5 minute read
Faith No More
By Sarah Halfpenny Photos Gary Sissons
Brian McDowell never expected to become a voice for thousands of people escaping the grip of fundamentalist Christianity. The Frankston resident was simply looking for something to fill his time during lockdowns in 2021, when his friend Troy Waller suggested they start a podcast together. Four years later, I Was a Teenage Fundamentalist has grown into a global phenomenon that’s helping people worldwide process their experiences with religious trauma.
“Some people who have never experienced it [fundamentalist Christianity] have said to us that it’s like watching a show about prison, because it’s a world they don’t know anything about,” Brian explains.
Brian’s own path to fundamentalist Christianity had its roots in his family dynamics. Growing up as the youngest of eight children in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, he lived in a household that was “spiritual, but certainly not exposed to any brand of Christianity.” His parents had stopped attending their local Catholic church after experiencing “a priest who was very drunk one day at the pulpit.” However, several of his older siblings had converted to fundamentalist Christianity.
At age 17, Brian decided to visit two of his older brothers on the Gold Coast. Despite laying down strict conditions “I didn’t want to hear any preaching. I didn’t want them to even have a Bible around me” — curiosity eventually got the better of him. “Next thing, you know, I was going to church and I’d converted to this thing that I had no idea about.”
For the next five or six years, Brian was “completely immersed” in fundamentalist Christianity. He studied for ministry, attended theological college, and married at 23. But doubts began to creep in on multiple fronts. The Toronto Blessing movement, started in Canada, was one catalyst. “It was basically this movement of strange stuff, like church services that would go for six or eight hours of this thing they called ‘holy laughter’. People would be laughing hysterically.
it’s like watching a show about prison, because it’s a world they don’t know anything about
People would be running around the church, squealing like a pig, or barking like a dog,” he says. “For me, that was just lunacy.”
Another major issue was the absence of social justice within fundamentalist Christianity. “I was doing some work in youth homelessness at that time, and I wasn’t seeing this expression of any social justice, which I thought would be a core feature of this movement; it wasn’t.” This led Brian and his then-wife to explore more progressive expressions of Christianity, including Baptist churches and the Church of Christ.
Despite these attempts to find a more palatable version of faith, Brian found himself repeatedly hitting the same wall. “I said to my then-wife several times that I don’t think I believe this anymore,” he recalls. The cognitive dissonance became harder to sustain, and he spent years “not involved in anything more than a social aspect.”
When his marriage ended, Brian – by then 38 – finally had the freedom to step away completely. “Divorce was my out,” he reflects. “There’s a real fear within it too, that if you leave the church, what happens to your kids? Are your kids going to go to hell? It’s such a ridiculous thought when I look back on it now, but it holds you, and holds you really tight.”
When I tell my story, it gives other people the empowerment to tackle those tough things
While the podcast started with an audience that was made up mostly of Australian listeners, the demographics have flipped dramatically. “Probably 65 to 70% of our audience is now based in the United States, Canada, the UK, and then there are smatterings around other countries,” Brian says.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. “The most frequent comment we get from people is that they’ve never spoken to anyone about this experience they’ve had,” Brian says. Many listeners have kept their fundamentalist past a secret, even from spouses, feeling embarrassed by their involvement.
Brian is particularly concerned about the political implications of fundamentalist Christianity. “Christian nationalism is one of the biggest issues the USA is facing right now," he says.
The podcast has evolved into a community with volunteers from Brisbane to Hawaii helping with transcription, social media, and administration. A Facebook group of several thousand members provides ongoing support for fellow listeners, and meetups have been organised in major cities.
For Brian, the work is therapeutic. “When I tell my story, it gives other people the empowerment to tackle those tough things.”
While he doesn’t feel particularly damaged by his own experience, he recognises that many listeners have endured significant trauma.
“So many people come to us; they’ve been years in therapy, trying to deal with the trauma and trying to identify who they are, because they’ve got no idea, because that’s been stripped out.”
The podcast will soon expand to include a third co-host from the United States, a woman who survived a prominent cult in Texas during the 1970s and '80s. “We want to continue exploring people’s stories, but also exposing some of those more bizarre things and inviting people to question a lot of the things that have become unquestionable.”
These days, Brian gets messages from listeners around the world thanking him for giving them the words they’re unable to express. It’s proof that sometimes the most important conversations happen not in churches, but in the intimate space between podcast hosts and their listeners - including here in Frankston, where one man’s journey from fundamentalism to freedom continues to inspire.
I Was a Teenage Fundamentalist is available on all major podcast platforms.
