"The Exvangelicals" Releases Tomorrow

Sarah McCammon's new book is important

March 19th is the official release date for Sarah McCammon’s new book. I had the wonderful opportunity to read an advance copy and wrote about it in early February.

Here’s a key passage from that post:

Sarah relates the stories of other exvangelicals. Like her, life had presented certain challenges to the prior worldview. For some it was LGBTQ+ support, for others, science, for some race, for still others sexual abuse in the church, for yet more, patriarchy. Some came through this process more of less healthy (after therapy) while others have responded with anger and a “burn it all down” sentiment. I found Sarah between these poles, but closer to the healthy-with-therapy end.

As I have written in earlier pieces, when evangelicals tried to create an all-encompassing plausibility structure to protect their children, it proved far too rigid to incorporate the complexities of the modern world or shifts in personal biography. For far too many millennial evangelicals, they find themselves confronted with a choice to ignore the challenges or to reject the prior plausibility structure. Far better to have provided more space to operate by trusting parents who would stand alongside children as they come to develop their own perspective.

I closed that piece like this:

There’s a great deal more to explore in the book. Sarah and I have discussed doing to kind of online interaction closer to the book’s release and then sharing the transcript. Also, if you want to know more, you should follow her Substack!

Over the weekend, Sarah and I had the hoped-for online interaction. In spite of her always busy schedule made more so by book promotions, I was able to catch her with a couple of hours to kill on a train. Here is the lightly edited result.

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JH: You write that your parents were converted in the Jesus People movement. Did you have an idea of what that meant growing up (say, in comparison to other church kids)? How did their story shape their view of faith?

SM: My understanding is that they were converted as part of that post-hippie, Jesus People wave, not directly by the Jesus People per se. When I was growing up, my parents talked about becoming part of a community of teenagers who’d adopted a charismatic, evangelical faith, and a sense that they had “met Jesus” and that encounter had changed their lives. Many of their close friends were from that group. I didn’t think much about it beyond that – everyone I knew had conservative Christian parents and it just seemed normal.

JH: You have a chapter titled "a Parallel Universe". Were your friends always part of the same evangelical universe? Were you aware of this protective environment or was it just taken for granted?

SM: To varying degrees, yes. Like any group of people, evangelical families are all a bit different and some parents were more protective than others. But we were all growing up with similar influences and beliefs. Everyone in Christian school was studying the same Christian textbooks that I was, and my youth group and Christian school friends were all influenced by purity culture, for example. It was taken for granted to a large degree, although I knew there was a larger, “fallen” world beyond that we needed to convert and avoid being tempted by.

JH: What went into your college search? Were you only looking at Christian universities? What drew you to Trinity?

SM: My parents made it clear that they expected me to attend a Christian college. I asked to consider state schools but was told I needed to attend a school with a “Christian worldview.” Trinity (the now largely-defunct Trinity College, part of Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL) was recommended by someone my father and I met at the Family Research Council – I believe it was while I was a Senate page and my father was in town visiting D.C. I went there because I received a full tuition academic scholarship. My parents were able to cover room and board only and would not allow me to take out student loans. I also prioritized Trinity’s scholarship competition because I was impressed with several of the professors I met.

JH: What was the most surprising discovery about Trinity compared to your upbringing? Did Christian high school prepare you for what you found there? Was it more of the same or a break from the past?

SM: The environment was somewhat more relaxed than my Christian high school (as you might expect, given that we were college students by this point and legal adults). I was allowed to wear jeans at Trinity; in my high school, girls were required to wear dresses. My professors also had a higher level of education (again, no surprise there) and some seemed to hold more complex views around their faith. For example, some were open to the idea of accepting evolutionary theory even though my biology class taught creationism. In many ways it was a step toward a more complex view of my own faith, and it was helpful to meet professors who were wrestling with some of the issues I was wrestling with and seemed to hold more space for uncertainty.

JH: As I've read a number of millennial memoirs from former evangelicals, I've seen a pattern emerge. The liberal arts approach to study and developing critical thinking -- even in apologetic-type classes -- provided people with the tools to navigate their own questions, even when it winds up pushing them away from evangelicalism. Was this true for you?  Your experience with Dr. M. seemed really important.

SM: I think that’s probably true. My parents were always talking about ideas – political and theological ones – so I was sort of raised with these concerns. We had apologetics books in our home (by Josh MacDowell and Lee Strobel) so the idea that there was something to be debated was always clear to me.

JH: Some exvangelicals have retained a significant deal of hostility toward the evangelical church. Others have been more understanding while still distancing. Still others have worked to maintain family relationships even though it's hard and religion is a topic to be avoided. Did you see these patterns in your interviews? What comfort would you offer to the angry group?

SM: Yes, the book describes a range of responses from and relationships with family and the larger community. I hope reading the book will offer some comfort and the sense that those going through these experiences are not alone.

JH: One of my great frustrations with media coverage of evangelicals is that everything gets painted as a theological position when oftentimes those Iowa evangelicals are just Republicans who hold Republican views. How does your background in the evangelical world allow you to distinguish between "religious beliefs" and "policy positions"? What do you wish other journalists lacking background understood about evangelicals?

SM: Evangelicals believe that their faith should inform every aspect of life, so they tend to see their political views as part of that larger picture. They believe that they have the Truth about the world, revealed by God, and so that vision of the truth should infuse their voting habits. I think religious beliefs and policy positions often become quite fused in people’s minds. That said, there are evangelicals – and people of all faiths – who understand that we would not want every religious belief to be turned into public policy, particularly in a country founded on religious freedom.

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If I had a podcast and we were in conversation, there would have been opportunities for follow-up questions and maybe some pushback at places.¹ Still, there is a great deal in the book that commends it to anyone trying to better understand the last few decades of evangelicalism.

On Friday, Religion News Service reprinted a review of Sarah’s book done by William Schultz, religion professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His last paragraph echoes my own sentiments about the book.

The last act of evangelical identity may be played out within the shell of exvangelicalism. The exvangelicals are, as McCammon’s book makes clear, a diverse group, but they are drawn together by a common foe: a faith they see as complicit with bigotry and corrupted by power. Once, the term “evangelical” united a faith tradition. Now, it unites people who have been scarred by that faith.

Go buy this book!

1. On the last question for example, I’m more in line with something Robbie Jones said in a recent piece in Salon. He said “These are not rigorously developed religious rationales but rather theological fragments that are serving as backfill to support fealty to Trump." In my response on Threads, I suggested “theological echoes” as a similar concept — not exactly religious but ringing vaguely familiar to religiously trained ears. I will return to this theme in an upcoming post.