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EXVANGELICAL AND BEYOND

HOW AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY WENT RADICAL AND THE MOVEMENT THAT'S FIGHTING BACK

A timely exploration of evangelicalism’s influence and how former believers find meaning beyond it.

A former evangelical unpacks what it means to deconstruct that faith.

Chastain grew up evangelical and went to an evangelical college, aspiring to be a pastor. Coming to “a more open-minded and historical understanding of Christianity” there, he became alienated by the “militant, conservative faith” that seemed contrary to its spirit. In 2016 (not coincidentally, the year of Trump’s rise to power), Chastain created the term “exvangelical” to denote a person who has left evangelicalism, launching a podcast and hashtag of the same name. The term has since taken on a life of its own, with the hashtag to date boasting 1.7 billion impressions on TikTok ("a platform I hardly ever post to," the author comments). In his highly readable first book, Chastain explains why the term found such deep resonance, especially in online spaces, among populations of people leaving the evangelical church and losing their faith, though not always both and not always in that order. As he carefully points out, “the term [exvangelical] acknowledges personal autonomy because, although it does define past experience, it...doesn’t try to dictate what people who leave evangelicalism should believe.” In addition to describing the online movements and communities that have taken shape around this idea, the author provides readers with an in-depth history of American evangelicalism from its roots in the 1840s through its rise to cultural dominance in the years since. Those who grew up evangelical may particularly relate to Chastain’s Christian pop culture references, but his inclusive, personable writing will appeal to readers of all backgrounds. Beyond theology, “evangelicalism can also be understood as a public, an imagined community, a market, and a voting bloc,” he argues, and Christian nationalism has risen in influence to impact the lives of every American, whether they consider themselves believers or not.

A timely exploration of evangelicalism’s influence and how former believers find meaning beyond it.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024

ISBN: 9780593717073

Page Count: 288

Publisher: TarcherPerigee

Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Awards & Accolades

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  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2017


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  • National Book Award Finalist

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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