The decision to leave a faith community is momentous, and rarely one made lightly. Regardless of why we choose to leave, be it trauma, harm, misalignment of beliefs and values, or one of several other reasons, this decision can be incredibly challenging while also incredibly freeing and healing. No matter where you are on your faith deconstruction journey, these books are here to guide you and walk alongside you.
How Western Christianity Got It Wrong
Jesus never intended to start a religion that would justify stealing land, enslaving people, or destroying creation. So how did we get here? In How Western Christianity Got It Wrong, acclaimed author Randy Woodley, of mixed white and Native American heritage, traces how a brown man from Nazareth who never lost his connection to the whole community of creation became the poster child for empire-building and environmental destruction. Drawing on Indigenous wisdom, uncover what Jesus's liberating message looks like when freed from imperial frameworks.
Have you ever been told that you're doing faith wrong? Through stories of grief, joy, digital ministry, nature, rituals, and rage walks around the lake, It All Counts challenges the idea that faith only "counts" when it fits inside institutional boxes. Instead, Natalia Terfa offers a liberating vision of spirituality rooted in authenticity, curiosity, and love. Whether you've been told your questions are too big, your worship too unconventional, or your body too broken, this book insists: You still belong. You are not alone. And yes—it all counts.
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez was an invisible architect behind evangelical Christianity's digital empire, crafting messages of belonging for some of the most influential megachurches while secretly questioning his own place within the faith. In a desperate attempt to "fix" himself, he turned to conversion therapy. Conversion Therapy Dropout is a behind-the-scenes look at megachurch culture, the hidden harm of non-affirming Christian spaces, and the ongoing impact of conversion therapy on gay Christians. This isn't just a coming-out story—it's about what happens after. About rebuilding a life outside the only world you've ever known. And the radical act of stepping into the light after being told your whole life to stay in the shadows.
Being a Christian has nothing to do with being Chinese American—that's what Kristin T. Lee learned as a child. A fissure between her identity and what she was told to believe opened wide. In We Mend with Gold, she asks: What if we can bridge the divide? Through lyrical storytelling about her upbringing in Asian immigrant churches as well as in white evangelicalism, Lee wrestles with history, ancestral stories, and what it means to follow Jesus.
"Pursue your calling." "Become the best version of yourself." "Make your life count." These messages inundate us everywhere. But so many of us are worn out from constantly pursuing more and always feeling like we fall short. In You Don't Need a Calling, former minister Damon Garcia turns our standard ways of thinking about purpose upside down. Purpose isn't something we find—it's something that finds us when we learn to be present to the world in front of us. For anyone disillusioned by the idea of "God's plan" for their life or exhausted by the achievement treadmill, this book will dislodge your narrow thinking and reframe the way you view your life, desires, gifts, work, success, and relationship to the world.
The Pink Robe Chronicles began in a moment of heartbreak. In August 2016, Rev. Dr. Melva L. Sampson wrapped herself in a tattered pink robe, pressed "Go live" on Facebook, and preached from her living room—grieving the police killing of Korryn Gaines and the silencing of her own voice in the pulpit. That livestream became a sanctuary. Now, in this powerful new collection of womanist wisdom, Dr. Sampson weaves together sermons, essays, letters, and reflections that center the lived experiences of Black women navigating identity, trauma, joy, and liberation. The Pink Robe Chronicles is a love letter to Black women's brilliance, a call to collective healing, and a reminder that our stories are sacred—and our voices, unchained.
Desirée Elder knows what it means to be a Black woman of faith in a church culture that often confuses control with care. A pastor and former "church girl" in recovery, Elder offers us this guide for navigating the spiritual dissonance between what we were taught and what we now know to be true. Gaslit by God invites us to trust our intuition, reimagine our relationship with the divine, and walk boldly into a faith that makes room for our full humanity.
Christianity began as a revolutionary faith in Africa and Palestine, yet across centuries it has been distorted into a tool for conquest, slavery, and nationalism. In her powerful debut, We Need John Brown Christians, activist and broadcaster Jacqueline Luqman reintroduces us to John Brown, the radical abolitionist whose failed raid on Harper's Ferry and subsequent execution made him known both as "God's instrument" and as America's first person tried for treason. Far from the caricatures of madness or martyrdom, Luqman presents Brown as a model of uncompromising discipleship, a patron saint for those who would resist the misuse of Christianity today.
Embracing the Old Witch in the Woods
Christian patriarchy teaches that women are dangerous, manipulative, and untrustworthy. Whether painting women as the archetypal old witch in the woods or the biblical temptress, toxic religion vilifies their wisdom and uses fear to maintain male power. And these harmful stereotypes aren't just historical; they persist in modern religious, societal, and political rhetoric, where confident women are called "nasty" or "radical." Embracing the Old Witch in the Woods is a road map for readers to challenge limiting beliefs, confront systemic injustices, untangle from patriarchal Christian attitudes toward women, and tap into the deep well of feminine wisdom.
What do we learn about white evangelicalism from those raised by its heroes? As sidekicks to their parents' and churches' ambitions, missionary kids (MKs) face questions many white Christians eventually ask: about God's calling, sacrifice, faith, privilege, racism, abuse, and what belonging means. From historian Holly Berkley Fletcher, herself an MK, comes The Missionary Kids, a first-of-its-kind examination of how the experiences of missionary kids illuminate broader currents in American Christianity.
Roasted marshmallows, campfire stories, shaving cream battles—for some of us, Christian summer camp is where we felt most at home. But for campers at white Evangelical church camps in particular, camp was also often the place to inherit a toxic image of God and of each other. In Church Camp, longtime camp speaker Cara Meredith exposes the ways in which white Evangelical camps sold individualized versions of Jesus to impressionable youth. Church Camp peels back the layers, holds the powerful accountable, and helps you envision a more vibrant, loving, and inclusive faith.
Nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon her husband's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts the remarkable story of her courtship with Joshua Harris, her grappling with conservative Christianity's patriarchy and narrow definition of womanhood, and her journey to break free and reclaim a more authentic version of herself.
Everything Good about God Is True
You know what you don't believe: about the Bible, the church, and God. But what if someone asked: "What do you believe?" In Everything Good about God Is True, Bruce Reyes-Chow helps us consider what it means to choose faith and how to create one's own "faith montage." What if we could articulate the gospel of love, humility, and justice? What if everything good about God is true?
Disillusioned by narrow theology and constricted dogma, people are leaving Christianity in droves. But Jesus describes the reign of God as a house with many rooms. What if there are nooks and crannies of faith we have yet to explore? In A Faith of Many Rooms, Debie Thomas claims that the space where God dwells is expansive and full of belonging.
The cartoons of David Hayward, the artist behind @NakedPastor, are graffiti on the walls of the contemporary church. He sketches the ridiculous, the appalling, and the damaging aspects of the church as we know it—as well as Jesus erasing lines, embracing the excluded, and standing outside the church's walls. In this collection, which includes Hayward's most beloved comics as well as never-before-seen cartoons, we find more of the whimsy, impertinence, and tenderness that we didn't even know we needed. Upending notions of who's in and who's out, Hayward's comic vision overturns false pieties and harmful dogmas in one fell swoop.
Read an interview with the author here.
In the past decade, church attendance among US adults has decreased by more than 25 percent. Americans report leaving religious communities because of the institutions' hypocrisy and resistance to change or because of trauma they have experienced in those spaces. In Holy Runaways, Matthias Roberts reaches out to those who, like him, want to understand the religion they've run from and erect a new faith on firmer foundations. He suggests ways we can all contribute to a new system built on love—and a new home we can inhabit together.
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