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Johnathon Haney's avatar

Roamer 8's story struck a chord with me on the religious angle. East TN is dominated culturally by a lot of churches, especially the Southern Baptist Conference. They also did a lot of missions to Central and South American countries when I was a kid. On the surface, it's all welcoming and "family". But you call out the BS like Roamer 8 did, you're froze out completely.

Hate that he went through all that. But I'm glad he's in a better spot now too.

Sydney Bocik's avatar

Johnathon, thank you for sharing. I was in Franklin, TN one time (a little more central) and they kept telling me there’s more churches than McDonald’s.

Whether you’re religious or not, rather than seeing questions as threats, churches should be viewed as an honest search for something that welcomes questioning.

Johnathon Haney's avatar

Sadly, that is anything but the case where I was vis-a-vis inquiry. In that, they are following the historical pattern of making themselves unofficial power centers. I shall never forgive them for shadow-banning Halloween by the time I left with their "fall festivals".

Genuine questions threaten power like that.

eugenecostellojourno@gmail.com's avatar

Great story, Sydney!

Sydney Bocik's avatar

Thank you, Eugene!

eugenecostellojourno@gmail.com's avatar

Also, lovely, shiny new site! Kudos, Sydney!

Sydney Bocik's avatar

Thank you! I was really impressed with what Substack allows you to do out of the box.