S5:E8 - Stuff Christians Say -with Ashley Love Richards and Fallon Morey Katherine Spearing

New book on Spiritual Abuse available from the founder of Tears of Eden: A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts: The Subtle, Insidious Nature of Spiritual Abuse and Life on the Other Side

This episode is with Ashley Love Richards and Fallon Morey, cohosts of TSFU the Podcast

Katherine and Fallon play a game with Ashley asking her Christian Clichés to see if she knows what they mean. We also discuss the perspectives Catholics and protestants have of one another, the origin of Alcoholics Anonymous (spoiler, it’s Christian), and whether or not AA is a cult. This conversation is comical and fun—and borderline irreverent.

Shoot Christians Say YouTube Video is the video we watch in this episode!

Katherine was interviewed in The New F Word Episode with TSFU.

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Transcript is unedited for typos and misspellings

Katherine: [00:00:00] I actually, hi, Fallon. Hi. These are my two friends that I just met through. That's a fucked up podcast, and we had a blast hanging out and, and, and interview doing an interview. I had a blast hanging out with them and doing an interview with them.

And so we decided to do this episode. Fallon grew up similar to me in

evangelicalism and Ashley did not. So we're going to play a game called Stuff Christians Say, where Fallon and I are going to introduce Christian sayings to Ashley and ask her what she thinks they mean. And this is a like Not a pass fail like no, like there's, there are no stakes here other than testing your Christian, your Christian knowledge before I, I'm going to play a video, a little video to, to get us warmed up, but before I do that.

Ashley and Fallon. I would love to hear what brings you here today. Ashley, go

Ashley: first. What's up, Kathryn? [00:01:00] Hey! Super excited to be here. So yeah, I have a podcast called that's so fucked up and it's about Colts and murder and other generally fucked up stuff.

Although I would say I primarily focus on Colts and coercive groups and I can high control groups. Obviously that's more where your podcast and your stories fit into. I saw Jesus camp 17 years ago when it came out in 2006. I saw a bunch of evangelical children being brainwashed at a camp to Take abortion out of the you know, take abortion rights away because a third of their fucking friends could have been there that night and they weren't.

And then I saw it 17 years later, like right after our abortion rights got taken away. And I was like, hold on, this is a long game. And then I saw shiny, happy [00:02:00] people and I've been obsessed with high control, coercive Christianity ever since. So I'm very excited to have met you through me and Fallon doing a segment called the new f word.

The f word was fundamentalism fundamentalism and Actually, it's really funny or it's actually really fun the episode that Catherine was on was called the new f word the C and F and E words Which sound like they're going to be really bad, but it was Christianity, nationalism, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism.

So, you know, really, I had a lot of fun. I thought that was fun.

Katherine: That was one of my funnest, my funnest or most fun. I don't know. Funnest, funnest episodes that I've ever, ever interviewed on. I had a great time with y'all.

Ashley: I wanted to make sure that we knew what the fuck we were talking about before we started [00:03:00] talking about it, because as you said, I have, I am not religious, I did not grow up with any religion, I have a Patreon segment where I learn about the Bible, it's called Ash Learns the Bible, because I knew about that one story, I think Solomon, where they try to cut the baby in half, and I was like, That is fucked up.

Is there other shit like that? Because I want to hear about it. So, basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Christianity has taken over my life somehow.

Katherine: That's an intellectual exercise.

Ashley: Yeah, not in That I'm involved with it, but I'm just fascinated and I'm fascinated

Katherine: when I meet people who didn't grow up the way that I did because it's so normal and it's so normalized and then as you mentioned on the episode that we did together that I will link in the show notes about How 80 percent of [00:04:00] the United States identifies as Christian, there's so much that's just like very inundated into the culture and most people have had some kind of like church experience.

And so when I can't encounter people who don't have any, any upbringing in that I'm fascinated by that. What was your life like? Yeah, it's like, oh! How did you, how did you do

Ashley: that? I'll tell you, I'll tell you one thing that made my life different and a lot better that I definitely know, and Did I grow up with fear and shame as a child?

Yes, I grew up in a house with a narcissist. But, I tell you what, I was not afraid that any fuck up that I did was going to get me sent to hell. I didn't even know about hell, you know? Like, you guys were constantly in fear that you were going to go there. I didn't even know that it was a fucking thing. I think I saw all dogs go to heaven and...

I knew heaven was like a, probably a cool place for [00:05:00] dogs. Yeah. But that was the extent of my knowledge. Right. I love it. I love it. And it has been up until, up until pretty recently. I

Katherine: mean, you're going to know so many things after today, after our game today, the lingo. Yeah. And I, I, I, I'm now I'm like worried.

Is God going to judge us for playing this game?

Fallon: God is not going to judge us for playing this game.

Ashley: They loves it, but welcome

Katherine: Fallon. Tell us today.

Fallon: mainly to talk to you again, cause it was so fun the last time. But then also, like you said, I, I think I've told you before, but I grew up Catholic. So, you know, Catholics are very like religion at arm's length.

There's so many rules. There's very like, you know, you spend a lot of money and you go to mass and the mass has like exercises in it where you stand up and sit down a lot and kneel. And my mom used to, or my uncle used to call them the Pope's aerobics when he would go to [00:06:00] mass. And. Around like high school.

I started to hang out with Christian people who are more in the evangelical crowd, and I, I think I just wanted to be accepted by somebody.

Katherine: Pause. You said you hang out, you hung out with Christian people. Did you not consider yourself a Christian as a Catholic?

Fallon: No, not really. Because I wasn't, I wasn't really yourself.

Catholic. Yeah. Just Catholic. Like it was like it was I don't know, like it, like it was a nationality or something. Like I, I didn't have a concept of what it meant to be religious because I wasn't really connected to my religion. Like it like you had to go to the dentist, but you just had to do it more frequently.

It wasn't like a big deal to me. And then I, I wanted some, like. I want to say I wouldn't, wasn't like meaning and purpose to my life, but I ended up hanging out with kids that like went to church camps and did God stuff. So they bought me my first Bible, the little. [00:07:00] Like tie dyed teen study Bible everyone had in the mid nineties, you know, and They had like the little stories in it and they taught me all about purity culture.

Yay. And like good friends do and and then I sort of went on my own path and discovered You know, religion and church when I was in college and then in when I was in the Navy, I got...