This is Hemant Mehta for the Friendly Atheist Podcast.

I recently had a chance to interview Andrew Pledger, a former student at Bob Jones University,

which, as I'm sure many of you know, is a fundamentalist Christian school with a long and not so

great history.

Andrew is also the host of a new podcast called Surviving Bob Jones University, a Christian

Cult.

I spoke with him about the school's interracial dating ban, the way they surveil

students, the double standards, and sexism, and so much more.

I hope you enjoy it, and you can support this show by going to patreon.com slash Friendly

Atheist Podcast.

Hi, thank you so much for having me, I'm doing so, so great, I'm excited for the conversation

we're going to have, and I'm so grateful for you giving me a platform to bring awareness

to this school and what it has done to me and other survivors.

Well, I appreciate you doing it.

I had a chance to listen to the podcast last week, and some of those interviews you have

are they made me sad while I was driving, but also there's a reason for that, and it's

a reason I want to talk about all this with you.

So before we get into the specifics of the school, can you give us your background and

how you ended up there just so everyone can get familiar with you?

Yes, for those who do not know me, my name is Andrew Pledger.

And I was born into a family who were involved in a Christian cults in the independent fundamental

Baptist movement, and for people who are not familiar with this, this movement started

...