The Exvangelicals
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4.4 • 14 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
This program is read by the author.
"An intimate window into the world of American evangelicalism. Fellow exvangelicals will find McCammon’s story both startlingly familiar and immensely clarifying, while those looking in from the outside can find no better introduction to the subculture that has shaped the hopes and fears of millions of Americans." —Kristin Kobes Du Mez, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus and John Wayne
The first definitive book that names the massive social movement of people leaving the church: the exvangelicals.
Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, and that she, too, would go to hell if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower and—most of the time—a true believer. But through it all, she was increasingly plagued by fears and deep questions as the belief system she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world.
After spending her early adult life striving to make sense of an unraveling worldview, by her 30s, she found herself face-to-face with it once again as she covered the Trump campaign for NPR, where she witnessed first-hand the power and influence that evangelical Christian beliefs held on the political right.
Sarah also came to discover that she was not alone: She is among a rising generation of the children of evangelicalism who are growing up and fleeing the fold, who are thinking for themselves and deconstructing what feel like the “alternative facts” of their childhood.
Rigorously reported and deeply personal, The Exvangelicals is the story of the people who make up this generational tipping point, including Sarah herself. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is the first definitive book that names and describes the post-evangelical movement: identifying its origins, telling the stories of its members, and examining its vast cultural, social, and political impact.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
One part investigative journalism, one part personal spiritual memoir, this is a timely and important listen even if you’ve never belonged to an evangelical Christian church. Journalist Sarah McCammon did grow up in that culture, and her in-depth examination of why she and so many others have left it is eye-opening. She persuasively argues that the conservative politicization of white evangelical churches—starting more than 50 years ago as a response to the Civil Rights era—has created generations of people with questions about and emotional responses to what they were told to believe about everything from science, politics, and purity culture to homosexuality, immigration, and homelessness. Along with her own experience of leaving the church, McCammon tells the stories of her fellow former evangelicals. They range from spiritual disillusionment and political awakening to shocking revelations of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. McCammon’s plain, straightforward narration welcomes us into the narrative and made each person’s difficult journey stick with us.
Customer Reviews
Your feelings are validated here
An excellent book!
I’ve been listening to you read your book to me as I go to and from work each day this week, and last. I identified with much of what you wrote, as the adopted son of a former southern Baptist pastor, and as the husband of a former Church of Christ spouse who was raised in her church since birth.
For me, and later, my bride, it was the election of Barack Obama that forced me to reconsider my belief system where it related to religion, the Bible, and church. The election Barack Obama brought out so much subtle, overt, and microaggressional racism within my own congregation, I could not help, but to clearly see that what I believed, and what I had learned my entire life, was smacking me in the face with what I was now hearing from my church “brothers and sisters.”
Follow that up with the rabid attachment to Trump — who is the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus Christ — and you have a recipe for an Exvangelical.
My wife and I do not even identify as Christians any longer because in our minds, the term Christian has become synonymous with so much that is wrong in our country today. I would say we are more spiritual today and, as the comedian and radio host John Fugelsang regularly says, “We still believe in God. We just don’t believe in his fan club.” We feel the same way about the white “Christian” nationalists who regularly fly their American flags, and their ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flags. We feel these people have hijacked patriotism, and Christianity and made them both something they were never meant to be.
Thank you for writing this book. I’ve been looking for other books related to the topic, but I cannot seem to locate any that are similar. I know there are other stories out there that would be interesting to read.
I am happy you found the life you deserve with the family of your making.
Signed,
A Southwest Missourian