How To Leave the Church When Your Dad's the Pastor

How To! with Mike Pesca

Chris's childhood was defined by the Pentecostal church, where his father is a minister and his siblings are following the same path. But when Chris went to college, his views on the church changed, and now at age 23, he no longer identifies as religious. That's caused a major rift with his parents, and Chris can't stand the tension anymore. On this episode of How To!, we bring on Patricia Lockwood, a poet and writer who chronicled her own experience leaving the church in her memoir Priestdaddy. Raised in a strict Catholic family with a father for a priest (thanks to a rare loophole), Patricia thought she was done with religion by the time she was in her early 30s. But when an unexpected financial crisis prompted her and her husband to move back in with her parents, Patricia learned a new way to bridge the gap between them. Reflecting on your shared values, Patricia says, is key to connecting with your parents, even if you're still leaving their religion behind.

If you liked this episode, check out "How To Talk Politics Without Wrecking Relationships."

Do you have a seemingly impossible problem? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show.

2021-02-09 26 min

Available Results

Generated results are saved to the knowledge database for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Extract Knowledge

Pick what you want extracted first. Model, scope, and chapter options appear after a template is selected.

Generated results for public episodes are saved to the knowledge database so they can be reused and searched later.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.