Once an Insider, Now Without a Church Home

One Couple's Faith Crisis Due to the Infiltration and Spread of Authoritarianism, Calvinism, Complementarianism, and Covenants in the Am Evangelical Church

By: Amanda Farmer

Narrated by: Amy Spalding

This is the story of one couple's faith crisis after realizing the church they have spent 25 years serving as leaders in has made subtle but profound changes over the years. It is their journey from being trusting followers of Jesus to questioning everything about their faith.

Who is really following the Bible? Who is really interpreting the Bible correctly? This is a personal memoir that follows the changes in the American Evangelical Church as it becomes more popular to embrace Calvinism, Authoritarianism, Complementarianism, and Covenants and the effect this can have on one's faith. The story illustrates the pain of going from being an accepted member of a church - from being on the inside - to realizing that the leadership desires that you leave the fellowship.

©2018 Amanda Farmer (P)2019 Amanda Farmer

Poignant, thoughtful, devastating recounting of authoritarianism in the church

Spoilers!

This book recounts the author’s experiences navigating a transition in her church from congregationalism to authoritarianism. It is heartbreaking.

The author does a fantastic job placing the reader in her emotional state of mind, namely powerlessness and despair, as the changes happening around her slowly remove accountability and integrity from her church’s leadership and replace them with totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

I found the narrative to be appropriately focused on the most important aspects and insights of the author’s experiences, and its conclusion is a sobering reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

I highly recommend this book for anyone dealing with authoritarian leadership in their church, whatever guise it assumes.

The performance is good. I like the performer’s pace and enunciation. The only problem is the production - there are numerous repetitions and mispronounced words (Ephesus!). I understand this is not a top-of-the-line studio production, so I found it to be endearing, actually. But it is distracting at first.