Advocates for Healing and Change with Janyne McConnoughey I was lucky to create a Leaning Forward conference with all these women and their wisdom! Leaning Forward is the title of a book by Karl and Laura Forehand about moving beyond the confines of organized religion. It is also the title of an online conference we have hosted for several years. This year, we decided to host a series of podcasts primarily to help us understand religious trauma and how to move forward.... Read more
What I Learned from Women about Religious Trauma I was a pastor for almost 20 years, and one of my deepest regrets is that I didn’t listen to the intuition of my wife, Laura. For most of my life, I have longed to understand women, but many of the systems of the world are designed to do just the opposite, and they ignore women’s voices. This past weekend, the Desert Sanctuary hosted an online conference called Leaning Forward: What Women... Read more
Tending the Wounds of Religious Trauma I was lucky to create a conference called Leaning Forward with all these women and their wisdom! Leaning Forward is the title of a book by Karl and Laura Forehand about moving beyond the confines of organized religion. It is also the title of an online conference we have hosted for several years. This year, we decided to host a series of podcasts primarily to help us understand religious trauma and how to move forward.... Read more
The Alpha Male Grifters and What Women Want More About two years ago, I had a stroke. Since then, I have had plenty of time to do lots of self-reflection and evaluate what my future might look like. Some days, this is overwhelming because I am forced to think about everything I can and can’t do. It’s exciting to think about what I can accomplish, but sometimes, thinking of how many things aren’t an option is gut-wrenching. I have always... Read more
The 5-Why and Church Harm In the 1930s, the Japanese industrialist Sakichi Toyoda (the inventor of Toyota) developed “The Five Why System.” The method is remarkably simple: when a problem occurs, you drill down to its root cause by asking “Why?” five times. Then, when a countermeasure becomes apparent, you follow it through to prevent the issue from recurring.[1] The following chart, by Easy Retro, identifies how this process works:[2] When I experienced using this root cause determination process, the... Read more
Leaning Forward is the title of a book by Karl and Laura Forehand about moving beyond the confines of organized religion. It is also the title of an online conference we have hosted for several years. This year, we decided to host a series of podcasts primarily to help us understand religious trauma and how to move forward. We are also hosting an online conference with the understanding that amplifying women’s voices is probably the most important component. What Women Know... Read more
Small Men in Power Yesterday, two fights broke out in Congress in the United States. One was when ex-Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, assaulted another congressman by elbowing him in the kidneys. The other incident happened in the U.S. Senate when Markwane Mullin challenged a Teamsters union representative, Sean O’Brien, to throw down in the Senate hearing. He said: “If you want you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”... Read more
Advocating for Survivors of Religious Trauma If we are fortunate, occasionally, we have situations in our lives that provide moments of clarity. I was minimally participating in an online discussion about abuse survivors and a situation that triggered them and caused them more pain. Many of the women in the group were trying to explain why this was troubling to people who have suffered abuse. But many of the men were making excuses and trying to minimize the event and... Read more
I Didn’t Want to Deconstruct As some of you may know, my beliefs and affiliations have changed greatly over the past seven or eight years. I am sure that some assume that this was what I wanted and that I was chasing some dream or some kind of secret desire that I had. But nothing could be further from the truth. When I was a conservative evangelical Republican, I was perfectly happy being those things. I was making lots of... Read more
The Implications of a Monarchy Even though I have moved beyond Christianity and have doubts about God, especially as expressed in the Desert Religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), I still am fascinated with Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe that he was perfect or even that our accounts of him are 100% accurate, but I can find virtue in some of his teachings and way of life. One of the ways that people describe Jesus is to... Read more
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