TRIGGER WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS A DISCUSSION ABOUT SUICIDE Is there a “right” way to be Christian? How does the way you think about God inform how you treat others? Can bad theology be dangerous? In this podcast episode, Billy and Brandy Eldridge speak with Kevin Garcia about how bad theology kills. Meet Kevin Garcia Kevin Garcia is a digital pastor, a mystical theologian practitioner, and an intuitive soul coach based in Atlanta, GA. After coming out in the fall of 2015 as a queer Christian, Kevin has reached thousands of individuals across the globe with messages of God’s unending love for all people, regardless of who they are. Through his work as a digital pastor and public theologian, Kevin has used their writing, podcast, and YouTube Channel to help foster communities of authentic spiritual seeking, pulling apart the bad theology and beginning to reconstruct sustainable spiritual practices. Kevin believes that by telling our stories, we set others free to tell their own. Kevin is the author of Bad Theology Kills: undoing toxic beliefs and reclaiming your spiritual authority. Kevin is also the creator of Queerly Beloved Apparel and Big Queer Adventure Co. Visit Kevin’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. In This Podcast Summary * The danger of bad theology * Is there ever necessary suffering? * Is there a “right” way to be Christian? The danger of bad theology This shit made me want to kill myself and I attempted twice. That to me is not good, and what is not good is called bad. This is the theology that led me to the edge, and that’s not good, so therefore it must be bad. (Kevin Garcia) Systems of belief are as dangerous as any other weapon because they can lead a person – and people – to assume what is right, what is wrong, what is accepted, and what is excluded, without asking or enquiring. Thoughts and beliefs are not permanent. They can be shifted, if a person is willing to have some open and honest conversations. Drugs kill, rah-rah kills … bad theology kills … this idea expanded beyond human sensuality … I think what we think about God is what we think about humanity in general, and how we think about God also [informs] how we are going to treat humanity. (Kevin Garcia) As Kevin discusses, if we do not see one another as divine then we are not going to treat each other well. Of course people don’t treat trans people with respect [because] they don’t see us as part of God’s image because God was, “male and female and He created them”. (Kevin Garcia) Is there ever necessary suffering? Suffering, in some ways, is a part of life. There will always be some difficult times to move through, regardless of who you are or where you come from. The suffering that we experience as a result of systems of oppression needs to be identified so that we can recognize that it’s ...