Nikki Hendrix has more reasons than most people to be done with church: nuns who hit her left hand with a yardstick, a youth pastor who told her at seventeen that she couldn’t come back after a stranger assaulted her, and, one Labor Day weekend, a wrong-way driver who killed her parents.
Yet she never stopped believing in God, even as she remains furious with him. Katie wanted to know how both of those are true at the same time.
The conversation covers a wake in the living room when she was five, a pamphlet she hid in her backpack in fourth grade, an atheist father who says an angel named Michael kept him from dying, a sermon in which her pastor called Job whiny, and what it means to her to call God Father.
Content note: this episode includes mention of a sexual assault and a fatal car crash.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Nikki’s story of faith and trauma
02:06 Nikki’s childhood in two households with different faith backgrounds
04:30 Experiences with death and grief in her family
07:42 Discovery of faith through a youth pamphlet and church attendance
11:14 Trauma of sexual assault and its impact on her faith journey
17:13 Moving to Utah and cultural challenges with faith communities
21:02 The tragic death of her parents and her anger at God
25:55 Expressing anger to God and the process of spiritual honesty
30:42 Understanding God as Father and the importance of authentic relationship
33:52 The dinner church and alternative community for faith and connection
36:15 What faith after faith looks like for Nikki
Resources
- Promise Studio, Sunday Supper (2nd and 4th Sundays, 5:00 pm, Promise House, St. George)
- Katie Langston, Support Faith After Faith
- Faith After Faith, Garments, Sex, and Purity Culture — Nancy Ross
