Talk:Exvangelical

Suggestions on newer books

Hi! Chrissy Stroop again here, hoping that some people are still monitoring this page and interested in further developments in the study of exvangelicals. I know it'd be inappropriate for me to edit the "Exvangelical" article myself, but I wanted to make those here aware of some new books that could be used to significantly enrich the discussion--specifically Exvangelical and Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement that's Fighting Back by Blake Chastain, and The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon of NPR. Both are new contributions by exvangelicals.

Further, I would suggest making updates with information from Sarah Stankorb's book Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning, and chapter 4 of Bob Smietana's book Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why it Matters. Full disclosure: I'm in all these books. But that's because I have been at the center of this wave of discussion and community building since it happened in 2016. Also, while I disagree with some of the framing, etc., in Smietana's book, one thing I'd like to stress that he got right is his emphasis on noting that exvangelicals are not all progressive Christians now--many of us, myself included, are atheists. And some of course join other religions, like Neo-Paganism.

There are some good memoirs as well, but these are all books that look at the wider social context, not just any one individual's experience. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ProtonGirl (talk • contribs) 18:54, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello @ProtonGirl: and welcome to Wikipedia! Honestly, I think it is fine for you to contribute to the Exvangelical article. According to the policy WP:CONFLICT, a conflict of interest arises only when you are editing about yourself, your family, or something that results in financial gain for you. So, while it would be suspect for you to write about your own books on Wikipedia, I think it would be fine for you to write about the other authors you have brought to our attention. In my opinion, the fact that you are simply mentioned in the books is not a conflict of interest.

I'll take a look at what you've shared here. But, if you have copies of these books, you are ahead of me in access to source material. Your expertise is welcomed. Jno.skinner (talk) 02:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the information! I have never been a Wikipedia editor, so I would be a total noob, but yes, I have and have read these books and so there are some things I could say. I also think someone should write about my contributions to the movement (my inevitable bias aside, I have been heavily involved), and in some areas it may be a little weird to write around my own involvement. But there is still plenty I could write about. I'll give it some thought and see if I can find the time to work on the article in the not too distant future. I hope I won't make too many noobish missteps in how I write! ProtonGirl (talk) 17:23, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

So, I made a few little edits, but now I'm stymied because I couldn't immediately figure out how to add in footnotes and new references. Is there a beginner's guide somewhere for that? Thanks! ProtonGirl (talk) 17:49, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Suggestions for further development

Hi! I'm an exvangelical writer myself--in the interest of full disclosure and transparency, even though in making my login Wikipedia encouraged me to use an anonymous handle, I had better just state that I am Chrissy Stroop--so I will refrain from editing the page on the exvangelical movement. But I'd like to point those editing the page to some reliable sources and to make some suggestions.

This is my first time posting to a Wikipedia talk page, so if I'm doing something wrong, please let me know, and I'll gladly accept correction.

I appreciate that there is a section on evangelical responses to the exvangelical phenomenon, but that is not the whole of the reception of the exvangelical movement. I think it would be only fair to include positive reception as well--as, for example, in Freedom From Religion Foundation's Andrew Seidel's recent "love letter" to exvangelicals published by Religion Dispatches. I was also wondering if it might also be possible to include a section on exvangelical pushback against the dismissiveness of even the more serious evangelical responses? Exvangelicals have written a few, including, of course, Blake Chastain's RNS article that is already cited.

Here are links to a few I've written, along with a blog post by another exvangelical, Daniel Griffin:

·https://flux.community/chrissy-stroop/2021/04/russell-moore-had-crisis-faith-it-didnt-help-him-understand-ex-evangelicals (the unusually nuanced and open evangelical author and scholar David Dark repeatedly took to Twitter to urge Russell Moore to reply directly to this open letter to him, but Moore has not replied)

·https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/evangelical/

·https://religiondispatches.org/evangelicals-in-moral-panic-over-exvangelicals/

·https://hillcountryexvie.wordpress.com/2021/09/21/yes-mr-gilson-exvangelicals-are-a-real-thing/

In addition to the above, I was wondering if it might be possible to create a "prominent exvangelicals" category to help provide connections among various related articles? The most famous exvies would include Kevin Max (formerly of the very popular contemporary Christian rock band DC Talk), Joshua Harris (author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, the quintessential purity culture manifesto, who has now repudiated that work and is no longer a Christian), and TikTokker Abraham Piper, son of prominent evangelical theologian John Piper.

I would like to think that Blake Chastain and myself, as well as Linda Kay Klein (author of an important book on purity culture) and Emily Joy Allison-Hearn, an author and the creator of the #ChurchToo hashtag, would belong on that list as well, as people who have done a lot of the work to build community and a shared language around exvangelical experience, even if we're not celebrities. I'm sure there are quite a few other notable people who could be tagged as exvangelicals; Arthur Chu is an example that comes immediately to mind.

ProtonGirl (talk) 17:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

As an exvangelical myself, I am looking forward to helping on this article. My question is does anyone here already have a plan on the way you're going so we can be on the same page? Roaddoag (talk) 16:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

List of reliable sources for further development of the Exvangelical page

Beyond the sources already cited as of September 22, 2021, I'd like to list a few more that I think could help editors flesh out this page (in some cases I'll make notes as to what specifically I think a source could add):

· https://www.cbsnews.com/video/deconstructing-my-religion/ (documentary featuring me, Blake Chastain, Linda Kay Klein, Emily Joy)

· https://www.damemagazine.com/2020/08/20/what-ex-evangelicals-can-teach-us-about-trump-christians/(The exvangelical page currently contains no discussion of the significance of religious trauma to exvie experience; this article could help with that)

· https://newrepublic.com/article/161772/can-religion-give-ptsd (on exvangelicals and religious trauma)

· https://religionnews.com/2020/01/29/giving-victims-of-religious-trauma-a-voice/ (also on abuse and religious trauma)

· https://sojo.net/articles/what-should-you-do-when-your-church-does-not-condemn-hatred (interview with me about #emptythepews)

· https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/6/335 (peer-reviewed scholarly article about the #emptythepews hashtag)

· https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-ap-top-news-science-new-york-4202bedd44b54572a74dc152dbb65b72 (#exvangelical, #emptythepews, and #churchtoo aren't the only exvangelical hashtags that have gotten media attention--#exposechristianschools was even denounced on FOX & Friends twice, as well as covered in AP and NY Times)

· https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/us/christian-schools-students.html

· https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/05/evangelical-church-metoo-movement-abuse/ (on origins of #churchtoo)

· https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/08/the-churchtoo-movement-just-scored-a-historic-victory-for-victims-of-sexual-abuse-willowcreek-community-church-bill-hybels/ (on #churchtoo and a major sexual misconduct case)

· https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/22/16690384/churchtoo-abuse-survivors-harassment-religious-communities (on #churchtoo)

· https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/opinion/evangelical-women-gossip.html

· https://outinjersey.net/trans-exvangelical-leader-chrissy-stroop/

· https://msmagazine.com/2021/03/02/christian-schools-homeschooling-supremacist-conspiracies-qanon/ (on homeschooling and Christian schools, which represent common experiences exvangelicals had in childhood)

· https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/personal-stories-of-the-exodus-from-christianity/2020/01/16/7594a8f8-1472-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html (review of Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church, edited by me and Lauren O'Neal)

· https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-donald-trump-is-not-a-bad-christian-1.9397706 (includes quote from me on work to dismantle common Christian supremacist tropes like equating the term "Christian" with "morally good")

· https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/abraham-piper-tiktok-exvangelical.html (on Abraham Piper's TikTok)

· https://splinternews.com/what-should-we-do-about-trump-ask-ex-evangelicals-1818817424 (general story about exvangelicals' insights into evangelical Trump support, by Sarah Posner, from 2017)

ProtonGirl (talk) 17:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Refs

• The Life Coaches Fueling the “Ex-Evangelical” Movement, Audrey Clare Farley, newrepublic

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 08:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

How is importance to WikiTopics determined?

So, as I've said in other comments, I'm a total noob, but I was wondering how an article's importance to various WikiProjects is determined, and if it's possible to make adjustments to that. For example, I think Exvangelical should also be important to topics related to secularism, atheism, and so forth--not only Christian theology and evangelicalism specifically. Thanks! ProtonGirl (talk) 18:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)