April Ajoy: Evangelicalish

This week’s guest is April Ajoy, viral Tiktok’r, youTuber and podcaster. She is a “recovering conservative humorously detoxing religion.” April had a unique childhood. She was homeschooled and spent half of each year in Pentacostal spaces and the other half traveling the US with her family, singing and evangelizing. Her parents were evangelists and her grandfather was a pastor of a megachurch, so even as a young person April had seen cracks in the traditions and beliefs. She didn’t see them as systemic, though, only random, separate incidents. Over the next decade, tragedy hits April’s family and God does not step in to thwart it, a family member comes out to her and she realizes she cannot continue believing much of what white Christianity has painted as “good news”. Today, much of April’s childhood beliefs have been dissected and thrown out, but she is loving others in a much deeper way. She still considers herself a Christian and is fighting injustices in her own creative way. “Humor is how I cope with trauma.” On social media, April tackles all the difficult subjects—white supremacy, misogyny, purity culture, the absurd things evangelicals post online and more! She brings levity and fun to serious topics in a way that will make you laugh out and that is good medicine. Links TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@aprilajoy Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/aprilajoy/ Twitterhttps://twitter.com/aprilajoyr Evangelicalish on Youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/c/Evangelicalish Interact Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion Full episode show noteshttps://gracefulatheist.com/2022/03/20/april-ajoy-evangelicalish/Secular Gracehttps://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/Deconversionhttps://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Deconstructionhttps://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/ Attribution "Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beatshttps://makaihbeats.net/