Articles on mybrokenshelf are drafted by Claude (Anthropic's AI) using structured prompts built from our editorial standards. Every article is then reviewed by a human with lived experience in the relevant faith tradition.
We believe this combination allows us to serve communities across multiple faith traditions at the depth each one deserves, while ensuring every piece of content has been reviewed by someone who understands the experience from the inside.
Our reviewers are people who have personally navigated the faith tradition being discussed. They are not general editors — they bring lived experience with the specific community, beliefs, and culture that each article addresses.
Lived experience is a first-class credential here. A reviewer who spent twenty years in an evangelical church and navigated their own deconstruction understands nuances that no amount of academic study can replicate. Professional credentials complement but never replace this understanding.
Every published article displays the reviewer's name and links to their profile, where you can read about their background and the articles they have reviewed.
Our content follows three core principles:
Every section of our content opens with a direct answer – a concise 40–60 word paragraph that addresses the heading's question or topic immediately. If someone is searching at 2 AM wondering whether what they're feeling is normal, they should find validation in the first sentences, not after several paragraphs of preamble.
This structure also serves an important discoverability purpose. Search engines extract opening paragraphs for Featured Snippets — the highlighted answer boxes that appear above traditional search results. AI Overviews and citation tools similarly prioritize the first paragraph under each heading. By leading with a direct, substantive answer, our content is more likely to surface when someone searches for questions we address.
For reviewers: When reviewing an article, check that every section heading is followed by a 40–60 word opening paragraph that directly answers or addresses the topic. This opening should stand on its own — someone reading only that paragraph should come away with a meaningful answer. Supporting detail, nuance, and context follow in subsequent paragraphs.
Going forward, all new content published on mybrokenshelf follows this answer-block structure. Our generation prompts encode this standard, and reviewers verify it during the editorial process.
We use Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, to draft our articles. We are fully transparent about this because you deserve to know how the content you read was created.
AI helps us scale content creation to serve communities across multiple faith traditions — evangelical, Catholic, LDS, Islam, Judaism, and others — each with the depth and cultural specificity they deserve. Human reviewers with lived experience in each tradition ensure accuracy, emotional safety, and cultural competence.
Our editorial prompt encodes our standards for voice, structure, and sensitivity. Claude generates the first draft; a human reviewer with relevant lived experience reviews, edits, and approves every article before publication.
If you are navigating a faith transition and need professional support, please reach out to a therapist or counselor who understands religious deconstruction. You deserve support that meets you where you are.