The One Who Went From Born-Again Christian to Agnostic Atheist

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, sally-ann. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Sallyann (Guest)

Thanks for having me, sam. I feel very honored. Sally-ann, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, sam.

01:47 - Sam (Host)

I feel very honored privileged to be invited to your lovely podcast, which I've been listening to a lot. Thank you. It's like I was just saying I feel it's so lovely for me when I hear people enjoying the podcast because, like, it's just as much of a like a privilege for me to sit with people and hear their stories firsthand, and so it's so lovely. Before we get into it, where in the world are?

02:13 - Sallyann (Guest)

you, so I'm not in the place where my accent sounds like I am. I'm in Perth in Western Australia and I have lived in Perth for 27 years, so that's a long time.

02:26 - Sam (Host)

Yes, despite the very, still very significant accent.

02:31 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yes, yes, apparently, people tell me I don't sound Australian at all. I haven't lost my accent and I always thank them for that compliment. Even though I love Australia, I am Irish first and very lucky to be a citizen of both countries. Yeah, lovely.

02:50 - Sam (Host)

So I love to start with a really broad, very vague question, which is where does your story start?

02:57 - Sallyann (Guest)

l give away my age now in the: 1970

04:05

So my mum had always been a seeker I guess is what we'd call her and was never satisfied with the teachings of the Catholic Church, always felt that there must be something more, and she became a born-again Christian in that time that was the terminology, and I was obviously young at that stage and I have an older sister and a younger brother. So all of us as children then became born again Christians and then a few years later my dad sort of followed. So my mum converted all of us and we became this little family unit that were a bit unusual in Ireland at the time, because the question in Ireland from a lot of people at the time it would be very different now but at the time was you know, well, are you a Catholic or are you Protestant? And when you say neither, it was almost like well, what else is there? Like, is there something else? Yeah, what are the other options? Yeah, that's right, there weren't really any.

05:07

Yeah, else, yeah, what are the other options? Yeah, that's right, there weren't really any. Yeah, and so we became quite um I wouldn't probably the term, probably the way to say it is my my parents became really quite evangelical in their beliefs, and so it became difficult for us, I think, to spend a lot of time around other family members, around other people who were catholic, and there was maybe this sense in our family that, well, we had the truth that catholics weren't real christians and so, um, we went to an evangelical church, so my parents left the catholic church. We went to an evangelical church, so my parents left the Catholic church. We went to an evangelical church which is not evangelical in the way that we think of, kind of the American evangelical.

05:52

It was more just a very Bible-based, conservative, traditional kind of church, none of that Holy Spirit nonsense. It was all just, you know, let's stand up now and read some hymns, and then we'll sit down and we'll pray, and then we'll listen to the man preach and then we'll have another few hymns and then we'll all, we'll all like, have a nice cup of tea afterwards, very much it's still quite liturgical, almost yes, yes, surgical.

06:21

he welsh revival of the early: 1900

07:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah not so boring, I suspect oh, very different.

07:16 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yeah, it's like well, the music for a start wasn't, you know, there were guitars and drums and there were people singing up the front and a lot of speaking in tongues, a lot of very excitable kind of worship and prophecy and people being baptized in the Holy Spirit and slain in the spirit All these terms that just never leave you. Yeah, I know um and and we, we loved that. We became very involved, um, in the church and um, that kind of became what very much we and it was quite a small church, so it wasn't a, you know, it wasn't a huge church in Ireland at the time, but we had the truth, we absolutely had it, and almost kind of well, yeah, kind of felt sorry for anybody else who didn't believe what we believed, because we had the right version. And I always considered myself very lucky, although lucky was not a word that I was allowed to use, because it's not like it's God ordained right, it's not luck, that's exactly right.

08:29

I was blessed, you know, I had the truth and it was my mission to tell my friends, you know, all these people that I went to school with who were lost, you know, and and didn't know and needed to know Jesus because otherwise they were going to hell. That's a little bit of, I suppose, my earlier life into my teenage years.

08:51 - Sam (Host)

Was it the Pentecostal church where things became personal for you, as in you had a personal faith in God, as opposed to just what your family raised you in, or did that come a bit earlier?

09:08 - Sallyann (Guest)

uh, what your family raised you in, or did that come a bit earlier, I think? Um, I think I always felt it was personal. I always felt that it was my choice and I was eight years old when I made that decision. At the time, and for a very long time you, I was convinced that it was my decision and I never questioned that. So even in my teenage years, I think I just became more what's the word? More intense, more sort of determined to be the best Christian that I could be.

09:44

It is interesting, though I never felt like I quite hit the mark. I was always trying really, really hard, I think for me, I really took that message that I was a sinner and that I was born sinful, and I remember that verse in the Bible that I really took to heart was that all of my righteous or good deeds are like filthy rags in God's eyes. I really took that to heart. I really believed that I was quite a sensitive child as well. So I kind of really felt like, yeah, it's me. There's definitely something wrong with me and I need Jesus to make me right and to make me good. But I always felt like nothing that I ever did was quite good enough as hard as I worked.

10:33

So I think I did a striving I think that's the word I'm looking for. I did a lot of striving to be more involved, a better person, to kind of really have that sense of knowing Jesus. Yeah, but I don't think I ever really did. Well, I know now I didn't, but at the time it was something that I felt, like everybody else kind of was having these experiences that were so amazing for them and I just wasn't.

11:04 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I often. It took a while, I think, for me to realize the contradictory nature of the concept of striving to be more like Jesus, except that Jesus, in the same breath, is being preached as perfect and sinless and holy. And so we have this constant strive to be perfect, sinless and holy, which is the most unattainable um goal, and so it just leaves us chronically feeling like we are never measuring up yeah, yeah, yeah, and that really for me, that message, I really, um, I really took that in.

11:47 - Sallyann (Guest)

I really that that was very much my identity. I'm not, you know, just not good enough the way I am, um, and so I did a lot of kind of I. I remember, you know, I'd try to get involved in different things. To try now, looking back, to try and just make myself, you know, feel like I was. I was, I was getting there. You know I was. I was in the olden days. I used to do the overhead projector job. It's actually so interesting.

12:19

I've heard of so many other people who did the overhead projector role and I took it very seriously and it was also great to have a role like that in the church because it meant that I was distracted doing that other odd things were going on in the service, and and then I was in the worship team and I kind of I aspired to be, you know, a really uh, to be like you, you know, the main singer, you know the lead singer in the worship team. And then I aspired to be, later on, a connect group leader in the church that we were in in Australia and I was always kind of aspiring to sort of be in a position where I would kind of feel like, ah, I'm there now, I've arrived, I am this great woman of God that I've been working so hard to become. But it never really happened.

13:13 - Sam (Host)

What was it like for you, as you sort of left high school and, I'm assuming, possibly even left home, and you were outside of that home environment?

13:22 - Sallyann (Guest)

Well, I left home to go and live in the UK for a year because, okay, I need to probably just give a little bit of context. So the pastor of that church in Ireland is my father-in-law.

13:42 - Sam (Host)

So, yes, we buried that lead, didn't we?

13:50 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, because it's just complicated. Wow, okay, so we I started dating the pastor's son, um and so, and our families were very close because my parents were elders in that church, yeah, so we all spent a lot of time together. I started dating Tim, my husband, um, when he was 16 and I was 18, okay, and um and so, and you know the word purity culture was never used at the time. So this is like the late 80s and I don't think purity culture became a thing until sort of the early 90s maybe, but it was. It was definitely that culture. It was you.

14:29

You know you were waiting for the man of God. You know God has had somebody for me. You know, a great man and I was, you know, had to wait for that person. And you know, dating was not encouraged because, you know, it was about finding. It was really about waiting for the person that God had planned for you.

14:50

So when Tim and I met and started dating, it was almost kind of like, well, that was it. You know, that was it for us and we did really like each other and we loved each other. But it was almost like, from that moment on, our future was kind of set, the plans were in motion and the expectation was, there was and it's not something I ever thought about, it's not something anybody particularly said to me, but the idea was oh yes, you meet somebody, you do not have sex until you're married. And in fact, because Tim was the pastor's son and I was an eldest daughter, we were regularly reminded that there should be no appearance of evil. So, you know, we had to behave in particular ways so that there was no suggestion that we were getting up to something that we shouldn't be getting up to. Yeah, so we dated for six years.

15:51 - Sam (Host)

Wow, that is a really long amount of time in the world of Christian dating.

15:56 - Sallyann (Guest)

It is. But we were so young and so, and particularly because Tim was, you know, two years younger than me, so he was 21 and I was 23 by the time we got married, so I and he went, so we both met in Ireland, but then he went to university in the UK and so, also to throw in, in the middle of all of this, the year before we got married, the whole apostolic church fell apart, um, quite badly. Um, some of the members of the church um sued the apostolic church, and my parents-in-law were named in that um, and also my parents were um for control and for, like, financial control. People were suing for their tithes and their offerings back and things like that. And looking back, of course now I would identify what went on in that church as cultic, yeah, and it had all the hallmarks of you know, um, if I look at various sort of different models of cults, like Stephen Hassan's model, for example, and looking at Janja Lalic's kind of idea of the bound to choice, it was very, very much fits all of the characteristics very coercive, very controlling, very much very patriarchal. So the man was the head of the home and the woman had to be submissive, so extremely controlling.

17:25

And so when all of that sort of fell apart, my parents-in-law who were not my parents-in-law then went back to live in the UK where they were from. So they had actually been sent out to Ireland to pastor this church in Dublin, dublin. They went back and then, because my husband boyfriend was at university over in the UK, he was up until that point he'd been coming back to Ireland during holidays and weekends and things because his parents were living in Ireland. But now they were living in the UK. It's like, well, I just wasn't going to see him very much otherwise. So I actually went and lived in the UK and I lived with his parents for a year before we got married.

18:08 - Sam (Host)

Wouldn't recommend that. No, no it wasn't fun. Oh, my goodness yeah.

18:15 - Sallyann (Guest)

So, and you know, everything that had happened in the church was very, very fresh for all of us. So yes.

18:23

So then Tim and I got married and we lived in the UK for a few years and then came out here to Australia and in hindsight we didn't realize that at the time, but we very much realized that many years later coming to Australia was running away. We were really running away as far as we could from that. You know, all that church stuff that had happened, the religious stuff, our families, and because we just had never had the freedom to just be ourselves. It was always, you know, our dating, our getting married. It was all within the context of this pressured sort of religious environment where we didn't have freedom. We were very much sort of told this is who you are, this is the way you have to live your lives, these are the choices that you're expected to make.

19:14 - Sam (Host)

I'm curious how those very traditional gender roles played out early on in your marriage.

19:22 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yeah, Early on they weren't really an issue. It was interesting, I think probably because I didn't challenge it and also, I think, because my husband was never as religious as I was. Okay, for him. His experience is quite different to mine because he was born into that environment. He was born into the apostolic church, I think. For him he just kind of went along with it.

20:00

He's also a very different personality to me. He's very much like ah, you know, he just he doesn't really worry about things, he doesn't think too much about those kind of things. He's like, you know, if I believe this because you know I've always been told it but it might not be true and that doesn't really bother him so he's not earnest and passionate and never really was about his faith. So I was always the I was the sort of more, um, spiritual one of the two of us. You were on fire and he was. I was on fire and I was always kind of driving the thing along and going come on, you know we need a great kind of couple, you know, who are passionate about the Lord and this kind of thing wasn't really, I think when we kind of were free of all of that, our first few years of marriage were great and you know, we came out to Australia and we had a fantastic time, really really enjoyed it, found a church that was, you know, really lovely actually and really it was a Christian city church.

21:03

Well, it started it was a vineyard when we joined it, but a Christian city church it started. It was a vineyard when we joined it, but a christian city church. But, um, I have to say, the pastors of that church were not your typical sort of c3 pastors, right, um, they were really lovely people. They didn't put pressure on us. They um not saying that that, you know, obviously that church had problems, but for us that was actually quite a place of healing. When we first started going to that church and they were very accepting and we explained what we'd been through in the church in Ireland and they were like you know what, just just just be here and just sit and, you know, receive healing and, for as long as it takes, no pressure, and that's what we really needed at the time.

21:49 - Sam (Host)

So, yeah, Did you stay in that church?

21:55 - Sallyann (Guest)

Well, we stayed in the church until I started questioning everything, okay.

22:01 - Sam (Host)

That tends to be a good gateway.

22:03 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yes and then it slowly sort of went less and less. No, I'm not going to go this Sunday. I don't think I'll go this Sunday and just started, sort of. We were very involved in that church eventually, and I was leading a women's connect group and Tim was on the board and you know.

22:22 - Sam (Host)

It always starts with no pressure, but you're always land doing all of the things. Oh, totally yeah yeah, and it's.

22:30 - Sallyann (Guest)

It's really funny, isn't it? It's almost that you want that, because that's almost an indicator that you're like, you're really in, you're really part of it. The more responsibility you have, the more privileged you sort of feel that you're really in that kind of inner circle of the church yeah, it's the ultimate form of belonging right, it is it?

22:52 - Sam (Host)

yeah?

22:53 - Sallyann (Guest)

yeah, yeah, and I think for me, I've always struggled with a sense, feeling, a sense of belonging. Um, I think I'm a middle child, oh, yeah, you know I'm a middle child.

23:06

Oh yeah, you know, that makes sense. My family I never, I, never. I struggle to sort of really feel like I fit in because I was the quiet one, I was the very compliant one, I was the easy child, I was the people pleaser. And yet at the same time I was always aware that there was stuff I wanted to say and there were things I thought, but I just didn't feel like I could really have much of a voice.

23:39 - Sam (Host)

Yeah. I mean like that's a fundamental church's dream in a person. All of those I mean aside, until you actually access that part of you that wants to speak and and have a voice, you are like the the perfect cookie kind of mold for what a fundamental church wants.

24:01 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yeah absolutely that the more compliant you are, the better. Yeah, yeah, and my problem started when I recognized that I had been that way to fit in and I just wasn't satisfied being that anymore.

24:23

And that all started with me, sort of I started to study and I started to be confronted with questions yeah that I found myself wanting to can, wanting to think about, wanting to consider and reflect on not necessarily to find the answers, but just for the joy of asking those questions and being able to be curious and to be able to be stimulated, I guess, by the fact that there were so many, so many things out there in the world to experience. And once I started to sort of open my mind and allow myself to question and to think about things, I just realised that I loved to do that. And once you start that, you can't go back, you can't stop. I tried, yes, I tried so many times to put that jumper together, you know?

25:25 - Sam (Host)

Do you remember what it was that you were particularly curious about at the time?

25:29 - Sallyann (Guest)

have very different beliefs to me and they are as convinced that what they believe is true as I am convinced by what I believe is true. I mean it was. I mean it seems so obvious. Now it's almost embarrassing to just say that it's like duh yeah yeah, but when you're in it it's not obvious it's not. It was not big like you know. Light was shining on me going. Oh yeah, okay, so maybe somebody's somebody's got to be wrong here.

26:24

Yes, yeah didn't go the next step to. We could all be wrong here, but it wasn't. You know, somebody's got to be wrong here. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm not, maybe I've got it wrong, and I think that just opened the door for me to just want to know more about the world, yeah, and curious about how other people came to their belief systems or their value system or their worldview, what their experience was like and how that was different to mine and how it's just as valid as mine. Because there's this kind of real self-righteous sort of position isn't there in fundamental religion where you become really kind of focused on and really limited in how you think about things, um, kind of way of a way of approaching the world and and people is very, very limited? Yeah, and I think for me it was that curiosity about a world that I just hadn't really experienced before.

27:44

You know, I missed out. I missed out really on my adolescent years. I missed out on what teenagers are supposed to do. I missed out. I missed out really on my adolescent years. I missed out on what teenagers are supposed to do. I missed out on early adulthood. You know, I didn't have those opportunities to really figure out who I was and one of my units that I did when I was studying my psychology degree, I did a double, a bachelor Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Counselling. One of the counselling units was a self-development unit and that was a big eye-opener for me and a lot of, I think, for me. What came out of that was one of the questions that was asked was you know about becoming, discovering your authentic self?

28:26 - Sam (Host)

And I was like I have no idea really who I am.

28:30 - Sallyann (Guest)

Started to learn. Through that I started to realize what I had been, this compliant kind of good girl. And that's not who I was. I wasn't, you know, that wasn't my authentic self.

28:44 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, that question of maybe I'm the one that's wrong, I mean also that whole idea reminds me of. There's a line in a song by I think her name is Candy Carpenter, and she has a line in her song where it says everybody goes to hell in somebody else's religion. And I love that because, like, everybody is in competition with one another. But I'm wondering what that thought of like maybe I'm the one that's wrong amongst all of these different belief systems. What impact did that have on your relationship with God?

29:23 - Sallyann (Guest)

First of all, it was really scary, it was terrifying. First of all, it was really scary, it was terrifying and I think on my relationship with God is interesting, and I've heard a lot of people say this. The first way of sort of dealing with that was okay. So church and religion is the problem. God's never the problem, is he. And so what I need to do is really focus on and look to God. So, because that's what I'd always been told to do If you have any questions, if you have, you know anything, any sort of issues internally with your own emotions, if you're angry at anybody, you've got to get your heart right.

30:06

That was the phrase that was used quite a lot. You've got to get your heart right. That was the phrase that was used quite a lot. You've got to get your heart right. And so I just couldn't. I couldn't at that point in time, imagine or believe that it could be anything to do with God. It was all just to do with this kind of bad experiences that I'd had. So I doubled down and I worked really hard to seek God. And so I do remember that period of time, and it was I would journal, I would listen, I would read the right books, all of that kind of thing, to just kind of develop that you know, really to know that I was convinced that. You know I did have that relationship with God and it was all real and true.

31:06 - Sam (Host)

But the more I did that that, the less true it became it almost sounds like you became legalistic about trying to desperately maintain that relationship with God yeah, very much so.

31:21 - Sallyann (Guest)

Yeah, and I think that was the core of a lot of my belief as well. It was very legalistic, um, and so I became, in a way, even more sort of fundamental. I remember having thoughts like you know, when I was really seeking God and looking at, well, what is a true Christian, what does my life need to look like? And having that sort of thought like you know, if I really believed what I claim to believe, if I really really believed that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that anybody who doesn't believe in him is going to hell, then why am I not out there trying to spread the gospel to everybody? I could possibly do that with what am I doing?

32:11

sitting in my nice house, driving my nice car, going out for dinner and, you know, having fun again. That was the whole fundamentalist, legalistic approach. It was the all or nothing, the black or white, very, very much. I really clung to that. To me it was like, again, I was the problem. I suppose that's what I'm saying. Again, I was the problem because I wasn't doing that.

32:37

And yet over time, as I started to branch out in what I listened to and read and studied and I intentionally stayed away from anything that was atheistic because I was oh I'm, I don't want to be influenced by that stuff. So I read a lot of writings and listened to people who were sort of more progressive Christians or Christians who had a different view about things. But but the more I did that, the less sense it made. It just didn't make sense. And the more I thought about this God that I'd been told about. I couldn't understand.

33:19

I just couldn't get my head around how this God, who was supposed to be loving, created me and every other person and loved us so much.

33:32

Created me and every other person and loved us so much and at the same time, because we were born sinful, not our fault, nothing we did. We didn't choose to be born, yeah, and yet because of that and because of what adam and eve did you know way back, we're somehow all going to hell. Yeah, and I had children at that stage and I remember thinking but there's nothing my children could do that would make me send them to hell. I might be really unhappy with things that they do, I might, you know, have sort of consequences for those actions, but I would do everything I could as a parent to prevent my children from suffering like that. And yet God claims to be the ultimate father, the ultimate parent, and he can kind of and not just he can sit by and watch his children go to hell, but he set the whole system up. I'm like any idiot could see that if you set the system up, gave these two people, adam and eve you know also for the record, eve was framed like she like absolutely.

34:45

But it was just, they were just set up to fail. Yeah, you know, I'm not God, I'm just a near human being and I could probably work out. It's not going to go well, guys. Yeah, it's just not going to go well, but I'm just going to do it anyway. And then I'm going to just, you know, wipe them all out with the flood and then try again, because clearly that didn't work. So we'll try plan b yeah just it's, just it's.

35:10

I mean, at this point in time now I can just say to me it just sounds ridiculous what was it like at the time?

35:15 - Sam (Host)

because I remember what that would like going. I call it the mental gymnastics that I used to try and play to make it make sense, because there was, you know, that desperation to, to cling on to what I know to be true. That now maybe is not true and I know that like I also sit here and can talk about it and laugh about it in some ways, but at the time it was awful yes, yeah, it was, it was, it was so it was.

35:46 - Sallyann (Guest)

it was so scary. Yeah, I was in so much turmoil I mean I just I mean I really did go into depression. I experienced a lot of anxiety and I was very angry. I was actually really angry because I couldn't find an answer. And I was really trying and God wasn't answering me and I was doing all the things, like you know, seeking God, and I wasn't giving up. I didn't just walk away. I actually tried to hold on. It was not my choice, it was definitely not my choice to leave, and so I felt really confused. I did a lot of flip-flopping, a lot of okay, no, I'm just going to. No, I'm just going to choose to believe. So that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to choose to believe.

36:37

So I tried that bit for a while, and I think the other aspect for me at the time was it was extremely lonely. I didn't have anybody I could talk to about it, because the people who were Christians I couldn't talk to them because, you know, they didn't obviously pray for you. Of course, of course, and I did try. I mean, I did talk to a couple of the pastors and they engaged, we were able to have some good conversations but at the end of the the day, the answer was always come back to Jesus. You know, this is that's the answer. And, of course, people that I knew who had never been religious, and yet I did try to talk to them.

37:19

And now I look back and I think, gosh, the poor things. Because I could see people's eyes kind of glaze over because it was just even hearing about some of the stuff that I'd experienced was so weird to other people and foreign to them. So it was extremely lonely and it was very scary. Interestingly enough, one of the biggest fears that I had was that me letting go of my faith and not being able to call myself a Christian anymore, I was going to be leading my children astray. Yeah, my biggest fear was I could kind of I could deal with the fact that I might go to hell. I'm an adult, it's my choice, but the idea that my children might go to hell because of me was that. That kept me. That kept me in for quite a long time, that fear.

38:17 - Sam (Host)

I'm curious what it was like for you unraveling this like, because once you start pulling on that thread, it doesn't really stop. You can keep trying to chop it off, but it's going to keep pulling. Yeah, and what that was like for you as a mom. But also, were you and Tim doing this at the same time? Were you both pulling on the same threads?

38:37 - Sallyann (Guest)

because that's also tricky, no, we were not yeah, and we did have some significant issues in our marriage because of that. Also, of course, I was starting to realize I wanted to be independent, I wanted to be autonomous, I wasn't going to be submitting anymore. Not that we had a particularly. He was the head of the house and I was submitting. It wasn't really so much in that very clear structure.

39:07

But, because of what we've been brought up in, there was still this sort of tendency for Tim to be a more decision maker, you know, in charge type of thing, and me to be sort of looking to him to lead us. So I used to give him a terribly hard time because he wasn't this great man of God leading his family spiritually. I used to, you know, really give him a hard time for that. And then when I started to deconstruct, I gave the poor guy a hard time for not deconstructing the way I was. It was, yeah, I've got whiplash, I don't know what's going on here. I either way, I can't be what you want me to be. So it really did put a significant strain on our marriage, um, and there were times throughout that time where we, you know, we could have gone our separate ways and could have separated, um, but we both worked very, very hard to stay together um and for my kids.

40:06

You know, it's really funny when I did tell them and I told my daughter who I have a son and my daughter is four years younger than him, so I can't remember how old they were when I told them maybe like 13, 14 and 18. I kind of sat them down and said, look, you know, I just want to let you guys know that I'm not a Christian anymore and I was really worried about how this would go, you know, and they were both just kind of like, okay, I was expecting this great, big, you know, in-depth, intense conversation. And my daughter, you know, since then actually said to me she she was really relieved because she never believed the whole thing. Um, it just for her, it just felt like pressure and she didn't really uh, she didn't, she just didn't, didn't really agree with it all and was quite happy for it not to be a part of her life anymore.

41:05 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, what was it like for you to actually get to the point where you said I'm no Christian anymore, even just to yourself.

41:15 - Sallyann (Guest)

Oh, that was a long, difficult process. Yeah, because for a long time I knew it in my head but I to to say it out loud or to even say it to myself, unless it was almost like I didn't. I didn't say it to anybody else.

41:35

So therefore, if I didn't say it, it wasn't you and so for me to say it, there was a sense of relief when I actually did say it and I said it to myself and I realized that, okay, look, I and the way I did say it was I just I can't believe in something that I just don't believe in. I can't make myself believe in something I genuinely don't believe in, and I've got to accept that that's where I've got to.

42:04 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and I didn't get there willingly, I fought tooth and nail not to be there and and so to get to that point, that was, that was big that was really big yeah and so I'm, you know, going back to something that you said about, uh, in terms of the self-development aspect of the training that you were doing, what was it then like for you?

42:28 - Sallyann (Guest)

as opposed to seeking god, you were seeking you yeah, very odd, because it was something I hadn't ever been used to. Yeah, and you know, I think the other, the other sort of message that I really took on board was that, you know, lean not on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge him. Yeah, I can't remember the next bit. I had a very strong sense that I could not trust myself. I was not trustworthy. Um, I was not trustworthy. I, interestingly enough, I was brought up by two very um, well, strong personalities. My parents are, let's just say that, um, I had an older sister with a strong personality, I was in a church with a pastor with a strong personality, and then my husband, and so I had been surrounded by people who kind of just told me what to do, and I didn't ever have to really trust myself or develop those skills, learn how to trust myself, because it was all external, it was trust God or trust other people, or and for me it was I really had this deep-seated belief that other people are able to make much better decisions than I can. Yeah, and so when I started to actually have to consider who I was and what I was gonna, what choices I was going to make for my life, now that I was starting to understand that this person that I'd been up until that point wasn't really me, actually didn't really know where to start with that, and I think that's why it was so confusing for me, because I didn't know.

44:31

I knew what I didn't want to be anymore, but I didn't know how to be somebody with a voice. I didn't know how to be somebody who was able to be confident in their own thoughts, beliefs, decisions, and so I think I just had to, I just had to start. Looking at that, I guess I just had to start somewhere and going okay, looking at that, I guess I just had to start somewhere and going okay, these are skills I've never developed. This is something I don't know how to do, but I have to learn how to do this. And I wanted to learn how to do that because I wanted to figure out who I was, and I think how that kind of manifested was a lot of was, was a lot of anger. I think that manifested in the sense of I then became a little bit like don't you tell me what to do, don't anybody tell me what to do. I'm going to do what I want to do. So I almost became this rebellious?

45:32

teenager.

45:34 - Sam (Host)

You'd never been able to be one.

45:36 - Sallyann (Guest)

No no, never. And it felt good. Yeah, it felt really good. Yeah, yeah, and I think probably for me, the way that I've often dealt with things in my life that have been very personal and I'm noticing changes, I'll get quite. I get quite like I was a Christian. I kind of get quite like I was a Christian. I kind of get quite into things, you know. So I kind of got okay. Well, I'm just going to you know, I got really interested in feminism.

46:07

And because, for me, I hadn't really valued myself as a woman. And I've grown up in this very patriarchal environment, you know, and the religion was so patriarchal it was like, no, I'm a woman, I can find my voice, I can speak for myself.

46:24 - Sam (Host)

I'm not going to let any man control me or tell me what to do, and for me, that was me finding my voice going in a few different directions, but I've got to ask what it was like for your parents and your in-laws when they found out that you were no longer a Christian.

46:45 - Sallyann (Guest)

Oh yeah, it didn't go well. There were certain family members who were really upset by that and I can understand that and I appreciated that at the time and I knew that that would be a shock for them and it was really painful for me because some things were said that were really hurtful and so that that was another kind of stage of the whole process, I guess, was having to sort of feel and experience the, the impacts of of that kind of which, for me at the time, felt very much like rejection yeah and very much like well, we love you, but we're also, we also don't understand how you can make this decision and we're and that came out as anger as well from the other side, yeah, and like I'd done something to them, like it was somehow something I'd done to them, even though I tried to sort of present that, as this is my decision, this is where I'm at.

47:48

I've been through a lot. I've you know it's not something I actually set out to you know lose my faith. This is just. I have got to be honest and say this is where I'm at. I just can't call myself a Christian anymore but yeah it.

48:03

It was really difficult. There was really fractures, fractured relationships with some family members for quite some time, with Tim's parents um, well, because I wasn't, I'm not their daughter, it actually was a bit easier with them in some ways when I had those conversations with them. But then over time, as I started, at that point I didn't really realize I'd experienced religious trauma, and so it wasn't until years later that I actually realized the harm that had been caused by some of the things that went on in the apostolic church and, um, I don't have a relationship with them anymore because, as I started to realize the abuse that had occurred there, I mean I wasn't going to go back to them. And it's difficult, they're my parents-in-law and at the same time, if they weren't my parents-in-law and at the same time, if they weren't my parents-in-law, I wouldn't have anything to do with them. So for me and also living in Australia far away, makes that much easier, the physical distance makes that easier but I just couldn't really have anything to do with them anymore because it just became too painful.

49:15

Without going into too much detail, they kind of went on to do another church, run another church, and so I was like no, no, I can't. I just can't deal with that. I can't, I can't hear about that. It would. It just makes me too angry. I suppose as well that people who perpetuate this kind of abuse and I'm not that I know that that is being done by them, I'm not saying that they are but how do you stop this from happening? You know, and I know that's just to see that other people are kind of drawn into that by this sort of charismatic leader who seems to have all of the answers and continue to kind of you know, know, put themselves in that position of being the one who's admired and looked up to. I'm like no, I'm not dealing with that anymore. That is not helpful for me or my life.

50:10 - Sam (Host)

We know that you know having language for our experience is so important and so vital. I'm curious what it was like for you to have the language of religious trauma.

50:28 - Sallyann (Guest)

It was so validating and it was Marlene Wienel's book Leaving the Fold that I read and I remember reading that book and like every page, every sentence was yes, this is my experience, this is what I went through, this is what was done. I think for me it gave some clarity to my experience, which had been, as I said, sort of very messy and confusing. Just to understand that it was trauma that I experienced, because for a long time I think I felt like I'm just overreacting to all of this. You know, chill out, sally-anne, you're just being a bit overdramatic about the whole thing. It wasn't that bad. Other people have had a lot worse. But then it was interesting when I would tell people about things that had happened in the apostolic church, that I just kind of told them as a sort of a passing comment. You know, it's only when you tell people and you see their reactions that you actually realise oh yeah, that was really, really weird.

51:21 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I have had quite a few people where I'll share stories and it will be anything from that's weird to that's batshit crazy to that's actually really fucked Like. That's like not okay. And it's such a spectrum of what you hear, but yeah, it's not until you verbalize things to people who have potentially never even been a part of the church world where they you get that realization of like, oh okay, like that's not normal, um no like I remember having moments thinking oh, this is kind of a bit weird, but you kind of just went along with it, because what choice do you have really?

52:06 - Sallyann (Guest)

I mean, one of the big things that happened in the Arsenal church was deliverance ministry and almost everybody who'd been a catholic had some sort of a demon. And so when they were building, we got a new building for one of the churches and the pastor was into like renovating buildings and things, and so when they renovated that building, they actually converted one of the rooms in that building to be like a ministry room, like a deliverance room, and they actually had like padded cell it was like a padded cell padded walls in the room, so that it obviously would, so you wouldn't hear the noise of people, of the demons, screaming when they were being cast out.

52:51 - Sam (Host)

Oh my gosh.

52:53 - Sallyann (Guest)

I know. And so there was this constant fear. I mean, this is what. This is the stuff I think I only realized later, when I realized about religious trauma. I lived with this constant state of fear around. So in the middle of a service, if you coughed for example, a lot of people who had demons in the middle of a worship service on a sunday morning people, demons would just start manifesting, people would start coughing and then it would turn into them like making these weird noises and screaming and stuff like that. So I lived constantly and I'm sure many other people did with this constant sort of state of vigilance really, of I mustn't cough, I must sit really quietly, I must not look like I have a demon in me. Um, yeah, it was. It was really scary, but it I don't remember feeling scared.

53:48 - Sam (Host)

Well, it's all you knew. I suspect, like it's yeah, you're supposed to know that something is scary until you see that there are other options outside of that.

53:58

So, um, the the cynical, like humorous part of me goes people who believe that sort of stuff really must have had a hard time during covid, like with all of the coffee and like all of that like, oh my goodness, yeah, um, I'm curious what it was like for you, like once you started exploring who you were outside of Christianity and who you were outside of that label of being a Christian, what it was like to explore the role of spirituality in your life, whether you wanted it or whether you didn't, and what that sort of looks like for you now.

54:43 - Sallyann (Guest)

I'm not a fan of the word spirituality because it's got all sorts of connotations and I understand that it's not used necessarily to mean anything sort of supernatural. And I guess I really did. I was quite fundamental initially about you know. I moved kind of completely away from anything religious or spiritual or supernatural and in my mind it was like none of us, it's all a load of rubbish. None of us is true. There is nothing out there. If there is something out there, then we're never going to know about it. I'm never going to know. And that was kind of where I got to. I suppose I'm less cynical about that now I would say I would call myself an atheist and an agnostic.

55:36

Atheist probably in the sense that, look, if there is evidence that's presented to me that tells me otherwise, then great, no problem, I have no issue with that. I don't know that there isn't anything supernatural out there, but from what I can see, from what I know and from you, know the science um, there isn't anything. There's not enough evidence for me to believe that there is anything out there, and I'm really comfortable with that.

56:06

In fact I like it's really odd, because I went from a place of certainty about everything to not knowing anything, to kind of this place of curiosity and and being okay with mystery in that sense. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen when I die, and I don't really feel that I need to know, I'm not worried about that. I mean, I think I would just cease to exist when my daughter dies, like I didn't exist before I was born. I think it will be just the same. I don't know that though. So for me, I don't.

56:47

I'm still very cynical when it comes to crystals and all this kind of energetic kind of stuff. Yeah, kind of energetic kind of stuff, yeah, but I also don't judge other people. If that's meaningful for them and important to them, then great, go for it. Yeah, um, but for me I just don't need that. I don't need for me. I enjoy wonder and mystery. I love being out in nature, I love forests, I love forests, and so, for me, just being in nature and enjoying the wonder of nature and the beauty that gives me a sense of, I suppose, transcendence, yeah, and feeling really at peace, and I guess that's my spirituality, I suppose.

57:46

I don't feel a need for anything more than that.

57:48 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, it sounds like it's just a connection to the earth and the world around you and I think I laugh in these episodes every time because I feel like churches think that, like sex, drugs and alcohol is what's going to is like the gateway drug to atheism. But actually it's not. It's nature like, yes, yes, the gateway drug to atheism or to agnosticism because, that's what I keep hearing is like that's the reoccurring theme in these stories.

58:25

Whether you are someone who identifies as a progressive Christian, an agnostic, a mystic, an atheist, yeah, the common thread is the connection to nature in the world around you, and so I just think it's so. I just think it's so funny. They're just like not focused on the right things, not at all, not at all. They're missing the mark. Yeah, um, I, really I, and I love that because, like the way that you explain that is that's what it's like to find your authentic self and to be okay with what that is, and for that to be okay and for whatever anybody else wants is also okay, right, providing, like, providing that nobody is getting hurt or harmed.

59:14

You know who you want to be. It's okay, and who I want to be is okay, and that's the beautiful part of finding your authentic self. Yeah, yeah, I really, I like to, um, I like to finish these episodes, which you will know, with a, a word of encouragement or a thought um, for somebody who is just fresh in their journey maybe they've just got the new language of religious trauma or they're, they're just started to pull on that thread what would you say to that person?

59:52 - Sallyann (Guest)

I would say keep going, keep going, don't look back, and you'll get there. It might feel messy and confusing and scary and lonely, but keep going forward, keep moving forward and you'll get there. I don't know where there is. That's the scary part of it. None of us know where there is. But I never thought I could be where I am now. I never thought I would have the sense of peace that I have now and the sense of enjoyment in my life and the open-mindedness that I have. I just never believed I would get to the place where I'd be okay again. Yeah, and I'm so much more than okay. And so if somebody had said to me you're going to be okay, just keep going, keep going and you do get to a point where things are okay again, um, and that's what I would say, because I think that's what I needed to hear at the time.

:: 01:02

I love that. Thank you for joining me.

:: 01:06

Thank you so much for having me. It's been great, really enjoyed it.

:: 01:14

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.