A Backslider's Guide to Getting Over God

Journey of an Evangelical Apostate

By: Cassandra Brandt

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

I grew up in the Assembly of God, product of small town charismatic Pentecostal pastors, terrifying televangelists and a rod not spared. My flavor of fundamentalism demanded love of a detestable deity and condemned critical thought, inflicting it’s scars with both the message and its mediators. Evangelist apologist in youth, tormented by purity culture and grasping at a Rapture pass, I couldn’t compartmentalize my thinking anymore at age 22, and left the Evangelicals.

My journey from faith began with growing intrigue in the natural world, gnawing need to understand history, and disenchantment with the doctrine and dogma I was indoctrinated with, compounded by cognitive dissonance and the pull of my heart toward a secular morality.

No longer able to accept information without evidence and free to exercise critical thought, I embarked on a journey to answer the questions that burned in my soul upon snatching it back from the fold. Where did my universe and this species really come from? Where did that religion and that Bible really come from? How did it hold such power over people? I wanted to understand the psychology of belief of this nature. I wanted to explore alternative philosophies about morality and the meaning of life. Were there universal ethics and values and what were they? Was there a real path to joy and peace and how could I find it?


A Backslider’s Guide is the story of my youth in the church, fall from grace, eventual apostasy, and the culmination of my research that allowed me to finally get over God. Packed with research and littered with quotes from historians, academics, and biblical scholars, I trace my journey toward my heresy. To those outside fundamentalism, I present a researched insider’s point of view of evangelical indoctrination. To my fellow apostates I offer solidarity in sharing the psychological scars it caused, and challenging the evangelical doctrine that teaches hate, fear and shame and calls it love.