Heretic Hereafter Podcast

About Heretic Hereafter Podcast

Heretic Hereafter is about figuring out how to live the good life after leaving Evangelical Christianity. Whether you're religious or not, join us for a weekly dose of humor and reflection that helps us look past the superficial for life's deeper meanings. heretichereafter.substack.com (https://heretichereafter.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Katharine Strange

Category

fiction · religion & spirituality

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

30 Jul 2025

Latest episode

5 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

70 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   5 Oct 2026

   Building Boys: Live Chat with Katharine Strange & Jennifer Fink

   Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe (https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   16 Sept 2026

   The Secret Lives of Christian Wives

   The Dishwasher Dig Several years ago, a houseguest complimented me on my dishwasher loading. At first, I was flattered: yes, I am very efficient at loading the dishwasher and probably everyone else in this house could take a page from my book!!! But then he said, “It makes sense [that you’re good at it.] The dishwasher is your domain.” He meant this as a compliment (I think???) but it was one of those sentences that rattled through my brain with a nefarious clang: your domain is the dishwasher your domain is the dishwasher your domain is the dishwasher Was the subtext, “stay in the kitchen, that’s where women belong”? I didn’t want to think this person saw me that way, but I wondered. This offhand comment had me spiraling into self-doubt and wondering how others saw me. Don’t get me wrong; washing dishes is a vital (and often overlooked) task. But I doubt anyone wants to think of it as their life’s work. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Ladies: Don’t Forget to Live, Laugh, Love! This memory came back to me as I began reading Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s latest book, Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781324090977). In it, Du Mez traces the evolution of white Evangelical women’s culture, starting in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, up to and including Erica Kirk. As someone who grew up reading Focus on the Family’s Brio magazine, many figures and movements (such as Rebecca St. James and True Love Waits) were old hat to me, but there were plenty of bombshells in Live Laugh Love, including surprising details behind the creation of some childhood favorites like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. But the most striking part of Du Mez’s book was the way she was able to trace the pernicious influence of “New Thought” in Christian Fundamentalism. What is “New Thought”? Maybe you know it by the name “The Secret,” “The Law of Attraction,” or "the prosperity gospel.” If you were LDS, it was “keep sweet.” Maybe you know it as the reason you were forced to grit your teeth into a smile at church and pretend that everything was fine—it’s the idea that God blesses those who obey authority and think happy thoughts. Long before your high school classmates started selling Amway, Christian Fundamentalism embedded this pyramid-shaped power structure into its churches and para-church movements. Surrendering to authority was the same as obeying God. Any suffering a person experienced could be traced back to disobedience or doubt. Women were expected to cede authority and decision-making to men, to never criticize or question. In return, men would protect and provide for us. It’s the 1950s housewife (minus the pill addiction) and the 2020s tradwife (minus the army of paid help). Du Mez’s history shows how old this song-and-dance is. Female Christian Influencers have been peddling New Thought since Hannah Whitehall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life was first published in January 1883. The Dark Reality Behind the Fairy Tale Du Mez effectively demonstrates, again and again, that the women who espoused New Thought as the way to happiness often concealed lives of struggle including broken marriages and disillusionment with Christianity. The story of Elisabeth Elliot, former missionary, was particularly affecting. White Evangelical women have been sold a bargain: that if we give up our agency and power in order to submit to men, those men will take care of us. New Thought and white femininity combined to form a sort of magical thinking: who needs to fight for equal rights when we can have something almost like equality bestowed upon us by our benevolent husbands? But proximity to power isn’t power. Obedience and subservience aren’t power. Only power is power. Women forget that at our own peril. Don’t get it twisted: I’m not saying that marriage is bad or that men can’t be trusted. I am a big proponent of a healthy, interdependent marriage. What I am saying is that it is the height of delusion for women to believe that we can cede our critical thinking and our agency to anyone and come away better for it. Such dependent relationships are not an equal partnership; they’re more akin to a parent-child relationship. And, indeed, much of the advice Du Mez quotes from marriage manuals such as the infamous Fascinating Womanhood advocate that women adopt childish behavior such as pretending to be afraid of cows and stamping their feet when mad. By and large, I found this book enlightening and a worthy follow-up to Du Mez’s earlier hit, Jesus and John Wayne (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781631499050). I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to know why so many white Evangelical women vote against their own interests or get sucked into pyramid schemes. That being said, I didn’t find this to be an easy read. The book covers a lot of historical ground and keeping track of so many names (particularly the unfamiliar ones) sometimes left me flipping pages back-and-forth trying to remember who was who. In addition, some material may be triggering to women who have religious trauma related to their gender—particularly those who’ve been abused in a church setting. Still, Du Mez’s analysis of the common threads in this history and their connection to our current political climate is enlightening. Just her insight on how 90s Purity Culture was basically the Prosperity Gospel for sex was worth the cover price. As for me, I’ve delegated dish duties to my 14-year-old son. While his methods of loading dishes sometimes defy logic, I’m glad to know this future man will leave my home with plenty of experience handling this important chore. Though I won’t be referring to it as his “domain.” AUTHOR’S NOTE: I received a free Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The book links above are affiliate links that I can earn commission on. Have you read JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE? Do you own any household items adorned with the phrase “Live Laugh Love”? Ever been in an MLM? As always, I love to hear your comments, complaints, and ideas in the comments section! A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTING: It’s always gratifying to have readers leave comments on my work. Last week’s post reached a wider-than-typical audience, including some folks who aren’t used to the way we do things around here. As such, I’ve set up some rules for the comments section. Hope that helps keep the conversation civil and engaging! BONUS MATERIALS: * JUST WATCH THIS, TRUST ME (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdDC-WnJoiO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) * saw this at Target, feels appropriate: Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe (https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   9 Sept 2026

   I Thought I Had Gender Roles Figured Out. Then I Had a Son.

   In a moment of tween desperation, I asked my mom whether I could try out for cheerleading. It was the late 90s and the girls at cheer camp seemed to have cracked some secret code to girlhood: their hair was always perfectly styled; their lips impeccably glossy. If I could just don that pleated skirt, I was sure their power would rub off on me and I’d stop being the middle school weirdo. “Girls shouldn’t cheer for boys,” my mom replied, “they should cheer for themselves.” Cryptic, vaguely feminist sayings like this occasionally sprang from her mouth, despite her staunch Complementarian beliefs (Complementarianism is the belief that men and women hold separate but equal roles in church and family life and that these roles are prescribed by God). Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. On the one hand, Mom would insist that all women had a divine calling to marriage, motherhood, and subservience to men. Then she’d turn around and spout off a defiant little opinion that hinted at her own internal conflict. I never became a cheerleader. Instead, I grew into a youth group superstar and then a know-it-all Christian college freshman. There I decided that it made no sense that I by dint of my femaleness was assumed to know less about faith than some random dude. I rejected my parents’ complementarianism and became an egalitarian and a—gasp! —feminist. And yet, the sexism of my upbringing hadn’t left me. I still believed marriage and motherhood were my ultimate calling and doubted my ability to get by without the guidance of either my father or a husband. The truth was, I’d never been taught to cheer for myself or believe myself capable of big things. Still, I imagined myself one day raising a fierce feminist daughter who would grow up to achieve great things. And then I had two sons. Boys were not entirely foreign to me—I had two younger brothers whom I’d spent a large chunk of my childhood mothering. But I wanted to do things differently. When my first son, A, was born, I bought him gender neutral clothes and toys—blocks and balls and a doll he’d occasionally poke in the eye. I was going to raise him to be a sensitive little feminist. Then one Christmas, a family member received a set of Dollar Store plastic samurai swords and A, then 18 months old, shrieked, grabbed one, and immediately began chasing people around the house, whacking and stabbing them. Even as I laughed at the spectacle, I couldn’t believe his tiny bloodlust. He didn’t watch TV; he’d never even seen a sword before. How did he know what it was for before he was even potty trained?!?!? Until A was born, I’d always thought of gender as something that was, largely, culturally programmed. But the sword incident, coupled with his fascination with vehicles, left me questioning this assumption. There was something innate to this small human that loudly insisted I AM A BOY!!!!! If masculinity is a spectrum, A has always been on the extreme end. In our liberal Seattle neighborhood, where plenty of little boys are painting their nails and belting songs from Frozen, there was my little warrior, dressed in head-to-toe camo, toting a Nerf gun to the park longer than he was tall, while I follow along behind, cringing and hoping my neighbors didn’t think I was in the NRA. Now a high school freshman, A is in the thick of the work of adolescence: figuring out who he is. While I appreciate that our culture has evolved from suffocating gender roles and casual playground homophobia, I’ll admit that our culture’s shifting social mores around gender roles has left a bit of a vacuum, into which, I project all my anxieties about raising a good men. So, over the next two months I want to look at gender roles. Here are some questions I have: * Is gender innate, culturally constructed, or both? And does the answer change how we think about it? * Are gender roles inherently limiting? Are they ever helpful? * How do we deprogram ourselves from our own internalized misogyny? * How has the church’s emphasis on restrictive gender roles shaped how we understand ourselves/our spirituality? * What can non-binary, trans, and genderqueer people teach us about gender? * What about the whole “toxic masculinity” label—is it helpful? Should we chuck it? How can we criticize the power structure without denigrating individuals caught in it? * How do we talk positively about masculinity without downplaying or dismissing women? * What role does virtue play in “becoming a man/woman”? * What about coming-of-age rituals? Are they more necessary for boys than girls? * Why does the phrase “be a man” squick me out so much? What should we be saying instead? * How do we express our gender identity through clothing, hair, and other signals? * How much of gender performance is an attempt to gain power in a misogynistic society? And here are some resources I’m looking at: * Jennifer L.W. Fink (https://substack.com/profile/5259510-jennifer-lw-fink) ‘s Substack, Building Boys Bulletin (https://buildingboys.substack.com/) and her book Building Boys: Raising Great Guys in a World That Misunderstands Males (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9798216455615) * Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9780815740667) * Liz Cooledge Jenkins (https://substack.com/profile/165916456-liz-cooledge-jenkins) ‘s Nice Churchy Patriarchy (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781958061404) * Kristin Du Mez (https://substack.com/profile/2162288-kristin-du-mez) ‘s Live Laugh Love (https://bookshop.org/a/118600/9781324090977) * the podcast The Art of Manliness Now I want to hear from you! Do any of my questions intrigue you? Do you have other deep thoughts or questions about gender roles? Has your view of your own gender changed over time? Do you have any books, podcasts, or people I should consult to learn more about gender roles? I’d love to hear from you in the comments or via email or DM. BONUS MATERIALS: * American church vs. French church (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcwZPSwMyBX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) * how DO straight guys sit (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdB6AZfpyDI/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==)??? * “One of the best abilities in life is to figure out who you actually want to be.” (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbYp6XusOzc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe (https://heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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