Nashville, Tennessee (AP) – Bestseller Christians The life of the author, podcaster and influencer, Jen Hatmaker, fell apart following the discovery of her husband’s events. She “wanted to envelop my little family and push us away from our p-pillars forever,” she writes in her new memoir, Awakening. But that wasn’t an option for women whose brand was built to write about her life.
“One of each other’s transparency is one of my core values,” she told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It’s not the shtick I’m doing. It’s not the PR move. It’s not the optics choice.”
Still, she wasn’t ready to publish yet about her 26-year marriage breakdown when someone posted about it online. COVID-19 Quarantine And the personal upheavals unraveled her life. Released last week, “Awake” is, in a way, a hopeful book about divorce, and ultimately about the evolving relationship between hatmakers and themselves.
The book records the lifelong memories of hatmakers and is divided into three sections that start with “end” and end with “beginning.” Her writing is often interesting and she is directly interesting.
In her recent appearance in Nashville, an audience of 400 women and at least one man who promoted the book, cried out in laughter as if she had read about the 12 hours of miserable time she spent on dating apps, citing from an adolescent journal.
In an interview in advance, Hatmaker discussed what has changed since 2020 and why she doesn’t feel the need to save Christianity. Religious rights.
Evolving Christian faith
The pastor’s daughter and married the ambitious pastor at the age of 19, Hatmaker wrote the following Bible study, prayer and book on efforts by Jesus and her family to consume less. She and her ex-husband also founded a church and have five children, including two adopted from Ethiopia.
But over the years she left it Conservative Christianity She was raised.
Hatmakers began calling for action against racial equality in 2016 following the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile police. And after an interview where she advocated for same-sex marriage, the hatmaker publisher dropped her, her books were pulled out of the shelf, and many of her followers became hostile. The hatmaker wrote that at the moment he chose integrity for her career. However, not all her fans abandoned her, and new fans have arrived for years since.
“I think it’s just an evolution of faith, and I think it’s a great and wonderful good thing,” she said of the change in her perspective. “I’m proud of people who are constantly growing, and I think it’s not a bad thing, it shows integrity.”
The criticism from religious rights said, “Take me and put me down, and I’ll destroy it very emotionally,” she said.
But now, the hatmaker says, “I’ve lost my fear of that.”
“At this age of 51, I hope that I will be sitting in a place where the tail is no longer waving the dog.
Take a break from the church
Although the hatmaker is still a Christian, she said she no longer feels good about attending church.
In “Awakening,” she said in recent years, several times she returned to the sanctuary, “I have found that someone is eager to say the most rough and most difficult thing.
She told the Associated Press that “it’s probably 400 hours saved because she’s been so overteached.”
She doesn’t know what role an organized religion will play in her future.
“Now, it doesn’t feel like an environment where I can find God,” she said. “If I thought it was the only place where I could find God, there would be a real problem. But I don’t think so.”
I lead with kindness
Hatmakers have also reached the point that they do not feel “red the name of Jesus from the American flag, and at this point faith is unaware of our nation.”
“I think it’s far more responsible for once to hand over words and space to fundamentalists, or for losing the ground to some of these Christian nationalists who stop the flag on the ground and say, ‘Is this God Supporting?’,” she said. “Once upon a time, trust me, that was my battle.”
She now realizes it’s a “waste of energy and time.”
“I’m a good steward of my influence to sit in the pockets of the community I’ve built and led. “But I’m a better leader who simply builds that community, rather than trying to persuade other communities to get better.”
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Associated Press Religious Reporting is supported through the Associated Press collaboration With funding from Lilly Endowment Inc., the AP is in a conversation by taking sole responsibility for this content.
