It’s been a while since I’ve written about Giant Church Inc, but I am actively helping and advocating for those who’ve experienced spiritual abuse. I work with a lot of people, mostly women, who are untangling their faith from high control religion and leaders who abused their power. I’ve thought about writing here many times. A podcast I heard recently brought me back.
You may have heard the name Bethany Joy Lenz. She played Haley James Scott on One Tree Hill. The show aired from 2003 to 2012 and was beloved by a whole generation of people. I have not watched it but my youngest did. What most fans didn’t know was that while the world was watching her on screen, she was part of Giant Church Inc. She was inside an abusive and controlling evangelical group behind the scenes for nearly a decade.
In October 2024, Bethany sat down with Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy and told her story. Call Her Daddy is one of the most widely listened-to podcasts in the country and has an audience that skews young, secular, and mainstream. Bethany talked about her book, Dinner for Vampires, and described how sharing her story became part of her healing when she began recognizing how relatable her experience was to so many other people. Even people who had never been in anything as dramatic as a cult, and yet somehow found themselves in similar relational dynamics.
I want to pause on that, because it’s exactly what many of you have said to me over the years about your own experiences. Sharing your stories helped others as it helped you.
What she described isn’t unfamiliar to anyone who has spent time in a high-control religious environment. The group used loaded language she came to learn over time. Terms like “bio family,” which reframed her actual family as a threat. “Family of choice” is another term used the same way. I wrote an entire post about the language of Giant Church Inc and how it’s used to control others.
Bethany talked about the gradual isolation, the way belonging felt so warm and safe at first, and how complete the control became before she fully recognized it for what it was.
Why Write About it Again?
Because this is still happening. It’s happening in churches and religious communities in our towns, to people we know and love. And for years, conversations like this one mostly happened in faith deconstruction spaces, in church abuse recovery groups, or in the corners of the internet where people like us gathered. Our audiences were largely other Christians, people of faith, and those who understood the specific language and theology involved.
This conversation between Bethany Joy Lenz and Alex Cooper happened on a mainstream secular platform with millions of listeners who have likely never set foot inside a high-control church or read a single article about spiritual abuse. And yet the episode resonated widely. Enough that it was recently re-aired as a feature episode.
That matters. It means the conversation is reaching people before they’re ever in a situation like this, not just after. It means young people are hearing what manipulation and control actually look like in real time, so they can recognize it when it shows up wearing the face of community and belonging.
I’m not here to bring back the series or post regularly about Giant Church Inc. But I am here to say: you are still not alone and this conversation is still important.
If you haven’t heard the episode, I’d encourage you to. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Search Call Her Daddy, “Bethany Joy Lenz.” It’s about an hour and a half and worth every minute. Or click below and you can listen now.
If her story sounds familiar…if it sounds like your story, I hope you’ll reach out to me or someone safe. There are more of us than you know.
I’ll share more helpful resources in upcoming posts. If you want to read the entire Why I Left Giant Church Inc series, you have two options. Visit giantchurchincorporated.com or stay here on this site, go to the search bar and search Giant Church Inc. They should come up for you. Maybe I’ll put the series back on the menu for ease in finding and reading them in order.
The reason I took it off of the main menu in this space is another post for another time. Maybe soon.
