Unbelief
The Unbelief Podcast is your space to question, explore, and release the beliefs that no longer serve you—or maybe even caused harm. Hosted by Jeremy Steele, the Skeptic Pastor, this podcast dives deep into deconstruction, offering progressive and thoughtful insights on ancient spiritual texts like the Bible. Through interviews with leading scholars and candid conversations with those navigating their own faith journeys, the Unbelief Podcast invites you to rethink, rediscover, and rebuild your spirituality on your own terms. If you've ever felt disillusioned by what you were told to believe, this is the podcast for you.
Raised in a Single-Family Cult: Stella McCormick on Deliver Us From Mother
Stella McCormick was raised in what she calls a single family cult: a homeschooled, high control evangelical household where her mother controlled what the children were allowed to feel, learn, and know. In her memoir, Deliver Us From Mother: Faith, Fear and the Family Cult That Broke Me, she names that system and tells the story of getting out.
Stella talks with Jeremy about finding Steven Hassan's BITE model and checking off behavior, information, thought, and emotion control one by one, about the nightly spanking circles justified by James Dobson and To Train Up a Child, and...
Love Is Patient. It Is Also Pissed About Injustice.
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God Told Him to Check the Yellow Pages
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Horse Manure, Hospital Trips, and Other Youth Group Activities
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What If Communion Passes the Turing Test?
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The Rapture, the Closet, and the Organ
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The Bible's Biggest Skeptic Might Be Its Best Disciple
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33 Churches Later... He Actually Wanted to Go Back
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When the Pastor Was the Predator: One Woman's Deconstruction Story
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Conversion Therapy Droupout
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Sen. Chris Coons on Christian nationalism, China, bipartisan conversations, and clean energy
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The Hidden Meanings (and Trauma) Behind Evangelical Church Language
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What If God Shows Up More in Art Than in Sermons?
Dr Estevez's Book
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Criminalizing Ejaculation, Tarrifs, Bonhoeffer, The Neverending Story and the new book, Saints Sinners and Clickers
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The Bible Doesn’t Have One Jesus. It Has Four
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The Tea: Queer Pastor Cancelled by a Christian Podcast and Her Story of Coming Out and Getting Ordained
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Interviews on Faith from the No Kings Protest in DC
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Being "Slain in the Spirit" and the Science Behind It
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Evangelical Camp Drama: How a Spotify Post Became a Faith Crisis
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Brainwashing Techniques Used by Evangelicals to Teach Hell
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Fiction Author and Human Trafficking Survivor: Dirinks and Deconstruction
In this Drinks and Deconstruction episode, I’m joined by River Polsgrove, a fiction writer and human trafficking survivor, for a conversation that somehow includes Catholic chanting, the “drink the blood” confusion of childhood, and why church people love turning shame into a personality. We talk dissociative amnesia, purity culture’s greatest hits (yes, the donut object lesson makes an appearance), and what it looks like to rebuild a spiritual life when the church was part of the harm. AND how River uses their fiction for the kind of healing and revenge therapy can’t always provide. Content warning up front f...
When “Modesty” Comes With a $10 Fine
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Jesus Didn’t Have to Die: Escaping the Evangelical Blood-Requirement
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Prayer After Deconstruction: Letting Go of the Cosmic Vending Machine
If prayer has ever felt like a spiritual performance review, this episode is for you. Jeremy talks with Wes Ellis, author of Abide in Amen, about why prayer gets weaponized into guilt, why “spiritual discipline” often turns into self-blame, and how the church trained a lot of us to treat God like a cosmic vending machine. Wes offers a different frame: prayer as God moving toward you, not you climbing toward God. Less control, less shame, more resonance.
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Drinks and Deconstruction: A Roman Catholic Doubting Thomas
Chris Young grew up Roman Catholic, got rushed through the sacraments because doctors didn’t think he’d live long, and still managed to be a skeptic by age six. This episode is a funny, tender, unexpectedly deep conversation about disability, Catholic guilt, “real presence” logic puzzles, and the moment he realized he couldn’t say the creed honestly anymore. Then something surprising happened. A community made room for his doubts, told him to focus on what he could believe, and that cracked open a way back without pretending.
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Tribulation Survival Guide: Roasting Rapture Culture with Stuart Delony
If you grew up in rapture culture, you already know the feeling: one missing family member and your brain goes straight to “did I miss the rapture?” This episode is group therapy, but funny. We talk with Stuart Delony (Snarky Faith) about his new book Tribulation Survival Guide, a satire that reads like a real survival manual for surviving evangelical end-times fearmongering. Antichrist spotting tips, false prophet red flags, and why the grifters keep moving the goalposts while somehow still collecting money.
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A New Year Ritual for People Who Don’t Trust New Year’s Resolutions
What if the new year isn’t about doing more, but about paying attention? In this guided episode, we explore a New Year version of the Ignatian Examen—reflecting on home, work, relationships, media, and time—to help you see where you’ve been, where you’re headed, and where you actually want to go. No resolutions required.
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What Is the ACTUAL Date of Christmas?
Christians argue fiercely about the literal details of Jesus’ birth—even though the Bible never gives a date and early believers didn’t agree on one. In this episode, we look at how December 25 emerges from theology, symbolism, and later church decisions rather than historical memory, and why our modern obsession with certainty might be the least faithful part of the story.
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Jesus Wasn’t Born in Bethlehem or a Stable (And That Changes Everything)
Turns out the Christmas story you defend like it’s a court transcript doesn’t even work on its own historical terms. In part one, we take apart Nazareth, Bethlehem, and the Roman census Luke uses to move Jesus across the map—spoiler: historians aren’t impressed. In part two, we go underground into caves, kataluma, and the version of Jesus’ birth the early church actually remembered before we swapped risk for rustic décor. This isn’t an attack on Christmas. It’s an attack on the idea that faith only works if the floor plan is literal and the facts a...
Theatre Kids and the Pope: Origins and Legends of the Christmas Tree
Forget the “it’s pagan” nonsense. The Christmas tree’s story is far wilder: a pope’s missionary memo, a bishop with an axe, medieval theater kids hauling evergreens onstage, and Victorian influencers turning it viral. We dig into how this mash-up of pagans, priests, and actors became the most hopeful ritual of winter.
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Revelation Isn’t About the Future or Microchips
Forget barcodes, microchips, and rapture charts. Revelation isn’t predicting the end of the world—it’s resisting it. We break down the Beast, 666, the four horsemen of the apocalypse and how this apocalyptic fever dream was really underground political poetry written by oppressed people under Roman rule.
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Deconstructing without Losing Faith (kind of)
Ever been told that if you stop believing one thing, Jesus unfriends you? Yeah… same. In this episode, we unmask the “literalist playing field” that we didn't realize we were playing on, talk about why deconstruction isn’t the spiritual apocalypse your youth pastor warned you about, and even discover that Paul's writings are part pagan. We’ll walk through a real method for choosing beliefs that aren’t garbage—and explore rituals, practices, and meditation tools that actually help you grow. Basically: how to lose bad theology without losing your soul.
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1946 and the Bible’s Big Gay Mistranslation (and How to Handle the Haters)
This one is equal parts history lesson and how-to. We talk about how to respond to homophobic people and have a big announcement about where you can view the movie. The director, Rocky, breaks down the 1946 “homosexual” mistranslation, the grind of getting the film to actual humans, and the spiritual discipline of not feeding the trolls—while still giving them something to think about.
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Tower of Babel vs. Linguistics: What Really Happened to Our Languages?
If you still think the Tower of Babel explains why Spanish exists, this episode might hurt your feelings. Jeremy and linguist Gabby break down how languages actually evolved, why “proper” English is just colonization in disguise, and how Babel’s real message might be about human pride, not divine punishment. Spoiler: God wasn’t mad at skyscrapers.
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The Theology of Algorithms (and Why Church is Boring)
If you think church has to happen in a building, brace yourself. There's no need to stream a guy in a guitar and a video of people sitting in pews... because that isn't community. In this podcast the tables are flipped and Jeremy is interviewed on the theology of algorithms, how to deal with social media comments and answers the question, "what is community?"
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No Historical Evidence that Jesus Existed?
No, we don’t have Jesus’ mugshot from a Roman archive. Also no, that’s not how ancient history works. We track the real markers: Paul’s letters, Gospel tradition layers, two grumpy non-Christians (Josephus and Tacitus) who mention him, and archaeology that matches the story’s stage. Then we run the historian playbook—embarrassment, dissimilarity, coherence, context—and the scorecard lights up. Historians across the spectrum agree, but what do they conclude?
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Deconstructing Satan, Demon Possession and Halloween
From youth-group exorcisms to YouTube deliverance rabbit holes, we trace how demon talk replaces science—and why that harms real people. We do a text-level audit (Job’s ha-satan, Isaiah’s “morning star,” and the God-of-the-gaps habit), contrast Catholic exorcism rules with charismatic chaos, and ask whether “the devil made me do it” just dodges responsibility. Then we reclaim Halloween with a grab bag of “things we weren’t allowed to watch” that won’t send you to hell: Lucifer, The Craft, Scream, and a certain bespectacled wizard.
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Does Jesus say people are going to Hell and Do I Have to Believe in the Bible to Believe in God?
What if the real scandal isn’t doubting hell—it’s discovering Jesus didn’t preach it? We push back on evangelical proof texts, tour the Bible’s vocabulary (Sheol = all the dead, Gehenna = a real valley, Hades = Greek myth), and read John 14:6 without pretending Jesus defined “through me” as “agree to our statement of faith.” Then we talk adult faith: you can love God without pretending Genesis is a lab manual. Less fear, more honesty, and a community that won’t shame your questions.
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Progressive Youth Ministry?
What if youth group wasn’t about dodgeball, purity rings, and trauma bonding over mission trips? In this episode, we talk with Dr. Andrew Zirschky about Progressive Youth Ministry—what it looks like to raise teenagers in a faith that’s inclusive, justice-oriented, and actually reflects Jesus. We unpack the damage done by purity culture, gender roles, and shame-based theology, and talk about how to spot a youth pastor red flag from a mile away. This is the guide every parent, pastor, and ex-youth-group kid wishes they had.
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Stopping the Exodus of Young Adults from the Church
This episode is a checklist of why young adults bounce. We tell the story of a would-be missionary crushed by the hell doctrine, trace early Christian views that weren’t eternal-torment, and drag the hypocrisy of flag-waving “martyr” talk. Finally, we map out how to rebuild—open-handed spirituality, evidence-honoring skepticism, and a supportive digital community that doesn’t pass the plate or police your beliefs.
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