Customer Reviews

Coming out of Fundamentalist Christianity: An Autobiography Affirming Sensuality, Social Justice, and The Sacred

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Regardless of one's sexual orientation, anyone who has extricated themselves from a nuclear family that adhered to Biblical literalism is sure to identify with Carolyn Baker's thought-provoking autobiography, "Coming Out of Fundamentalist Christianity." As a heterosexual who has finally rid myself of my parents' omnipresent Southern Baptist Devil, I drew many parallels in my own life to Carolyn Baker's sacred and profound journey from repressed homosexuality to divine self-acceptance. We follow Baker on her soul-searching journey as an adult from Midwest Indiana and Chicago, to the California Pacific coast, to the Hopi Reservation of northern Arizona, and to the desert southwest of southern New Mexico. As Baker's often painful yet liberating journey toward self-acceptance unfolds, we meet her parents, extended family members, lovers, professors, mentors and spiritual teachers along the way whose (inter)actions often mirror encounters with similar people in our own life journey.

Coming out of a conservative fundamentalist family myself, I wholeheartedly share Baker's belief when she says, "There is something inherent in Christian fundamentalism that attracts individuals who are fleeing the impact of coming to terms with their sexual orientation, dealing with their own experiences of being sexually abused, or confronting other issues regarding sexuality and that fundamentalism not only draws such individuals but fosters their hypocrisy, thereby exacerbating their suffering and the suffering of everyone close to them." Even at age 60, I'm still peeling off the layers of the onion in terms of the impact that my parent's repressed sexuality has had on me all my life. In a particularly poignant chapter near the end of the book entitled, "My Government, My Family," Baker exposes how the Christian fundamentalist right wing that now dictates our U. S. government policy has not only perpetrated a numbing and dumbing effect on the American citizenry, but exacerbated the suffering of people around the world. Anyone who likes this chapter will want to delve further into the dark side of The American Way by reading Baker's previous book, "U. S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You."

As a former social worker in child protective service investigations, I encountered numerous children from families that fit the dysfunctional fundamentalist prototype of Carolyn Baker's nuclear family. Anecdotal evidence of similar families in my caseload, and in caseloads of my peers, indicated that an overwhelming majority of our reported incest cases tended to occur in dysfunctional families where (grand)parents attempted to mask intergenerational sexual abuse, family violence, mental illness, and a plethora of addictions with varieties of religious theologies. Such theologies ranged from vast right wing biblical fundamentalism to far-out, left wing quasi-Christian fantasies of Jesus' second coming from Sirius to Earth in a flying saucer. The socioeconomic and spiritual cost of the negative impact of this dysfunctional fundamentalism on the child victims, their families, the community-at-large and our social institutions is incalculable.

In short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough that draws a clear red line from the personal to the universal in regard to the heartbreaking tragedies caused by Christian fundamentalism in all its varying guises. If you want to discover who you are as a person and who we are as a nation, read Baker's autobiography! Whether you're gay or straight, you won't be disappointed.

Carolyn Baker opens her heart and her lifestory quite vulnerably in the pages of this very well-written book. It's a story of survival, searching, critical thinking, and a deep longing for joining human love and the sacred that is ultimately satisfied as the author follows the soul's calling through the twists and turns of youthful self-sabotaging choices and on to a deeper wisdom. That wisdom is grounded in life experience and a determination never to just "settle for" a half-lived life. This fascinating page-turner shares with us both the regrets and the triumphs of one courageous woman's emotional and spiritual odyssey. The book is ideal not only for those comfortable with their sexual orientation, but also for those struggling with it.

Willing to walk the thorny path of controversy, Baker takes on the toxicity of the fundamentalist Christian agenda from which she fled in her youth to become her own authentic, integrated human being, but also takes on the LGBT community itself, questioning its myopic focus on gay marriage and HIV-related issues in a world where the very future of humanity and the planet itself are at stake.

I highly recommend this book.