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28 reviews for:
Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation
Cara Meredith
3.8 AVERAGE
28 reviews for:
Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation
Cara Meredith
3.8 AVERAGE
Thanks to NetGalley and Broadleaf Books for the ARC!
Cara Meredith’s Church Camp presents its titular location as a microcosm of evangelical culture, but—like a week at camp—it simultaneous feels overstuffed and underbaked.
I’m not really sure who Church Camp is for—it’s superficially analytical, anecdotally reflective, and apologetically preachy. It’s a problem that plagues many books of its ilk, even if the author proudly suggests that it’s meant to be a little of everything. As a sociological interrogation, it’s too shallow to offer much to readers without camp experience. As a memoir of a changing faith, it’s too familiar for evangelical or exvangelical readers to get much out of it. Finally, as a theological argument, it never reaches more than a tentative link between camp and broader evangelicalism.
Each of the book’s chapters is cleverly modeled after a day at camp, but with all of the competing goals noted above, the reading experience often feels just as exhausting and and sweatily didactic as a skit in the middle of summer. Because it’s hard to believe that a week-long event can be such a formative part of someone’s identity, Meredith’s interviews don’t feel particularly revelatory. When she presents stories of queer campers or staffers being rejected, she treats it as a life-defining shock, eschewing analysis in favor of performative surprise.
This approach also precludes the author’s interrogation of her own complicity in evangelical subculture. Every gesture toward reflection is cut short by an affirmation of liberation theology, antiracism, or queer Christianity, and while these might all be good things, Meredith’s presentation of them often sounds like obligatory self-preservation—Hey everyone, just so you know, I don’t think of Jesus as a white man. I'm not that kind of Christian.
There’s not a hint of irony when Meredith suggests that her critique of camp culture mirrors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s critiques of America. Similarly, when she suggests that Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp’” reflects Sontag’s view of summer camps, it feels egregiously inaccurate and embarrassing, the kind of slice-and-dice quote usage one finds in a college freshman’s essay. Having read much of the other writing that Meredith references, from Christena Cleveland’s God is a Black Woman to Kristin Kobes du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne to Thich Nhat Thanh’s work, I have to say that this is a recurrent issue—most of the outside voices here are meaningless or misconstrued.
Even so, it feels like there could have been a solid version of the book. Its central premise is resonant—what does one do with spaces that help us as much as they harm us? Unfortunately, it’s a question better addressed in the comfort of one’s own home than in Cara Meredith's Church Camp.
Skip this one.
Cara Meredith’s Church Camp presents its titular location as a microcosm of evangelical culture, but—like a week at camp—it simultaneous feels overstuffed and underbaked.
I’m not really sure who Church Camp is for—it’s superficially analytical, anecdotally reflective, and apologetically preachy. It’s a problem that plagues many books of its ilk, even if the author proudly suggests that it’s meant to be a little of everything. As a sociological interrogation, it’s too shallow to offer much to readers without camp experience. As a memoir of a changing faith, it’s too familiar for evangelical or exvangelical readers to get much out of it. Finally, as a theological argument, it never reaches more than a tentative link between camp and broader evangelicalism.
Each of the book’s chapters is cleverly modeled after a day at camp, but with all of the competing goals noted above, the reading experience often feels just as exhausting and and sweatily didactic as a skit in the middle of summer. Because it’s hard to believe that a week-long event can be such a formative part of someone’s identity, Meredith’s interviews don’t feel particularly revelatory. When she presents stories of queer campers or staffers being rejected, she treats it as a life-defining shock, eschewing analysis in favor of performative surprise.
This approach also precludes the author’s interrogation of her own complicity in evangelical subculture. Every gesture toward reflection is cut short by an affirmation of liberation theology, antiracism, or queer Christianity, and while these might all be good things, Meredith’s presentation of them often sounds like obligatory self-preservation—Hey everyone, just so you know, I don’t think of Jesus as a white man. I'm not that kind of Christian.
There’s not a hint of irony when Meredith suggests that her critique of camp culture mirrors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s critiques of America. Similarly, when she suggests that Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp’” reflects Sontag’s view of summer camps, it feels egregiously inaccurate and embarrassing, the kind of slice-and-dice quote usage one finds in a college freshman’s essay. Having read much of the other writing that Meredith references, from Christena Cleveland’s God is a Black Woman to Kristin Kobes du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne to Thich Nhat Thanh’s work, I have to say that this is a recurrent issue—most of the outside voices here are meaningless or misconstrued.
Even so, it feels like there could have been a solid version of the book. Its central premise is resonant—what does one do with spaces that help us as much as they harm us? Unfortunately, it’s a question better addressed in the comfort of one’s own home than in Cara Meredith's Church Camp.
Skip this one.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
This is a must read for anyone who attended evangelical church camp as a child, or sends their child to one today. Like a lot of exvangelical memoirs, Cara Meredith looks closely at theology and practices that were questionable, manipulative, and even abusive. However as she reflects on her beloved, formative summers as a camper, counselor, and adult staff member, she knows she experienced God. This is not a burn it all down exvangelical story. It’s full of love, accountability, shared experiences, and divine presence.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism
I am a bit young for Cara’s demographic as a “zillennial” but I am easily a part of the generation that was failed by “White Evangelical church camp”. I didn’t spend a week away at a traditional summer camp, but I experienced the cry nights, the emotional highs and lows that came along with grueling labor, games, and then a sermon each night. I was subjected to slightly different forms of emotional manipulation, but the effect was still the same.
When I read the description of Cara’s book, I had this sickly feeling wash over me. Church camp specifically was an area that I had not dug too deeply into. Partially because I think I have blocked a lot of those memories out, but also because I am still not quite ready to confront the damages that those weeks did to me as a teenager.
Church camp taught me about love bombing, work ethic, judgement, class systems, cliques, hatred, and manual labor. I don’t want to make it all sound bad, but it did leave its mark on me, and not entirely in a way that I would deem “good.”
Cara explains church camp in a way that makes my experience feel validated. My experience was very similar to the summers that she described. And honestly, it was refreshing to see someone acknowledge that these environments can be damaging.
Cara’s experience on the other side was fascinating to read. Whenever I have thought about the speakers that I had listened to at camp, honestly, there was a significant amount of mistrust. I always wondered what their intentions actually were—were they intentionally trying to manipulate me? To read what they are being taught to teach as speakers was both frustrating and disheartening, but it also allowed me to see the humanity side of it. Cara wasn’t intentionally trying to manipulate her students, her goal was ultimately to get them to see Jesus. But she wasn’t going to do that by toying with the people who were learning from her.
Cara has a way of showing where she was wrong when she was younger, what she thinks about it now that she has grown, and what she thinks Christians as a whole should do differently when it relates to church camp.
In a sea of mistrust and frustration towards the church, Cara has a way of seeing both sides and blending it to be a teaching moment. Something that I imagine was difficult to do because so much of her identity was intertwined with church camp.
reflective
fast-paced
Oof what a book. There were a ton of lines in this book, especially early on, that I noted to journal through. Many that put many of my own discomfort with evangelical theology and its type of evangelism into words. It's important to note that while this is part-memoir, the author's deconstruction did not lead to a loss in faith. She is still a Christian, just a different sort than she was when she was working at the church camps.
This was a thoughtful and incisive look at white evangelical church camp that I hope spurs on more conversations. As Meredith mentioned, it was harder to get interviews from BIPOC former campers for whom camp was a traumatic week rather than the "best week of their life."
This book is organized like a typical week at church camp:
This was a thoughtful and incisive look at white evangelical church camp that I hope spurs on more conversations. As Meredith mentioned, it was harder to get interviews from BIPOC former campers for whom camp was a traumatic week rather than the "best week of their life."
This book is organized like a typical week at church camp:
- Welcome to Camp!
- God the Mostly Father
- Superhero Jesus
- Dirty Rotten Little Sinners
- Cry Night
- Side Note, Rose Again
- Now Go and Live the (White) Way of Jesus
For me, most of my own highlights were in the first half of the book. The second half was rough, and I found myself rushing through just because I was feeling triggered by my own evangelical church trauma. If you grew up in white evangelical culture but was in any way marginalized, I think you might also really enjoy the labeling in the first half and then need a bit of time to rest from Day 4 and onward when Meredith discusses the manipulative parts of evangelical Gospel messages. It is affirming to hear someone else say that yeah, they really are just trying to hit a KPI for salvations, but it still sucks. Also very helpful to see someone point out that white evangelicalism is trying to convert you to white, cishet, able-bodied Christianity and it excludes those of us who are not.
The Navigators, the evangelical group I was in, is mentioned on page 13, but not much beyond that, I'm guessing because it's primarily a college parachurch organization. Young Life and FCA were mentioned much more.
Meredith has done her reading and cites some excellent writers and theologians, in addition to the former campers and camp staff. As a person of color, I especially liked her quote from pastor Jared Stacy who pointed out in a 2021 blog that evangelicals focusing on "just preach the gospel" was a way to reject social justice because hey, if only Jesus matters, you don't need to worry about earthly things like power and change. I love a book that has a good bibliography, and this one has about 17 pages of endnotes.
For me, this book was helpful for labeling. I think this is a good resource for those deconstructing their evangelical childhoods and for those who want to understand. I'm not sure you'll necessarily feel inspired, but at least you won't feel crazy or alone.
Thanks to Netgalley and Broadleaf for this ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I was really excited to read this book. I grew up in white evangelicalism, albeit in the UK rather than the US. White evangelical culture has its differences here, but many aspects have been somewhat exported from the US to the UK, and ‘church camp’ culture is definitely one of those aspects.
Reading this book as someone who experienced a lot of the culture described here was deeply validating. I’ve been in a ‘deconstructing’ period with my faith for over a decade now, and I’ve read many works and memoirs on experiences with white evangelicalism in that time. I will say that this is probably one of the books I’ve read that has most validated the extremely weird and complicated feelings that come with growing up in a faith and then later coming to realise the harm that the toxic theology you’ve been exposed to and perpetuated has caused to yourself and other people. It’s extremely hard to explain or convey how you can be almost nostalgic for places that were actively harmful for you, because they were also somehow places where at one point you felt deep joy and belonging. I felt this book and the author really well explained and validated that feeling, and it was an emotional read.
I also want to say this book is extremely well referenced and researched, and I found some great new resources and reading material in the footnotes. If you’re expecting purely a ‘memoir’ this is not what this is book is, but the deeply researched and well thought out explorations of why white evangelical church camp culture is the way it is (and also what we could do instead!) are very important.
I do think this book is a little ‘niche’, in the sense that I think someone who hasn’t experienced white evangelicalism would be quite lost reading this. Having said that- for those of us who did experience and grow up in that culture, especially those of us who have trauma associated with it, this will be an important, emotional and validating read.
Thank you very much to Broadleaf Books and NetGalley for the ARC!
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Church Camp by Cara Meredith is a book that could be used to garner deeper discussions as to the how and why of evangelical church camps and their impact on the faith of campers and leaders alike.
I flew through this book and resonated with much of message. Will it be read as eagerly by someone who does not resonate with its message? Unless that reader is open to seeing another point of view, I think it will just create great ire.
Cara organizes her thoughts into each day of camp and its intended goal. The end seemed to be a little stream of consciousness but the general theme is understood.
I really appreciated Cara's ability to process things without throwing the baby out with the bathwater and how she can still hold valuable something she has great issues with. I wish the book had explored other types of church camping but that is not the purpose of the book. It is really a framework for the author to share her faith journey.
If you are a parent of a past camper or went/ worked at church camp yourself, if nothing else you will resonate with the memories reading this book will evoke, positive or negative.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.
I flew through this book and resonated with much of message. Will it be read as eagerly by someone who does not resonate with its message? Unless that reader is open to seeing another point of view, I think it will just create great ire.
Cara organizes her thoughts into each day of camp and its intended goal. The end seemed to be a little stream of consciousness but the general theme is understood.
I really appreciated Cara's ability to process things without throwing the baby out with the bathwater and how she can still hold valuable something she has great issues with. I wish the book had explored other types of church camping but that is not the purpose of the book. It is really a framework for the author to share her faith journey.
If you are a parent of a past camper or went/ worked at church camp yourself, if nothing else you will resonate with the memories reading this book will evoke, positive or negative.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Meredith ends this book talking about how it's not about her deconstruction of faith, and she's not wrong. This isn't a book about how her faith was wrong and how damaging it was to her. It's instead a story of coming to better understand what she actually believes and doesn't, and it's explored through the lens of church camp.
I grew up in the 90s and attended a church camp for years. I loved the camaraderie, even if I didn't always understand why we only sang songs about God or we had to sit through so many counselors telling us about how they finally opened their hearts to Jesus. I ignored it, putting my time and energy into running around playing kickball or looking forward to 90 minutes of swimming and hitting up the canteen. But this book opened my eyes so widely–I indeed went to a white evangelical church camp where the mission wasn't to have kids have a good time away from home. It was to convert young people into the evangelical faith. The stories Meredith shared from her time as a camp speaker mirrored so much of what I remember sitting through.
This book does a good job reckoning with race and the evangelical strain of faith. It's white and the messaging of so many of this belief that "they don't see color" is explained through the fact they only see people in two ways: converted or not. They lay out the idea of choices in life as only one choice, either accepting their faith and beliefs or not. Meredith explained a lot of things I've been thinking about in terms of why such a narrow minded view of faith has become so mainstream and so embedded in American politics, giving language to patterns and observations I hadn't quite gotten my tongue around.
If you've read any of the bevy of recent memoirs about leaving evangelicalism, this will be up your alley. But even if those aren't your usual reads but you remember church camp and/or want a lens into the far-right, extremely strict confines of evangelicalism we're seeing culturally and politically in 2020s America, this short read will give a lot to think about.
I grew up in the 90s and attended a church camp for years. I loved the camaraderie, even if I didn't always understand why we only sang songs about God or we had to sit through so many counselors telling us about how they finally opened their hearts to Jesus. I ignored it, putting my time and energy into running around playing kickball or looking forward to 90 minutes of swimming and hitting up the canteen. But this book opened my eyes so widely–I indeed went to a white evangelical church camp where the mission wasn't to have kids have a good time away from home. It was to convert young people into the evangelical faith. The stories Meredith shared from her time as a camp speaker mirrored so much of what I remember sitting through.
This book does a good job reckoning with race and the evangelical strain of faith. It's white and the messaging of so many of this belief that "they don't see color" is explained through the fact they only see people in two ways: converted or not. They lay out the idea of choices in life as only one choice, either accepting their faith and beliefs or not. Meredith explained a lot of things I've been thinking about in terms of why such a narrow minded view of faith has become so mainstream and so embedded in American politics, giving language to patterns and observations I hadn't quite gotten my tongue around.
If you've read any of the bevy of recent memoirs about leaving evangelicalism, this will be up your alley. But even if those aren't your usual reads but you remember church camp and/or want a lens into the far-right, extremely strict confines of evangelicalism we're seeing culturally and politically in 2020s America, this short read will give a lot to think about.