In this episode, co-hosts Peterson Toscano (he/him)  and Sweet Miche (they/them) delve into the journey of spiritual unlearning, inspired by Philip Gulley’s book Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe. The conversation with Philip explores the challenging process of questioning inherited beliefs about God, theology, and fear.

Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

Philip Gulley, Peterson, and Sweet Miche share their journeys of unlearning traditional theological concepts and reflect on what makes Quakerism a meaningful path to a more authentic faith. Gulley highlights fear as a significant motivator for religious beliefs and a tool for control and how the current political moment is a masterfully evil manipulation of human fears. Gulley also offers his perspective on the continued usefulness of organized religion, emphasizing the importance of bringing people together, respecting personal autonomy, and aligning its social efforts with the ethos of Jesus and radical love. 

Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor, writer, and speaker from Danville, Indiana.  Gulley has written 22 books, including the Harmony series recounting life in the eccentric Quaker community of Harmony, Indiana, and the best-selling Porch Talk essay series. 

Gulley’s memoir, I Love You, Miss Huddleston: And Other Inappropriate Longings of My Indiana Childhood, was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Hor.  In addition, Gulley, with co-author James Mulholland, shared their progressive spirituality in the books If Grace Is True and If God Is Love, followed by Gulley’s books If the Church Were Christian and The Evolution of Faith. In  Living the Quaker Way: Timeless Wisdom For a Better Life Today, Gulley offers the opportunity to participate in a world where the values of the Quaker way bring equity, peace, healing, and hope. In his book, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe, Gulley describes the process of spiritual growth, especially the re-interpretation of the earliest principles we learned about God.

BONUS materials: Hear the entire 38-minute, unedited conversation between Philip, Sweet Miche, and Peterson. Also, read Peterson’s thoughts on the interview, “Unlearning Fear and Shame,” on Friendsjournal.org.

Resources

Here are some resources for friends in the process of unlearning and seeking spiritual growth:

Therapy

Therapy and spiritual growth can be deeply complementary. While therapy doesn’t typically provide spiritual direction, it creates fertile ground for unlearning and spiritual development. You can use online therapist directories to find a therapist by location, insurance, specialty, cost, and more at Psychology Today, TherapyDen, or Open Path Psychotherapy Collective.

Poets and Authors

• Audre Lorde is a profoundly influential Black lesbian feminist writer, poet, theorist, and civil rights activist. Her work powerfully explores the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. You can read her essays in Sister Outsider and her “biomythography” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.
• Federico Garcia Lorca is one of Spain’s most important poets and playwrights of the 20th century. His work is celebrated for its intense lyricism, surreal imagery, and passionate exploration of themes like love, death, desire, oppression, and Andalusian culture, particularly in works like Gypsy Ballads and plays such as Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba.
• Walt Whitman is a central figure in American poetry, often called the “Bard of Democracy.” Whitman revolutionized poetry with his use of free verse and expansive lines. His lifelong work, Leaves of Grass, celebrates the individual, democracy, nature, the body, spirituality, and the interconnectedness of all life, aiming to capture the diverse spirit of America.
• Mary Oliver is an American poet who focuses on the natural world, particularly the landscapes of New England.  Her work finds wonder, spirituality, and profound insight in quiet observation and moments of attention to nature, inviting readers to connect more deeply with the world around them.
• Christian Wiman is a contemporary American poet and essayist known for his unflinching honesty and intellectual rigor in exploring themes of faith, doubt, suffering (often drawing on his experience with chronic illness), mortality, and love. 
• Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and served as the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate. Her work weaves together Indigenous history, spirituality, myth, social justice, resilience, and a deep connection to the land, often infused with the rhythms of music and prayer.
• Akwake Emezi is a non-binary Nigerian writer and artist known for their powerful, innovative, and often genre-bending work. Their novels (like Freshwater and The Death of Vivek Oji) explore complex themes of identity, spirituality (often drawing on Igbo cosmology), gender, mental health, trauma, and the body, challenging conventional Western frameworks of selfhood.
• Elaine Pagels is a renowned historian of religion, particularly noted for her scholarship on early Christianity and Gnosticism. Her groundbreaking book, The Gnostic Gospels, brought non-canonical early Christian texts to wider attention, revealing the diversity of early Christian thought and exploring how political and social contexts shaped religious history and scripture.

LGBTQ+ film festivals are events dedicated to showcasing films by, for, or about queer individuals and communities. They serve as vital platforms for representation, providing visibility for filmmakers and stories often marginalized in mainstream media. These festivals (like Frameline, Outfest, NewFest, and countless others globally) are also important spaces for community building and celebrating queer culture.

Quaker Voluntary Service is a year-long program rooted in Quaker values. It brings young adults together to live in an intentional community, work full-time in social justice-focused non-profit organizations, and engage in spiritual exploration and leadership development, putting faith into action.

Listener Responses

We hear directly from Roxanne, who unlearned the idea that any single group holds the definitive spiritual answer, instead discovering valuable truths across diverse practices and traditions through their continuous seeking.

On Facebook, friends shared their experience wrestling with the traditional ideas about God they grew up with. Many people mentioned letting go of a harsh or judgmental image of God, questioning core doctrines, and letting go of feelings of unworthiness. Thank you to Angela, Rae, Tim, Amy, Iris, Christine, Steve, David, Tyler, Joe, Deepak, and Whittier for sharing so openly with our question of the month.

Question for Next Month

Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?

Share your response by emailing podcast@quakerstoday.org or call/text 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377). Please include your name and location. Your responses may be featured in our next episode.

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Transcript

Sweet Miche:
In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask: what is something you had to unlearn?

Peterson Toscano:
Philip Gulley, a Quaker pastor, writer, and speaker from Danville, Indiana, joins us to talk about his journey of unlearning. He is the author of Unlearning: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.

Sweet Miche:
And we share resources that have helped us in our process of questioning what we believe. 

Peterson Toscano: I’m Peterson Toscano

Sweet Miche: And I am Sweet Miche. This is Season Four, Episode Five of the Quakers Today podcast, a project of Friends Publishing Corporation. This season is sponsored by American Friends Service Committee and Friends Fiduciary.

Philip Gulley:
I just like the kind of people that Quaker meetings attract.

Sweet Miche:
That’s Philip Gulley. Peterson and I recently had a long conversation with him.

Philip Gulley:
And the funny thing is, the evangelical Quaker meetings I’ve gone to—the Bible-thumping Quaker meetings—and the most unprogrammed progressive Quaker meetings attract the same kind of people.

Peterson Toscano:
But we didn’t reach out to Philip to talk about Quakerism. We were curious about his own long and winding spiritual journey.

Sweet Miche:
He wrote about it in his book Unlearning: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.
Peterson, in our conversation with Philip, what stood out to you?

Peterson Toscano:
Fear came up a lot in this conversation. And fear has a profound impact on our bodies, including our minds. When we experience fear, neural pathways narrow, making it difficult to recall what we know. It hinders critical thinking and definitely interferes with rational decision-making.

Philip, in talking about his own journey from Catholicism to evangelicalism to universalism, explained how some of us initially turn to God to alleviate our fears.

Philip Gulley:
One of the first things we learn is that God loves us, that God’s in control. It is a product of our deepest need, which is to live life without being crippled by fear or a sense of hopelessness. And so we posit all these powers into a divine being so that we don’t have to go through life worrying that no one’s in control and that this will somehow end up okay.

Peterson Toscano:
As a teen, I attended a church where the leaders routinely warned us about how we could be led astray from the faith. They would say, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.”

I have no idea why he did it with that accent, but it was the King James. I do remember that.

According to Philip, using fear to control behavior is nothing new. It goes back to the beginning—like the book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden. God gave them a vast garden of fresh produce but warned them they must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Philip Gulley:
We know now that four different authors wrote the first five books of the Bible. Some of those sources were very poetic, exploratory, had all kinds of questions, and just wrote very movingly. Others of them were priestly and really liked nailing things down.

And I suspect the person who came up with that story was somebody who worshiped every day at the altar of fear. This is the problem. And here’s where that will get you—it will get you thrown out of the garden, subject to work, and be miserable. And it’s just such a depressing story.

Peterson Toscano:
Yeah, it’s depressing indeed. For centuries, religious leaders have served as spiritual overlords, keeping folks like me on a straight and narrow path. Frankly, I liked it that way, which I know sounds weird. But it was easier to outsource the work of figuring out God’s will for my life than to do it myself.

Unlike the early Quakers. These Friends dared to turn their noses up at church authorities and the educated clergy class. Instead, they looked directly to God for guidance. They questioned, liberated themselves from church teachings, and sought to live lives led by the Spirit.

Centuries later, here in the United States, we are witnessing the overreach of religious leaders again, which, according to Philip, has political consequences.

Philip Gulley:
Well, it’s clear that fear is probably the driving motivation in our culture. I think that’s especially obvious now with the rise of Donald Trump and his supporters, which in a way was a masterfully evil manipulation of human fears.

It identified and targeted the Other, painted a dystopian worldview of what might happen if we didn’t fix this and get rid of these people—the Other. And I think the reason 82% of American evangelicals voted for him is that is the language they understand. They have been steeped in a culture of fear, in judgment. And so when he talks, he’s speaking their language.

Peterson Toscano:
In my earlier years, I submitted myself to evangelical and Pentecostal ministers who spoke incessantly about love. But they also preached fear—fear of secular humanism, New Age teaching, environmentalism, socialism, and gangs of homosexual men out to convert and recruit our children.

These fears kept us in the pew. They fired us up to support politicians promoting Christian nationalism. The fear instilled in us led to actions that aligned perfectly with a political movement.

Having to unlearn this type of fear himself, what does Philip say to people caught up in the current political movement, steeped in fear?

Philip Gulley:
I encourage as many of them as I meet and encounter to get therapy—because I believe it’s indicative of a mental neurosis that needs to be healed.

The thing is, on one level, it works for them emotionally. They find it emotionally satisfying. And when you find your life emotionally satisfying, you’re not inclined to get therapy. You’re not inclined to reflect and to ask, “Are these beliefs really helpful? Are they helping me become a more loving and gracious and wise person?”

You don’t ask those questions—because you don’t feel that existential vacancy that others might feel if they were of that same mindset.

Peterson Toscano:
For Philip, unlearning means fearlessly examining our faith and what we have chosen to believe.

Sweet Miche:
Unlike you, Peterson, I didn’t experience an evangelical tradition. I was raised in a mainstream denomination—the United Methodist Church. Frankly, it wasn’t scary, but it also wasn’t terribly inspiring either.

I turned away from Christianity as a teen because I didn’t see my fellow congregants living Jesus’s teachings. They were more interested in upholding social hierarchies, judging others, and focusing on rules rather than relationship.

But even after leaving, unlearning wasn’t easy. All of us have deeply ingrained ideas about right and wrong. But dismantling these frameworks of religious dogma can feel like unsettling the very ground beneath our feet. To question—and potentially release—these long-held ideas requires courage. But it’s also the first step towards a more loving way of being.

Philip Gulley:
I look at every belief and ask this question: Is it moving me forward or is it holding me back?

And by moving forward, I mean—is it helping me grow? Is it making me a more loving person? Then I retain it. And I don’t care who taught it to me. It doesn’t matter if I learned that from a Catholic nun at the age of six—if it still works, I’m going to keep it.

If it makes me a smaller person, if it makes me love less, if it diminishes others, then I feel very comfortable jettisoning it and letting it go—and saying, I’m not going to let that belief inform my life any longer.

I think we need to do this not only with religion, but I think we need to do it with nationalism—with what we were taught about America and the beliefs that we retain and the beliefs that we really ought to let go of.

Sweet Miche:
As Philip said earlier, one of the first things we learn is that God loves us, that God is in control. As a child, I learned literally that God is my heavenly father. To move beyond that—to grow up, in a way—was to shift my whole understanding of the Bible and its teachings.

Unlearning the Protestant God was a process of questioning those foundational images.

For me, I realized I love the Jesus who washed the feet of his disciples and flipped the tables of the money lenders.

And sometimes this shift is sparked by profound insights—a sudden realization that cracks open old ways of thinking. These epiphanies can happen at any time, often when we least expect them.

Philip Gulley:
I was at our local Bible bookstore, and someone there—another customer—handed me a book that he had brought with him. It was a book of Clarence Jordan’s sermons.

And he wrote a beautiful sermon in there about universalism, based on Luke 15.

And he ended with this wonderful line:

“God is not a jailer jangling the keys on a bunch of lifers—that is, people sentenced to prison for life. God is a woman looking for a lost coin, a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, a father welcoming a lost child.”

The first time I read that, it was an Abraham Maslow peak experience. I knew it was true. I knew it was true. And in that moment, I left behind the evangelical Christianity that I had been immersed in and became a universalist.

Sweet Miche:
Unlearning isn’t a clean break. Emotionally, we might cycle through doubt, anger, and a sense of being adrift. It might involve leaving our church, leaving friendships or family. For me, it wasn’t a dramatic exit from a single community, but more of a gradual distancing from certain ideas and practices.

But there was a period of feeling untethered, questioning where I truly belonged spiritually. And I think that this is true for many young seekers. The politicizing of faith is increasingly prioritizing power and nationalism over compassion and global community.

However, religious community can be an incredibly powerful force for good.

Philip Gulley:
I say this almost every Sunday at my Quaker meeting. I say, “If you’ve spent the week wishing you could do more to help the hungry, to home the homeless, and speak truth to power, and you have felt like what you’ve done isn’t enough—couple your efforts to ours, so that what you have been doing can be magnified. We can do more together.”

Organized religion will continue to be useful if it does several things well: if it brings people together in loving, shared efforts to enhance the world; if it respects personal autonomy and the right of all people to discern the best way forward for themselves, as opposed to imposing a standard upon them.

We need to be much more discerning in what we give our hearts and minds to—and be careful not to support things that diminish us or diminish others. If we can find a way to include all, to help all, to encourage all—who wouldn’t want that? There’s still a place for us. Who wouldn’t want that?

Peterson Toscano:
If you want to listen to the full conversation, which includes Sweetmeesh, Philip Gulley—

Sweet Miche:
And me—along with a hilarious Brokeback Bible reference—

Peterson Toscano:
Oh yeah, that’s right. Visit quakerstoday.org to find the show notes for this episode and a link to the entire 45-minute conversation. You’ll also find a link to an article I wrote inspired by our conversation with Philip Gulley. In it, I explore the role of fear in my spiritual journey. Just visit quakerstoday.org and see the show notes for this episode.

Sweet Miche:
Peterson, you attended ultra-conservative evangelical churches for almost 20 years. You’ve unlearned a lot since then. What resources helped you in the unlearning, relearning, and liberation process?

Peterson Toscano:
Wow. And it is a process. It took time, and there were many influences. For the first few years, I felt lost—but therapy helped me find myself again. So yeah, I agree with Philip: therapy is important.

And then I turned to writers. The words and lives of poets like Audre Lorde, Federico García Lorca, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes particularly inspired me. They served as models.

Then, at the Friends General Conference Gathering back in 2002, I learned about Elaine Pagels at the bookstore. Pagels is a historian who’s written extensively about first-century Christians, and she helped me see that the early church had a diversity of beliefs and practices that I had no idea about.

Oh—and another great resource were LGBTQ film festivals. Seeing the lives and the stories of people that I’d been trained to fear and despise, well… it totally deepened my love for the community—and for myself.

What about you, Sweetmeesh? I know you don’t have the same background as me, but you’ve been unlearning and relearning. What resources and experiences have contributed to your unlearning?

Sweet Miche:
Yeah, yeah. I think my first moment of unlearning was joining Quaker Voluntary Service. In my first meeting for worship, in the barn at Pendle Hill, a Friend who passed while I was in college spoke to me—and she told me to follow a path of faith.

Since then, I’ve also felt drawn to writers. Poets like Mary Oliver and Christian Wiman have helped me expand my understanding of the divine within my own culture.

And I’ve also turned to writers who explore divinity from contexts outside of mine—like Joy Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate, who writes about Earth Spirit, and Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi, who writes about the Obanje. These writers have taught me new concepts of God and how colonial theologies have suppressed these spiritual traditions.

Encountering different cosmologies and perspectives can broaden our theological imaginations. Hopefully, the work of unlearning will lead to more inclusive and relevant ways of enacting our Quaker faith.

Peterson Toscano:
If you have any resources that have helped you in your unlearning, send them our way! You can email us at podcast@friendsjournal.org or DM us on Instagram, X, or TikTok.

Sweet Miche:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Quakers Today. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, rate and review the show—it helps us more than you know. And share the podcast with Friends—the more the merrier!

Peterson Toscano:
Quakers Today is written and produced by…

Sweet Miche:
Me, Sweetmeesh.

Peterson Toscano:
And me, Peterson Toscano. Music on today’s show comes from Epidemic Sound. Season Four of Quakers Today is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary.

Narrator:
Since 1898, Friends Fiduciary has provided values-aligned investment services to fellow Quaker organizations. Friends Fiduciary consistently achieves strong financial returns while witnessing to Quaker testimonies. They also help individuals support organizations they hold dear through giving strategies, including donor-advised funds, charitable gift annuities, and stock gifts. Learn more about FFC’s services at friendsfiduciary.org.

Narrator:
This season is also brought to you by the American Friends Service Committee. Vulnerable communities—and the planet—are counting on Quakers to take action for a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) works at the forefront of many social change movements to meet urgent humanitarian needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

Find out how you can get involved in their programs to protect migrant communities, establish peace in Palestine, demilitarize police forces, assert the right to food for all, and more—at afsc.org.

Peterson Toscano:
Visit quakerstoday.org to see our show notes and a full transcript of this episode. And if you stick around after the closing, you’ll hear listener responses to the question:
“In your spiritual or personal journey, what is a belief you had to unlearn?”

Sweet Miche:
Thank you, Friend, for listening.

Peterson Toscano:
In a moment, you will hear what listeners had to say about beliefs they had to unlearn.

Sweet Miche:
But first, I’m going to share next month’s question:
Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?

We can think of home in different ways. There’s physical home—the space we inhabit. There’s also emotional home—that sense of comfort and security.

Peterson Toscano:
And then there’s the societal home—our place within a community or culture.

Next month’s question is: Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?

Leave a voice memo with your name and the town where you live. The number to call (don’t be afraid) is:
📞 317-QUAKERS
That’s 317-782-5377.

You can also send an email—we’ve included the contact details in the show notes at quakerstoday.org.

Sweet Miche:
Now we hear answers to the question:
What is something you had to unlearn?

Peterson Toscano:
One thing I learned this month, Sweetmeesh, is that many people are afraid to leave voicemails. And I know—it takes courage.

Sweet Miche:
Yeah, and I love getting to hear the voicemails and hearing people’s words in their own voices.

Peterson Toscano:
Same. So—no voicemails… but wait!
Breaking news!
We just received a voicemail—thank goodness. And here it is:

Roxanne:
Hi, my name is Roxanne. The big thing that I find as I explore and seek in many different religious styles and methodologies is that there is no one group or one person or one people who have the big answer—like capital-A “Answer.”
I find little answers—and bits of the answer—everywhere I go. And that included when I recently went to my very first Friends meeting in Atlanta. And it was lovely, peaceful, and divine. It’s just beautiful that the answer might just be that there is no answer. You get to kind of continue to seek it.
Anyway, thanks.

Peterson Toscano:
Oh, Roxanne, thank you for this voicemail. It is so sweet, and I’m so glad you had a great experience your first time in meeting. See? Voicemails—they make the whole show better.

We also received many responses on social media. On my Facebook page alone, I received over 30 answers. I found it fascinating to see the common threads, so I thought I’d share a few themes that popped up.

Sweet Miche:
What stood out?

Peterson Toscano:
A big one was folks wrestling with the traditional ideas about God they grew up with. Lots of people mentioned letting go of a harsh or judgmental image of God.

Like Angela—she shared unlearning the idea,

“That God is not waiting to zap me for asking questions, doubting, being angry, or creative.”

Snark and Ray talked about realizing their experience of the Divine was valid, even if it wasn’t the masculine, harsh version of God they had encountered.

Some went further and questioned core doctrines. David was very direct. He said he unlearned substitutionary atonement and called it “BS.”

Others, like Christine, shared that she had to unlearn the very belief in God and the afterlife.

Sweet Miche:
Wow, that’s significant unlearning. It takes courage to question those foundational beliefs.

Peterson Toscano:
Absolutely. That connects to another theme—unlearning feelings of unworthiness and learning to value self-care.

Amy mentioned that feeling of unworthiness. Angela also talked about unlearning,

“That I have to prove my worth or earn love—even on the days I forget my deodorant or common sense.”

Sweet Miche:
Forgetting deodorant doesn’t make you unlovable.

Peterson Toscano:
Christine shared a simple but profound one:

“That self-care is not self-indulgent.”
That’s something many people struggle with, right?

Sweet Miche:
Mmm, definitely. That’s very Puritan. Especially if you’re raised with a focus on constant service to others—without balancing it with care for self.

Peterson Toscano:
Exactly. Then there was the theme of separating genuine spirituality from rigid religion.

Joe summed it up nicely, saying,

“I can be spiritual and not be part of a religion.”

Finally, some folks mentioned unlearning broader assumptions.

Whittier mentioned unlearning limitations around even a simple word:

“That the word relax can mean so many things.”

Sweet Miche:
That’s brilliant. It shows that unlearning happens on so many levels.

Peterson Toscano:
Yeah—it’s not just about faith, but about personal identity and beliefs. It was powerful to see people sharing their journeys of letting go and finding what feels true for them now.

So a big thank-you to Angela, Ray, Tim, Amy, Iris, Christine, Steve, David, Tyler, Joe, Deepak, and Whittier for sharing so openly on that Facebook thread. It definitely gave me a lot to think about.

Sweet Miche:
For next month, we’ll be exploring the idea of home.

Peterson Toscano:
Next month’s question is:
Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Come on—I need you to make me happy. I need you to leave a voicemail. Please.
📞 317-QUAKERS
That’s 317-782-5377

You can actually text that number too. But a voicemail? That would make me do a happy dance.

Sweet Miche:
And you can call it any time of the day or night—it won’t wake us up.

Peterson Toscano:
Nope! And you can call more than once if you’re not happy with your first voicemail. We’ll choose the best version—I promise.

Sweet Miche:
Beyond a roof and four walls, what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Thank you for listening, friend. See you!