As a teenager in an unfamiliar town, with non-religious but busy parents, Spring Day’s conversion began with sleepovers and pizza parties with school friends whose families were part of a Christian cult.
“I was really touched that these people took me in – they had loving families, they didn’t have money problems, I thought they had the truth – and that this was all a gift from God. To my teenage brain it all made sense.”
The Kansas City born comic, was a willing convert to a non-denominational apostolic church, and spent the years of 13 to 26 living in a world where people spoke in tongues, where problems were the work of the devil and where the end of days was just around the corner.
“It very much fits into a superhero storyline. You feel you’re saving people from hell.”
In her Fringe show Day, who now has twenty years as a comic behind her, has decided to talk about this part of her life for the first time.
“We talk about politics and sex in comedy ad infinitum but religion gets sidelined – people say ‘I don’t believe in God’ – but it’s not that clearly defined.”
It took years for Spring Day to realise that some of her psychological problems could be traced to her teenage years as an evangelical Christian. Also, because it happened in mainstream churches, she didn’t really realise it was a cult.
“I was having terrible nightmares and panic attacks and I couldn’t get to the root of it. Then I started finding Exvangelical communities on the internet.”
‘Ex vangelical’ is the name given to support groups for people formerly caught up in evangelical movements.
“I found out there are psychologists who specialise in deprogramming people who have been in cults – or high control groups. That really helped to rewire my brain.”
Leaving the cult in her twenties came about when Spring Day headed for Japan – to be a missionary – and decided to try an open mic night. It changed her life.
“As I child I had wanted to be an actress – but of course I had been told that was the devil’s work. But I really wanted to do this. In the evangelical world any sort of speaking up or self confidence is considered selfish. I’d been taught I should be invisible.
“When I started doing stand up I met people who had all sorts of different opinions – but I also realised I had to form some opinions of my own. I had to think for myself.
“Stand up really really saved me.
“It gave me five minutes of talking when I had to listen to myself for a change.”
As she learned to tell stories to a comedy audience, she uncovered new ways of thinking about the world. She discovered it could help to play around with the facts, to get the laughs to land in the right places. Suddenly her perception of the world became more pliable.
“When I started out I thought I everything I said had to be 100 per cent true.”
And she turned out to have a knack for making people laugh. She has appeared on Live at the Apollo’s and Rosie Jones Disability Comedy Extravaganza. She has gigged in Melbourne, the USA and France and is making her Pleasance debut this year after many years appearing in the Free Fringe.
She is married to fellow stand up Tim Renkow, who finds a million ways to wind her up every day. Both have cerebral palsy, Spring Day has a more mild form while Renkow is notorious for using his disability to prank people. “It’s amazing but it is also very annoying – but at least I can beat him to to the toilet. I suppose that’s married life.”.
Finding other Exvangelicals online helped her move away from having a constant feeling of fear and panic – a remnant of the years she believed the world was just about to end.
“It is freeing but also you go through a period of mourning, because you give up a lot of the promises you were made. It is freeing but it is also scary.”
It gives her an inkling why people fall for conspiracy theories, which, like religion, offer a neat answer to all that ails the world.
“There’s so much uncertainty, the economy, war and all this kind of stuff. It can really seem like the end times – how do you make sense of it.”
She still worries about an audience member who walked out of her show when she was doing a bit about speaking in tongues – which evangelical Christians believe is the voice of angels in an unknown language.
“I wish I’d been able to talk to that person – I worry they thought I was doing something demonic.”
For Spring Day, comedy is undeniably a source of good in the world. “For me comedy is like taking all the crap from life and turning it into fertiliser. Instead of letting it affect you negatively you talk about it and people think – great, I’m not alone. This type of thing happens to other people as well.
“Comedy is about taking the pain and making it tolerable and living life to the fullest.”
Spring Day, Exvangelical, 18.05, Pleasance Courtyard, until August 25
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/spring-day-exvangelical
Read Victoria Nangle’s review of the show for Entertainment Now here,