What would you do if you learned—from a podcast—that your dad (a pastor) was a serial sexual abuser? 

For Ryan George, this isn’t a hypothetical question. He knew the faces behind the stories he heard. In fact, his mind flashed with memories of the abuse he’d endured from that same pastor as he listened to news that would change his life. In time, as he processed the destruction rampant in the cult of his youth, he found predatory behavior to be more of a feature than a bug of his former religion as both abuse and coverups were baked into its theology.

Rather than spiral into an understandable deconstruction of his faith, Ryan instead leaned into the intimate embrace of a winsome Jesus. Hurt and Healed by the Church details how he untangled Jesus from the harmful tenets of American fundamentalism. Ryan describes the mental shifts and the restorative relationships he experienced on his journey of healing from church trauma and spiritual manipulation. He shows that rebuilding your faith doesn’t have to look like abandonment. He offers hope and inspiration through his story of an unorthodox redemption.

If Ryan could find a thriving and contagious faith after experiencing deep church wounds, so can you. 

Order the paperback for $24.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookShop.org, Target, ThriftBooks, Union Ave Books, or Walmart.
Order the audiobook from Audible, AudiobooksNow ($9.10), Libro.fm ($14.94), Apple Books ($9.99), Barnes & Noble ($12.99), or StoryTel.
Order the Kindle edition ($9.99) here.

For those who buy the audiobook, here’s the list of books that helped my faith reconstruction journey.

In this book, Ryan leverages tales of adventure to address comparison culture, the ache humans feel that the stories of our lives aren’t enough, and the suspicion that there’s more to the Christian journey than what we’ve experienced. Jesus designed all of life to be a grand, mysterious adventure; and Ryan offers practical suggestions for living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.

This book is available in print and ebook editions with a 4.9 rating on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and Walmart. It’s currently rated a 4.25 on Goodreads.
Purchase the audiobook on Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook, and Spotify

This daily devotional showcases a scene from 31 different Bible characters’ lives, a personal anecdote, discussion questions, and a verse to meditate for the day. Each chapter is named after a fictional business that Bible character might operate in the twenty-first century.