What if you could actually measure how unsafe your church was? What if you could know how severe your spiritual abuse was?

In this episode, Brian sits down with Lianna and Abram, co-founders of the Spiritual Safety Center, to unpack their newly peer-reviewed Spiritual Safety Survey and the science behind its scoring—plus a first look at their upcoming book, Building a Safer Church, and the training cohorts helping people move from harm to healthy, spiritually safe communities.

You’ll hear about:

• how and why the Center and Survey were created
• the validation process and what it means for using the Survey
• how trauma scores reveal spiritual harm

Guest Spotlight ✨

Lianna Chong has over a decade of experience in ministry and consulting around compassion fatigue, resilience, and psychological safety. She brings a systemic lens to organizational assessments. After watching her church divide over questions of spiritual abuse, she developed the Spiritual Safety Scale (forthcoming) to help people recognize signs of healthy and unhealthy environments.

She holds a Master's of Theological Studies, an MA in Organizational Psychology, and certification in psychological safety.

Abram Kielsmeier-Jones pastors a racially and economically (and personality!) diverse Christian church in the heart of Boston. He has spent more than twenty years in youth and pastoral ministry, working at small, mid-sized, and large churches in Illinois, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

He studied philosophy at Wheaton College (IL) and earned his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, with an emphasis in Urban Ministry, using every last elective to further study Greek and Hebrew biblical texts.

Together, they co-founded the Spiritual Safety Center, a nonprofit dedicated to helping church members and leaders build safe places of faith.

Links & Resources 🔗

Website | Lianna’s Instagram | Lianna’s Substack | Abram’s Substack

• preorder Building a Safer Church (coming April 2027) on Amazon | Bookshop
• take the Spiritual Safety Survey
• Apply for a Spiritual Safety Training Cohort
• Episode 22: Creating and Validating a Spiritual Abuse Assessment with Lianna Chong

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Have you experienced spiritual harm? Are you looking for a community or resource to help make sense of it and find a path forward?

The THROUGH Cohort is designed for you, and applications for our next season are open now!

In this special bonus episode, I'll tell you about how the cohort works, what we cover, and what you need to know. If you've been looking for a practical resource and a place to bring your brokenness and ask big questions, this is the group for you.

I hope you'll join us!

Links & Resources 🔗

Apply for the THROUGH Cohort today!

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We need your help. Your gift of just $25 will make a big difference and help us continue this work. Donate today.

—————

Sign up to receive our weekly Podcast Newsletter with new episodes, updates, exclusive discounts, and more!

Subscribe using your favorite podcast app:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Leave us a rating and review on Apple or on Spotify. This all helps us to grow and continue providing quality content for you and our community of listeners.

—————
As an Amazon and Bookshop.org affiliate, I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Can spiritual abuse actually be traced to a system that was centuries in the making?

What started as a fun project about mommy blogs and Hallmark movies became a staggering, meticulously researched narrative of how evangelical women's culture was engineered to suppress dissent and punish those who step out of line.

Kristin pulls the threads of New Thought philosophy and largely unknown figures like Hannah Whittall Smith and Henrietta Mears to reveal how they led directly to our present reality.

It’s an eye-opening and fascinating episode. If you’ve ever questioned how we got where we are today in the church, you won’t want to miss this conversation.

You’ll hear about:

• How hearing and understanding history can help us to
• How the “power of positive thinking” became synonymous with evangelical culture and how it keeps women silent, compliant, and loyal
• How understanding a long view of history can reveal a direct line from 1800s holiness theology to Hallmark movies, Thomas Kinkade, purity culture, MLMs, and Turning Point.

Guest Spotlight ✨

Author of the New York Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Du Mez is a writer, speaker, and scholar who explores the intersection of religion, gender, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent book is Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Her next book, Live Laugh Love, is expected in September 2026.

An academic by training, Du Mez holds a Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Notre Dame, but she writes and speaks for popular audiences in an entertaining style that is equal parts winsome and hard-hitting. Her unflinching examination of the American church, however, is ultimately a call to confession, a call to lament, and a call to greater faithfulness.

She teaches at Calvin University and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband, three kids, and a dog named Paco.

Links & Resources 🔗

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Substack | BlueSky

• Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made by Kristen Kobes du Mez | Amazon | Bookshop
• Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes du Mez | Amazon | Bookshop
• “For Our Daughters” project and film

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We need your help. Your gift of just $25 will make a big difference and help us continue this work. Donate today.

—————

Sign up to receive our weekly Podcast Newsletter with new episodes, updates, exclusive discounts, and more!

Subscribe using your favorite podcast app:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Leave us a rating and review on Apple or on Spotify. This all helps us to grow and continue providing quality content for you and our community of listeners.

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As an Amazon and Bookshop.org affiliate, I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you.