Talk:Exvangelical

Suggestions for further development

Hi! I'm an exvangelical writer myself--in the interest of full disclosure and transparency, even though in making my login Wikipedia encouraged me to use an anonymous handle, I had better just state that I am Chrissy Stroop--so I will refrain from editing the page on the exvangelical movement. But I'd like to point those editing the page to some reliable sources and to make some suggestions.

This is my first time posting to a Wikipedia talk page, so if I'm doing something wrong, please let me know, and I'll gladly accept correction.

I appreciate that there is a section on evangelical responses to the exvangelical phenomenon, but that is not the whole of the reception of the exvangelical movement. I think it would be only fair to include positive reception as well--as, for example, in Freedom From Religion Foundation's Andrew Seidel's recent "love letter" to exvangelicals published by Religion Dispatches. I was also wondering if it might also be possible to include a section on exvangelical pushback against the dismissiveness of even the more serious evangelical responses? Exvangelicals have written a few, including, of course, Blake Chastain's RNS article that is already cited.

Here are links to a few I've written, along with a blog post by another exvangelical, Daniel Griffin:

·https://flux.community/chrissy-stroop/2021/04/russell-moore-had-crisis-faith-it-didnt-help-him-understand-ex-evangelicals (the unusually nuanced and open evangelical author and scholar David Dark repeatedly took to Twitter to urge Russell Moore to reply directly to this open letter to him, but Moore has not replied)

·https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/evangelical/

·https://religiondispatches.org/evangelicals-in-moral-panic-over-exvangelicals/

·https://hillcountryexvie.wordpress.com/2021/09/21/yes-mr-gilson-exvangelicals-are-a-real-thing/

In addition to the above, I was wondering if it might be possible to create a "prominent exvangelicals" category to help provide connections among various related articles? The most famous exvies would include Kevin Max (formerly of the very popular contemporary Christian rock band DC Talk), Joshua Harris (author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, the quintessential purity culture manifesto, who has now repudiated that work and is no longer a Christian), and TikTokker Abraham Piper, son of prominent evangelical theologian John Piper.

I would like to think that Blake Chastain and myself, as well as Linda Kay Klein (author of an important book on purity culture) and Emily Joy Allison-Hearn, an author and the creator of the #ChurchToo hashtag, would belong on that list as well, as people who have done a lot of the work to build community and a shared language around exvangelical experience, even if we're not celebrities. I'm sure there are quite a few other notable people who could be tagged as exvangelicals; Arthur Chu is an example that comes immediately to mind.

ProtonGirl (talk) 17:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

As an exvangelical myself, I am looking forward to helping on this article. My question is does anyone here already have a plan on the way you're going so we can be on the same page? Roaddoag (talk) 16:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

List of reliable sources for further development of the Exvangelical page

Beyond the sources already cited as of September 22, 2021, I'd like to list a few more that I think could help editors flesh out this page (in some cases I'll make notes as to what specifically I think a source could add):

· https://www.cbsnews.com/video/deconstructing-my-religion/ (documentary featuring me, Blake Chastain, Linda Kay Klein, Emily Joy)

· https://www.damemagazine.com/2020/08/20/what-ex-evangelicals-can-teach-us-about-trump-christians/(The exvangelical page currently contains no discussion of the significance of religious trauma to exvie experience; this article could help with that)

· https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd (on exvangelicals and religious trauma)

· https://religionnews.com/2020/01/29/giving-victims-of-religious-trauma-a-voice/ (also on abuse and religious trauma)

· https://sojo.net/articles/what-should-you-do-when-your-church-does-not-condemn-hatred (interview with me about #emptythepews)

· https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/6/335 (peer-reviewed scholarly article about the #emptythepews hashtag)

· https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-ap-top-news-science-new-york-4202bedd44b54572a74dc152dbb65b72 (#exvangelical, #emptythepews, and #churchtoo aren't the only exvangelical hashtags that have gotten media attention--#exposechristianschools was even denounced on FOX & Friends twice, as well as covered in AP and NY Times)

· https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/us/christian-schools-students.html

· https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/05/evangelical-church-metoo-movement-abuse/ (on origins of #churchtoo)

· https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/08/the-churchtoo-movement-just-scored-a-historic-victory-for-victims-of-sexual-abuse-willowcreek-community-church-bill-hybels/ (on #churchtoo and a major sexual misconduct case)

· https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/22/16690384/churchtoo-abuse-survivors-harassment-religious-communities (on #churchtoo)

· https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/opinion/evangelical-women-gossip.html

· https://outinjersey.net/trans-exvangelical-leader-chrissy-stroop/

· https://msmagazine.com/2021/03/02/christian-schools-homeschooling-supremacist-conspiracies-qanon/ (on homeschooling and Christian schools, which represent common experiences exvangelicals had in childhood)

· https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/personal-stories-of-the-exodus-from-christianity/2020/01/16/7594a8f8-1472-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html (review of Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, edited by me and Lauren O'Neal)

· https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-donald-trump-is-not-a-bad-christian-1.9397706 (includes quote from me on work to dismantle common Christian supremacist tropes like equating the term "Christian" with "morally good")

· https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/abraham-piper-tiktok-exvangelical.html (on Abraham Piper's TikTok)

· https://splinternews.com/what-should-we-do-about-trump-ask-ex-evangelicals-1818817424 (general story about exvangelicals' insights into evangelical Trump support, by Sarah Posner, from 2017)

ProtonGirl (talk) 17:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Refs

• The Life Coaches Fueling the “Ex-Evangelical” Movement, Audrey Clare Farley, newrepublic

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 08:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)