DESCRIPTION
“We have a right to encounter God where we are. We have a sacred responsibility to experience God authentically."
What happens when the God we’ve been taught to believe in seems powerless to help us in the struggles of life? What do we do when the God we personally encounter no longer resembles the God we’ve been shown in narrow interpretations of the Bible?
Many of those raised in the world of fundamentalist Christianity have been manipulated into accepting a false reality that runs counter to lived experience. The result is confusion, isolation, fear, shame, and trauma, often carried throughout one’s entire life. This book is for the victims of this spiritual abuse—anyone looking to reclaim their faith from legalism, nationalism, sexism, anxiety, intolerance, and other mechanisms of control utilized by God’s self-appointed gatekeepers. It’s for anyone who has learned that the real God is infinitely complex, that authentic faith is perfectly compatible with doubt, and that our suffering is not something we’ve earned.
Gaslighted by God is not a book of easy answers—it’s a companion for those mourning the loss of a belief system who need their pain recognized and legitimized. Tiffany Yecke Brooks shows—through stories from her own life, conversations with Christians from a variety of backgrounds, historical anecdotes, and messy episodes from Scripture—that there can be faith after disillusionment. But it will be a different faith—bruised, battered, nuanced, and real, rather than one wrapped in tissue-thin platitudes and three-point sermons. It will be a faith empowered to see beyond who God “should” be to who God is.
Table of Contents
Introduction: This Is Not a Book about That
1. Shell-Shocked Faith: Reconciling Scripture and Experience
2. Asking: The God Who Demands Too Much
3. Apathy: The God Who Doesn’t Seem to Care
4. Atrophy: The God Who Can’t Seem to Act
5. Anger: The God of Punishment
6. Ambiguity: The God of the Inscrutable
7. Abandonment: The God Who No Longer Feels Present
8. Absence: The God Who Never Was
9. Arbitrariness: The God of Shifting Goalposts
10. Antagonism: The God of Chaos
11. Accountability: The God Who Expects Us to Act
12. Anxiety and Abuse: The God of Manipulation
13. Allegory: The God Who Must Fit Our Narrative
14. Authenticity: A God of Infinite Faces
REVIEWS
Booklist
“Complemented by discussion questions and a Scripture index, this compelling discourse is both academic and accessible, a strong entry to current discussion on the subject.”
The Presbyterian Outlook
“Brooks speaks directly to those who are struggling, but her writing would also benefit pastors or friends seeking to offer spiritual support. Gaslighted by God has many different opinions that could make for excellent conversation in a small group or for individual deliberation. It is, however, a hard read. It covers topics that churches often consider taboo, such as sexual assault and abuse. I highly recommend it for this very reason! It may help the church discover different ways to approach difficult topics and just may help some people along the way.”
The Christian Century
“Gaslighted by God is a rich resource for any spiritual caregiver or leader who is looking for a thought partner to help articulate exactly how people are harmed by Christianity and to assist them as they begin to repair the damage. Brooks demonstrates how to construct a new and sturdier structure for a liberative, transformative, and life-giving faith—one that invites us to bring about a world where all of God’s creation can experience the healing, wholeness, and abundant life that Jesus promises.”