The Exvangelicals: NPR political correspondent Sarah McCammon on leaving the evangelical church

NPR national political correspondent Sarah McCammon was raised in the midwest in a strictly devout evangelical family. A fervent believer growing up, she became increasingly unsettled and torn as her world view expanded. The tipping point came in 2016, when she covered the Trump campaign and witnessed firsthand the grip the Christian right had on the Republican party. She also came to realize she was not alone but part of a rising generation fleeing the fold of their upbringing and learning to think for themselves.

Lisa Mullins, host of All Things Considered, moderates a conversation with McCammon about her new book, “The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church” A deeply personal memoir but written with the eye of an investigative journalist, the book is a must-read to understand this movement’s cultural foundations, its hold on the right wing and its impact on the presidential election.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase from our bookstore partner Brookline Booksmith and McCammon will sign following the conversation.

CitySpace Tickets
Premiere: $30.00 (includes reserved seating in the front of the theater)
General: $20.00
BU Faculty/Staff: $15.00 (must present a valid BU ID upon arrival)
Student: $10.00 (must present a valid student ID upon arrival)

Ways To Save
WBUR’s Legacy Circle, Murrow Society, Sustainers and Members save $5.00 on premiere and general tickets to this event. To apply the discount to your ticket purchase online, you’ll need to enter a promo code. You can get your code by emailing membership@wbur.org.

Registrants may be contacted by CitySpace about this or future events.

About “The Exvangelicals”
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 and — most of the time — a true believer. But through it all, she was increasingly plagued by fears and deep questions as the belief system she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world.

After spending her early adult life striving to make sense of an unraveling worldview, by her 30s, she found herself face-to-face with it once again as she covered the Trump campaign for NPR, where she witnessed first-hand the power and influence that evangelical Christian beliefs held on the political right.

Sarah also came to discover that she was not alone: she is among a rising generation of the children of evangelicalism who are growing up and fleeing the fold, who are thinking for themselves and deconstructing what feel like the “alternative facts” of their childhood.

Rigorously reported and deeply personal, “The Exvangelicals” is the story of the people who make up this generational tipping point, including Sarah herself. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is the first definitive book that names and describes the post-evangelical movement: identifying its origins, telling the stories of its members and examining its vast cultural, social and political impact.