Emily Clede (she/her) is an Emmy-winning, VMA-nominated producer, but before any of that, she was a homeschooled kid on an isolated Kansas farm. Her father worked with James Dobson and Focus on the Family, making anti-gay documentary content that used Emily and her siblings as unwitting participants from the time she was three years old.

In this episode, Emily opens up about growing up without the freedom to choose her own clothes, cut her own hair, or express herself creatively, and how she secretly kept drawing and storytelling alive under her bedsheets with a flashlight. She talks about being treated like royalty in church spaces because of her grandfather's status, while having no autonomy behind closed doors. She shares what it took to finally leave, the years of surveillance and stalking that followed her out, and how she rebuilt a life on her own terms.

What We Cover:

• Her father's connection to James Dobson and Focus on the Family
• Life on an isolated Kansas farm turned "pastors' retreat center"
• Being used as a camera crew at Pride parades (in an anti-gay way) as a young child
• Meeting Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church) and other prominent

evangelical figures growing up

• The moment that changed everything: a trip to Old Navy at 16
• Years of surveillance, stalking, and boundary-setting after leaving
• Being the family scapegoat and the cost of staying vs. leaving
• Building a chosen family
  

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Hannah Orsag (she/her) grew up as the eldest daughter of a Methodist preacher in North Georgia, fluent in scripture, leading worship, and doing everything right. But being perfect never actually felt like enough.

In this episode, Hannah walks us through her slow-burn deconstruction, from purity culture and a Christian summer camp that literally burned her shorts in a bonfire for being "immodest," to discovering her bisexuality through an unexpected D&D campaign, to building a life and a literary journal (Heimat Review) centered on telling honest, complicated stories.

We talk about growing up in a charismatic Methodist church, the difference between performative worship and real connection, purity culture's lasting impact on marriage and intimacy, deconstructing faith through the lens of literature, coming out to unsupportive parents, and finding a queer-affirming Episcopal church as an adult. Hannah also shares some genuinely wild stories from working at a Christian wilderness camp, including gendered camp roles, a Revelation reenactment complete with gallows, and yes, the infamous shorts bonfire.

What we cover:

• Growing up as a preacher's kid in a charismatic Methodist church
• Purity culture, modesty rules, and writing letters to a future husband
• The wildest stories from working at a Christian wilderness camp
• Discovering bisexuality through a D&D character
• Deconstructing faith through literature and storytelling
• Coming out to unsupportive parents and dealing with bi-erasure

Follow Hannah:
Heimat Review: heimatreview.com
Instagram: @heimatreview (journal) / @scriptandstarlight (personal)

New episodes every Monday on YouTube, all other platforms Wednesday.

May we never be erased.

Dan Shenk (he/him) grew up the son of Mennonite missionaries in Tanzania, East Africa, spent his teenage years boarding at a mission school, and later found himself ordained as a chaplain working inside Rikers Island and the Virginia State Penitentiary. But it's what happened next that defines his legacy: as a gay man coming into his own identity in 1980s New York City, Dan became one of the co-founders of what is now known as Bailey House, one of the first organizations to offer supportive housing to people living with HIV/AIDS. He also helped establish the Bronx Harlem Needle Exchange Program, now New York Harm Reduction Educators Inc.

In this episode, Dan takes us through it all: a childhood split between Tanzania and the USA, the loss of his mother in a plane crash, discovering his sexuality while isolated in a school infirmary, and the years he spent on the ground during the earliest and most devastating days of the AIDS crisis, organizing candlelight vigils, raising money through fish bowls on Christopher Street, and building community in the middle of unimaginable loss.

Dan is the author of the memoir Search for a Blessing: A Gay Man's Journey from a Mennonite Missionary Childhood to the Streets of AIDS Activism. If his story resonates with you, we highly recommend picking up a copy.

Content warning: this episode includes discussion of sexual assault.

Note: We're on a every-other-week summer schedule and will return to weekly episodes in September. YouTube subscribers get episodes first on Mondays, with wide release on all other platforms Wednesdays.

If this episode moved you, we'd love it if you left a rating or review, it genuinely helps other people in the deconstruction and ex-evangelical community find us.

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