Finding and Leaving “Exvangelical Ministry” (#326)

Religion on the Mind

Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

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Summary

In this roundtable conversation, I reconnect with Joy Vetterlein and Jon Steingard (former Hawk Nelson frontman) to explore their parallel journeys of leaving Christian ministry contexts, building public platforms around their deconstruction experiences, and then making the countercultural decision to step back from that public work entirely. Both guests candidly discuss the complex motivations behind their initial platform-building—Jon's ingrained need for attention from his band years, Joy's readiness to stop letting others take credit for her best work—and the financial realities that made sustainability difficult. The conversation reveals how both discovered that the deconstruction community, initially appealing for its theological openness, developed its own orthodoxies and mob dynamics that felt uncomfortably similar to the evangelical culture they'd left. Ultimately, both chose privacy and continued growth over platform maintenance, recognizing the hidden costs of public work on family relationships and personal development. Their stories offer a rare glimpse into the decision to pull back from influence and attention in a culture obsessed with building platforms and growing audiences. Previous Episodes: I Don't Believe in that God: Jon Steingard (#75) I Don't Believe in That God: Joy Vetterlein (#230) ___________________________________________ Follow Dan on IG: www.instagram.com/dancoke/ Or Twitter: twitter.com/DanKoch Faith deconstruction resources: www.soyouredeconstructing.com/ Edited by Josh Gilbert (⁠⁠⁠⁠joshgilbertmedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- he is accepting more work!) Join the Patreon for exclusive episodes (and more) every month: patreon.com/dankoch Email about the "sliding scale" for the Patreon: youhavepermissionpodcast@gmail.com YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98 Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/ Artwork by sprungle.co/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back, everybody to You Have Permission, the show that aims to take both Christianity
0:08.4	and the modern world of science and culture very seriously.
0:12.9	I'm Dan Koch, licensed therapist.
0:15.3	You all know that.
0:16.5	Today, two returning guests, one of whom is a team member at your permission and one of whom is like a team member in spirit.
0:26.5	We got Joy Vetterline back with us.
0:29.2	Hi, Joy.
0:29.8	Hello.
0:30.9	And we've got John Steingard.
0:32.4	Hi, John.
0:33.5	Hello.
0:34.4	Last time you were here, it was one of those, I don't believe in that God episodes about your kind of, I think that was the last time.
0:43.8	Have you been on since?
0:45.0	So you and I have talked a lot over the years.
0:47.8	And so it's a little blurry for me, whether it was on the show or not.
0:51.9	Same.
0:52.1	Maybe I was only on once.
0:53.4	I don't know.
0:54.1	Maybe. But, you know, after that, I was demoted to friend. Promoted. Promoted? Demoted. Oh, yeah. Promoted. Yeah, promoted. All this stuff here, that's, this is all like the second tier, you know? The first tier is whether I let you into my private life. No.
1:12.0	Love it. Friend with microphone benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. But when we talked on that episode,
1:20.3	John, it was about you had been the singer-songwriter of the CCM band Hawk Nelson, and you had know lost your Christian faith and that as you can
1:31.6	imagine provided all kinds of problems in that situation and we sort of talked through all that
	...

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