Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 38:2 (Spring 2024)
Article: Book Review: "The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church" By Katie Gaddini (Columbia University Press, August 1, 2023)
Author: Emma Feyas

PP 38:2 (Spring 2024) p. 29

Book Review:
The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church By Katie Gaddini (Columbia University Press, August 1, 2023)

Emma Feyas

Emma K. Feyas is a Practical Theology Ph.D. student at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She also serves as Associate Director of Community Transformation and Chaplaincy at Palm Beach Atlantic University . Her research interests concern trauma-informed care and practices, particularly in the context of religious disaffiliation and deconversion.

Combining deep ethnographic research with personal experience and cultural realities, Katie Gaddini tells relatable stories and asks difficult questions. Her research seeks to understand not merely why single women might leave the evangelical church, but what exactly makes them stay. Walking alongside four women—Carys, Jo, Maddie, and Liv—who move from deep commitment and service to evangelical congregations to “Christian-ish,” Gaddini’s narration provides an empathetic window into the reality of evangelical women, especially single evangelical feminist women.

Gaddini’s objective to “expose the costs of being an evangelical woman” is successful in three distinct ways. First, her storytelling ability brings the reader into the excitement, struggle, pain, and hope experienced by women like Carys, Jo, Maddie, and Liv in their respective journeys into, out of, and away from evangelicalism. The majority of the book reads like a novel full of characters who feel familiar. Second, Gaddini interweaves her own story and journey through the research process. She is not merely an observer or a sterile interviewer, but a friend to each woman and a guide to the reader. Finally, her remarkable ability to elevate complexity demonstrates the care and effort she put into the study and the writing of this book. She asks profound and difficult questions that push the boundaries and uncover the complicated realities of being a single woman in evangelicalism.

In between the narratives of each of the women in the study, Gaddini explains evangelical norms and cultures for readers who may be unfamiliar with them. White, mid-upper-class evangelicalism provides the boundaries for the study. Following a preface and explanation of the purpose of the study, she launches into narratives of the women and of her own departure from evangelicalism. In addition to the primary four women, Gaddini conducted over fifty interviews which provide further context, examples, and insight. Present in most of these interviews is each individual’s story of conversion, or testimony. She begins with the positives of these stories, demonstrating how evangelicalism can feel like a kind of homecoming. There is something warm and welcoming about the context and communi...