Fundamentalism Memoir

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith.

In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls - resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder - and trapped them in a cycle of shame.

At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy.

Not So Shiny Not So Happy People is Clint Heacock's brutally honest and poignant story of growing up in a family living under the teachings of Bill Gothard. Clint spent years pursuing the victorious Christian life he had been taught to expect. He watched helplessly as the rigid interpretation of Christianity taught by Gothard inflicted severe damage on his family. He graduated from Bible college, served in pastoral roles, and earned two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in theology while still searching for that supernatural level of living promised in the New Testament.

A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture - and a whole new way of thinking - turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true.

Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. Because They Hate is a political wake-up call. Brigitte warns that the United States is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was - radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries.

In 1972, Perry Bulwer, a naive sixteen-year-old growing up in Port Alberni, a mill town on Vancouver Island, dropped out of high school to run away with the Children of God, one of a number of millennial Christian cults that sprang up in the 1960s and 1970s. Bulwer takes the listener on an extraordinary trip through the world of biblical literalism, fundamentalist endtime fantasies, paranormal spirituality, evangelical extremism, ritual abuse, and liberally interpreted Biblical teachings that were used to justify licentious sexual doctrines, evangelical prostitution, and child sexual abuse.

From comedian and TikTok star Kevin James Thornton comes a hilarious and heartfelt story of growing up in a Christian fundamentalist church, turning trauma into comedy, and finding your own way. Growing up in the 90s in a small town in Indiana, Kevin James Thornton had little notion he would one...

A Walk Through the Wilderness takes the listener on a harrowing adventure through the rigid psychological manipulation of a fundamentalist cult, the many joys and sorrows during the years of recovery afterwards, the seeming hopelessness of infertility, and finally to a joy realized. Being raised in a liberal Christian home, Dan never imagined the sorrows he would face as his faith evolved into fundamentalist cult status. For many years, he lived under a rigid religious control structure that managed every aspect of his life and resulted in deep emotional scarring.

R. Scott Okamoto had no idea that his job as an English teacher at an evangelical Christian college meant facing bigotry as an Asian American and faux intellectualism as a teacher—and what it would mean for his own journey.