Dear Friend,
We are living through an era of extraordinary religious self-absorption. Church life increasingly revolves around personality rather than practice, loyalty rather than love. Congregations fracture not over theology but over allegiance. Leaders are fawned over, protected, and excused. Abuse is minimized. Dissent is framed as betrayal. And “faith” is reduced to defending power instead of truth.
This dynamic did not appear overnight. But it has reached a dangerous intensity in a political moment where the majority of American evangelicalism has offered near-total allegiance to a grandiose strongman—Donald Trump—despite his documented cruelty, corruption, authoritarian impulses, and history of sexual abuse.
In religious spaces, moral accountability has been suspended in the name of access, influence, or imagined divine destiny. Each week brings new evidence of how this bargain corrodes both democracy and the soul.
When religious communities repeatedly grant spiritual cover to authoritarian tactics, the consequences do not remain abstract. They manifest in real harm, real fear, and real death. Faith that refuses to interrogate power becomes an accomplice to it.
This is the landscape into which Gaslighting for God: A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists by journalist and author Becky Garrison now enters—and it could not be timelier.
Garrison has spent decades reporting from inside American Christianity, first as a religious satirist for The Wittenburg Door and as an author. In her latest book, Gaslighting for God, she names what so many feel but struggle to articulate: that much of what passes for “spiritual leadership” today is better understood through the lens of narcissism—specifically, spiritual narcissism.
With biting satire, rigorous research, and hard-earned wisdom, Garrison dissects the behaviors that dominate unhealthy religious spaces: charismatic leaders who demand unquestioned loyalty; institutions that silence whistleblowers; communities that confuse emotional manipulation with divine authority. She identifies patterns—grandiose, victimized, communal, malignant—that recur across denominations and ideologies, from conservative megachurches to supposedly enlightened progressive spaces.
Crucially, Gaslighting for God is not just diagnostic; it is practical. Garrison offers readers language for experiences they’ve been taught to doubt, tools for recognizing abuse in real time, and pathways toward healthier forms of community. This is not a call to cynicism or isolation. It is a call to discernment.
Historian Randall Balmer has warned about the theological costs of conflating Christianity with power, observing that when faith becomes a vehicle for political domination, it loses its moral center. He calls Gaslighting for God "a wise and knowing exposé of religious narcissists."
Author Tia Levings writes, “A deep and sharply insightful commentary on narcissistic leadership.” Levings, herself a survivor and chronicler of religious trauma, recognizes what makes this book different: it refuses both denial and despair.
At a time when authoritarianism increasingly borrows religious language to sanctify cruelty—and when some believers are willing to elevate a felon to the status of a divinely ordained savior—Gaslighting for God insists on a better question: What kind of faith tells the truth about power?
For readers who feel disoriented, exhausted, or quietly alarmed by what they see unfolding in religious and political life, this book offers clarity without condescension and solidarity without spin. It names the gaslighting. It exposes the manipulation. And it reminds us that spirituality rooted in empathy, accountability, and shared humanity still exists—and is worth seeking.
Gaslighting for God by Becky Garrison is now on sale.
Gratefully,
David Morris, Publisher
As a religious satirist, Becky Garrison served as Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door from 1994 to 2008, and has been on its board of directors since its relaunch in 2021. She’s the author of nine books, including Jesus Died for This? A Satirist’s Search for the Risen Christ and Distilled in Washington: A History. Also, she co-edited a book of love letters penned by partners of trans folks to their loved ones, as well as contributing chapters to about a dozen other books. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she covers the region’s craft culture, including cider, beer, wine, spirits, cannabis/CBD, psychedelics, and the regional festival scene. Follow Becky on Substack here.
