{"podcast":{"title":"Heretic Hereafter Podcast","slug":"heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240","podcast_index_feed_id":7475240,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1158259.rss","website_url":"https://heretichereafter.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/1158259/64a9875e33255e54b44c4b68b9ead88d.jpg","author":"Katharine Strange","episode_count":63,"summary":"Heretic Hereafter is a weekly Substack newsletter about trying to live a good and meaningful life after leaving religious fundamentalism.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-23T00:18:11.187570+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240"},"episode":{"title":"Relax, Hell isn't Real!","slug":"relax-hell-isn-t-real","published_at":"2026-06-17T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240/relax-hell-isn-t-real","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240","url":"https://heretichereafter.substack.com/p/relax-hell-isnt-real","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/202149307/07ae73a7f4208b8474a79f6aab80ca13.mp3","summary":"Welcome new subscribers! This week, we’re continuing our series on FEAR. There’s a bit on parenting here, but if you’re looking for a more parenting-specific article, I can recommend The Extreme Weirdness of Trying to Buy a Bible for My Kids. You can also search “parenting” in the archive. Obsessing Over the Afterlife Growing up Evangelical, there were a lot of things to be afraid of, including but not limited to: * being “left behind” at the rapture * demons * tarnishing one’s purity Simultaneously, we were shamed for being afraid and told that our fear was due to a lack of faith. By far though, my biggest fear was Hell. Would I forget to confess a sin and be cast into eternal damnation? Could I “backslide” and lose my salvation? I worried about friends and loved ones and even strangers on the street. It seemed to me that no one else was taking Hell seriously enough—it was ETERNAL, after all. I wondered how my fellow churchgoers could believe in this vision of Hell and not spend every waking moment obnoxiously evangelizing every single person they met? God was love, I was often told, but God was also perfect and He demanded perfection. Trying to be perfect was the only way of ensuring I wouldn’t be condemned. God was the Big Angry Man in the Sky who was just waiting to drop the hammer on all of us. Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. A Change of Heart It took a lot of life experience, theological study, and therapy for me to admit the truth: Hell makes no sense. Penal Substitutionary Atonement (the predominant way of looking at Jesus’ crucifixion in most American churches) makes no sense, either. Once I became a parent, I could not imagine God (who is supposed to be…","meta_description":"Welcome new subscribers! This week, we’re continuing our series on FEAR. There’s a bit on parenting here, but if you’re looking for a more parenting-speci…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":428,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240/episodes/relax-hell-isn-t-real/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/heretic-hereafter-podcast-7475240/relax-hell-isn-t-real.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}