Book Review:
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church
Author: Sarah McCammon, a journalist with NPR (National Public Radio), covering religion and politics in the Atlantic and Southeastern United States.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, March 2024, 320 pages
Genre: non-fiction, Sociology and Religion, Memoir
Why I Chose it:
Much of what I write is of interest to those who are deconstructing their faith, are progressive Christians, or are Exvangelicals who have left the evangelical church. In my writing, I hope to bring healing and hope to readers by showing them a refreshing, loving view of God and God's community. I chose this book to better understand Exvangelical readers. What I found out was that while I was not immersed in the subculture of evangelicalism, I have been affected by its teachings and you may find that you have also felt its impact on society.
Summary:
Sarah McCammon shares unique insights since her personal story intertwines with the political and religious events she covered as an NPR reporter. Each chapter examines issues or teachings that have caused some evangelical Christians to question or deconstruct their faith.
It was hard for me to read about the experiences shared by Sarah and others locked inside the evangelical subculture and tortured by ideas of self-hate, sinful bodies, intuition, thoughts, and fears of imminent death or tribulation. I had to pause as my reading, recalling incidents in my own life, and processing those emotions.
After the evangelical church judged, silenced, abused, and marginalized so many, I hope it stops blaming Exvangelicals and starts being accountable by repenting and changing.
Reading this book enabled me to better understand how the church has hurt some people and they may be triggered by re-visiting Christianity. Exvangelicals may leave Christianity or rebuild their beliefs, often becoming a form of progressive Christian. For McCammon, Jesus as God in human form continues to resonate, and she is inspired by Jesus's love for the weak and his call to sacrifice for the larger good of a community. In this book, Sarah McCammon documents how her beliefs shifted from the evangelicalism of her youth.
Introduction
McCammon talks about growing up in fear, feeling she deserved God's punishment, and was in danger of being condemned. Her book details how evangelical children are trained in alternative media, Christian schools or homeschools, and church involvement in political activism toward making the US into a Christian nation. She discusses years of doubt, discomfort, and trauma that could no longer be ignored. For many evangelicals, these doubts stem from the church's exclusion of LGBTQ+, mistreatment of racial minorities, and limitations on women's roles. She explains that deconstructing is a painful process of rethinking your entire worldview and a grieving process of leaving your family and community.
People Need the Lord
In Chapter 1, McCammon talks about the pressure to evangelize and the risk that friends and family might be condemned. She recalls worrying that so many people around the world were not saved, including those who said they were Christians but were not born again. She was taught to look for divine appointments at which to tell others the evangelical Truth. However, she was taught to fear others, who could pull her away from her salvation. She was taught God was loving but that sin made you inherently bad, and God might punish you because you deserved eternal torment.
She now sees these attitudes as the cause of lasting damage, anxiety, and trauma. She says Exvangelicals are not simply rebelling against parents; they are conscientiously objecting to the offences of the church. A 2022 survey revealed that in Canada, many see devout religious groups as doing more damage than benefit to our society. Like me, many Christians are distancing themselves from evangelicalism since it seems to promote harms in society including sexual abuse, sexism, racism, or homophobia.
Like me, many Christians see ourselves as making positive contributions to Canadian society in terms of financial donations, volunteering in social services and sponsoring refugee resettlement. On an individual level, I see Christians benefiting from better happiness and social engagement. I feel betrayed to see some types of Christianity promoting harm not help, hurting the reputation of the Christian church, and misrepresenting God's character.
2. A Parallel Universe
In Sarah McCammon's world as a child in the mid 1980s, she attended church at least three times a week, in addition to Christian education. When she was in elementary school, nearly one in four Americans identified as white evangelical Christians. Private Christian schools and homeschool texts prepared by evangelical leaders gave white evangelical children additional shelter from outside influences. Here they learned a biased history of American exceptionalism, with God blessing white Americans in particular. Their evangelical subculture consumed exclusively textbooks, news media, movies, and organizations that promoted a Christian nation, marriage restricted to men and women, stay-at-home submissive wives, and laws against abortion. As children of the 1980s and '90s matured, they questioned the organizations out of concern for racism, homophobia, and prejudice against people from other countries and formed the centre of today's Exvangelical movement.
Until reading this book, I did not realize that the evangelical subculture was so extensive. I knew there were some Christians who opposed equality for women, gays, and people of colour, but I thought it was a very small minority. Evangelicals currently make up 7% of the Canadian population, where I live.
An Exodus
People now in their 30s and 40s are questioning the organizations and doctrines in which they were raised. The church taught them to remain sexually pure until marriage and never get divorced. It defined Christian values as prohibiting sexual abstinence before marriage, limited dating, no abortion, divorce, or same-sex relationships and worked to put these values into law as a Christian nation. The church condemned Bill Clinton's moral failings, yet promoted Donald Trump because he could accomplish the goals of enforcing so-called "Christian values."
Exvangelicals were concerned about immoral leadership being justified by gains in power. They question their parents' dismissal of science, hatred of LGBTQ+, and refusal to address systemic racism. Exvangelicals feel pushed out by their conscience, are grieving broken ties with family or friends, but are finding community with others who have left evangelicalism.
Unravelling
What begins your faith deconstruction is different for each person. Sarah McCammon was first exposed to the world outside the evangelical subculture when she worked as a US Senate page during her college years. It was new for her not to begin the school day with prayer and Bible reading, and new for her to hear a teacher talk about evolution as a fact, not a lie from Satan. She made friends with a Muslim and had doubts about whether God would send him to Hell. She listened to a Jewish guest speaker talk about how Christians had enabled the Nazis. Her faith began to unravel when she saw that perhaps Christianity did not produce people of better moral character.
Were You There
Evangelicals taught McCammon that science was only accepted as far as it fit with evangelical views of Scripture. McCammon's evangelical teachers enforced Creationism by saying that God was there at creation; the evolutionary scientists were not. In other words, Bible-believing literalists have sole and secret access to the Truth. McCammon's teachers did the math with the genealogies in the Bible and calculated that the great flood covered the earth about 4 or 5,000 years ago. She was taught that embracing the creation story of Genesis as a literally true story was essential to being a true Christian.
The Moral Majority lost its lobby against evolution being taught in schools, so they sent their children to Christian schools in part to protect them from unbiblical lessons about science: evolution, abortion, and same-sex orientation. White Evangelicals had opened Christian schools in the 1960s largely to protect their children from the secular enforcement of racial integration in public schools. Materials from Bob Jones, a private Christian university, taught homeschooled students that God controlled earthquakes and volcanoes and any consequent deaths are part of God's divine plan. A literal interpretation of the Bible became fused with right-wing politics, boosting the Moral Majority to influence and power.
Some Exvangelicals deconstruct because they feel forced to choose between faith and science. One Exvangelical raised with this science education was shocked to discover in Nursing college that males do not have one fewer rib than females. McCammon now sees that many Christians through history have accepted that evolutionary science does not exclude a belief in God. The rejection of science, together with the view that the end times will soon end the world, has led many evangelicals to discount global warming or concern for the Earth. I have written about the different views of Christians and creation care here.
Alternative Facts
Evangelicals taught McCammon that expert knowledge or secular evidence must be rejected if it seems unbiblical. No matter how wise or educated a person was, they could be fools in the eyes of God. Many evangelicals ignore intellectual abilities, science or academic achievements since only the Bible provides Truth. Evangelicals have largely disengaged from mainstream standards of robust intellectual reporting, largely distrusting secular sources and dismissing evidence. Most famously, Kellyanne Conway, advisor to Trump, told NBC in 2017 that the White House had provided the media with "alternative facts". She was saying that evidence contrary to the narrative published by the White House was unacceptable.
McCammon was taught as a youth that her internal sense of right and wrong must be questioned if it differed from evangelical teachings. The author was told her intuition was her own understanding and her sinful nature getting in the way of God's Truth. McCammon shows that white evangelicals are more susceptible to conspiracy theories such as those around COVID-19 and its vaccines. This chapter helped me understand how evangelicals are skeptical of experts and why they discourage their children from attending post-secondary school.
Whose Character Matters?
Children raised in evangelicalism were taught that a being of good moral character matters. People were ousted from roles of praise team or church deacon for divorce, adultery, or immorality. People like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and other evangelicals criticized Bill Clinton for lying, cheating, and infidelity, revealing an immoral character which made him unsuitable to lead the nation.
Exvangelicals started to question why the same evangelical leaders embraced Donald Trump, who had lied, cheated, and committed infidelity. It turns out it is not about the President's moral character but about exercising power so that the culture and society institute so-called Christian ideas: those of the Moral Majority and Project 2025. Trump was saying the things about illegal immigrants that they wanted to say. It was not about theology. It was about advancing the evangelical agenda (anti-abortion, anti-gay).
The author quotes evidence that many women who voted for Trump had been conditioned to submit to their husbands and to vote as he instructed. They were not shocked that a man like Trump would grab a woman sexually since they had been trained that a woman was responsible for stopping a man's lust and a married woman must always be sexually available for her husband. Beth Moore, a high-profile evangelical speaker had come under heat when she criticized Trump for sexual harassment and abuse. After a lifetime with the Southern Baptist Convention, she left it in 2021, citing issues including the role of women, pastoral sexual abuse, and support of Trump. I review Moore's 2023 memoir here.
Leave Loud
This chapter talks about the historical racism in white evangelical churches. There is a history of separation of white and black churches where largely white communities designed to keep ethnic groups out of positions of power. At McCammon's Christian school, they said a daily pledge of allegiance to both the American flag and a Christian flag. Private Christian schools were largely whites-only. Christian universities such as Bob Jones banned interracial dating until the year 2000. At Pensacola Christian College, a professor suggested slavery was a good gig, with food and lodging provided. Pensacola published Abeca Books, a source of textbooks for Christian homeschoolers explained that Southern planters needed slaves, but only one in ten Southerners owned slaves. The disasters of both slavery and colonization are whitewashed. McCammon points out that just one day after Trump said that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists to the US, a white supremacist joined a Bible Study at a Black church and murdered nine of them. Many white churches supported police after they beat blacks like Rodney King in 1992 and George Floyd in 2020. Blacks wanted to call the church to repentance and reform. That was when Black Christians coined the hashtag #Leaveloud.
Lest Canada think racism is only a US issue, I review Canada's record on Racism here and Canada's Black History here
Whom Does Jesus Love?
Sarah McCammon's grandfather was gay. For this reason, her parents limited her interactions with him. They didn't want to normalize her grandfather's gay partnership but instead to establish that homosexuality was wrong. Evangelicals teach that loving means telling the truth about homosexuality as a sin and the need to repent.
As an NPR reporter, McCammon covered the documentary Pray Away, about the fallout from the "ex-gay" movement. Conversion therapy was tried and failed. Exodus International closed in 2013 after conversion therapy intended to encourage gays to overcome their sexual preference failed. While medical and mental health organizations condemn conversion therapy, reparative therapy, or sexual orientation change efforts, laws against such therapies are still lacking in many US states.
Gay friends raised in evangelical circles were taught it was a sin and they had to convert or die young or be doomed in the afterlife. They prayed, were not able to change the way they were made, and felt hopeless. They were told it was dangerous to leave the evangelical subculture. When they came out, it often meant rejection by the family and community. But they found the secular culture was loving, accepting, and more liveable than their religious bubble had been. They have had to find or create "chosen families" when their blood family rejects them.
McCammon quotes a study that nearly one in three adults who disaffiliated with the faith of their childhood do so because of their religion's treatment of gay and lesbian people. The fruit of this teaching against gays is hurt people, divided families, and alienation from the church.
I have written and spoken about how the Bible enables me to affirm LGBTQ+. Like Sarah McCammon, I have been told by well-meaning Christians that if I am a gay ally, I cannot be a real Christian.
A Virtuous Woman
This chapter addresses the problems and impacts of purity culture. Women were told they had a special responsibility not to lead men into temptation. Women did not have the authority to decide whether or not to have sex. Men were taught they had uncontrollable lust and were relieved of being self-controlled. There was no attention to a woman's desires. Women grew ashamed of their bodies, which were a source of evil. Women became objects in the way of men's spirituality and abusing a woman was not an offence against her but against God. Many women of this generation wore purity rings and made public pledges to remain a virgin until married. The message to women was to be modest, pure, virgins, and God would give them a good husband. The message to a man was to be a good warrior, provider, and a strong leader with responsibility and authority over his wife. Christian youth were encouraged to limit dating and get married after a brief courtship with someone they did not know well.
I address how to address some of these hurts and reframe these harmful views of the Bible in my self-help book: Walk with Mara on Her Healing Journey: 21 Steps to Emotional Resilience. Mara is a fictional woman overcoming trauma in my novel Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold.
Naked and Ashamed
Besides being anxious and ashamed about their bodies before marriage, purity culture also made false promises that virginity before marriage meant a great marriage and sex life. Once married, women still did not have the authority to decide whether or not to have sex; it was an obligation designed for the man's pleasure. After years of holding back sexual impulses and not exploring what gave pleasure, many women could not find pleasure in sex. Many evangelical couples married young, with inadequate experience interacting with those of the opposite sex, and never navigating a steady boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. They were encouraged to have children immediately, and they were told that divorce was not an option.
Be Fruitful and Multiply
Evangelicalism taught that the purpose of marriage was to have a large Christian family with traditional gender roles. Christian education taught boys that it was God's will for them to be providers and leaders, and God's will for wives to cook, clean, and be good moms. Women were permitted to volunteer for Christian causes but discouraged from paid work. Women were also discouraged from further education, which could take them away from being a good stay-at-home mom to many children. Evangelicals encouraged volunteering in anti-abortion campaigns and supporting anti-abortion political candidates.
Some aspects of purity culture and the idea that a woman must be a mother reached me in my formational stages. When I struggled with infertility, these ideas made my struggle more painful and difficult. I have come to realize that the Bible does not command that we are fruitful; God blesses us (sometimes) with being fruitful. Also, the focus in the New Testament is not having physical children, but having spiritual children.
Suffer the Little Children
Evangelicalism taught it was better to have many children and it was God's will to use physical discipline to train them. Focus on the Family strongly advocated spanking and physical punishment as God's gift to train a child. Evangelicals were told physical hitting was not abuse if they remained self-controlled, avoiding angry outbursts. They told their children it was God's will that they spank them because the child was born bad and deserved punishment. Their parents told them spanking was a sign of love, and the children understood that God's love also meant God's punishment. Church members heard the cries and supported the physical discipline.
Now adults, children raised under these beliefs report lasting trauma and difficulty forming attachments. They report being spanked with hands, wooden spoons, belts, ping pong paddles, a hairbrush, or pieces of wood - sometimes on their bare bodies, and sometimes leaving them bruised or bleeding. As parents, they have no good model as to how to be good parent. Letting go of the idea that children are born depraved allowed parents to see the child as good; to see the reasons for the behaviour and to address the child's needs. Some are learning to trust their intuition, they can learn to guide and teach their child without physical abuse. It appears that taking the advice of the church instead of advice from psychologists has resulted in the mistreatment of children with lasting negative impacts.
Broken for You
Evangelicals teach their children they are intrinsically sinful, at risk of eternal damnation, and could be subject to tribulation in the end times. The movie A Thief in the Night was a Christian horror film with three sequels. The main character thought she was a Christian, but was left behind to suffer tribulation. Similarly, Left Behind was a Christian thriller series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
Exvangelicals recall being tucked into bed not knowing if the parents would be there the next morning since the Rapture was imminent. As adults, they continue to have nightmares from these films. As children, when they expressed their fears, their parents confirmed they should be afraid because there was a genuine risk of them being left behind. Children
I saw A Thief in the Night at a local church youth group program. When I came home and expressed my fears, my mother told me not to worry, that I was safe in God's arms and that she and Dad would always be there for me. But my fears from that movie are one of my worst memories.
McCammon reveals that the root of trauma is often a belief from earliest childhood that you are not okay and you are not safe. Evidence now reveals hundreds of victims of sexual abuse at the hands of pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I discuss dirty laundry in the church here.
Counsellors specialized in religious trauma are seeing many Exvangelicals displaying signs of trauma: anxiety, depression, chronic pain and intestinal problems, shame, and social isolation. Often they did not have words to describe the source of their fears or anxieties. Trauma cannot be addressed by rational thought but by emotion and body. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is one of the few treatments for post-traumatic stress and religious trauma. Adults may also engage in Christian meditation or yoga-style programs.
Children who grew up in evangelicalism knew that leaving would mean loss of community and family and eternal condemnation. But people felt increasingly uncomfortable with the doctrine from their childhood, the exclusion of LGBTQ+, the racism, sexism, denial of science, hypocrisy regarding moral character, and fears of the end times. As they left high-control religious groups and fundamentalist Christianity, they found a supportive community with other Exvangelicals.
Into the Wilderness
Exvangelicals ultimately find they must choose between their familiar world and their conscience. It can be scary to leave the walls of the evangelical sub-culture, to question their faith, and to disentangle faith from far-right politics. It often means a rift with those who are closest to you, and grief in discovering that their love is conditional on you believing as they do, voting as they do, and disparaging minorities as they do.
Many who enjoy power and authority in the evangelical world enjoy the status quo. Instead of listening to why people leave, and repenting, they condemn those who are leaving, accusing them of abandoning God and following sinful desires.
Yet Exvangelicals follow their conscience, grieve the losses of their youth, address ways to heal their hurts and fears and form a new sense of values, identity, and community.
Wrestling Against Flesh and Blood
Evangelicals often use the image of Christian soldiers, being in the Lord's Army, and fighting spiritual warfare against secular culture. Now, evangelicals have declared war on the Christian deconstruction movement. When Rachel Held Evans, an early advocate for equality, died at a young age, some evangelicals declared she was surely in Hell. Instead of self-reflecting, evangelical leaders blame those who are leaving for following the flesh. I have created a chart here of the accusations of evangelicals and the responses of those who are deconstructing.
You are not permitted to ask questions in Evangelicalism. You must play within their walls. Evangelicals are not repentant and continue to believe that their version is the exclusive Truth. Evangelicals are unified by their sense that they are under threat by liberal values.
McCammon warns Exvangelical not to become stridently opposed to evangelicals, but to live in peace, to keep asking questions and be open to learning.
Into All the World
In contrast to the evangelical community which requires each person to fit into its parameters, Exvangelicals are building a community that is diverse, accepting, and loving. Together, they are discussing and reexamining the teachings of their youth. They look at the traditions of other branches of the Christian church as well as secular questions. I have also re-examined church teachings. For example, I have deconstructed the various views of baptism here and looked at alternate reasons for Jesus's death and theories of atonement here.
Evangelicalism began with the Bible and spreading the good news. It seems to have transformed into a movement aimed at power and American nationalism enforcing right-wing policies on the population. McCammon asks us to look again at who are the sheep following Jesus, and who are the wolves coming to steal and destroy.
Conclusion
I connected with this book on several themes. Reading the extent of the hurts caused by the church and by fundamentalist teaching has been emotionally upsetting. Some have been hurt so badly that anything Christian may be a negative stressor. However, many former evangelicals are still seeking God, and I hope that they will be able to shake off the shadows of false teachings and find the love of God at the foundation.
Elaine Ricker Kelly Author is empowering women with historical fiction about women in the Bible and early church and Christian blogs about women in leadership, church history and doctrine. Her books include:
Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, Book 1 (2022)
The Sword A Fun Way to Engage in Healthy Debate on What the Bible Says About a Woman's Role (2023)
Because She Was Called: from Broken to Bold, Book 2, A Novel of the Early Church, imagines Mary Magdalene's trip to testify before the emperor (2024)
Walk with Mara on Her Healing Journey: 21 Steps to Emotional Resilience (2024)
Comments