0:17

Hello, Faithful Politics listeners and

0:17

watchers.

0:20

If you're joining us on YouTube, this is

0:20

your faithful host, Josh Bertram.

0:26

I'm really glad to be joined here by Will

0:26

Wright, our political host.

0:31

Will, how's it going? I'm super sick, thanks for asking.

0:34

You're very welcome. I'm sorry you're sick.

0:37

And today we have the honor of

0:37

interviewing Sarah McCammon.

0:42

Did I say that right?

0:45

Okay. Very good. You might edit it out this whole thing

0:47

there, but Sarah McCammon, who is a

0:52

national political correspondent for NPR

0:52

and cohost of the NPR politics podcast.

0:58

Her work focuses on political, social, and

0:58

cultural divides in America.

1:03

including abortion policy and the

1:03

intersection of politics and religion.

1:07

She is also the author of a new book, the

1:07

ex-vangelicals, loving, living and leaving

1:15

the white evangelical church.

1:18

Nice Sarah. So great to have you on the program today.

1:22

Thank you for joining us. Thank you both for having me.

1:25

Absolutely. So I got to ask Sarah the title.

1:31

Did you choose it or did your publisher

1:31

choose it?

1:34

We asked this quite a bit when we...

1:37

Ha ha ha. I chose the title because, and I can get

1:39

into that if you want, but I had seen the

1:44

exvangelical hashtag actually came across

1:44

the term in the process of reporting a

1:49

story for NPR during the 2016 election.

1:52

And I just thought it was a fascinating

1:52

word to sort of describe.

1:55

I mean, it says a lot, but it also doesn't

1:55

say that much.

1:58

It just says basically that you used to be

1:58

evangelical and now you're not.

2:00

And I knew that was something that was

2:00

true about me, but I also knew that

2:05

getting there is... complicated and sometimes painful and a

2:07

little different for everybody, but there

2:10

are also some, I think, common themes.

2:12

And then I started seeing this hashtag

2:12

online and a lot of dialogue around these

2:17

themes around that time and since.

2:20

And so I proposed the title, the subtitle,

2:20

Loving, Living, and Leaving the White

2:26

Evangelical Church. I have to credit my editor, Hannah

2:26

Phillips, who was wonderful to work with

2:31

and had brought lots of insights to this

2:31

process.

2:35

It's kind of a tribute to Rachel Held Evans. It's similar to a subtitle of one of her

2:37

books, Searching for Sunday, and kind of a

2:43

nod to her. She was somebody who was publicly going

2:43

through a lot of this, I think, before,

2:47

you know, in the early days of blogging

2:47

and the internet, and I think somebody

2:51

that a lot of people that I've talked to

2:51

relate to.

2:55

That's so good. Well, I gotta ask. So, I mean, I love the title.

2:59

I love the book.

3:02

I gotta ask what point, you know, in this

3:02

whole process where you were working

3:08

through kinda how you grew up in

3:08

evangelical America, white evangelical

3:12

Christianity, moving to where you are now,

3:12

what was kinda the turning point?

3:20

Kinda walk us through that process.

3:22

a little bit for those who haven't had a

3:22

chance or to read the book and kind of

3:28

giving them a little bit of tease there. What's this process that you went through

3:29

to bring you to?

3:35

In a way, it's my entire life, and I think

3:35

I'm still on a journey spiritually, and

3:43

I'm more okay with that than I think I was

3:43

at one time.

3:46

But the slightly longer answer to that

3:46

question is, in many ways, as a child

3:51

growing up in a world where we kind of

3:51

talked about ourselves like we were sort

3:57

of an embattled minority, and we were the

3:57

remnant.

4:03

And we were... trying to save the world with the truth

4:04

that we had been given by God.

4:09

I didn't realize how big the evangelical

4:09

movement was.

4:12

It's arguably the largest religious

4:12

movement in the United States, at least up

4:16

there with Roman Catholicism, and

4:16

incredibly influential in our politics and

4:21

culture. But as a small child in Kansas City, all I

4:21

knew is that most people didn't know

4:26

Jesus, and we had to try to fix that.

4:29

And so there were parts of that always

4:29

kind of

4:33

I wrestled with and I read about this a

4:33

lot in the book, you know, this feeling

4:36

that it was my job to kind of not

4:36

personally save everybody.

4:39

We believe Jesus did that, but we had to

4:39

point them to Jesus.

4:42

And that meant that so many people that we

4:42

encountered, you know, at the grocery

4:46

store or in one scene in a roller rink,

4:46

you know, or even in our own extended

4:53

family were going to hell. And we believed that literally, we

4:55

believed they were going to burn in hell

4:58

forever if they didn't accept Jesus. And we even believe that some other

5:01

people who called themselves Christians

5:01

were because they weren't the right kind

5:04

of Christian or they didn't have the right beliefs. And you both are nodding, I know you're

5:06

familiar with this theology, but not

5:10

everybody is. And so I wrestled with a lot of different

5:12

pieces of that at different times and at

5:16

different stages of my life. And I've kind of organized this book, The

5:17

Exvangelicals, thematically around some of

5:21

the sort of tension points and sources of

5:21

cognitive dissonance that made it

5:25

difficult for me to continue to identify

5:25

in that way.

5:29

And we can talk more about those. But I really kind of found that for a lot

5:30

of people, there were a number of

5:34

different things. It was sort of running into a clash

5:34

between what you've been told and what was

5:39

often a very carefully curated version of

5:39

the world, you know, with Christian

5:43

textbooks very often in homeschool or

5:43

Christian school, Christian books,

5:47

Christian music, Christian movies,

5:47

Christian magazines, all of which espoused

5:52

a particular evangelical worldview, you

5:52

know.

5:54

And when you start to sort of crack that

5:54

facade just a little bit and look outside,

5:58

you know. it becomes harder to hold those same

5:59

beliefs. And not everybody rejects them altogether.

6:03

And I'm certainly not here to tell anybody

6:03

where they should land.

6:06

But what I did want to describe was the

6:06

really sometimes painful process of what

6:11

is now being called deconstructing, which

6:11

was not a word I had, you know, as a child

6:16

or even in my twenties, when I was really

6:16

intensely going through this.

6:19

And so there was not one moment.

6:22

There were many moments for me. And I think that's true for a lot of

6:23

people. You know, so for a person that did not

6:26

grow up in the church, I mean, I mentioned

6:32

this on the show quite a few times that

6:32

I've spent the better part of my life,

6:38

like, either as an atheist, as someone

6:38

that would have considered himself Wiccan

6:44

even, and I didn't come to the faith until

6:44

basically I got married.

6:50

I married a pastor's kid.

6:53

And uh... And she's now currently going through like

6:54

her own bit of a deconstruction.

6:57

Cause when I read your book, I was

6:57

thinking a lot about my wife because like,

7:03

like everything that you sort of talked

7:03

about in your, in your book, I'm like,

7:07

yeah, like, like my wife, I think could

7:07

relate to a lot of, a lot of this, you

7:11

know, just, just the need to constantly

7:11

tell people they're going to hell, you

7:15

know, or, uh, you know, trying to pass out

7:15

tracks, um, or, or what, what have you,

7:22

so. So I really appreciate it, just everything

7:22

that you included in there.

7:26

But for me, I'm the politics guy on the

7:26

show.

7:30

So there are terms that are not

7:30

necessarily familiar, or words that I

7:37

don't use all the time, such as

7:37

evangelical.

7:40

So can you kind of define what does it

7:40

mean to be an evangelical?

7:45

It was funny you say that because I didn't

7:45

really realize that I was evangelical

7:49

until I was in college and I went to

7:49

college with the word evangelical in its

7:53

name, but you know we just called

7:53

ourselves Christians.

7:56

We just believed that we had, you know,

7:56

the Bible was the Word of God and we could

8:01

believe it, open it up, read it, believe

8:01

it literally, and we would find the truth.

8:06

And you know, in reality, if you opened up

8:06

the Bible and read it and came to a

8:13

conclusion that didn't align with your pastor or other people in the

8:14

community, sometimes there were

8:17

consequences for that, I mean, at least in

8:17

the form of just maybe not being accepted

8:22

or being seen as kind of a threat or a

8:22

danger or maybe not fully even a

8:25

Christian. But at least, ostensibly, that was what we

8:26

believed.

8:30

And as I got older and I learned more, I

8:30

got very fascinated in college with the

8:36

history of religion and I still am, and

8:36

wanting to understand like, well, where

8:41

did the Bible come from? How was it put together?

8:45

I learned a little bit about that in high

8:45

school, even in Christian school.

8:48

And I remember my teachers really

8:48

struggling to answer the questions that I

8:51

had about like, well, how do we know that

8:51

this Bible that we believe tells us

8:55

everything we need to know? How do we know it's the right one or the

8:56

right set of books or certainly the right

9:00

translations? And I think I sometimes hear those kinds

9:01

of questions presented as like, well,

9:05

those are cynical questions. Those are questions from skeptics and

9:06

doubters, but they were questions I really

9:10

had. And really as somebody who wanted to...

9:13

stay in the community and wanted to be

9:13

part of the church and wanted to love

9:19

Jesus in the way I'd been taught, they

9:19

were questions that really bothered me and

9:24

troubled me. And all of this is to say that there was a

9:25

particular perspective on the answers to

9:30

those questions that turned out to be

9:30

situated within the conservative

9:35

Protestant theological tradition. And so when I talk about evangelicals, I'm

9:37

generally just talking about conservative

9:40

Protestants. There have been whole books and-

9:43

Dissertations written about the line

9:43

between a product or an evangelical and a

9:47

fundamentalist or you know How do

9:47

different other there are so many

9:50

different movements within Christianity? So how does charismaticism fit into

9:52

evangelicalism?

9:55

Etc, etc, and I won't bore everybody with

9:55

all of those but you know for what for all

10:00

I knew I was a Christian I followed Jesus

10:00

and I read the Bible and that was that and

10:04

the people and I knew people who in

10:04

retrospect were other types of

10:07

evangelicals, you know who were for more

10:07

of a Calvinistic tradition or

10:12

We're less charismatic than we were or

10:12

whatever you might want to say, but we all

10:16

fundamentally believe those essential

10:16

things.

10:21

When I say ex-vangelical, I say somebody

10:21

who's come from one of those movements and

10:25

one of those churches and has kind of, in

10:25

some way, reinterpreted their faith or

10:29

left it for whatever reason.

10:33

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I can totally relate to your

10:34

story.

10:37

I grew up in the Assemblies of God, which

10:37

is, you know, the denomination I was

10:41

ordained in. I no longer am ordained in them, but I

10:43

still have very close ties to the

10:46

Assemblies of God and really care about

10:46

the organization.

10:50

There's a lot of friends that I have, very

10:50

good people that I've known and still know

10:56

in those organizations. And so nothing I say is like in any way

10:57

disparaging, except that I did

11:03

up, I can totally relate to the feeling

11:03

like if you don't talk to this person,

11:10

they're gonna go to hell.

11:12

I remember distinctly this youth group

11:12

where this guy got up, this kid, he's

11:19

like, I didn't share Jesus with some

11:19

friend at school and then he died.

11:26

like in this tragic way.

11:28

And he's like, and his blood is on my

11:28

hands.

11:30

And I was like, holy smokes.

11:33

And it's like thinking about that now,

11:33

like his blood is on your hands.

11:36

Like how is that even possible that his

11:36

blood and there are so many ways that, you

11:42

know, that kind of thinking is probably

11:42

much more modern, right, than we would

11:48

even want to admit or think about people

11:48

in the evangelical movement.

11:54

But I think it's so fascinating how you're

11:54

sharing your personal story.

11:59

You're also doing investigative journalism

11:59

into this movement.

12:04

What was that like kind of trying to

12:04

separate yourself, give yourself distance

12:09

and also like, how did you, how did you

12:09

come at it?

12:12

Not only as a sort of insider, cause

12:12

you've experienced and grew up with it,

12:17

but also kind of taking the perspective

12:17

and even being in the perspective of an

12:21

outsider, since you've kind of.

12:23

taking that step back. What was that process like for you?

12:29

Well, the format of the book, I guess,

12:29

came, it happened really organically.

12:33

It was kind of how I always wanted to

12:33

write this book.

12:37

So after 2016, when I covered the

12:37

presidential campaign, a few people asked

12:43

me, why don't you write a book about that

12:43

experience?

12:46

And I really didn't want to write a book

12:46

about that experience for a lot of

12:49

reasons. I just didn't think that I had enough to

12:50

say about it for a standalone book.

12:54

And I mean, I felt like there were things I

12:55

wanted to say, but I didn't want to just

12:57

talk about that because I thought that

12:57

what I was interested in observing was

13:01

much bigger. And then, you know, people would often ask

13:04

me, knowing that I'd grown up evangelical,

13:07

what it was like to cover the Republican

13:07

primary and cover these sort of debates

13:11

within the Republican Party about Trumpism

13:11

and how it aligned with evangelical

13:16

beliefs. And you know, that was all stuff I should

13:16

just say I never planned to cover.

13:20

It just kind of happened to me, kind of

13:20

fell in my lap.

13:23

And so I found myself in this.

13:25

kind of interesting but awkward sometimes

13:25

position of reporting on a community that

13:29

I knew a whole heck of a lot about.

13:31

And people, I think I gave one interview

13:31

to basically an industry publication, a

13:38

podcast that used to exist about public

13:38

media and talked a little bit about that

13:43

at the request of a friend of mine who hosted it. And basically once I gave that one

13:44

interview, it was like, that's all anyone

13:48

wanted to ask me about at speeches and

13:48

events I would do.

13:52

At a certain point, it got to be kind of

13:52

overwhelming because I felt like, well,

13:55

I'm a journalist. I don't want to put myself in the middle

13:56

of the story.

13:58

But I also knew that a lot of interesting

13:58

where things were happening and there were

14:02

fractures in churches and there were all

14:02

these conversations on social media about

14:07

like not just this moment but everything

14:07

that led up to it.

14:10

And so I began to feel like, you know I

14:10

had a real specific experience and an

14:14

insight into something people were curious

14:14

about and something that I felt mattered.

14:18

And so I wanted to tell my story and be transparent about my role

14:20

in the story in this case.

14:24

But I also, you know, I'm a journalist and

14:24

I love telling other people's stories.

14:28

I love talking to people about how they

14:28

think about things and how they make sense

14:32

of the world. Like that is something that just kind of

14:33

drives me and energizes me and excites me.

14:37

And so I wanted to do both.

14:39

And it happened, like I said, just really

14:39

kind of organically.

14:43

I thought about I spent some time sort of

14:43

journaling about the moments.

14:47

of my childhood that created this

14:47

cognitive dissonance for me and the things

14:51

that made me feel like maybe I wasn't in

14:51

the right room.

14:54

And then I was just observing these kind

14:54

of public conversations that were

14:58

happening online and in podcasts. And I sort of started like stitching it

15:00

together, reaching out to people, doing

15:05

phone interviews. I did a reporting trip to Nashville to

15:06

kind of an ex-vangelical church that I

15:09

described in the book of just people who

15:09

wanted to come together and talk about

15:13

Christianity, but without the pressure to

15:13

believe a specific thing.

15:17

And so I kind of structured it around some

15:17

of these themes, these sort of key

15:23

breaking points that a lot of people find

15:23

themselves facing.

15:26

And it was interesting as I was writing

15:26

the book proposal and pitching the book to

15:30

different publishers, there are a couple

15:30

of publishers that didn't really seem to

15:35

understand. And I understand why, it's kind of a

15:35

complicated thing to do, but St.

15:39

Martin's, which wound up buying the book,

15:39

they totally got the vision from the very

15:43

beginning. And I just felt like when I sat down to

15:44

write it, it just worked.

15:47

I mean, it is my story in conversation

15:47

with a lot of other people's stories and

15:52

woven together because I am a journalist

15:52

with a lot of research, a lot of history

15:57

and some primary sources. I went and dug up a bunch of textbooks and

15:58

other books that I'd had at school and at

16:03

home that had shaped my understanding of

16:03

the world.

16:06

And I quote from them a lot too, to just

16:06

kind of paint a picture of what it was

16:09

really like to be an evangelical kid.

16:13

growing up at the height, the peak of the

16:13

movement.

16:18

You know, so I'm curious about, so the

16:18

subtitle says, White Evangelical Church.

16:25

I'd love to get your take on why is that

16:25

part relevant to sort of the overall arc

16:31

of your story? Well, you know, if you look at data and

16:34

you look at voting patterns, white

16:40

Christians and Christians of color who

16:40

believe a lot of the same things on paper

16:45

theologically vote really differently.

16:48

And I think it's important to say that,

16:48

you know, race is just one category, it's

17:33

just one lens through which to look at

17:33

these things.

17:36

And when you're talking about

17:36

evangelicalism,

17:39

as a movement, you have to talk about

17:39

race, you have to talk about culture, you

17:42

have to talk about theology, you even have

17:42

to talk about geography because different

17:47

parts of the country, certain movements

17:47

are bigger in certain parts of the

17:52

country. But I felt it was important to say white

17:53

because there is a sort of distinct

17:59

political project that is predominantly

17:59

white.

18:01

Now, it's not exclusively white, there are

18:01

certainly non-white people in some of

18:06

these. churches that have been sort of absorbed

18:07

into the Christian right political

18:11

movement. There are certainly non-white people who

18:11

are attracted to Christian nationalism.

18:17

But by and large, you know, and partly

18:17

through my reporting, one of the chapters

18:21

is about a movement among black

18:21

evangelicals who sort of existed in white

18:27

evangelical spaces and some of these

18:27

churches that were trying to be more

18:30

racially inclusive. And they talked about some of the

18:32

struggles of that because, you know,

18:35

fundamentally, A lot of white evangelicalism has a

18:37

history that is intertwined with the

18:42

history of racism in the United States. I mean, the Southern Baptist Convention,

18:44

which is the largest evangelical

18:48

denomination, was created in direct

18:48

response to the debate around slavery.

18:54

I think we can't ignore that history, and

18:54

it shapes these political and cultural

19:02

pieces of the conversation in a

19:02

significant way.

19:06

you know, no title can encompass

19:06

everything, but I thought it was important

19:09

to just sort of name the fact that this is

19:09

mostly a white movement.

19:13

I got it. And, you know, when you say in the

19:15

subtitle, leaving the white evangelical

19:20

church, does that equate to you, like,

19:20

leaving the faith or just leaving the

19:25

church? Because I feel like they're two separate

19:25

things.

19:29

Yeah, they are two separate things. And the answer is, the answer has been

19:30

different for me at different times in my

19:34

life. And it is different for different people.

19:38

And I didn't want to focus as much on

19:38

where people end up so much as where

19:42

they've come from and the journey that

19:42

they're on.

19:45

Because I think that's what the

19:45

conversation is in a lot of these spaces.

19:49

Some of the social media groups I pay

19:49

attention to, there are people who've

19:52

become. mainline Protestants, there are people

19:53

who've become, you know, wiccans, there

19:57

are people who are not sure what they are.

20:00

And I have been, I have never been a

20:00

wiccan, but I have been, I spend a lot of

20:06

time in mainline Protestant churches and a

20:06

lot of time just trying to figure things

20:10

out. You know, today I'm in an interfaith

20:11

marriage, my husband's Jewish, and so I go

20:15

to synagogue with him quite a bit. And I've also, you know, gone to church

20:16

on...

20:20

major holidays with my kids and their dad

20:20

and my husband.

20:23

So, you know, we're all kind of, I think,

20:23

trying to make sense of the world and that

20:27

looks different for different people.

20:30

But for me, it was, I realized something

20:30

in my 20s that just the term evangelical

20:35

didn't sit right. And I think a lot of people feel that have

20:35

that I've talked to feel that way more and

20:39

more as it becomes, has increasingly

20:39

become a political label, you know, that

20:45

may or may not have anything to do with

20:45

one's faith or spirituality.

20:51

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

20:53

You know, I went through, like when I was

20:53

in my 20s, I went through this deep

21:01

struggle as well with some of the major

21:01

theological beliefs that we have.

21:10

I know hell is one of them, right?

21:12

This sense of like, you know, is it being

21:12

used against people?

21:17

It's like it's weaponized. It can feel like sometimes.

21:21

control people's fears, then you can

21:21

control them.

21:25

And yet so many of the people that I

21:25

connected with in the churches I was with,

21:32

they were such genuine people. Even the pastors, there wasn't like this,

21:34

like, conspiracy, I'm not saying you're

21:39

saying that at all. I'm just saying there wasn't like this

21:40

sense of sometimes they're just feeling

21:43

like it's all made up and it's all about

21:43

power and things like that.

21:48

You know, in your experience, how...

21:51

What do you see as the major drivers of

21:51

people leaving the church?

21:58

Like help our audience understand, like

21:58

what are the drivers?

22:03

Is it the theological issues? Is it the political issues?

22:07

How is your experience, and then kind of

22:07

bring that together with your experience,

22:11

like how even, like, what were those major

22:11

things that made you feel like, oh man?

22:17

That just doesn't make any sense.

22:20

Why would I believe that? Or why can't I ask these questions?

22:23

Those kind of things. You had alluded to before, but I'd love

22:24

for you to go into more depth if you can.

22:28

Yeah, I mean, and again, it varies for

22:28

everyone.

22:30

And I talk to a lot of people for the book

22:30

for whom there were different moments.

22:34

And a couple of them that I'm thinking

22:34

about is, I talked to one woman who was,

22:42

grew up in a school much like mine with

22:42

Christian textbooks that taught that

22:46

evolutionary theory was wrong. And hearing a lot of the kinds of things I

22:48

did that scientists believe in evolution

22:52

because they wanna deny God, they don't

22:52

wanna acknowledge God's role in the world

22:56

or their lives. And then she talked about just kind of

22:57

becoming fascinated through some things

23:00

that had happened in her life with science

23:00

and learning more about it and just

23:05

getting kind of doing a lot of reading and

23:05

I think watching videos and just kind of

23:10

discovering that what she'd been told

23:10

wasn't in line with what most people who

23:17

know something about science would say is

23:17

true.

23:20

And that, and certainly there are

23:20

evangelicals that accept evolutionary

23:23

theory. I wanted to be clear about that, but the,

23:26

part of that world that I grew up in, and

23:26

really a lot of it.

23:29

I mean, if you look at materials from

23:29

groups like Focus on the Family, you know,

23:32

tend to be creationist leaning. And you know, some people decide that's

23:34

kind of a small thing that they can set

23:37

aside, but it wasn't for me. It always kind of bothered me that I was

23:38

being asked to believe in something that

23:42

really felt like it wasn't real. And that didn't actually feel that it kind

23:44

of felt at odds with some of the things I

23:50

was taught about truth seeking. You know, so that's just one thing.

23:56

I write about encountering people of other

23:56

faiths and the struggle that created for

24:01

me and how I was supposed to think about

24:01

that.

24:05

I hear you when you talk about the

24:05

relationships that you build with really

24:08

genuine people at church. I've had those too, and I still have

24:09

relationships with people who are within

24:14

the evangelical world to one degree or

24:14

another.

24:17

I think it's difficult, and I am certainly

24:17

not here to impugn anybody's motives, and

24:22

I don't think that there's some big

24:22

conspiracy.

24:26

that this is a large movement that has

24:26

been harnessed in many ways by some of its

24:32

leaders in various political ends that may

24:32

or may not have anything to do with what

24:39

Jesus taught. I won't pass judgment on that, but I think

24:40

that that's something I heard from a lot

24:45

of people I talked to. But for me, I think I had a kind of unique

24:47

experience, maybe not that unique, but my

24:54

experience was... As I write about in the book, I had a foil

24:55

for everything I was being taught in the

25:00

form of my grandfather, who when I was

25:00

pretty young, after my grandmother passed

25:06

away, came out as gay after, you know,

25:06

decades of hiding it.

25:10

He'd been born in the 1920s and served in

25:10

World War II, and this was not a time when

25:17

it was okay to be gay. And so his coming out kind of coincided

25:19

with my parents.

25:23

becoming increasingly enmeshed in the

25:23

Christian right.

25:26

And that created, I mean, it's a central

25:26

tension point in my book because it was a

25:30

central tension point of my childhood.

25:33

And so for me, I could go to church and

25:33

talk to all those nice people, but then I

25:38

would go see my grandpa on Christmas and,

25:38

or go home at dinner and sit at the family

25:44

dinner table and pray. And we prayed for his soul almost every

25:45

day because we believed he was gonna burn

25:49

in hell when he died. And that was...

25:52

You know, it's one thing to believe that

25:52

in the abstract.

25:55

It's another thing to believe it about

25:55

someone that you love.

25:59

And we prayed and prayed, and my dad would

25:59

witness to him.

26:01

And, you know, it didn't work.

26:06

And I, you know, and I don't base my

26:06

entire belief system on what my one person

26:11

believes or doesn't believe, but my

26:11

grandfather forced me to contend with that

26:15

reality and to think about difference in a

26:15

way that I don't think I would have

26:20

otherwise. And the book talks a lot about that, how I

26:22

discovered the truth about him and how I

26:28

wrestled with it throughout my life and

26:28

continued to even as an adult in a

26:34

different way. So I hope that answers your question.

26:38

But and certainly there are people who

26:38

continue to be Christians and adjust their

26:43

theology in some way. And I think that's also part of this

26:44

conversation, too.

26:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love how you described it, the

26:49

foil, because I think if all of us are

26:55

honest, there are people in our lives that

26:55

don't fit.

27:00

At least, let me speak for evangelicals,

27:00

because I did grow up in that and still

27:04

consider myself an evangelical.

27:06

There are people that don't fit our

27:06

theology.

27:12

We feel like they, oh, they're not

27:12

Christian.

27:15

So they should be, you know, there's

27:15

something wrong with them or there's

27:19

something like they're not gonna be as

27:19

nice.

27:23

That's kind of how you felt like they're

27:23

not gonna be as nice.

27:25

They're not gonna be as anything. And then when you meet someone and they're

27:27

caring or whatever it is and they don't

27:31

fit your theology, then it challenges you.

27:36

And I feel like that's part of the reason

27:36

so many people, and I would love to hear

27:41

if this was part of your experience.

27:44

where so many people, like when someone

27:44

would become Christian and the first thing

27:48

they would do to say, you gotta basically

27:48

dump all your friends because they're

27:54

gonna basically take you down the road to

27:54

hell, you know, essentially like

27:58

everything you've come into, they're gonna

27:58

take you in the wrong direction.

28:04

And so you essentially dump all your

28:04

friends and then now you're surrounded

28:08

like your only social group. is this group of evangelicals, or people

28:10

with the same belief, and it creates this

28:15

echo chamber. Was that part of your experience?

28:18

Is that part of the experience of the

28:18

people that you were like got to connect

28:23

with through this process?

28:26

Oh, for sure. And I think, you know, a lot of people,

28:26

most people I've written about either were

28:29

raised evangelical or came to it at a

28:29

young age.

28:32

And this is probably not, I'm sure not

28:32

unique to evangelicalism, but, you know,

28:38

communities that basically, I think any

28:38

sort of strict religious tradition or

28:46

community that holds to very sort of rigid

28:46

expectations and views.

28:51

It's hard to, contending with difference

28:51

is difficult.

28:54

And I think there's a tendency to become

28:54

insular and to create an echo chamber

28:58

because that's what's safe and that's what

28:58

reinforces it.

29:01

And I mean, that was, there's a chapter in

29:01

my book called A Parallel Universe, which

29:05

is really about the way that was kind of

29:05

constructed and cultivated for me in the

29:09

form of church and Christian school.

29:12

And like I was saying, all the books and

29:12

media and things that we were exposed to,

29:16

it was talked about sometimes like, well,

29:16

you don't want to...

29:21

You know, you don't want to be, keep bad

29:21

company, you know, I think was the

29:27

terminology that we would use. Corrupts good morals, good character, yes,

29:30

depending on which translation you're

29:34

going with. But I think that could also sometimes mean

29:36

we don't expose ourselves to anybody that

29:42

might challenge us. And I will say, you know, I mean, it's not

29:44

all bad, right?

29:47

Like Like there are things to protect children

29:47

from and to protect ourselves from.

29:52

Like this world is messy and there is evil

29:52

in the world and I don't wanna sort of

29:59

whitewash that. But like I think everything is sort of a

30:02

balance.

30:04

And so when you hide a child and protect a

30:04

child from really...

30:12

aspects of the reality of the world and

30:12

human existence, I think for a lot of us,

30:16

when we get a little bit older, it becomes

30:16

really difficult to, you know, either you

30:21

have to sort of keep your mind in a little

30:21

box or change some of the ways that you

30:26

think about things. And to me, that journey, that process is

30:29

fascinating and I find it exciting and a

30:33

little and absolutely scary too. But like, it's part of why I wanted to

30:35

write the book because I'm fascinated by

30:39

how people sort of come to terms with

30:39

that.

30:43

That's really cool. And so we're 30 minutes in, so it's time

30:44

that I ask you a question about Trump.

30:49

And, you know, out of all the authors

30:49

we've spoken to, I mean, Andrew Whitehead,

30:57

Tim Alberta, like we spoke to all of them

30:57

about their books.

31:00

And I remember specifically with Andrew

31:00

Whitehead, I asked him, like, would he

31:07

have written the book he wrote, American

31:07

Idolatry, like, if Trump never...

31:12

became president.

31:15

And I remember him sort of just really

31:15

thinking about it, like he hadn't really

31:20

considered that, but I think the question

31:20

sort of prompted him to think, like, yeah,

31:24

like it really, like his presidency and

31:24

his effect on the Christian church in

31:29

America has been, I don't even know how to

31:29

describe it.

31:33

It's been pretty powerful and pretty

31:33

scary.

31:37

And I would love to kind of get your

31:37

thoughts on...

31:41

on how do you think Trump, because you did

31:41

mention it kind of early in your book, you

31:46

know, a little bit about Trump, but I'd

31:46

love to kind of get your thoughts about

31:51

how Trump's relationship with Protestant

31:51

Christians in America impacted sort of

31:59

your journey, if at all. It's a fascinating question.

32:03

I mean, I will say I've been interested in

32:03

these themes since long before I thought

32:09

it all about Donald Trump. I mean, I'm 43, just turned, and I

32:10

remember, so I was born like right at the

32:17

beginning of the Reagan era and was a

32:17

teenager during the Clinton scandal.

32:21

And the first election I could participate

32:21

in was the 2000 election, that content

32:26

just won. And so

32:30

Like I have been sort of, you know, as I

32:30

was going through my own personal

32:33

trajectory, I was kind of curious about

32:33

what other people raised in the

32:37

evangelical world were doing and would do.

32:40

And so I've been interested in these

32:40

themes for a long time and I've always

32:43

been kind of the person who was like, I'd

32:43

be like at a party, you know, in my

32:46

twenties and find somebody else who grew

32:46

up like I did and we'd be off in the

32:50

corner, like trauma dumping together, you

32:50

know, because there are sort of similar

32:55

experiences that I think a lot of us

32:55

share.

32:59

But I do think that Trump catalyzed a lot

32:59

of these conversations, as I've alluded to

33:04

already, just through, you know, I think

33:04

there was a convergence of things.

33:08

There was the Trump movement, which really

33:08

was in many ways the culmination of a

33:13

trajectory that I think the Christian

33:13

right had been on for a long time.

33:17

And that really started with the moral

33:17

majority in groups like that worked to

33:21

turn the conservative white evangelical

33:21

community into a voting block that would

33:28

be aligned with. Republican politics.

33:31

And that had been happening for a while,

33:31

but I think Trump really fully harnessed

33:35

it to a point where it even surprised a

33:35

lot of people that Trump, of course,

33:41

became the standard bearer. So there was that moment, but there was

33:44

also, again, like this wouldn't have

33:49

happened. I don't think these kinds of conversations

33:49

would be possible without the internet.

33:52

Like when I was growing up, people who

33:52

left their churches were just called

33:56

backsliders and... bad company.

34:00

And now it's like, well, if you're one, if

34:00

you want to learn about something that you

34:05

hadn't been exposed to, whether it's

34:05

evolution or biblical criticism or the

34:10

history of Christianity or whatever the

34:10

case may be, sexuality, certainly, there's

34:15

a wealth of information at your fingertips

34:15

in a way there wasn't before.

34:18

And there are communities at your

34:18

fingertips through search terms and

34:22

hashtags like ex-vangelical and like

34:22

deconstruction and

34:26

So I think all of that kind of happened at

34:26

the same time and for a whole lot of

34:31

different reasons. And that's at the same time also that the

34:32

country's becoming that the white

34:37

Christian percentage of the population has

34:37

been rapidly shrinking for a whole bunch

34:43

of reasons. I think some of which are in response to

34:43

the politicization of the white Christian

34:48

movement for lack of a better word but

34:48

also some of it's just demographic shifts.

34:54

So. Yeah, I don't think it's just one thing.

34:56

And I think that there would have been

34:56

something to say about this, regardless of

34:58

Donald Trump, but Donald Trump, I think

34:58

really brought a lot of things to a head.

35:04

Yeah, I mean, I'm always struck and

35:04

saddened because...

35:09

Whenever we post, you know, one of our

35:09

videos that kind of talk about Trump and

35:15

the church, specifically on YouTube,

35:15

there's a lot of really great comments.

35:19

And the comments that really, I think,

35:19

impact me the most are the ones that talk

35:24

about, I used to be a Christian, used to,

35:24

you know, do the Wednesday, Saturday

35:29

night, Sunday, Sunday afternoon, sort of

35:29

like, whole thing, and then Trump

35:33

happened. And I looked at my church and I'm like,

35:34

what the heck has happened?

35:37

And I stopped going and I stopped

35:37

believing.

35:40

And it's just really sad. And then when we talk to theologians about

35:41

it, they're just like, I don't know a

35:45

single other person on the planet that's

35:45

had as much of a negative impact on the

35:49

church as Donald Trump.

35:52

And people are just scratching their

35:52

heads.

35:54

It's one of the reasons we, so by the time

35:54

this airs, our five-part documentary

36:02

series about Christian National would be

36:02

out, and we did a whole episode about

36:07

Trump and the evangelical movement.

36:10

We called it Choosing Barabbas, because, I

36:10

don't know, if you're Christian, you'll

36:15

understand the reference. But like, you know, I'm...

36:20

Yeah. So, I'm curious, like, because the book is

36:26

sort of like part journalistic inquiry of

36:33

yourself. autobiography, I'm curious, like, what was

36:35

the hardest part to write in the book?

36:45

Definitely the parts about my family that

36:45

might not surprise you.

36:48

I had to talk about my childhood to talk

36:48

about my childhood.

36:50

And that meant I had to talk about, I

36:50

mean, a lot of it was about investigating

36:54

where a lot of the ideology that drives

36:54

our politics today came from.

36:59

And I had to do that. And I did that in a personal way as well.

37:02

Where did all of these, you know, what

37:02

sort of the history of ideas of Sarah

37:05

McCammon? And so that meant looking back at what I

37:07

was taught and that meant, you know,

37:13

pulling a lot of textbooks and books from

37:13

my childhood.

37:15

It meant pulling journal injuries.

37:18

And it also meant thinking about and

37:18

talking about my own family to some

37:21

extent. I tried to be judicious about what I

37:21

shared.

37:25

And, but I also felt like I needed to be

37:25

honest and authentic and talk about the

37:30

most important pieces of it, some of which

37:30

are very painful.

37:32

So I lost some sleep over those decisions,

37:32

I'll be honest.

37:37

And some people probably won't like them

37:37

very much, but I gave them a lot of

37:41

thought. And... talked to a lot of people in my life about

37:43

how to navigate that.

37:47

And the thing is, you know, I'm a

37:47

journalist, right?

37:50

Like I one of the things I've covered the

37:50

last few years is reproductive rights.

37:55

I've covered, you know, economic

37:55

catastrophes, natural disasters, mass

38:00

shootings. And one of the things that people

38:00

consistently do in my work is show up and

38:04

tell their stories and tell them honestly,

38:04

sometimes when they're painful and a

38:08

little ugly. And I felt like if I was going to write a

38:09

book that was part memoir.

38:13

and ask people I was interviewing for the

38:13

part that wasn't memoir to do that, then I

38:16

had to do the same thing. So, you know, I recorded the audio book in

38:18

December, and that was another chance to

38:23

kind of revisit this text that I'd spent

38:23

so much time with over the last couple of

38:27

years, and I have to say, I felt good

38:27

about it.

38:30

Like, it felt, I felt like I said what I

38:30

wanted to say, and I was grateful that my

38:36

voice was alongside other voices,

38:36

metaphorically.

38:40

They didn't all narrate the book. But that was definitely challenging.

38:46

I think the other thing I'll say quickly

38:46

about that is I wanted to try to strike a

38:49

balance between talking about the pieces

38:49

of this experience that feel

38:52

quasi-universal for those who've left

38:52

these kinds of religious communities

38:56

without saying that there's one

38:56

experience, which again is why I didn't

38:59

wanna just write a memoir. I wanted to talk about lots of other

39:00

people's stories as well, because there

39:05

are commonalities, significant

39:05

commonalities, but of course, each person

39:09

is on their own path and has their own...

39:12

experience of it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

39:16

And I gotta say, I mean, kudos to you to

39:16

be able to come out and say things that

39:22

are painful, especially about your

39:22

childhood, especially about things that,

39:27

you know, people in your family or people

39:27

that are close or whatever it may be, they

39:31

may not, not like you said, they may not

39:31

like it or wish that it hadn't been out

39:36

there, but it is your story and then

39:36

sharing other people's stories.

39:40

I think it's so important. You alluded to it before as well,

39:45

There's this fear in the church of the

39:45

truth, and I don't understand that because

39:53

of all people we should be most eager to

39:53

hear the truth, most eager to hear

40:02

people's perspectives because we're

40:02

supposed to be truth tellers, you know,

40:08

and people who... who represent the truth.

40:11

And I say we as in myself, and I know Will

40:11

is a Christian as well, but we're thinking

40:19

truth should not be something that we're

40:19

afraid of, and yet there felt like there's

40:24

this really, there's a lot of fear around

40:24

this, and fear around, oh people, they're

40:31

gonna go, and they're gonna go to college,

40:31

and they're gonna lose their faith, and

40:36

they're gonna deconstruct everything.

40:39

And it would be awesome if you would help

40:39

clarify what is deconstruction in its

40:50

current context, especially when it comes

40:50

around this movement of ex-vangelicals.

40:57

What does that look like? Because I hear deconstruction, I think of

40:58

the philosophy, I think of Jacques

41:03

Derrida, but then Right. A lot of it's not exactly the same thing.

41:09

It doesn't exactly go into the same amount

41:09

of depth.

41:13

And I'd love if you could demystify that

41:13

for us, this idea of deconstruction.

41:19

What is it? What have you experienced in your own life

41:20

and in the lives of the stories of the

41:24

people that you're telling?

41:28

Yeah, there's definitely an academic

41:28

definition of deconstruction, which I'm

41:31

not even going to attempt to go into

41:31

because that is outside my purview.

41:35

But as I've encountered it, well, first

41:35

I'll say, much like I think a lot of the

41:44

terminology I use in this book just didn't

41:44

exist when I was early in my own process

41:49

of trying to figure out what I believed. And so deconstruction is one of those

41:50

terms.

41:53

And it's not. a word I ever used when I was in the thick

41:55

of it, but in retrospect, it's what I was

41:58

going through. And I think, and I'm not an expert on it,

41:59

but from what I've observed talking to

42:05

other people and seen in these spaces

42:05

online, it's about questioning, examining,

42:12

re-examining, trying to understand where

42:12

ideas came from.

42:16

I was just talking about what's the origin

42:16

of these ideas and beliefs, how many of

42:21

them... do I think makes sense?

42:23

How many were just handed to me as a

42:23

package that I may or may not have asked

42:26

for? And I don't think anybody can, I just

42:27

don't think anybody, we're expected to

42:35

delve into the entire history of the world

42:35

and learn biblical Greek and Hebrew and

42:42

just figure it all out for ourselves.

42:44

But I think that knowing a little bit

42:44

about where these ideas came from.

42:51

For me, it's fascinating kind of

42:51

academically and it's also something that

42:54

sort of informs my understanding of the

42:54

world that I grew up in.

42:58

And that can take the form of books or

42:58

podcasts or just talking to people,

43:02

trusted friends. A lot of the people I interviewed, or at

43:03

least some of the folks I interviewed have

43:07

spent a lot of time reading about the

43:07

history of religion or listening to

43:12

podcasts by academics and journalists and

43:12

historians.

43:18

One of the people I interviewed for the

43:18

book, Stephanie Stalvey, who is an artist

43:21

on Instagram who writes really beautifully

43:21

about some of these, I think, really

43:24

common and resonant experiences that a lot

43:24

of us have had leaving these spaces, she

43:29

talked about a sense of unraveling and

43:29

that if you just pull on one thread, ask

43:35

one question, open one door and look at

43:35

what's beyond it, that things will just

43:40

fall apart. And I think it can feel that way a lot of

43:41

times.

43:43

And I think that's where a lot of that

43:43

fear comes from.

43:47

But I think you're right. I think that there's, we shouldn't be

43:49

afraid of learning and asking questions.

43:55

I mean, it's part of what I believe that

43:55

God made us to do.

43:59

If you believe in God and you believe that

43:59

in some way you came from God, like, I

44:04

think our minds are one of God's greatest

44:04

gifts and it's okay to use them.

44:10

Now, we have to use them with some

44:10

humility and understand that like, I mean,

44:15

I certainly don't. claim to have any answers.

44:17

I mean, I'm not here for those. I'm here to, but I'm also not afraid of

44:19

questions.

44:21

And I think that like, if a question keeps

44:21

burbling up inside of you, feeling like

44:26

you can't, like you have to pretend like

44:26

it's not there.

44:30

I just don't think that's a sustainable

44:30

way of existing.

44:33

You know? yeah. Yeah, you know, so we have a whole lot of

44:35

different types that listen and watch our

44:44

show. Left, right, atheist, Republican,

44:45

Democrat, whatever.

44:50

And... that by the way, there aren't a ton of

44:51

spaces like that anymore and I think there

44:55

should be, so that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, it's good and it's bad.

44:59

It's probably one of the reasons we don't

44:59

necessarily have the same download numbers

45:02

as Joe Rogan because we're not necessarily

45:02

making headlines.

45:06

But we'll talk to satanists, but actually

45:06

be civil and not try to ask gotcha

45:13

questions. So, you know, glass half full, right?

45:18

So, but I would love for you to maybe

45:18

provide a, if possible.

45:26

a like secular explanation of what it

45:26

means to be an ex-phangelical in terms

45:33

that aren't necessarily Christian-y, so to

45:33

speak.

45:36

So, you know, like, is there another

45:36

equivalent that somebody that has never

45:41

gone to church a day in their lives,

45:41

they're listening to this podcast, they're

45:44

like, I have no idea what that means to

45:44

be, you know, part of something and then

45:48

not be a part of it anymore. Is there a parallel that you can provide?

45:54

Oh, a parallel. I mean, I think a lot of people know what

45:55

evangelicalism is, right?

45:57

I mean, just because it's been so, um...

46:02

significant and has such an outsized

46:02

influence on our politics.

46:08

I don't know if I can fully convey it.

46:11

I think a lot of people will understand

46:11

the idea of being part of a community,

46:15

right? Being part of something, feeling like you

46:15

kind of know who you are.

46:20

And maybe you have from your community

46:20

some sense of what it means to, what your

46:28

place in the world is and what you're

46:28

supposed to be doing while you're here.

46:32

At least that's what I think Christianity

46:32

or religion in general often provides

46:37

people, is a sense of community and some

46:37

answers to these questions that I think

46:42

affects a lot of us, like how did we get

46:42

here and where are we going and what do we

46:45

do in the meantime. And then, you know, for whatever reason,

46:48

imagine that community, however you

46:52

identify yourself, was causing you a lot

46:52

of pain and that was asking you to accept

46:57

things and not just accept things but

46:57

endorse things and promote things.

47:02

maybe literally to the point of standing

47:02

on the street corner handing out papers,

47:05

flyers, you know, tracks. And you just couldn't do it, you know?

47:11

That you suddenly just couldn't do

47:11

whatever it was that you had to do to be

47:14

part of that community. And so there's a real pain and a loss that

47:17

goes with that and a sense of like, well,

47:21

who am I now? And will the people that I love accept me?

47:26

And I think for a lot of us, you know, I

47:26

tried really hard to like get my head

47:29

around this stuff. Like I read, you know,

47:32

When my parents took me to this

47:32

creationist seminar as a kid and I would

47:35

read creationists, you know, my Bible

47:35

teachers in high school and college or

47:41

science teachers in high school and

47:41

college would talk to us about, you know,

47:45

all these alternative explanations for everything. And I really tried to get my head around,

47:47

that's just one example, but tried to get

47:49

my head around those things and believe

47:49

them.

47:52

You know, I really tried to like make

47:52

sense of how I could stay in my community

47:58

because it's so frightening and painful to

47:58

leave.

48:01

Yeah. But again, it goes back to like, I can't,

48:02

I don't think it's, I mean, I don't think

48:07

that what God wants for me is to pretend

48:07

to think things I don't think, you know?

48:11

And I hope I'm approaching that all of

48:11

this with some level of humility because I

48:17

really don't, I'm not here to tell people

48:17

what the answers are once again, but I

48:20

also just, I couldn't do and I couldn't be

48:20

what they wanted me to be and be honest

48:26

with myself or the world. And, you know, there's a price tag that

48:28

comes with it.

48:31

Yeah, yeah. Well, here on our show, we love

48:32

journalists.

48:38

We have a lot of them on, talk about

48:38

stuff.

48:41

And every single time we have one on, I'm

48:41

inclined to say we appreciate all the work

48:46

that journalists do. I've got a lot of sympathies for

48:47

journalists, like a thankless job.

48:51

And why in God's name anybody would want

48:51

to be like a congressional reporter is

48:56

beyond me. But especially with this Congress.

49:02

So, I want to talk a little bit about sort

49:02

of your journalistic, like, acumen and

49:11

how, if any, sort of like your, you know,

49:11

deconstruction, ex-vangelicalism, whatever

49:18

you want to call it, sort of like, plays a

49:18

role, especially on like stories that you

49:21

write about religion.

49:23

Like, how do those two mesh or do they

49:23

mesh at all?

49:27

Well, it's been a struggle sometimes

49:27

because, in a couple different ways, I

49:30

mean, first, when I was first starting

49:30

out, I felt like I had to hide my

49:34

evangelical background. I felt like I had some holes in my

49:35

education and I felt like people might

49:40

make assumptions about me or what I

49:40

thought.

49:43

I remember having a colleague early on in

49:43

my first newsroom sort of grill me about

49:48

my views on same-sex marriage and I think

49:48

it may have been because I went where I

49:51

went, I think it may have been because of

49:51

where I went to college.

49:54

And I was very... uncomfortable being asked about that and I

49:56

didn't want to talk about it and I felt

49:59

like it was not something I should be

49:59

talking about at work.

50:02

But it's hard to just not talk about

50:02

things sometimes when you're a journalist.

50:06

You're at least covering them or

50:06

interacting with them.

50:10

There's this old debate about objectivity

50:10

versus some other form of some other

50:16

approach to journalism and I think we as

50:16

an industry have come to a point where we

50:21

realize that everybody brings their own

50:21

perspective and

50:24

background to the reporting, I still very

50:24

much try to be professional as I'm

50:30

approaching people and materials and

50:30

subjects and try to think about things

50:35

from multiple points of view. I think that's really important and I

50:37

think it's important to try to entertain

50:41

arguments that you may not agree with or

50:41

be initially persuaded by within reason.

50:47

Because I think when you're covering a

50:47

complicated world and political landscape—

50:53

it's really important to try to sincerely

50:53

understand the points of view that are

50:59

sort of driving public debate.

51:02

So, there have been times when I felt like

51:02

I didn't want anybody to know where I came

51:06

from, and there have been other times

51:06

where I felt like in the 2016 election

51:10

cycle, like, wow, I actually know a lot

51:10

about this community, and I felt like it

51:17

helped me sometimes to sort of. ask the right questions and maybe bring a

51:19

sort of nuance to my reporting that I

51:24

might not have otherwise. That doesn't mean apologizing for,

51:26

defending, advocating for or against

51:33

anything. It just means, you know, like if I were,

51:33

you know, a science reporter covering

51:40

oncology and I had a deep understanding of

51:40

cellular biology, that would make me a

51:44

better reporter than if I... really didn't know much about it.

51:46

I might be able to do a good job by asking

51:46

the right questions of a lot of experts,

51:50

but being sort of fluent in that language

51:50

and that culture, I think was really

51:55

helpful for me. I mean, just things as simple as going to

51:56

events and talking to evangelicals who

52:00

would just naturally, without thinking

52:00

about it, quote from the Bible or make

52:03

religious references. And I was right there with them and knew

52:04

what they were talking about and could

52:07

then ask the next question. So in some ways, one of my colleagues said

52:10

it was like my superpower.

52:13

But it's also difficult sometimes. I mean, I've spent now several years of my

52:15

life kind of unintentionally, even to the

52:19

point of now writing a book, which

52:19

obviously I did intentionally, but the way

52:23

I got here was unintentional. Thinking about and sort of steeping in all

52:25

of this stuff that was really pretty

52:30

central to my childhood and now has

52:30

reached this point of, you know,

52:34

incredible public significance. And sometimes I struggle with that.

52:38

And it's like, I want to be as...

52:42

as fair and thorough and I don't know if I

52:42

want to say objective because again I

52:46

don't know if that's fully possible but I

52:46

want to be as honest and professional in

52:50

my reporting as I can be but we all come

52:50

from somewhere, you know?

52:54

We all have a history and I think so what

52:54

I've tried to walk that line with this

52:59

book of just sort of acknowledging like

52:59

here, here's my story, let me put it out

53:02

there but you'll also notice I don't tell

53:02

anybody what to believe, what to think,

53:07

who to vote for, who to pray to and I'm

53:07

not interested in that.

53:12

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I really appreciate it.

53:16

It's refreshing to have someone and talk

53:16

to people like yourself who don't have...

53:24

It doesn't feel like there's a strong

53:24

agenda to get you to think a certain way

53:30

or believe a certain way or anything like

53:30

that.

53:33

And it's really nice to feel like you can

53:33

kind of just, okay, yeah, I'm okay with...

53:38

I'm safe to believe what I believe.

53:42

I guess my question kind of piggybacks on

53:42

that.

53:46

And I want to make sure I get this out

53:46

right.

53:48

So just give me one moment, because I want

53:48

to make sure I get this out in the way I'm

53:53

trying to say it. You know, we grew up, you and I, Will

53:55

didn't, right?

54:00

But I have very similar experience where

54:00

you were told what to believe.

54:06

if you didn't believe it, if you had

54:06

questions, they weren't accepted very

54:10

well, because reality is my Sunday school

54:10

teacher didn't know how to answer that

54:14

question. They just didn't know the answer to it, so

54:15

they didn't know how to answer for me, and

54:18

they're afraid if they answered it wrong,

54:18

it would, you know, that's kind of what

54:22

I'm thinking back on those kinds of

54:22

experiences.

54:26

Do you, and do you have any concern about

54:26

the ex-vangelical movement?

54:34

in any way becoming a mirror, just an

54:34

opposite mirror of the evangelical

54:41

movement. For instance, if someone were to come to a

54:41

place and say, well, I don't, I think

54:49

there's the political stuff with the

54:49

evangelical movement, I'm totally against

54:53

that. But you know, I wanna think about this

54:54

hell thing.

54:57

I mean, what do we do with justice? I mean, it's easy for me to sit here and

54:59

say, hell is weird, you know, bad, but

55:03

I've never had someone in my family

55:03

murdered by someone and never wanted

55:07

justice for that person so badly that I

55:07

would feel like they would deserve hell.

55:12

And I'm just, I'm saying that.

55:15

just because of things I've seen on like,

55:15

you know, cold case where I remember this

55:20

person in particular is like, this person

55:20

deserves hell and I want justice.

55:25

What are those kinds of views? What place do they have?

55:27

Like, do you have any concern that even

55:27

itself, these kinds of things solidify

55:33

where someone, there can be kind of that

55:33

you're not accepted because you don't.

55:40

because now the status quo has become

55:40

solidified and you're no longer a part of

55:44

it. You don't believe what ex-vangelicals are

55:44

supposed to believe.

55:47

I'm not saying, I know it's not there yet,

55:47

maybe never will be, I'm not saying it

55:52

will, but is there any concern for you

55:52

with that?

55:56

And maybe that's a bad yes or no question,

55:56

but what concerns do you have, maybe is a

56:01

better question, about the ex-vangelical

56:01

movement moving forward?

56:06

I mean, I think any group is susceptible

56:06

to group think.

56:10

And I think that is something that we all

56:10

have to be aware of.

56:14

I think the ex-vangelical movement, such

56:14

as it is, is much more loosely defined.

56:19

There aren't like churches you can go to

56:19

and publications, but there are podcasts

56:24

and maybe it will, maybe it, there are

56:24

actually, there already is an

56:30

ex-vangelical podcast. I mean, so, and I think people in these

56:30

spaces

56:35

tend to have similar ideas about a lot of

56:35

things.

56:40

But I think it's an interesting question

56:40

you ask.

56:45

I mean, I think that it's a concern I

56:45

heard to some degree from some of the

56:49

people I interviewed. I mean, there are people I talked to who

56:50

are sort of post-evangelical, like my

56:53

friend, Jeff Chu, who I quoted the book

56:53

is, he's a gay Christian who wrote a book

56:59

about coming out as of having grown up in

56:59

evangelical spaces and how.

57:04

painful that was and I talked to him, I

57:04

quote from his book and talked to him

57:08

about it in my book. But he said, he's a little leery of the

57:10

term ex-vangelical because it has sort of

57:14

like this negative energy behind it. And I talked to Jamar Tisby for the

57:16

chapter on black Christians leaving white

57:21

evangelical spaces. And he said he uses words more like

57:22

decolonization instead of deconstruction.

57:27

And so I don't. I think getting too hung up on one

57:29

particular label or maybe one particular

57:33

set of ideas that goes along with it, I

57:33

can certainly imagine there being negative

57:38

consequences to that. I think the exciting thing about it is

57:39

just having a space and language for

57:45

talking about this experience that so many

57:45

people have of being raised in a very

57:53

specific constrained view of the world.

57:56

And then... taking the time to kind of unpack that and

57:57

figure out what pieces to keep and what

58:01

pieces to let go of. And I really think that's something that,

58:02

I mean, even people who didn't grow up in

58:05

the evangelical world will be able to

58:05

relate to because to some extent, we all

58:09

kind of have to deconstruct our

58:09

childhoods, you know?

58:11

The more extreme and insular it is, the

58:11

more intense that process is and the more

58:15

painful it can be. But I think that people of multiple faith

58:16

backgrounds or maybe even no faith

58:21

background will be able to understand.

58:25

you know, again, this concept we were

58:25

talking about earlier of just being part

58:28

of a group and figuring out how you fit

58:28

into it and to what extent you do or do

58:32

not fit into it and why. I think that's a somewhat universal human

58:34

experience.

58:37

Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say real quick, I

58:37

meant that you might plant the first

58:41

ex-vangelical church. I was just being...

58:47

What? Nice. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

58:51

Yeah, so it's all been done before.

58:53

But this is what I do as a journalist. I observe things.

58:56

I see things happening. And I go, OK, let's talk about them.

58:59

And let's kind of describe it and try to

58:59

get our arms around it a little bit.

59:03

That's what I like to do. But I'm glad other people are doing other

59:04

things.

59:08

Yeah, so our last question before we let

59:08

you go, what impact do you hope your book

59:15

will have on the lives of people that read

59:15

it?

59:20

Well, I really hope that Ex-Vangelicals

59:20

will feel seen.

59:23

And like we've been talking about, I'm so

59:23

grateful that there is sort of a language

59:27

around these experiences that didn't exist

59:27

when I was younger.

59:31

I hope they'll feel kind of validated. And I really hope that they'll, you know,

59:33

maybe give the book to a friend or a

59:36

partner or a family member and say like,

59:36

this is how it felt.

59:39

You know, if it's hard to describe. I know my husband, growing up in a totally

59:41

different tradition from my own, said he'd

59:45

learned a lot just from kind of watching

59:45

me as I wrote it.

59:50

I hope that evangelicals who are still in

59:50

evangelical churches and spaces will maybe

59:56

have empathy for those, because probably

59:56

if you're in a church, you know people

1:00:01

who've left it for whatever reason, and

1:00:01

maybe have a little bit more empathy and

1:00:04

understanding for why and be able to

1:00:04

respond in a softer, kinder way.

1:00:13

And then I think for non-evangelicals

1:00:13

also, just...

1:00:17

more of an understanding and empathy for

1:00:17

what it's like to grow up in this massive

1:00:21

subculture. I think just about everybody probably

1:00:22

knows somebody who grew up evangelical

1:00:27

because of the size of this movement.

1:00:29

And you know, I think the more that we

1:00:29

understand each other and even if we're

1:00:35

different, I think that that's a healthy

1:00:35

thing.

1:00:38

So I hope it will help people from

1:00:38

multiple different perspectives and

1:00:43

backgrounds in that way. Yeah, so where can people buy your book,

1:00:45

listen to your book?

1:00:50

Yeah, give us the deets. Yeah, there's an audiobook narrated by

1:00:52

yours truly.

1:00:55

So that's one option. Of course, there's a digital and hard copy

1:00:57

version available now.

1:01:01

And you can go to pretty much any major

1:01:01

bookseller, as well as I think a lot of

1:01:06

indie booksellers are offering it. If you just Google the ex-vangelicals,

1:01:07

E-X- I think I spelled it right.

1:01:15

Hehehe The order page will come up.

1:01:19

I'm also on Substack and all of the

1:01:19

information is there.

1:01:22

So if you Google my name, Sarah McCammon,

1:01:22

it'll come up that way as well.

1:01:28

That's awesome. Well, thank you, Sarah, so much for

1:01:29

spending some time with us, telling us

1:01:32

about your book and big fan of NPR.

1:01:37

Big fan of journalism in general and just

1:01:37

all the other great work that you're

1:01:42

doing. And yeah, just good luck with the success

1:01:43

of the book.

1:01:45

And yeah, we will see you next time.

1:01:50

All right. so much for the great conversation.

1:01:52

I really appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you.

1:01:54

And to our faithful politics listeners,

1:01:54

remember, keep your conversations not

1:01:58

right, not left, but up, and we'll see you

1:01:58

next time.

1:02:00

Take care.