Books / Authors
Amen?
Questions for a God I Hope Exists
Julia Rocchi
From a place of vulnerability comes Amen?, a collection of personal prayers and essays for practicing penitents and devoted doubters. With fresh imagery and prose to help you pause, this book encourages us to ask questions, invite joy, and grapple with mystery.
Asian American Apostate
Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University
R. Scott Okamoto
R. Scott Okamoto had no idea just what his job as an English teacher at an evangelical Christian college would show him—the bigotry he experienced as an Asian American, the faux intellectualism he fought as a teacher—or how much it would spur him to discover who he was.
Bring It Home
The Adventure of Finding Yourself after Being Lost in Religion
Matt Kendziera
Bring It Home offers engaging, funny, and touching stories of rediscovering yourself after being lost in too much religion, helping you better see the original blueprint of your own life. You were created for a real and meaningful life and a deep connection to the divine. Digging up what has been buried can be the most thrilling adventure.
Cradled in the Arms of Compassion
A Spiritual Journey from Trauma to Recovery
Frank Rogers Jr.
Cradled in the Arms of Compassion is at once a narrative account of psychological transformation and a spiritual autobiography that details the survivor’s journey. Rogers shows how he found recovery through an extraordinary application of imaginative meditation that spiritual seekers and practitioners will find utterly fascinating.
Faith Doesn’t Erase Grief
Embracing the Experience and Finding Hope
The grieving process is part of being human, but far too often, Christian grievers are rushed into rejoicing that their loved one is in heaven. It is time for a better way to acknowledge that you can struggle with grief and still love God. Licensed professional counselor and ordained minister Kate Meyer walks you through the grieving process, and encourages grievers and shows them how to find hope.
Giving Up God
Resurrecting a Spirituality of Love and Wonder
Sarah Henn Hayward
Many of us are taught to believe that our only hope is in a supernatural, all-powerful, Christian God. Yet we wonder, is God really real? If we pursue our questions, what might we find? While the church seems to be shutting out those who have questions, Sarah Henn Hayward shows us how to discover who we are beyond religion and find a new path forward.
Help, I’m Dealing with Trauma
Real Talk, Real Encouragement, Real Healing
What does trauma look like, how does it show up in your life, and what do you do about it? In Help, I’m Dealing with Trauma, Lemuel R.T. Blackett reveals uncensored, real-life experiences that have shaped him, and reminds you how resiliency, faith, getting help, and believing in yourself are the simple things that will see you through.
Hope in the 2020s
Encouragement for Our Time
Multiple Contributors
How do we find hope in a time such as this? In Hope in the 2020s: Encouragement for Our Time, you’ll discover a book where with each reading you’ll find a slice of hope to brighten your day. Each of the spiritual storytellers, thinkers, and practitioners offer an antidote, an idea, or some action step that catapults you into hope.
Intersexion
A Story of Faith, Identity, and Authenticity
Intersexion is a harrowing, hopeful exploration of the cost of coming out—as a sexual minority, ally, or asker of difficult questions—and what it means to come into one’s own. It’s a book for anyone craving a more authentic life, a book about intersections we find ourselves in by no choice of our own.
jaded
a poetic reckoning with white evangelical christian indoctrination
For those of us who are picking up pieces of life and faith and figuring out how to heal and move on, jaded: a poetic reckoning with white evangelical christian indoctrination is a collection of poems–short, thoughtful, brave, and spicy–showing that we still have a whole lot to get off our chests.
Lost Faith and Wandering Souls
A Psychology of Disillusionment, Mourning and the Return of Hope
Lost Faith and Wandering Souls acknowledges the religious identity crisis of our time and the full power of the psychological journey. By looking beneath the surface at deeper, lifelong dynamics, it shows a way to mourn our losses individually and socially so we can move to a healthier spirituality.
Stumbling
A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism
As millions exit the church due to its politics and its treatment of LGBTQ+ people, Brandon Flanery brings us Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism to give us a glimpse into why he and others are leaving and to bring us the hope he’s found on the other side.
unbelieve
poems on the journey to becoming a heretic
In unbelieve, Marla Taviano—author, single mom, and former very-good-Christian-girl who had all the answers—welcomes you into a space where you can let it all out, let it all go, and start heading in brave new directions. And she’ll be right there beside you on your journey.
After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide
The Path to a New Christianity
As one of America’s leading public scholars on these issues in religion today, David Gushee’s After Evangelicalism shines a light on the path forward. The After Evangelicalism Group Study Guide encourages people to read and reflect together on Christianity after evangelicalism.
Lemuel Blackett is an ordained minister and has been in ministry for 22 years. Originally from London, he moved to New York in the late 1980s. He is a graduate of Eastern Baptist School of Religion. He’s currently Donor and Corporate Relations Manager at Interfaith Community Services. His book, Help, I’m Dealing with Trauma offers stories and insights to help readers acknowledge all the ways we can experience trauma and how to create a mindset to move forward. He lives in San Diego, California.
Christa Brown has been described as the “public face” of Baptist abuse survivors. She’s the author of This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang, and has appeared on ABC 20/20’s “Preacher Predators”, Vice, and other national media. Brown devotes time to bring clergy accountability to Baptist-land and to support abuse survivors. Her forthcoming memoir addresses patterns of patriarchy, family dysfunction, and how truth telling leads to a life filled with love, peace, and beauty.
Cynthia Vacca Davis is an adjunct professor with an MFA in writing, teaching narrative nonfiction at Christopher Newport University. She’s written hundreds of feature stories, columns, and essays, as well as young adult novels. She enjoys telling stories, always searching for the threads that connect us to community. Her memoir Intersexion is told from alternating first-person perspectives and plays out at the intersection of social and religious tension around gender and sexuality. She lives in southwestern Virginia.
Jeff Elkins, a graduate of Baylor University and Truett Seminary, was a pastor for 15 years. He left ministry to work as a writer for a tech company and is the author of more than 10 novels and 100 short stories. He is the host of the Dialogue Doctor and co-host with Leigh Erdman of the newly launched Just Came for the Tacos about life after the evangelical church. His forthcoming book will provide hope for a Christianity that can be resurrected post-evangelicalism. He lives north of Baltimore with his wife and five kids.
Trey Ferguson likes playing with words. Whether it be with tweets, videos, essays, sermonic presentations, Bible studies, podcasts, or speaking engagements, he’s always trying to provoke an image in a seeker with some combination of words. In addition to publishing his own newsletter, The Son Do Move, and hosting the New Living Treyslation and Three Black Men podcasts, and speaking especially in churches, his forthcoming book helps our diverse world learn how to think bigger about God.
Brandon Flanery writes about honest, messy things, specifically around faith and sexuality. He’s published with the Colorado Springs Indy, The Scribe, Baptist News Global, and has academic essays with the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. His forthcoming memoir is about being raised in evangelical Christendom as a closeted gay man, and unwinding what is real and true for him post-closet, an ever-twisting journey—full of trailblazing, thorn bushes, and dead ends. He lives in Atlanta.
David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre. Gushee is the author of Kingdom Ethics, Changing Our Mind, After Evangelicalism (and its Group Study Guide), Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Introducing Christian Ethics, and more. Gushee and his wife, Jeanie, live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sarah Henn Hayward is a physical therapist, a devoted book fanatic, and life-long seeker of truth. After traveling the world, meeting people of different faiths, making queer friends, and learning about human evolution, she surprised herself by rejecting her entire former belief system. Her forthcoming book reveals the struggle for a new identity through exploring new vistas in physics, philosophy, and alternative theologies, and drawing inspiration from the natural world. Follow @shaywardwrites on Instagram or at sarahhennhayward.com
Matt Kendziera is a speaker, podcaster, and musician. He is the host of Chasing Goodness, engaging authors, activists, and influencers on questions most people run from. He’s also a collaborator with organizations such as Rachel’s Challenge. Matt’s Bring It Home: The Adventure of Finding Yourself after Being Lost in Religion shows how stories and experiences are what connect us most intimately to the Divine, and that in our quest to find God we must first find ourselves. Matt lives with his family in Wisconsin.
Kate J. Meyer is an author, the host of #MentalHealthMondayswithKate, a public speaker, professional counselor, and ordained minister. Kate is the author of The Red Couch, a novel just out in summer 2021 about missed expectations and seeing how the past doesn’t define but informs you. Kate’s book Faith Doesn’t Erase Grief is a get-help-now manual on loss and grief at the intersections of faith and psychology, helping spiritual readers see loss more clearly. A fan of NaNoRiMo writing goals, she lives in western Michigan.
David Morris is the author of Lost Faith and Wandering Souls: A Psychology of Disillusionment, Mourning, and the Return of Hope. He is the publisher of Lake Drive Books and a literary agent at Hyponymous Consulting, two innovative ventures working together to specialize in authors and books that help people heal, grow, and discover. David holds a PhD in psychology and religion from Drew University. He lives with his wife in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they have two daughters. Visit davidrmorris.me.
Scott Okamoto is a writer, musician, podcaster, and storyteller. He’s spent much of his professional career teaching English at a Christian college, witnessing the experience of marginalized people there, which he relays in his podcast Chapel Probation. His Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University tells his unlikely spiritual journey, bringing together an evangelical past, an Asian American experience, with a contemporary world of Christian evangelicalism. He lives in Southern California with his wife and three kids.
Julia Rocchi writes prose, poetry, and prayers. She holds an MA in Writing and has published stories in Furious Gravity and Dappled Things, and other stories in the Saturday Evening Post, jmww, Bourbon Penn, 3Elements Review, Reflex Fiction and others. Julia’s forthcoming book, Amen?, is a collection of graceful musings, prayers and poems for a wandering, wondering, doubt-laden, hope-filled faith that reflects the desire to believe as much as belief itself. Julia blogs at www.juliarocchi.com and lives in northern Virginia with her family.
Frank Rogers is a professor (Claremont School of Theology), trained spiritual guide, retreat leader, and the author of Practicing Compassion, Compassion in Practice: The Way of Jesus, and The God of Shattered Glass, a novel. He focuses on spirituality that is contemplative, creative, and socially liberative. Rogers’s Cradled in the Arms of Compassion is a spiritual memoir of going from trauma to recovery. He is the cofounder of the Center for Engaged Compassion and lives in Southern California.
Marla Taviano is into books, love, justice, globes, anti-racism, blue, gray, rainbows, poems. She reads and writes for a living (especially @whitegirllearning). She’s a mom to some freaking awesome kids, and wears her heart on her t-shirts. On a mission/ quest/ journey to live wholefarted (not a typo). She’s the author of unbelieve: poems on the journey to becoming a heretic and jaded: a poetic reckoning with white evangelical christian indoctrination.
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