Book Launch: Disobedient Women by Sarah Stankorb

Join us for the launch of Sarah Stankorb’s book, Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning. Sarah will be in conversation with fellow journalist and longtime Mercantile member Jana Riess.

In Disobedient Women, journalist Sarah Stankorb gives long-overdue recognition to everyday women as leaders and as voices for a different sort of faith. Their work has driven journalists to help bring abuse stories to national attention. Stankorb weaves together the efforts of these courageous voices in order to present a full, layered portrait of the treatment of women and the fight for change within the modern American church.

6pm reception/6:30pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required. Copies of Disobedient Women will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Joseph-Beth Cincinnati.

About the book:
Disobedient Women is not just a look at the women who have used the internet to bring down the religious power structures that were meant to keep them quiet, but also a picture of the large-scale changes that are happening within evangelical culture regarding women’s roles, ultimately underscoring the ways technology has created a place for women to challenge traditional institutions from within.”

A generation of American Christian girls was taught submitting to men is God’s will. They were taught not to question the men in their families or their pastors. They were told to remain sexually pure and trained to feel shame if a man was tempted. Some of these girls were abused and assaulted. Some made to shrink down so small they became a shadow of themselves. To question their leaders was to question God.

All the while, their male leaders built fiefdoms from megachurches and sprawling ministries. They influenced politics and policy. To protect their church’s influence, these men covered up and hid abuse. American Christian patriarchy, as it rose in political power and cultural sway over the past four decades, hurt many faithful believers. Millions of Americans abandoned churches they once loved.

Yet among those who stayed (and a few who still loved the church they fled), a brave group of women spoke up. They built online megaphones, using the democratizing power of technology to create long-overdue change.

About Sarah Stankorb:
Sarah is a graduate of the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, where she studied ethics and South Asian religion and history, and Westminster College, where she studied world religions and graduated with honors in philosophy. In 2017, she was awarded with Hamilton County Ohio’s “Friend of Recycling” award and in 2022 was among her town’s Citizens of the Year.

Sarah’s articles and essays have appeared in publications including The Washington Post Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Marie Claire, Glamour, O Magazine, Longreads, Catapult, Slate, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Atavist, CNNMoney, Fusion, GOOD Magazine, Salon, KIWI, Babble, Geez, The Morning News, DAME Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Brain, Child Magazine, Proto, Whole Life Times, Skirt, Bethesda Magazine, and Cincinnati Magazine.

About Jana Riess:
Since 2008, Jana Riess has been an editor in the publishing industry, primarily working in the areas of religion, history, popular culture, ethics, and biblical studies. From 1999 to 2008, she was the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly, and continues to write freelance reviews for PW as well as other publications.

She holds degrees in religion from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in American religious history from Columbia University. She speaks often to media about issues pertaining to religion in America, and has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Time, Newsweek, People, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsday, among other print publications, as well as “Voice of America,” the “Today” show, MSNBC, and NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “Tell Me More,” and “Talk of the Nation.”

She is the author or co-author of many books, including The Next Mormons: The Rising Generation of Latter-day Saints, The Prayer Wheel; Flunking Sainthood; What Would Buffy Do?; Mormonism for Dummies; and The Writer’s Market Guide to Getting Published. Her book The Twible: All the Chapters of the Bible in 140 Characters or Less . . . . Now with 68% More Humor! won first place in the non-fiction category in the Writer’s Digest Annual Self-Published Book Awards.