In 2016, Chicagoan Blake Chastain started the hashtag #exvangelical, a pithy descriptor that quickly took off as an umbrella term for anyone who has left evangelical Christianity. Faith changes are not a new phenomenon, but over the past decade, exvangelicals have found new ways to form community through social media. Their journeys take divergent paths, with some finding homes in different forms of Christianity or religious practice, while others identify as humanist, agnostic, or atheist. Regardless of where they land, the chance to connect with others who understand their experience can be a lifeline.
Exvangelical and Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back by Blake ChastainTarcherPerigee, hardcover, 288 pp., $28, penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747796/exvangelical-and-beyond-by-blake-chastain
Chastain, who now lives in the Chicago suburbs, continues to contribute to this discourse as a writer and host of the Exvangelical podcast. In his debut book, Exvangelical and Beyond, he charts the rise of right-wing American Christianity, historical efforts to reform evangelicalism, and the modern exvangelical movement. Drawing on history, religious studies, sociology, philosophy, media studies, firsthand interviews, and his own story, he crafts an accessible introduction for newcomers to the topic and provides thoughtful analysis for longtime participants in exvangelical conversations. What follows is an edited version of my interview with Chastain about his new book.
Emily McClanathan: You spend the first half of the book walking through the history of evangelicalism over the past 200 years. You focus on “how the evangelical church went radical” and how it became inextricable “from power, capitalism, and whiteness.” What do you think will be surprising about this history to those who aren’t familiar with it?
Blake Chastain: One of the things that remains surprising for me—especially within my age cohort of being an elder millennial—was learning in my late 20s, early 30s, that it actually wasn’t abortion that catalyzed the religious right, that really shaped so much of modern politics. And learning that actually the motivation to become more politically involved was segregation and the desire to maintain, for instance, the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University. That’s what led a number of these leaders to start to work together and rally all of white evangelicalism into a formidable voting bloc.
One thing I appreciate about your telling of this history is how you emphasize that it didn’t have to turn out this way. You point to specific efforts to reform evangelicalism from within over the years. Why do you think these reform movements have largely been unsuccessful?
It really comes down to the fact that there are these unspoken norms—whether it’s political or racial or having to do with being more affirming of queer identity. Whenever you deviate from the standard accepted orthodoxy, then you see people being ostracized or their influence diminished. Then [evangelicalism] sort of retracts, and the people that maintain influence dampen what could have been a moderating response. That recalcitrance means that, over time, it has gotten more conservative.
You also tell the story of the exvangelical movement that has grown so much in recent years, including through the hashtag you coined and your podcast of the same name. Could you talk about the role of social media in helping people find community when they leave a high-demand religion?
People have been leaving evangelicalism for decades, but that type of leaving was often much quieter before. The only time you might hear about that is if someone had the opportunity to publish a book. But now, with social media, someone can just go on to whichever platform they prefer and find a number of people talking about what it means to leave your faith of origin. I think that that is extremely comforting, because community is such a focus of evangelicalism, and that’s why a lot of people who leave it have a lot of bittersweet recollection of it.
Since 2016, journalists, pundits, and the wider nonevangelical public have often struggled to understand why evangelicals have overwhelmingly supported Trump. You’ve interviewed many exvangelicals over the years, and you also weave your own story into the book. What unique contribution do you think former insiders can bring to cultural conversations about evangelicalism?
I think one of the undervalued skills of ex-evangelicals, exvangelicals, whatever term people use, is really almost a role as an interpreter. I think that that skill is quite valuable in realms like politics, because someone who is evangelical may hear certain words said and receive that information in a different way than a broader audience. So whenever someone has that background, then they are able to surface what the underlying goals might be—especially in an election year when there are sound bites that start to circulate, being able to say, “No, this is what they mean by ‘school choice,’ or this is what they mean by ‘pro-family.’”
You end the book on a hopeful note, writing, “I still choose hope because I believe that the hard-fought lessons exvangelicals have learned can benefit society. As individuals and as a loose cohort, we demonstrate that it is possible to change your mind, and in doing so, change your life. In our current polarized state, this is no small feat.” As we’re in another tumultuous election season, where are you personally finding hope these days?
It does feel like in the last month or so, there has been a shift from this sense of nihilism, or at least some fatalism about our politics—especially at the national level—being almost a foregone conclusion to there seeming to be possibility. There are still so many aspects, even just within the American context, where there’s a lot of things that need to continue to progress for the greater welfare of us as a people. But I am encouraged that that shift has begun to happen.
I’m less online now than I used to be, but it seems like in some areas our rhetoric is finding a different pace or sometimes, even if it’s fractured, it seems more considered. It’s very much a recency bias that I’m thinking about the election, but that is definitely somewhere where it feels like things are possible again. And just the willingness to try something different, I think, is the thing that we all need to cling to.
Exvangelical and Beyond book releaseMon 9/23, 7 PM, Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, 123 W. Jefferson, Naperville, RSVP at eventcombo.com/e/author-event-with-blake-chastainexvangelical-and-beyond-71037, $33 includes copy of book