This book is described as "part memoire, part investigative journalism" as McCammon herself was raised in, and left the White Evangelical church.
It was an interesting look at what it was like to be raised in this religion, as well as some of the reasons people leave. I guess I just expected more, this book did not tell me much more than I already knew, there was nothing shocking, or new.

It kind of just felt like this book skimmed the surface of many topics, without getting deep into any.

Sarah McCammon's The Exvangelicals is excellent. It is hands down the most reasonable and respectful examination of the exvangelical movement that I have read to date (and I have read at least a half dozen).

I sincerely appreciated the author's unblinking analysis of a complex set of topics, as well as how she repeatedly illustrated that the exvangelical movement is not a monolith, that not everybody who has or is in the process of deconstructing a white, evangelical upbringing is headed toward wither agnosticism or atheism.

This is one of those books that is not easy, but it is important. If you've found books by Nadia Bolz-Weber, Sarah Bessey, Rachel Held Evans, or even Peter Enns to be valuable and thought-provoking, The Exvangelicals should definitely make it onto your TBR list.

Just about every step of this book reflects the majority of my childhood: heavily involved in a charismatic church, private Christian school, and James Dobson. It also reflects a lot of my religious crisis over the last few years and why I find “church speak” so painful.

This also solidified that I have religious trauma. I always said I did, as kind of a throwaway line to explain why I avoid Christian things, but that chapter on religious trauma was validating. It’s not just an excuse; it’s an important piece of my mental health.

I found the book hard to read in a few spots: partly for the aforementioned trauma, but also it read like a newspaper article I had no desire to read. It felt like I finally saw the heart of the author near the end when she was talking about how she was healing and in a new marriage. Maybe that’s how she was able to write through her own trauma by stating facts and avoiding the vulnerability I was expecting from this book. I was also hoping for some answers to what I’ve been struggling with for years, but how can there be?

I immediately recommended this to my brother with the idea it could explain more fully what I’ve been trying to put into words for years.

(I did fact check once…I live near Kansas City and she mentioned meeting somewhere by the White Castle. I guess it closed down years ago, so crisis averted.)

I received this from net galley in exchange for a review.

- THE EXVANGELICALS is part research, part personal reckoning. I’ve read a few books about the rise and impact of evangelical culture, and this one brings in more voices and personal experiences than most others.
- McCammon guides us through each stage of her life, giving her story alongside others who had both similar and dissimilar experiences to her.
- One thing I found most enlightening in this book was McCammon’s insistence that growing up evangelical often wasn’t just a simply a specific way of life, but a traumatic experience. I grew up churchgoing but not evangelical - that culture was unfolding parallel to my experiences in the ‘90s, and this book has helped me to grasp what it was like on the inside on an individual level.

I was really looking forward to this book and enjoyed it.

I would love to give it a more detailed review on all of my book related social media platforms.

Unfortunately, I will be withholding my detailed review until the publisher, St. Martin's Press publicly condemns the queerphobia, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian speech exhibited by one of their employees.

Until then, I will be withholding more detailed review, and withholding public reviews from my book related social media platforms.

The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon is part personal memoir, part journalistic reporting of church and cultural history; it is also the support group I desperately needed but didn't know existed. I am so grateful that this book has been written and published. I no longer feel alone, and I can only imagine it will be just as helpful and welcome to many others in the same position as me. If you have left the church or know someone who has, this book will help you understand and better empathize with those on the "other" side of the aisle...both the church aisle and the political one.

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an e-galley of this title.

the Exvangelicals was an excellent read and listen. I really appreciated the author's weaving of her own experience with evangelicalism with the power it holds over the political systems in this country. The indoctrination was eye-opening and the "world" these believers live in is so not "of this world." I have shared this book with a few friends who grew up like the author.

I really enjoyed this book. It was relatable and informative. I liked that it conveyed how nuanced the term exvangelical is, and that it includes people who have left religion altogether and people who are still trying to navigate having a relationship with God while denouncing what most churches promote (as in the promotion of conservative politics). The book seemed a bit unstructured and directionless at times, but because I identified with it so personally this didn’t bother me so much.

I loved this book and am so glad I received an early copy. This is a perfect book for someone like me - a current progressive activist who was born and raised in the Midwest in a deeply conservative, evangelical Christian household and community, and moved away from evangelical life after moving away for college. I found a lot of healing and affirmation in this book and enjoyed hearing personal stories of people who had similar upbringings to mine. I will say that I found there to be a bit of a weak thesis; I'm not really sure what the point of this book was from a research standpoint - did it serve to argue a certain point or make an assertion about evangelical culture? I'm not sure. But the format still worked for me personally as I related to many of the author's experiences and the experiences of her friends. It was engaging and easy to follow.

Thank you to the author Sarah McCammon, publishers St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of THE EXVANGELICALS. All views are mine.

𝐼 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑑, “𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓!” 𝐼 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑛’𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑡, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑥𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡. ...𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟, 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑢𝑝𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑛 [𝑚𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠'] 𝑏𝑒𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚, ...𝑚𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡. Loc.2812

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started reading THE EXVANGELICALS, but I was completely surprised, and at times appalled, at what I found in these pages. McCammon makes a lot of uncomfortable suggestions about evangelical Christianity culture, such as political maneuvering and child abuse so widespread it might as well be institutional. I was really taken up with the story when she discussed the families torn apart when a new generation decides to leave the church, usually for ideological reasons. I know someone who grew up Evangelical and she experienced a great deal of religious trauma as a child. She's still terrified she's going to go to hell at all times, even though she's now a liberal Christian. I understand her experience a great deal more because of this book. It's definitely a heart-rending read and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about Evangelical culture and Exvangelicals.

When people leave evangelical communities,... that loss means not only lost sinners but also lost cultural currency and political power. Loc.3595

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. So much of this book is the kind of information that just makes me cover my mouth and shake my head. I thought when I asked to read this book, that it would be mostly one woman's religious experiences, but it's the story of the intellectual and political theft of the US.

2. This is a really frightening book at times. I'm reading chapter 12, which covers the systematic abuse of children that occurs in evangelical Christianity. It's a hard read, being that I'm a child DV survivor. I experienced many of the same abuses detailed in this chapter, but it had nothing to do with God in my family. The fact is, people who want to abuse their kids, will, and they will find whatever justification they need to sleep at night. They won't have to look very far either. If it's not a religioun, it's an outlying psychologist, a radio or TV personality, a next-door neighbor or friend or relative, or an internet comment section. Child abuse is widely accepted in the US, and is unfortunately very much not an "Evangelical" problem alone. That being said, that child abuse is common in Evangelical families is a problem that needs to be addressed within that community.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. This is all sort of meandering. I'm 46% of the way through and I'm not sure McCammon has a point to make.

2. This book reads more like a memoir to me than a piece of long journalism. It's not because the material is personal that I feel this way. It's because the author never directly accuses the church of anything. Everything she says is sort of offhand and she spends a lot of time quoting other Exvangelicals writers.

Rating: 🧒🧒🧒🧒 / 5 kids training up
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Mar 21 '24
Format: Digital arc, Kindle,
Read this book if you like:
📰 nonfiction / journalism
📓 memoir
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 family stories, family drama
🧒 childhood development
💇‍♀️ women's reproductive rights
🇺🇸 identity politics in the US

Deeply fascinating and necessary book. Well researched yet approachable in the way it handled this topic, which is delicate and/or controversial to many. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

I can't review The Exvangelicals without first disclosing my personal perspective, which is that I grew up Seventh Day Adventist (its own kind of evangelicalism) in the 1980s and '90s and that although I would still consider myself a Christian, I am no longer affiliated with a church and strongly disagree with the evangelical stance on sociopolitical issues. (Thankfully, this did not cause me to lose family, which is sadly the case for many people who leave the church.) My personal religious philosophy is this, I suppose: Jesus loved and accepted everyone, so I'm going to do that too. Even the people who park like assholes and don't return their carts at the grocery store.

It took a long time for me to get here. There's part of The Exvangelicals where Sarah McCammon talks in great detail about childhood religious trauma, and it resonated with me. When you're a child in that sort of environment -- when you're constantly told that you are a sinner, you'll always be a sinner, and that God is watching everything you do; when your questions about the geographical locations of heaven and hell or how the Bible's teachings and the proof of dinosaurs can co-exist are disregarded or outright ignored -- that sticks with you, and you really can't see how it may have affected you until you're an adult and are no longer in that environment. At least, I couldn't.

The Exvangelicals is part memoir and part journalistic investigation into the white evangelical church, blending McCammon's personal experiences with the larger evangelical narrative encompassing political and social issues. The structure really worked for me, as the book read like both a cathartic experience for McCammon and a well-researched, insightful discussion of complex issues. McCammon successfully navigates several highly-charged issues with empathy and sensitivity in a thought-provoking exploration that encourages pragmatic dialogue and raises lots of questions, and admits that there are no easy answers. However, I feel like she does sometimes paint evangelicals as a whole with a pretty broad brush without acknowledging those churches or individuals that are more progressive in their mindsets.

The sad reality is that most white evangelical Christians are not going to pick this book up, because it overtly challenges the dogma of the church -- and exploring other viewpoints and perspectives is not something that most white evangelicals are comfortable with. But if you are interested in the Christian church or involved in evangelicalism yourself -- formerly, tangentially, or currently -- I highly recommend The Exvangelicals as a solid entry into a growing cannon of books that challenge organized religion.

The author examines the reasons so many people are leaving evangelical churches, especially young adults. The
reasons include the evangelical messaging on abortion, child rearing, LGBQ and gender issues and the evangelical support for Donald Trump.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC: The author is a political reporter on NPR who was catalyzed to write this memoir and exploration of evangelicals who have left their church after she covered the 2016 Republican primary. McCammon was raised by evangelical parents, educated in Christian schools through college and married her college boyfriend. She began to move away from her church, to "deconstruct" as she worked as a reporter. Her grandfather, a gay neurosurgeon, was not of the church and McCammon loved him but also felt he was doomed--her first cognitive dissonance with her church. I listened to her interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" and it clarified points that I somehow missed--her first husband deconstructed as well. I still am not sure about her relationship with her parents. The evangelical church, in all of its forms, represented up to a quarter of the population at one point and has had tremendous political power. I think the book explored the topic well, but I still remain a bit confused about the author's family history. It's an important force in America and this book contributes to understanding it. Highly recommended.

The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon is a fascinating look at the evangelical Christian community. Part memoir and part investigative reporting, the author takes us on a personal journey to better understand this far-right community and its influence on current politics.

Until reading this book, I never had the opportunity to take a deep dive into understanding the evangelical church. The author explores many topics such as relationships, education, discipline, modesty and purity, and the evangelical perspective on each of these topics. I particularly connected with the chapter on their LGBTQ+ beliefs and the author’s relationship with her gay grandfather.

While I did appreciate the investigative nature of the book and the interviews with other “exvangelicals,” I looked forward to reading about the author’s personal story and her ever-evolving relationship with her parents and the church.

Ultimately, The Exvangelicals is a well-researched and well-written book, particularly for those of us who wish to learn more about the cultural and political impact of the evangelical Christian community.

I feel like I've gotten to know Sarah McCammon through various NPR podcast appearances, and I knew our backgrounds were similar. When the opportunity came to read her new book, The Exvangelicals, I couldn't get it fast enough. McCammon writes a journalistic memoir about the impact of white American evangelicalism on various social issues. I read 'Jesus and John Wayne' (du Mez) about a month prior to reading this, and the two interact nicely with each other. J&JW provides historical context for how we got here, and The Exangelicals responds with a personal account of how various theologies played out. Addressing topics such as education, parenting, purity culture, abortion, and the LGBT community, McCammon provides an honest, unflinching account of the impact of harmful theologies in these areas. The Exvangelicals is incredibly relatable and a must-read if you grew up in a conservative, evangelical home in the 90s. Note: the audio is excellent as well-McCammon reads the book herself.

Being an Ex-Catholic this book was very interesting to me to see if Evangelicals had some of the same issues I had when I left my church. This is a book everyone can read. Whenever people follow something blindly it's when things can go wrong. This book is important in that it gives example of what happens when people become so entrenched in a view that it can sometimes hurt others. I don't think whatever your religious leader you believe in ever wanted anybody to feel bad or be punished. That is man made from people's interpertation of it to suit their needs and yes sometimes their bigotry and hatred of others. This book uses examples from people who left the church and how it hurt them. The author tries not take sides and I can't imagine a reader after finishing this book to say I got nothing from this book. It's about understanding how you can unintentionally hurt others. We all have feelings and hopefully our goal is not hurt anybody but sometimes there are people out there than can make money off hatred. That should not be the goal of any church, Religion is supposed to be about love an understanding. To understad and be a better human being please read this book. Thank you to #netgalley and St. Martin's press for the arc.

A fascinating eyes opening look at the world of evangelicals. I have no knowledge of what being an evangelical entails Sarah McCammon shares with us her personal experiences and why she is now an ex member.At the same times she shares with us an overview of the world of evangelicals.so well written so interesting so informative.#netgalley #st.martins

I’ve read three journalist-who-grew-up-Evangelical nonfiction titles in the past six months, but this is the first by a woman (yay, finally!). I enjoyed it and think the subtitle “Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church” fits well, because this book considers all of those things in relatively few pages and therefore doesn’t have space to dig super deeply into any (and this may just stand out to me more because I do consume a lot of content about White Evangelical culture, political influence, people questioning or leaving the culture, etc.). I appreciate how McCammon shared intimate details about her own experiences and loved the in-their-own-words insights she included from interviews with others who‘ve left/are leaving their Evangelical cultures. A lot to relate to here for those of us who've lived a version of this.

This book examines what it is like to grow up steeped in the white Evangelical church, the process of beginning to doubt that worldview, and the experience of leaving it. An Exvangelical is a person who was raised Evangelical Christian who has chosen to leave (either that brand of Christianity or sometimes Christianity in general). McCammon alternates between chapters dealing her personal experience and chapters detailing the experiences of prominent, vocal exvangelicals. She describes the insulating world view of her childhood and young adulthood, enforced daily through church, Christian textbooks, radio, every detail of her family's life, and also the places where the tiny cracks begin to appear. I'm not sure who the intended audience is for this book--sometimes it feels like it's seeking out other exvangelical potentials to provide community (it's hard breaking away from your whole life!) and sometimes it feels like it's written to those on the outside who have never encountered an Abeka science text before.

Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for my free earc. My opinions are all my own.