I’m Karyn Thurston.
When I started to lose Jesus, or, at least, losing was how it felt at the time, I was 33 and more adept at shaming my falling away than any evangelical Christian not confined to my internal monologue.
I was terrified of the following tiny, no-big-deal things:
What would my friends and family think of me? Would they feel guilty for or disgusted by my “falling away?” Would I be causing my brother to stumble? Could I still sit at their tables? Would they still trust me with their children?
Was I going to hell? Was I leading OTHERS to hell? Was I leading my DAUGHTER to hell?
How would I teach my daughter about right and wrong? How could I mother leaning on my own understanding? Where would my strength come from?
Were my decades of church leadership hypocrisy, or a lie, or maybe worst of all, a colossal waste of precious holy time?
Would I have to stand before Jesus as a wolf in sheep’s clothing and account for my divorces, apostasy, and the ruination of hundreds of marriages, faith walks, and human souls?
Would the Bible I knew practically by heart be wholly useless to me if I didn’t take it literally?
What the fuck was I going to do on Sunday mornings? How would I make friends? How would I date in secular contexts?
Would there be anything left of my life?
I was terrified of a world without God the way I’d always defined “Him.”
But there were voices - warm, wise, laughter-filled, holy, deeply spiritual voices that found their way into the cacophony of my private panic. They handed me tools and ideas, like rungs on a ladder that climbed toward something I was lacking - hope. They handed me hope, and hope changed everything.
Hope led me to Sojourn Grace Collective, our unicorn-safe-space-of-a-church here in San Diego. And when a human I didn’t know well beyond his voice and guitar on Sunday mornings started his own podcast about deconstruction, I listened. And when he put out a call for folks to share stories, I messaged him. Immediately.
He said yes to my story.
The rest, as they say, is blissful apostasy. In the years since our first conversation, Matthew/Flamy and I have interviewed dozens of inspiring humans.
I have new definitions for god, faith, and love, that bring me to my knees with gratitude. You might say I’m evangelical about apostasy.
My baby daughter has become a miniature adult who reads thick books, tells jokes that are actually funny, and has a gorgeously personal set of ethics that inspires me every day.
I’ve published poetry collections and started projects I believe in deeply.
I spend Sunday mornings with a framily I love, and thanks to 2020, my parents hang with us too.
An Aussie stranger became my new love became my new husband became a new Heathen co-host.
I went from being the girl terrified of hell and opinions and hard conversations to the mama bear ready to draw fire to shield her beloved, raring to dive into the most uncomfortable chats to find the belonging beneath them, sure of hardly anything except my absolute sureness that there is room for each and every one of us in love.
Hear me: if you feel safe, happy, and whole in your definition of God and your faith and your practice, I celebrate your sureness. Heathen might not be a thing you need, and that’s okay.
AND – Heathen is here to stay, because we remember how the fear felt. The fear that said there will be nothing but loss and death and loneliness on the other side of our questions about God, about salvation, about right and wrong, about that nagging feeling in our bones that our faith just didn’t fit right.
We remember the shame. And we aren’t here for it.
You, my loves - in that fear or looking back at it, trembling-handed leaders, big-question-askers, wide-open lovers - you are our people.
You can totally sit with us.