I didn’t write this memoir to collapse the distance therapy requires. I wrote it to widen the circle of healing—to meet people where they are.

Exile was supposed to be the end of my story. When I wrote Straight to Hell, I thought I was simply recounting the cost of leaving Evangelicalism. Instead, I was met with a flood of responses—from the exiled who still carry scars, and from the faithful still inside, torn apart by doctrines that demand they turn away the very people they love. Since my exile twenty-six years ago, many have told me about the shame they carried for decades after being told they were unworthy. O

Deconstruction wasn’t something I went looking for. It wasn’t fashionable or philosophical. It wasn’t about swapping one set of beliefs...

Sometimes telling the truth costs everything. But hiding it can cost even more. Straight to Hell is my story of what happens when you...