Reading Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a little like reading a biography of my upbringing, just not the fun parts. With all that I’ve processed in the past decade, I am so thankful for this book and the work it is doing. The book untangles the web of Christian nationalism, American evangelicalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, and if you don’t think those things are connected, then you definitely need to read it. . . .

Stories like Ours

We all need books that move us, change us, challenge us, enlighten us, educate us, heal us. One book that has been healing for me in my journey away from fundamentalism and spiritual abuse has been Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu. This is just one of many that have made me feel less alone in my experience, that have opened my heart to the possibility that my story is important too, that this hasn’t all been for nothing. That our experiences mean something.

When I first heard about Jennifer Mathieu, I was attending the Festival of Faith and Writing three years after leaving the stay-at-home-daughter movement, and I saw her talk in the conference program, with a description of her book mentioning Christian Patriarchy. I hadn’t heard of any fiction books about the world of fundamentalist Christianity, and I was curious to see what she had to say and what her book Devoted was about. . . .