Exvangelical & Beyond has been out for just over 3 weeks, and time has never felt more strange. It feels like it’s been both a blink and forever. That is complicated by the fact that while this calendar year has been far less hectic than 2023 (or 2022, or 2021, or 2020, or 2019 come to think of it), a lot has been packed into the last few weeks, both publicly and privately.
I did a barrage of podcasts and other interviews and got sick the week after the book release, and my 9 to 5 job has stayed busy. Meanwhile, I’m traveling for a funeral as well as work through most of the next week, so I will be scarce here for a bit.
More than anything, I’m struck by the flood of emotions I wasn’t fully prepared for. I took to Threads to ask other authors how they felt after their book was released, and they offered some incredible & gracious advice.1
I’m sharing this emotional aspect of things because the book itself was as much an emotional labor as it was anything else. In fact, within the book, I talk about how deeply emotional what we now call “the deconstruction process” is:
“Think of white evangelicalism as a house built in the 1800s and rarely kept up beyond the most basic maintenance. When my wife and I were looking for apartments in Chicago, we saw many such buildings. The walls, doorjambs, and crown molding were absolutely caked in paint. Old telephone cable, not used for twenty years, lined the baseboards along the wall. Lighting and outlets were scarce. Evangelicalism is like that—painted over but not updated, then sold to residents as if it were not only suitable for contemporary life but, in fact, the only acceptable place to live.
Now imagine growing up in a home like this, one that has been in the family for generations, and only learning as an adult that, in addition to being outdated, it has always had multiple structural problems: the exterior walls are infested with termites, the paint in your nursery has lead in it, the electrical wiring is overtaxed, and the asbestos-lined walls must be abated. In order to keep living on your own property, you have to tear down so much of what you knew. The familiar things of childhood and adolescence that you have deep sentiment for must now be thrown away, replaced, or refurbished.
This isn’t just a major logistical challenge; it’s also deeply emotional. It involves going room to room, picking up and reminiscing about small objects, packing them up, saving what you can. There is deep and abiding grief there that must be processed. Yes, there are periods of glee and anger too, when you, say, smash a rotted wall with a sledgehammer—but by and large, this is melancholy work. In addition to your feelings about your own life, you also wonder how your ancestors, your parents and grandparents, lived in these conditions, not knowing that it was harming them too. It’s only when you start to rebuild that you start to enjoy your dwelling place again—and you get to decide what remains.” (Emphasis added.)
This is why I chafe at the flippant ways people deride folks for sharing deconstruction stories online. My frustration increases when it’s people still ensconced in evangelical circles and profiting from them, as well as when it’s progressive evangelicals or other Christians who exclaim ‘not all evangelicals’ but write off anyone who uses a term like ex-evangelical. And I suppose it’s because I see so much of ‘deconstruction’ as grief work. And I have respect for those who share a portion of their grief, as I shared in this post from 2022:
Meanwhile, as Justin Gentry pointed out in the latest episode of REVcovery, folks like Lee Strobel have been talking about being a ‘former atheist’ for much longer than he was an atheist (That comment comes at 41:59 in the episode below).
I’ll have more to say soon enough, but as I said, I’m traveling for personal and business reasons for the next week and may not have occasion to publish here. In the meantime, enjoy one more podcast appearance:
If you want to support my ongoing work, consider a paid subscription (25% of net proceeds are donated annually):
I don’t know how to embed Threads posts here or if it’s even possible, but if you know, help a writer out.