Cynthia Armistead

“Ask THEM the question—the people, the human beings who were treated as litter by evangelical leaders and institutions on a crusade for religious, social, and political power, a quest that wrecked their souls and their sanity. Spend three days with those wounded, joyful thrivers, those who were kicked out, fled, crawled out, or backed slowly out the rear door. Those who are hanging around the edges for dear life, those deconstructing and reconstructing their lives, those who are still haunted by nightmares of heresy trials, purity culture, and rapture fears. Go ask them if there’s any good in evangelicalism.”
― Sarah McCammon, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church

“It is easier to blame the person who is leaving the environment than it is to self-reflect,” she said.”
― Sarah McCammon, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church

“They act like the people who deconstruct aren’t the ones who were first in line for every single church thing ever, who’d pored over every theology book, and who really wanted to follow Jesus—the kids who came to youth group every single time,” Petrini said. “They act like it’s a bunch of people who were really gullible, or who were never believers in the first place, instead of people who were in church leadership, people who went to seminary, people who were raised in this and who had very similar experiences to them.”
― Sarah McCammon, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church

“Power is not in stopping or quitting; spiritual power is the ability to be in your agency and realize that you don’t have to go along with that deal that was made on your behalf by someone else.”
― Sarah McCammon, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church