Leaving the Evangelical Basement with Tim Whitaker (The New Evangelicals)

Reclaiming the Garden

Note: the dolphin noises that come up in a section of this episode are to take out some identifying information about April’s old church that she doesn’t want made public

In this episode, we have a conversation with Tim Whitaker, founder of the non-profit The New Evangelicals, an inclusive, Jesus-centered community that holds space for those marginalized by the evangelical church. Tim talks about his upbringing in conservative churches and his way of living “counter-culturally” within it (listening to hardcore punk Christian bands and wearing “abortion is homicide” t-shirts) and how his faith started to shift over time, realizing so many church practices have actually been stolen from “pagan” religions, being appalled by the evangelical support of Trump in the 2016 election-onward, and finally getting kicked out of his church when he started TNE. We talk about how witchy Christianity can be sometimes (how is “open your Bible to a random page, that’s God’s message for you” that much different from Tarot?). Tim discusses how he tries to use his privilege as a “theobro-passing” white guy to go into Christian Nationalist spaces to understand why people are being radicalized and what harmful narratives and conspiracy theories are being pushed there–and to fight back against that misinformation with reliable data. Tim also shares his journey of becoming LGBTQ+ affirming.

We are so excited about the work that TNE is doing! You can find Tim/TNE on Instagram and other platforms @thenewevangelicals (you should check out the Facebook group!). You can donate to them here (and see a complete financial statement here).

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Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter, and Reclaiming the Garden on Facebook. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!