Sarah McCammon

Exvangelicals

Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sarah McCammon was taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather or Muslim friend would go to hell, and that she would, too, if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower and—most of the time—a true believer. But through it all, she was plagued by fears and deep questions as what she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world. After spending her early adult life striving to make sense of an unraveling worldview, she found herself face-to-face with it in 2016 as she covered the Trump campaign for NPR, where she witnessed the power and influence that evangelical Christian beliefs held on the political right. Sarah also learned she was not alone: she is among a rising generation of the children of evangelicalism who are fleeing the fold, thinking for themselves, and deconstructing what feel like the “alternative facts” of their upbringing. Rigorously reported and deeply personal, The Exvangelicals is the story of the people who make up this generational tipping point, including Sarah herself. This is the first definitive book that names and describes the post-evangelical movement: identifying its origins, telling the stories of its members, and examining its massive cultural, social and political impact.