Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical (Experiences in Evangelicalism) [Paperback]

Hannah Faith Notess (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009 | Series: Experiences in Evangelicalism

Evangelicals are supposed to be experts at telling their story. From an early age you are expected to have a testimony, a story of how God saved you from a life of sin and sadness and gave you a new life of joy and gladness. What happens if you don't have such a testimony? What if your story just doesn't fit the before-and-after mold? What are you supposed to do if your voice is not one usually heard?




In these offbeat, witty, and often bittersweet essays, up-and-coming writers tell the truth about growing up female and evangelical. Whether they stayed in the church or not, evangelicalism has shaped their spiritual lives.



Eschewing evangelical cliches, idyllic depictions of Christian upbringing, and pat formulas of sinner-to-saint transformation, these writers reflect frankly on childhoods filled with flannel board Jesuses, Christian rap music, and Bible memorization competitions. Along the way they find insight in the strangest places--the community swimming pool, Casey Kasem's American Top 40, and an Indian mosque.



Together this collection of essays provides a vivid and diverse portrait of life in the evangelical church, warts and all.



List of Contributors:


Jessica Belt, Paula Carter, Kirsten Cruzen, Anne Dayton, Kimberly B. George, Carla-Elaine Johnson, Megan Kirschner, Anastasia McAteer,
Melanie Springer Mock, Audrey Molina, Victoria Moon, Shauna Niequist, Hannah Faith Notess, Andrea Palpant Dilley, Angie Romines, Andrea Saylor, Nicole Sheets, Shari MacDonald Strong, Stephanie Tombari, Heather Baker Utley, Jessie van Eerden, and Sara Zarr

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This isn't your Christian youth group leader's testimony. These un-testimonies of growing up evangelical, edited by Notess, creative writing editor of Mars Hill Graduate School's The Other Journal, are not necessarily linear, may not have had a tidy resolution, and may not lead to an earth-shattering change in our beliefs. This compilation of 22 stories covering a range of topics (education, worship, etc.) is the first in a new Experiences in Evangelicalism series. Written by experienced women writers from diverse evangelical Christian backgrounds, the tales are honest, approachable and revealing. Each author has put aside her inhibitions about exposing the flaws of her home church—from power struggles to the indoctrination of shame—and takes evangelicalism to task for its carefully filtered yet ambiguous conventions. Yet all of the authors tell of a more realistic, meandering faith, enduring even while rife with doubt. Readers will be inspired to re-examine their own beliefs and perhaps even create their own un-testimonies. (Sept.)
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Review

"Written by experienced women writers from diverse evangelical Christian backgrounds, the tales are honest, approachable and revealing. Each author has put aside her inhibitions about exposing the flaws of her home church--from power struggles to the indoctrination of shame--and takes evangelicalism to task for its 'carefully filtered' yet ambiguous conventions. Yet all of the authors tell of a more realistic, meandering faith, enduring even while rife with doubt. Readers will be inspired to re-examine their own beliefs and perhaps even create their own un-testimonies." -- Publishers Weekly --Publishers Weekly

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606085417
• ISBN-13: 978-1606085417
• Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 5.8 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hannah Faith Notess is the managing editor of Seattle Pacific University's Response magazine. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University and was the 2008-2009 Milton Center Fellow at Seattle Pacific University. Her writing has appeared in The Christian Century, Crab Orchard Review, and Slate, among other journals. She lives in Seattle and is learning how to make espresso.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It made my mind reel and my spirit soar December 29, 2009

By Bridget Jack Jeffries

Format:Paperback

The title made me think that the authors intended to spend most of their pages complaining about the treatment of women in evangelical Christianity, a "Festivus: Airing of Grievances" for evangelical and post-evangelical women. Here, I thought, I would find tales of heartache over bad teachings on submission, being silent in church, and hyper-modesty. Here attention would be given to how overwhelmingly androcentric evangelical thought, worship and life can be and how that can make women feel marginalized and undervalued.

The good news is, I was wrong. Delightfully, happily wrong.

In the book's introduction, editor Hannah Faith Notess lays out the concept of the "un-testimony." Evangelical Christians are widely expected to develop a testimony narrative for which the basic formula is, "I was a sinner doing all kinds of awful things, I found Jesus, now life is better." According to Notess, "The basic narrative of evangelical experience has survived virtually unchanged in this form for several centuries, longer if you count the famous conversion stories of Saints Paul and Augustine. When I was growing up, the best testimonies came from ex-angry young men, ex-drug addicts, ex-fornicators, et cetera. The more spectacularly wicked you had been, the better Jesus looked for having saved you." (xi)

However, not everyone who comes into the fold of evangelicalism has such an experience, and often those who lack one feel out-of-place and forlorn. It is in that regard that *Jesus Girls* is a volume of un-testimonies: stories of life as an evangelical Christian that do not follow the traditional formula.

The book is divided into five topics with four or five essays devoted to each: Community, Worship, Education, Gender & Sex, and Story & Identity, with a different author behind each essay. All sorts of backgrounds are covered, from Southern Baptist to African Methodist Episcopal to Mennonite, and there's even an essay on Catholics which provides a beautiful example of Krister Stendahl's "holy envy." Not all of the essays come from those who are active evangelicals today. Some of them end with the author finding her way out of evangelicalism or out of Christianity altogether.

And what of those "women's issues" I listed in my first paragraph? Well, they are covered. Some of the essays cover them more directly than others, such as "Feminist-in-Waiting" by Kimberly B. George or "The Journey toward Ordination" by Heather Baker Utley. More often the authors touch on them briefly in passing, though most of the essays make no mention of them at all.

However, for the most part, *Jesus Girls* is not about women in evangelical Christianity. It's about evangelical Christianity as seen through the eyes of women. These women are clever, they're sassy, they're innovative, and they know what good writing is. Their words made my mind reel and my spirit soar.

There's no getting around the fact that this book highlights a number of evangelical Christianity's failings, especially concerning its treatment of women. These failings are real and they are painful to ponder. However, I firmly believe that talking about these problems is the first step towards remedying them, and so *Jesus Girls* is commendable in that regard. Beyond its focus on problems and doubt, *Jesus Girls* still manages to provide a breathtaking glimpse of evangelical Christianity's beauty. It is that beauty that continues to captivate me and keep me in the fold despite my own feelings of disappointment and doubt.

Whatever your interest in evangelical Christianity, if you fail to read *Jesus Girls*, you are missing a treat.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Read November 24, 2009

By Kristen Stewart VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I read Jesus Girls with my pastor and a few friends, and gathered with them to talk about what it means to grow up evangelical and a woman. For me, this book brought about a great deal of nostalgic memories from bouncing around the different streams of evangelicalism as a child. The stories rang true to my experiences and the ones of my peers. One of the things that struck me was how many of the authors found refuge in more liturgical churches as adults. Also, how messed up messages of sexuality are promoted to women in evangelicalism.

There were a few truly weak essays that could have been cut or reworked. Difficulty reading them decreased my overall enjoyment of the book, but it's still a worthy read for those who want to process through their childhoods in the evangelical church or understand women who grew up evangelical.

It gave me a lot of food for thought as a parent about raising my daughters in the church, and what message we send them about their place in it as women. I'll be pondering that for a long time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding "my people" January 9, 2012

By Rory

Format:Paperback

I grew up in the evangelical church, and was homeschooled at that -- I wasn't taught Jesus rode dinosaurs, but I was taught creationism in general, and listened to DC Talk and read Brio magazine...all these things that, now being in grad school, feel so foreign and far away from me now, since I'm no longer church-going. However, no longer going to church doesn't mean one has not been "churched". This book gets to the heart of so many little aspects of growing up that feel like things that only I experienced. Logically I know this isn't the case, but when you leave the church, that shared offbeat history becomes an oddity -- I can laugh and be "the girl who was homeschooled" in my groups of friends, but the flipside to the coin is that there's no one I can laugh with about Brio and DC Talk.

This book felt like having a heart-to-heart chat with people who share my strange history with being churched. DC Talk, Brio magazine, the way church splits affect the young people in the church -- these very specific aspects of evangelical girlhood are things I don't share with anybody day-to-day. But here, there is a communal sharing that really, really resonates with me. I found myself underlining bit after bit after bit because it felt like these women were writing down the exact same experiences I had, slightly altered here and there, but all so very familiar. It seems incredibly nice to read a book that references the Christy Miller series without having to explain what it was/is.

I had wondered if this book would be a largely bitter telling of stories about how the church hurt us (young women). But it really isn't. That is not to say that the church did not hurt us. But the essays are removed and thoughtful.

Recommended for: anyone who grew up in the church, went to youth group on Wednesday nights (wasn't it so very often Wednesdays?), and lived to tell the tale.