
Exvangelical and Beyond
How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That's Fighting Back
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Narrated by:
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Blake Chastain
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By:
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Blake Chastain
About this listen
A pioneer of the “exvangelical” movement examines how toxic right-wing beliefs took over American Christianity—and why people are leaving the church and speaking out against it
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. He created the popular hashtag #exvangelical and the hit podcast of the same name, and soon became part of a growing movement of people walking away from toxic religion and using the unique tools of the internet to speak out, find healing, and build new communities.
In Exvangelical and Beyond, Chastain delves into evangelicalism’s deep roots in American politics and society, and explains why and how so many Christians—and ex-Christians—are forging a new path online. Blending history, personal narrative, and incisive analysis, this is a must-hear for anyone who has left the church, is deconstructing their own faith, or simply wants to understand religious culture in America.
©2024 Blake Chastain (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Highly readable....A timely exploration of evangelicalism’s influence and how former believers find meaning beyond it."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“An insightful exploration of faith, identity, and activism in a nation at the crossroads of religious fervor and social change...At once alarming and hopeful, this is a book that every American must read, regardless of religious affiliation.”
—Reza Aslan, New York Times bestselling author of Zealot
“Blake Chastain created the #Exvangelical hashtag. In doing so, he created a category in which millions of people now gather, commiserate, heal, and learn. By giving us Exvangelical and Beyond, Chastain continues this legacy....This is more than either a personal history or a scathing polemic. It’s a blueprint of a movement—and a call for change.”
—Bradley Onishi, author of Preparing for War
“Chastain has been the thoughtful commentator and mindful observer I have turned to in my often desperate searches online for a counternarrative to American evangelical religiosity that...told me my Black, queer, and trans body had no place in the body of Christ....Blake stands out as a trustworthy narrator of these times....This book, this thinker, and this movement’s story are worth your time, attention, and heart.”
—lenny duncan, author of Dear Church and Dear Revolutionaries
“This book is an essential addition to the current conversation about not just evangelicalism but American religion, politics, and culture today.”
—David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University
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Story
When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church, she never imagined it would expose the ethical chasm at the core of the Southern Baptist Convention: male religious leaders so focused on institutional protection that they sacrifice the safety of children. A book about speaking out and speaking up, Baptistland weaves together Christa’s revealing story of hope amid Southern patriarchy and religious fundamentalism.
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It was very boring.
- By Randall Sink on 07-24-24
By: Christa Brown
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American Idolatry
- How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church
- By: Andrew L. Whitehead
- Narrated by: Andrew L. Whitehead
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Power. Fear. Violence. These three idols of Christian nationalism are corrupting American Christianity. Andrew Whitehead is a leading scholar on Christian nationalism in America and speaks widely on its effects within Christian communities. In this book, he shares his journey and reveals how Christian nationalism threatens the spiritual lives of American Christians and the church.
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An “edge of inside” follow up to Jesus and John Wayne
- By Brette on 09-14-23
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A Well-Trained Wife
- My Escape from Christian Patriarchy
- By: Tia Levings
- Narrated by: Tia Levings
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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A review from a chronic non-reviewer
- By T. L. P. on 08-11-24
By: Tia Levings
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You Are Your Own
- A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity
- By: Jamie Lee Finch
- Narrated by: Jamie Lee Finch
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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great content.
- By Corey Moore on 11-19-19
By: Jamie Lee Finch
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The Woman They Wanted
- Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife
- By: Shannon Harris
- Narrated by: Shannon Harris
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Her Story is Our Story
- By Amazon Customer on 11-04-23
By: Shannon Harris
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The Widening of God's Mercy
- Sexuality Within the Biblical Story
- By: Christopher B. Hays, Richard B. Hays
- Narrated by: Simon Kerr
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Discussions of the Bible and human sexuality often focus on a scattered handful of specific passages. But arguments about this same set of verses have reached an impasse, two leading biblical scholars believe; these debates are missing the forest for the trees. In this learned and beautifully written book, Richard and Christopher Hays explore a more expansive way of listening to the overarching story that scripture tells. They remind us of a dynamic and gracious God who is willing to change his mind, consistently broadening his grace to include more and more people.
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The Bible As a Whole
- By Greg Impink on 03-20-25
By: Christopher B. Hays, and others
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Losing Our Religion
- An Altar Call for Evangelical America
- By: Russell Moore
- Narrated by: Russell Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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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?”
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A Prophetic Call to Renewal
- By Rachel Stanton on 07-26-23
By: Russell Moore
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Out of Focus
- My Story of Sexuality, Shame, and Toxic Evangelicalism
- By: Amber Cantorna-Wylde
- Narrated by: Amber Cantorna-Wylde
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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When a mass shooter killed five people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, grieving people graffitied James Dobson's Focus on the Family headquarters with the words "Their blood is on your hands." Such an accusation comes as no surprise to Amber Cantorna-Wylde, whose father is a Focus on the Family executive and cast Amber out of her family when she came out in 2012.
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Deeply Insightful
- By randal b. on 09-13-24
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Rift
- A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy
- By: Cait West
- Narrated by: Cait West
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Compelling narrative and beautifully written
- By Maria Hauskins on 05-05-24
By: Cait West
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Testimony
- Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation
- By: Jon Ward
- Narrated by: Jon Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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True Unbiased Journalism
- By S. Schneider on 06-03-23
By: Jon Ward
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The Violent Take It by Force
- The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
- By: Matthew D. Taylor
- Narrated by: Asa Siegel
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale.
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Comprehensively Researched
- By Chuck Anderson on 09-25-24
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Searching for Sunday
- Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
- By: Rachel Held Evans
- Narrated by: Rachel Held Evans
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals - church culture seemed so far removed from Jesus. Yet despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing her back. And so she set out on a journey to understand the Church and to find her place in it.
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Don't bother
- By Andi Andrzjewski on 12-05-16
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The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
- American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
- By: Tim Alberta
- Narrated by: Tim Alberta
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement.
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Looked forward to this a long time and wasn’t disappointed!
- By Josh Hulbert on 12-08-23
By: Tim Alberta
What listeners say about Exvangelical and Beyond
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Warren Collier
- 10-04-24
Wondering why people are deconstructing? Read this
"Exvangelical" has been one of my favorite podcasts for years and this book is such a natural extension of Blake's work. It's great. He does such a fantastic job of breaking down the journey, background, and potential future so many exvangelicals have had. The book shines brightest in his commentary of present day evangelicalism and how it has distorted into a Trumpian monstrosity and why so many of us decided to leave. Not because we no longer believed, but because still WANTED to believe but saw nothing recognizable it what the evangelical church was quickly becoming. It is worth a listen. Especially for anyone out there who still identifies as evangelical and is trying to understand why your friends are "deconstructing" this book is WELL worth your time.
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- Ed
- 10-02-24
Excellent insight into a religion some of us looking from the outside.
This book clarified and ratified some many view and ideas I had about the Evangelicals. I’m not a religious person but was raised Catholic, and as the author I started asking questions in college, while taking a class that explain all religions. What separates evangelicals is their thirst for power. Monetary power, racial power, and power over people’s lives. This book is great. Faith is good but That Evangelical religion is a cult and I see it as evil.
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- Yoo Know-Who
- 10-03-24
Crazy how relatable so much of this truly is!
I'd been looking forward to this book since Blake announced it on his podcast. It was worth the wait!
There are moments that it really soars - where he's talking about his own personal experiences or the experiences of others. When it gets down and dirty and personal with how evangelicalism has affected folks, that's when the book is at its most powerful. When it goes into history lessons, that's where I found myself tuning out a little bit, even though I understand it's important to have historical context for why things are the way they are. Explaining history isn't as much his strong suit as it is when he talks about his own life.
All the same, I found so much of this very relatable to my own life in a validating way.
Thank you for writing this, Blake!
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