Avsnitt
-
Sex drive, religious formation, and the stubborn residue of purity culture — welcome back to Study Hall, where I bring you along as I cram for my licensure exam and connect to the psychology of religion along the way. Today we're staying in developmental psychology but moving into territory that, let's just say, came up a lot in my Christian high school years.
Religious adolescents start later — but skip contraception
The gender gap in sexual activity widens with age
Purity culture hits women harder, and the shame sticks longer
Religious residue shapes your sex life even after you leave the faith
Gay couples have the most sex. Lesbians the least. Straight couples, middle.
Married religious couples report higher sexual satisfaction — here's why
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Licensed therapist and trauma specialist Ryan Kuja joins me to examine the surprising parallels between Christian fundamentalism and new age spirituality — particularly how both can enable spiritual bypassing, discourage authentic questioning, and ultimately fail to hold space for the full complexity of human pain and experience.
Ryan's Link Tree
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Saknas det avsnitt?
-
In this episode, comedian and podcaster Jordan Morris describes growing up as a youth group kid in Orange County, and how those experiences informed his new graphic novel Youth Group, which treats its faith-filled characters with nuance and genuine affection rather than cheap satire.
In the Patron-only second half, we get into the DIY ethos that both church basements and punk rock scenes share, the appeal of making the supernatural literal in his storytelling, and his ongoing creative collaborations with Rhett and Link of Good Mythical Morning.
Jordan's Link Tree
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Psychologist Dr. Pamela Epstein King returns to explore how religious systems provide purpose, calling, and meaning — and what happens to those foundations when people go through significant religious change.
Pam's Faculty Page
Episodes Mentioned:
Trusting Yourself After Religious Change | #370
The Six Facets of Spiritual Health | #285
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
I sit down with Rabbi Dr. Simcha Raphael and learn about his remarkably wide-ranging spiritual journey. From a traditional Montreal Hebrew education through India, the San Francisco counterculture, and ultimately into the Jewish Renewal Movement as a scholar of death, afterlife, and the inner life of Judaism, his story mirrors what so many of us are navigating in our own religious explorations.
In the Patreon-only second half, we explore what Judaism's rich tradition on death and the afterlife offers to the dying, the grieving, and anyone trying to build a vibrant spiritual life beyond the boundaries of where they started.
Highlights:
Montreal Jewish upbringing
India, gurus, and culture shock
Jewish Renewal and Reb Zalman
Ecstatic vs. contemplative spirituality
Death, grief, and felt presence
Judaism's afterlife teachings
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The nature vs. nurture debate is largely settled (spoiler alert: it's both), but the implications for how and when religious identity forms are striking. The research points to a surprisingly early window for faith formation, and what happens inside that window matters far more than most parents realize. Join me for what I'm calling Study Hall, where I bring you along as I study for my licensure exam and connect the concepts to religion along the way.
Religious formation peaks ages 3–7
Parents trump youth group, always
"Let them choose" backfires
Baby brains resemble psilocybin trips
Trauma may reopen learning windows
Warmth beats doctrine, every time
Episodes Mentioned:
"God Concept" (#159)
Christian Heavy Music: Theology, Attachment, Power (#139)
Helping Kids Know God in Healthy Ways (#174)
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Meredith Miller returns to talk about something many of us have been navigating in our personal lives: how do you raise kids with a meaningful faith after your own deconstruction? We cover the real reasons to consider church, what the research actually says about faith formation, and why doing nothing is still doing something.
Previous Episodes with Meredith:
How Can Deconstructing Parents Talk About God? (#257)
Helping Kids Know God in Healthy Ways (#174)
Highlights:
Home culture vs. church content
Friendship over theology
Your story is a gift
Doing nothing = a choice
Non-weaponizing Bible scholars do exist
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Brad Strawn of Fuller Seminary returns to unpack the four clinical and theological influences that shape his work as a therapist, pastor, and professor (Wesleyan theology, relational psychoanalysis, 4E cognition, and terror management theory), and we get into some genuinely good “inside baseball” about what all of this looks like in the room with actual clients.
Highlights:
Wesleyan theology: feelings first
Relational healing through new experience
4E: embodied, embedded, enacted, extended
AI can't replace human bodies
Terror management → limits → meaning
Cure soul, not just symptoms
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Things are, objectively, pretty rough right now! But honestly? We can't stop laughing at the "Trump AI Jesus" memes. Religion on the News is back with Mason Mennenga (A People's Theology), and today we're leaning more into the silliness and laughter of it all, with a hearty dose of psychology along the way.
Topics (full list on the full Patron-only episode): Trump/Jesus AI art, the resulting memes and parodies (*chef's kiss*), Riley Gaines, Antichrist/Left Behind stuff, Evangelical art, in-group & partisan psychology, Nazi repentance, high-demand religion psychology, music/film roundup.
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Lillian Daniel returns after five years to discuss her new book Defrocked: Good News from a Bad Pastor for a Better Church — a candid, often funny, and deeply human account of the misconduct process she underwent in the UCC, what it taught her about identity, boundaries, and shame, and how she eventually found her way back to ministry.
Highlights:
Power, process, and accountability
Over-identification with vocation
Boundaries (and the lack thereof)
Shame vs. guilt, done right
Lillian's New Book | Defrocked: Good News from a Bad Pastor for a Better Church
Previous episode with Lillian:
The Most & Least Plausible Christian Claims (#117)
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
This is the fifth and final installment of the Anxious Times series, and we're bringing it home by exploring what existential psychology has to say about community, belonging, and civic engagement. I’m joined by returning guest Kristen Tideman and Brian Adoff, founder of Join Philly, a directory and events platform helping Philadelphians connect with each other.
In the Patreon-only second half, we dig into how Kristen's own anxiety triple crown — MS, new motherhood, and ongoing religious change — has been shaped by her distance from the Philly community she helped build, and what it looks like to find connection in a new chapter of life.
Join or Die Film
Anxious Times Episode Part 1
Anxious Times Episode Part 2
Anxious Times Episode Part 3
Anxious Times Episode Part 4
Highlights:
Collective effervescence, good and bad
Bowling alone and belonging
Tech, phones, and the dopamine trap
Participation gaps and on-ramps
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Religion on the News is back with Mason Mennenga, and today we're tackling some heavy hitters: the Supreme Court's 8-1 ruling striking down Colorado's conversion therapy ban, the rise of the manosphere and what it means for young men, and the latest alien discourse from Obama and beyond.
Highlights:
Supreme Court conversion therapy ruling
First Amendment vs. public health
Evidence base for conversion therapy
Manosphere, masculinity, and religion
Conservative Christian influencer crossover
Aliens, astrobiology, and Obama
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Co-host Kristen Tideman and I work through the final two legs of Emmy van Dersen's triad — the impossible and the desirable — using Kristen's new motherhood, MS diagnosis, and ongoing religious change as real, lived test cases for the framework.
In the Patron-only second half, We move from naming what we can't have, to excavating the values underneath those wishes, to identifying what we actually can do about it — and end up somewhere more hopeful than either of us expected.
Highlights:
The impossible vs. the merely difficult
Extracting values from unmet wishes
Religious change and lost sense-making
MS diagnosis, grief, and clarified priorities
Spiritual grounding after deconstruction
Anxious Times Episode Part 1
Anxious Times Episode Part 2
Anxious Times Episode Part 3
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
I sit down with clinical psychologist and author Dr. Jeffrey Rubin to explore his concept of meditative psychotherapy — a genuinely reciprocal integration of Western psychoanalysis and Eastern contemplative practice that goes far deeper than the usual mindfulness-lite approaches. We get into what meditation actually is (hint: not just stress relief), spiritual bypassing, the scandals that keep plaguing Buddhist communities, and why real healing requires both quieting the mind and doing hard psychological work.
Highlights:
Meditation isn't just symptom reduction
East-West integration done poorly vs. well
Spiritual bypassing across traditions
AI, dreams, and idiographic meaning
Three stages of meditative psychotherapy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
I'm joined by my co-host Kristen Tideman for the third installment of the Anxious Times series. We dig into Emmy van Dersen's concept of "the necessary" — the hard limits baked into existence that we can't change, only accept — and explore how resisting these limits is one of the biggest drivers of unhealthy anxiety, whether you're navigating religious deconstruction, a new diagnosis, or just being alive in a chaotic world.
In the Patron-only second half, Kristen shares the raw, emotional story of her MS diagnosis as a lived case study in running headfirst into hard limits, and we explore what it looks like to resist or deny the necessary — from anti-aging culture to political utopianism to religious change.
Highlights:
Defining "the necessary" (hard limits)
Mortality, uncertainty, embodiment as givens
Kristen's MS diagnosis and processing
Religious change and false certainty
Acceptance ≠ approval or minimizing
Anxious Times Episode Part 1
Anxious Times Episode Part 2
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
I sit down with theologian and ethicist Dr. Jared Stacey to unpack his new book Reality in Ruins: How Conspiracy Theory Became an Evangelical Crisis, exploring what actually distinguishes a conspiracy theory from a real conspiracy — and why the answer matters more than ever in the wake of the Epstein file releases.
Jared on IG | @Jaredmstacy
Highlights:
Psychology of conspiratorial thinking
Modernity, agency panic, capitalism
Boundary situations and anxiety
Shared reality and relationship limits
Hope for repentance and change
Other Conspiracy Theories Episodes:
#207 | Christianity & Conspiracy Theories
#100 | A History of Conspiracy Theories & Evangelicals
#74 | Conspiracy Theories, Evangelicals, Media & More
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
We're not just individually stressed — we're living through a historic collision of crises that existential psychology has a name for. In this second episode of our Anxious Times series, Kristen Tideman and I explore why the anxiety so many of us feel right now isn't a personal failing, but an honest response to the world we've actually inherited. We explore things like:
What a "boundary situation" really is
Three overlapping crises reshaping modern life
Why shared reality is fracturing (and hurting)
The surprising upside of hitting your limits
Therapy tools for navigating the uncontrollable
Anxious Times Episode Part 1
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In this episode, I sit down with Harper’s Magazine Editor Christopher Beha to explore why neither scientific materialism nor romantic idealism fully satisfies — and what a third path might look like. We ask questions like:
Does materialism account for consciousness?
Is hard determinism therapeutically dangerous?
Can we rationally care about others?
What breaks down in "radical authenticity"?
In the Patron-only second half, we land on skeptical belief itself — and why love might be the best epistemology we have.
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Introducing a NEW five-part series called Anxious Times, focused on practical insights from existential psychology for navigating intense periods like the one we’re living through, both collectively and individually.
Drawing on thinkers like Karl Jaspers, Rollo May, and Emmy van Deurzen, existential psychology provides actionable tools to help you engage with (and not just avoid or manage symptoms of) the realities of our sociopolitical moment, challenging personal circumstances, and the disorienting anxiety of religious or worldview change.
My co-host for the series is Kristen Tideman, a longtime friend who is navigating what we’re calling the “Triple Crown” of anxiety after having a baby, being diagnosed with MS, and continuing in her own journey of religious change all in the last year.
In this first episode, we’ll look at a few introductory concepts to help us conceive of anxiety in a more productive way.
Hope you enjoy and find it helpful.
___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
…In this sociopolitical economy, that is. I’m joined in today’s Generation Gap Culture Hour by regulars Josh Gilbert, Tony Jones, and we hear all about the newest generation to our experiment — Josh’s brand new baby! A rewatch of Last of the Mohicans has me seriously considering learning a new hobby, and Tony's 6% confidence in me is, frankly, offensive. We close out the first half of the episode sizing up the US-Israel strike on Iran and why the story is far more complicated than your Instagram feed is letting on.
In the Patron only second-half, Tony shares a close-to-home run-in with conspiracy rabbit holes that pulls us into the psychology of misinformation and eroding shared reality, before we land on who should and shouldn't be writing books about polyamory or psychedelics.___________________________________________
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: [email protected]
YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98
Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html
Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/
Artwork by Nickryanluevano.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices - Visa fler
