Customer Reviews

Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl

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I, too, emerged from a Midwest Fundamentalist upbringing---although more urban than that of Susan Campbell. I thought the primary thrust of her book would indicate great overlap with my roots. As I read her fine book, I found that not to be the case.

I learned from her book that a female raised in Fundamentalism has a DOUBLE DOSE of rules and regulations. Males raised in Fundamentalism still have the advantage of MALE PREROGATIVE. I believe that this male prerogative makes it easier for some males to break out of Fundamentalism---yet there are many males who wish to stay within Fundamentalism in order to benefit from male domination and male dominion.

I applaud Susan's ability to take a frank look at her Fundamentalist roots. She does so with mixed feelings. She wants to abandon much of that culture----yet at the same time she has a nostalgia for the close community and music from her Protestant Fundamentalism. I think her description of Fundamentalism as a sword that pierced her---with a broken piece of that sword still residing within her---will resonate with many who have a Fundamentalist background.

Dating Jesus is memoir of growing up as a girl in a fundamentalist Christian church. Susan Campbell was radically involved with her church - teaching youth groups, organizing buses to worship services, "knocking doors." But she runs into increasing difficulty of finding an acceptable place of her own within the church; as a woman, many positions are simply not open to her. The book chronicles her growing frustration that "if all believers are urged to stay on the straight and narrow, there seems to be an especially narrow road built for women."

Despite this, the tone of the book is never bitter or mean-spirited (as many recent publications about fundamentalist Christians have been). Campbell recounts her experiences and growth both with respect and an easy humor. And it's clear how much thought she has put into her faith - how well she knows her way around the Bible and around its rhetoric. As a feminist Christian, I really appreciated Dating Jesus. Not because it offers a solution to reconciling feminism with faith (if there is one), but because it adds a meaningful perspective to the discussion, going back to the Bible to discuss how women were treated and should be treated in the church. A very thoughtful and well-written book

Dating Jesus demonstrates Campbell's unrivaled ability to use her personal experience to explore and and expose broader social issues, such as women's role in traditional Christian religions. While she writes of her experience as a fundamentalist, the struggles, themes, and disappointments will be familiar to so many women who have felt let down by their churches. Raised as a Catholic, I also had a strong relationship with Christ and with my church, until, painfully, I realized I would never be treated fairly there. Campbell poignantly reminds us that Jesus was a feminist and I needed that reminder desperately. This book is a great read for anyone who thinks about gender equity, women's rights, religion and the role of the church in our lives and in society. I have the privilege of reading Susan Campbell regularly as she writes for my local paper, the Hartford Courant. Her writing is always thought-provoking and gutsy with enriching personal insights and humor. Dating Jesus will get you thinking about your relationship with religion: it has already profoundly affected mine. Thank you Susan!

What a delight to read Susan's book. What could be a dry subject is made engaging with Susan's personal style. She intercepts thought provoking ideas and historical perspectives with her witty sidebar comments. I especially enjoyed the final chapter where she pulls all of her history together and attempts to make some final conclusions, if that is at all possible. This book should be a must in all religious and feminist studies classes. It encourages the reader to look at their own belief systems.

The title is intriguing, suggesting a raucous, no holds barred, tell-all memoir about growing up as a fundamentalist Christian. However, the book is far gentler than I expected it would be. If you're expecting a bitter tell-all exposing the seamy underside of life growing up inside the church of Christ, this isn't the book you're looking for.

In the first chapter, Susan Campbell reenacts her baptism with a delightful mix of cynicism and reverence. The rest of the book doesn't quite deliver on the promise of the first chapter, but it's still an engaging and interesting story that she tells.

The footnotes are delicious, some of them downright funny, and the added notes and references add to the personality of Susan's story. If you knew this woman in real life, it would be impossible not to like her.

I am weary of the depressing, dark memoirs of late and found this to be a refreshing change. With great wit, grace, and good humor, this memoir of growing up the Missouri Ozarks in a fundamental church is an outstanding read. Great for book groups.

Let's face it, reading the typical memoir is akin to watching someone's summer vacation video: deadly dull. It's only when the traveler explores exotic lands, encounters strangeness and returns (or better yet, escapes) to tell the tale that things truly become interesting.

Susan Campbell is such a traveler, sharing stories of a fundamentalist upbringing so different from what most Americans experience that it scarcely seems possible. We struggle to believe that it took place here rather than on foreign soil.

And, as with the best of travelers, Campbell is both changed by her experience and yet solidly the same. Her faith is no longer dogmatic, yet her values remain bedrock firm. With unflinching humor and quick wit, she asks questions that defy easy answers... and I can't help but nod in recognition. No matter what our backgrounds, we all ask many of the same questions. Who is this God person, anyway? And is it a sin to beat the snot out of my brother for being a jerk? :)

On average, I read 2-3 books a week. Dating Jesus took me over a week to read and absorb and reflect... a rare treat! Kudos to a book that does more than entertain, it enlightens.

Like the author, I left the same denomination (Church of Christ) that she left. Her writing style makes for an enjoyable read. Her footnotes alone will keep you chuckling. I also enjoyed her historical information about American Christian fundamentalism.

A couple of pages into Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl and I was already in love with Susan Campbell's witty, raw, and often wry writing voice. The style of this book really intrigues me--creative nonfiction, a bit of research thrown in for good measure, and it's written in present tense. Somehow Campbell pulls off making me laugh out loud one moment while learning an interesting historical fact the next. But her creative pros would keep me turning the page regardless of the topic.

The book chronicles Campbell's spiritual and ideological journey. She was raised in a fundamentalist church and saw sexism in both her church and community at large, which profoundly impacted her as a girl. "I love Jesus," Campbell writes, "but if all believers are urged to stay on the straight and narrow, there seems to be an especially narrow road built for women" (Campbell 64).

As a child Campbell took her faith very seriously, attended church every time the door was unlocked, knocked on neighbors' doors in hopes of being able to win someone to Christ, taught Sunday school, and memorized large portions of the Bible. And in high school when the cute boys weren't pounding down the door, she chose to see Jesus as her boyfriend: "I am thirteen when I decided to make it official. I'd been flirting with Jesus since age eight or so, the way a little girl will stand innocently next to her cutest uncle, will preen and dance for attention with only a dim idea of the greater weight of her actions. I meant no harm. I just loved Jesus. He made me feel happy" (Campbell 2).

But when Campbell begins to question some of her church's theological stances on women and their role in church, she's immediately shutdown. Her Sunday school teacher doesn't know how to answer her questions and handles the situation by making her leave the classroom and escorting her to the nursery where her mother is watching the babies as if Campbell has done something wrong. "The meaning," Campbell recalls, "is not lost on me. For asking questions, I will be placed among the babies who slobber and fill their pants. It is a public shaming" (Campbell 22).

As a result of her growing questions and the lack of willingness from people within her church to dialog or be accepting of different interpretations on some of the tricky gender-related verses, Campbell and her boyfriend Jesus' relationship continued to get even more ... well ...complicated.

Their relationship not only got messy because Campbell was theologically an egalitarian in a complimintarian church (not a good fit), but because her church thought that any self-identified Christian who didn't follow their party line on everything from worship music to politics couldn't possibly be a real Christian. As Campbell continued to work through her own ideas on human rights and equality, she was fitting less and less into her church's narrow box of what a real Christian looks like.

I found myself relating with a lot of Campbell's questions and frustrations and even though my own spiritual and ideological journey isn't identical, I can really relate with what it's like wrestling with those kind of issues. But whether or not you've been on a spiritual quest or have ever "dated" Jesus, Campbell's memoir is a great book. I definitely think people who've come out of fundamentalist churches would relate in a way that other reader wouldn't, but that doesn't mean other readers wouldn't benefit. I would caution self-identified fundamentalist Christians, though, to keep in mind that Campbell is sharing her story, not what is true of all fundamentalist or fundamentalist churches.

Although Campbell does touch on some issues of church history and theology, this is not a theological book--it's the story of an American girl trying to figure out who she is as an individual and as woman, and what to do with that Jesus guy. It's her story.

While being highly entertaining, I also found myself thinking that perhaps Campbell is right. Maybe we "all think we know Jesus, but mostly, I say, we use Jesus as a template for our own fears and desires. And in the end, we miss the point entirely" (Campbell 156).

This memoir as written by a vigorous intellect with a warm heart. If you still maintain a deep attachment to religion, but are disgusted with some of its fundamentalist variants, this is a book for you. It's funny, moving, and brain-enlarging. Not all memoirs are this well written. Some of the paragraphs feel like prose poems and invite a second reading. I have read short pieces of this book to my creative writing workshop as a writing prompt and it has encouraged participants to look deeply into their lives. You won't see religion the same way after.