Of all the public conversions from conservative evangelical too progressive, Jen Hatmaker’s is one of the most culturally appealing. Her trademark breezy, well-timed humor penetrates to the heart of the overwhelmed American woman she gathers into her “tribe” and admonishes to keep up the hard work, which will, by her gritty love, save the world. This is Hatmaker’s gospel: as you model your life on Jesus and love as inclusively as He did, you will heal yourself, your family, and the world. This gospel is delivered in a package of can-do, no-nonsense American pragmatism. Hatmaker rose to prominence in May 2013 with a viral blog post hilariously decrying the trials of the exasperating end of the school year. This led to an HGTV home remodeling show and her New York Times bestseller For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards (Thomas Nelson, 2015). She joined the conference circuit and endeared herself to mainstream feminine evangelicalism with her insightful, funny, and unobjectionable Bible teaching. She was well positioned, then, to rock the evangelical world with her apparent about-face embrace of the LGBT agenda in an interview with Jonathan Merritt in 2016. After the interview, Lifeway pulled her books and social media drew up for battle.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with Journal author Anne Kennedy about her Volume 42:2 feature article “The Theological ‘Mess’ in the ‘Moxie’ of Jen Hatmaker”.

Also see a special blog post by Anne Kennedy “The Unhindered Leadership of Jen Hatmaker “

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