This is Hemet.

And Jessica.

And you're listening to the Friendly Atheist Podcast.

Please go to patreon.com slash friendly atheist podcast to support this show, get your ad-free and bonus episodes. And hello. Hi, we're creeping earlier and earlier. I know. We start recording these earlier. But there's so much that I'm like, I don't need to wait to record this. We can go ahead and do it now. Great. And I'm going to start off with almost two stories in one. I'll start off with the first one.

Then we'll get to the happier question mark news. Okay, there's a lawsuit. A woman has filed against her former church.

And the details about this lawsuit are wild. I don't even know if the lawsuit will work, but talking about why she's suing them is interesting enough. Okay. Okay. The lawsuit was

filed this month in Los Angeles County Superior Court, and the woman's name is Lorraine Zalinski.

She used to be a longtime member of a church called Grace Community Church in California.

It's a mega church. It's headed up by this fundamentalist pastor named John MacArthur.

And some people are going to be listening to this. And they're like, there's another story this week involving John McArthur. That's right. We'll get to that after this.

Wasn't John McArthur also general general i'm sure he was not even

general mcgather no different dude no idea douglas so this dude is like a fundamentalist uh pastor

he ran this mega church okay here's what zalinski says in her lawsuit in 2022 she began she a member of this church. And this is one of those churches where it's like, you don't just show up on Sunday and leave. Yeah, yeah. If you want to be a member of this church, like you've got to sign your life over to us. By the way, we're not a cult. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a King of the Hill episode about this that I watched recently. Sure. So she was going through some stuff with her spouse.

She was going through some stuff with her spouse.

She started to meet with their counselors, which is what you're supposed to do when you have marital issues.

And she told them she was thinking about getting a separation from her husband, who is also a member of the church.

She said he's physically and

emotionally abusive toward her and her daughter.

And the stress was so much that it was causing her to have health issues.

Oh, no.

And not only that, she genuinely worried that he would, quote, smother her in her sleep with a pillow.

Fuck. Yes. And her daughter, she wrote in her sleep with a pillow. Fuck, me.

...