Non-fiction Book Review: The Exvangelicals | Sarah McCammon

Part memoir and part journalistic investigation—Sarah McCammon’s The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church is a powerful and thought-provoking study of the growing social movement of people leaving the white evangelical churches where they were raised. With the availability of social media and global connectedness, these people who may have been quietly experiencing this alone two decades ago are now finding a community of people who are experiencing the same “deconstruction” as they are.

McCammon brings a mix of her personal experiences and her years working as a national political correspondent for NPR to craft a book that is as poignant as it is thought-provoking. This is not an anti-Christian movement, McCammon clarifies from the very beginning.  Many of the people who have gone through this “deconstruction” to exvangelical are still believers and participants in the Christian faith. Some have moved towards other mainline faiths (e.g., Protestantism, Catholicism), others are “reconstructing” the evangelical faith to better align with their beliefs and values, and others are leaving the faith entirely as they explore other faith traditions or spiritual practices. This is a story of the journey that has brought people with these shared experiences together.

Regardless of where their exvangelical journey takes them, many who have chosen this path have found a greater sense of peace. However, getting there often involves confronting years of religious trauma, as well as facing the challenge of learning to follow their intuition about morality and faith that violates the doctrine that once governed their life.

Throughout the book are personal anecdotes (from McCammon and others), but the majority of the first half of the book is more academic and investigative in nature. McCammon shares the deep research that can only come from background as a journalist (I come from a family of journalists and PhDs, so I can tell you that I have experienced firsthand being called out for not having a source!). An interesting thread in the book surrounds the paradox that as the number of people who identify as white evangelical in the United States decreased from 23% in 2006 to 14% in 2022, many of the political aspirations of this group became mobilized during the period (e.g., the overturning of Roe v. Wade, legalizing gay marriage). How can a movement be mobilizing as it is also decreasing in size?

The 2016 election and Trump’s victory (which McCammon covered as a political correspondent), Trumps presidency, and the subsequent rally to re-elect him in 2020 (and honestly in 2024) is discussed at length. One connection between the two seemed to be that as many people left the white evangelical ranks, others started to identify with it because they supported Trump. This shift isn’t exclusively related to Trump, but it is perhaps the most striking example of the shift we are seeing for Americans to choose their religious identification by their political views, rather than the reverse. For instance, people who practice Christianity but want to distance themselves from what was happening on the Right politically began to identify as “nones”—people who don’t identify with any specific religious ideology. The reverse was happening as well.

The point which confronts us directly while reading McCammon’s book is whether the goal of evangelicalism all along was as a political movement, disguised as a religious movement; politics dressed in religion’s clothing, perhaps. Meanwhile beliefs that were never part of evangelicalism in the past are now becoming part of it as the political movement shifts that direction. As all of this happens, monetization becomes a part of deconstruction in the same way that it was a part of evangelicalism in the past. People looking to deconstruct and find resources and coaching to support that transition are finding people who are making money off of those looking to leave the evangelical faith. At a certain point, people are being prayed upon no matter which direction they move. It makes one wonder whether this is a tactic to actually push deconstructionists back towards evangelicalism?

As the book goes on, it meanders to be much more about McCammon’s personal experiences and I felt some ambiguity in where her beliefs and stances are on this movement. Perhaps I’m expecting too much, because a good portion of this book is intended to be a memoir. At the same time, much of the early part of the book is devoted to fact finding and laying out how the religious landscape became the political landscape, and they switched places. I wanted more supposition (and perhaps this isn’t the right place to find it) on how this minority group has garnered the influence they have in the political landscape. In a country that operates on a two-party system, many republicans are being pushed much further towards the far right than they would otherwise be because the party leaders are leaning into that narrative. Meanwhile on the democratic side, younger generations who tend to be further left are being forced towards the middle because of an aging voter base who still seeks ways to be bipartisan.

I’m going to stop here because I am getting into a territory where I don’t feel I’m the right person to extrapolate on these points. Regardless of where you fall (Republican or Democrat)—I think you’ll find the information presented in The Exvagelicals to leave you with more questions to ponder than answers. I also wonder whether these experiences that many exvangelicals identify with may not be experiences that current evangelicals have also gone through. There is a question hanging over the book whether the far-right political party has replaced evangelicalism in many ways, changing the way current generations are experiencing the religious movement.

This is a good book for anyone who wants to dive into this topic in a way where the information is presented but conclusions aren’t yet drawn. This book may be controversial, but the execution of it stays unbiased (enough) to allow people from many viewpoints to find things to think about. I suspect many will not come to the same conclusions, though. The second half of the book is much more about McCammon’s own personal journey through the deconstruction process—what led her there, what challenges she faced, and where she has landed. Hers is only one of many thousands of experiences, yet it’s also one that took bravery to lay out for the world to see.

Thank you to St. Martins Press for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author | Sarah McCammon

Sarah McCammon is a National Political Correspondent for NPR and co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast. Her work focuses on political, social and cultural divides in America, including abortion policy and the intersections of politics and religion. She’s also a frequent guest host for NPR news programs.

She has covered several presidential elections, including the 2016 campaign, when she reported on the rise of the Trump movement, divisions within the Republican Party over its future, and the role of religion in those debates. McCammon’s reporting has documented the growing political power of the religious right culminating with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, efforts by abortion rights advocates to push back, and the rising tide of white Christian nationalism.

She’s frequently called upon to cover breaking news events and national politics. Her work has won numerous awards, among them a 2023 Edward R. Murrow Award for her coverage of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, a 2023 Wilbur Award for religion reporting, a Gracie Award in 2020 for her reporting on reproductive rights, and a National Press Club Journalism Award for team coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018.

McCammon is the author of The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church, a 2024 book that is part memoir and part journalism, about the movement of people who grew up inside the powerful evangelical subculture and ultimately left in response to its increasing politicization.

She has appeared on numerous television programs including CNN’s Inside Politics, MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, PBS Newshour, and CSPAN’s Washington Journal.

Prior to joining NPR in 2015, she reported for NPR Member stations in Georgia, Iowa, and Nebraska. She began her career as newspaper reporter in the Chicago area.

McCammon grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and is a graduate of Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois.