Moving Past Terrible Theology

In this episode, we dig into why leaving harmful churches isn’t enough, you also have to unlearn the bad theology The post Moving Past Terrible Theology appeared first on Queer Theology.

An episode of the Queer Theology podcast, hosted by Queer Theology / Brian G. Murphy & Shannon T.L. Kearns, titled "Moving Past Terrible Theology" was published on December 7, 2025 and runs 37 minutes.

December 7, 2025 ·37m · Queer Theology

Summary

In this episode, we dig into why leaving harmful churches isn’t enough, you also have to unlearn the bad theology you absorbed along the way.  We talk about how lingering fear, shame, reactivity, or discomfort around sex, Scripture, or Christian community can reveal where old beliefs are still running the show, even for folks who’ve left evangelicalism, Catholicism, or grew up in progressive spaces without learning how to engage the Bible for themselves. We get into what unlearning actually looks like and why arguing on evangelical terms keeps you stuck. You gotta be able to rebuild your faith (or recognize when to walk away from it) with grounding, nuance, and liberation. We also answer listener questions about the 1946 documentary and where to begin when returning to faith after fear. Resources: Join us and be part of Queering Advent! Find more info here. This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions. 1 (9s): Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G. Murphy. 2 (13s): And I’m Father Shannon TL Kerns. We’re the co-founders of queer theology.com and your hosts from 1 (17s): Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news, LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how 2 (23s): Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. 1 (33s): Hello. Hello. Hello. So good to be back in your eras with you today. On today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about the importance of not just leaving bad churches or leaving bad faith entirely, but also unlearning your path theology and this like danger of what could happen if you don’t take the time to un unload, unlearn. And you just sort of like try and pat it aside and pat it set aside and for, and forget about it for a while. We’ll also have a listener question that we will get to at the end of the episode. If you would like to have your question featured on the podcast, you can go to cardiology.com/listen. You can also leave us a voice message or send us a text message to 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 9 2 2. 1 (1m 19s): That’s 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 9 2 2. Okay, and with that said, Shea, what are we talking about this episode and why? 3 (1m 30s): Yeah, so I mean, I think one of the things that we see really, really often, and it’s especially prevalent among former evangelicals or folks who grew up in kind of evangelical or Catholic spaces, but it’s also, we see it in kind of a different way in folks that grew up in progressive and mainline spaces. So we can maybe talk about both of those things, but is folks who you know, are pretty sure that they know what they don’t believe and they have left homophobic or transphobic churches, maybe they’ve even left the church entirely, and yet they haven’t actually unpacked or unlearned the things that they internalized growing up. 3 (2m 13s): And so what happens often is that their faith then becomes either a response to those things of like, well, I don’t believe that, right? Like, I’m just, I don’t believe in hell, I don’t believe whatever. And yet underneath kind of all of those feelings, there is still a sense of fear or shame or anxiety. And so I just talk about like why it’s so, so, so important that not only you leave those spaces, but that you also unlearn the theology, right? Like you have to unpack what is it that I was taught? What are other ways to understand that? 3 (2m 54s): And you don’t have to necessarily stay a Christian or stay in the church or like even believe any of those other ways, but you have to do the work of understanding them so that those hard emotions don’t keep acting out in your life. 1 (3m 12s): Yeah, I sometimes say it’s like you seem scared of a God that you don’t believe in, and I, I’m sure I’m not the first person to say that. And so I wanna find up,

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