LOVE and HELL are INCOMPATIBLE - Eady Jay

T/W - Childhood sexual abuse
C/W - Interviewee has deconstructed but not deconverted

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Today I spoke with Eady Jay, who grew up in fundamentalist Christianity but ultimately deconstructed her faith substantially as she examined key tenets of the faith.

We touched on many topics, including:

• Trusting Jesus as her savior early in life.
• Voraciously reading her Bible and memorizing lots of verses.
• Growing up with immense guilt to the point that as a pre-teen, she faced profound self-hatred.
• Seeing Jesus as her best friend as a way to assuage the pain of loneliness and depression.
• Feeling the need to be fake in church as her peers were full of joy and fervor for worship, but she was facing emptiness and anger inside.
• Questioning at times whether she might lose her salvation if her sins got bad enough, and consequently never being able to "rest" in her salvation.
• Realizing, through counseling, that a lot of her shame may have stemmed from childhood sexual abuse.
• Being taught that she needed to focus on forgiving abusers instead of her own self-care and healing.
• Starting to deconstruct the message of hell and eternal conscious torment and becoming a hopeful universalist after she moved away from messages of legalism and guilt and instead embraced the message of "no condemnation" as she learned more about god's radical grace and love.
• Being taught in church that being gay was a sin but starting to be conflicted and think through her perspectives on it as she realized that some of the family members whom she cared about were gay.
• Seeing that the Bible is just people giving their personal opinion as they tried to grapple with who they thought god was to them.
• Starting to move away from the Bible as a rulebook for life today as she realized how the Bible was put together and that it was a very human book, and nothing more.
• The importance, as we examine religious texts, of understanding the original text, language, and cultural meaning, and how it has been influenced and re-interpreted since the books were canonized.
• Deconstructing but not fully deconverting, in part due to feeling like letting go of the "god" concept entirely would negatively affect her mental health.
• Holding on to the hope of an afterlife and universal reconciliation.
• The beauty of raising kids without the concepts of "sin" and "salvation."
• The importance of healing from purity culture, especially when there was childhood sexual trauma as well.

Thanks to Eady for sharing her story and insights with us today!
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Connect with Eady:

Website:
www.evangelicaldeconstructionjourney.com

Blog:
https://evangelicaldeconstructionjourney.com/blog/

Music:
https://evangelicaldeconstructionjourney.com/music/

Books:
https://evangelicaldeconstructionjourney.com/books/

FB:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090135581557

IG:
@edj.eadyjay

Tiktok:
@eadyjay

Podcast:
Eady has joined Joy Williams to co-host the podcast called "Journey of Joy"
https://open.spotify.com/show/62OszgqS5wjk44FKjw8alT
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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: harmonicatheist@yahoo.com
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Thanks!

--Tim
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Ending music by Kazuya / Eyal Raz, "Friends"

https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/friends/2825
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qbqNO6DdAQ
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If you are facing emotional distress, please call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline
1-800-273-8255.

Видео LOVE and HELL are INCOMPATIBLE - Eady Jay канала Harmonic Atheist