Heretic Hereafter Podcast

Welcome new subscribers! This week, we’re continuing our series on FEAR. There’s a bit on parenting here, but if you’re looking for a more parenting-specific article, I can recommend The Extreme Weirdness of Trying to Buy a Bible for My Kids. You can also search “parenting” in the archive.Obsessing Over the AfterlifeGrowing up Evangelical, there were a lot of things to be afraid of, including but not limited to:* being “left behind” at the rapture* demons * tarnishing one’s purity Simultaneously, we were shamed for being afraid and told that our fear was due to a lack of faith.By far though, my biggest fear was Hell. Would I forget to confess a sin and be cast into eternal damnation? Could I “backslide” and lose my salvation? I worried about friends and loved ones and even strangers on the street. It seemed to me that no one else was taking Hell seriously enough—it was ETERNAL, after all. I wondered how my fellow churchgoers could believe in this vision of Hell and not spend every waking moment obnoxiously evangelizing every single person they met?God was love, I was often told, but God was also perfect and He demanded perfection. Trying to be perfect was the only way of ensuring I wouldn’t be condemned. God was the Big Angry Man in the Sky who was just waiting to drop the hammer on all of us. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.A Change of HeartIt took a lot of life experience, theological study, and therapy for me to admit the truth: Hell makes no sense. Penal Substitutionary Atonement (the predominant way of looking at Jesus’ crucifixion in most American churches) makes no sense, either. Once I became a parent, I could not imagine God (who is supposed to be the perfect parent) subjecting any of his children to eternal punishment or coercing them into loving him by threatening to torture them forever.I can imagine hackles rising even as I write this. If you are a believer in Hell and PSA, you probably want to stop reading right here. But I want to challenge you to consider the alternative—can you imagine how your faith and your life would be different if you let go of these beliefs? If, at the end of my article, you’re unconvinced, that’s fine. Just give me five minutes, if you please.Do All Dogs Go to Heaven?I’m not alone in doubting Hell’s existence. Christian Universalism (the idea that all people will eventually be saved) dates back at least 300 years, if not longer. (For reference, the modern belief of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture is only about 200 years old.) Author and Methodist minister, Derek Ryan Kubilus, explores the arguments for and against Hell in his book, Holy Hell: A Case Against Eternal Damnation. Kubilus examines the Bible verses commonly cited as evidence for Hell, pointing out that many English translations put a thumb on the scale. For example, certain words are sometimes translated as “Hell” and sometimes simply as “pit” or “grave.” He also points out that our modern understanding of Hell comes more from Dante’s Inferno rather than the Bible. The Ancient Jews and Greeks who were writing and reading the Bible had very different schemas of the afterlife. In Kubilus’ telling, even the Bible’s allusions to fire and brimstone aren’t about torture, they’re part of a series of metallurgical metaphors, speaking to the process of refining ore into gold rather than punishing baddies. Wait, What About Hitler?Kubilus, like some Universalists, believes in Purgatory—that is, that based on our sins, we will all be subject to some process of “refinement.” For someone like Hitler, it might take 5 million years, but eventually even he could be saved.I was surprised to find a Protestant version of Purgatory. Is it necessary? Couldn’t God just choose to forgive, like we humans do? But I admit, it does deal with the problem of justice: we don’t want people like Hitler to go to straight to Heaven, do we? It just doesn’t feel right.When You Punch Your Friend in the Face for No ReasonThis question of justice became real for me recently, when my 11-year-old, T, got in trouble at school for punching his friend in the face for no reason. (Ironic, given that this is the first ethical example used in Michael Schur’s How to Be Perfect, which we read last year.) T was experiencing test anxiety and he took it out on his friend. T felt horrible afterwards, and his friend forgave him, but it still felt like something was missing from the process, like the scales needed to be rebalanced—we needed… justice???Given that T couldn’t un-punch his friend, was there a way of making things right? After talking with T, his friend, and his friend’s mom, we decided that making amends would look like a three-day screentime ban, an apology letter, and a Roblox gift card, purchased by T with his allowance. I also stressed to him that the biggest part of making amends was not repeating this behavior. This justice isn’t perfect, but I hope it does three things:* emphasize that this behavior was not okay and is out of bounds for our family & community* give T meaningful consequences that will help him not make this choice in the future* attempt to repair the relationship and reestablish trust between friendsBut these attempts at justice are for an ongoing relationship during, well…life. What would afterlife justice look like? I have no idea!Nobody Knows AnythingLet’s be real, neither me, nor Derek Kubilus, nor the most obnoxious street preacher you’ve ever met actually knows what happens after we die. We won’t until it happens. It’s incumbent on us to be humble about our beliefs, no matter how strongly held they are—we could always be wrong!Maybe the afterlife is closer to The Good Place. Maybe we’re reincarnated. Maybe we just stop existing or maybe we rejoin the universal life force. I didn’t believe in any sort of afterlife when my brother, Karl, two years ago. Then I had a weird experience with a bald eagle that made me less certain. What Can We Know?What I do know is that there are people living in Hell right now. Addiction is Hell. War is Hell. Divorce is Hell. Serious disease is Hell. I wish the church would triage the suffering people are currently experiencing rather than some far-off Hell that probably won’t happen. What I know is that all “right” beliefs must lead to increasing love of others and ourselves. When I believed in Hell and that I needed to “save” people from it, I saw them as numbers, not full humans with rich inner lives, not equals who could teach me as much as I could teach them. Not people I ought to get to know and form relationships with. And yes, #NotAllEvangelists, but I gotta say, most evangelism efforts I’ve been part of have felt more transactional rather than relational.Christianity Without HellWhen I was an Evangelical, avoiding Hell was the whole point. I was a Christian because of my fear. You may think that without the threat of Hell, most people will stop being Christian. You may be right. But is believing in Jesus solely for purposes of Hell avoidance really the kind of spirituality we want to encourage?For me, letting go of the fear of Hell has opened a whole new world. I can choose to run towards rather than away from something. I am learning more about my interconnectedness with others, with the natural world, and with God. I am more open to learning from people whose beliefs differ from my own. And that’s a journey I can recommend to anyone. Do you believe in Hell? An afterlife? Why/why not? Have you ever had any FREAKY WOO-WOO EXPERIENCES after a loved one’s passing?As always, I love to hear your thoughts. questions, rants, and ramblings in the comments, via DM, or email.BONUS MATERIALS:* ughhhh this article about YET ANOTHER scammy Seattle megachurch* Happy Pride Y’all (slightly NSFW)* Where my Love Island fans at?Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe

On Monday, when I sat down to plan out my week, it all felt a little pointless. What good is my measly writing in the face of government goons murdering citizens in the streets? Is anyone going to show up to my meeting about racially segregated schools while ICE is abducting people? It feels like there’s no point in meal planning or going to the gym in the face of state-sponsored terror.After the horrifying murder of Alex Pretti, anything I could do feels impossibly small. Nonviolence and community care seem inadequate to the task of preserving democracy for our children. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Trump, like a all wannabe authoritarians, manufactures emergencies. Fear is his preferred method of manipulation—he creates a problem (a so-called “migrant crisis”) then manufactures a solution (violent, often illegal deportations) all while distracting and dividing the American public from the things most of us actually care about (affordability, the Epstein Files.) Like a skilled magician, he controls us by keeping us focused on whatever latest threat he’s dangling before us.That’s not to say the threats aren’t real. We’ve seen the videos. We know that innocent people have lost their lives. But how do we respond in the face of such constructed emergencies? It feels like I’m walking a tightrope—on one side, there’s hopelessness and terror, on the other denial. Surely, things can’t be that bad, right? Probably people are overreacting and our government is still trustworthy??Part of the problem with Trump is that he is basically a chocolate bunny—all surface, hollow on the inside. He is not animated by personal integrity, morality, or any coherent system of values (other than his own greed.) He seems incapable of self-reflection or even testing his ideas beyond their ability to draw cheers at rallies. To avoid being sucked into his madness, we need to go within ourselves and connect with our own sense of integrity/values/purpose. And that’s because fighting back is tough. It’s inconvenient to boycott, to show up at rallies, to try and organize a motley crew of neighbors into a safety watch. But knowing our cause is just gives meaning to any suffering we may undertake. What is our cause, or purpose, here? We may define it differently, but I want to offer up two images that have been helpful to me.The first comes, incidentally, from The White Lotus. When wealthy patriarch, Timothy Ratliff, asks a Buddhist monk what happens when we die, the monk replies:“When you’re born, you’re like a single drop of water, flying upward, separated from the one, giant consciousness. You get older, you descend back down. You die, you land back into the water, become one with the ocean again. No more separated, no more suffering, one consciousness. Death is a happy return, like coming home.”The second, what is referred to in Christianity as “The Greatest Commandment,” is its complement. For me, thinking of ourselves as part of one great consciousness has breathed new life into Jesus’ commands to love God (or we could say the One Consciousness) with all our hearts and to love others as ourselves. Because while our hyper-competitive, macho, capitalist society tells us to look out for ourselves, the road to wisdom is being able to look into the eyes of someone who’s very different from you and see your shared worth.Alex Pretti’s final actions were to shield a woman from the border patrol agent who was trying to pepper spray her. That’s love in action. In these troubling times, this is the challenge: to neither turn away from the suffering of others, nor to let it consume us. To hold onto our purpose and let it sustain us. To resist using violence or dehumanizing language towards our enemies. To continue to exercise and call our friends and eat our veggies in and among our emergency preparations. To know we will mess up, and to try and fail and try again.In the prophetic words of Dr. King, “If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving."May we keep crawling towards a more just world.BONUS MATERIALS:* if you’re in Washington State, WAISN is worth supporting* looking for rapid response teams in other parts of the country? Check it out here* for a much-needed laugh break, this and thisHeretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe

Have you ever read a book that has you questioning your whole personality? Like, there you were, thinking yourself a unique individual, only to have some random author read you for filth?This happened to me, recently, when I came across the following two books: For those who haven’t gone as far down the self-help rabbit hole, “fawning” is the most recent addition to the Four Fs of Trauma Response:* fight* flight* freeze* fawnPsychologist Pete Walker coined the term, describing it as “a response to a threat by becoming more appealing to the threat.” It’s being submissive and cute, giggling when you actually feel terrified. It’s probably the origin of fundie baby voice.Fawners disconnect from our own needs to merge with the whims of a more powerful person. It’s a response common in people who grew up in volatile, abusive households. We’re great at reading rooms and terrible at reading ourselves.Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I’ve known for a long time that fawning was my primary response to stress, but only in reading these books did I realize how pervasive this trauma response was in my behaviors and desires. When I think about my pie-in-the sky dreams about writing, service work, or parenting, at the root of much of it is a desire for approval. Has fawning become my entire personality? How much of my life is simply following a script I picked up in childhood?At least I’m not alone in my reliance on autopilot. Recent research estimates that 65% of daily human behavior is performed simply out of habit rather than by conscious choice. Anyone who’s had a loved one with memory loss can testify to how often people repeat the same conversations (and even jokes!) word-for-word. Even given that habits are a big part of getting through the day, I don’t want my life to be governed by trauma responses. I want to access my “higher self” and choose my behaviors. We could call this living intentionally, which is annoying thing yoga teachers say, but, nonetheless, has moral validity.If intentionality is the countervailing force to reactivity, maybe “purpose” is the north star that all those intentions are steering towards? Or does the word “purpose” necessitate a creator making each human with one specific job in mind? I reject the idea that we each have one, singular purpose in life—we’re human beings, not steak knives. But I also know that one tension of being human is that we want to be loved unconditionally AND we also want to be of use to our community. After all, one thing that’s come up in the “boys are in trouble” discourse during the past few years is how many young men feel useless—our tech-charged consumer culture pushes them towards irresponsibility and pleasure-seeking, but they paradoxically need to feel needed by their communities. We all do!So, if we’re to take the black-and-white, hellfire god out of the equation, maybe it would look like this:Purpose = Values (or Ideals) + Being Useful to the Community + Deep JoyThoughts?By the way, I loved reading your comments from last week. You guys are so smart! The big takeaways for me were:* y’all hate Rick Warren with the fire of a thousand suns* many of you tend to focus more on living by a set of values than purpose* I need to read Martin Luther on vocationAs always, I’d love to hear what you think. Do you like my “purpose” equation? How do you orient yourself towards your values? What’s your North Star? Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe

We’re in that odd spot in the calendar, the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The excitement of Christmas has faded but the kids are still out of school and many adults (such as myself) are kicking around the house feeling like we ought to be doing something, but what?I used to dread this post-Christmas break, but in recent years, I’ve actually started to look forward to it. Partly this is due to my kids being older and needing less rainy day entertainment from me, but I also have come to think of this week as a time to check-in and reset.So, while the world is quieter and life feels slower, I’d love to hear your ideas for what to do in this post-Christmas lull. Do you have a favorite New Year’s ritual? How do you relax and recharge? Let’s crowdsource our ideas in the comment section below! I’ll kick us off with some of my favorite activities for this time of year.* Rest without guilt: hey you! You’re a mammal, right? And you know what many mammals do this time of year? Hibernate! The human version may look like eating leftovers on the couch while watching sappy movies. Embrace the term “Dead Week” and resist the urge to be productive. That’s some next-week energy.* Prep work: Yeah, I know I just advocated resting. Feel free to opt out of this one, but, if you’re type-A like me, you know the deepest relaxation comes when you feel prepared. What would make you feel like you’re ready the next season? Is it swapping out your warm weather clothes from the closet? Doing a big meal plan and compiling a grocery list? Personally, I love to do a closet purge right after Christmas and ogle the storage stuff at The Container Store while fantasizing about how organized I will be in the new year. A girl can dream, right?* Reflection time: Maybe this means taking a yoga class or doing a “first day hike.” Maybe it’s journaling or pulling some tarot cards. Can you take some time to give yourself credit for all that you accomplished last year with a reverse to-do list? Instead of trying to shame ourselves into changing via new year’s resolutions, how about coming up with a “word of the year” that reflects how you want to show up in 2026? * Coziness: what are the things that would help you enjoy the dark and cold? Candles or twinkle lights? Big sweaters and blankets? A lasagna in the oven or a stew on the stovetop? Planning a board game or movie night? * Witchy Stuff: I’m pretty new to this, but I’m enjoying trying out rituals from various Instagram witches. Will you bury a piece of bread in the ground to call forth abundance in the new year? Maybe burn some rosemary? Now it’s your turn, how are you celebrating “Dead Week”? Share your ideas and wishes in the comments.BONUS MATERIALS:* this hilarious vid for those of you contemplating The Artist’s Way this new year* a little inspo from Joseph YooHeretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe