When I first joined a multi-level marketing company, it felt like destiny. Freedom. Empowerment. Community. So much so that I tattooed “trust the process” on my body as a daily reminder. But the deeper I got, the more I noticed the cracks: emotional manipulation, magical thinking, and an almost religious silencing of doubts.
If you missed last week’s episode here is the deep dive of my own experience.
That’s why I’m thrilled to share this week’s podcast interview with Robert L. FitzPatrick. Robert has been sounding the alarm on MLMs for decades, long before it was common to describe them as cult-like. He’s the author of Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing, co-author of False Profits, and a respected expert cited by the BBC, The New York Times, and courts alike. For years, he’s been giving people the tools (language, data, and perspective) to recognize MLMs for what they truly are: predatory business models, not opportunities.
Here is the image of the “Airplane Game” we reference in the interview
In this episode, we cover:
The Spark: Robert’s first encounter with a scam-like business in the 1980s, which pushed him into decades of research on MLMs and fraud—mirroring the way my own personal MLM experience prompted deep self-examination.
Why “Not All MLMs” Is a Myth: The business model itself is designed to funnel money upward, making it impossible for the vast majority to succeed, regardless of the company or product.
Puritan Theology & Prosperity: How old ideas linking wealth to virtue evolved into the prosperity gospel, and how MLMs exploit that mindset.
Cultural Hooks: From hustle culture to self-improvement mantras and spiritual undertones, MLMs borrow heavily from mainstream culture to recruit and retain followers.
Narrative Control: How pre-scripted objections, emotional manipulation, and silencing tactics maintain loyalty and block critical thinking—something I’ve noticed both in MLMs and high-control religious groups.
The Hard Numbers: Realistic odds of success are brutal—most recruits lose money, almost all quit within a year, and mandatory purchases like “Healthy Mind and Body” programs or the Isabody Challenge trap participants financially and emotionally.
Legality & Political Protection: If MLMs are fundamentally unfair, how are they still legal? And what protects them politically?
Beyond the MLM Mindset: MLMs don’t just drain your wallet—they reshape identities, fracture communities, and erode trust in yourself and others.
This conversation is essential for anyone curious about MLMs, whether you’ve been drawn into one, have friends or family involved, or are simply interested in understanding how these systems work under the surface. Robert’s insights give us not just the numbers, but the language and tools to recognize the scam and the courage to break free from it.
Tune in for an eye-opening conversation that goes beyond the hype and digs into the real human cost of MLMs.
In recent decades, the Law of Attraction has become one of the most influential belief systems in wellness, self-help, and multilevel marketing (MLM) circles. Its premise is seductively simple: your thoughts shape your reality. Think positively, and abundance will flow; dwell on negativity, and you’ll attract misfortune.
We have discussed the pitfalls of Law of attraction in a previous episode, you can find here.
🎙️ Another throwback episode is linked below, where I unpack my journey from wellness fanatic within MLM into a high-control religion. Together, we explore the wild “crunchy hippie to alt-right pipeline.” 🌿➡️🛑 social media, influencers, and wellness hype quietly nudge people toward extreme ideas, and in this episode, we break down exactly how. 🎧🔥
This modern doctrine of “mind over matter” is often traced to The Secret (2006) by Rhonda Byrne, but its genealogy is much older. It reaches back to New Thought philosophy of the 19th century, where figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Phineas Quimby, and later Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science) claimed that divine thought itself was the engine of reality. These Mind Cure and faith healing movements linked spirt and matter together. Disease, poverty, and suffering were seen as products of “wrong or stinking thinking.” Salvation was not just spiritual but cognitive: change your thinking, change your life.
and so again I say: It is shockingly right instead of shockingly wrong of you to be prosperous. Obviously, you cannot be very happy if you are poor and you need not be poor. It is a sin. –Catherine Ponder (The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity)
In fact, it is the search for spiritual healing of the body that led to what is known today as prosperity consciousness or in Christian evangelism, it’s prosperity theology.
That intellectual lineage matters because it shows how the Law of Attraction has always been more than a harmless pep talk. It represents a cosmology of control, one that locates all responsibility (and blame) within the individual mind. As we have discussed many times before, Jonathan Haidt observes in The Righteous Mind, belief systems serve a dual function: they bind communities together and blind them to alternative explanations.
In this sense, the Law of Attraction doesn’t just inspire positive thinking; it narrows. By framing success and failure as purely mental vibrations, it obscures structural realities like economic inequality, physical health and genetic limitations, racism, or corporate exploitation.
And that narrowing is precisely what makes it the perfect handmaiden to MLM culture.
When Positive Thinking Becomes a Business Model
Robert L. FitzPatrick, in False Profits and Ponzinomics, describes MLMs as “endless chain” recruitment schemes. What sustains them isn’t product sales but the constant influx of hopeful recruits. Yet these schemes require something more than numbers: they require belief.
Here, the Law of Attraction becomes the MLM’s best salesman. Distributors are told:
Failure isn’t about the structure of the business; it’s about your mindset.
Doubt is “negative energy” that will block your success.
Quitting is not just a business choice but a moral failing.
In the Amway training program, the “ABCs of Success” are “Attitude, Belief and Commitment.” Attitude was the key which must be guarded. Don’t let anyone steal your attitude. Negative was defined as “whatever influence weakens your belief and commitment in the business” -False Profits
This is where Norman Vincent Peale’s “positive thinking” gospel dovetails with MLM. In his 1948 book Positive Thinking for a Time Like This, Peale popularized the phrase
“Let go and let God. Let Him take over your life and run it. He knows how.”
While originally a call to spiritual surrender, the phrase has since been weaponized in countless contexts from Holiness movements to Alcoholics Anonymous to prosperity preaching. At its worst, it functions as a silencer: don’t question, don’t resist, don’t think critically. Just “let go,” and trust that outcomes (or uplines) will provide.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity has a word for this: prelest. It’s the belief that human beings are so easily deceived that any private sense of spiritual progress — a feeling of clarity, joy, empowerment, even a mystical experience — can’t be trusted on its own. Without humility and the guidance of a spiritual father, you’re told it may just be pride, delusion, or the devil in disguise.
That’s the trap: you can’t trust your own mind, heart, or gut. The only “safe” option is obedience to the system. Which is exactly how MLMs and other high-control groups operate — undermining self-trust to keep you dependent.
Nietzsche would have called this a kind of slave morality, a belief system that encourages resignation to suffering rather than rebellion against unjust structures. The Law of Attraction, framed in this way, doesn’t challenge MLM exploitation; it sanctifies it.
More powerful than any product, charismatic leader, or compensation plan, the MLM mindset materials (the tapes, courses, and “personal development” kits) are the prime tools used to recruit and control distributors. Once you’re in the system, you’re encouraged to buy these materials week after week, keeping you invested emotionally and financially while feeding the company’s bottom line.
I went back through my Facebook to find some goodies for you! 😜This photo says “My energy creates my reality. What I focus on is what I will Manifest.” Here is the original caption so you can hear how brainwashed I was. “💥🙌🏼Belief is a feeling of certainty about something, driven by emotion. Feeling certain means that it feels true to you and therefore it is your reality. 💥🙌🏼 💪🏼 What you focus on you find 💪🏼 👀 You’ve got to believe it, to see it 👀”
Flashback to my first corporate event Aug 2016. My upline purchased my flight basically forcing me to go.
My caption at the time: 🤮
🔥IGNITE YOUR VISION! 🔥 ⚡Attended an event that changed my life. Showed me the massive vision of this company. 🤗Join our passionate, growing team of 18-35-year-olds striving for extraordinary lives and ownership of health, dreams, and contributions. 🤩Returning to this LIFE CHANGING event soon! Nashville, TN—let’s learn, grow, and celebrate!
Sounds inspiring, right? Except what they’re really selling is mandatory product purchases, endless hype, and a community that keeps you chasing the next status milestone. That “massive vision” isn’t about your health or dreams—it’s about the company’s bottom line.
Words like passionate, extraordinary, innovators, ownership are carefully chosen psychological nudges, making you feel like life itself is on the line if you’re not on board. And the countdown to the next “life-changing” event? Keeps you spending, attending, and emotionally hooked.
This is exactly what FitzPatrick calls out in Ponzinomics: the sales rep is the best customer. Only a tiny fraction of participants earn anything; the rest are paying to stay inspired.
More flashback images from my cult days….
The Psychological Toll
When these elements collide the New Thought inheritance of “mind over matter,” Peale’s positive thinking, religious community networks and MLM compensation plans… the result is a high-control environment dressed in empowerment language.
The outcomes are rarely empowering:
Blame and guilt when inevitable losses occur.
Anxiety from the demand to maintain “high vibrations.”
Suppression of doubt, lest skepticism be mistaken for weakness.
Financial harm disguised as personal failure.
In wellness communities, this logic extends beyond money. If essential oils don’t heal your illness, it’s because your mindset was wrong. If the diet doesn’t work, it’s because you didn’t “believe” enough. Structural realities (biology, medicine, inequality) are flattened into personal responsibility.
As Haidt warns, morality (and by extension ideology) can both bind and blind. The Law of Attraction, when paired with MLM, binds participants into a shared culture of hope and positivity while blinding them to exploitation.
Connecting the Dots: Bodybuilding, Metabolism & Team Isagenix
A couple weeks ago on the podcast, I shared about my bodybuilding years and the metabolic fallout I still live with today. I had forgotten how much of that season was actually entangled with my Isagenix obsession. My upline (the couple who enrolled me) were a part of Team Isagenix®, and I craved the validation of being “seen” as a successful athlete inside that community.
The requirements were brutal: placing in the top three of multiple competitions in a short span of time. So, between May 2017 and October 2018, I crammed in four shows in just 18 months. No off-season. No recovery. Just constant prep cycles. My metabolism never had a chance to stabilize, and I pushed myself past healthy limits. I wrecked my body and I’m still paying the price.
This is why I push back so hard when people insist that success is all about having a “positive enough” attitude to manifest it. My mindset was ironclad. What I lacked the conscious awareness that valued human health over recruitment and body image. That drive wasn’t just about stage lights and trophies. It was about proving my worth to an MLM culture that dangled prestige as the price of belonging. Team Isagenix® made the bar steep, and I was determined to clear it, no matter the cost.
And if you need proof of how deep this “mindset over matter” indoctrination goes, look no further than my old upline…now rebranded as a Manifestation Coach. Picture the classic boss-babe felt hat, paired with a website promising “signature mindset tools for rapid results.” According to her, if fear or doubt was “shrinking your dreams,” this was your moment to “flip it.” She name-drops 8-figure companies, influencers, and visionaries (the usual credibility glitter) while selling memberships, live events, and 7-day challenges.
It’s the same pitch recycled: your struggle isn’t systemic, it’s your mindset. If you’re not living your “life you truly love,” it’s because you haven’t invested enough in flipping the script (with her paid framework, of course). The MLM grind culture just got a new coat of “manifesting” paint.
🧠 Isagenix Programs & Their Psychological Impact
Healthy Mind and Body Program: A 60-day “mindset” initiative framed as holistic wellness. In practice, it ties product use to personal development, creating behavioral conditioning and binding members into a sense of shared identity and belonging. 🚩
IsaBody Challenge: A 16-week transformation contest requiring regular Isagenix product purchases. Completion comes with swag and vouchers; finalists are paraded as “success stories,” gamifying loyalty and dangling prestige as bait. The grand prize winner earns $25,000 but most participants earn only deeper entanglement. 🚩
Team Isagenix: Marketed as a prestige group for elite athletes with current national certifications, offering exclusivity and aspirational branding. This elevates certain members as “proof” of the products’ legitimacy, fueling both loyalty and recruitment. 🚩
Product Consumption: Isagenix requires 100 PV every 30 days just to remain “active.” This equates to about $150/month you HAVE to spend. On paper, bonuses and ranks promise unlimited potential. In reality, most associates struggle to recoup even their monthly product costs. Personal development rhetoric and community belonging often eclipse these financial realities, keeping participants cycling through hope, debt, and blame. 🚩
🤮🐦🔥 “Transform Your Life with Isagenix | Empowering Wellness and Wealth” 🐦🔥 🤮
Watch closely, because this is where the magic happens: the company paints a picture of limitless opportunity, but as Robert L. FitzPatrick lays out in Ponzinomics, the secret is that the sales rep is the best customer. That’s right… the real profits aren’t coming from your vague dreams of financial freedom; they’re coming from the people who are already buying the products and trying to climb the ranks.
The numbers don’t lie. According to Isagenix’s own disclosure: the overall average annual income for associates is $892. Among those who actually earned anything, the average jumps to $3,994. Do the math: $892 ÷ $3,994 ≈ 0.223 — meaning only about 22% of associates earn anything at all. The other 78%? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
And before you start fantasizing about that $3,994, remember: that’s before expenses. Let’s run a realistic scenario based on actual product spend:
$150/month on products or promotional materials = $1,800/year → net ≈ $2,194 − $1,800 = $1,194 before other costs.
Factor in travel, events, or socials? That $1,194 could easily drop to near zero…or negative.
The point: the so-called “income potential” evaporates fast when you account for the mandatory spending MLMs require. The only thing truly transformed is the company’s bottom line, not yours.
No wonder the comments are turned off.
Apparently, nobody actually crunches the numbers while the marketing spiel promises energy, strength, and vitality as if a shake could fix financial exploitation, metabolic burnout, and guilt-tripping at the same time.
My story is just one case study of how these tactics play out in real lives: I was recruited through trusted connections, emotionally manipulated with promises of transformation, pressured into relentless product use, and left with financial strain and long-lasting health consequences. That’s the “empowerment” MLMs sell and it’s why scrutiny matters.
Cultural Ecosystems That Enable MLMs
MLMs don’t operate in a vacuum. They flourish where belief structures already normalize submission to authority, truth-claims, and tightly networked communities. Evangelicals and the LDS Church provide striking examples: tight-knit congregations, missionary training in persuasion, and a cultural emphasis on self-reliance and communal obligation create fertile ground for recruitment.
Companies like Nu Skin, Young Living, doTERRA, and Melaleuca have disproportionately strong followings in Utah and among Mormon communities. FitzPatrick notes that MLMs thrive where trust networks and shared values make persuasion easier. The kind of environment where aspirational marketing and “prestige” teams can latch onto pre-existing social structures.
In short, it’s not just the products or the promises of positive thinking; it’s where belief, community, and culture all collide… that allows MLMs to hook people and keep them chasing elusive success.
Beyond Magical Thinking
The critique, then, is not of hope or positivity per se, but of weaponized optimism. When mantras like let go and let God or just thinking positive to manifest it are used to shut down discernment, discourage action, or excuse exploitation, they cease to be spiritual tools and become instruments of control.
Nietzsche challenged us to look beyond systems that sanctify passivity, urging instead a confrontation with reality even when it is brutal. FitzPatrick’s work extends this challenge to the world of commerce: if we truly care about empowerment, we must be willing to see how belief systems can be manipulated for profit.
That’s why MLMs and the Law of Attraction deserve scrutiny. Not because they promise too much, but because they redirect responsibility away from unjust structures and onto the very people they exploit.
Coming Up: A Deeper Dive
Next week on the podcast, I’ll be speaking with Robert L. FitzPatrick, author of False Profits and one of the world’s leading experts on MLMs. With decades of research, FitzPatrick has testified in court cases exposing fraudulent MLM schemes and helped unravel the mechanisms behind these multi-billion-dollar operations. He’s seen firsthand how MLMs manipulate culture, co-opt spirituality, and turn belief itself into a product.
Stay tuned. This is a conversation about more than scams, it’s about the machinery of belief, and how it shapes our lives in ways we rarely see.
Byrne, Rhonda. The Secret. New York: Atria Books, 2006.
Eddy, Mary Baker. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1875.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edited by Brooks Atkinson. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
FitzPatrick, Robert L. False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes. Charlotte, NC: Herald Press, 1997.
FitzPatrick, Robert L. Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing. Charlotte, NC: Skyhorse Publishing, 2020.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Edited by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1989 (originally published 1887).
Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Thinking for a Time Like This. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948.
Quimby, Phineas P. The Quimby Manuscripts. Edited by Horatio W. Dresser. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1921.
Wallace, David Foster. “Consider the Lobster.” In Consider the Lobster and Other Essays. New York: Little, Brown, 2005. (Useful on consumer culture critique, if you want a modern edge.)
Hey hey my friends, welcome back to Taste of Truth Tuesdays. Today’s episode is going to be heavier than usual, because I want to process something that has been shaking me to my core over the past week, the brutal death of Charlie Kirk.
Now, I need to start here: I did not agree with Charlie on everything, especially not his theology. You know me, I don’t subscribe to the idea that morality begins and ends with the Abrahamic scriptures. That’s a hard pass. But I also can’t deny the impact Charlie had on me. I spent years watching him debate, learning from the way he sharpened his arguments and stayed composed with people he deeply disagreed with. He’s one of the people who actually inspired me to study the Constitution, socialism, and to pay more attention to what’s happening politically.
So when I heard he was brutally murdered, I cried. It was horrific. And then, when I looked online and saw people celebrating his death? Saying he deserved it because he was a white, conservative, Christian man? That was gutting. Not just emotionally but morally.
In fact, let me show you a comment I received. This person told me she couldn’t believe I was mourning the death of a Trump supporter, that he had ‘spewed so much,’ and then announced she was unfollowing and blocking me.
That’s the climate we’re in. Not just disagreement, but outright dehumanization.
That kind of reaction, the dancing-on-the-grave energy, it’s not just tasteless. It’s a reflection of how far moral tribalism has gone. She is a perfect example of what I saw when I was navigating ex-Christian and ex-evangelical spaces. It is the same trend there: conservatives painted as villains, ridiculed, dismissed, treated as less-than.
Folks in my parasocial networks would send me podcasts or Instagram pages that were just openly disrespectful and overgeneralizing, like mocking anyone who leaned right was simply part of the healing process. And I remember sitting there thinking… how are you even friends with me if you despise people like me so much?
It’s like the hatred is so baked into the zeitgeist, people don’t even notice they’re doing it.
I’ve already done an episode on the radical left and why I left the left in 2020. Back then I saw the extremism ramping up with Black Lives Matter, with pandemic policies, and yes, with those shocking poll results in 2022, where a significant portion of Democrats said they believed unvaccinated people should have their kids taken away or even be put into camps.
That was the moment I realized this wasn’t just about public health. It was about authoritarianism cloaked in moral righteousness.
And I want to tie that moment to this moment. Because what we’re seeing with Charlie Kirk’s death is the exact same kind of moral righteousness, just flipped.
This is where Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind comes in and yall know I bring this book up a lot, but today it’s essential.
Haidt’s big idea is that morality isn’t one single thing. It’s made up of six different foundations, like taste buds of the moral sense. Let me walk you through them:
Care vs. Harm – the instinct to protect others from suffering. Progressives tend to emphasize this one the most.
Fairness vs. Cheating – concern for justice, reciprocity, equal treatment. Again, heavily weighted on the left.
Loyalty vs. Betrayal – valuing group solidarity, patriotism, belonging. This resonates more on the right.
Authority vs. Subversion – respect for tradition, leadership, order. Again, more prominent for conservatives.
Sanctity vs. Degradation – ideas of purity, sacredness, things that must not be defiled. Religion is one form, but health and nature can trigger it too. Conservatives score higher here, but you see progressives activate it around food purity or environmentalism.
Liberty vs. Oppression – the drive to resist domination and protect freedom. This one cuts across both sides but is framed differently, the right fears big government, the left fears corporate or systemic oppression.
Now, how does this help us explain what we’re seeing?
Progressives, whose moral taste buds are dominated by Care and Fairness, look at Charlie Kirk and say, ‘He caused harm to marginalized groups, he propped up unfair systems.’ So when he died, they felt justified in celebrating. Their moral taste buds told them: this is justice.
Conservatives, on the other hand, lean more heavily on Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. Charlie embodied loyalty to the nation, respect for conservative traditions, and yes, defense of the sacred. So his death wasn’t just tragic, it was an attack on everything sacred to them. That’s why you’re seeing these martyrdom narratives, even AI videos of Charlie in heaven with other ‘heroes of the faith.’ It’s moral psychology in action.
I’m aware that this is AI of course — but it has moved me, I can only imagine how Charlie is celebrating 🕊️ pic.twitter.com/b9G4lBGVpZ
👉 And this is also the perfect moment to point out the formula behind Psy-Ops. Because these martyrdom narratives aren’t just spontaneous. They follow a pattern of influence:
That’s the formula. You feed people a stimulus, in this case, AI imagery of Charlie Kirk as a martyr. You attach it to a strong feeling: grief, anger, hope. By doing so, conscious awareness is bypassed, people aren’t stopping to analyze, they’re in raw emotion. And then you repeat it over and over. Before long, it’s not just an image, it’s a belief. This is why these videos are so powerful, they’re not just content, they’re psychological conditioning.
In the book FreeYour Mind, which we discussed in our previous podcast episode, Chapter 9 emphasizes the importance of getting ideas in writing—but it also highlights the unique power of images. As the book notes:
“An image tells a thousand words, and seeing is believing. You tend to be more easily persuaded by images than by words, and video is even more persuasive. On the other hand, reading leaves more breathing room for critical thinking.”
Images can define ideas and stick in our minds in ways words alone often cannot. A single powerful metaphor or visual statement can leave a lasting impression. Take Donald Trump’s political career, for example: it wasn’t only shaped by complex and abstract immigration policies, but also by concrete, visual symbols—a border wall, or the image of him standing with his fist raised, signaling defiance after the attempted assassination. Mental images grab our attention and viscerally anchor themselves in our minds. They’re persuasive tools that can move political movements forward.
Psychologists agree. This phenomenon is known as the picture superiority effect: images are far more memorable than words. In one study, participants were shown a mix of 612 images and words for six seconds each. When asked later which they recognized, 98% of the pictures were remembered, compared to just 90% of the words. Another study of news broadcasts found that only 16% of stories were remembered when heard over the radio, versus 34% when watched on television.
The takeaway? Images are not just memorable-they shape perception.
Seeing really is believing.
And here’s Haidt’s main takeaway: morality binds and blinds. Both sides feel righteous, but both sides are blinded. The left is blinded to the humanity of someone they disagreed with, so they cheer for his death. The right is blinded to pluralism and nuance, so they sanctify him and risk sliding into Christian authoritarianism.
And let’s pause here…because this rise in religious fervor is deeply concerning to me. I used to push back when people warned about Christian nationalism. I thought it was overblown. But watching Gen Z churn out martyr videos of Charlie Kirk, watching this wave of revivalist passion roll in, I can’t deny the potential for backlash anymore.
Go along with Jesus or you are a terrorist is basically the narrative these guys are spinning. pic.twitter.com/kRv2XRXnvp
It’s not just reverence – it’s symbolism, its revivalism, its identity politics wrapped in scripture. And that’s where my alarm starts.
Take the Noahide Laws movement. People often describe it as returning to a universal moral code. On its face, sure, that sounds appealing. But when morality is rooted in a particular scripture or identity, it often becomes a tool to say: ‘these norms are non-negotiable, and dissent or spiritual alternatives are forbidden’ That’s when spirituality crosses into political power-building.
Listen to this clip from Ben Shapero on the Daily Wire.
And we’re already seeing it creep into policy.
The administration just passed an executive order on ‘Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.’ Protecting religious freedom is vital, yes. But there’s a difference between protecting believers from discrimination and making laws where Christian sentiment is immune from critique or satire.
The White House posted a video mourning Charlie Kirk concluding with:
In loving memory of Charlie Kirk, a fearless patriot & man of unwavering faith who dedicated his life to America.
"It's bigger than you, I want you to remember that… It's bigger than me – you are here to make somebody else's life better, the pursuit of liberty & freedom."❤️ pic.twitter.com/3Xrf5dcFlP
“1 Corinthians 5 and 15 provide compelling evidence (not only intrabiblical but also extrabiblical) that Jesus Christ was a real historical figure. He lived a perfect life, was crucified, rose on the third day, and is Lord and God.”
If you still don’t see how Christianity and faith in Jesus, a figure who probably never existed—is both holding this country back and enabling Zionism, it’s time to wake up.
We’ve already seen new laws against so-called antisemitism that start to look a lot like blasphemy laws. How long before similar protections are extended to Christian sentiment?
This matters because young people might get swept into this revivalist Christian / Abrahamic framework without realizing it.
It reduces room for spiritual alternatives, for pluralism, for traditions like panpsychism or animism, worldviews that see all of reality as alive, interconnected, and worthy of respect. That feels more universal to me. Less tied to tribal texts, less prone to turning spirituality into a weapon of the state.
History has shown us that religious revivalism mixed with nationalism and state power is a dangerous cocktail. It binds, but it also blinds. And that’s why I can’t jump on board with this new wave of Abrahamic revivalism being fueled by Charlie’s death. My skepticism sharpens right here.
So here’s where I land: I grieve. I grieve for a man who influenced me. I grieve the way his life was taken. But I also grieve the way his death is being used by some to celebrate evil, by others to canonize him into sainthood. Both sides reveal how morality binds and blinds. And if we don’t wake up to that, we’ll keep swinging between authoritarian extremes.
And I want to close with a reminder from Jonathan Haidt himself. He wrote:
“Social scientists have identified at least 3 major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories. We are now at the greatest level of political polarization since the 1860s. It’s more necessary than ever to return to these 3 forces in every way we can, individually and as a society.”
That’s where I want us to go. Beyond tribal stories of vengeance or martyrdom, back toward trust, strong institutions, and stories that unite rather than divide.
So, maintain your curiosity, embrace skepticism, and keep tuning in.
Further Reading & Sources
The Righteous Mind– Why Good People are Divided on Religion and Politics by Jonathon Haidt
Charlie Kirk’s Death Exposed the Biggest Scam in History This video exposes how suppression, radicalization, and division are weaponized not by ideology, but by systems designed to keep you outraged, divided, and distracted.
Let’s discuss what Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, & The New Jerusalem Reveal About Power and Media
Hey Hey Welcome back to Taste of Truth Tuesdays.
At the end of last month, we started unpacking a big question: where does real power sit in our country? And how does understanding history & theology change the way we see what’s happening today?
Well, the timing couldn’t be more perfect, because right now there’s a viral clash unfolding that brings all those threads together in real time.
I just finished reading the book The New Jerusalem by Michael Collins Piper, which was written way back in 2004 and it discussed a lot of the same individuals and key information that Fuentes said during this 2-part attack on Tucker. The book is a deep dive into decades of political and financial influence shaping America. As I’m reading it, this public duel emerges between two of the loudest voices in the alt-right media: Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. And I really appreciated what Ian Carroll had to say about the subject while he reminded us why these kinds of debates aren’t just entertainment: they’re essential for discussing the truth & the health of our nation.
This isn’t gossip or drama. It’s about understanding the invisible lines drawn around what we’re allowed to talk about, what gets filtered out, and what’s shut down. If we pay attention, this moment could help move the conversation forward in ways we desperately need.
The New Jerusalem: Mapping Influence Behind the Scenes
In our previous episode, I mentioned how I truly believe that we have been an occupied nation since 1960s and Michael Piper (author of The New Jerusalem) totally agrees. He wrote a 768 page book called The Final Judgment The missing link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy and so that is just a whole nother rabbithole.
He also wrote a book called The High Priest of War which was the first full length work examining the little known history of the hardline pro Israel neoconservative movement which Nick Fuentes was really breaking down for us in his part two series (in particular).
It is starting to make so much sense… So I’m just trying to point you guys into resources not to propose myself as someone who can connect all the dots like Michael Collins Piper can. He traces the networks, deals, and consolidations of power that have shaped the American political and financial landscape over the last century.
It’s definitely a lot shorter and more entertaining than Whitney’s Webs books Nation Under Blackmail I couldn’t get through them to be honest with you they were so dry so if you read them mad props to you.
So, for me, what stands out is the gradual centralization of influence: from banking to media to government appointments. These connections have profound effects on policy, public opinion, and international alliances.
You know you can say connecting the dots is anti-Semitic
The esteemed Websters dictionary has now broadened the definition of antisemitism to include: “opposition to Zionism” which is definitely a lot of what I speak about and “sympathy for the opponents of Israel”.
Those two categories alone would probably include literally billions of people across the face of this planet. We need to understand that when people label folks as “white-supremacists”, “Nazi”, “antisemitic”…. you know cancel culture is over so if y’all aren’t picking up on that like do you need to go to primary sources and listen specifically to what people were saying try to read books try to listen to different sides of the story so you can grasp the truth (if you can).
This isn’t wild conspiracy. It’s a careful look at decades of patterns and documented facts (most of the sources were from Jewish resources). Our current political reality didn’t just appear by chance. It’s the product of generations of social engineering, strategic moves and powerful leverage.
Without this historical lens, it’s easy to see today’s media as an organic mess of voices. But with it, you realize just how much of what we hear (and don’t hear) is carefully shaped, and rarely talked about openly.
Tucker Carlson vs. Nick Fuentes: A Public Clash Over Boundaries
What kicked all of this off was an interview on August 1st, 2025, when Tucker Carlson sat down with Candace Owens. During that 15-minute segment, they launched a personal character attack on Nick Fuentes. The spark? Tucker claimed he didn’t know his dad was in the CIA until after his father’s death in March 2025 — a claim most of us know was a blatant lie.
That lie set off a firestorm. In response, Nick Fuentes dropped a two-part viral series on Rumble, calling out Tucker for being dishonest and, more importantly, for not pushing far enough on certain topics. Fuentes argues there are clear lines Tucker won’t cross — and those lines shape what millions of people get to hear.
Whether you agree with Fuentes or not, this public clash is rare. Usually, these kinds of disputes stay behind the scenes or get smoothed over. But this time, it’s happening in front of us, giving the audience a rare look at the invisible boundaries of public discourse — the unspoken rules about what topics are “safe” and which ones are off limits.
Once you notice those lines, it’s natural to ask: who drew them? And why?
If you want to see the full exchange and judge for yourself, Nick Fuentes’ two-part response is available on Rumble:
Watching these gives a clearer picture of why this clash has grabbed so much attention and why the boundaries of public discourse matter now more than ever.
Now, this ties into something I’ve been noticing from some corners of the conversation: people who’ve moved away from Protestant Church and embraced Orthodox Christianity, rightly pushing back against things like Zionism and dispensationalism.
On our last episode, I talked about how it’s not just dispensationalism or the Schofield Bible fueling this whole machine — it’s that Christianity itself is built on Jewish roots.
“Inside ever Christian is a Jew” —Pope Francis (June 16, 2014)
Reading from The Jesus Hoax:
Consider, first of all, the ancient origins of Judaism and the corresponding events of the Old Testament (OT) otherwise known as the Jewish (or Hebrew Bible). The original Patriarch, Abraham, (originally called ‘Abram’—strange how so many people in the Bible have two names), allegedly lived sometime between 1800 and 1500 BC; he was the traditional father of not only Judaism and thus Christianity but centuries later, of Islam as well. Thus, one sometimes reads that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all viewed as the “Abrahamic” religions.
Simply put: Christians believe in a Jewish God, read Jewish Scriptures, and worship a Jewish rabbi. If you take those origin stories as literal history, you’re often reinforcing the very narratives that prop up modern Zionism.
But here’s where my beef 🥩comes in: In a recent clip, one such voice claimed that Jesus wasn’t really a Jew — just ‘an Israelite from Judah’ — as if that somehow changes His identity or the core of the faith. Here is the clip:
This is a good point to take a short detour to explain some very relevant terminology Much confusion exists around three apparently interchangeable terms Hebrew Israelite and Jew. In the book of Genesis 14:13 Abram/Abraham is the first referred to as the “Hebrew”—a term of ambiguous origin and no clear meaning. Regardless, Abraham was the original “Hebrew”, and this designation came to be attached to his son Isaac (but not Ishmael) and to Isaac’s son Jacob (but not Esau) and to Jacob’s 12th sons and their descendants—all of whom would be called “Hebrews”
The term “Israel” as noted above, has been in existence since at least 1200 BC. In Hebrew language, “Israel” means ‘he who strives with God’, and thus is a term of honor. It first appears in the BIble in Genesis 32:28 when Jacob is renamed Israel. Therefore, Jacob and his 12 sons and all their heirs are called Israelites.
But what about ‘Jew’? We See above that one of Jacob’s 12 sons was Judah-or in Hebrew, Jehudah. Judah was Jacob/Israel’s 4th son, but as it turns out, the first three (Reuben, Simeon and Levi) ended up in his disfavor and so Judah takes a leading role. Speaking to his sons, Jacob says: Genesis 49:10
This idea that Jesus wasn’t a Jew feels more like a way to cope or sidestep with the uncomfortable historical and theological realities than a true insight. And it’s important to recognize when narratives intended to clarify actually end up muddying the waters…..
Any case, as the 12 tribes and their descendants became established in Palestine, the 10 northern-most tribes became known as ‘Israel’ and the southern-most two, as ‘Judah.’ At some point, the ‘man of Judah’ or descendant of Judah’ became a Yehudia Jew.
After the Babylonian exile and return (597 to 538 BC), the 12 tribes became known collectively as both ‘Israel’ and ‘men of Judah’ or Yehu-dim. We see a variation on this term appear on a coin minted around 120 BC, with the word Hayehudim (“of Judah” or “of the Jews”). Yehudi, or plural Yehudim, appear several times in the OT; typically this is translated into English as ‘Jew’ or ‘Jews’., although sometimes as ‘man of Judah’
The first appearance is in 2 Kings (16:6 and 25:25), and then several times later in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Jeremiah, Daniel (twice), and Zecharia (8:23). ‘Jew’ is not in the first five books (Pentateuch) like He-brew’ and ‘Israel’ are, which suggests that it is not quite as ancient within Jewish culture; but still, its presence throughout the remainder of the OT shows its importance to the Jewish authors, who, of course, were writing strictly to a Jewish audience. When Jews were writing to their fellow Jews, they had no compunction about using the word ‘Jew.’
As the OT spread into Greek and (later) Latin culture, Yehudi became translated as Ioudaios and Iudaeus, respectively. The Latin term lost its ‘d’ when moving into the region of modern-day France, and the people there created a contracted version, giu. This then worked its way into Old English around the year 1000, where it took a variety of forms:
Gyu, Giu, lew, luu, and so on. By the late 1300s, Chaucer was using the word Jewes. And by the late 1500s, playwrights like Marlowe and Shakespeare were writing, simply, ‘Jews.’
So, the 12 tribes became the nation of Israel, but after exile and time, the term “Jew” came to specifically mean someone from the tribe of Judah or the people of that southern kingdom.
Let’s set the record straight: The Orthodox tradition affirms that Jesus was Jewish by both lineage and practice. For example, the OrthodoxWiki notes that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied by Jewish prophets, and the Gospel of Matthew is written especially for a Jewish audience, emphasizing His fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.
The Orthodox Church in America points out that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish Messiah, who lived fully within the Jewish covenant community — even though some of His contemporaries refused to recognize Him as such. Orthodox catechism reminds us that Jesus’ divine incarnation took place in a fully human, Jewish context.
Historical records in the Gospels show Jesus was born of the tribe of Judah, descended from David, circumcised according to Jewish law, and faithfully observed Jewish festivals and customs. He taught in synagogues and affirmed the Torah and the Prophets (Luke 4:16; John 7:2, 10; Matthew 5:17–18).
That’s why I’m bringing on Dr. David Skrbina, author of The Jesus Hoax, in an upcoming episode. Because when you start questioning who Jesus really was — beyond the narratives handed down or pushed by certain agendas — you begin to see how much history, theology, and culture have been carefully shaped. And as with political power and media, the truth often lives just beyond the boundaries we’re allowed to explore.
Why This Moment Matters
This isn’t just about one book, or two media figures, or a particular platform. It’s a rare opening — a crack in the matrix — that lets us see where conversation gets shut down, and maybe even push those limits back.
Agree or disagree with Piper, Fuentes, or Carlson… that’s your right. But the bigger question remains: who decides what’s okay to say? And if those decisions are made without our awareness, how free are we really?
That question feels especially urgent today, as laws around hate speech and anti-Semitism shape what can be discussed publicly — in ways that limit honest dialogue. Efforts like DEI programs aimed at protecting Jewish students completely contradict how most conservatives feel about identity politics.
My hope is that we take this moment seriously. We stop treating these boundaries as natural or unchangeable. We start asking who benefits from keeping the conversation so tightly controlled — and whether that control is helping or harming our society.
Because once you see where the conversation ends, you realize how much more there is beyond — and often, that’s where the truth really lives.
Between Liberation and Collapse: Why We Need to Talk About the Middle Path
Welcome back to Taste Test Thursdays, where we explore health, culture, belief, and everything in between. I’m your host, Megan Leigh and today, we’re asking a question that’s bound to make someone uncomfortable:
What if the very institutions we tore down as oppressive… were also protecting us?
We live in a time of extremes. On one side, you’ve got Quiverfull-style fundamentalists preaching hyper-fertility and wifely submission like it’s the only antidote to modern decay. On the other, we’ve got a postmodern buffet of “do what you want, gender is a vibe, all structures are violence.”
And if you’re like me—having navigated the high-control religion pipeline but also come out the other side—you might be wondering…
“Wait… does anyone believe in guardrails anymore?”
Because spoiler: freedom without form becomes chaos. And chaos isn’t empowering. It’s destabilizing.
I truly believe that structure and boundaries can actually serve a purpose—especially when it comes to sex, gender, and human flourishing.
This isn’t a call to go backward. It’s a call to pause, zoom out, and ask: what’s been lost in our so-called progress? Let’s dig in.
The Panic Playbook
This past summer, the media went full apocalyptic. You couldn’t scroll, stream, or tune in without hearing it: Christian nationalism is taking over.Project 2025 is a fascist manifesto.Trump is a theocratic threat to democracy itself. The narrative was everywhere—breathless Substacks, viral TikToks, and cable news countdowns to Gilead.
But while progressives were busy hallucinating handmaids and framing every Republican vote as the end of America, they were also helping cover up the biggest political scandal since Watergate: Biden’s cognitive decline.
This blog isn’t a right-wing defense or a leftist takedown. It’s a wake-up call. Because authoritarian creep doesn’t wear just one team’s jersey. If we’re serious about resisting tyranny, we need to stop fearmongering about theocracy and start interrogating the power grabs happening under our own banners—especially the ones cloaked in compassion, inclusion, and “equity.”
Not All “Christian Nationalism” Is the Same—Let’s Break It Down
The term “nationalism” gets thrown around a lot, but it actually has different meanings:
🔸 1. The Theocratic Extreme This is the version everyone fears—and with good reason.
Belief: Government should follow biblical law.
Goal: A Christian theocracy where dissent is treated as rebellion.
Associated with: Christian Reconstructionism, Dominionism, and groups hostile to pluralism. 📍 Reality: This is fringe. Most evangelicals don’t support this, but it’s the go-to boogeyman in media and deconstruction circles.
🔸 2. Civic or Cultural Nationalism More common, less scary.
Belief: Shared culture—language, customs, even religion—can create unity.
Goal: Strong national identity and cohesion, not exclusion.
Seen in: France’s secularism, Japan’s cultural pride, and even Fourth of July BBQs. 📍 Reality: This is where most “Christian nationalists” actually land. They believe in the U.S.’s Christian roots and want to preserve those values—not enforce a theocracy.
🔸 3. Patriotism (Often Mislabeled as Nationalism) Here’s where it gets absurd.
Belief: Loving your country and its traditions.
Goal: A moral, thriving republic. 📍 Reality: Critics lump this in with extremism to discredit conservatives, centrists, or people of faith.
Why It Matters
Lumping everyone—from flag-waving moderates to dominionist hardliners—into one “Christian nationalist” category fuels moral panic. It shuts down real dialogue and replaces nuance with hysteria.
You can:
✅ Love your country ✅ Value strong families ✅ Want morality in public life
…without wanting a theocracy.
Let’s Define the Terms Critics Confuse:
Dominionism: A fringe movement pushing for Christian control of civic life. Exists, but not mainstream.
Quiverfull: Ultra-niche belief in having as many kids as possible for religious reasons. Rare and extreme.
Christian Nationalism: Belief that the U.S. has a Christian identity that should shape culture and law. Vague, often misapplied.
And What It Isn’t:
Pro-natalism: A global concern over falling birth rates—not just a religious thing.
Conservative Feminism: Belief in empowerment through family and tradition. Dismissing it as brainwashing is anti-feminist.
Family Values: Often demonized, but for many, it just means prioritizing marriage, kids, and legacy.
Not all traditionalism is fascism. Not all progressivism is liberation. Let’s keep the conversation honest.
Hillary’s “Handmaid” Moment
Hilary Clinton🎧 “Well, first of all, don’t be a handmaiden to the patriarchy. Which kind of eliminates every woman on the other side of the aisle, except for very few. First, we have to get there, and it is obviously so much harder than it should be. So, if a woman runs who I think would be a good president, as I thought Kamala Harris would be, and as I knew I would be, I will support that woman.”
This quote from Hillary Clinton caused predictable outrage—but what’s more disturbing than the clip is the sentiment behind it.
In one breath, she managed to dismiss millions of women—mothers, caretakers, homemakers, conservative politicians, religious traditionalists—as unwitting slaves to male domination. Clinton doesn’t leave room for the idea that a woman might freely choose to prioritize home, faith, or family—not because she’s brainwashed, but because she’s pragmatic, thoughtful, and in tune with her own values.
To Clinton, there’s one legitimate type of woman in politics: the woman who governs like Hillary Clinton.
This framework—that conservative, traditional, or religious women are “handmaidens”—isn’t new. It’s a familiar talking point in progressive circles. And lately, it’s been weaponized even more boldly, as Clinton revealed in another recent statement:
“…blatant effort to basically send a message, most exemplified by Vance and Musk and others, that, you know, what we really need from you women are more children. And what that really means is you should go back to doing what you were born to do, which is to produce more children. So this is another performance about concerns they allegedly have for family life. Return to the family, the nuclear family. Return to being a Christian nation. Return to, you know, producing a lot of children, which is sort of odd because the people who produce the most children in our country are immigrants and they want to deport them, so none of this adds up.”
This is where modern feminism loses its plot. If liberation only counts when women make certain kinds of choices, it’s not about freedom then.
The Pro-Natalism Panic—and the Projection Problem
🎧 “Although the Quiverfull formal life isn’t necessarily being preached, many of the underlying theological and practical assumptions are elevated… and now, you know, they’re in the White House.” – Emily Hunter McGowin, guest on In the Church Library podcast with Kelsey Kramer McGinnis and Marissa Franks Burt
There’s a subtle but dangerous trend happening in the deconstruction space: lumping all traditional Christian views of family into the Quiverfull/Dominionist bucket.
In a recent episode of In the Church Library, the hosts and guest reflected on the rise of pro-natalist ideas and Christian influence in politics. Marissa asks whether the ideology behind the Quiverfull movement might be getting a new rebrand—and Emily responds with what sounds like a chilling observation: echoes of that movement are now in the White House.
But let’s pause.
❗ The Quiverfull movement is real—but it’s fringe. It’s not representative of all evangelicals, conservatives, or even Christian pro-family thinking.
Yet increasingly, any policy or belief that values marriage, child-rearing, or generational stability gets painted with that same extremist brush. This is where projection replaces analysis.
Take J.D. Vance, often scapegoated in these conversations. He’s frequently accused of trying to turn America into Gilead—even though he has three children, supports working-class families, and hasn’t once called for a theocracy. His concern? America’s birthrate is in freefall.
That’s not theocracy. That’s math.
Pro-natalism isn’t about forcing women to give birth. It’s about grappling with a demographic time bomb. Countries like South Korea, Hungary, and Italy are facing societal collapse because too few people are having children. This isn’t moral panic—it’s math.
Even secular thinkers are sounding the alarm:
Lyman Stone, an economist and demographer, emphasizes: “Lower fertility rates are harbingers of lower economic growth, less innovation, less entrepreneurship, a weakened global position, any number of factors… But for me, the thing I worry about most is just disappointment. That is a society where most people grow old alone with little family around them, even though they wanted a family.”
Paul Morland, a British demographer, warns: “We’ve never seen anything like this kind of population decline before. The Black Death wiped out perhaps a third of Europe, but we’ve never seen an inverted population pyramid like the one we have today. I can’t see a way out of this beyond the supposedly crazy notion that people should try to have more kids.”
We have to be able to separate structure from subjugation. There’s a world of difference between saying “families matter” and forcing women into barefoot-and-pregnant obedience.
When we flatten every traditional idea into a fundamentalist threat, we not only lose clarity—we alienate people who are genuinely seeking meaning, stability, and community in a fragmented culture.
If we want to be intellectually honest, we must distinguish:
Extremism vs. Order
Oppression vs. Structure
Religious Tyranny vs. Social Cohesion
And we should probably stop pretending that every road leads to the Handmaid’s Tale.
Protective Powers: What Louise Perry and Joan Brumberg Reveal About Institutions
Let’s talk about The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry. Perry is a secular feminist. She’s not nostalgic for 1950s housewife culture—but she is asking: what did we actually get from the sexual revolution?
Here’s her mic-drop:
“The new sexual culture didn’t liberate women. It just asked them to participate in their own objectification with a smile.”
We built an entire culture around the idea that as long as it’s consensual, it’s empowering. But Perry argues that consent—without wisdom, without boundaries, without institutional protection—leaves women wide open to harm.
She points to:
Porn culture
Casual hookups
The normalization of sexual aggression and coercion in dating
These aren’t signs of liberation—they’re signs of a society that privatized female suffering and told us to smile through it.
Perry doesn’t say “go full tradwife.” But she does say maybe marriage, sexual restraint, and even modesty functioned as protective constraints—not just patriarchal tools of oppression.
We traded one form of pressure (be pure, stay home) for another (be hot, work hard, never need a man). Neither version asked what women actually want.
Now flip over to The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg. This one blew my mind.
She traces how, a century ago, girls were taught to cultivate inner character: honesty, kindness, self-control.
By the late 20th century? That inner moral development had been replaced by bodily self-surveillance: thigh gaps, clear skin, flat stomachs. Girls now focus on looking good, not being good.
She writes:
“The body has become the primary expression of self for teenage girls.”
Think about that. We went from teaching virtue to teaching girls how to market themselves. We told them they were free—and then handed them Instagram and said, “Good luck.”
So again, maybe some of those “oppressive” structures were also serving as cultural scaffolding. Not perfect. Not painless. But they gave young people—especially girls—a script that wasn’t just: “Be hot, be available, and don’t catch feelings.”
Brumberg isn’t saying go back to corsets and courtship. But she is saying we’ve lost our moral imagination. We gave up teaching self-restraint and purpose and replaced it with branding. With body projects. And now we wonder why depression and anxiety are through the roof??
We dive deeper into these subjects in these two podcasts:
Why the Fear Feels Real—And Why It’s Still Misguided
Look, I get it.
If you’ve escaped religious trauma, purity culture, or spiritual abuse, the sight of a political figure talking about motherhood as a virtue can feel like a threat. Your nervous system registers it as a return to oppression. The media confirms your panic. And suddenly, a call for demographic survival starts sounding like a demand for forced birth.
But your trauma doesn’t make every policy that triggers you authoritarian. It just means you need to slow down and check the data.
Because ironically, the real threats to bodily autonomy and family structure? They might not be coming from traditionalists at all.
🏛 The Progressive Power Grab You’re Not Supposed to Question
Another frustrating comment made by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis in a recent podcast was the need to “decenter nuclear families” and the dismissal of concerns about an “attack on nuclear families” as mere panic. But here’s the thing—this fear isn’t fabricated. It’s not fringe. It’s rooted in observable cultural trends and policy shifts. You can’t just wave it away with smug academic detachment.
Whether you support the traditional family structure or not, the erosion of it has real consequences—especially for children, social stability, and intergenerational resilience. Calling that out isn’t fearmongering. It’s an invitation to discuss the stakes honestly.
Let’s set the record straight: The desire to shape culture, laws, and education systems is not the sole domain of religious conservatives. Dominionist Christians aren’t the only ones with blueprints for a theocratic society. Progressive activists also seek to remake the world in their image—one institution at a time.
This isn’t a right-wing “whataboutism.” It’s an honest observation about how ideological movements—regardless of political lean—operate when they gain influence.
Let’s take a look at what this looks like on both ends of the spectrum:
🏛 Dominionism (Far-Right Christian Nationalism)
Core Belief: Christians are mandated by God to bring every area of life—government, education, business—under biblical authority.
Tactics:
Homeschool curricula promoting biblical literalism and creationism.
Campaigns for Christian prayer in public schools or Ten Commandments monuments in courthouses.
Promoting the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and must return to those roots.
Electing openly Christian lawmakers with the explicit goal of reshaping law and public policy to reflect “biblical values.”
Supporting the Quiverfull movement, which encourages large families to “outbreed the left” and raise up “arrows for God’s army.”
Core Belief: Society must be dismantled and rebuilt to eliminate systemic oppression, centering race, gender, and identity as primary moral lenses.
Tactics:
Embedding DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) frameworks into public schools, universities, and corporate policy.
Redefining gender and sex in school curricula while often sidelining parental input or community values.
Elevating “lived experience” over objective standards in hiring, curriculum design, and academic research.
Weaponizing social media and institutional policies to punish dissenting views (labeling them as “harmful,” “unsafe,” or “hateful”).
Using activist lingo to obscure government overreach (“gender-affirming care” vs. irreversible medical intervention for minors).
🔄 Shared Behaviors: The Race to Capture Institutions
Despite their stark differences in values, both dominionists and far-left activists behave in eerily similar ways:
They seek cultural dominance through schools, law, media, and public policy.
They view their moral framework as not just legitimate but necessary for a just society.
They suppress dissent by pathologizing disagreement—branding critics as “anti-Christian,” “bigoted,” “transphobic,” “groomers,” or “domestic extremists.”
The battleground is no longer just the ballot box. It’s the school board meeting. The state legislature. The HR department. The university curriculum. The TikTok algorithm.
Colorado’s HB25-1312 — The “Kelly Loving Act”
Signed in May 2025, this law expands protections for transgender individuals. Fine on the surface. But here’s the fine print:
It redefines coercive control to include misgendering and deadnaming.
In custody cases, a parent who refuses to affirm a child’s gender identity could now be framed as abusive—even if that child is a minor in the midst of rapid-onset gender dysphoria.
Is it protecting kids? Or is it using identity to override parental rights?
Washington State’s HB 1296
This bill guts the Parents’ Bill of Rights (which was approved by voters via Initiative 2081). It:
Eliminates mandatory parental access to children’s health records (including mental health).
Enshrines gender identity and sexual orientation in a new “Student Bill of Rights.”
Allows state-level monitoring of school boards that don’t comply.
And the cherry on top? It was passed with an emergency clause so it would take effect immediately, bypassing normal legislative scrutiny.
This isn’t some abstract culture war. These are real laws, passed in real states, stripping real parents of their authority.
A Marxist Framework Masquerading as Compassion
Some of these changes echo critical theory more than constitutional liberty.
Historically, Marxist and Maoist ideologies viewed the family unit as an oppressive structure that needed dismantling. Parental authority was often seen as an extension of capitalist control. In its place? State-affirmed loyalty, reeducation, and ideological uniformity.
Now, it’s not happening with red stars and gulags—it’s happening through rainbow flags and DEI seminars. But the power dynamics are the same:
The family becomes secondary to the state. Dissent becomes dangerous. Disagreement becomes “violence.”
This is how authoritarianism creeps in—wrapped in the language of safety and inclusion.
What Real Theocracy Looks Like
If you need a reality check, read Yasmine Mohammed’s Unveiled. Raised in a fundamentalist Muslim home, where women had no autonomy, no basic rights, and no freedom. She was forced into hijab at age 9, married off to an al-Qaeda operative, and beaten for asking questions. Women cannot see a doctor without a male guardian, they are forced to cover every inch of their bodies and are denied access to education and even the right to drive. That’s theocracy. That is TRUE oppression.
Now contrast that with the freedom that women enjoy in the West today. In modern America, women have more rights and freedoms than at any point in history. Women can run around naked at Pride parades, express their sexuality however they choose, and redefine what it means to be a woman altogether. The very idea of a “dystopia” here is laughable when we consider the actual freedom women in the West enjoy.
Yet, despite these freedoms, many liberal women still cry oppression. They whine about having to pay for their student loans, birth control or endure debates over abortion restrictions. This level of cognitive dissonance—claiming victimhood while living in unprecedented freedom—is a slap in the face to women who actually suffer under real patriarchal oppression.
What’s even more Orwellian is how the left, in its quest for inclusivity and justice, is actively stripping others of their freedoms. They preach about fighting for freedom of speech while canceling anyone who disagrees with them. They claim to be champions of equality while weaponizing institutions to enforce ideological conformity.
Bottom line: If you think Elon Musk tweeting about birth rates is the same as what Yasmine went through? You’ve lost perspective.
If your feminism can’t handle dissent, it was never liberation—it was just a prettier cage.
We have to stop mistaking fear for wisdom. We have to stop confusing criticism with violence. And we absolutely must stop handing our power over to ideologies that infantilize us in the name of compassion.
Let’s be clear: Gilead isn’t coming. But if we’re not careful, something just as destructive might.
A world where parents are powerless. Where biology is negotiable but ideology is law. Where compliance is the only virtue, and questions are a crime.
The Courage to Be Honest
What I’m suggesting isn’t fashionable. It doesn’t fit neatly in a progressive or conservative box. But I’m tired of those boxes.
I’ve lived in Portland’s secular utopia and inside a high-control religious environment. I’ve seen how each side distorts truth in the name of “freedom” or “righteousness.”
But what if true liberation is found in the tension between the two?
The most revolutionary thing we can do today is refuse to become an extremist.
Not because we’re afraid. Not because we’re fence-sitters. But because we believe there’s a better way—one that honors the past without being imprisoned by it and faces the future with clear eyes and moral courage.
Maintain your curiosity, embrace skepticism, and keep tuning in. 🎙️🔒
— Megan Leigh
📚 Source List for Blog Post
1. Hillary Clinton Quotes
Quote 1 (on being a “handmaiden to the patriarchy”): [Reference: “Defending Democracy” podcast with historian Heather Cox Richardson, May 2024] No official transcript published — you’re using a direct audio clip for this one.
Political scientists have long found that our opinions are shaped more by group identity than by rational self-interest. As Jonathan Haidt explains in The Righteous Mind, politics is deeply tribal—we’re hardwired to align with groups, not necessarily because they offer truth, but because they provide belonging.
As I’ve been navigating the deconstruction, ex-Christian, ex-cult communities, I’ve noticed for many, the radical progressive left becomes their new “safe” community, offering a clear moral hierarchy—oppressed vs. oppressor, privileged vs. marginalized. It mirrors what they once found in their faith.
But here’s the problem: the partisan brain, already trained in “us vs. them” thinking, doesn’t become freer—it simply finds a new orthodoxy.
These words dominate the language of social justice activism, but what do they actually mean? If you take them at face value, you might think they’re about fighting discrimination or ensuring equal opportunity.
But if you really listen—if you really follow the ideology to its core—it all comes back to one thing: capitalism.
For the radical left, capitalism isn’t just an economic system; it’s the system—the root of all oppression. The force that creates every hierarchy, every disparity, every injustice.
When they say systemic racism, they don’t mean individual prejudice or even discriminatory laws—they mean the entire capitalist structure that, in their view, was built to privilege some and exploit others.
And here’s the part that’s honestly exhausting—watching the same deconstruction folks preach about “decolonizing healing” and “Christian nationalism” in the same breath while pushing trauma support for religious survivors—all while being knee-deep in Critical Race Theory.
It’s one thing to acknowledge past harms. But this ideology just piles on more depression and anxiety without offering real solutions.
Let’s get real: this isn’t healing. It’s more of the same toxic division and victimhood—repackaged as activism.
And if you think I’m exaggerating, just listen to this clip from my interview last season with the founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivor of spiritual abuse:
Katherine Spearing: (Timestamp 4:32) “Now, like, one of the things that I have committed to—who knows how long it will last—I don’t listen to white men. Like, I don’t listen to white men’s podcasts, I don’t listen to white men on TV, white men sermons, I don’t read white men’s books, and I miss ZERO things by not listening to white men. There is amazing material created by BIPOC, queer-identifying people, women—I miss ZERO things not listening to white men. And we, as a culture—especially in fundamentalist spaces—have platformed white men as voices of authority and trust.”
Now let’s take Nikki G. Speaks, who also works with Tears of Eden. Her book frames Christian nationalism as the root of systemic oppression, defining it in a way that casts anyone with conservative values or moral convictions as complicit. And it’s not just an argument—it’s being packaged as trauma recovery. Just look at how it’s marketed:
“Hearing the same controlling language in our laws that I heard in church feels like a step backward in my healing.”“It’s like my trauma has left the church and entered our government—it’s a reminder of how pervasive these beliefs can be.”
This isn’t about healing—it’s about turning political disagreement into personal trauma. And this is just one example of how therapy spaces are being used to enforce ideology rather than foster true recovery.
Let that sink in.
This is what is being promoted under the guise of “healing.”
This isn’t about liberation. It’s about swapping one dogma for another, one form of control for another. And the worst part?
It’s being fed to people who have already been deeply wounded, offering them more alienation and resentment instead of real recovery.
This is where intersectionality comes in.
Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s, intersectionality originally described how different forms of discrimination—race, gender, class—could compound. But in the hands of modern activists, it’s become something much broader—a blueprint for how capitalism oppresses everyone.
Race? Capitalism’s fault. Gender? A hierarchy created by capitalism. Policing? A tool of capitalism to protect property and maintain order. Disability? Even that, they argue, is socially constructed through a capitalist framework that determines who is “productive” and who isn’t.
The goal isn’t reform—it’s destruction. Private property, free markets, law enforcement, even objective truth itself—everything is viewed as an extension of capitalism’s oppressive grip. And because the U.S. Constitution protects that system, it too is labeled a racist, colonialist document that must be overturned.
This is why, no matter what progress is made, America will always be deemed a racist society by those who see racism and capitalism as inextricably linked. And if you think this sounds extreme, just wait—because the next frontier, Queer Marxism, takes it even further. This emerging ideology argues that capitalism didn’t just create economic classes but created gender itself. That masculinity and femininity aren’t just cultural norms, but capitalist inventions designed to uphold oppression.
The radical goal? Not just to redefine gender—but to abolish it entirely.
Today, I’m joined by someone who saw this ideology take over firsthand.
Suzannah Alexander is the writer behind Diogenes in Exile and a self-described whistleblower. Her journey took a sharp turn when she returned to grad school to pursue a master’s in clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. Instead of a rigorous academic environment, she found a program completely entrenched in Critical Theories—one that didn’t just push radical ideas but actively rejected her Buddhist practice and raised serious ethical concerns about how future therapists were being trained. Believing the curriculum would do more harm than good, she made the difficult decision to leave.
Since then, Suzannah has dedicated herself to investigating and exposing the ideological capture of psychology, higher education, and other institutions that seem to have lost their way.
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on what’s really happening in academia and the mental health field—how radical ideologies are shaping the next generation of therapists, and what that means for all of us.
This isn’t just about politics.
This is about the fundamental reshaping of how we think about identity, human nature, and even reality itself.
Buckle up—this conversation is going to challenge some assumptions.
Let’s get into it.
The ‘Shell Game’ of Autonomy vs. Collectivism
In the counseling profession, the ACA (American Counseling Association) Code of Ethics emphasizes autonomy as a fundamental value. Counselors are meant to respect the autonomy of their clients, allowing them to make decisions based on their own needs, values, and beliefs. However, there’s a disturbing contradiction in the way this value is applied.
Suzannah points out a glaring issue: while the ACA Code of Ethics pushes for autonomy on an individual level, the broader agenda within counselor training increasingly prioritizes societal goals—often driven by collectivist ideologies—over the well-being of the individual client. She likens this contradiction to a “shell game,” where one thing (autonomy) is promised, but what you get is something entirely different: an emphasis on societal goals and moral frameworks that favor groupthink over personal decision-making.
From Competence to Conformity: The New Standard for Counselor Training
In Suzannah’s story, she highlights how counseling programs have made a troubling shift from evaluating students based on competence—their ability to effectively help clients—to assessing whether they’re willing to “confess, comply, and conform.” This process, Suzannah describes, is what she terms “ideological purification.”
This ideological purification isn’t about developing professional skill; it’s about enforcing a prescribed set of beliefs. Under the influence of CACREP (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs) standards, students are now pressured to align their personal values and beliefs with certain ideological standards. For Suzannah, this was most evident in how multicultural counseling courses and other required coursework increasingly centered around critical race theory, intersectionality, and social justice activism.
Suzannah asks: How can this ideological shift affect students who resist, and what happens when they’re coerced into aligning with values that aren’t their own?
The danger here is twofold: students who resist this ideological conditioning may find themselves marginalized, pushed out of programs, or forced into an uncomfortable position where they feel pressured to abandon their own beliefs. This, Suzannah argues, creates a chilling atmosphere for anyone who doesn’t conform to the prescribed worldview.
Ideological Purity in Counselor Training: What’s at Stake?
Suzannah’s personal experience with CACREP’s “dispositions” exemplifies the pressure to align personal beliefs with ideological standards. She shares that this led to her being placed on a “Support Plan”—essentially a probationary period where she was expected to prove her ideological compliance. This was compounded by verbal abuse from professors who seemed intent on forcing her to adopt a specific worldview, regardless of her personal or professional integrity.
Suzannah reflects: How did this ideological enforcement affect her professional integrity? The pressure to abandon her personal beliefs and adopt prescribed values made her question whether counseling, a field that should center around helping individuals find their own path, had become more about enforcing conformity than fostering autonomy.
The Impact of Ideological Capture on Effective Therapy
Suzannah’s concerns go beyond her own experience; she warns of the long-term consequences of this ideological capture on the broader counseling profession. As the training process increasingly focuses on ideological purity rather than competence, it undermines the very foundation of therapy—trust, autonomy, and the ability to genuinely help clients.
Suzannah argues that when counselor training programs force students to abandon their personal beliefs, they create a system where the ability to genuinely help clients is compromised. Counselors may find themselves unable to offer support that reflects the true diversity of their clients’ experiences—particularly those who may not share the same ideological framework. This ideological conditioning poses a real threat to the integrity of the counseling profession as a whole.
The Long-Term Consequences: A Dangerous Path
The future of the counseling profession, as Suzannah warns, is in jeopardy if this trend of ideological conformity continues. What once was a field designed to support individuals in navigating their personal struggles is at risk of becoming another ideological tool, where practitioners are forced to conform to an orthodoxy rather than providing true, individualized care.
As Suzannah explains, the core values of counseling—such as autonomy, respect for the individual, and the ability to help clients work through their unique experiences—are being overshadowed by an agenda that prioritizes ideological purity. If this trend continues, it may lead to a future where counselors are more concerned with political correctness than the well-being of their clients.
The Final Question: Is Healing Possible in This New Environment?
Suzannah’s story raises critical questions about the future of counseling and mental health support in an increasingly ideological landscape. How do counselors maintain their professional integrity in a system that demands conformity? How can clients receive true support when the professionals meant to help them are being trained under such an ideological framework?
The answers to these questions will shape the future of mental health care. If the trend of ideological capture continues, it may very well reshape the profession into something unrecognizable—an environment where therapy becomes just another vehicle for ideological control, rather than a space for healing and personal growth.
Have thoughts on this?Join the conversation! If you’ve experienced the impact of ideological conformity in mental health training or therapy, share your story in the comments or send us a message. The more we understand the forces shaping mental health care, the better equipped we are to fight for a future where autonomy and true healing are at the center of care.
Beyond the Glamour: The Dark Reality of the Sex Industry
Welcome back to Taste of Truth Tuesdays. Today’s episode is one that I’ve both been eager and hesitant to share. While I’ve spoken about my journey through faith, fitness and personal transformation that there’s one chapter I’ve largely kept private until now….
For most of my life, I was fed a specific narrative: go to college, get a degree, build a career, and don’t worry about prioritizing marriage or family. Financial independence was the ultimate goal.
After graduating college, I moved from Virginia to Portland, Oregon, to chase my career as a personal trainer, lifestyle coach, and professional circus performer. My income relied on clientele, and while I had busy seasons, nothing was ever truly stable. But with inconsistent income and the ever-present pressure to make ends meet, I found myself in a space that many glamorize but few truly understand—the world of sugar dating.
At first, it didn’t seem that different from the casual dating I was already doing—except now, dinner was covered, and there was a financial incentive. But the deeper I got, the more I realized how unstable and unsafe it was. Most of these men didn’t care about you as a person; they just wanted no-strings-attached access to your body. And when I found myself in situations where I wasn’t in control—where boundaries were ignored, protection was negotiable, and at times, I left empty-handed even after doing my part—I started to see the cracks in the ‘empowerment’ narrative. I remember one night, sitting in my car after being verbally and physically assaulted, I realized I had no one to report it to. No way to warn the next woman. That’s when the illusion fully shattered for me.
That’s why today’s conversation is so important. I’m joined by Sloane Wilson from Exodus Cry, an organization dedicated to exposing the truth about sexual exploitation and advocating for survivors. We’re unpacking the hard truths about the sex industry, the myths that keep women trapped in it, and the cultural shifts that have normalized what should never be considered “just work.”
But we’re also diving into something deeper, faith. Both Sloane and I have gone through our own journeys of deconstruction and reconstruction. She’s seen firsthand how the church can mishandle encountering survivors and how delicate and complex these situations can be.
The Reality of “Sugar Dating”
Some nights felt harmless—like having dinner with a businessman who just wanted company and conversation. But most nights? They were anything but that. The truth is, the fantasy of sugar dating—mutually beneficial, long-term arrangements with financial stability—was just that: a fantasy. Most men weren’t offering monthly allowances or ongoing support. They wanted pay-per-meet agreements—no strings attached, no safety net, just transactional sex. And when survival depended on it, I found myself scrambling to secure the next “daddy.”
I struggled to assert myself, especially in two key areas: insisting on protection and ensuring I was paid upfront. That put me at immense risk—both for my health and my safety. One night, I was forced into acts I didn’t consent to, verbally assaulted, and then left empty-handed. Sitting in my car afterward, I realized something chilling: there was no one to report it to. No way to warn the next girl. No system to hold these men accountable.
Some men had hidden home cameras, recording our time together without my consent. Others were forceful, rough, and used sex toys in ways that crossed every boundary I had. And yet, as awful as those experiences were, I knew I was lucky—because it could have been so much worse.
Most of these men pushed to move conversations off the platform as quickly as possible, demanding explicit photos before agreeing to meet. When you’re in a financial bind, it’s hard to say no. That’s how exploitation thrives—through desperation.
The Trap of a “Luxe” Illusion
Looking back, I wonder—why didn’t I just walk away? Why couldn’t I see, from the beginning, that this wasn’t sustainable? I wasn’t like most women in the industry. I was white, college-educated, and didn’t even have student debt shackling me. My financial stress came from my own reckless spending—maxed-out credit cards and the relentless costs of bodybuilding, a sport I was pouring everything into. So why, with all the options I had, did I keep chasing this?
I think part of it was desperation. The MLM-like promise of sugar dating had me convinced that if I just worked harder, played the game right, and landed the right arrangement, I could have financial security and independence. I put more energy into curating the perfect sugar persona than I ever did into building my personal training business. And maybe, just maybe, I was chasing the mirage of someone close to me—someone who had made sugar dating “work.” I saw her succeed, and I kept believing I could, too.
But there’s another layer. One I don’t love admitting (and one my mom will absolutely deny.) My mother praised me for it. She told me, “I wish I had done this when I was your age.” That kind of validation messes with your perception of right and wrong. It made it seem like I was onto something genius, like I had cracked code other women were too scared or too moralistic to try. Was I subconsciously trying to prove something? Was I filling the void left by emotional neglect?
Or was it just my own damn fault?
That’s the thing about these choices—they never come down to just one reason. It is always more complex. It wasn’t just the financial stress. It wasn’t just my upbringing. It wasn’t just the influence of someone I admired. It was all of it, tangled together, keeping me locked in place. And it took me years to realize that no amount of effort or strategy would turn sugar dating into the safety net I desperately wanted it to be.
The Lie of “Sex Work is Work”
For a long time, I believed the mantra: “sex work is work.” It’s the rallying cry of the sex-positive movement, a phrase meant to legitimize the industry. Prostitution is often called “the oldest profession,” but historically, it has always been a last resort for survival. Women don’t enter this industry because it’s empowering. They do it because they have no better options.
The real harm in prostitution isn’t just about bad working conditions or societal stigma. It’s about dehumanization. When sex is reduced to a transaction, people become commodities. And when we treat people like products to be bought and sold, we strip them of their dignity.
Louise Perry, in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, makes this point powerfully. She argues that the sex industry’s only real defense is a hollow, commodified version of “liberation”—one that insists, “Everyone consents, everyone is an adult, the women enjoy it, so who are you to judge?” But when consent is the only moral standard, we ignore the broader ethical issue: that people are being treated as means to an end. Consent alone does not erase coercion, exploitation, or harm.
In our postmodern culture, we’ve rejected objective morality and replaced it with a consumerist approach to sex. If both parties “agree,” then anything goes. But this is a dangerous slope—one that allows predatory men to exploit desperate women under the guise of empowerment.
Insights from Recent Research
New research exposes the blurred lines between sugar dating and traditional sex work. A study published in The Journal of Sex Research found that over one-third of sugar babies have engaged in other forms of transactional sex work, such as escorting or stripping. This challenges the narrative that sugar dating is different or “classier” than prostitution. The reality? It operates on the same fundamental exchange.
The study also found that sugar benefactors reported an average of over six arrangements, indicating a revolving door of sugar relationships. For these men, sugar dating is just another avenue for purchasing companionship and sex.
Beyond the emotional toll, sugar dating carries serious legal and personal risks. Legal experts warn that these arrangements can lead to blackmail, coercion, and threats—especially when expectations aren’t met. Many women find themselves in vulnerable situations with no real recourse. The illusion of control is just that—an illusion.
The Flawed Narrative Around Sex Work and Deconstructing Purity Culture
In the deconstruction space, there’s a growing trend of equating sexual liberation with empowerment while rejecting any critique of the sex industry as moral panic. A popular post circulating on International Sex Workers Day exemplifies this mindset, arguing that deconstructing purity culture requires deconstructing any negative views of sex work. The claim? Sex work and sex trafficking are entirely separate, and many big Christian anti-trafficking organizations wrongly conflate the two to push an agenda. The post insists that if a person is not forced, defrauded, or coerced, they are simply making a free choice to engage in sex work. But this argument is deeply flawed when examined through historical context, real-world data, and the experiences of women who have lived through it.
The Demand Problem: Why Legalizing Sex Work Doesn’t Protect Women
One of the most critical oversights in this argument is the failure to acknowledge that sex work is a demand-driven industry. As Louise Perry outlines in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, countries that have legalized prostitution have seen an increase in trafficking. Why? Because legalizing the industry normalizes the demand for paid sex, and when there aren’t enough willing participants, traffickers step in to fill the gap. Studies show that in places like Germany and the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, trafficking rates have skyrocketed because the market rewards pimps and exploiters. The idea that sex work can be fully separate from trafficking ignores the economic reality that supply follows demand.
Linda Lovelace’s experience in Deep Throat is a perfect example of this. The film was a massive success, grossing over $600 million, and was hailed as revolutionary at the time. But years later, Lovelace revealed that she had been coerced into performing in the film under violent and abusive conditions. Her book Ordeal exposed the hidden abuse within the industry—an industry that thrives precisely because there is a market for extreme, degrading content. This isn’t an isolated case; countless women have echoed similar stories after leaving the industry, only to be dismissed while they were still in it because they were expected to uphold the “liberation” narrative.
The Exploitation Behind the Industry
Another major flaw in the sex-work-as-liberation argument is the lack of accountability within the industry itself. MindGeek, the corporation behind the world’s largest pornography sites, has faced multiple civil lawsuits for monetizing non-consensual content—including child sexual abuse, rape, revenge pornography, and voyeuristic recordings of women showering. Reports from December 2020 revealed that the platform was infested with videos depicting abuse and that it profited from some of the darkest corners of human sexuality.
The industry thrives on the illusion that all participants are willing, yet it repeatedly fails to ensure consent. The reality is that the vast majority of those in sex work come from backgrounds of financial instability, trauma, or coercion—not from an empowered, freely chosen career path. The notion that sex work is “just another job” ignores how uniquely dangerous, exploitative, and often inescapable it can be.
The Broader Issue: Normalizing Harm Under the Guise of Liberation
This same pattern of dismissing harm under the banner of liberation isn’t exclusive to the sex industry. I recently came across another example in the deconstruction space where an account that advocates for women’s sexual empowerment was documenting her abortion experience on National Abortion Day. She filmed herself taking the abortion pill as if it were nothing—a casual, almost celebratory act. But this kind of messaging erases the medical realities and risks associated with the abortion pill. It ignores the fact that women absolutely should get an ultrasound before taking it to determine gestational age and rule out ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal if left untreated. Reducing such a serious medical decision to a political performance trivializes the real consequences that many women face.
This connects back to the issue with sex work: the rush to de-stigmatize everything labeled as “empowerment” often leads to a dangerous lack of critical thought. If deconstruction is about questioning harmful narratives, then why aren’t we allowed to question the harm within the sex industry? Why does rejecting purity culture mean embracing an industry that, time and time again, has been built on coercion, abuse, and exploitation?
Deconstructing purity culture shouldn’t mean abandoning discernment. If anything, it should mean taking an even closer look at these industries and asking hard questions about who truly benefits from them. Because when we actually listen to the stories of women who have left sex work, the pattern is clear: what is sold as empowerment often turns out to be exploitation in disguise.
Healing & Advocacy
Looking back, my perspective has completely shifted. The journey out of the sex industry has been long and complicated, but I’m grateful for the clarity I have now. Organizations like Exodus Cry work to expose the realities of the commercial sex trade and fight for real change. And voices like Louise Perry’s are crucial in dismantling the harmful myths that keep this industry alive.
The sexual revolution promised liberation, but for many women, it delivered exploitation instead. The more we normalize the commodification of sex, the more we enable the very systems that harm us. It’s time to rethink everything we’ve been told about “sex work” and start asking: Who really benefits from this industry? Because it’s certainly not the women inside it.
If you’ve ever questioned the narrative around sex work, if you’ve been curious about the reality behind sugar dating, or if you want to hear from someone who’s been there—I invite you to tune in.
It’s time to move beyond the glamour and face the truth.
Healing After Religious Abuse: A Conversation with Connie A. Baker
Religious abuse can leave deep scars—ones that don’t just fade with time but require intentional healing. In this week’s conversation, I sat down with Connie A. Baker, author of Traumatized by Religious Abuse, for an honest and heartfelt discussion about the journey of healing from spiritual trauma. Connie shares her own experiences, the painful realities of the “second wound,” and how survivors can reclaim their emotional autonomy after years of manipulation and control.
Why Healing Can’t Be Rushed
One of the most profound takeaways from our conversation was the reminder that healing isn’t something to bulldoze through. Connie calls herself a “recovering bulldozer,” always pushing to move forward as quickly as possible. But in trauma recovery, speed can be counterproductive. She embraces the mantra, slow is steady, and steady is fast. For survivors, learning to slow down and allow healing to unfold naturally is essential. Trying to rush past the pain often leads to setbacks, while true recovery requires patience, self-compassion, and time.
The Second Wound: Betrayal After Speaking Out
Connie describes how only 25% of the damage she endured came from the abuse itself—the remaining 75% came from the judgment, rejection, and betrayal she faced when she spoke out. This “second wound” is a devastating reality for many survivors who expect support but instead encounter disbelief, gaslighting, or outright hostility.
I resonated deeply with this. When I began speaking about my own experiences within the church, I was met with accusations of backsliding, manipulation, and spiritual rebellion. Survivors already carry the weight of their trauma, and the added burden of social ostracization can feel insurmountable.
So how do we heal from this betrayal? Connie shares practical steps, including:
Finding safe, validating spaces where your story is heard and honored.
Understanding that others’ disbelief or discomfort does not negate your truth.
Developing strong boundaries to protect yourself from further harm.
Naming Abuse and Embracing Spectrum Thinking
One of the most insidious aspects of religious abuse is the difficulty of naming it. Many survivors downplay their experiences, believing that if they weren’t physically harmed, it “wasn’t that bad.” But Connie emphasizes that minimizing abuse hinders healing.
Abuse exists on a spectrum—from coercive control and emotional manipulation to outright physical harm. Recognizing where an experience falls on that spectrum is crucial for understanding the impact and taking steps toward recovery. This applies beyond religion too—cults, MLMs, and even rigid ideological movements can exhibit the same coercive tactics found in high-control religious environments.
Developing spectrum thinking—moving away from rigid “all or nothing” perspectives—allows survivors to see the full picture. Instead of thinking, “I was never physically hurt, so it wasn’t abuse,” they can acknowledge, “This environment manipulated me, eroded my self-trust, and controlled my emotions. That was harmful.”
Reclaiming Emotional Autonomy
Spiritual abuse often hinges on emotional suppression. Survivors are told that negative emotions—anger, sadness, fear—are sinful or a sign of weak faith. Verses like “Rejoice in the Lord always” and “Be anxious for nothing” are weaponized to shame people into emotional denial.
But emotions provide vital information. Anger tells us when our boundaries have been crossed. Sadness signals loss and the need for healing. Anxiety can be a survival mechanism. Connie reminds us that full wisdom comes from embracing the entire spectrum of human emotions.
Learning to trust yourself again after years of emotional control is no small feat. Some practical steps include:
Allowing yourself to feel emotions without labeling them as good or bad.
Recognizing when religious conditioning is silencing your true feelings.
Using anger constructively—to set boundaries rather than self-destruct.
Wrestling with Worldview: From Spiritual to Materialist and Back Again
Many survivors of religious abuse go through a radical shift in their worldview. Some reject spirituality entirely, embracing a materialist perspective where only the tangible world is real. Others swing to the opposite extreme, seeking comfort in rigid new belief systems.
Connie highlights that this spectrum—from deeply spiritual to strictly materialist—is something many survivors navigate as they attempt to make sense of their experiences. Some turn to hedonism—“Eat, drink, and be merry”—while others find meaning in service, activism, or intellectual pursuits. What matters most isn’t where someone lands on the spectrum but rather the process of wrestling with meaning, truth, and autonomy after religious trauma.
Final Thoughts
Healing from religious abuse is not linear. It’s messy, painful, and often isolating. But as Connie’s journey shows, it’s possible. By embracing the full range of emotions, setting firm boundaries, and recognizing abuse for what it is, survivors can reclaim their autonomy and rebuild a life of freedom and self-trust.
If you’re in the midst of this journey, know that you are not alone. Whether you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or simply trying to make sense of it all, your experiences are valid. And healing—real, lasting healing—is possible.
What part of this conversation resonated most with you? Drop a comment and let’s keep the discussion going.
And as always: Maintain your curiosity, embrace skepticism, and keep tuning in! 🎙️🔒
From religion to politics, why deeply held beliefs trigger defensiveness, outrage, and even hostility—and how we can foster better conversations.
We all have seen how the internet seems to bring out everyone’s inner troll. 🧌
The moment a deeply held belief—whether religious or political—is questioned, people lash out with hostility, aggression, or outright rage. Why does this happen? Why do some people react as if their very identity is under attack?
This season on Taste of Truth, we have been expanding the conversation—because this isn’t just about religion. Political ideologies, social movements, and even scientific debates can trigger the same defensive responses.
Fundamentalist thinking—whether in religion or politics—creates a fear-driven, us-vs-them mentality.
At its most basic, the allure of fundamentalism, whether religious or ideological, liberal or conservative, is that it provides an appealing order to things that are actually disorderly. -Peter Mountford
This hits at something crucial that I’ve written about numerous times before: the human brain craves order, even in the face of chaos. The illusion of control is a powerful psychological driver, and our brains reward it with dopamine. Fundamentalist thinking offers a structured, black-and-white framework that feels safe and predictable, making it incredibly appealing—especially in times of uncertainty. It’s why people cling even harder to rigid beliefs when they feel threatened. Whether in faith or politics, the need for certainty can override openness to new information, leading to the defensive reactions we see when those beliefs are questioned.
The moment someone questions the “truth,” it’s perceived as an existential threat, triggering anxiety, cognitive dissonance, and sometimes outright hostility.
Take a look at the patterns:
Verbal Attacks: When someone questions a core belief, the response can be insults, shouting, or belittling. For example, in religious circles, someone questioning doctrine might be labeled a heretic, while in political spaces, dissenters might be called traitors or bigots.
Social Ostracism: In both fundamentalist religious and political groups, those who challenge the status quo risk being shunned, excommunicated, or “canceled.” A former churchgoer who deconstructs their faith may be cut off from their community, just as someone who questions ideological orthodoxy in politics might lose social standing, friendships, or even career opportunities.
Online Harassment: Social media amplifies these reactions. Question a sacred political narrative? Expect dogpiling. Challenge a religious doctrine? Brace yourself for moral outrage. The internet rewards ideological purity and punishes deviation.
Physical Aggression: In extreme cases, questioning or challenging deeply held beliefs can escalate to threats or violence. History is littered with examples—holy wars, political purges, ideological revolutions—all stemming from the belief that certain ideas must be defended at any cost.
This isn’t just about bad behavior—it’s about psychology. When beliefs become intertwined with identity, disagreement feels like a personal attack. Fundamentalist teachings—whether religious or ideological—reinforce this by instilling fear of deviation:
Fear of Deviation – Straying from the accepted belief system is framed as dangerous, whether it’s framed as spiritual damnation or societal collapse.
Cognitive Dissonance – Encountering opposing viewpoints creates internal discomfort, making people double down rather than reconsider.
Fear of Consequences – Whether it’s eternal hellfire or being cast out by one’s political tribe, the cost of questioning is framed as too high.
Identity Threat – When beliefs define self-worth, changing one’s mind feels like losing a part of oneself.
Social Pressure – Communities reinforce conformity, and breaking from the group’s ideology invites punishment.
When Morality Binds and Blinds
In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt explains how moral systems don’t just guide our sense of right and wrong—they also bind us to our tribes and blind us to opposing perspectives. Morality evolved not just to help individuals make ethical choices but to reinforce group cohesion. When we share a moral framework with others, it strengthens social bonds and builds trust. But there’s a cost: once we’re deeply embedded in a moral community—whether religious, political, or ideological—we stop seeing outside perspectives clearly.
This is why people react with such hostility when their beliefs are challenged. They aren’t just defending a set of ideas; they’re defending their sense of identity, belonging, and moral righteousness. A challenge to the belief feels like a challenge to the self—and to the entire group they’re part of.
This also explains why fundamentalist thinking isn’t confined to religion. Political movements, activist groups, and even secular ideologies can exhibit the same rigid certainty, group loyalty, and hostility toward outsiders. The more a belief system becomes tied to identity, the more resistant it is to change—and the more aggressive the response when it’s questioned.
The antidote? Intellectual humility. The ability to recognize that our beliefs, no matter how deeply held, might be flawed. That truth-seeking requires engaging with discomfort. That real conversations happen not when we dig in our heels but when we’re willing to ask, What if I’m wrong?
These dynamics explain why deconstruction—whether of faith or political ideology—often leads to intense backlash. It also reminds me of our conversation with Neil Van Leeuwen, author of Religion as Make-Believe. He pointed out that factual beliefs thrive on evidence, but religious and ideological beliefs function differently. When a belief becomes part of group identity, truth often takes a backseat. In fact, sometimes falsehoods serve the group better because they reinforce belonging.
To close down the conversation, let’s talk about healthy communities—whether religious, political, or social—embrace intellectual humility. Here’s what that looks like:
Open Dialogue: Encouraging respectful conversations where differing perspectives are explored rather than attacked.
Supportive Community: Allowing for questions, doubts, and evolving beliefs without fear of punishment.
Personal Reflection: Cultivating a mindset that prioritizes growth over ideological purity.
Interdisciplinary Engagement: Seeking insights from multiple fields rather than reinforcing an echo chamber.
By recognizing these patterns, we can navigate our own beliefs with more self-awareness and engage in discussions that foster curiosity rather than hostility. The question isn’t whether we hold tightly to certain beliefs—it’s whether we’re willing to interrogate why.
So, what’s one belief you’ve held onto tightly that you later questioned?
Breaking Free: A Conversation with Yasmine Mohammed on Radical Islam, Empowerment, and the West’s Blind Spots
After finishing George Orwell’s 1984, I noticed its resurgence in popularity, especially after Trump’s election. Ironically, it’s not the conservative right but the progressive left that increasingly mirrors Orwellian themes. Similarly, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has become a rallying cry for liberals who claim to be on the brink of a dystopian theocracy. Yet, as Yasmine Muhammad pointed out in this week’s episode, this comparison is not only absurd but deeply insulting to women who live under regimes where Atwood’s fiction is a grim reality.
1984: Rewriting Language and History
The Democratic Party’s obsession with redefining language is straight out of Orwell’s playbook. They tell us biology is bigotry and that there are infinite genders, forcing people to adopt nonsensical pronouns or risk social ostracism. This is not progress—it’s the weaponization of language to control thought, eerily similar to Orwell’s Newspeak.
But it doesn’t stop there. They actively rewrite history by renaming monuments, military bases, and even schools, erasing cultural markers in the name of ideological purity. This is doublespeak in action: the manipulation of truth for political orthodoxy. Orwell’s warning that “orthodoxy is unconsciousness” feels disturbingly apt when observing the modern left.
The Handmaid’s Tale: An Insult to Women Who Actually Suffer
In our conversation, Yasmine highlighted the absurdity of liberal claims that America is The Handmaid’s Tale come to life. Yasmine, who grew up under Islamic theocracy, knows firsthand what it’s like to live in a world where women have no autonomy. These women cannot see a doctor without a male guardian, are forced to cover every inch of their bodies, and are denied basic freedoms like education or the right to drive.
Contrast this with the West, where women have more freedom than any other point in history. Liberal women can run around naked at Pride parades, freely express their sexuality, and redefine what it means to be a woman altogether. And yet, they cry oppression because they are expected to pay for their own birth control or endure debates over abortion limits. This level of cognitive dissonance—claiming victimhood while living in unprecedented freedom—is a slap in the face to women who actually suffer under real patriarchal oppression.
Liberal Orthodoxy: Lost in the Sauce
What’s truly Orwellian is how the left uses its freedom to strip others of theirs. They shout about inclusivity but cancel anyone who disagrees. They claim to fight for justice while weaponizing institutions to enforce ideological conformity. Meanwhile, they are so consumed with their own victim complex that they fail to see how absurd their comparisons to dystopian fiction really are.
Orwell and Atwood warned against unchecked power and ideological extremism. If liberals actually read these books instead of using them as aesthetic props, they might realize they’re mirroring the very authoritarianism they claim to oppose. Instead, they’re lost in the sauce, preaching oppression in a society where they have more freedom than they can handle.
As Yasmine said, “You want to see The Handmaid’s Tale? Try being a woman in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Afghanistan.” The left would do well to remember that before playing the victim in their cosplay dystopia.
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