I wish you could come talk to the university students I teach. Each year I do so much work to introduce new ideas to young adults who arrive with super indoctrinated stances on the world... we make some progress throughout the year and then I have to do it all over again with the next batch. Year after year, more than…

I grew up evangelical and bi, so yeah, this was awful. Some don’t realize how cultish the evangelical movement is, and he grew up completely isolated and indoctrinated. There is a wall built up around you when you grow up in something so extreme, and it is scary and transformative when it falls. It took me some time…

You would probably like Leaving the Witness, which is about a woman who left her family behind and stopped being a Jehovah’s Witness.

Having known folks from those backgrounds, he was raised in a cult. He was groomed from birth to speak those things. They were not his ideas, but put upon him by the cult he was born into. He was a tool of the cult.

As a 16 year-old kid in my church who led worship and did a good job at being charismatic and seeming pious, I had had fully-grown adults fawning over me, telling me about my wisdom. Of which I actually had little to speak of.

I concur, as someone who grew up in a similar homeschooled, Christian environment. Leaving is harder and requires more sacrifice than a lot of outsiders can understand.

I left the faith when I was 20. Nearly 30 years later, I still sometimes get a long, dark night of the soul where I’m terrified that I’ll go to Hell and that my non-Christian husband and kids will, too.

If god wants to send us to hell for using the brain he gave us, and trying to be accepting (liberal) rather than hating (religion/the right) then.....I don’t really know what to say. 

And with Joshua Harris, “homeschooled and indoctrinated” is a bit of an understatement. His dad was one of the pioneers of the evangelical homeschooling movement in America going back to the 70s.

If I still was judged by my beliefs at 21, I would not be happy.

You don’t undo a lifetime of indoctrination in one day and it’s not just because you’re making money off it. It’s not just beliefs and a church he had to disentangle from, it was probably the majority of his close friendships and even family. From the sounds of it, it ended his marriage. And yeah, it was also his…

I agree with you. If this guy is sincere in his move away from the views of his past, then I say welcome. While I am not nor I have I ever been religious, I live in a deeply religious area of the country. It requires a tremendous amount of strength for people in the grip of that community to reject it it and get out…

I dunno, people do change that late in life, and change dramatically. It’s why we have the term “midlife crisis”, and it’s seen so much in pop-culture.

I grew up an evangelical, “speaking in tongues”, born-again Christian. I was anti-abortion, anti pre-marital sex, and had no idea what LGBTQ+ was (it didn’t even have the letters back then).

This change is a good thing. I think we should support and encourage it so more are more likely to do so, instead of being so cynical about it.

He was 21 and grew up homeschooled and indoctrinated. I’m with percysowner re: progressives needing to not be assholes when people see the light. It’s counterproductive. 

Ooh yeah, I would totally read a book about how he came to his new conclusions.

One of the few good things about getting shipped off to war when I was young, is that it was a crash course in just how naive I was in my early 20's. It is probably a good thing to assume you know less than you think for your entire life, but certainly emphasis that before you’re 26.

Even though my parents were incredibly religious - I mean hell, my dad is an ordained southern baptist pastor - they *never* once pushed this stuff on me at all. It started gaining traction right when I was moving into my teen years and there was a big emphasis on the True Love Waits thing. But it’s like my parents…

A 21-year-old dude writes and publishes a blueprint for ‘courtship’ and dating. What could a possibly go wrong?