Kitchen Table Cult

About the Podcast <a href="https://kitchentablecult.com/" target="_blank">Kitchen Table Cult</a> unpacks all the things Kieryn and Eve learned at their childhood kitchen tables in conservative Christian homeschooling families. Every week we take your questions and drill down on various topics about Quiverfull, the Religious Right, and our childhoods in high-demand groups (otherwise known as cults). We’re not surprised about the rise of Trump, Christian fascism, or evangelical white women voting for someone like Mike Pence, and we want to take you back through the beginning of it all to explain why. Tune in weekly (when we're not in school) or monthly (during the semester). About Kieryn Kieryn Darkwater is the eldest of 8, and was the firstborn daughter in what eventually became a Quiverfull family. The Stay-at-Home-Daughter's (SAHD) primary responsibility is often &quot;training to be a helpmeet&quot; by becoming the surrogate mother to the younger children. Kieryn started bearing significant responsibility for their family's household by age 8. By the time they reached age 15, they were graduated from (homeschool) high school so they could better fulfill their role as a helpmeet-in-training, by focusing on childrearing instead of education. When they weren't caretaking, Kieryn was involved in right wing political activism. Working with <a href="https://mxdarkwater.com/?s=teenpact">Generation Joshua and TeenPact,</a> they campaigned for Roy Moore, Randall Terry, Ralph Reed, and other Christian conservative leaders in the south. They also wrote prolifically and helped create a media network of blogs, podcasts, an online magazine by and for homeschooled Christian conservative teens. Embedding themselves in right-wing grassroots organizing, activism, and writing was the only approved escape they had from the daily grind of being a surrogate parent. They left their family of origin on their 18th birthday and have spent the years since writing, deconstructing, healing, and raising awareness of this dark underbelly of Christianity, homeschooling, and the Quiverfull movement. All while trying to make up for a lifetime of educational and medical neglect, navigate through the &quot;secular&quot; world, get a <a href="http://laney.edu/machine_technology/">college education</a>, and transition while access to healthcare is systematically stripped away. They've written on the topic of Christofascism and resistance for <a href="https://autostraddle.com/author/kieryn">Autostraddle</a>, <a href="https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/?s=Kierstyn+King">Homeschooler's Anonymous</a>, and on their own site, <a href="https://mxdarkwater.com">Bridging the Gap</a>. You can follow them on <a href="https://twitter.com/@bluepupboi">twitter</a> and support their work on <a href="https://patreon.com/kiery">patreon</a>! About Eve Eve Ettinger is the oldest of 9 children from a Quiverfull family. Born in California and raised in a cult in Virginia, they served Jesus by helping raise their younger siblings, teaching Sunday School, and praying daily that God would allow her to live and die for his glory. A voracious reader, Eve began exploring far beyond the walls of their home through literature, and eventually found community through blogging about theology and collaborating on online magazines with other homeschoolers across the country. When they left for college at 18 and started courting at age 19, cognitive dissonance set in and they began to question everything: how the Bible was taught and read (was literal 6 day creation even IN the Bible?), how women were treated (why does The Handmaid’s Tale feel like real life?), and conservative Christian exceptionalism in America (why do white Christians think they are better than everyone else when they clearly are not?). After getting married at 21 to escape their father’s control and emotionally abusive tactics, Eve found themself quickly outgrowing their old beliefs, eventually getting divorced at 23, and leaving the church. Since then they’ve been focused on healing, deconstructing and relearning everything they believed about themself and the world, and on exploring and adventuring, all the while writing about it in essays, poetry, fiction, and blogs. They’ve written about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/09/ending-an-abusive-marriage-is-hard-ending-one-in-the-evangelical-church-is-harder/">divorce in the church for The Washington Post</a>, about <a href="https://medium.com/the-establishment/i-grew-up-in-a-fundamentalist-cult-the-handmaids-tale-was-my-reality-fae2f77263d9">The Handmaid’s Tale and Quiverfull for The Establishment</a>, among other outlets, and have blogged about leaving the cult at their <a href="http://www.hannahettinger.com/tag/wine-marble/">own blog</a>, and about being <a href="https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/how-homeschooling-prepared-me-for-the-peace-corps/">a homeschooled Peace Corps Volunteer</a> for The Responsible Coalition for Home Education. They have been interviewed on or featured by: NPR’s Fresh Air, Cosmopolitan, Glamour UK, and <a href="http://cracked.com/">Cracked.com</a>. Eve is currently working on a memoir. You can follow them on <a href="https://twitter.com/eve_ettinger">Twitter</a> or support their work via <a href="https://venmo.com/haettinger">Venmo</a>.

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