As a twenty-three-year-old singer and the soon-to-be wife of youth pastor Joshua Harris, nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon Joshua's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts Shannon's remarkable experience inside Big Church—where she was asked to live within a narrow definition of womanhood for almost two decades—and her journey out of that world and into a more authentic version of herself.

Jill and Derick knew a normal life wasn’t possible for them. As a star on the popular TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jill grew up in front of viewers who were fascinated by her family’s way of life. She was the responsible, second daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle’s nineteen kids; always with a baby on her hip and happy to wear the modest ankle-length dresses with throat-high necklines.

Jon Ward's life is divided in half: two decades inside the evangelical Christian bubble and two decades outside of it. In Testimony, Ward tells the engaging story of his upbringing in, and eventual break from, an influential evangelical church in the 1980s and 1990s. Ward sheds light on the evangelical movement's troubling political and cultural dimensions, tracing the ways in which the Jesus People movement was seduced by materialism and other factors to become politically captive rather than prophetic.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate's staunchest supporters? Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism.

"Biblical womanhood" is the idea that the Bible teaches God-ordained male leadership and female submission in the home and subordination in the church. Some say this hierarchy of authority is sufficiently evidenced by examples of male leadership (and lack of female leadership) in the Bible: the first human was male, Israel's official priests were male, most authors of Scripture were male, Jesus was male and chose twelve male Apostles. God is addressed as Father. Wives are commanded to submit to their husbands.

Dr. Laura Anderson takes an honest look at a side of religion that few like to talk about. Drawing from her own life and therapy practice, she helps listeners understand what religious trauma is and isn't, and how high-control churches can be harmful and abusive, often resulting in trauma. She shows how elements of fundamentalist church life—such as fear of hell, purity culture, corporal punishment, and authoritarian leaders—can cause psychological, relational, physical, and spiritual damage.

Using the written word as her witness statement, Jessica Willis Fisher tells a lacerating story of finding her voice after two decades of silence and an unforgettable story of risk and faith.

Some Christians think Paul's reference to "saved through childbearing" in 1 Timothy 2:15 means that women are slated primarily for delivering and raising children. Alternate readings, however, sometimes fail to build on the best historical and textual evidence. Sandra Glahn thinks that we have misunderstood Paul by misunderstanding the context to which he wrote. A key to reading and applying 1 Timothy, Glahn argues, lies in getting to know a mysterious figure who haunts the letter: the goddess Artemis.

American evangelical Christianity has lost its way. While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals. Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope. As greater and greater numbers of younger Americans bleed out from the church, even the most rooted evangelicals are wondering, “Can American Christianity survive?”

All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.

Most Christian parenting books are ready with exact practices every family should follow in order to raise obedient children. In this obedience-training model, faith is a wall, constructed brick by brick, as adults tell children what to believe and how to behave. But what if obedience is not the goal of Christian parenting? What if it’s our job as parents to instead help our kids get to know God and discover that God can be trusted? Woven can help children anchor to who God is and have faith practices that are rich, textured, and all their own.

Acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement's most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis—and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term "evangelical" means today.

Jinger, along with three of her sisters, wrote a New York Times bestseller about their religious convictions. She believed this level of commitment would guarantee God's blessing, even though in private she felt constant fear that she wasn't measuring up to the high standards demanded of her.

Most pastors and leaders are godly, wonderful people that don't abuse their sheep. They shepherd their flocks gently and patiently. But we can't ignore the growing number who do not. We need gentle shepherds now more than ever, and in Bully Pulpit, seminary president and biblical scholar Michael J. Kruger offers a unique perspective for both church leaders and church members on the problem of spiritual abuse, how to spot it, and how to handle it in the church.

Women were there. For centuries, discussions of early Christianity have focused on male leaders in the church. But there is ample evidence right in the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, and as respected leaders. Nijay Gupta calls us to bring these women out of the shadows by shining light on their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the first Christian churches.

Alternating between laugh-out-loud scenes from his childhood and acidic ruminations on the present state of an America he and his famous fundamentalist parents helped create, best-selling author Frank Schaeffer asks what the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs and the paranoid fantasies of the “right-wing echo chamber” are really all about. Here’s a hint: sex.

Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America is part memoir and part investigative analysis that explores the explosive and confusing intersection of faith, politics, and sexuality in Christian America. The quest to find an answer is at the heart of Does Jesus Really Love Me? - a personal journey of belief, an investigation, and a portrait of a faith and a nation at odds by award-winning reporter Jeff Chu.

Despite her famous pseudonym, no one knows the truth about “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1970 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent years with Norma, discovered her personal papers, a previously unseen trove, and witnessed her final moments. With an explosive revelation at the core of the case, he tells her full story for the first time.

Since the 1970s, an important new figure has appeared on the center stage of American evangelicalism - the celebrity preacher's wife. Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars - such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Victoria Osteen - write best-selling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach.

Rob Schenck’s extraordinary life has been at the center of the intersection between evangelical Christianity and modern politics. Attacked by partisans on both sides of the aisle, he has been called a "right-wing hate monger", the "ultimate D.C. power-broker", a "traitor", and "turncoat." Now, this influential spiritual adviser to America’s political class chronicles his controversial, sometimes troubling career in this revelatory and often shocking memoir. He reflects on his path to God, his unconscious abandonment of his principles, and his return to the convictions that guide him.

At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy.

In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls - resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder - and trapped them in a cycle of shame.

The Book of Pride captures the true story of the gay rights movement from the 1960s to the present, through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the movement and made it happen. These individuals fought battles both personal and political, often without the support of family or friends, frequently under the threat of violence and persecution.

Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.

Teenager Lucas Leonard made shocking admissions in front of the altar - he'd practiced witchcraft, conspired to murder his parents, and committed unspeakable crimes. The confessions earned him a brutal beating by a gang of angry church members, including his parents and sister. Lucas was brought to the hospital dead, awakening the sleepy community of Chadwicks, New York, to the horror that had been lurking next door. Nine members of Lucas' church would eventually find themselves facing murder-related charges. But how did they get to that point? And what made Lucas confess?

Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.

In Jesus Feminist, Bessey shares her spiritual journey, which ranges from growing up in a post–gender-debate home to learning about the worldwide struggles of women and the obstacles even a well-meaning church can pose. Through disarmingly intimate storytelling, she tells how she grew to understand the story of God and the vastness of his work through women.

Based on extensive research, and handled with Dr. Dobson's trademark down-to-earth approach, Bringing Up Girls will equip parents like you to face the challenges of raising your daughters to become healthy, happy, and successful women who overcome challenges specific to girls and women today and who ultimately excel in life.

At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure.

Pastor and bestselling author Greg Laurie was one of those fortunate few blessed with an insider’s view of Billy Graham’s world for more than two decades. With the same painstaking research and eye for detail that distinguishes his previous biographies, Steve McQueen: Salvation of an American Icon and Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, Laurie now turns to the life of his beloved mentor, offering the intimate perspective of a disciple and friend.

In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls - resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder - and trapped them in a cycle of shame.

As a twenty-three-year-old singer and the soon-to-be wife of youth pastor Joshua Harris, nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon Joshua's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts Shannon's remarkable experience inside Big Church—where she was asked to live within a narrow definition of womanhood for almost two decades—and her journey out of that world and into a more authentic version of herself.

Raised in the Christian patriarchy movement, Cait West was homeschooled and could only wear clothes her father deemed modest. She was five years old the first time she was told her swimsuit was too revealing, to go change. There would be no college in her future, no career. She was a stay-at-home daughter and would move out only when her father allowed her to become a wife. She was trained to serve men, and her life would never be her own.

Rooted in her experiences growing up in an evangelical Christian family, Jamie Lee Finch’s You Are Your Own offers an overview of evangelicalism and the painful confusion and anxiety experienced under its demands. Finch explores the mechanisms of trauma and how fundamentalist denominations match the patterns connected with PTSD. She elaborates on the doubt, guilt, fear, and grief that haunt those leaving the evangelical faith and offers an approach to help them recover healthy self-worth and resilience.

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.” A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, and that she, too, would go to hell if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower. But through it all, she was plagued by fears and deep questions as the belief system she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world.

With the rise of Trumpism, the American evangelical movement has more political influence than ever—yet at the same time, people are leaving Christianity in record numbers. Why are so many people walking away from the right-wing religion they were raised in, and what are they doing to overcome the past? Writer and podcaster Blake Chastain is uniquely positioned to understand this phenomenon. Raised evangelical, he went to a Christian college intending to become a pastor—until he found himself unable to reconcile his faith with the prejudice and even abuse he saw being done in God’s name.

Biblical womanhood - the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers - pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It was born in a series of clearly definable historical moments.

What if the goal of raising a Christian girl was about more than keeping her virginity intact? What if it was about raising a strong, independent young woman who knows who she is, uses her voice, and confidently steps into the life God has for her? From the authors of The Great Sex Rescue comes this evidence-based book grounded on surveys of over 28,000 women to offer moms a fresh, freeing, and biblically grounded message of sexuality and self-worth for their daughters that is less about the don'ts and more about the dos.