Jen Hatmaker was a famous liberal influencer in the church up to a few years ago. But she has since “deconstructed” her faith, after several years of building a brand on theological liberalism. How did this happen? The glaring cause is that she supported her daughter becoming a lesbian. Jen Hatmaker was a perfect example of the liberal dilemma: to groom or kill the (unborn) child.
The Gospel Coalition wrote a review of her book, treating her criticisms of the Christianity and the church as valid. In a review titled, “Why Are Women Leaving the Church? Learning from Jen Hatmaker’s Deconversion,” The Gospel Coalition legitimizes Hatmaker’s narrative as something the church should take into feedback for consideration.
In 2016, Hatmaker was openly pro-homosexuality and twisting the Bible accordingly. However, according to her memoir, she was woke on race first.
From the outside, Hatmaker’s departure from evangelicalism seemed to originate in her changing view on sexual ethics. But in her own telling, there was an earlier, more pivotal moment when her disillusionment began—when she publicly condemned racism. “My comment feed was a daily nightmare. I lost a thousand followers a day,” she writes. “It was like I’d been leading a den of lions and they turned on me” (140).
Blindsided by this reaction, Hatmaker began to question evangelical doctrine: “Because if white evangelicalism was willing to say racism is obsolete when plain evidence exists to the contrary, if what is true no longer matters for what is right, what else might they be wrong about?” (141).
This was the beginning of her faith unraveling. Notably, she didn’t first become disillusioned with what the Bible says. She became disillusioned with how believers behaved. As Samuel James has observed, this is a growing trend: “When someone talks about why they’ve changed their convictions about something, they increasingly will refer to negative experiences more often than persuasive arguments. . . . It’s hard to separate personalities from doctrines, to stay committed to convictions even when others holding those convictions behave badly.”
The Gospel Coalition peddles a narrative that a “negative experience” predates a change in theological conviction, but Hatmaker’s Black Lives Matter peddling is viewed as the “negative experience” to validate the premise. Her liberal politics predated her embrace of libertine sexuality, but they ultimately led her down that direction.
Wake-Up Call for the Church?
Sadly, Hatmaker isn’t the only woman who has suffered a negative experience in the church (whether online or in person). She’s not the only woman whose worldview is being shaped by secular therapy culture. Too many women are becoming spiritual orphans like Hatmaker, and I hope my observations help shed light on this concerning trend. But even more than that, I hope Hatmaker’s story reminds us that while deconversion may be influenced by common cultural dynamics, it’s always complex and deeply personal.
Some voices today emphasize that Christians need to “wake up” and recognize “what time it is.” But we won’t keep more women in the church simply by diagnosing the problems in our culture and fighting about them with other believers on social media. That sort of situation is exactly how Hatmaker’s deconversion began.
The Gospel Coalition treats Jen Hatmaker’s apostasy as complicated, but in reality, it was wholly driven by liberal politics and a love of sin.
One Response
Does Hebrews 6.1-6 apply to her and others like her, male and female? Have any, who once professed faith in Christ and then deconstructed from that announced faith, ever returned to full faith in Christ, not only in statement but in actual life change in conformity to Christ? If so, who? My good fried Don Lonie used to say, “Don’t lip it if you don’t live it.”