cat's Reviews > Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

What an astounding new book examining the ways that the Christian patriarchy movement harms the women caught in its snare. It turns out that Cait West is a friend of a friend and Dawn sent us a signed copy. Several of my favorite recent books (The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell, this delightful book, and The Authenticity Experiment by Kate Carroll de Gutes) have all come via Dawn Burns! Dawn's book, Evangelina Everyday is also in that list. This read was a 4.5 and I am rounding up.

As Tears of Eden shares, "Over the past few years, a growing number of documentaries, books, and articles have been published, bringing awareness to stories of spiritual abuse. One new contribution is Cait West’s debut memoir Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy. Cait’s memoir courageously details her upbringing in–and eventual departure from–Christian patriarchy and the stay-at-home daughter movement.

In Rift, Cait chronicles her life as a stay-at-home daughter in the Christian patriarchy movement, reflecting on geographic shifts as markers of new stages in her life. From her birth in Delaware, early upbringing in Pennsylvania, school-age years in Colorado, early adulthood in Hawaii, and new beginnings in Michigan, each location of Cait’s life marked a further descent into–or steps out of–Christian patriarchy."

And from Cait's book itself, this sums up so much of what is powerful about her vulnerable telling of this story in service of herself and others who are trying to find their way to a different world, "Now that I've gained distance from my former life, it's painful to consider the damage that my family, my father, and my church caused. And to know we perpetuated a patriarchal system that is centuries old. To know my family's patriarchal values can be traced back through chattel slavery, Manifest Destiny, white supremacy, and violence of all kinds. Patriarchy thrives anywhere men are praised for their will to dominate - and Christian patriarchy blesses this pursuit of earthly power by imagining it's a heavenly duty. Like abuse, Christian patriarchy, at its core, is about power and control - at any cost."