What happens to your sense of spiritual authority when your worldview crumbles?

High-control religions want you to externalize your authority by handing it to them. After a deconstruction, it's healthy to reclaim that authority. Yet total internal control runs you into blind spots—which are, by definition, things you can't see.

Is there a middle ground? A way to discern trustworthy sources of authority from untrustworthy sources? To balance individual needs with group demands?

This episode works through Chesterton's fence, Tara Isabella Burton's Strange Rites, and a set of questions worth asking of any community before you trust it (including: what happens to the people who leave?)

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Chapters

00:00 Where does spiritual authority go after a faith crisis?
02:03 Before the separation of church and state
05:59 The age of association and the age of authenticity
07:53 Coercion, idolatry, and the closed loop of high-demand religious
09:49 Nauvoo, Nancy Rigdon, and the Happiness Letter
12:02 Internal authority, blind spots, and "do your own research"
16:02 The gospel critiques both: idolatry and the self curved inward
17:48 Chesterton's fence and questions to ask before you trust
25:57 Sin boldly, course correct, and your belovedness as bedrock

Resources Cited

• Dwight Zscheile, "From the Age of Association to Authenticity" — Faith+Lead. https://faithlead.org/blog/from-the-age-of-association-to-authenticity/
• Ted A. Smith, The End of Theological Education — Eerdmans, 2023.
• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age — Belknap/Harvard, 2007.
• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America — 1835 and 1840.
• Joseph Smith, letter to Nancy Rigdon ("the Happiness Letter"), circa mid-April 1842 — Full text and historical introduction at the Joseph Smith Papers: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-letter-to-nancy-rigdon-circa-mid-april-1842/1
• Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World — PublicAffairs, 2020.
• Zoe Alderton, "'Snapewives' and 'Snapeism': A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom" — Religions 5, no. 1 (2014): 219–267. Open access, and yes, it's peer-reviewed: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/5/1/219
• G. K. Chesterton, "The Drift from Domesticity," in The Thing — 1929. Full text: https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=/Contemporary-EN/XCT.165.html&chunk.id=00000011
• Martin Luther, letter to Philip Melanchthon, August 1, 1521 — Luther's Works vol. 48, 281–82.
• Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — 1979. Forty-two. We still don't know the question.