Talking to Shannon Harris about "The Woman They Wanted"

Shannon Harris is on the podcast this week. We talk about her new book The Woman they Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

I have a particular interest in this book because it's a behind the scenes look at the culture of the church I grew up in: Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. There is national relevance for Shannon's story, however, because she was married to Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, for 21 years. Josh's book was a national best-seller and shaped the romantic and sexual lives of countless evangelical Christians. Josh and Shannon divorced in 2019, which was big enough news at the time to be written up by CNN.

I asked Shannon:

• who she wrote the book for
• how she thinks about the idea that some will not listen to anything she says because she doesn't believe everything they do
• the ways in which the church we both spent years in taught us to distrust our intuition and our gut
• about her account of the sidelining and erasure of women in a religious subculture

I read this book very quickly. It's well-written, highly readable, and written in very short chapters. I also think Shannon deals with delicate stories involving other people — especially the leaders from our church — with a deft and tasteful touch.

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