Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl

by Susan Campbell

By the age of twelve, Susan Campbell had been flirting with Jesus for some time, and in her mind, Jesus had been flirting back. Why wouldn't he? She went to his house three times a week, sat in his living room, listened to his stories, loudly and lustily sang songs to him. So, one Sunday morning, she walked to the front of her fundamentalist Christian church to profess her love for Jesus and be baptized. But from the moment her robe floated to the surface of the baptistry water, she began to question her fundamentalist faith. If baptism requires complete immersion underwater, what does it mean, if a piece of fabric attached to a would-be Christian floats to the top? Does the baptism still count?

In Dating Jesus,, Campbell takes us into the world of fundamentalism-a world where details really, really matter-while wrestling with questions that would thwart any young woman intent on adhering to a literalist religion. If dancing isn't permitted, what do you do when you're voted part of the homecoming court? If instrumental music is prohibited inside the church, can a piano be played during your wedding? For a while, Campbell diligently plays by the gender-restrictive rules. She knocks on doors for Jesus rather than preach from the pulpit; diligently guards her chastity, refusing even to date; and memorizes long fragments from the Bible. But her questions continue to surface, and when dogmatic answers from her Bible teachers, family, and congregational fellows confirm that women will never be allowed a seat at the throne, her faith begins to erode.

After Campbell flees her church, she remains thirsty for an unwavering and compassionate faith she knows is out there, somewhere. To find it, she returns to the historical roots of religious movements, studies the works of early feminist thinkers and contemporary theologians, and rereads the Bible with the same fervor of her youth. Dating Jesus is a lovingly told tale of how one born-and-bred fundamentalist matured into a feminist while holding onto her sanity and sense of humor.

Genres: Religion, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Feminism, Biography, Christianity

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Susan Campbell is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a noted newspaper columnist at The Hartford Courant, and an author.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fundamentalists scare...and sorry to come off as flippant here...the hell outta me. Yes, they do. I just cannot get into their heads. I lack the stomach for it. Talk about compartmentalization. How can anyone go through life constantly assigning 90% of the people around them to Lucifer's Fiery Pit? I just don't have the steely nerve for that!

I recall being in a Denny's on a Sunday morning many years back. I know it was a while ago because my husband was my boyfriend, we were both wearing leather jackets and I had no angst about the platter of pancakes, bacon and eggs I was about to devour. I noticed a decidedly "after churchy" crowd about the place and I made a wisecrack to G about the wholesome church going families disapproving of our jeans and leather coats as well as our general air of dissolute, unmarried-but-sleeping-in together-on-a-Sunday-ness. I meant it as a lame joke. But my future husband pointed out that we probably were the subject of much tongue clucking and folksy damn-to-helling. This diagnosis was based upon many such after-church brunches he attended as a child in the First Assembly of God Church, where a favorite theme was: 'aren't we glad we're saved and don't you feel sorry for those condemned sinners over there slurping up French toast together bold as brass."

There is just no way I could cope with a world view where I sit in a crappy chain restaurant and happily chow down whilst engaging in casual conversation about other diner's being eternally tortured in the lake of fire....not to mention family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors who have yet to see the light.

Which brings me to this book. And why I wanted so badly to like it more. The author has grappled with much of what fascinates/horrifies me about fundamentalist Christians (and fundamentalists of all stripes to be fair.) She was raised in the Church of Christ. She came up a believer, took much solace and thoughtfulness from her faith, and then went on to disengage herself from fundamentalism as an adult. Susan Campbell always chafed against the marginalized role of women in her church. She questioned the inherent lack of fair play. She came to feminism fairly early in life, despite her religious background. And, she strikes me as a very cool person. Campbell works for the Hartford Courant and I would be curious to locate and read some of her columns...many of them touching on areas of faith and spiritualism, although Campbell is no longer a church goer.

It is hard to put my finger on exactly why this book did not satisfy (me.) To be honest, I think I wanted a little more juice about her personal path from fundamentalism. She remains conflicted and still influenced by the experiences of her childhood in the church. I would have liked to hear more than what she ended up telling the reader about these personal experiences. Perhaps they were too personal to relate in the detail I craved. Perhaps someone with a more religious background could have picked up more between the lines. I just got the feeling she skipped over a lot...and she could have had a meatier book by filling in the gaps a bit more.

In a nutshell...fundamentalists are people too. They still freak me out. But titles like this remind me to render them a bit less as caricature.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really good.

This book gave me lots of feels, and made me think of things that I haven't thought in a long time.

I am going to be speaking about religion/spirituality and my own thoughts on it. Feel free to not read it, because I know that can be upsetting/triggering to people.

This memoir was at times hilarious, and at times serious. One woman's journey spiritually. It made me remember why I left the Christian faith as a whole. We had similar observations, but at the same time very different ones. The biggest one was that I never really did believe in Jesus as my saviour, and I'm not going to go through the whole act just to make people happy. When I left the church in all its forms, I felt for the first time free, especially once the nightmares started to fade. It took years even after that for me to stop being angry at those who manipulated me as a child to only "believe" out of fear. I am not an Atheist but I am not Christian, and that is possible. I identify as Eclectic Neo-Pagan with Celtic leanings, and also Agnostic to an extent, because intellectually God(s) cannot be proven or non-proven. Spiritually is not rational, it is subjective. I respect others, but I also expect the same respect. I was raised Catholic, but also spent some time in a Pentecostal/Evangelical churches. I could not be in a faith, that not only did I not believe in (and I tried), but hated me as a female and also as a queer person. I could not fake it anymore. I left at 16, and never looked back.

Campbell, and others discussed, say they miss Christianity simply because they always believed, and left because they felt the church as a whole hated them for either being queer and/or female. I understand where they are coming from, but in my personal experience, leaving the church has freed me. My personal views and spirituality is constantly evolving, and I think, for myself, that if I would have stayed in the church, my personal growth would have been stunted. Everyone is different, and I applaud that difference.

Also, my big pet-peeve is when people say Catholics aren't Christians. LOL Get out of here with that crap. You have more in common than you think. You have more in common than differences. /rant

Anywho, to get this review somewhat back in track. Do I recommend this book? Depends. It was interesting. I enjoyed reading her narrative, and the history of Christianity, Feminism, and Evangelicalism, and how they sometimes were entwined. I related to some of it myself, and I think a lot of people will, as well. I would love to read more ex-Christian narratives, especially those who completely left the faith. I would not mind reading this narrative again, and those like this.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I work for the publisher, but I'm not asked to review our work on GoodReads and I don't choose to review everything we put out.

So... I resisted reading this book at first, because for me, like for many people I know who are scarred by their encounters with religion, it looked like it might strike a little too close to home. And did it ever! However, as Campbell opened up old wounds, wounds that I've so carefully hidden over the years, I found myself comforted by her humor and her irreverent but, strangely, still tender treatment of religious fervor, both her own and that of others.

Campbell made me remember and acknowledge parts of my past that I had buried, and with that I was able to bring back some of the good things about my churchgoing youth, things that I had submerged along with the negative things I still resent.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not entirely what I was expecting. I was honestly expecting something much more snarky and critical of Christianity in general. What I got was an endearing memoir of Campbell growing up in a very fundamentalist church and family, and struggling with the very anti-woman teachings she was bombarded with versus her own belief in her inherent worth. Campbell tells her story with great wit and imagery. I chuckled at her imaginings that, when she was paraded around as the sophomore attendant to the homecoming queen, at the end of the parade they would throw her into a bonfire as a sacrifice to football. I cried with her as she recounted her experiences volunteering in Haiti.

The chapters do seem a bit scattered, as she switches back between scenes from her life and religious and feminist history. It was a neat coincidence that I had been reading this book at the same time I read "God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says", as many of the subjects overlapped.

The book largely leads up to her realization that the passages in the Bible which treat women as fundamentally different from men in terms of status or their role to play are attributed to other prophets and disciples. Jesus's words, behavior, and actions as written in the Bible treated women as equals. The following sums it up nicely:

"The real Jesus wouldn't have worried if I spoke out in Sunday school. He might have expected it-- demanded it, even. He tended to gravitate to mouthy women who were willing to buck convention and pick up and following, social mores be damned."

and

"The real Jesus would have had a sense of humor about the whole thing, goddammit."

I found this book enjoyable, in large part because I can relate with the author who left the church and has since been what she calls a spiritual "Floater", constantly seeking, though not having left the teachings directly attributed to Jesus behind.

If you're looking for something that is entirely anti-Christianity, you likely won't enjoy this book. If you think you would enjoy the story of a woman struggling in a fundamentalist setting, and her journey into being at peace with her faith, then I recommend it. As spiritually cynical as I have become, I admit I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did.

[Babs · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of this book drew me to it, and I had high expectations. It didn't meet them. The story didn't have anything different or extraordinary about it. It felt to me that Campbell's journalism background interfered with a more personal telling of her story. Parts of the historical background of the feminist movement were interesting, but they have certainly been told before. The Bible references felt, at times, like they were in there to meet an unwritten quota for when a book has "fundamentalism" in its sub-title. I would have liked to see Campbell write about her time in the seminary; something that she only mentions in passing.

But Campbell has a nice writing style and is funny in places - ( when rewriting parts of the Bible to beef up women's roles: "I and my Grandma Marrs unwittingly join the feminist theological movement, hillbilly branch" or when knocking doors for Jesus: "And come Judgment Day, when the siner inside stands before his or hr Maker I will be standing helplessly nearby. I tried to get inside your house, I wil day, but your damn dog wouldn't allow it. Ad God will forgive me that "damn") Others might find it more interesting than I did.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Campbell's book Dating Jesus recounts her childhood growing up in the fundamentalist Church of Christ denomination. As the only girl in her family Susan inwardly struggles with what it means to be a woman in her faith. Although she eventually leaves her church, she still struggles as an adult to work out how women and the Church can work together in a good way. I really enjoyed her chapters that explored all the ways women in the Bible have been misconstrued into something "bad". My only complaint was that she didn't devote more of the book to the specifics of how and why she ended up leaving her church background. I especially like on the last page how she sums up her journey, "I dated the wrong Jesus...It was someone's idea of Jesus, but not the real one. I dated the wrong one. I gave my heart and my soul - literally - to a construct that had only a small basis in fact."

[Kym]

I grew up in the Church of Christ -- the same "denomination" that Campbell did. (I use the term "denomination" in quotes because the doctrine dictates that the CoC is THE church that Paul established in Romans and is, therefore, not a denomination. What does that tell you?) I think her branch was a bit more liberal than mine, though, because we did not knock doors or do outreach, but I understand that the church I attended later employed some of the same tactics (the bus stories cracked me up).

I loved Campbell's honesty and humor, although to those firmly ensconced in the CoC would likely find it offensive. I envy her ability to separate God from the religion she was born into -- someday, I hope to do the same.

[Sarah Tudor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! I'm really not a fan of non-fiction for the most part, I almost never finish! But this was so reminiscent of my own childhood and so funny that I breezed right through! I walked away feeling envious of Campbell for figuring out the female role in the church far sooner than I did.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of good insights in this book, and I gave it only three stars for what may be an unfair reason: I don't think the author has fully come to terms with her religious upbringing and views. But maybe she never will -- I feel sorry for her there. Raised in a [C:]hurch of Christ congregation (she says that members are encouraged to use a small "c"), Campbell was both a firm adherent and a rebel because she could never quite see why girls/women couldn't preach or hold other church offices. Yet many years later, having left the church, earned a MARS (Master of Arts in Religious Studies) from Hartford Seminary, and worked as religion reporter for the Hartford Courant, she is filled with trepidation when asked to preach/speak at a local UCC church. And yet she also can't shake the conviction that the liberal churches that would welcome her aren't "real" churches. Visiting her brother, whose wife has led him into what sounds like a Southern Methodist would-be megachurch, she shares discomfort with him and he says "I guess fundamentalism broke off in us." She explains this as a metaphor of a key breaking off in a lock -- but to me her experience seems almost more like a knife breaking off and being left inside someone, poisoning them. I'd say the book is well worth reading although it left me unsatisfied.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange book. The narrative was very disjointed and felt all over the place, and the flashes of really interesting stories were too difficult to get to around the somewhat dry and difficult way the information was presented.

Essentially, the book is about the author's relationship with her fundamentalist upbringing, her modern feminism, her relationship with religion, and how they intertwine. Thus, there's a lot of good-to-great information to chew on over the course of the book. Unfortunately, getting there was not the best part of the book at all, and ultimately took away from the whole thing. I understand that Campbell wanted to tell her story about getting up in front of the congregation in the context of her understanding of fundamentalism and with the role of women in her church, but it just really didn't present itself well enough for me to enjoy the payoff for it, for instance.

I can't say I hated this, but it was a slog in a lot of places. Put together differently, I may have really found a lot to praise.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up from the new book section at work to read while I was waiting on some books I had requested from another library to arrive. The author describes her upbringing in a church of Christ while elaborating on her eventual rejection of the church because of her feminist leanings. I enjoyed some parts of the book, but not the book as a whole for the most part. It didn't feel very cohesive to me as she jumped back and forth in time somewhat and inserted stuff about feminism and feminist history in-between stories from her life. I was amused by some of the stuff from her childhood because having attended churches of Christ from between the ages of 12 to 18 I could relate to a lot of the stuff she was talking about. Although none of the churches I attended were as fundamentalist as the one she attended. I got bored by her feminist rants though.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book after reading a good review of it in BUST magazine, but was ultimately disappointed. Campbell's writing style is just not my cup of tea - she uses a wry, arch to tone to describe her fundamentalist childhood, using frequent and unnecessary footnotes on every page as some sort of comedic gimmic. When she gets to her awakening feminism in her adolescence I became more interested, but could never quite lose myself in her writing as it veers wildly between her personal stories (with that annoying arch voice) and her feminist take on theology, in which is clearly well-versed. I finished the book wishing she'd had a co-author, who could have helped state her thesis and thoughts more clearly without all the superfluous banter and misguided attempts at humor. This book felt like a missed opportunity.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up in the Bible Belt I could appreciate her story. My upbringing wasn't like hers, but I feel like I knew girls at school for whom this was their life. I appreciated her honesty, but I did feel like she got lost in the writing. There was a lot of talk of youth to adolescence -- but then we suddenly jumped to adulthood with no real explanation of her transformation from a young girl who felt like her boyfriend was Jesus to a very different adulthood.

There was a nearly full chapter that was like Bible study. I mean, it wasn't *totally* disconnected, but it was definitely disconnected from the rest of the book and felt like a distraction. But Campbell ended strong and the last page had the real gems about the real Jesus that she only found as an adult.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

a by turns fascinating, mind-blowing, heart-rending, spit-take hysterical, scary, beautiful 200-page memoir that wouldn't let me stop reading it.

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dating Jesus / 978-0-8070-1066-2

When Amazon started recommending "Dating Jesus", after purchases of books like "Quiverfull" and "The Purity Myth", I mistakenly believed that the book would cover modern fundamentalist objections to dating and basic sex-education, and I was slightly surprised to find that this book has very little to do with dating and much more to do with the author's discovery of feminism as she grows up in a fundamentalist environment.

I was instantly charmed by the first few chapters of "Dating Jesus", as Campbell tells her life story and I recognize so much of myself and my own past in her story. Her writing style is folksy and flows nicely, and so much of her writing reminds me intimately of my own history (particularly counting the wood-knots during the countless sermons she sits through). As the book advances, however, the biographical parts become more and more broken up with feminist history, and often in such a meandering tone that I wish this book had been more rigorously edited. Campbell breaks narrative frequently and often to say, basically, "I can't believe I just wrote that, that makes me sound bad, haha!" and the effect feels less conversational over time and becomes more affected (in other words: one outburst is spontaneous emotion, but a dozen outbursts are planned). Much of the feminist history presented here is interesting and important, but as it is not filtered through the lens of the biography format ("I felt that Susan B. Anthony...") but rather is just given in a flat textbook format, the flow of the book feels broken and jagged.

As a side note, while on the subject of history, I would like to make a motion that Christians and ex-Christians stop talking about Biblical "history" when they have nothing more than scripture *memorization* and the "history" they learned in Sunday School. I respect Campbell immensely, and I am sure she means no offense, but she should not use her book to repeat the old canard that Jesus was a "rebel rabbi" because he didn't treat women like dirt when all the other contemporary Jewish teachers did because the Bible seems to say so. Actual scholars like Robert Price have painstakingly pointed out that many of the rabbis of Jesus' day did NOT subscribe to the literal interpretation of the Hebrew law that Christians claim Jesus was 'rebelling' against, and it verges on anti-Semitism to continue to spread mis-truths about a culture just because you can't be bothered to research the issue outside of a single, competing religious text. Jesus - if he existed, and if the writings we have of him truly reflect his teachings - was awesome enough on his own without flanderizing his contemporaries into caricatures for him to out-perform. Furthermore, claims regarding Biblical authorship and early church timelines should be made by actual scholars and historians, not former Bible Quiz Masters. It's frustrating that Campbell seems to have this blindspot - she can understand that much of what she has been *taught* (about women, at least) is not necessarily true, but she seemingly cannot accept that much of what she *read* may not be historically fact either, presumably because it would be emotionally damaging to have spent so much time memorizing the Bible, only to find that much of what she believes about it may not be true.

Disregarding the non-scholarly material regarding Biblical history and authorship, there is a lot here that is interesting, but the format feels awkward and forced. I wish the feminism information had been framed less in a 'textbook format' ("Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote 'The Woman's Bible' in 1898, discuss.") and more in terms of how Campbell felt, as a girl, upon learning about 'The Woman's Bible' - and what she felt about the contents, then and now. The jumps from biography (how Campbell feels about church, boyfriends, and brothers) to history with very little bridge in-between creates the impression that Campbell does not really remember how she felt, or perhaps does not know how she feels now, but I would much prefer to read Campbell's piecing together of her likely childhood response to this marriage of her holy Bible and her intuitive feminism, as opposed to the novel equivalent of a Wikipedia page with dates and quotes and factoids.

I wanted very much to like "Dating Jesus", but by the end of the book I was left with the impression that Campbell didn't have as much to say on her childhood as I wanted to read. The biography sections are superb, the historical sections are dry but probably factual, the Biblical sections are marked with that fundamentalist blindness that believes Biblical study should occur in a vacuum - beginning and ending only with the 'approved' Bible books, and nothing else - but the assortment as a whole fails to mesh, and ends up feeling like three short books wedged uncomfortably into one.

~ Ana Mardoll

[Florinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the fact I haven't been a regular churchgoer for several years - or maybe because of it - I still find religion a fascinating subject. I'm interested in both academic-style discussion of religious topics and personal accounts of experience with organized religion, especially struggles with it. I'm pretty sure that ten years of living in the Bible Belt contribute to a particular curiosity about fundamentalist beliefs and practices, and my own issues as a woman living within Catholicism draw me toward other women's stories of their own religious issues. Susan Campbell's Dating Jesus brings two of those lines of interest together.

Campbell is a journalist with the Hartford Courant, and her book, subtitled A Memoir of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl, is a little different than I expected - lighter on the memoir, and heavier on history and analysis connecting fundamentalist teachings about women's roles and the feminist movement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Campbell's approach is thematic rather than strictly chronological, and she usually places the events she shares from her personal history into a larger context. Regardless of the emphasis, however, it was a pretty quick read, and accessible and thought-provoking throughout. (Well, thought-provoking for me, anyway, but I've already said this is an area I think about quite a bit.)

Campbell's family became members of a fundamentalist church in Missouri when her mother married her stepfather, and young Susan initially embraced it wholeheartedly, Bible reading, outreach ministry, and all. However, as she grew into her teens and young adulthood in the 1970's under the influence of second-wave feminism, she began to question the restrictive roles that her church demanded of women - but she came from a background that didn't encourage questioning. Certainty, rooted in the belief in the literal truth of the Bible, is one of the hallmarks of fundamentalist thought. On that note, I found the distinctions Campbell makes between fundamentalism and evangelical Christianity enlightening; not coming from either tradition, I've tended to lump them together.

Campbell spent several years as an adult studying at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, and calls herself a "seeker" these days. She is without a "church home" now, and seems to have mixed feelings about that. She has re-framed some of her understanding about Christianity and women though direct reference to verses about Jesus' interactions with women in the Gospels themselves, which seem to be much more woman-friendly than a lot of "official" Christian teaching, and seems to see some hope in a renewed emphasis on "social ministry" by some congregations.

I think I had expected the balance between personal and political in this book to be different, but I still found it a worthwhile read.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent the first part of this book wishing I could bring myself to highlight in books that are not textbooks. I want to hand this book to my husband with the parts relevant to my own childhood pointed out with highlighter. I want to laugh and also cry at how similar my life was to the author's. Campbell's anecdotes are funny, poignant, and most importantly, allegorical.
As I start the sixth chapter, I become less enchanted with the book. It seems we've slipped from humorous-memoir-with-a-message to non-fiction discussion of the history of women with regard to religion. It is all very interesting, but mostly cribbed from other texts on the same subject with much less relation to the author's life.
The memoir gets back on track with Chapter Eight, relating to Campbell's experience on the homecoming court, and high school dating experiences. Again, excellent work. Then, inexplicably, the next chapter skips to a time after the author has grown up, had kids, divorced, and re-married. What happened in between there? Isn't that what we're reading this for? How did Susan go from that repressed child in a fundamentalist church to the feminist journalist she is today? How did that happen? I am desperate to know.
Her final chapters, on social Christianity and the true message of Jesus, while understandably important, also seem divergent from earlier themes. Possibly this information could have been the fodder for Campbell's next book instead of being squeezed into this one? Certainly the topics deserve further treatment. I would very much like to read an entire text by this author just on the topic of social work as done by the Christian community.
Overall, however, I really enjoyed the book. I felt that it was well-researched and well-written. The anecdotes especially had a very funny, engaging style. The parts of the book that seemed to be a collection of quotes by other authors were at least organized well and added to the point that was being conveyed. I'd recommend this book to any recovering [insert your denomination here], with again, my wish that the time between Campbell's childhood and later adulthood were covered more fully.

[Pica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if I can express how much I enjoyed and appreciated this book. I've been doing a lot of non-fiction reading lately, and a number of authors are clearly writing because they have a bone to pick. I don't feel that that is at all true of this book. Campbell grew up attending the fundamentalist church of Christ in Missouri. It was the sort of place that didn't allow musical instruments for their hymns, because they aren't mentioned in the Bible. Campbell was a staunch believer, and completely involved in her church, but she was also a life-loving little girl who loved baseball more than anything else (apart from Jesus) and didn't understand why her 12-year-old brother was allowed to preach when women were forbidden to do so. She speaks of her early life with more nostalgia than anger, even though she has since left the church of her youth. Over the course of this book, she gives a very even-handed account of what she was taught, and of how she came to believe something different as an adult, even though she could never entirely shake off her fundamentalist upbringing. She also offers a short history of the Evangelical and Feminist movements in America, and how they were not always at odds with one another. And there is an especially beautiful chapter where she discusses how Jesus' interaction with women is completely at odds with the complementarianism preached by many Evangelical churches. This is a beautiful memoir. Insightful, intelligent, moving, and occasionally very funny. A sincere, but not rose-tinted, view of fundamentalism from the inside. Highly recommended to everyone from atheists to Evangelicals.

[A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book wasn't exactly what I was expecting, though I'm not entirely sure what I did think it was going to be. Still, the combination of a history of some aspects of American evangelicalism coupled with stories about the early American feminists, interwoven with Campbell's own experiences in a fundamentalist church was extremely interesting. I found it helpful partly because it aided me in parsing out some of the things I encountered when I spent a couple years at a church of Christ high school - my brother and I were the only Lutherans attending the school, so we tended to get people staring at us when we mentioned how we did Communion or the way our pastors wore vestments, and we found ourselves confused by some of the theological assertions we ran into. Knowing some of the history of that branch of the church helps me understand some of the things that happened there, including the way boys tended to be catered to and girls were not.

Campbell's discussion on feminism and the church included ideas that I was not new to, but she provided a slightly different perspective than some of the ones I have encountered, and I truly appreciated what she had to say. Over this last year, we left a church where women were only permitted in leadership in limited ways, for the Anglican church, and I still remember the first Sunday there, when I realized how much I had been longing to know I was welcomed as an equal by the church, and how much I'd been ignoring the pain of knowing that my words were counted as less by the synod of our old church, and that day, when I received the Eucharist from a woman, I felt myself starting to heal.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first few chapters of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl, in which the author told of her growing up years in the Church of Christ. I think Susan Campbell and I share more than a first name, because many of her recollections were very familiar to me (and hilariously written, I might add).

Campbell and her family were in church every time the door was open, and she was a Bible Bowl Champion. However, even as she listened attentively to the preacher and her Sunday School teachers and knocked on doors for Jesus, she had her doubts - principally because of the second-class treatment of women in the church.

In what's becoming predictable in my latest reads, Campbell ends up leaving the church and becoming enlightened, i.e. liberal.

Yes, I should have quit with this one while I was ahead, but I felt compelled to continue. Campbell recounts a visit to Haiti in one chapter, where she decries the fact that "my country has played a major role in helping destroy this country."

O-kay, then. Never mind the incredible generosity of Americans - the goods we send to all kinds of countries, the kids we sponsor and adopt - never mind all that. You know, reading things like this really helps me understand why some people were so happy about Obama's election. They truly do seem to feel like America needs to apologize.

Anyway, off-topic I know, but I enjoyed Campbell's memoirs before she became enlightened. In short - I liked her better as a Church of Christ member! I recommend the first half of this book.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, I'm admittedly giving this an amazing review and I've only just started the book. The title itself gave me such high expectations that for the last few days, I've just been staring at it lovingly. Then yesterday, I told my partner, "There's no way this book is going to live up to my expectations. I don't even want to start it."

But start it, I did, and love it, I do. It's witty, humorous, and yet earnest. While my growing up experience was not nearly as fundamentalist, it explores some eerily similar experiences and questions.

UPDATE...
Now that I've finished the book, I still give it high reviews. The honesty with which Campbell explores the tango between her faith and her feminism is refreshing. She doesn't condemn one and turn to the other for redemption. Rather, she wrestles with each (and messily so).

I liked the historical context in which she placed her story. I also liked the way that she left her struggle unresolved at the end. Her story seemed more human that way.

I docked my rating to 4 stars because at times, I felt like her reflections could have used a couple more rounds of revision. Sometimes, she repeated parts of the same story, or awkwardly jumped back and forth between events.

[Candace · Rating 3 out of 5]

My only real problem with this book was my own expectations. The book was recommended to me as being "very funny," and so I expected a rollicking autobiography about growing up in a particular Protestant faith. The actual book is very good, but I would not describe it as funny. It has a few droll moments, but mostly it's a report on the still-unhealed war wounds of a woman who grew up in the midst of both religious and gender-related social wars.

She puts in many more Biblical references than I needed (I wasn't about to look them up — and so they came across more as a kind of bragging about her extensive knowledge of the Good Book), and many footnotes that felt out of place in a popular (as opposed to academic) book. And at points, it became didactic, sharing information about the history of the US and religion in America, etc.

Overall, the book never quite gelled for me. It seemed to meander a bit, like a string of collected essays more than a coherent work. On the other hand, I feel as though I gained a new perspective on religious groups that interpret the Bible literally. And once I finally got into her rhythm, I enjoyed her voice.

All in all, not a great book, but not a bad one. It was interesting.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely related to some of this. The author writes about growing up in the church of Christ, in Missouri in the 1960s. She was a natural born feminist, not understanding the rules that limited women from preaching, or being a bigger part of the church. She grew up in a church that taught you that God could come back at any moment, and you'd better be right with God at all times. This is the part that I most identified with, as well as the idea that Jesus was a person who I had an intimate relationship with. I tended to see him as a loving uncle, while she saw him as her godly boyfriend. Her church didn't take with laying on of hands or prophesying, while mine did. We had a church band and we danced in the aisiles, raising our hands to Jesus, while her church didn't allow any musical instruments or dancing. Interesting that she grew up in the south, while I grew up in northern NY. It's the difference between her less pentecostal church, and my very pentecostal one.

Some sections did drag a bit, as she went into the history of the christian churches in the early 1900s, and some of the writing got a bit dry. But overall it's a good memoir of growing up with Jesus, and finding your feminist roots, and coming out a bit scathed, but none the worse for wear.

[Tara DuBose-Schmitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dating Jesus is an off putting title for a hard book. Campbell recounts her upbringing in fundamentalism, her earnest efforts to live up to a rigid standard, her frustration to reconcile her own beliefs with what she is taught. Along with her own history, she presents the development of fundamentalist sects and footnotes where their beliefs originated (Campbell knows her scriptural references, even if she doesn’t always agree with how they are applied). She ponders theological beliefs and admits she is “Christ-haunted”—-drawn yet not in the fold. She acknowledges that she is both judgmental and somewhat wistful toward Christians who feel accepted and at peace in their faith. The last chapter hints at a view of truth and grace versus just legalism and self-recrimination. One hopes that despite everything else, she embraces that. A sometimes funny but also sad story.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my review here: http://marie-everydaymiracle.blogspot...

[Hannah Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars due to pacing and some content that was irrelevant, but only in my personal opinion. It was refreshing to read about another former, Christ-haunted fundy and her journey of processing her past. I realize how lucky I am to have not been raised fundy like the author, who I’m sure has struggled more than I. My brief stint as a fundy in college was enough to traumatize me, however. 🙃

I’m glad to relate to another woman who has become mildly educated about the bible and the way it is mistranslated, misunderstood, and cherry-picked in order to maintain outdated gender roles and bigotry, both of which did not exist in Jesus’ ministry. Many people are negatively affected by being indoctrinated into churches led by undereducated men or men who have avoided the possibility of education beyond their own biases. The culture these leaders create is enforced by the patriarchy and women in the congregations who fear ostracization.

The author ends her memoir with an encouraging thought: she still believes, and it is not for others to define the quality of her faith. It’s between her and God.
I feel empowered to keep recovering and exploring how my faith has changed and admit to myself that I still believe in Jesus, even if I don’t agree with traditional doctrine or the culture of modern American churches.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable, conversational, great use of footnotes. Maybe a bit dated (published in 2009, but seems to have been written in 2006), and jumps straight from her adolescence to her life as she was writing. I think it’s a solid spiritual autobiography.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is a sincere and honest account of the author's experience growing up in and grappling with the church of Christ. Campbell's story weaves together the threads of her fervor, disillusionment, and ultimately her sense of being "Christ-haunted." Though I do not identify with fundamentalism in the exact same sense that she does - Baptists, as she notes, have the assurance of salvation that her brand of fundamentalists do not - it was eerie to me to read how much of our experiences overlapped, in spite of our geographic and even generational differences: an enthusiasm for kids camps, a hard-wired commitment to Biblical inerrancy and quoting, an affection for old-fashioned hymnals, the need to and yet fear of door-knocking, a mix of self-righteous disdain and simultaneous yearning to participate in particular banned activities... the list goes on. I agree with other reviewers that while the first half of the book flies by smoothly, the second half becomes a bit disjointed as Campbell attempts to understand her own life in the context of feminist history. Nevertheless, it's an interesting and illuminating story and a very fair account of what it's like and what it means to be a fundamentalist Christian in America.

[Priscilla Herrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Campbell a journalist and columnist for The Hartford Courant, but before she arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, she was a little girl growing up ion a fundamentalist Christian household in Missouri. Dating Jesus is a memoir of Campbell's life and her movement away from the church of her childhood. It is also a thoughtful consideration of what she was taught as a child (such as, that women must be silent in church, and that homosexuality is wrong) and her own conclusions based on her study of the Bible and the writings of women theologians.

Campbell describes her love for Jesus and the church, and then her irritation and eventual anger that, as a female, he was expected to quietly take a back seat. She moves from anger to a place of forgiveness, where she can enjoy listening to, and singing, the old gospel hymns of her childhood, and where she understands Jesus as a very different entity from the image she carried as a child.

I enjoyed Dating Jesus and learned about a denomination that I was not familiar with. But more than that, I was impressed with Campbell's theological discussion of the meaning of Genesis stories, and of the recorded behavior and words of Jesus.

[Rebecka · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part,I enjoyed this book. I was somewhat disappointed in the imbalance of topic- I thought there would be more memoir and less theology. I felt I could relate to the author on many levels, having been raised fundamental Baptist. There were indeed some parts where I knew exactly where she was coming from, but I couldn't relate to her struggle to make it all fit together. In my own experience, if a puzzle is missing pieces or has other pieces mixed in with it, I don't bother working on the puzzle. It may be worthwhile to explore the attitudes of Jesus and the early church regarding women. But in the end, it's not going to change behavior or teachings, particularly in the fundamental and evangelical movements. Another problem with this book was the layout, which at times seemed scattered between themes. At times some stories didn't seem to fit in or relate to her general thesis. While the chapter regarding her trip to Haiti was moving, I didn't understand how that experience fit in with the rest of the book.