Author of The Ebony Exodus Project: Why Some Black Women Are Walking Out on Religion – And Others Should Too, Candace Gorham describes her younger self as much more “deep into religion” than the average child. She actively involved herself in both the Jehovah’s Witness and the Methodist church. On this episode, she shares her journey from becoming an ordained minister while she was barely out of her teens to trading in religious belief for secular humanism. After a young adulthood spent worshipping god and ministering to his flock, she began to question common precepts in the Christian faith. After examining the biblical text more in depth and exposing herself to others outside of it, Candace began her slow, yet steady progression to atheism. It was this journey to non-belief that inspired her to compile the stories of other black women like her in The Ebony Exodus Project. Once she finally accepted that she could no longer honestly claim belief in a supernatural power, she sought out other women from her cultural background who felt as she did. What she discovered was a common theme in their journey to non-belief: examining the biblical text more critically and coming to the logical conclusion that the Christian construct of god was more fallacy than truth. When she thinks about the gift of embracing humanism, Candace expresses gratitude for letting go of the anxiety she felt as a devout Christian. “I no longer have fear of hell or the god who might send me there,” she says. “I feel like it freed me from constantly thinking about all the ways I could put my very soul at risk.”

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A retired member of the military, Gabrielle Tolliver began questioning what she was taught in Sunday school early into her childhood. While the adults in her family were not frequent attenders of church, they did require the children go to service as often as possible. When Gabrielle challenged the inconsistencies and cruelties taught in Sunday School lessons, she was chided with: “You are just too young to understand.” In this episode, she talks about being a nonbeliever in North Carolina, where church and god are as deeply woven into the culture as speaking to strangers and asking after a casual acquaintance’s Mama. From missionaries knocking on her door offering her salvation through Christ to grocery store clerks wishing her God’s blessings, Gabrielle often has to “out” herself as an atheist even when she’d rather just sit at home and watch television with her wife or buy broccoli at the supermarket for that night’s dinner. Gabrielle dismisses the suggestion that because she does not believe in a supernatural deity, she does not have a solid moral code. She finds it insulting to imply a person needs some force outside themselves to influence their decision to be a decent human being. “I don’t need a sky pappy to tell me when I’ve wronged another person or harmed a defenseless animal,” Gabrielle explains. “I don’t need the god gap to fill in the blanks about the world for me.”

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