Publications

Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation

By Cara Meredith

Publisher: Broadleaf Books (April 2025)

Roasted marshmallows, campfire stories, shaving cream battles–for some of us, Christian summer camp is where we felt most at home, where we could be the most authentic versions of ourselves. But for campers at white Evangelical church camps in particular, camp was also often the place to inherit a toxic image of God and of each other. From purity-motivated admonitions not to “make purple,” to the emotional manipulation of “Cry Night,” to the utter lack of diversity among campers and staff, the culture of white Evangelical camps has too often betrayed a generation.

In Church Camp, longtime camp speaker Cara Meredith exposes the ways in which white Evangelical camps sold individualized versions of Jesus to impressionable youth. Campers were forced to “sit with their sin” so they could fully understand God’s conditional love. Camp life emotionally coaxed campers into making a formative commitment to Christ (and therefore to white Evangelical subculture). Further, camps commodified the faith of these young people to bolster their own funding and power.

The Color of Life

By Cara Meredith

Publisher: Zondervan (2019)

In this spiritual memoir, everything changes when a white woman meets and eventually marries the son of civil rights icon James Meredith. The story, which examines different aspects of theology and history through an interracial marriage and mixed-race family, invites readers to forge new paths toward racial healing.

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