Book Launch and Panel Discussion: "The Exvangelicals" by Sarah McCammon

Please join us for the launch and discussion of The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church (Macmillan Publishers, March 2024) by Sarah McCammon.

4:30 – 6:00 PM:
Roundtable Discussion
Moderator: Sasha-Ann Simons (WBEZ)
Sarah McCammon (NPR)
Elizabeth Dias (The New York Times)
Kathryn Joyce (In These Times)

6:00 – 6:30 PM:
Book signing and sales

6:30 – 8:00 PM:
Reception

From the Publisher:
"The first definitive book that names the massive social movement of people leaving the church: 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."

About the Author:
Sarah McCammon is a National Correspondent for NPR. 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. During the 2016 election cycle, as NPR's lead political reporter covering the Donald Trump campaign, 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. Sarah’s reporting has documented the growing political power of the anti-abortion-rights movement 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. Sarah is frequently called upon to cover breaking news events and national politics. Her work has won numerous awards, including a 2023 Wilbur Award for religion reporting, a Gracie in 2020 for her reporting on reproductive rights, and a National Press Club Journalism Award for team coverage of the Pittsburg synagogue shooting in 2018. Prior to joining NPR in 2015, McCammon reported for NPR Member stations in Georgia, Iowa and Nebraska. She began her career as newspaper reporter in the Chicago area.