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"I Grew Up in the Church": How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories
In 'I Grew Up in the Church': How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories, Bethany Mannon studies the diverse and complex voices of women who have influenced the contemporary evangelical movement in North America. Women across the theological spectrum document fractures in evangelicalism and intervene in those debates using personal narratives that circulate in print and online. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and histories of evangelicalism in the United States, 'I Grew Up in the Church' argues that these writers model alternatives to the conservative politics, rhetorics of certainty and combat, and rigid gender roles that have been hallmarks of the movement.

This book details the diversity of voices that comprise the evangelical movement today: orthodox evangelicals, ex-evangelicals, progressives, and leaders. By studying texts from 2008 to 2018, Mannon examines how women have responded to a decade when white evangelicalism waned in numbers and influence. She explores the rhetorical power that personal narratives hold for these various groups during that decade of decline. These voices show how, in a diversity of contexts within the evangelical movement, women speak against racism in their faith communities, navigate leadership positions, and pursue rhetorical activist opportunities in conservative settings.

'I Grew Up in the Church' will challenge and change readers' perspectives on American evangelicalism. The perspectives and stories of women from varying backgrounds uncover a side of the movement that is pushing back against deep-rooted power structures and redefining modern evangelical rhetoric.

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"I Grew Up in the Church": How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories
In 'I Grew Up in the Church': How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories, Bethany Mannon studies the diverse and complex voices of women who have influenced the contemporary evangelical movement in North America. Women across the theological spectrum document fractures in evangelicalism and intervene in those debates using personal narratives that circulate in print and online. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and histories of evangelicalism in the United States, 'I Grew Up in the Church' argues that these writers model alternatives to the conservative politics, rhetorics of certainty and combat, and rigid gender roles that have been hallmarks of the movement.

This book details the diversity of voices that comprise the evangelical movement today: orthodox evangelicals, ex-evangelicals, progressives, and leaders. By studying texts from 2008 to 2018, Mannon examines how women have responded to a decade when white evangelicalism waned in numbers and influence. She explores the rhetorical power that personal narratives hold for these various groups during that decade of decline. These voices show how, in a diversity of contexts within the evangelical movement, women speak against racism in their faith communities, navigate leadership positions, and pursue rhetorical activist opportunities in conservative settings.

'I Grew Up in the Church' will challenge and change readers' perspectives on American evangelicalism. The perspectives and stories of women from varying backgrounds uncover a side of the movement that is pushing back against deep-rooted power structures and redefining modern evangelical rhetoric.

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"I Grew Up in the Church": How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories

by Bethany Ober Mannon

"I Grew Up in the Church": How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories

by Bethany Ober Mannon

Overview

In 'I Grew Up in the Church': How American Evangelical Women Tell Their Stories, Bethany Mannon studies the diverse and complex voices of women who have influenced the contemporary evangelical movement in North America. Women across the theological spectrum document fractures in evangelicalism and intervene in those debates using personal narratives that circulate in print and online. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and histories of evangelicalism in the United States, 'I Grew Up in the Church' argues that these writers model alternatives to the conservative politics, rhetorics of certainty and combat, and rigid gender roles that have been hallmarks of the movement.

This book details the diversity of voices that comprise the evangelical movement today: orthodox evangelicals, ex-evangelicals, progressives, and leaders. By studying texts from 2008 to 2018, Mannon examines how women have responded to a decade when white evangelicalism waned in numbers and influence. She explores the rhetorical power that personal narratives hold for these various groups during that decade of decline. These voices show how, in a diversity of contexts within the evangelical movement, women speak against racism in their faith communities, navigate leadership positions, and pursue rhetorical activist opportunities in conservative settings.

'I Grew Up in the Church' will challenge and change readers' perspectives on American evangelicalism. The perspectives and stories of women from varying backgrounds uncover a side of the movement that is pushing back against deep-rooted power structures and redefining modern evangelical rhetoric.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781481318938
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Publication date: 08/15/2024
Pages: 285
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bethany Mannon is Assistant Professor of English specializing in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at Appalachian State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Scandalous Particularity of Women’s Stories
1 The Rhetorical History of the Evangelical Movement in the United States
2 A Generous Evangelical Orthodoxy
3 Storytelling as Verbal Hospitality
4 The "Resisterhood" of Progressive Evangelical Women
5 The Rhetorical Leadership of Contemporary Evangélicas
Conclusion: "No Power of Hell, No Scheme of Man"

What People are Saying About This

Sarah Kornfield

Bethany Ober Mannon highlights the rhetorical efficacy of women’s personal storytelling within Christianity. As Mannon details, women’s storytelling in the church is often dismissed as emotional rather than rational and as experienced-based rather than scripturally-based. This book sets the story right, showcasing the holy authority and rhetorical strategies of women’s resistance to patriarchy, heterosexism, and white Christian nationalism—even when that means leaving the church.

Charlotte Hogg

Bethany Ober Mannon's goal in studying the rhetoric of evangelical women is 'to explain, not to advocate,' and her book deftly illustrates how scholars can do just. With the respect exhibited by Kate Bowler in her treatment of preachers' wives, Mannon studies personal narratives of evangelical household names like Austin Channing Brown, Rachel Held Evans, and more. She convincingly shows the sophisticated moves made by these women to question the very tenets of the evangelical movement.

Cheryl Glenn

Bethany Ober Mannon brilliantly demonstrates the ways activist evangelical women confront their movement at the same time that they enrich the movement’s role in US politics writ large—in studied interpretations of church doctrines, in considered personal decision-making, in social-justice activism, in socio-cultural interactions across differences of every kind, and, ultimately, in informed citizenship. Mannon's illuminating study of activist evangelical women, their generous orthodoxy, and their commitment to human dignity and civil discourse will long serve as a significant resource to rhetorical studies.

Jessica Enoch

Bethany Mannon’s  'I Grew Up in the Church' has much to say to scholars interested in feminist rhetoric, religious rhetoric, cultural rhetorics, whiteness studies, and genre studies. Mannon's careful and convincing analysis of a wide range of Evangelical women’s personal narratives reveals the complex and cogent arguments evangelical women have made and the nuance and power this genre affords. Mannon deftly puts on display the wide rhetorical possibilities within personal narrative, as the women rhetors she studies use it to craft their ethos and cultivate rhetorical leadership, to witness and testify to experience, to critique and call for accountability, and to question and reflect. Readers will ultimately be persuaded by Mannon’s compelling overarching argument that these narratives are practices of hope.

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