I’ve recently been reading books of Christian apologia, and I was mostly disappointed with the arguments they’ve made. I actually enjoyed this book here! I feel that the author Keller succeeded where other authors failed for an assortment of reasons.
First, Keller didn’t punch down at other religions. Keller was blunt that he feels that Christianity is the exclusively true religion, he doesn’t treat other religions with outright contempt. A lot of other works of apologia are contemptuous if not racist, so I valued this. It wasn’t perfect; I wish the author actually engaged with the details of other philosophical traditions, but what we got was good.
Second, Keller actually made good points in critique of the Western liberal intellectual traditions flaw of moral relativism and toleration. Keller pointed out that some amount of tolerance for a conflicting viewpoints is good, but you can’t tolerate the intolerant. For example, in the West we say ‘we should respect and tolerate other cultures, even if we don’t agree with what they do.’ However, some other cultures don’t respect human rights. Keller believes it is bad that the west is willing to tolerate abuse of human rights for the sake of toleration.
Third, I enjoyed that the author actually engaged with philosophical conundrums like ‘the problem of evil’ and evolution. He made some good arguments, and sometimes he just talked around the problem. Overall I found him to be insightful and worthy. Further, he actually brought many of his arguments back to Christianity, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and temperance, using the death of Christ as a metaphor and catalyst to explain the philosophy of Christianity. Instead of saying ‘Christians are better than non-Christians,’ he said ‘Christians are just as flawed as non-Christians, but through Grace we can transcend our flaws.’
I still don’t know what I believe on the subject of religion, but this was an insightful book and I am happy to have read it.
Well, this is a on odd one-two punch of reviews.
This is a nonfiction book about the Evangelical movement, and how the author as well as people the author interviews leave the Evangelical movement.
This was a breathtaking book. The author is clear she values aspects of Evangelicalism and Christianity; she is still Christian (Episcopalian), even after she left the Evangelical Church. Overall the picture the author paints is that Evangelical Christianity is a religion of anxiety.
- Paranoia about Hell, to the point of having panic attacks at random moments throughout the day.
- Repressing your sexuality, to the point of difficulty having sex even after getting married because if deeply internalized sexual disgust.
- The one-sided nature of sexual responsibility, where women and girls are responsible for men’s lustful thoughts.
- Trouble rationalizing Young Earth Creationism with evolution and dinosaurs.
- Parents beating children when they make mistakes… or when your children are having psychological issues and need therapy.
- And more.
The author said something I fought insightful. She said she had a happy childhood growing up in the Church: a caring and loving family, a vibrant community life, many friends. But nonetheless she has a lot of trauma from her childhood caused by her community’s traditions. This book paints the portrait of a subculture which inflicts trauma on itself.
This book depicts a subculture at odds with secular society, to the point of (at moments) absurdity. And when young Evangelicals are forced to confront those absurd moments, many begin the deconstruction and deconversion process. When you can’t rationalize how religious dogma and lived experience are so much out of sync, you might chose to leave religion.
This book begins with the Moral Majority and Reagan, and gradually transitions into the modern day and Trump. It discusses politics; the author herself worked as a Republican staffer in Congress during the Clinton Scandal era. The narrative frames Trump as something of a catalyst for change within the Church, driving people away from a Church which seems too friendly with him. (It’s easy to call people hypocrites when they’ll say ‘shame on you for getting divorced’ and shun you for that divorce, at the same time as they call twice-divorced Trump a savior.) But at the same time the narrative is clear that Trump is not the cause of all the problems in the Church, for they predated him.
It discusses the George Floyd protests, and how black Evangelicals left a White-dominated Evangelical Church. How some evangelicals look down on Catholics and mainline Protestants and Mormons, to the point of saying ‘you’re going to hell’ and ‘you’re not Christian’ to pious Christians. And antisemitism and Islamaphobia.
This book discuses LGBT issues in a big way; the author’s grandfather was gay, and she lived the first 16 years of her life barely knowing him because her family shunned him. Only after she left the Evangelical church was she finally able to get to know him.
Above all, this is a book about one woman’s experience being raised in the Church. Being raised proper, listening to Evangelical radio shows, making tithes, feeling self conscious as a young woman about your clothing, feeling out of sorts when compared to her secular peers. Growing up, getting married, having children. How after the author got divorced and later remarried to a Jewish man, her parents would not even attend the second marriage ceremony. I got the feeling that the author is somewhat estranged from her parents as a result of her leaving the Church.
This is about the deconstruction process. It’s difficult to leaving the Church; you might want to leave, but your entire support network is within the Church so you can’t leave. And if you do leave, you get called apostate and verbally abused. This talks about how when major ‘apostate’ figures die, some Evangelical figures will gloat on twitter about them being in Hell and ‘it’s too late to repent.’
Overall, the author depicts a culture which wears righteousness as a gown to disguise ordinary human ugliness.
I loved this book. It was emotionally evocative, heartfelt and well researched. It cited it’s sources, and the author conducted many interviews. This wasn’t an anti-religion screed. The author clearly still loves aspects of evangelicalism. I doubt any still-practicing Evangelicals will like reading this book; this book reads like airing dirty laundry. But I think this author makes a good-faith effort towards objectivity.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 