Dating Jesus

I am reading Dating Jesus, a Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl by Susan Campbell.

I expected the read to be an ironic, sometimes amusing look at the times of my life as a girl growing up in the Church of Christ as Campbell did in small-town Missouri. Although many of her experiences ring true, reading the book has been painful, almost torturous. Although Phyllis Tickle recommends the book on the blurb, Campbell does not write nearly as well as Tickle.

Perhaps it is because she feels compelled to go into lengthy histories of fundamentalism, Title IX, feminism, etc. The book could have been written by any number of my acquaintences in the little church in which I was reared and at A. C. U. where I attended college. Many of them, as Campbell, long ago left the church. I do like some of her chapter titles--the last one is "Jesus Haunts Me, This I Know".

She does proclaim, "I still love Jesus."