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Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church
Twenty-one timely, affecting essays by those who survived hardline, authoritarian religious ideology and uprooted themselves from the reality-averse churches that ultimately failed to contain their spirits.
Winner of the 2019 Eos Award.
In this necessary and revealing anthology, Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O Neal collect original and previously published pieces about leaving Christianity. Examining the intersections of queerness, spiritual abuse, loss of faith, and the courage needed to leave one's religious community, these two social critics use a diverse collection of personal essays by apostates and survivors of religious trauma to boldly address the individual experiences and systemic dysfunction so common in conservative churches.
Following the 2016 election of President Trump, Stroop coined the hashtag #EmptyThePews on Twitter as a call to take a moral stance against the kind of fundamentalist, authoritarian, or otherwise conservative churches that helped bring about the current political situation and all its cruelty, division, and hate. The hashtag continues to circulate with the eye-opening and often heartbreaking stories of those who found the resolve to leave evangelical, Mormon, Catholic, and other religious communities. Empty the Pews continues this campaign by sharing the unflinchingly honest stories of those who escaped hardline religious ideology and how it failed to crush their spirits.
Contributions include essays from a diverse group of established and up-and-coming writers, including Garrard Conley, Lyz Lenz, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Carmen Maria Machado, Isaac Marion, Maud Newton, Julia Scheeres, Linda Tirado, and more, as well as a foreword by Frank Schaeffer, the former Christian Right leader turned trenchant critic.
A provocative anthology of undeniable importance and power, Empty the Pews reflects upon the disoriented worldview of harmful, narrow-minded religious ideologies and also offers a clear call to action: to those who refuse to be complicit in the bigotry and abuse present in so many churches, now is the time to empty the pews.
Winner of the 2019 Eos Award.
In this necessary and revealing anthology, Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O Neal collect original and previously published pieces about leaving Christianity. Examining the intersections of queerness, spiritual abuse, loss of faith, and the courage needed to leave one's religious community, these two social critics use a diverse collection of personal essays by apostates and survivors of religious trauma to boldly address the individual experiences and systemic dysfunction so common in conservative churches.
Following the 2016 election of President Trump, Stroop coined the hashtag #EmptyThePews on Twitter as a call to take a moral stance against the kind of fundamentalist, authoritarian, or otherwise conservative churches that helped bring about the current political situation and all its cruelty, division, and hate. The hashtag continues to circulate with the eye-opening and often heartbreaking stories of those who found the resolve to leave evangelical, Mormon, Catholic, and other religious communities. Empty the Pews continues this campaign by sharing the unflinchingly honest stories of those who escaped hardline religious ideology and how it failed to crush their spirits.
Contributions include essays from a diverse group of established and up-and-coming writers, including Garrard Conley, Lyz Lenz, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Carmen Maria Machado, Isaac Marion, Maud Newton, Julia Scheeres, Linda Tirado, and more, as well as a foreword by Frank Schaeffer, the former Christian Right leader turned trenchant critic.
A provocative anthology of undeniable importance and power, Empty the Pews reflects upon the disoriented worldview of harmful, narrow-minded religious ideologies and also offers a clear call to action: to those who refuse to be complicit in the bigotry and abuse present in so many churches, now is the time to empty the pews.
281 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2019
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July 29, 2020
“I truly felt that for some reason I’ve been spared to tell this story. Everybody I know is dead... I’m still here. Okay, thank you, God. I don’t believe in you, but thank you, anyway.” ~Larry Kramer, ACT UP
Before I get started, let me say that some bad things happened to me when I was a child, things that had nothing at all to do with religion. My father was a high functioning sociopath who ladled out beatings for the slightest transgressions. Even though my beatings (there were LOTS) were strictly “secular,” they were still things that impacted my feelings about religion, specifically about fundamentalist, evangelical, fire & brimstone, southern baptistery.
“...that is the model of the Christian God. Creating a heaven. Then an Eden. And when Eden failed, he opened the rest of the world. “This time it will be good,” he said to himself, before erasing humanity with a flood and starting over. And he will try again, or so Christians believe. The promise of Revelation is that God will set up a new heaven and a new earth. I can’t wait to see how those fail too.” (pg 94)
My parents weren’t church-goers. My mom might have been had she married someone in the faith, but my father was a skeptic. We children, my sister and my brother and I, attended church. In the beginning, mom would drive us there and drop us off, then pick us up when sunday school and church services were over. Later, when our attendance started to wane, someone from the church would come pick us up every sunday morning and return us back to the farm every sunday afternoon.
“Personally, I feel outrage regularly, not just at minor inconveniences, but also at things that seem unjust, that disrupt the way I think things should work: sexism, racism, homophobia, Republican tax plans that steal from the poor to give to the rich, the fact that Donald Trump was elected president. Of course, for many conservative Christians, the outrage runs the other way. The things that disrupt the natural order for them are gay marriage, abortion, a black man being elected president.” (pg 107)
As I became an adult and moved away from home, my faith ebbed and flowed. There were a few periods where being a baptist was the focal point of my existence, but more often my religious identity lingered ominously on the periphery of my existence. Eventually I let it go entirely. There is no single moment that I can point to and say ‘THAT was my Great Epiphany!’ It was a gradual process. It was a culmination of many, many weak, ethereal answers to many, many simple, earthly questions. You know the sort:
“Where did all the fossils come from?”
“They are the remnants of animals killed in the great flood” or “They are decorations God put in the earth” or “Satan put them there to trick us” or, my personal favorite, “God created them to test our faith in his word”
Try telling a moderately intelligent 15 year old kid that this intricate Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was magically put there to see if we would use our supposedly god-given intellect or if we would dismiss it as a “test.”
Another issue I had with fundamentalism
(there were LOTS of issues) were the seemingly arbitrary manifestations of Grace. If god was watching over me, why was he allowing my father to beat the shit out of me for some imagined or contrived impertinence? It had to be my fault, right? I was unworthy of grace, unworthy of protection, unworthy of my dad’s love.
“To survive, I lived in a world of pretend. I pretended that my life at home was normal. I pretended that my father loved me. I pretended that my father only hurt me because I had done something wrong. I told myself that I deserved it.” (pg 123)
I eventually figured out that it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t me.
This obviously isn’t the whole story of how I came to terms with the universe and my place in it, but it’s enough to let you know that I found a little piece of myself in every essay of ‘Empty The Pews.’ Twenty-one deeply personal stories, each one unique, all describe one person’s exodus from a particular religion. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, some are enlightening, all are inspirational. A few of these authors are still believers, others are in a state of transition, a few (like me) have decided that every evangelical thing we were taught to believe is 100% bullshit.
“On most days, I am reasonably certain that Denmark is a country in Europe. But it’s one of those things I haven’t been able to test for myself, so I cannot be precisely sure about it. The same people who taught me that Denmark was a country taught me that black people are a different species from white people, and once I learned that black people were just humans like anybody else, I had to question the existence of Denmark.” (pg 219)
Before I get started, let me say that some bad things happened to me when I was a child, things that had nothing at all to do with religion. My father was a high functioning sociopath who ladled out beatings for the slightest transgressions. Even though my beatings (there were LOTS) were strictly “secular,” they were still things that impacted my feelings about religion, specifically about fundamentalist, evangelical, fire & brimstone, southern baptistery.
“...that is the model of the Christian God. Creating a heaven. Then an Eden. And when Eden failed, he opened the rest of the world. “This time it will be good,” he said to himself, before erasing humanity with a flood and starting over. And he will try again, or so Christians believe. The promise of Revelation is that God will set up a new heaven and a new earth. I can’t wait to see how those fail too.” (pg 94)
My parents weren’t church-goers. My mom might have been had she married someone in the faith, but my father was a skeptic. We children, my sister and my brother and I, attended church. In the beginning, mom would drive us there and drop us off, then pick us up when sunday school and church services were over. Later, when our attendance started to wane, someone from the church would come pick us up every sunday morning and return us back to the farm every sunday afternoon.
“Personally, I feel outrage regularly, not just at minor inconveniences, but also at things that seem unjust, that disrupt the way I think things should work: sexism, racism, homophobia, Republican tax plans that steal from the poor to give to the rich, the fact that Donald Trump was elected president. Of course, for many conservative Christians, the outrage runs the other way. The things that disrupt the natural order for them are gay marriage, abortion, a black man being elected president.” (pg 107)
As I became an adult and moved away from home, my faith ebbed and flowed. There were a few periods where being a baptist was the focal point of my existence, but more often my religious identity lingered ominously on the periphery of my existence. Eventually I let it go entirely. There is no single moment that I can point to and say ‘THAT was my Great Epiphany!’ It was a gradual process. It was a culmination of many, many weak, ethereal answers to many, many simple, earthly questions. You know the sort:
“Where did all the fossils come from?”
“They are the remnants of animals killed in the great flood” or “They are decorations God put in the earth” or “Satan put them there to trick us” or, my personal favorite, “God created them to test our faith in his word”
Try telling a moderately intelligent 15 year old kid that this intricate Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was magically put there to see if we would use our supposedly god-given intellect or if we would dismiss it as a “test.”
Another issue I had with fundamentalism
(there were LOTS of issues) were the seemingly arbitrary manifestations of Grace. If god was watching over me, why was he allowing my father to beat the shit out of me for some imagined or contrived impertinence? It had to be my fault, right? I was unworthy of grace, unworthy of protection, unworthy of my dad’s love.
“To survive, I lived in a world of pretend. I pretended that my life at home was normal. I pretended that my father loved me. I pretended that my father only hurt me because I had done something wrong. I told myself that I deserved it.” (pg 123)
I eventually figured out that it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t me.
This obviously isn’t the whole story of how I came to terms with the universe and my place in it, but it’s enough to let you know that I found a little piece of myself in every essay of ‘Empty The Pews.’ Twenty-one deeply personal stories, each one unique, all describe one person’s exodus from a particular religion. Some of the stories are heartbreaking, some are enlightening, all are inspirational. A few of these authors are still believers, others are in a state of transition, a few (like me) have decided that every evangelical thing we were taught to believe is 100% bullshit.
“On most days, I am reasonably certain that Denmark is a country in Europe. But it’s one of those things I haven’t been able to test for myself, so I cannot be precisely sure about it. The same people who taught me that Denmark was a country taught me that black people are a different species from white people, and once I learned that black people were just humans like anybody else, I had to question the existence of Denmark.” (pg 219)
January 16, 2020
I read Empty the Pews at the end of last year, and I have been digesting it ever since, trying to figure out what to write in a review. My overall sense was of familiarity but in a less-intense setting. I come from a not-too-strict semi-religious background, in that I went to Catholic school in the UK, where it's not such an unusual thing to go to religious state schools, and much of the religious influence in my life came from school and friends rather than home life. I also made a lot of friends in the Christian Union at university, although I was never a member myself, and I recognize some of the talk from CU events they took me to. These events, it may be noted, had the opposite effect on me than I understand was intended.
In Empty the Pews, Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O'Neal have collected a wide variety of experiences within a variety of churches, mainly right wing but some that claim a more liberal attitude. The essays are divided into five sections, with some overlap - sexuality is theme beyond section I, and section II isn't the only one to deal with the family, etc. - and the stories within are varied, but connected through these themes and the common theme of leaving the church.
Many of these stories resonate with me intellectually, so that I can say yes, these hypocrisies or logical difficulties are reasons why I do not, cannot believe in a god; others resonate emotionally, with descriptions of faith draining out at a certain moment when you realise I do not believe any more, even though the circumstances may differ drastically. In terms of the actual moment at which I would say I lost my faith, Lauren O'Neal's story comes closest to what flipped that switch, albeit observed in another person, reminding me of the emotional turmoil of that moment when I finally though no; meanwhile, Isaac Marion's description of his faith draining out of him slowly, and the better dream he believes humanity can manage, resonated most with my intellectual journey. But others show different sides to questioning faith, different escapes, different experiences that lead people to walk away from communities in which they were much more entrenched than I ever was. For me, the value of this volume lies in both the familiar and the different - the experiences that I didn't have that I need to understand are just as important and those that strike at my own experience.
Christianity remains a powerful force in the world, and White Evangelical Christianity is a particularly powerful force in the United States of America; a force with which that nation needs to reckon if it is ever to understand itself and become better. Empty the Pews is an excellent place to start with that reckoning, and I recommend it to anyone willing to listen. I also recommend that everyone be willing to listen, because these are stories that need to be heard.
In Empty the Pews, Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O'Neal have collected a wide variety of experiences within a variety of churches, mainly right wing but some that claim a more liberal attitude. The essays are divided into five sections, with some overlap - sexuality is theme beyond section I, and section II isn't the only one to deal with the family, etc. - and the stories within are varied, but connected through these themes and the common theme of leaving the church.
Many of these stories resonate with me intellectually, so that I can say yes, these hypocrisies or logical difficulties are reasons why I do not, cannot believe in a god; others resonate emotionally, with descriptions of faith draining out at a certain moment when you realise I do not believe any more, even though the circumstances may differ drastically. In terms of the actual moment at which I would say I lost my faith, Lauren O'Neal's story comes closest to what flipped that switch, albeit observed in another person, reminding me of the emotional turmoil of that moment when I finally though no; meanwhile, Isaac Marion's description of his faith draining out of him slowly, and the better dream he believes humanity can manage, resonated most with my intellectual journey. But others show different sides to questioning faith, different escapes, different experiences that lead people to walk away from communities in which they were much more entrenched than I ever was. For me, the value of this volume lies in both the familiar and the different - the experiences that I didn't have that I need to understand are just as important and those that strike at my own experience.
Christianity remains a powerful force in the world, and White Evangelical Christianity is a particularly powerful force in the United States of America; a force with which that nation needs to reckon if it is ever to understand itself and become better. Empty the Pews is an excellent place to start with that reckoning, and I recommend it to anyone willing to listen. I also recommend that everyone be willing to listen, because these are stories that need to be heard.
July 24, 2020
Everybody’s story is different. Some of the stories told in this book were as if I was being buried alive and couldn’t escape from the torturer since it seemed that the tortured have no mouth and can not scream because they were in their own private Idaho created by parents who needed to outsource their anger in order to direct it at their defenseless children.
Kudos to all who escaped their abusive relationships. Walking away or changing ones forced illusions that just don’t make sense even when you are living it and being reinforced daily is not an easy task. A common theme for people waking up was that they realized the bunker (an actual word used by one of the essays) mentality only made sense if one was inside the bunker, but broke down when one stepped out of the insanity.
A common path to discovery expressed in these essays was the realization that the sexual identity the person was assigned at birth was not the gender the person thought of for themselves. The Evangelical strives to hate the sin while not hating the sinner, but forgets that they can’t separate the person from their nature and finds it easier to hate the person in addition to the sin that exist only in their illusion laden minds.
The book stated that 15% of Americans are Evangelical whites, and that 85% of them vote for a fascist such as Donald Trump. Within these essays there is weaved a story why they do. Their faith in general must succumb to authority and anti-intellectualism. To them, their very immortality is depended on believing their set of illusions. If they lose the argument, they lose their reason for being and their immortality. They are more than happy to believe in ‘false facts’, ‘hoaxes’ which are not, and a moron holding a book he has never read in one hand when it’s the bible in front of a place that he has never gone to such as a church all in order to believe their own illusions since their own immortality and beingness is at stake.
Within these essays there was a theme that popped up in many of the essays that I wasn’t fully of aware of. In the tradition of Evangelicals, one’s narrative and how they came to Christ is an important part of the believer’s story and needs to be told repeatedly to fellow Evangelicals in order to reinforce one’s credentials. That’s such a prone to misleading non-empirical way to understand the world, and gives me another reason to explain their fascination with supporting Donald Trump. Trump is always about his feelings and the story he is weaving on a particular day while ignoring and denying science, logic, analysis, empiricism and the web of knowledge also known as reality. Evangelicals (at 85% level) and Trump process their truths through feelings, false narratives, and both hate the same people who are not part of their self-selected privileged tribe.
There's something I want to make perfectly clear. Trump is a fascist and a scourge on this nation. 85% of white evangelicals enable him. But I am fully aware that 15% of them see him for the fascist that he is and that not all evangelicals are deserving of contempt, only that 85%.
Kudos to all who escaped their abusive relationships. Walking away or changing ones forced illusions that just don’t make sense even when you are living it and being reinforced daily is not an easy task. A common theme for people waking up was that they realized the bunker (an actual word used by one of the essays) mentality only made sense if one was inside the bunker, but broke down when one stepped out of the insanity.
A common path to discovery expressed in these essays was the realization that the sexual identity the person was assigned at birth was not the gender the person thought of for themselves. The Evangelical strives to hate the sin while not hating the sinner, but forgets that they can’t separate the person from their nature and finds it easier to hate the person in addition to the sin that exist only in their illusion laden minds.
The book stated that 15% of Americans are Evangelical whites, and that 85% of them vote for a fascist such as Donald Trump. Within these essays there is weaved a story why they do. Their faith in general must succumb to authority and anti-intellectualism. To them, their very immortality is depended on believing their set of illusions. If they lose the argument, they lose their reason for being and their immortality. They are more than happy to believe in ‘false facts’, ‘hoaxes’ which are not, and a moron holding a book he has never read in one hand when it’s the bible in front of a place that he has never gone to such as a church all in order to believe their own illusions since their own immortality and beingness is at stake.
Within these essays there was a theme that popped up in many of the essays that I wasn’t fully of aware of. In the tradition of Evangelicals, one’s narrative and how they came to Christ is an important part of the believer’s story and needs to be told repeatedly to fellow Evangelicals in order to reinforce one’s credentials. That’s such a prone to misleading non-empirical way to understand the world, and gives me another reason to explain their fascination with supporting Donald Trump. Trump is always about his feelings and the story he is weaving on a particular day while ignoring and denying science, logic, analysis, empiricism and the web of knowledge also known as reality. Evangelicals (at 85% level) and Trump process their truths through feelings, false narratives, and both hate the same people who are not part of their self-selected privileged tribe.
There's something I want to make perfectly clear. Trump is a fascist and a scourge on this nation. 85% of white evangelicals enable him. But I am fully aware that 15% of them see him for the fascist that he is and that not all evangelicals are deserving of contempt, only that 85%.
January 4, 2020
I eagerly awaited this book for a long time. I can't say why in the past few years I've fallen down the exvangelical rabbit hole (other than my deep belief that they're responsible for ruining the country (not true; America always sucked) and thus I need to understand them). I grew up Methodist in Tennessee (which is (was?) more mainline anyway, but they are gonna split over LGBTQ+ acceptance issues, a story I've followed with more detached curiosity than sorrow), but I've been an atheist for over a decade, and I can't say it was an especially dramatic parting or that I've suffered any direct abuse (TONS indirectly, but that's everyone). Lots in this collection still resonated. If nothing else, I'm reflecting here on my own journey (a corny phrase I can't escape, it seems), albeit far less eloquently. I recommend in context with all the other reading I've done about American Evangelical Christianity.
December 17, 2025
Full disclosure: I was one of the contributors to this volume of essays. In many ways the stories are very similar, like the anti-conversation narrative, but I think people who have experienced a coming away from the church or a religious deconstruction period will relate to these stories. And some are just so beautifully written. I'm grateful to have been a part of it.
December 20, 2019
If you have chosen to believe in God, and you have chosen to be a Christian, particularly a conservative Christian, you owe it to yourself to read this book. I haven't read it all -- it's the sort of book you can easily dip into. It contains 21 stories written by people who have left the church. There are five categories of stories:
Purity culture, sexuality, and queerness
Focusing on the family
Trauma and abuse in Christian contexts
American Christianity, diasporas, and missions
Intellectual odysseys
I read the section on Intellectual Odysseys first because I felt that may resonate most closely with my own journey. And it did. While every person's story is different, I could easily relate to the four stories in this section. Then I moved on the the stories in the Trauma and Abuse in Christian Contexts part. Every story comes across as deeply authentic and honest. Christians who remain with their faith often look at those who have left and make all sorts of assumptions as to why the leave. Rarely do they sit down with the "apostates" and listen to their stories. This book provides an opportunity to do so (although it would be better if they could actually listen in person without judgment). These stories are often hard to hear, but the voices of those who have left need to be heard. This is a profoundly moving book. For those who have left, the stories can be healing. For those who remain, there is a possibility of learning something -- if they are approached with an openness to listening. Empty the Pews is a much needed book.
Purity culture, sexuality, and queerness
Focusing on the family
Trauma and abuse in Christian contexts
American Christianity, diasporas, and missions
Intellectual odysseys
I read the section on Intellectual Odysseys first because I felt that may resonate most closely with my own journey. And it did. While every person's story is different, I could easily relate to the four stories in this section. Then I moved on the the stories in the Trauma and Abuse in Christian Contexts part. Every story comes across as deeply authentic and honest. Christians who remain with their faith often look at those who have left and make all sorts of assumptions as to why the leave. Rarely do they sit down with the "apostates" and listen to their stories. This book provides an opportunity to do so (although it would be better if they could actually listen in person without judgment). These stories are often hard to hear, but the voices of those who have left need to be heard. This is a profoundly moving book. For those who have left, the stories can be healing. For those who remain, there is a possibility of learning something -- if they are approached with an openness to listening. Empty the Pews is a much needed book.
April 6, 2022
As I read through the several essays inside this book, I could not help but think, “I very well could have written something that belongs in this.” The details of being raised in a white evangelical conservative environment truly affects a person, and this book portrays those perfectly through true recountings of those environments. Most of the things in this book that drove people away from conservative evangelicalism and even Christianity itself are the same things that have driven me away from conservative evangelicalism aswell. I felt extremely connected to the people of this book and their stories, and would definitely recommend this book to someone who has felt wronged by the church or religion itself.
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September 21, 2020I’ve followed Chrissy Stroop on social media for a couple of years, as I found so many familiar voices among the ex-evangelical community there. I spent my adolescent years in an evangelical church (though I wasn’t raised in it) and left in my early twenties. I was disillusioned, frustrated, and angry about a lot of what I’d seen and experienced there. I’d lost years of my own growth (such as hiding my bisexuality and essentially exploding a deep and close friendship over it).
All of which is to say, this book was of great and immediate interest to me. I enjoyed the variety of experiences recorded (we didn’t all leave for the same reasons, on the surface, but underneath they all feel very familiar), and I felt for those that were so much worse and extreme than mine.
A couple of the essays write about mixed feelings, the language of the church being something you find you still know long after. These are the ones that surprised me, because I realize I can find that in myself as well. There were good things; good moments; good people. Part of it is a loss, even if I chose to lose it, and for good reason.
I didn’t feel it as deeply as I thought I might; perhaps I’m far enough away from it all that it’s mostly an intellectual exercise for me now. But for anyone interested in why people leave, or have done so yourself, it might be a good read.
All of which is to say, this book was of great and immediate interest to me. I enjoyed the variety of experiences recorded (we didn’t all leave for the same reasons, on the surface, but underneath they all feel very familiar), and I felt for those that were so much worse and extreme than mine.
A couple of the essays write about mixed feelings, the language of the church being something you find you still know long after. These are the ones that surprised me, because I realize I can find that in myself as well. There were good things; good moments; good people. Part of it is a loss, even if I chose to lose it, and for good reason.
I didn’t feel it as deeply as I thought I might; perhaps I’m far enough away from it all that it’s mostly an intellectual exercise for me now. But for anyone interested in why people leave, or have done so yourself, it might be a good read.
December 28, 2019
Lots of wonderful, touching, poignant stories essays in this book. Some really really good stuff about accepting yourself for you who are above other considerations. And of course, the dull roar of rage that greets stories of such awful abuse, both physical and mental. My move out of American Christianity was tame by comparison.
As a relatively young person (24 when I'm writing this), it was interesting to read perspectives from people who were older who had been out for longer. Their actions helped make it easier for me to do the same.
As a relatively young person (24 when I'm writing this), it was interesting to read perspectives from people who were older who had been out for longer. Their actions helped make it easier for me to do the same.
March 19, 2023
In any belief system, there is often an impulsive urge to discredit deconstruction. We think that they must have simply been hurt, not found the true version of whatever it is we believe, not considered enough angles, or to have had too much of a focus on tangential elements. When it comes to abstract beliefs, this is only natural, since we are relying not on empirical proofs, but on social proofs. Every person to walk away degrades the amount of social proof which allows us to remain anchored to the support systems we have learned to love.
These social incentives to stay are weighed almost entirely unconsciously, and so we are often cognitively inhibited from truly seeing people's reasons as valid. With Christianity, this can make us almost incapable of understanding that a person's problem wasn't just with the people, but with Jesus himself; that they were hurt not by bad theology, but the most beautiful there was; that they didn't just give up, but wanted to believe till they found they couldn't justify it any longer.
I read this as a resource for my master's, but I think this book should be read by all Christians. These essays are beautiful, painful, and the most genuine depictions I've found of people leaving the church. Their struggles are varied, but the two uniting themes were the intense joy many had upon leaving and the intense difficulty they had convincing their former community that they didn't just give up. In summary, I will be quoting over half this book in my thesis lol
These social incentives to stay are weighed almost entirely unconsciously, and so we are often cognitively inhibited from truly seeing people's reasons as valid. With Christianity, this can make us almost incapable of understanding that a person's problem wasn't just with the people, but with Jesus himself; that they were hurt not by bad theology, but the most beautiful there was; that they didn't just give up, but wanted to believe till they found they couldn't justify it any longer.
I read this as a resource for my master's, but I think this book should be read by all Christians. These essays are beautiful, painful, and the most genuine depictions I've found of people leaving the church. Their struggles are varied, but the two uniting themes were the intense joy many had upon leaving and the intense difficulty they had convincing their former community that they didn't just give up. In summary, I will be quoting over half this book in my thesis lol
February 23, 2020
A great collection of viewpoints on leaving faith behind.
Here are some of my favorite passages:
The last essay, A Better Dream, by Isaac Marion, really resonated with my own experience of leaving faith behind, starting with his very first line: "All religious belief is a game of pretend".
It's hard to pick out my favorite parts since the whole essay is that good, but here are a few:
Here are some of my favorite passages:
I say I have sloughed off religion like a diseased limb, like it is no longer of use to me, but that's not entirely true. Without it I am unsteady, vulnerable in a way I couldn't be when I was not of this world. The thing about religion is that when you have it, it feels good, like any opiate, the withdrawals are painful.
I do not feel cured or free. Instead I hang in the disquiet of remission. Sometimes, if I visit my hometown and find myself in a room of people singing or praying, I can still feel something, a phantom limb of faith.
-Sara Novic
I had seen one utopia fail. Why did I try to create another? But then, that is the model of the Christian God. Creating a heaven. Then an Eden. And when Eden failed, he opened the rest of the world. "This time it will be good," he said to himself, before erasing humanity with a flood and starting over. And he will try again, or so the Christians believe. The promise of Revelation is that God will set up a new heaven and a new earth. I can't wait to see how those fail too.
That is Christianity, waiting both for the end and for paradise--aren't we foolish to think that the two will ever be separated?
-Lyz Lenz
The last essay, A Better Dream, by Isaac Marion, really resonated with my own experience of leaving faith behind, starting with his very first line: "All religious belief is a game of pretend".
It's hard to pick out my favorite parts since the whole essay is that good, but here are a few:
But as the years passed and I continued to "search," the church felt less and less like home. It became just as strange as the world outside, and then stranger. Eventually, I had no choice. I left the town where I grew up and moved to Seattle. I made "the world" my home. And to my surprise, I didn't die. I didn't devolve into amoral atheistic savagery. I didn't lose all hope. I was warned about the monsters I'd encounter outside the bunker--emptiness, purposelessness, fear of death and hell. But I never met those monsters. It's being in the bunker that gives life to those fears. Once you're outside, they lose their power, they fade into legend, and you carry on with your life.
I won't say I don't suffer the occasional bout of ennui or existential gloom, but it's a clean, honest gloom without cognitive dissonance. I find a quiet absence of answers far less troubling than a noisy abundance of hollow ones.
So why did I leave, if no one drove me out? If I was raised from birth in an aggressively insular culture[...]if all my friends, my family, my entire world was contained in tht compound, surely it tood a violent event to propel me over the walls. Surely I'm angry at God for the death of a loved one or for the suffering of children or some other dramatic betrayal.
Well...not really. Christianity wasn't a soap opera to me. It was real, and I took it seriously. Events in my personal life don't change the structure of the universe. I don't turn my back on the law of gravity because a friend dies in a plane crash. If it's true, it's true, right?
But religion isn't gravity. Religion isn't true or untrue, and that's the point. Religion will never be provable, so all we can ask is for it to be meaningful. For it to resonate with our lived experience. Gravity is meaningful Gravity explains things that I observe in the world around me. It illuminates cause and effect and fits into my experiences in ways that intuitively work. Christian theology--at least the version of it that permeates our culture--doesn't work. It doesn't grow organically from the human experience. It's a strange alien universe superimposed over our own, an awkward assemblage of arbitrary rules and paradoxical concepts shoved roughly over the world we know.
It doesn't fit. The points don't align. Even as a child, I could feel this tension. I questioned my elders constantly, and no amount of Biblical scholarship could bring real answers, because Christianity's physics is fundamentally flawed.
When I think of this global [religious] game of pretend, this vividly imagined reality, it strikes me what a wasted opportunity it is. Because if we're capable of suspending disbelief on such a grand scale and simply deciding how the universe works, imagine what else we could dream up. Instead of angels and demons and forces beyond our control, we could dream a human community that respects itself and its own capacity for good. Instead of an inevitable apocalypse that mocks human progress, we could dream a limitless future that we ourselves are shaping, one that pushes the human experience forward instead of holding it in place, that inspires us to take responsibility for our world and fight to make it better. Maybe humanity does need faith. Maybe we do need a shared dream. But I think we deserve a better one, and it's up to us to build it.
March 12, 2020
Book Reccomendation: Empty the Pews.
If you are either a lapsed member of a church, a present member confused and concerned by the diminishing youth membership, or simply interested in the effect of the American brand of conservative evangelicalism in modern lives, this book may be clarifying.
The last time I spoke at a church event was 11 years ago at Tuesday Fellowship at Rhodes. I talked about how probing for answers and testing the intellectual limits of your faith is not merely acceptable, it is an act of worship. In retrospect, this was motivated reasoning to justify my own doubts while shielding myself from guilt.
This is not just an anthology of people who have suffered abuse or betrayal by individuals in church leadership. I think even the most devout understand why people leave the church when that happens. It is also about the slow and simple process of uncoupling the scaffolding that once held up people as they mature. Many of the writers are not victims of direct discrimination, they are simply curious, creative, or intellectual people who sought with an open mind and came up lacking.
There is also quite a bit about the toxic relationship between the GOP and conservative evangelicals, and how that has heightened the hypocrisies and paradoxes for people who otherwise would have enjoyed being in a church.
This is also not a Dawkins screed. I still think that religion has been a net positive in my life. Most of my loved ones are religious and they would say they are better for it. But if you are interested in why someone like me would walk away from that, maybe give this a read.
If you are either a lapsed member of a church, a present member confused and concerned by the diminishing youth membership, or simply interested in the effect of the American brand of conservative evangelicalism in modern lives, this book may be clarifying.
The last time I spoke at a church event was 11 years ago at Tuesday Fellowship at Rhodes. I talked about how probing for answers and testing the intellectual limits of your faith is not merely acceptable, it is an act of worship. In retrospect, this was motivated reasoning to justify my own doubts while shielding myself from guilt.
This is not just an anthology of people who have suffered abuse or betrayal by individuals in church leadership. I think even the most devout understand why people leave the church when that happens. It is also about the slow and simple process of uncoupling the scaffolding that once held up people as they mature. Many of the writers are not victims of direct discrimination, they are simply curious, creative, or intellectual people who sought with an open mind and came up lacking.
There is also quite a bit about the toxic relationship between the GOP and conservative evangelicals, and how that has heightened the hypocrisies and paradoxes for people who otherwise would have enjoyed being in a church.
This is also not a Dawkins screed. I still think that religion has been a net positive in my life. Most of my loved ones are religious and they would say they are better for it. But if you are interested in why someone like me would walk away from that, maybe give this a read.
March 22, 2020
I did enjoy this book, just as not much as I thought I would. I thought I would be able to relate to all of the essays more and I don’t know if it was just my privileged world view that lead me to think that way but most of the experiences the authors had had within the church were either foreign to me or I had made different revelations than the authors had. Also, for some reason, the Queer essays regarding the church did not hit home for me. I can’t exactly put my finger on it but something was just missing from those chapters.
But there were a lot of positives about this book. The entire Intellectual Odysseys section blew me away. Every chapter in that section hit home. I think I enjoyed it so much because it mostly dealt with struggling with the intellectualism of faith and not the church itself. Another section I loved was Focusing on the Family. This section dealt with familial relations to the church and the nuances that relationship brought to every person. I highly, highly recommend both of those sections.
Favorite chapters (and you can jump to any chapter in any order in this book):
• Land of Plenty
• Remission
• Lapsed
• Cottonwood Creek
• A Glutton and a Drunkard
• God the Investment Banker
• Selling Out
• A Better Dream
But there were a lot of positives about this book. The entire Intellectual Odysseys section blew me away. Every chapter in that section hit home. I think I enjoyed it so much because it mostly dealt with struggling with the intellectualism of faith and not the church itself. Another section I loved was Focusing on the Family. This section dealt with familial relations to the church and the nuances that relationship brought to every person. I highly, highly recommend both of those sections.
Favorite chapters (and you can jump to any chapter in any order in this book):
• Land of Plenty
• Remission
• Lapsed
• Cottonwood Creek
• A Glutton and a Drunkard
• God the Investment Banker
• Selling Out
• A Better Dream
September 12, 2020
this book is so, so important. As someone who has left fundamentalist Christianity, it was both chilling and validating to see some of my own experiences reflected back at me in these essays. This book cultivates a kind of community that I thought I had lost access to, which pushes back on the alienation that is often felt when leaving the church. The beauty of this book is that it is a collection of essays -- you hear a variety of experiences, some of which will resonate more than others. incredibly thankful this book exists.
November 12, 2019
These are nicely written essays. The subject matter as a whole has only so much interest for me, but just because I don’t have much reason to debate for or against Christianity. I don’t really care much about it one way or another unless someone is trying to make me adhere to it, but that’s the same as any other religion doing the same. These essays manage to keep my attention pretty well given that though.
January 17, 2020
Poignant, compelling, but above all: relatable. This book is a must-read for anyone deconstructing from Christianity; for anyone trying to make sense of themselves and the world around them without the false security of a blind faith; for anyone who has felt alone in their journey away from religion. Heartbreaking and hilarious, touching and infuriating, Empty the Pews is an opportunity for readers to explore different perspectives leading to the same conclusion: departing the church.
November 8, 2020
I am so, so grateful for this collection of well-written and deeply personal essays. As an ex-evangelical from the South who escaped that life and fled to San Francisco, I sometimes find myself struggling to explain to my new liberal friends what it was like, and why my relationships with my surviving family are so complicated. This book helps me feel less alone.
February 1, 2020
Amazing and relatable stories- a must for anyone who has - or still does- identified as a Christian. This is truth that needs to be spoken.
January 11, 2023
Always hard to know what to expect from an essay collection spawned by a viral hashtag, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of writing published here. Far from a series of repurposed blogs and tweetstorms by semi-famous internet personalities, as is too common from such projects, this is mostly a collection of more traditionally published writers, many with MFAs. And props to the editors for that, because it lends this collection a credibility this subject sorely needs and doesn't often get. Critics of "leavers" often get hung up on accusations of emotionalism or lack of rational thought (as if apologetics ever persuaded anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven but I digress). And those who do leave are often still in the throes of processing themselves and struggle to articulate what are often nebulous feelings. So I appreciated the clarity of thought and intention here. This is a volume that could be really useful to those who are still in the midst of that process.
As with all essay collections, some entries were stronger than others. I gravitated toward the ones with more nebulous conclusions (Conley's opening essay "Land of Plenty", Powers' "Running from the Monster of the Deep") and the ones with scathing critiques (Newton's blisteringly titled "My Son Went to Heaven and All I Got Was a No. 1 Best Seller" and co-editor O'Neal's comparison of Christian self-loathing and American diet culture in "A Glutton and a Drunkard"). Recommended.
As with all essay collections, some entries were stronger than others. I gravitated toward the ones with more nebulous conclusions (Conley's opening essay "Land of Plenty", Powers' "Running from the Monster of the Deep") and the ones with scathing critiques (Newton's blisteringly titled "My Son Went to Heaven and All I Got Was a No. 1 Best Seller" and co-editor O'Neal's comparison of Christian self-loathing and American diet culture in "A Glutton and a Drunkard"). Recommended.
January 13, 2025
Stories of leaving the faith. So many of these make me think of stories from my experience. These folks make me want to write mine down.
January 2, 2023
This is a collection of 21 essays by Christians of various stripes (including Catholics and Mormons) who have become disillusioned by their faith. As such, it fulfills its stated brief reasonably well, although it still falls short on a couple of counts.
First, the focus here is on erudite voices. Thus, it will have a considerably greater appeal to those who are avid readers of obscure literary magazines than to those who stick to NYT best sellers. This means that a huge swath of people who have been traumatized by the church may not benefit from the validation and solace that more literate readers may be able to derive from this volume. In short, a little less poetry, fewer ten-dollar words and clever turns of phrase, and more unadorned straight talk might have been in order.
My second criticism concerns the collection's focus on lifelong Christians. While there is one account of a writer who floated from one Christian sect to another, we never hear from those who were converted wholesale—whether from atheism or some other religious tradition—to Christianity. This might have been a helpful inclusion since, as I can personally attest, there is a special depth to the trauma one experiences when seeking answers later in life and finding those answers subsequently crumbling in one's hands. A sense of shame attaches, which is unique to converts and deserves to be acknowledged.
That having been said, this collection is still highly useful to anyone who has found themselves drifting (or ripping themselves) from their Christian faith. The diversity of voices included ensures that a wide (if not exhaustive) range of experiences are addressed. The editors have taken an important step toward normalizing renunciation.
First, the focus here is on erudite voices. Thus, it will have a considerably greater appeal to those who are avid readers of obscure literary magazines than to those who stick to NYT best sellers. This means that a huge swath of people who have been traumatized by the church may not benefit from the validation and solace that more literate readers may be able to derive from this volume. In short, a little less poetry, fewer ten-dollar words and clever turns of phrase, and more unadorned straight talk might have been in order.
My second criticism concerns the collection's focus on lifelong Christians. While there is one account of a writer who floated from one Christian sect to another, we never hear from those who were converted wholesale—whether from atheism or some other religious tradition—to Christianity. This might have been a helpful inclusion since, as I can personally attest, there is a special depth to the trauma one experiences when seeking answers later in life and finding those answers subsequently crumbling in one's hands. A sense of shame attaches, which is unique to converts and deserves to be acknowledged.
That having been said, this collection is still highly useful to anyone who has found themselves drifting (or ripping themselves) from their Christian faith. The diversity of voices included ensures that a wide (if not exhaustive) range of experiences are addressed. The editors have taken an important step toward normalizing renunciation.
August 7, 2021
This might sound weird, but I'm so happy that this book exists. Obviously I wish religious trauma wasn't a thing altogether, but it is, and this anthology made me feel very seen in so many ways. I like that there it contains a diversity of experiences and styles.
Would wholeheartedly recommend to people grappling with religious trauma (be it overwhelming or fading in the background most of the time), as well as to Christians willing to acknowledge the sort of abuse committed in the name of God within Christianity.
Obviously though, it deals with some tough subjects, as can be expected, so if you know this might be triggering content for you as a survivor of abuse, I also recommend to plan ahead for it and to pace yourself as needed.
Would wholeheartedly recommend to people grappling with religious trauma (be it overwhelming or fading in the background most of the time), as well as to Christians willing to acknowledge the sort of abuse committed in the name of God within Christianity.
Obviously though, it deals with some tough subjects, as can be expected, so if you know this might be triggering content for you as a survivor of abuse, I also recommend to plan ahead for it and to pace yourself as needed.
November 19, 2021
I have followed Chrissy's work for quite some time and respect her infinitely. This book of essays she and Lauren curated is such an important reflection on all that is wrong with Christianity. As a women whose family was torn apart by the "well meaning evangelicals" who outed, abused, alienated and almost destroyed a very close family member for being a lesbian, I certainly have more than enough bones to pick with religion and the underlying toxicity of the church. Although I was made to attend church in my youth (evangelical Presbyterian), I am not a religious person, and that is primarily because of what I have witnessed happening in and around the church for most of my young as well as my entire adult life: the abuse, the shame, the guilt, the lies, the corruption, the focus on monetary wealth, the authoritarian undercurrent, the patriarchy, the cruelty, the racism, the false piety...all of it. And don't even get me started on the pro-life nonsense coming from the same Christians who have no qualms allowing women to die on the table from non-viable pregnancies and who turned their backs while hundreds of thousands of Americans died from a pandemic that their corrupt golden calf chose to weaponize. Christianity is a deeply corrosive force - not only in my life but in our country - and this book gets to the heart of why, explaining in every essay why young people are running from the church in droves. A very important and worthwhile read. I was also more than happy to send copies to some very important people in my life. Bravo.
December 19, 2020
Misleading title
The title is a bit misleading. Regardless of what the Pew Research Center publishes, Evangelicals are not losing ground. In fact, the group(s) is probably more powerful than ever.
This book primarily contains 21 mini-autobiographies of those who have left their religious communities of birth, a vast majority because they did not belong in the accepted heterosexual stereotype.
But, although the subjects left their family religions, the religions never seemed to leave them and haunt them not unlike ghastly nightmares probably until the day they die, perhaps leaving the writers separated from their communities into separate and lonely existences.
Common sense and community beliefs do not seem mutually compatible.
Perhaps, as a study of human behavior, “Empty the Pews” illustrates the devastation that can be achieved by childhood events.
The devastation will probably not be gotten over until each individual builds or is accepted into a community of his/her own liking.
A somewhat interesting read.
The title is a bit misleading. Regardless of what the Pew Research Center publishes, Evangelicals are not losing ground. In fact, the group(s) is probably more powerful than ever.
This book primarily contains 21 mini-autobiographies of those who have left their religious communities of birth, a vast majority because they did not belong in the accepted heterosexual stereotype.
But, although the subjects left their family religions, the religions never seemed to leave them and haunt them not unlike ghastly nightmares probably until the day they die, perhaps leaving the writers separated from their communities into separate and lonely existences.
Common sense and community beliefs do not seem mutually compatible.
Perhaps, as a study of human behavior, “Empty the Pews” illustrates the devastation that can be achieved by childhood events.
The devastation will probably not be gotten over until each individual builds or is accepted into a community of his/her own liking.
A somewhat interesting read.
January 17, 2020
What does it mean to shed a whole ideological system? What happens to your world when familiar ways of meaning-making are lost? These are the most compelling questions this anthology poses, and allows a diversity of writers to explore in different styles, from different angles.
All of the essays in this anthology are well-written and interesting and several left me with insights I am still thinking about a month after reading them. The "stickiest" of these was Lauren O'Neal's, which explores the relationship between eating disorders/body dysmorphia and the fear and hatred of the physical body instilled by Christian theology. She goes on to propose that maybe the reason so many Christians support punitive laws and politicians is not because Christians hate poor or vulnerable people specifically, but because they fervently hate themselves. It's a really interesting idea--one I'll be thinking about for a long time.
All of the essays in this anthology are well-written and interesting and several left me with insights I am still thinking about a month after reading them. The "stickiest" of these was Lauren O'Neal's, which explores the relationship between eating disorders/body dysmorphia and the fear and hatred of the physical body instilled by Christian theology. She goes on to propose that maybe the reason so many Christians support punitive laws and politicians is not because Christians hate poor or vulnerable people specifically, but because they fervently hate themselves. It's a really interesting idea--one I'll be thinking about for a long time.
July 22, 2020
Yes someone is out there like you.
Great book, I didn't really have any expectations starting, I already know that God is not real, and did.not have a strict religious upbringing to overcome and for each that conclusion. My favorite chapters are Becoming Lost and Rapture. Would love to.read more on the reform school in the DR, as it reminds me of the children's home in brother spent about seven years in and outbid growing up. Run by older southern Baptist employees would beat the carp out of us for the smallest infraction. That was the only time I went I church with any regular basis. I got kicked out of Sunday school with an argument about interracial couples going to hell. This is what this book helps with. That others are of the who struggled with religious beliefs who have found better answer and that you're not alone. I am very glad as I am concerned for our secular constitution that's under attack now.
Great book, I didn't really have any expectations starting, I already know that God is not real, and did.not have a strict religious upbringing to overcome and for each that conclusion. My favorite chapters are Becoming Lost and Rapture. Would love to.read more on the reform school in the DR, as it reminds me of the children's home in brother spent about seven years in and outbid growing up. Run by older southern Baptist employees would beat the carp out of us for the smallest infraction. That was the only time I went I church with any regular basis. I got kicked out of Sunday school with an argument about interracial couples going to hell. This is what this book helps with. That others are of the who struggled with religious beliefs who have found better answer and that you're not alone. I am very glad as I am concerned for our secular constitution that's under attack now.
April 18, 2021
As with so many books that are a compilation essays, some really struck me hard while others were happily over quickly. It's simply because writing styles are different and how some people's stories feel closer to home than others. Everything was well written and thoughtful. I mention this just so you don't pass on the book if the first couple of chapters don't interest you. There is a variety of perspectives and styles in the book, so it is worth reading on. I personally thought that the co-editor Lauren O'Neal had one of the best essays in the whole book. Some essays are shocking (churches actually still do that in the 21st Century?!?!) while others are a little to vague to know how to relate (so all I got is that you left and never went back...). Some made me laugh (oh my, AWANA!! I never looked back and realized how weird that all was!!). So if you are feeling a little far from the church of your childhood, you may enjoy the perspectives of these authors.
April 28, 2020
I definitely was expecting more from the book by ways of how today’s society is moving away from religion and not just individual peoples stories about why they left the church. Most of which could be summed up as “I realized I didn’t believe anymore”. But the last essay really struck me as genius in the way they explained what religion is and why people feel the need to push their religion on others. “All religious beliefs are a game of pretend..” and it’s more fun to play a game when everyone plays the same one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2021
Not all of these short stories are created equal. While some authors offer critical insight into evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity (or, sometimes, Christianity in general), others prattle on about losing their faith or any other arbitrary story they selected. At times I felt I was listening to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" but with less creativity. Not all authors are particularly adept with writing, either. I noticed rookie over veteran writers early on. I would have enjoyed the book more if the few experienced authors had written more of the short stories.
September 19, 2021
Empty the Pews is made up of personal essays from people who have left the church for various reason. Any one of these stories could have been mine and many were very similar. Whether you’re a Christian, a struggling Christian, someone of another belief, or someone that doesn’t buy into this stuff, I think it’s an important read. It’s important to know about others experiences in life. It’s especially important for anyone who thinks it’s not their fault or the churches fault for people leaving the church. *spoiler* You’ve got some part in it.
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