Though Kadlec writes that she has no interest in returning to the Christian faith, one wonders if perhaps there are other, more expansive readings still available to her. These scriptural deep cuts are fascinating. She is strongest as an academic, writing from not only personal but scholarly experience she knows her way around Christian texts. Where Kadlec departs from Machado is that her cultural sidebars - including on She-Ra and Dungeons and Dragons - are less gripping for the reader. Kadlec’s account is so relatable that one begins to see the ties that bind us to evangelical philosophy even if we are not members of that church. Anecdotes don’t make data, but both happily coexist here. Whether searching for community in the face of millennial loneliness or wanting to reclaim a secular form of fellowship in everyday life, Kadlec envisions the brilliant possibilities that come with not only daring to want a different way but actually striking out and claiming it for ourselves.Kadlec has a PhD and it shows, with copious footnotes and citations, but she is also a friendly narrator, sharing revelations in the tone of a close friend, so that the points of her argument seem to emerge organically alongside the research. Weaving the personal with powerful critique, Heretic explores how we can radically abandon these painful systems by taking a sledgehammer to the comfortable. As she navigated graduate school, a new home on the East Coast, and a new marriage, another insidious truth began to reveal itself -that conservative Christianity has both built and undermined our political power structures, poisoned our pop culture, and infected how we interact with one another in ways that the secular population couldn't see.
From the story of Lilith to celebrity purity rings, Kadlec interrogates how her indoctrination and years of piety intersects with her Midwest working-class upbringing. Within, Kadlec reckons with religious trauma and Midwestern values, as a means of unveiling how evangelicalism directly impacts every American-religious or not-and has been a major force in driving our democracy towards fascism. Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful-in her marriage to a pastor's son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God-but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. A memoir of leaving the evangelical church and the search for radical new ways to build community.
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