A time to leave, an author interview
Cait West talks about her new book, *Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy*
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Gentle reader,
Today, I’m honored to bring you an interview with author
, who talked with us about her brand new book Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy (252 pages, Eerdmans), which is her story of Christian patriarchy, spiritual abuse, and trauma. The book releases tomorrow, but you can preorder today.
The interview follows:
BFJ: The cover image is such a gorgeous representation of the title. Can you tell us about the cover?
CW: Early on in the process of working on this book, I found myself studying the geology of the places I’ve lived, and I started to write about this larger story of how the earth has evolved. This became a way for me to understand my own story and how I’ve changed over the years. While geology isn’t the focus of the book, it serves as an extended metaphor to show how it felt internally to go through spiritual and emotional abuse and come out on the other side.
I wanted the cover to show this as well. The geological realities of water, erosion, and the layering of rocks are all themes in the book, and I asked for an illustrated cover because I wanted to make it clear from the beginning that this is a memoir, not an autobiography. This is my perspective of what happened. This is me making art out of ashes. It is true to what I remember, but more like a painting than a photograph.
BFJ: That’s beautifully said, and “art out of ashes” is such a hope filled idea. Why did you write Rift?
CW: When I left the Christian patriarchy movement and my life as a stay-at-home daughter behind, I wanted to start my life over. I was twenty-five when I got out, and within a year I was going to college to study writing. I wanted to focus on fiction writing, but my own story kept leaking into everything I wrote. I took a creative nonfiction class, and that’s when I realized how healing it was to take back my own narrative by writing about my past.
I decided it should be a book when I couldn’t fit it all into one essay or story, and I wanted to create something of my own out of all the harm that had happened to me. The more I wrote, and the more I shared online, the more I realized I wasn’t the only one with this kind of experience and that maybe sharing my story would help others understand their own.
BFJ: Give us the short version: what’s the book about?
CW: Rift is my story of what it’s like to grow up in Christian patriarchy as a girl, how I became a stay-at-home daughter, and what it took to leave and start anew. It’s about hard topics like religious trauma, but it’s also about my experience of finding my voice and gaining independence.
BFJ: Share a detail you’re fond of from the book?
CW: I included a short chapter that is a poetic retelling of Proverbs 31, based on my experience of what happens to women within patriarchal churches and homes. It was so cathartic to write this because Proverbs 31 is held up to many women in the church as a to-do list on how to be a “biblical woman.” It becomes a weapon of control and abuse, of keeping women within certain bounds. I wanted to show my perception of what happens to women when their agency and self are stripped away.
BFJ: I’ve heard many women express the way that chapter has been used against them. Who do you hope will read the book and why?
CW: I hope that those who have grown up in or joined high-control groups will be able to read this and see part of their experience reflected. I know many people who have been harmed by fundamentalism and patriarchy but who do not want to or are not able to share their story because of safety reasons. In the same way I saw myself in books like Educated by Tara Westover, I hope others will find consolation and solidarity in Rift.
I also hope those within churches will be able to read this with an open mind and understand this is not a criticism of all religious expression, but an honest recounting of how certain theological teachings can cause devastation in individual lives. My wish is this will open up the conversation even more about equality and abuse prevention within religious spaces.
BFJ: May it be so! What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your book?
CW: I’m guessing there may be two main misconceptions. One might be people who didn’t grow up this way assuming this is “just another cult memoir” or the story of “those crazy people.” Yes, there will be similarities between the Christian patriarchy movement and other cultic communities, and yes, parts of my experience are considered on the extreme side of fundamentalism. But I want to emphasize that anyone can become vulnerable to a group like this, and our stories matter because we are human beings, not because we are perceived as fascinating exceptions to society.
The other misconception could be that I’m trashing the church or people’s faith. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While church is no longer part of my life, it was for most of it, and there are many good people in church spaces. Faith can be a powerful force for good. But religion can also be a toxic means of control, manipulation, and oppression. I believe that anyone who wants a healthy community, whether religious or secular, needs to acknowledge and address past harm in order to make something good in the present. Telling my story is my way of reckoning with my own complicity in a toxic system.
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your book can help to address?
CW: I hope this book will help others understand the subtleties of spiritual abuse and find courage to get help if that is happening to them. For too long, I stayed in a spiritually abusive situation because I thought that’s what God wanted. I’d been told that the abuse was love. But over time I realized if there was a God of love, that God wouldn’t want me to be abused. This gave me the freedom to separate my faith from a toxic system and find agency in my life.
BFJ: I’m so glad you found that agency. If you could gift everyone with one insight from the book, what would it be?
CW: When we’ve been through spiritual abuse, experienced religious trauma, escaped dysfunctional families or communities, we often want to leave everything hurtful in the past. I did this for a long time—until the physiological effects of PTSD set in and I realized I could never erase my past. Facing my story, learning to reclaim my voice, finding help for trauma—these things saved my life. So, I hope readers know that surviving something like this doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch or find a completely new identity. Through self-compassion, therapy, and safe relationships, you can find ways to integrate all of your experiences into how you see yourself as a person. I once wanted to project myself as “normal,” but I’ve since learned that “normal” doesn’t exist. Now I’m proud to call myself a survivor. I’ve been through a lot, and I’m still here. I’m living a fulfilled life despite abuse.
BFJ: How has your spiritual life and prayer life changed as you’ve matured?
CW: A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that institutional religion isn’t for me. While the label that makes the most sense for me right now is “agnostic,” I feel safe in not knowing everything about our universe and our existence as humans on Earth. I’ve found ways to lean into a spiritual connection with nature by spending more time outdoors and by reading books by Indigenous authors like Randy Woodley, Kaitlin Curtice, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
BFJ: Thanks for sharing that. What would your 10-year-old self say if she learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
CW: My ten-year-old self was already fragmenting in the lived reality of trauma. She was already people-pleasing, suppressing emotions, dissociating, and obsessing over perfect obedience. Perhaps she would have been terrified to hear that I am breaking all the rules by telling my story. But maybe there would be part of her that could recognize that core self she’s repressing; maybe she would feel a spark of hope that life was supposed to be different.
BFJ: Besides Rift, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters? Why do you recommend them?
CW: So many come to mind! My top recommendation for those looking for healing after spiritual abuse and religious trauma is When Religion Hurts You by Dr. Laura Anderson, who is a licensed psychotherapist and religious trauma expert. This book touches on so many aspects of spiritual abuse and how to heal from the trauma that can result.
An excellent resource on the effects of purity culture is Pure by Linda Kay Klein, which tells the stories of many different people and how they have processed the aftermath of purity teachings.
Learning the history behind how women are treated in the church today was extremely helpful for me. The Making of Biblical Womanhood by
does an excellent job discussing centuries of church history to help understand our current moment.Disobedient Women by journalist Sarah Stankorb is a well-researched book into Christian patriarchy, centering survivors who have stood up against abuse and advocated for other victims.
My friend Tia Levings also has a memoir about Christian patriarchy coming out soon, called A Well-Trained Wife.
And for those who’d like a fictional treatment of stay-at-home daughters, I highly recommend the young-adult books Quiver by Julia Watts and Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu.
Author photo by Teri Genovese
Cait West is the author of Rift. She is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre, and Hawai`i Pacific Review, among others. As an advocate and a survivor of the Christian patriarchy movement, she serves on the editorial board for Tears of Eden, a nonprofit providing resources for survivors of spiritual abuse. She cohosts the podcast Survivors Discuss.
The following is an excerpt from Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy, 2024, all rights reserved.
I have long attempted to find the words to accurately describe what happened to me, and the short version is always too short: I was born into a strict, religious family, homeschooled, and ruled by authoritarian discipline and a literal interpretation of the Bible. We eventually stumbled into the Christian patriarchy movement, but I was told it was God’s plan all along. Chance or luck was nonexistent in our world. Now that I’ve left the movement, I see how my father led us deeper into an environment where he could control every aspect of our lives—my life. Where he would be rewarded and praised for his narrow views and inflexible rules.
I am calling this a movement because Christian patriarchy is an ideology that cuts across many Protestant denominations. Some might call it a cult, a high-control group ruled by hierarchy and oppression. In the case of Christian (or biblical) patriarchy, the cult leader is each family’s father, deemed prophet, priest, and king of the household—a Christ figure. The mother’s purpose is to support her husband in raising the children and taking care of the home. And the children are considered arrows in the quiver of their parents, weapons to wage a spiritual war on the secular culture, Satan, and all manner of evil in the ultimate fight for good. Because of this metaphor, taken from the Psalms, some call this belief system Quiverfull.
I became a stay-at-home daughter because I had no other choice. I lived at home under submission to my father long after I turned eighteen, waiting for my future husband—waiting for my future. I tried to follow all the rules, obey my father in all things, and put to death my sinful self as I sacrificed for the greater purpose, and for many years, I succeeded. And then I did the impossible: I left.
I did not leave in a day but over a long time of gathering strength and resources. In some sense, I am still leaving, even though it’s been more than a decade now since I boarded a plane to start my life over. I like to think that the farther I get away from the damage, the closer I get to myself. That even though my life rifted apart, my body, mind, and spirit can finally heal. That I can be free.
But always I am reminded that deep down, I am made of the materials gathered from my past. The best I can do is return to the trauma, acknowledge the truth, and make space for who I am becoming.
This is a story of loss and separation. This is a story of chaos, of fragmentation, hidden beneath the facade of a happy family. This is a story of escape and risk and making it all worth it. This is a story of psychological, emotional, financial, and spiritual abuse.
This is my story of survival.
Cait writes a Substack newsletter at
. Many thanks to Cait for her courage and generosity in writing about her story and sharing with us! Buy her book here.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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