Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement [Paperback]

Lauren Sandler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2007

Illuminating, often troubling, and unapologetically frank, Righteous is dynamic young journalist Lauren Sandler's report from the nexus of religious fundamentalism and youth culture. As a secular guide through the passion and politics of the teenage evangelical "Disciple Generation," Sandler offers the first front line exploration of the Christian youth counterculture and what its influence could mean for the future of America. She intimately connects with skateboarding missionaries, tattooed members of a self-sufficient postpunk mega- church, rock- 'n'-rolling antiabortion protestors, and rap preachers who merge hip-hop's love of money with old- fashioned Bible-beating fundamentalism-true believers who reveal themselves with openness and truly astonishing candor, but what they reveal about our nation is most astonishing of all.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an intriguing journey into a burgeoning and often contradictory phenomenon"
-The Washington Post

"If you have any doubt that there is a culture war that must be waged and won by secularists in America, read this book."
-Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

"Compassion for her subjects and brisk writing make her increasingly alarming story go down easy."
-Rocky Mountain News

From the Back Cover

Advanced Praise:
"Lauren Sandler obliterates the naïve and complacent hope that keeps most secularists and religious moderates sleeping peacefully each night-the hope that, in 21st century America, the young know better than to adopt the lunatic religious certainties of a prior age. The young do not know better. In their schools, skate-parks, rock concerts, and in the ranks of our nation’s military, our children are gleefully preparing a bright future of ignorance and religious fascism for us all. If you have any doubt that there is a culture war that must be waged and won by secularists in America, read this book."
—Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation

"It is no easy thing to enter into the world of the young evangelicals, to feel deeply their alienation, to breathe their air and share their electric conviction that they are the rising counterculture against an empty world. Lauren Sandler has done it, and done it with an effervescence and honesty that make her travels in Disciple America jump off the page."
—Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University, and author of The Intellectuals and the Flag

"At once controversial, critical, blasphemous and compassionate, Righteous offers a compelling journey into a growing youth subculture typically dismissed by urban intellectuals. Sandler has written a provocative and illuminating portrait of young people desperately seeking meaning, community and love in an empty, often terrifying social landscape. Evangelical youth---the Disciple Generation--- are a generation rising, and we do need to pay attention."
—Dr. Donna Gaines, sociologist and author of Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids and A Misfit's Manifesto: The Spiritual Journey of a Rock & Roll Heart

"Lauren Sandler has traveled among the believers and returned with a story that alarms, informs, and enlightens. She reveals the rise of a fundamentalist-style youth movement that has replaced faith with closed-minded certainty and is frighteningly cult-like. Read this book and you will understand this Disciple Generation and the challenge it poses to a civil society."
—Michael D'Antonio, former Newsday religion writer and author of Fall From Grace and Heaven on Earth

"Righteous is a lively, probing account of today's fresh, sometimes bizarre sub- cultures of American evangelism. Both the term ‘alternative’ and ‘evangelical’ will mean something new to you after this book. Sandler's conclusions are important: These kids have been forgotten by their original social worlds, by secular organizations and even by Left-Liberal causes. In a cold new world, getting saved can now seem like a young American's only source of community and warmth."
—Alissa Quart, author of Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child

"Righteous is the most adroit and fascinating examination of a great national ill, the muddling of faith and politics, the secular and the divine."
—Brad Land, author of Goat --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143112376
• ISBN-13: 978-0143112372
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,217,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An informative ethnography, October 3, 2006

By 

J Lee Harshbarger (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement (Hardcover)

Judging by the blurbs on the back cover of this book, it is directed toward secularists. Sam Harris, author of "The End Of Faith," says of this book, "Our children are gleefully preparing a bright future of ignorance and religious fascism for us all. If you have any doubt that there is a culture war that must be waged and won by secularists in America, read this book." Kevin Phillips, author of "American Theocracy," describes the book as "a frightening portrait." Michael D'Antonio says, "Read this book and you will understand this Disciple Generation and the challenge it poses to a civil society."

But this book is not written as some call to action, in the way political books are. It is more like an anthropological study, where the author, an editor at Salon magazine, disturbed that George W. Bush won a second term via values voters, wanted to see who these people were, so she decided to hang out with these people and write about her experience. She limited her sample to evangelical youth culture, but within that age group, she found a wide variety of subcultures.

Apparently I'm not the target audience of this book; nevertheless, I found it to be fascinating. I was raised an evangelical and have remained an evangelical all my adult life (I'm now in my mid-forties). My interest in this book was seeing how someone from the outside would view evangelical culture, particularly the more "hip" factions of it, as opposed to the usual stereotypes of the white-dress-shirt, tie-wearing crowd. I get tired of journalists and academics spouting stereotypes about evangelicals that only reveal their ignorance about the culture. I was glad to see someone really take the time to see what these people are about.

While I was only expecting this book to be a look at how an outsider looking in views the culture, it turned out to be much more than that for me. I actually learned quite a bit about the various subcultures within the evangelical culture at large. Sandler studies a diverse group of evangelicals, from pro-lifers at a Christian rock festival and skaters, to more mainstream types like Mars Hill Church in Seattle and prosperity theology churches, to the polished business attire college students of a politically right wing Christian college. In one chapter, she covers the sons of the well-known Christian figures James & Tammy Faye Bakker, James Dobson, and the son and grandson of Billy Graham; this was an interesting contrast! I should mention that while the groups represented a wide variety of evangelical subcultures, nearly all were theologically conservative; not many liberal evangelicals (such as the Sojourners types) were included.

Throughout the book, Sandler tells of her experiences of hanging out with each of these groups, observing their behavior and speech, and talking with them herself. It appears that she was able to open a communicative connection with most of the people she encountered, that she was able to earn enough trust of those she studied so that they let her see themselves as they are, sharing their honest views with her.

Two strengths in this book that I'd like to mention. First, from time to time she includes some historical perspective that I found to be an excellent tie-in to the current situation. Secondly, she made an attempt to explain *why* such theologically and sometimes socially conservative movements appeal to youth in a post-modern world. I thought her analysis was good, although of course it misses some of the spiritual aspects that I wouldn't expect someone outside the faith to understand.

Throughout the book, though, Sandler never lets you forget her disdainful bias against these evangelicals. She says she is a secular Jew, and she makes it clear she is not impressed by what she sees, although I think she saw more positives than she expected to when she started this adventure. In fact, near the end of the book, she tells of two compelling experiences, one when a small group prayed for her, and another in a worship service.

All through the book she takes a kind of anthropological approach, albeit with sardonic comments and analysis peppered in. She seemed open to what she was learning about them, as if she were gaining a respect for them, even though she could not agree with them. Then in the last chapter she shocked me by her complete change of direction. No longer the anthropologist, she becomes a fierce preacher, with an alarmed call to arms that secularists must gather forces, unite, and fight back these frightening, dangerous people. I'm a bit baffled by this change of direction. Not that I ever thought, while reading the book, that she was going to say, "What do you know, I like these people after all," but still, I was not prepared for the nearly panicked warring cry she belts out in the final chapter, in the vein of the authors quoted on the back cover: "frightening," "great national ill," threat to "civil society," and "religious fascism"!

The tirade in the last chapter weakens her book, but you can easily skip that chapter. There are 8 chapters, 232 pages, of very informative cultural study that would be enlightening to secularists and Christians alike. For evangelicals like me, the book provides interesting material on the lifestyles and views of other evangelicals. For secularists, the variety of experiences she reports on can help inform them how evangelicals really live and think, so that they will rely less on stereotypes.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but alarmist & elitist, February 19, 2007

By 

Tamara J. Buchli (Yorktown, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement (Hardcover)

I was conflicted by this book. On the one hand, as a pro-choice atheist, I share some of Sandler's concerns -- particularly regarding issues of scientific education and creationism. On the other hand, I wish that Sandler had been able to show a bit more balance in her presentation.

To be specific, I feel she was overly alarmist throughout the book. It's the oldest game in the book -- take a large movement and focus on its most extreme elements, encouraging onlookers to extropolate that extremism throughout the movement. This is an old trick and is played by people across the political spectrum -- just a few weeks ago I listened to radio host Laura Ingraham do the exact same thing in interviews with activists at an anti-war rally -- and it irritates me whoever is playing it.

I also found the book to be maddeningly elitist -- particularly regarding the young women Sandler wrote of. Sandler claimed to have found many of these women to be intelligent and likable, but made it clear that if they really "got it," they would be making different choices -- presumably, Sandler's choices. With the abortion and creationism issues, she might have a point -- creationism, in particular, can be refutted with facts -- but her evident disapproval of stay-at-home mothering can't be explained as anything but elitism, in my opinion.

Sandler is a good writer and had an obvious connection with a number of the people she interviewed. With a little bit of restraint, it could have been a great book. Unfortunately, the elitism and alarmism overwelmed the subject matter.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, September 28, 2006

By 

A Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement (Hardcover)

As someone who has zero contact with a movement that is clearly gathering incredible momentum in this country, I raced eagerly through Lauren Sandler's book, grateful for the chance to read a first-hand account from the front lines. I especially appreciated her oft-stated self-description as an "unrepentant Jewish atheist," which served as a good reminder that Sandler was simply offering me her point of view, and not advocating some Absolute Truth. This point of view added texture and complexity to her account, allowing me to disagree with her in some places and agree in (most) others, creating the experience of a very lively conversation with an especially energetic and informed interlocutor. If you, like I, wish you knew more about where our nation is heading, I recommend you read this book.