Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith

by Bekah McNeel

“This book is about the various places and ways that uncertainty shows up for parents who, having left or altered the faith they once knew, now must decide what to give their kids. It’s about church attendance, Bible memorization, school choices, and sex talks. It’s about forging new paths in racial justice and creation care while the intractable voices in your head call you a pagan Marxist for doing so.” After the spectacular implosion of her ministry career, Bekah McNeel was left disillusioned and without the foundation of certainty she had built her life on. But rather than leaving the Christian faith altogether, she hung out around the edges, began questioning oversimplified categories of black and white that she had been taught were sacred, and became comfortable living in gray areas while starting a new career in journalism. Then she had kids. From the moment someone asked if she was going to have her first child baptized, Bekah began to wonder if the conservative evangelical Christianity she grew up with was really something she wanted to give her children. That question only became more complicated when she had her second child months before White evangelicals carried Donald Trump to victory in the 2016 presidential election. Soon, Bekah found that other parents were asking similar questions as they broke with their fundamentalist religious upbringing and took on new  Could they raise their kids to live with both the security of faith and the freedom of open-mindedness? To value both Scripture and social justice? To learn morality without shame? In  Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down , Bekah gathers voices from history, scholarship, and her own community to guide others who, like her, are on a quest to shed the false certainty and toxic perfectionism of their past to become better, healthier parents—while still providing strong spiritual foundations for their children. She writes with humor and empathy, providing wise reflections (but not glib answers!) on difficult parenting topics while reminding us that we are not alone, even when we break away from the crowd.

Genres: Parenting, Religion

266 pages, Hardcover

Published October 11, 2022

Reviews

[Tom Funk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book mostly out of curiosity after reading a very positive review of it on the Hearts and Minds Booknotes page . Our kids are in their twenties and so parenting for me is mostly in the rearview (I hope!). But we read a lot of parenting books, took parenting classes, listened to Focus on the Family and other parenting programs/ podcasts ad naseum.For the last twenty years I’m sure parenting has occupied more space in our brains and hearts, dominated more of our time and given us more joy and pain than anything.
McNeel is a journalist who concentrates in educational issues so she comes to this issue with a critical well trained eye. She has a pretty acerbic wit and a commitment to Progressive causes that she is not shy bringing to the issue.
Part of the book is her own story of immersion in the evangelical church culture as a child and her evolving rejection of most of its cultural baggage as she has aged. She paints a very negative picture of a church culture wedded to certainty and perfectionism in ways that harm those inside it and the culture at large. I found myself admitting much of what she describes as the icy road toward perfectionism is accurate among a people whose creeds say they are saved by grace.
She is much less critical, actually almost always an apologist for the progressive solutions that she offers as an alternative. I found myself wondering if the church would embrace her approach to raising faithful children if we wouldn’t just create a new icy road with markers to measure inclusivity, egalitarianism and justice replacing our current commitment to certainty of belief, access to opportunity and reward for achievement?
What the book does best is expose our current fear based church culture for its affect on our kids and church life as a whole. That makes it worth reading. McNeel says she has learned to live with uncertainty about what’s best for children and that is a message I think all parents need to hear even if you don’t like her other suggestions

[Sarah Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up to 3. This review is a collection of notes that I wrote as I read the book…so it doesn’t flow. But it does display my thoughts.

Before I get into this though…. My biggest issue with this book was tone. If I had to compare this book to an opposing counterpart book with similar tone, I’d compare it to the two Mama Bear Apologetics books. Preaching at each other over how the other side has done it wrong and how to do it better simply isn’t attractive. So even if all of your points are right, it’s simply a clanging cymbal.

Part 1 of the book (the first 50 pages): I find it interesting that she descriptively writes as if she has as much disdain for evangelicals as she describes evangelicals having disdain for others. Furthermore, she often mixes up religion, faith, and politics with no clear boundary as to what she means when. While some of her thoughts are valid, the way they are presented are simply a pendulum swing towards what her disdain, toxic emotion, and vitriol are directed. This would be much better if she had kept her concepts, beliefs, and reformed thoughts yet written it with more grace & kindness. It was abrasive at best, and if I hadn’t had a friend who had a fairly good recommendation for the book, I would have definitely stopped reading it.

In part 2, however, her writing shifts dramatically. Occasionally the verbiage of part 1 slips in, but as a whole it’s much more Grace filled. She literally mentions how it’s painful to hear of people saying and expressing things exactly the way she did in part 1…which is highly ironic to me.

The chapter called “Sword Drills” was fabulous - it discusses the unhealthy ways we learned the Bible (I specifically related to the part where she disagreed with how we made Bible facts & memorizing verses into competition), how the early church had to “read” the Bible, how we interpret the Bible, and how we hear from God. It was written with grace and truth and brought up so many good points. This was by far my favorite chapter of the book.

As the book continued, I found I definitely didn’t agree with her on about 50% (maybe even more) of the stuff. Which is fine. It was interesting to read and I can respect her viewpoint even if I don’t come to the same conclusion.

When she was just dealing with Bible and theology I thought her points were stronger. That’s not to say I agreed with all of them, but I could see her viewpoints and it gave me a lot to think about, ponder, and mull over. This is healthy, and if our faith cannot handle questions and considering different viewpoints then it is not faith.

However, she also definitely mixed in a lot of politics, and while I do believe how we see politics in the church shapes the church, I think she over accentuates specific political calls. She also speaks with disdain of people who are speaking with disdain of other people - so she’s just perpetuating the issue; different categories of people are simply the target. She could make the same points without wading into the political territory while also still achieving the same outcome. It also felt like half the time she didn’t care if she offended everyone (resulting in abrasive writing), and then half the time she was scared to offend anyone on either side of the aisle (resulting in a lot of over clarification) so it felt like the book was just emotional whiplash and all over the place. I know I do this myself, so I definitely see how it got there, but it didn’t make the book super enjoyable to read.

Also, this is a book on deconstructing / reconstructing faith. Very little of the book has anything to do with raising kids. I suppose based on the fact that what we think & believe will filter down to our kids you could say it still applies, but IMO the title of the book didn’t fit the content of the book.

If you’re good with picking and choosing content from a book that you find is applicable, there are some real gold nuggets in this book. I definitely was really interested in certain chapters and read them fully invested, and other chapters were simply less attractive (or even more annoying to me) so I skimmed them for a more basic premise. My favorite chapters were Sword Drills, Spanks for Your Soul, The Sex Talks, The Big Fear, and Paedobaptism-ish.

As a whole though, I just cannot see giving this book more than 3 stars. It’s all over the place in terms of topics, emotions, and writing style so you really don’t know what to expect. I think this author would be interesting to read as her healing & growth journey progresses to see where her thoughts and questions lead (not saying she needs to come to specific rock solid conclusions - just in general, what are the things she’s thinking as time goes on and her perspective changes). I wouldn’t read this again and I probably wouldn’t recommend it as a whole.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we can get past the fact that the term "guide" was used very loosely/inaccurately, I think this book is a useful series of essays through the lens of how parenthood and deconstruction intersect. The author still seems to be in the thick of her feelings about everything, which, you know, so am I.

I spent most of the book wishing for a podcast discussion between her and Brian McLaren, bringing in a perspective of developmental stages that he presents in Faith after Doubt to the conversation about moving from Christian conservatism to post- or ex-evangelicalism.

There's definitely not much in the way of prescriptive tips or suggestions on how to apply any of the things she discusses, but I still think the discussion is worthwhile.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would call this book less of a guide and more of a contemplation. I would say about 3/4 of the book was explanation of how her beliefs have changed and 1/4 is how she’s engaging her kids in those topics. I resonated with a lot of what the author said, but wished for more examples of how she (or her sphere of connections) is/are choosing to engage their kids.

[Josh Olds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buckle in for what is probably going to be the weirdest book review you’ll get from me for a while. I loved this book. Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith is an empathetic work of solidarity meant to encourage parents who have deconstructed from their childhood faith traditions. In particular, Bekah McNeel speaks to former evangelicals who still love Jesus but aren’t sure how to talk about faith to their kids.

Remember how Noah’s Ark—the genocide of all but one family—was plastered on your church nursery wall? It seemed cute then but it creeps you out a bit now. Or maybe you grew up terrified that the Rapture was going to happen and you’d be left behind. Or maybe your parents believed that it was sinful for babies to cry. From the ridiculous to the traumatic, there’s a generation of young adults who have left their childhood faith but are now left unsure of how to teach their own children about God.

After a short introduction, McNeel walks readers through the “why” of the book. In her words, “We walk through the cost of certainty-based, perfectionistic faith and parenting and set ourselves up to comb through the numerous twists and turns of ‘what’ and ‘how’ we might do things differently.” The chapter Sleep Training for Jesus takes readers through the history of Christian parenting and the how the 1970s culture wars over the definition of the American family led to popular patriarchal and authoritarian models of Christian parenting.

The second part of the book—its bulk—talks about the areas of theology and Christian practice that have been at the heart of deconstruction: how to read/interpret Scripture, hell, racial and gender issues, marriage, sex, war, guns, and so much more. McNeel inserts a lot of herself in Bringing Up Kids When the Church Lets You Down, telling both the story of how she was raised and the story of how she’s tried to raise her kids differently. For some, these are chapters of solidarity. For others, with younger kids, they will be chapters of preparation. How do I talk to my child about hell when I’m not sure it exists? Do I tell my kids that their bad behavior is sinful (when developmentally they may not have the ability to control their impulses)? It’s good discussion. Unlike the other parenting books, McNeel doesn’t offer a blueprint or a guide, but rather a hug and a voice that says you aren’t in it alone.

The final part of Bringing Up Kids When the Church Lets You Down moves into a discussion of changing paradigms. And this is where things get weird. Not because of Bekah McNeel’s content—but because some parts of the book have been censored based on where the book was printed and meant to be sold. With some states enacting draconian censorship laws and banning books from libraries, Eerdmans has responded with an auto-censoring program called ICIP (Intelligent Censorship Ink Program). If the program detects pages with material considered controversial/questionable/undesired/etc, that whole page is not printed. My hard copy of Bringing Up Kids has sixteen pages missing—and you know that’s the good stuff. The irony of how the censorship is based on conservative authoritarianism in a book about breaking the cycle of conservative authoritarian parenting isn’t lost on me. The ebook, however, had no problems. So I guess buy the ebook and skip the printed version unless you can verify you’re getting the full product.

This book made me feel better about my own parenting and made me feel less alone in struggling to guide my kids spiritually. If you feel alone and uncertain of how to do differently than what you had done to you, here is a place to start.

[Camden Morgante · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never heard of this book or its author until she started appearing on some of the same podcasts I have also been on. The subject of how to raise your children when you are deconstructing your own faith is a daily reality for me and many of my fellow Millenials.

This book was less a guide and more a collection of the author's reflections, musings, and history lessons on certain categories of beliefs. The author's main thesis seems to be that we should fight against white-knuckle perfectionism and certainty parenting and embrace "aperfection--a total rejection of certainty and rightness as the goal." While I agree with her in some ways, I did not relate to her experience of conservative Christianity as a "culture of perfectionism"; perhaps compliance or conformity was more my experience.

Part 3 on "how does our shift in faith affect the other decisions we make as parents?" was the most helpful section to me, covering discipline, sex education, and educational choices. But in most of the chapters, it was not until the last subheading (about 2 pages) that parenting was addressed, and even then it was mostly the author saying what she was going to do or not do with her own kids. I wanted more practical application and perhaps research or expert interviews rather than just personal thoughts.

Since this book was more a deconstruction memoir than a parenting guide, there are more engaging books on the subject of deconstruction, the history of American evangelicalism. or the author's personal deconstruction journey than this one (The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon is a recent favorite of mine). There are also more practical books on raising kids in a non-legalistic, non-moralistic faith (Woven by Meredith Miller is my pick). While this book had some relatable stories and good questions for discussion at the end, I recommend those books over this one.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was raised in very conservative Christian denominations, similar to the author, although I never even considered working in ministry (probably because it was only for men, but I don't know that it would have been a good fit for me, either). I didn't start recognizing incongruities in what I was taught until my husband and I were already in the thick of raising our three children. It's led to a lot of upheaval in church attendance and a lot of relationships in their older school-age, now teenaged years. I carry a lot of guilt over the inconsistencies I feel my struggles have led my children to experience, although I try to be honest with them about all of it. Unfortunately, it's tricky to be honest with them without feeling hypercritical. At the same time, I don't want them to have any view of God or Christianity that I ended up so strongly tied to in my early life, believing that God doesn't "approve" of me unless I'm checking certain boxes, and not knowing any better than to tie Christianity almost entirely to a politically conservative mindset.
The author expresses many of the same feelings I have had, but I have to admit that I'm somewhat jealous that she got to process much of it with no or only very small children, so her views on many issues are so much clearer to her than many are to me.

Although the book is more anecdotes than "guide," I appreciate the overall message at the end that it's not going to be easy and continuing to hang on is the best we can all do. I hope to continue to do so and will trust that God is going to do what is best in my children's hearts and minds without my minute by minute micromanagement of everything.

[Caroline Jansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a miss for me. I see how systemic racism plays into the story here but I feel like it dominated the book to the point of distracting from the main purpose. There was a lot of white guilt agonizing and disclaiming over appropriation when she was incorporating the perspectives of people of color. She was centering Black and indigenous voices but still worried about show racist she's coming off... it was exhausting to read. You can tell it was written mostly in 2o20 lol.

The other thing is just how I think the book was a bit narrower in its audience/purpose than indicated. I was raised very conservative Catholic, became disillusioned with the demands of orthodoxy an exclusion of gay people, and eventually landed in the accepting, loving, liturgical, but maybe a bit wishy washy Episcopal Church. So I thought this book would be useful to me as I didn't want to pass on a lot of the legalism, shame, and intolerance of free thinking my original religion inculcated, but I still want to pass on a love of God and neighbor, a love of the sacraments, and a sophisticated engagement with the Christian theological tradition. BUT this book seems entirely aimed at former evangelicals who landed as "spiritual but not religious". So if you're in that demographic, maybe its great! If you're actually trying to raise Christian kids in a church community, it's mostly a miss.

I did enjoy Bekah's journalistic style, and the sexual ethics chapter was spot on. It's generally a good book, but approach it knowing it's more of an exvangelical memoir mixed with anti racist commentary than a parenting book.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll preface my review by saying I'm a minister who loves the church and has not felt "let down." That said, I have witnessed the church let down countless individuals, so I figured this book would resonate. In some ways, it did! It touched on pretty much all the major flaws of the standard protestant evangelical church. But I found the book primarily focused on when the church lets you down, not so much on "bringing up kids". And I understand ambiguity and freedom of parental choice make it hard to say "do this", but on the other hand, there was (in my opinion), minimal suggestions or lists on how to bring up kids. This is not a "how to" book. It's a "here's why the how to is hard" sort of book. And I suppose there's a place for that! But in a 15 page chapter on a given subject, probably 90-95% is exploration of the subject, and 5-10% percent deals with parenting. I guess I'd say this is more a critical essay evaluation on church and parenting and where that intersects than it is helpful in your own personal parenting journey. Not a bad book, (in fact, very well researched!), But not particularly helpful either.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you grew up on conservative Christianity, especially in American evangelicalism, and are now wondering how much you want to pass on to your kids...then this book is for you! In fact, even if you aren't a parent, this book is still powerful because its underlying theme is how to prioritize relationships over being right.

Bekah McNeel does a phenomenal job conveying the struggle of doubting one's religious roots and wondering where to go next. She asks honest questions like: What do you tell kids when they ask about heaven or hell? What if you don't know what you believe? How do you handle when other family members or friends tell your kids beliefs you might disagree with?

Her book is authentic (relatable personal stories) and well researched (no surprise considering her background in journalism). Her book talks about letting go of perfectionism, embracing doubt, and encouraging the next generation toward love, truth, and open-mindedness beyond dogma and legalism.

[Ron Badgerow III · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this deconstruction journey of a wife and mother quite encouraging. It was refreshing to read someone who still identifies as a Christian critically analyze their faith and come to some differing conclusions than most of what she grew up with. I'll admit that I didn't concur with all of her conclusions, but I am coming to the realization that that is more than ok. Of course, we are all going to come to differing viewpoints and convictions about life. In light of that, I am beginning to firmly believe that it is one of the beauties of life and that the diversity of humanity is what makes it so great - as long as we are not demonizing each other and inflicting harm on one another. Definitely gave me some more food for thought when considering throwing out the baby with the bath water of the Christian faith I was raised with. Much more to ponder on, but this was a great resource on my own journey through deconstruction.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was DNF for me. While she makes some good points about wrestling with your faith while raising your kids, the decolonization and political tangents really felt to me that the title was misleading. While I will be the last person to defend colonization and its impact, power abuses existed long before the 1400s; just look at the Roman Empire, and you will see extreme systemic power abuse. This is not to deny the impact of colonization on systemic racism today; I would absolutely agree with that. However, applying the concept of decolonization to personal growth and parenting seemed a bit of a stretch and off topic from the book's thesis.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer- “when church lets you down” does not mean the wonderful loving church (the compassionate people) I grew up in” but church or in other words straight white American Christianity as a whole. This book puts into words what my heart and mind have been struggling with. It also gives me the courage to trust God with the doubt and confusion and even disgust and anger that I seem to have.

Don’t read this title and stop there. Read this book and seek to understand. My favorite takeaway from her words, “be comfortable with uncertainty; reject perfectionism.”

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I copied out lots of quotes into my journal! McNeel is an excellent writer--she's a journalist. In this book, she addressed lots of different issues that come up while raising kids and how the church has responded well or poorly in her opinion. She covered lost of issues, like baptism, sleep training, perfectionism, memorizing scripture, the concept of hell, LGBTQIA issues, spanking, sex talks, and choosing schools. I agreed with some of her conclusions and enjoyed her writing even when I didn't agree.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to return this to the library so won't be able to finish it yet, but so far what I have read has been really useful perspective to understand those who have been let down by their religion. I think it would be even more affirming and useful for anyone who is in that situation themselves. Having some examples of parenting strategies is good, since often the religious scaffolding isn't going to work the same way it used to (in the case of mixed-faith parenting).

[KieraK · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are trying to make sense past fundamentalism, this is a good read for you.

[Keri Murcray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have any kids, but with kids in my life this was still helpful and very interesting. I'm glad to have read it.

[Casey | Casey's Book Club · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of what Bekah McNeel says and experienced with the white American evangelical church rang true for me. I expected this to have more practical advice for someone going through deconstruction.

[Amylou · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was more of memoir and although her suggestions did not align with my worldview, it really was very loosely goosey and specific to her experience. Just not what I expected based on description.