The After Party - Misogyny in the Church: A Woman’s Perspective "Holy Smokes: Cigars & Spirituality" S6 Bonus

When we first started this movement, men were primarily drawn to it because we smoke cigars. As we have had more and more inclusive conversations about gender and sexuality, the ratios are beginning to shift and we have more women who engage Holy Smokes now. I love how the women have plugged in, but it pains me that men run from conversations that hold us accountable for our misogynistic ways. We regularly challenge men to let go of our need to have authority over women and embrace the authority we have over our own lives. So, shout out to the men who aren’t afraid to have these, sometimes, uncomfortable conversations.

When we invited Danyelle Thomas, aka The Unfit Christian, to the show to talk about Misogyny in the Church, she walked us through some of the ways the church has been harmful to women. In a moment you’ll hear Janackeh, one of our Patreon community members, mention how indoctrination can be so strong that we don’t even realize how much we are being harmed by it until someone else points it out. I liken it to not realizing that you are holding your breath until someone tells you to breathe. Well in this episode, Danyelle Thomas challenged us to breathe. We originally released the main portion of this conversation with The Unfit Christian on Feb 21 of this year. We talked a little bit about how Misogyny in the Church has affected Danyelle’s relationship with the church and with The Divine.

Today I invite you to join us for the unreleased After Party of that same episode where we took it a step further to discuss how Misogyny in the Church has affected Danyelle’s relationship with herself. In this segment, she raises the question, “How can you date men when you hate men?” which reminds me of a meme from Phaedra Peer that I recently saw on social media which says, “The fact that I’m still attracted to men should prove that sexuality isn’t a choice.” That’s a good moment to say Happy Pride Month to my Q+ family.

Hey there, I’m Kristian A. Smith, the host and the heretic of Holy Smokes; Cigars and Spirituality, the pastor of The Faith Community of Atlanta and the author of Breaking All The Rules: An Ancient Framework for Modern Faith, which serves as a resource for those of you who find yourself on the journey of decolonizing and deconstructing your faith.

Welcome to Postseason 6 of Holy Smokes: Cigars & Spirituality. What does that mean? It means we are bringing you some unreleased content and some of our most popular content while the team takes a rest to gear up for season 7. We’re about to jump into the after party of Misogyny in the Church: A Woman’s Perspective with Danyelle Thomas, aka Unfit Christian. We’ll also be joined at the midway point by Janackeh and Angela from our Patreon community who joined us backstage in the virtual greenroom for this experience.

Fair warning, if you’re not comfortable with Black people using the term “nigga” this episode will make you cringe. After about 5 minutes of talking with Danyelle, I adopted her as my cousin (cuz that’s what Black folks do) and we got real comfortable with our language. Hell I even said at one point that on some subjects I don’t give a damn what the Bible says, because I’ve studied it enough to know that I don’t agree with what it says on some matters. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot. But it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So how about you just pull up a chair and join us as we deconstruct harmful theology and build beloved community one cigar at a time. Let’s get to it.