Last week, Hatmaker became a first-time grandmother. “I wrote in his baby book: ‘I will give you everything you want for the rest of your life,’” she captioned a photo on Instagram.
Jen Hatmaker: ‘Church Is Hard for Me’
When churches reopened after the pandemic, newly single Jen Hatmaker “could not shoulder everybody’s shock and pain and pity” about her divorce. So she stayed home from corporate worship—and isn’t sure she’ll return. “I still love Jesus but church is hard for me,” states her website, “and this makes me sad, like I am missing my childhood home.”
Hatmaker told a reporter, “I’m a complicated person because I’m still a big fan of Jesus, but I guess I don’t like many of his folks.” Although she didn’t rule out returning to church, she explained, “The organized religion part of faith is not serving me right now.”
Hatmaker still clings to faith, saying it’s “what anchors me, what leads me, what compels me, what sustains me.” She added, “I had always deeply succeeded in the two institutions that kept me credible: church and marriage. Having lost one and disconnected myself from the other, I’ve discovered a faith that exists beautifully outside of all of that.”
Hatmaker, who grew up Southern Baptist with a pastor father, said the “rules-based” environment led to her success, because she’s “always been good at being good.” But because she married a pastor “at the ripe age of 19,” she’s “always been a part of the machine.”
Her “lifelong exposure” to the church left Hatmaker “in a place where I know too much,” she said. “ I have been a part of the problem. So I need a break from the machine.” Instead of “forfeiting” her faith though, Hatmaker is “relearning what faith can look like outside of the structures. And I’m finding it very healing, very gentle.”
After quoting Dallas Willard, who once described Jesus as relaxed, Hatmaker said, “My God was never relaxed. That Dude was wound tight.”
Jen Hatmaker Takes Issue with Purity Culture
While promoting her upcoming memoir, progressive Christian influencer Jen Hatmaker has been wrestling with her traditional upbringing and its implications. Because she was so immersed in evangelical culture, she said it’s tough to tease out various elements “from that level of indoctrination.”
“But I think that the church, at least the one that I have been a part of, idolizes marriage to such a degree that it pushes people into unhealthy spaces, and it keeps them there,” Hatmaker said. “It has done a real disservice to marriage overall.”
