Carlene Cross

Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith was a class assignment which I resisted, it not being a topic of much interest but within thirty pages or so, I found the book to be a page-turner. The author is a good and descriptive writer with a sense of humor. I appreciated her thorough nature as she enhanced her biblical study with historical research. Her missionary junket behind the Iron Curtain was tense and suspenseful and the ways in which her marriage to a Northwest Baptist preacher evolved was a shocker, confirming my suspicions about fundamentalist conservatism and misogyny. Her exploratory journey into and away from the confines of this secretive, scary extremism is an enlightening and entertaining trip to another world.… (mer)

I identified a lot with Carlene Cross; having wasted years of my own life in a fundamentalist Christian cult-like church, I had many similar things happen to me. Thankfully I didn't marry into it, at least, although I nearly did. I know first-hand all of the hypocrisy and abuse that can occur in such situations; reading this book was painful for me, as it brought back a lot of memories that I have been trying to forget.

I rated the book four stars because I just couldn't get into the author's style much of the time.… (mer)