{"product_id":"the-bastard-saint-9798195697266","title":"The Bastard Saint","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Joe Nichols\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Faith Deconstruction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book is the\u003cb\u003e demolition\u003c\/b\u003e of American evangelical Christianity, and it is \u003ci\u003espectacular\u003c\/i\u003e to watch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe author is not an angry atheist lobbing grenades from the outside. This is someone who spent \u003cb\u003eforty years inside the machine\u003c\/b\u003e, who sang the songs, sat in the pews, tithed faithfully, and prayed the prayers - and who finally, at some point, couldn't unsee what they'd seen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd what they saw was this: \u003cb\u003ethe God most American Christians worship is a mascot.\u003c\/b\u003e A foam-finger-waving, hall-monitor deity obsessed with who you're sleeping with and completely silent about the rest. A God who has \"extensive, deeply felt opinions about whether you masturbate and zero, silence, static about what matters.\" A God, the author argues, who was \u003ci\u003edeliberately engineered\u003c\/i\u003e to look the other way on power.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe chapters read like a prosecution.\u003c\/b\u003e And not a dry, academic one - this is \u003ci\u003escorched earth\u003c\/i\u003e writing, funny and furious and heartbreaking by turns. Chapter titles include things like: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"You're Not Praying, You're Performing\"\u003c\/b\u003e - a surgical dissection of prayer-as-theater, culminating in the unforgettable line: \u003ci\u003e\"Thoughts and prayers is the out-of-office reply of the American soul.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"Your Purity Is Their Porn\"\u003c\/b\u003e - on how purity culture twisted sexuality into a control mechanism\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"Shame Is a Subscription Plan\"\u003c\/b\u003e - on how guilt keeps the machine running\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"Racism Isn't a Glitch\"\u003c\/b\u003e - on how white American Christianity didn't accidentally end up on the wrong side of history; it \u003ci\u003echose\u003c\/i\u003e to be there\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"The Tribe Needs Enemies\"\u003c\/b\u003e - on how every in-group requires someone to exile\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"God Doesn't Back Your Fascism, Bro\"\u003c\/b\u003e - on the AR-15-toting, MAGA-hat-wearing Jesus that somehow got invented\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e \u003cp\u003eBut what makes this book extraordinary rather than merely satisfying: it doesn't stop there.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn its final chapters, the author does something genuinely moving. They look at the \u003ci\u003eother\u003c\/i\u003e Christianities The ones that weren't the defendant in this prosecution. Those that maintain the radical, counter-cultural idea that \u003cb\u003eGod is unknowable\u003c\/b\u003e, that mystery is the only honest position toward the infinite.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe author isn't converting to any of it. They're clear: \u003ci\u003e\"I am a man who walked out and is in love with the mystery and is not signing back up for any of the bullshit\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut they refuse to pretend these traditions don't exist - because their existence proves something damning: \u003cb\u003eeverything that was done to people in American evangelical churches was a choice.\u003c\/b\u003e Specific men, in specific decades, built a specific machine. They could have built something else. They didn't.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWho is this book for?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's for everyone who grew up in the church and felt the lie. It's for the teenager who prayed every night to stop being gay. It's for the woman who stayed in a destroying marriage. It's for the person sitting in the pew watching the pastor pray elaborately to God while actually performing for the congregation - and recognizing, suddenly, that they've been doing the same thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt's also for people who never set foot in a church but have watched American Christianity shape American politics and wondered: \u003ci\u003ehow did we get here?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe writing is unlike anything you've read on this subject.\u003c\/b\u003e It doesn't have the careful hedging of religious scholarship or the detached cool of secular critique. It has the voice of someone who loved something, watched it reveal itself as a lie, grieved the loss of what they thought they had, and then sat down to write about it with no interest in being polite.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the book a lot of people needed someone to write. Someone finally did.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47969481523351,"sku":"9798195697266","price":1864.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798195697266.webp?v=1782922018","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/the-bastard-saint-9798195697266","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}