide
📅 November 12 & 13
🎟️ Register: thesacredslope.com
🥚 Listen all the way through for an Easter egg revealing our first guest speaker for Lab 1.
⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS
02:42 — White Supremacy: Explicit vs. Implicit Bias
09:56 — Meet Lisa Sharon Harper
12:23 — PhD in Womanist Ethics
18:56 — Evangelical ≠ Republican or Democrat
21:48 — What Does “Evangelical” Mean?
28:00 — The Black Church & Second Great Awakening
32:43 — Slaveholder Faith & American Christianity
36:38 — What’s Behind “Non-Denominational”?
41:36 — Should We Save Evangelicalism?
44:00 — Fundamentalism & Certainty
45:23 — What Happens After Deconstruction?
47:06 — Christianity Was Never a White Faith
52:51 — Decolonizing Acts 2
55:47 — “I’m Not for Deconstructing. I’m for Decolonizing.”
57:13 — “Seek Brown Jesus”
57:20 — Sacred Slope Labs + Easter Egg
#LisaSharonHarper #DecolonizingChristianity #Deconstruction #Evangelicalism #ChristianNationalism 
Support the show
About The Sacred Slope 
thesacredslope.com

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.
🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
     LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
     FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)
🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com
🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit:  ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control

Send us Fan Mail
60. Raised Pentecostal vs. United Methodist | Deconstruction, Doubt & Finding God Again with Colten Barnaby & Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams
What happens when two Christians grow up in almost completely different versions of Christianity?
Colten Barnaby grew up in a strict Oneness Holiness Pentecostal world, speaking in tongues at five years old and believing other Christians still needed to be saved.
Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams grew up United Methodist, where he was encouraged to question, evolution wasn’t controversial, hell was rarely discussed, and faith was rooted more in grace than fear.
Same Christianity?
That question opens a fascinating conversation about Pentecostalism, United Methodism, deconstruction, religious trauma, progressive Christianity, evolution, scripture, doubt, Christian nationalism—and whether questioning your faith can actually bring you closer to God.
Colten shares how studying theology and church history at Oral Roberts University complicated the certainty he grew up with. Instead of atheist professors destroying his faith, he encountered serious Christians who accepted evolution, disagreed theologically, and still respected one another.
Today, Colten sometimes describes himself with a sentence that would have terrified his younger self:
“I’m a Christian who doesn’t believe in God.”
What does that even mean?
Together, Colten and S.C. explore what remains when certainty disappears—and why seeking truth may matter more than protecting the theological system you inherited.
They also discuss religious trauma, LGBTQ+ inclusion, harmful theology, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Christian nationalism, debating Doug Wilson, progressive Christianity, and one of the hardest questions for people rebuilding faith:
How do you know who to trust again?
And for anyone afraid deconstruction will lead them away from God:
Maybe God is on the other side of your questions too.
✨ GUESTS + FOLLOW
Colten Barnaby — Christian thinker and creator exploring theology, politics, philosophy, and faith after certainty.
Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams — United Methodist pastor and creator exploring scripture, theology, church history, and harmful Christian teachings.
📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Brian Recker — IG: @berecker
Tim Whitaker / The New Evangelicals — IG: @thenewevangelicals @timwhitakerspeaks
Tripp Fuller — IG: @trippfuller
Homebrewed Christianity — IG: @theologynerd
Theology Beer Camp — IG: @theologybeercamp
April Ajoy — IG: @aprilajoy
🍺 THEOLOGY BEER CAMP
Alexis, Colten, Tripp Fuller, and other Sacred Slope friends are headed to Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City, Missouri, October 8–10, 2026—a gathering for people willing to ask big questions about God, Christianity, theology, culture, and the world without pretending they already have all the answers.
In-person tickets are sold out, but virtual tickets are still available at theologybeer.camp.
⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS
07:29 — Meet Colten Barnaby & Rev. Dr. S.C. Williams
08:24 — Growing Up Oneness Pentecostal
11:45 — When Education Complicates Your Faith
14:20 — Pentecostal vs. United Methodist Christianity
17:15 — Religious Trauma & What the Church Owes People
19:02 — “I’m a Christian Who Doesn’t Believe in God”
23:48 — What Is God?
25:20 — Progressive Christianity & Questions
29:30 — Debating Doug Wilson
33:54 — Why S.C. Williams Does Theology Online
35:34 — Recognizing Harmful Theology
36:42 — Apostasy, Fear & Religious Trauma
43:00 — LGBTQ+ Inclusion & Reading the Bible Differently
44:35 — Reinterpreting Scripture
47:07 — Why Church Tradition Matters
51:34 — Doubt, Truth & Seeking God
01:02:40 — What Deconstruction Actually Looks Like
01:03:24 — Historical Context Changes Theology
01:06:04 — The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
01:09:49 — Reading Scripture Through Jesus
01:16:26 — Who Can You Trust After Religious Trauma?
01:21:40 — Can Doubt Bring You Closer to God?
#Deconstruction #ProgressiveChristianity #Pentecostal #UnitedMethodist #ReligiousTrauma #FaithAndDoubt #Exvangelical #Christianity #TheSacredSlope
Support the show
About The Sacred Slope 
thesacredslope.com

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender - raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.
🎧 WATCH: YouTube / Spotify
     LISTEN: Apple Podcasts + everywhere
     FOLLOW: @thesacredslope (IG, FB, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Bluesky)
🔗 Connect
🎧 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙 Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: alexis@thesacredslope.com
🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿
Fruit of the Spirit:  ❤️ love • 💫 joy • ☮️ peace • 🕊 patience • 💝 kindness • 🌿 goodness • 🙏 faithfulness • 🤲 gentleness • 💪 self-control