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 thoughtfully recounts the potent mix of fear and love that shaped her personal experience with evangelical culture in 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 and cultural critics, McCammon traces the movement's rise through the second half of the 20th century and its eventual alliance with the Republican Party.
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 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