Journalist Jason Kirk discusses his new novel, turn-of-the-century evangelicalism, and deconstruction.
Jason Kirk’s newly released novel Hell Is a World Without You is not my usual reading fare. Nor is his book CT’s usual coverage fare. As you’ll gather from our conversation below, Kirk has left evangelicalism behind and is reflecting on the church of his youth with a critical, if somewhat sympathetic, eye.
I was too shy a teenager to really embrace early 2000s youth group life, but Kirk’s childhood church setting—which serves as the backdrop of his book—was basically the setting of my childhood too. Many evangelical-exvangelical conversations of today, which can be charged, if they happen at all, also arise from this setting; so I was intrigued at the prospect of a writer not only willing but eager to talk about that divide. I reached out to Kirk, a sports journalist at The Athletic, to discuss his experience and depiction of evangelicalism, exvangelicalism, deconstruction, and more.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Let’s start with the basics: Tell me a bit about yourself, the book, and how you came to write it.
I was raised Southern Baptist in Atlanta and grew up attending church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night—the whole thing, all the way until early college. I had the entire evangelical kid career.
As a teenager, I started having the vague, gnawing, constant sense that I didn’t fit in with high-control, conservative religion, even though it’s where all my friends were and where we experienced all the fun and joy and music and hugs and laughs and pizza. That disconnect involved a mix of emotions, politics, social stuff, philosophies, events I witnessed, and more—as is the case for just about any major shift in anybody’s life.