NPR reporter Sarah McCammon's insightful first book, The Exvangelicals, delves into the past and present of the white American evangelical Christian movement, exploring why younger evangelicals are leaving the church in droves. McCammon, who grew up evangelical in Kansas City, Mo., charts the movement's history, its massive cultural impact, its problematic association with the Republican Party, and some of the ways its younger members are finding spiritual fulfillment elsewhere.
McCammon begins with a personal story: her longtime fear that her grandfather, Harvard-educated but not particularly religious, would go to hell because of his lack of faith (and his sexual orientation). She thoughtfully recounts the potent mix of fear and love that shaped the evangelical culture of her youth: the image of God as a stern but loving father, and the contradictions of a church that emphasized salvation by grace, yet imposed many rules on its members (especially women and girls).
Through extensive interviews with religious scholars, cultural critics, and fellow former evangelicals, McCammon traces the movement's rise through the second half of the 20th century and its eventual alliance with the Republican Party. She highlights some key issues that melded politics and religion for many evangelicals, most notably abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and explores how evangelical leaders such as Dr. James Dobson influenced millions of Americans to vote, behave, and worship a certain way. She paints a vivid picture of the evangelical subculture of the 1980s and 1990s, including the damaging messages of purity culture, demonstrations outside family planning clinics, and the eventual embrace of Tea Party political rhetoric and "alternative facts." She pulls no punches about the movement's unholy alliance with Donald Trump, an alliance McCammon witnessed firsthand as she reported on religion and politics during Trump's campaigning. Her narrative is thoughtful and well-researched: a fascinating blend of memoir, reportage, and commentary.
Though McCammon exposes evangelicalism's weaknesses, she doesn't demonize either the movement or its members: having grown up evangelical, she knows that real community and strong bonds can both support church members and make it harder for them to leave. She details some of the challenges in her relationship with her parents, resulting from McCammon's intellectual and spiritual growth, which took her outside the walls of the evangelical church. She also interviews other "exvangelicals" who have left behind the movement's faulty theology, but miss their former communities, and are trying to help others wrestling with similar questions.
Incisive, clear, and deeply compassionate, The Exvangelicals is a brilliant critique of a powerful cultural movement, and a moving meditation on loving (and eventually leaving) one's roots. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: NPR reporter Sarah McCammon's incisive memoir explores the cultural impact of the American evangelical movement alongside her own complicated story of growing up evangelical.