Holy Disobedience: Melissa Duge Spiers on the Seventh Day Adventist Church (Part 1)
A Little Bit Culty
Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames
4.6 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Part 1 of our episode with Melissa Duge Spiers, she pulls back the curtain on Seventh‑day Adventism (SDA)—a massive but strangely invisible denomination she describes as a classic end‑times cult built on control of food, bodies, and behavior. She traces the movement’s roots through prophet Ellen G. White, mad‑hatters‑era health fads, Kellogg’s cornflakes‑as‑anti‑masturbation tool, and the church’s global education and medical empire, which still funnels power to “crusty old white men” in Washington while aggressively proselytizing in vulnerable communities.
Melissa zoomed into her own multi‑generational SDA family: a great‑grandmother pulled in by a job and schooling for her kids, generations of Adventist doctors, and parents who enforced extreme modesty, hair and weight control, media bans, and purity culture so intense that even nail polish and books were policed. Gymnastics, banned Saturday competitions, secret library runs, and a “shirt” virginity metaphor all shaped her sexuality and body image. As a teen, she decided to reclaim her agency by deliberately “losing” her virginity to a public‑school athlete, only to replay the same patriarchal script later through older conservative partners and dysfunctional marriages that echoed SDA-style submission without the theology.
Be sure to pick up Melissa’s memoir, Holy Disobedience, when it launches this week, and follow her at The Glory Whole on Instagram and TikTok or on her Substack page: substack.com/@melissadugespiers
Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of religious and spiritual abuse, body‑ and weight‑shaming, coercive purity culture and sexual scripts, and child corporal punishment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. |
| 0:06.1 | The views and opinions express do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast |
| 0:10.6 | and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. |
| 0:17.0 | Music. anything. |
| 0:28.0 | I'm Sarah Edmondson. |
| 0:31.1 | And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames, and this is a little bit culty. |
| 0:35.8 | We woke up from a cult, and that journey was captured in the vow on HBO and in my memoir, |
| 0:36.4 | scarred. |
| 0:40.3 | Now, in this podcast, we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into |
| 0:44.7 | the cult ofers and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. |
| 0:48.8 | Each week, we bring an expert, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, |
| 0:52.9 | and even share a few laughs because because sometimes you've got to laugh. |
| 0:56.0 | Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening, some live Q&A and exclusive content at patreon.com slash A Little Bit Culty. |
| 1:03.0 | Welcome to Season 8 of A Little Bit Culty. |
| 1:06.0 | Seeking down to the depths of the ocean Hanging on to win my love |
| 1:14.5 | I'd let go up all I could leave |
| 1:19.0 | But I'll know all I was |
| 1:21.6 | Welcome back everybody to a little bit culty |
| 1:25.9 | Today's guest is Melissa Dugie Spears, an award-winning essayist, screenwriter, an advocate for |
| 1:32.6 | religious abuse victims who uses TikTok and Instagram under the name the glory hole, with |
| 1:38.9 | the capital W. |
| 1:40.1 | I see what she did there. |
... |
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