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The Tattooed Theologian: Honoring the Journey of Dillon Naber-Cruz
Description
In this episode of Honoring The Journey, Leslie interviews Dylan Naber-Cruz — a former U.S. Marine, cowboy, writer, and co-host of the God Squad Pod — about his journey through and out of fundamentalist Christianity. Dylan chats about his childhood shaped by competing denominations (Church of Christ and Southern Baptist), being baptized twice before age 14, enduring rapture anxiety well into his 30s, and living through the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. He traces the cracks in his faith to a college history class where he first encountered critical thinking, a debate assignment that exposed his inability to defend his beliefs with evidence, and reading Bart Ehrman and Thich Nhat Hanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ. The conversation also explores his religious trauma, undiagnosed PTSD from childhood abuse and a Marine Corps accident, the ways evangelicalism pathologized mental health, and the anger phase of deconstruction — before turning to how that anger can be channeled into community building, political action, self-care, and what Dylan calls "radical grace," drawing on permaculture principles and the example of Jesus as a template for envisioning a more just and compassionate world.
Find out more about Dillon: https://tattooed-theologian.com/
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