Hopelessly Religious & Moving to the Country (#372)

Religion on the Mind

Religion & Spirituality, Religion, Spirituality

4.7 • 542 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I reconnect with my friend Brian Hall to explore his family's move from Portland to rural Oregon—driven by their kids' special needs, exhaustion with sociopolitical polarization, and Brian's ongoing “reconstruction” of his spirituality. We discuss the tension between liberal values and individual family choices as Brian deliberately exposes himself to conservative religious spaces. I push back on his embrace of Trump-supporting communities while acknowledging my own growing interest in center-right perspectives, and we wrestle with questions about schooling, how to teach kids about systemic injustice and related issues, and whether spiritual practice requires suspending judgment. Brian describes finding unexpected vitality in charismatic worship with older Black Pentecostals and why Portland's progressive culture started feeling like a fundamentalist Bible study. We're both tired of performative resistance, yet neither wants to abandon genuine insights. This leaves us in the messy middle, trying to be present for our kids while staying intellectually honest. In the Patron-only second half of the episode, we discuss the therapeutic wisdom of Brian's approach, his specific reasons for leaving Portland's school system, attempted nuanced takes on gender ideology and trans issues, and Brian’s experience with improvisational worship music services. Brian's Album | Reconstruction in C Major Spotify Link Previous Episode with Brian | Still Christian & Spiritual: Brian Hall (#244) ___________________________________________ Follow Dan on IG: www.instagram.com/dancoke/ Or Twitter: twitter.com/DanKoch Faith deconstruction resources: www.soyouredeconstructing.com/ 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 to religion on the mind.
0:12.5	I am your host, Dr. Dan Koch.
0:14.9	I'm a licensed therapist.
0:16.8	I was raised in California on punk rock and evangelicalism.
0:21.7	Now I live in Washington.
0:23.5	I see clients.
0:24.7	I specialize in religious issues.
0:27.5	And I host this podcast.
0:29.7	This podcast attempts to cover psychology, religion, and spirituality with minimal tribalism
0:37.0	and maximal, I don't know, intellectual humility,
0:41.0	careful thinking, compassion, empathy, I don't know, stuff like that. Brian Hall, you're back.
0:47.1	What's up, buddy? It's so good to see your face, even if across the screen. Yeah, it's been about
0:52.6	18 months since you've been on the show.
0:55.2	This is Brian Hall, everyone.
0:57.8	We will put a link to that episode.
0:59.8	It's number 244, one of our still Christian episodes.
1:05.0	And although I don't think of this as this is going to be like a particularly silly episode. I think it's going to be like
1:13.7	you and I make each other laugh a lot. We are real life friends. We've been friends for, as I'm
1:17.8	going to say, for about 13 years now. But we're going to get into some serious stuff. I think it's
1:22.9	going to be really, really good and interesting. But because Jaffrey and I
1:28.9	had the same thought
1:30.9	of how to start this conversation,
	...

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