July 1, 2019
Lenz (Belabored) states that "Christianity and politics have made the pulpit a complicated place." In particular, the author finds megachurches, evangelicalism in general, and areas of the Bible Belt to be purveyors of cultural conservatism. In her words, they offer "a dangerous lie," providing "an easy brand of corporate Christianity" that energizes adherents far more than any social gospel. This is the God land that Lenz surveys, against which her own spiritual as well as marital divorce serve as starting points for a piercing cross-examination of the religious landscape within the Bible Belt. For Lenz, her unwillingness to remain silent in the face of domestic horrors such as the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 spell her doom both as an evangelical and as a pastor's wife. She is proimmigration, ecumenical to a fault, and archly political, attuned to feminist issues only when her voice and advocacy reach a theological glass ceiling. American religion, concludes Lenz, is dying. But, as the Christian message, it is in resurrection that believers find their faith. VERDICT A spiritual awakening for readers of all beliefs.--Sandra Collins, Byzantine Catholic Seminary Lib., Pittsburgh
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Starred review from June 17, 2019
Journalist Lenz blends memoir and reporting in this slim but powerful debut on the faith and politics of Middle America. After a lifetime of straining against her prescribed place within a white, Protestant world, Lenz left both her marriage and church in the wake of the 2016 election. Unable to compromise any longer with a husband who voted for Donald Trump, and unable to worship at a church that ignored violent white supremacy, divorce and departure become her only path forward. “The story of who leaves the church,” Lenz writes, “is just as important as the story of who stays.” In a series of episodic chapters, the author travels across the Midwest exploring stories of both the belonging and exclusion she finds there. Highlights include her tale of a home church that imploded around questions of authority and submission, and her tracking of a resurgent “muscular” and patriarchal Christianity. She also reveals online and physical communities built by women, queer Christians, and people of color pushed out of conservative evangelical spaces. This work will resonate with any readers interested in understanding American landscapes where white, evangelical Christianity dominates both politics and culture.