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The Woman They Wanted

Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

"No one is coming to rescue me. I am going to have to rescue me."

As a twenty-three-year-old singer and the soon-to-be wife of youth pastor Joshua Harris, nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon Joshua's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife."

The Woman They Wanted recounts Shannon's remarkable experience inside Big Church—where she was asked to live within a narrow definition of womanhood for almost two decades—and her subsequent journey out of that world and into a more authentic version of herself. Entering conservative American Christianity was like being drawn out to sea, she writes, inexorable and all consuming. Slowly, her worldview was narrowed, her motivations questioned, her behavior examined, until she had been whittled down to an idealized version of femininity envisioned as an extension of her husband and the church. This decidedly patriarchal world, perpetuated even by the other women, began to feel like a slow death. However, when Sovereign Grace Ministries fell apart due to leadership conflicts and Shannon found herself outside church circles for the first time in years, she heard her intuition calling to her again. As she began to shake off the fog of depression and confusion, that voice grew louder. In honoring it, she awakened to the realities in which she had been trapped and found her truest self.

Singular and compelling, The Woman They Wanted will inspire women looking to reestablish connection with themselves, their inner wisdom, and their purpose.

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    • Booklist

      August 1, 2023
      Shannon Harris' stunning memoir begins when she attends a new church and metaphorically falls down the rabbit hole, landing in an all-encompassing community where men have authority and priority over women. A bold child raised in a secular home, she was an aspiring performer until her new pastor began introducing her as "the girl who gave up her dreams for the local church." The church frowned upon dating and promoted courtship duly followed by marriage. When celebrity youth pastor Joshua Harris--author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which popularized the purity movement--courted Shannon, they had their first kiss at the altar when they were pronounced husband and wife. For Shannon, church was a source of friendship, hospitality, and chocolate-mint pie, but, she says, it was also "a broom to shoo away all kinds of unwanted behavior." When church leadership began to unravel, she realized that two decades in the community had taken a terrible toll on her marriage, mental health, and identity. This is a timely, personal story. A forthright voice fresh from a devastating church experience.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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