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In this edition of the Rational Faiths Podcast we welcome Cindy Brandt, founder of the “Raising Children Unfundamentalist” community. Cindy comes from a conservative Evangelical Christian background and it quickly becomes apparent that there are several commonalities between growing up Evangelical and growing up Mormon. We discuss the complexities of raising children in a conservative faith tradition and environment while parenting with progressive sensibilities. Among other things, the discussion includes:

• The pros and cons of raising children in the “bubble” of a specific religious subculture.
• The benefits of teaching children to be “spiritually multilingual.”
• Specific recommendations for unfundamentalist parenting of younger children as well as older children.
• Handling difficult conversations with friends and family about different parenting priorities when it comes to religious observance and belief.

We’re grateful to Cindy for sharing her perspectives and advice!

Resources related to the podcast discussion can be found here:

• Cindy Brandt’s personal website
• Raising Children Unfundamentalist closed Facebook group
• Cindy’s Unfundamentalist Parenting blog at Patheos
• Cindy’s YouTube short video on the “Christian Bubble”
• Blog post: “Raising Children to be Spiritually Multilingual“
• Blog post: “Protest as Mission“
• Lisa Miller’s book The Spiritual Child
• Mette Ivie Harrison explainer: “Do Mormons Believe in Hell?“
• Mormon Newsroom explainer on Mormon beliefs about eternal families and temple rituals

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Benjamin Knoll

Benjamin Knoll was an active PermaBlogger at Rational Faiths from 2015-2020. At the time, he was a political science professor at a liberal arts college in central Kentucky. He's since changed careers and now works in the private sector, running business survey research projects. Born and raised a seventh-generation Mormon (on his mother's side), he is now an active Episcopalian who earned a Diploma in Anglican Studies from Bexley-Seabury Seminary in 2022. Indeed, we may say that he follows that admonition of Joseph Smith—that we should "embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same."

All posts by Benjamin Knoll