He spent his childhood trapped in a prison of strict religious rules, and he lived to tell the tale.
In “Churched,” Matthew Paul Turner shares a selection of stories about an American boy growing up in a fundamentalist household where growing hair that reaches to his ears was an abomination, and even contemporary christian music was “of the devil.” Women couldn't wear pants. And a pastor of a church couldn't preach one sermon without a good dose of hellfire and brimstone. In this autobiography, this now grown adult grapples with the absurdity of all of it.
This book was very intriguing. Religiosity really does scar a lot of people, so I was very curious to read Matthew Paul Turner's accounts of his own experiences. At some points it was super hard to get through and take in. Personally, not having grown up like that, it's baffling to think that it really happened and that such things still happen. It makes me sad that kids grow up fearing church or any kind of authority. For the most part though, it wasn't relevant to my own life and hard for me to associate with. This book would be most effective for people who have had similar influences on their lives, or who were raised in similar conditions. They are bound to find tons of parallels in Turner's life.
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