YWAM & Indoctrinated Obedience: “Hearing God” to Control Youth | Jenny McGrath | Podcast Episode 531
John and Jenny unpack how indoctrinated obedience in high-control Christianity breaks a person’s will, replaces self-trust with leader-trust, and creates lifelong patterns of shame, fear, and decision paralysis. They dig into Jenny’s time in Youth With A Mission and John’s years in Branhamism, exploring how “hearing the voice of God” often meant obeying leaders, how loaded language around the Great Commission and urgency fueled constant pressure to perform, and how people learn to see themselves as spiritually infantile and incapable of making their own choices.
Together they talk about what happens after you leave—racing thoughts, agonizing over small decisions, and the grief of realizing how much life was missed—while naming practical pathways toward healing. Jenny offers nervous-system tools like slow breathing and visual scanning, shares why movement and improv have been so powerful in her own recovery, and John describes small “rebellious” experiments in choice that helped him rebuild basic self-trust. The conversation holds both the weight of what was lost and a grounded hope that it is possible to heal, think clearly again, and build a life that actually fits you.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
02:17 Indoctrinated obedience and spiritual authority
05:31 Leaders claiming divine revelation and control
09:12 Submission, breaking the will, and infantilization
14:35 Shame, self-erasure, and loss of self-actualization
17:54 Anxiety, spiraling thoughts, and post-exit trauma
21:18 Music, control, and reclaiming personal choice
24:07 Grief, loss, and the cost of leaving high-control religion
26:12 Manufactured urgency and end-times pressure
32:17 Loaded language, dominionism, and the Great Commission
37:27 Obedience, separation from family, and youth control
43:40 Recovery tools, grounding, and rebuilding agency
49:02 Learning to make decisions again after control
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Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
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