Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation

Ward is consistently clear-sighted and perceptive as he charts a genuinely fascinating personal and spiritual evolution."--Publishers Weekly Jon Ward's life is divided in half: two decades inside the evangelical Christian bubble and two decades outside of it. In Testimony, Wardtells the engaging story of his upbringing in, and eventual break from, an influential evangelical church in the 1980s and 1990s. Ward sheds light on the evangelical movement's troubling political and cultural dimensions, tracing the ways in which the Jesus People movement was seduced by materialism and other factors to become politically captive rather than prophetic. A respected journalist, Ward asks uncomfortable but necessary questions, calling those inside and outside conservative Christian circles to embrace truth, complexity, and nuance. He recounts his growing alarm and grief over the last several years as evangelical conservatives attacked truth, rejected personal character, and embraced authoritarianism and conspiracism. He shares his search for a faith that embodies the values he was taught as a child. Ward's experience and reflections will resonate with many readers who grew up in the evangelical movement as well as all those who have an interest in the health of the church and its impact on American life.