Award-winning NPR reporter Sarah McCammon has been known for her coverage of political campaigns, particularly divisions within the Republican Party in the last several years.
But her work has also made her look back on her personal journey within the family and church.
Around 2015 and 2016, the political correspondent and co-host of The NPR Politics Podcast found herself at an intersection of her personal and professional life.
“That sort of led to some soul searching, and what, if anything, I wanted to say about that intersection,” she explained. “Ultimately, I just found the world I grew up in had become so salient to the world I was in today, and the political world I was covering.”
McCammon said it crystallized for her when protesters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when some carried crosses, and signs saying ‘Jesus saves.’ “It became clear to me that there was something important to say.”
Much of her new book, The Exvangelicals, explains her ‘deconstruction’, after a life growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the 80’s and 90’s.
“Sometimes things I was being told at home or church didn’t seem to add up – or they came into conflict with experiences I had, and people I met,” she explained.
It wasn’t until late teens that was allowed to have a relationship with her grandfather, who came out as a gay man late in life while her parents were involved in the Christian right, and were politically active.
“He grew up in a world (born in 1924) where he was not able to be himself, and I think that spoke to me, and it forced me be sort of reevaluate some of things I was being told at church.”
Much of McCammon’s book profiles others who grew up as she did, now using the hashtag #exvangelical.
“I think that one of the painful things about leaving a community, especially a strict religious community, can be rejection from those same people that you once looked to for support and love,” she explains.
McCammon admits it’s a little scary to have published something so personal, but says it was also healing and cathartic.
“It many ways, I feel like I’m in a better place spiritually, and emotionally for doing so. I just hope that it will speak to others that have walked a similar path.”
McCammon will be talking with Roben Farzad for a recording of ‘Full Disclosure’ this Wednesday evening at 6 at Sam Miller’s Restaurant in Richmond.
The event is free, but registration is required.
