This book is an NPR journalist’s coverage of the exvangelical movement mixed with a memoir of being raised in the white, evangelical world and the process of leaving it behind. I loved both of those elements, and I loved having Sarah’s familiar voice in my ears.

Some books are window books and some are mirrors. For me, this was a mirror book and it meant a lot to see my experience growing up reflected on the page in a way I frankly never have before. Most 90s references that millennials swoon over don’t resonate with me, but references to Adventures in Odyssey and Brio Magazine really do (if you get those references, please let me know!!). I also really appreciated her reflection that it’s often the people who were the most ardent believers who are the ones making a point of leaving, and how painful that process is.

I’m lucky that my experience with faith overall was very loving and positive, so there were a lot of elements of Sarah’s experience that were different from my own. Still, as someone who pays attention to this stuff, there wasn’t a lot new or groundbreaking here for me. I do hope this book finds the readers who need it and helps them feel less alone. “Exvangelical” and “deconstruction” were not terms in the zeitgeist when I left Christianity over a decade ago, but I’m so happy people now have this language for their experiences and that these terms can help build community.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the free copy in exchange for my honest review!

I requested this book because a Bible College professor of mine had recommended Rachel Held Evan’s book Searching for Sunday Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church and this book seemed similar. I could relate to many of the stories McCammon told about growing up in an evangelical church in the 80s & 90s. The discussion of purity culture was very interesting for me & reminded me of how hard it is for people growing up in that to figure out sex in marriage given we are told it’s not ok and then the act of marriage makes it ok. It made me sad to read stories of intolerance towards others and it made me so grateful to have grown up in a Christian home with parents who modelled loving others despite differences. I am glad that exvangelicals still love Jesus even though they may not attend church any more and have found ways to love life outside the bubble.

I enjoyed that the author narrated this book. I think it adds so much to the stories.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy of this audiobook.

This book gave me a lot to think about. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about evangelicalism compared to Catholicism or mainstream Christianity. While there were many instances where I was nodding my head as someone who was raised Catholic and is now not religious at all, especially as regards the attitudes toward abortion, rights for LGBTQ+ people, pre-marital sex, etc., there were also some surprises. For instance, I truly had no idea how corporal punishment has been embraced by the followers of evangelical churches. I also really was somewhat surprised to hear that people in these churches are actively getting the message to get involved in politics in order to advance their churches' agendas. I don't remember that message being part of Catholicism growing up - in fact, I think I remember, as a 90s kid, the acknowledgment that church and state are meant to be separate, and that part of what makes the US great is that no one can be persecuted for their varied religious beliefs or lack thereof.
It was heartening to hear about the people who are growing up and getting out of these toxic institutions that do not make room for all of their members. I really recognized the world that we live in and the members of the far right in this book, especially when it was shared that people who are steadfastly remaining in evangelical churches who are also very comfortable espousing all of the far right ideology see people leaving the evangelical church as a threat, as persecution. If peacefully leaving a religion is persecuting those who continue to practice, then it makes sense that these people are not ready to participate in American life or tolerate people who are different than they are - but what I am left wondering is how American society as a whole can move forward.

I was interested in THE EXVANGELICALS given the place of white evangelical Protestants in American politics. And this was a thought-provoking read, combining the author's own lived experiences, the experiences of other exvangelicals, and a more sociological (and historical) perspective.

At times, that mix felt seamless and at others, uneven.

The audiobook is narrated by the author, Sarah McCammon, who's a national political correspondent for NPR. I found her voice faster-paced than the typical audiobook narrator (so I listened to this at a slower speed).

I finished this book yesterday [3.17.2024] and 24hrs later, my head is still spinning, my heart is hurting and I am in full-trauma recovery-mode. I am afraid that I will be unable to write a full review for this book simply because every time I try, I burst into tears and the whole trauma-cycle starts again.

I knew going in that this book would bring up some unpleasant memories for me in regards to my time in the evangelical church [from age 10, when we moved in with my grandparents until I finally left for good in 2014], but had no idea just how deep this book would touch me or how intense my memories were of that time; I am pretty sure that anyone who has had an experience similar to mine will totally and completely understand and would react in a similar way.

I DO think that everyone should be reading this book, especially if you did not grow up in evangelicalism and have friends that did, as it will help you understand them a little more, and if you currently have friends who are the whole evangelical-political spectrum, because it will help with all of that as well. It is a well-written, eye-opening [even for this exvangelical], and at times, very painful to read [I imagine it will be so for non-evangelicals as well], and deeply profound and personal and I am so grateful to the author for being both brave enough and transparent in writing this book. Talking about life within the evangelical church and the damage it did, is extremely difficult for most of us [and I cannot imagine trying to sort my emotional thoughts and distress into a book], and I admire her ability to do just that.

I do wish I could garner my emotions to write more here - I often find when people can do that, it helps others as they are navigating an unfamiliar landscape, but at this moment, I just cannot. Maybe a day will come where things will be less traumatic for me and I will be able to add to this review; we shall see. Until then, know that I too am among the survivors of trauma at the hands of the evangelical church and that I see you, the other survivors, and join you in the struggle for healing and moving forward. May we all find peace and healing.

The audiobook for this was excellent. The author narrates and it was particularly helpful to have her own voice telling her own story and I highly recommend listening to this book [with the book open and a highlighter and notebook at the ready] to get the full experience.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah McCammon, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for providing both the eBook and audiobook ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

4.5

Drawing on her childhood growing up in an evangelical family in the Midwest in the '80s and '90s as well as her time as a NPR reporter covering Trump and the 2016 election, Sarah McCammon uses personal anecdotes to complement her investigation into the mass exodus of younger generations from the evangelical church. While I don't think this is a perfect book, I do think this is a great entry point to understanding this culture shift because the author makes it so personal. That being said, I think the memoir aspects of the book worked better for me than the attempts at journalistic inquiry.

Part of this I think is because the author herself admits that the blend of white evangelicals and right wing politics started well before Donald Trump, yet she continued to write as if this movement started in 2016. Yes, I think Trump (and the 2015 Obergefell ruling and the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 murder of George Floyd and and and) highlighted this connection and caused a lot more people to start questioning their beliefs, but it's been around for longer than that.

Overall, I think a lot of people who have struggled with their faith and its ties to politics, etc they don't agree with will feel very seen by this. Though McCammon doesn't really offer any solutions, it can be comforting to know others have felt similarly to you. I also appreciate that she calls out how challenging leaving the church can be because often times the church is your family, community, and social safety net.

Though I've never thought of myself as an "exvangelical" mostly because I never associated my religious upbringing with the evangelical church even though it probably was and because for reasons my family always felt somewhat distant from our local church community. Nevertheless, I still related to this book in a lot of ways that I will continue to be unpacking. There's a line toward the end where the author quotes her brother as saying it can be hard to reconcile having had a perfectly fine childhood with the need to deal with repercussions of it and when I heard that my brain went "oh. yeah. that." So that's something to talk to my therapist about I guess.

A powerful and important book about the trauma that religion can inflict on people. Only part that I didn't like is that sometimes it felt repetitive, like she repeated a fact and then a little bit later said it again. But otherwise, I really enjoyed this listen!

Such a strong young woman. Breaking away from a church that you have been raised in, that your family and friends , many who are still part of, takes alot of strength. I was raised Catholic, and in many ways I can relate to some of what she is detailing in this book. But this is a whole other kettle of fish. Your whole life is based on church teachings, I say brainwashing, where you are given little choice but to fall in line.

Its very frightening to me, the power of these churches. This book is so informative and goes a long way in explaining the evangelicals worship of Trump and his agenda and theirs. If you are curious this is a good book to read because the author was part of this movement and had the courage to leave.

The narration was clear and concise. Well done.

I learned a lot from this book! The Exvangelical movement is comprised of those who left the Evangelical church by choice, although for many, they continue to feel guilty about their inevitable choice. Everything about the Evangelical church, particularly white evangelicals seems to be aimed at making the entire country (whether it be the US or elsewhere) jump to the values and morals held by the church, which include the most conservative of beliefs.

The author tells her own story of leaving the church, of growing up rather estranged from her grandfather because as she later learned he was gay (or homosexual, as her parents explained), of picketing abortion clinics with her mother, and other tales of conservatism that were visited upon her as a child and adolescent. Her choice to leave was difficult, but it was necessary. She is now married to a Jewish man.

The author also tells the stories of others and their journey in leaving the church. The story at times falls a little flat and is filled with data and academic information regarding the church, but all in all, it is an enlightening read that foreshadows the political scene that awaits us in 2024 and beyond.

This book has given a definition to my struggles. I am a 52 year old preacher's kid. To say my dad was an evangelical is almost an understatement. Just read and think about some of the phrases that shaped my Christian upbringing, "...not Santa Claus but Satan Claus," "Happy Halloween? How can Satan's day be happy?," "Superman takes peoples' eyes off of Jesus," and "ET looks like a demon." I was raised to be in the world and not of it and to both fear and love God simultaneously. After high school I joined the Army and got heavily into drinking. Fortunately, I am not an alcoholic, so stopping a few years later was not a struggle. But the guilt from the partying and not going to church and not tithing and so many other sins was almost overwhelming. So much so that I had become a proud backslider for 30ish years. After reading this book, I realize that I am not a backslider. I am an exvangelical or a postvangelical or maybe something else. I will do more research, but because of The Exvangerlicals, at least I have a direction in which to go. I am thankful that I have found this book and I am thankful to Sarah McCammon for being brave enough to speak out about this delicate subject.

The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church breaks down evangelicalism, mainly white evangelicalism, and the trauma it has caused people, families and politics. It especially resonated with me because I attended a Christian school for over half of my K-12 school career. So many of the terms, restrictions, feelings and neuroses Sarah McCammon described in the book were the same things I experienced in my teens and early twenties. Being the only BIPOC in these spaces added an extra feeling of fear and discomfort. I appreciated the chapters McCammon devoted to the perspectives of POC and LGBTQ+ who have either deconstructed and left the church and those who have developed a new relationship with God without the human judgments, hatred and hypocrisy of Christianity/organized religion.

I highly recommend this book for people who are deconstructing or are noticing the things they witnessed in the church and/or while growing up and questioning their faith. It's an eye-opening book that kept me riveted.

Netgalley provided a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This was an eye-opening investigative journalism memoir about the massive social movement of people leaving the Evangelical Church. It was so interesting to read about political alignment as it pertains to religion as well as many of the falsehoods that many of us are raised to believe. Now there is a large group of people who have awakened from this haze and are learning how to live without guilt, which is obviously difficult as that is a hugely important plot point in the religious world and I'm sure this book will help many people feel not so alone in this journey. I hope this gives hope to those who want a new life based on their own thoughts and beliefs.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martins Press, and Macmillan Audio for the gifted copies of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A thought provoking look at the evangelical church and grappling with reasons to leave it. This is a memoir of the author's own experiences and it may not feel true for every person's experience. However, she handles difficult matters with careful examination. Well worth reading or listening to the author's presentation.

I like books like this that combine someone's personal experience with research. The author has experienced the evangelical lifestyle, and has been seriously affected by it. She also sees how it negatively affects so many.
Even though there was a lot of negative, it also showed a lot of people's perspectives. Overall, a fascinating read.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me listen to this fantastic audiobook, which has a really good narrator

I don't know what to write. I don't want to offend anyone.

I guess my father was a proto-exvangelical. Raised in a Midwestern Southern Baptist church, as an adult he had next to no tolerance for charismatic religion. From what I've since seen, my grandparents' church was on the more sedate end of evangelical. (It probably has something to do with our otherwise rather stoic farm community.) When I moved to the South for college, I thought "holy rollers," etc., were largely made up for entertainment purposes. Boy, was I wrong! What I saw in my college town not only reinforced all of the stereotypes, it proved them to be severe underestimations.

Here's why all of this matters: my exposure to "real" evangelicals during my college years demonstrated a strong inverse correlation between evangelical identity and I.Q. To put it bluntly, the more evangelical, the more charismatic, the less intelligent. (The lower on the entire SES spectrum, in fact.) Now, I know people who have left the white evangelical church, some for the reasons discussed by Sarah McCammon. However, the people I know should probably not be described as "loving . . . and leaving the white evangelical church." "Ran from the ignorant/backwards crazy as if their hair was on fire" might be a better descriptor of the exvangelicals I know.

The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church is both heartfelt and scholarly. Sarah McCammon introduced me to a new group of people, and I feel sad for them. What impressed me the most was how intelligent, rational, and middle-class everyone was. Like one of the exvangelical interviewees, I believe in organized religion's ability to provide valuable cultural rituals. I see how, for good or ill, immersive the evangelical life was for these people. It is obvious that there would be a feeling of being adrift without its structure. I wish nothing but the best for the exvangelicals. They are finally trying to live (ironically enough) the Wiccan Rede: an it harm none, do what thou wilt. Godspeed.

I would like to thank Macmillan Audio for allowing me to experience this NetGalley audiobook.

I've been listening to a lot of the Holy Post's podcasts and YouTube channel which is where I first heard the idea of deconstruction and Exvangelicals. I wasn't raised with a fundamental church background, but attended a couple throughout my college days well into my late 30's and was influenced by it and understood what McCammon was talking about. Like many people in the book, 2020 was a turning point and I just felt super confused, alone, disillusioned, and knew I couldn't do it anymore. I wish I had this book 4 years ago to know it wasn't just me! All that to say, I'm probably the perfect audience this book was meant for so when it came up as an audio book on Netgalley, I was very excited to read it. I devoured this book in 3 days which says a lot since I'm not a big non-fiction reader.

What I really liked about McCammon's book is how well written it was and how she really brought in a lot of perspectives. A lot of Christian books I've read are heavily opinion oriented just from one person's perspective. You can really tell with the writing style that McCammon is a serious journalist from NPR and not just another person with a bone to pick. She does tell her story and definitely has opinions, but she tempers it with research, poll results, and interviews from others in the same position. Her overall bent is that the far right Evangelical movement is harmful, but I felt she tried to be very logical and even with that view. I was able to look up a lot of the people and references she talks about and most are not so logical about that view. I liked that the book explores many facets including politics, purity culture, LGBTQ+, Women's Roles, and corporal punishment. I think the hurt people feel is very real and as a counselor, I do like that she spent a chapter advocating for finding professional help from therapists even while acknowledging how hard that can be.

The only thing I didn't really agree with is McCammon's conclusion seems to be that there is no place in Christianity, or Evangelical Christianity at least, for people who are not the stereotypical white Evangelical. While I've certainly felt that pressure in the churches I've attended, I still hold out hope that there is a place for the rest of us- maybe not in my small Wyoming town, but certainly in the Christian world at large. She instead recommends finding community in other places like the internet or different interest group which isn't bad advice, I guess, but I'm just not ready to give up hope yet.

Overall, 5 stars! I really felt like I understood a lot more and that I wasn't alone because of reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone who is going through a similar journey or just wants to learn more about what it is.

This book was healing for me in ways no other book could be. Although Sarah is a decade older than me, she grew up in the midwest (Kansas City) at the height of the 80’s-90’s evangelical movement, same as I did. It’s almost eerie how similar our childhoods were. And since then we both have journeyed away from evangelicalism and would consider ourselves “exvangelical.” This book was part memoir and part journalistic essays on evangelicalism, with interviews from those who have left.

What fascinated me most about this book was Sarah’s astute observation that the people who primarily have left evangelicalism recently are the ones were the most ardent and devoted followers growing up. They’ve become disappointed in how evangelicals have aligned with the far right after decades of saying we should be like Jesus. The Republican Party is so far from Christlikeness that it’s left many wondering whether they were lied to or it was a sham all along. It’s the hypocrisy and thirst for power among evangelical leaders that pushes millennials like us out. I feel this, deeply. Every story Sarah shared and Sarah’s own personal journey resonated with me immensely.

Sarah works for NPR now and her journalism skills were perfect for the job of describing the current exvangelical dilemma. I highly recommend this book if you’ve been on your own journey of deconstruction and growth after growing up in evangelicalism. Matt and I both listened to the audiobook, which was a fantastic medium because Sarah used her NPR voice to narrate the book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon.

Sarah McCammon writes a half journalistic approach/half memoir approach to the increasing amount of people leaving the Evangelical faith, and the result is magnificent. As a former Evangelical myself, and graduate of the same undergraduate college as McCammon, I identified wholeheartedly with so many things, and found it very interesting. Excellent reporter, excellent reader, and excellent story.

What I liked:

- this was super interesting. I haven’t read anything by an ex-evangelical before, and I really enjoyed getting a peek into this author’s life.
- I liked how the author tied in the implications of evangelicalism and Uber conservative politics. Her stories from her time writing on the campaign trail were impactful.
- as someone who grew up in what I’d call “purity culture lite”, I liked to hear how purity culture has had lasting implications on people’s lives, well into adulthood.
- I love listening to a memoir read by the author. I think it makes the story that much more impactful.

What didn’t work for me:
- my mind wandered a bit during parts of this that I found a little dry, but overall I really enjoyed this memoir.

As the evangelical movement takes on more political power, readers from outside that world will be curious what goes on inside it. This book is a compassionate view on what it's like from the inside and what it takes to leave. Readers who share the author's experience and those who don't will all learn something from this book