Awake

Bestselling writer, blogger, podcaster, and former evangelical leader Jen Hatmaker was raised “in a conservative Baptist bubble” (7) and married Brandon Hatmaker at age 19. She spent decades embedded in the world of the US evangelical church. Her family life, faith, and professional life intertwined as she and her husband served together in the church ministry and raised five children. Becoming a prominent evangelical figure in her own right, Hatmaker established a public platform where she wrote about faith, family, and everyday life from a humorous perspective. Her early books, including For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards (2015), are amusing and confessional but affirm a conventional Christian worldview. For years, Hatmaker’s persona epitomized modern evangelical ideals: relatable, witty, and devout.

Hatmaker’s credibility comes from having once been celebrated inside the world she critiques in Awake. Even before her marriage collapsed, she paid a price for speaking out against racism, patriarchal structures, and the exclusion of LGBTQIA+ people. After a 2016 interview in which she affirmed same-sex marriage, spoke out against systemic racism, and voiced anti-Trump views, her publisher cut ties, events were canceled, and a significant portion of her