Author Conversation: Cara Meredith and Church Camp (Episode 3)
Charlotte talks to author Cara Meredith about her new book Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation.
Learn more about Cara and her book at carameredith.com
Find Cara on Instagram at @carameredithwrites
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A Note from Charlotte:
Why It Matters: In a world where so many of us are searching for connection and meaning, conversations like this one with Cara Meredith help us see how our stories, especially those rooted in faith communities, shape who we are and who we’re becoming. In this episode, we explore the power of belonging, the complexity of spiritual formation, and the courage it takes to hold both joy and sorrow as we reflect on the places that have formed us.
One thing I’ve learned from talking with Cara is that moving forward isn’t about having all the answers- it’s about being present to the questions. It’s about showing up honestly, holding space for both the harm and the healing, and trusting that transformation is possible even in the messiest chapters of our stories.
>>> This episode is a conversation with Cara Meredith about her new book, Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation. We talk about how church camp shaped her, the “both/and” of joy and grief in spiritual communities, and the ongoing work of reimagining faith, belonging, and inclusion.
>>> We discuss how writing and reading help Cara belong to herself and the world, the role of nature and creativity in her life, and how her experiences as a camp speaker and Episcopalian have led her to new understandings of God, community, and herself. Cara honestly shares the tension of holding on to what was good while naming what needs to change, and how her journey continues to shape her family and her faith.
>>> I invite you to reflect on your own places of belonging and transformation. What communities or experiences have shaped you? Where do you notice both joy and pain? Take a few minutes to journal about a formative place or moment in your life, and consider how it continues to influence who you are today.
This first mini-season of All of This & More features conversations with authors reimagining what it means to belong, create, and live with courage. I’m grateful you’re here.
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About Cara Meredith:
A sought-after speaker, writer, and public theologian, Cara Meredith is the author of Church Camp and The Color of Life. Passionate about issues of justice, race, and privilege, Cara holds a master of theology from Fuller Seminary and is a postulant for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. With a background in education and nonprofit work, she wears more hats than she probably ought, but mostly just enjoys playing with words, a lot. Her writing has been featured in national media outlets such as The Oregonian, The New York Times, The Living Church, The Christian Century, and Baptist News Global, among others. She lives with her family in Oakland, California.
Church Camp is available wherever books are sold!
Episode Transcript:
Charlotte Donlon (00:01):
In a world that feels increasingly fragmented, many are searching for connection and meaning. All of this and more helps you navigate this path through conversations, exploring the intersection of art, faith, and community, and inviting you into greater belonging.
Alright, welcome to all of this and more. I'm Charlotte Donlon and I'm so excited to talk to Cara Meredith about her new book, Church Camp, and some other things. Hold your book up one more time for a little bit longer Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation. I'd love to start with just a little bit about you, so tell me and those watching or listening a little bit about you.
Cara Meredith (00:49):
Yeah, I live in the San Francisco Bay area with my family and also my dog, Rufus. I am a writer by day, although I wear a couple of different writerly hats, so I do a lot of my own writing, freelancing, obviously this book, but I also work in development and nonprofit spaces and juggle a couple of part-time jobs, which I say I do to pay the mortgage and otherwise I am a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal church, which in layman's terms means that I might someday become a priest if all goes well.
Charlotte Donlon (01:23):
Great, thank you. We are going to start with a general conversation about your reading and writing life that includes other things, and then we'll move into a conversation about the book more specifically. My first question for you is, how do reading and writing help you belong to yourself, others, and the world?
Cara Meredith (01:44):
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful question. I am not myself, unless I have a book to read. I am not myself unless I'm able to process through the ways in which I belong to the world through writing. So for me, reading takes up a fair amount of my time. I have my coffee, my early morning cup of coffee reading. I have the reading that happens throughout the day. A lot of times via audio books. I have my nighttime reading, which is always fun. I always say I can't read anything that makes me think past eight o'clock or so. So no nonfiction after 8:00 PM and otherwise writing, I can be a verbal processor, but I've learned as I've gotten older, I process by writing, by getting pen to paper or fingers to keys, and in that way that is how I formulate my thoughts and how I belong to the world.
Charlotte Donlon (02:41):
Thanks for that answer. I love the rule. No reading that makes you think after 8:00 PM I feel like it should be on a sign t-shirt magnets. That's a good, I probably need to follow that rule now that I know that rule. I don't like to follow rules, but that's one that would serve me well.
Cara Meredith (03:02):
Otherwise, I mean, I'm looking at the painting behind you of which this podcast is themed and there's so much that happens within every single one of us that we carry within us. And I know for me, as a 7 on the Enneagram, I'm a head person, and so it all lives up in my head. So I can't mean it's the same for me with screens. I'm very, very sensitive. I don't sleep if I have too much in my head because my mind is just brimming with all the different parts of me with all the different stories. So it truly is a way of self-care, but it also is a way of just decompressing and also embracing fun. I need some fun reading in my life. It doesn't mean it has to be brainless, but it just can't be so heady that it makes me think.
Charlotte Donlon (03:49):
Okay, so what's your fun reading right now?
Cara Meredith (03:52):
Oh, I have to look it up.
Charlotte Donlon (03:54):
Or recently?
Cara Meredith (03:56):
Recently, well, I believe in fiction at night. I'm reading a middle-grade novel with my 10-year-old son, so I usually read with him for a little bit. The middle grade novel is called Samantha Spinner and The Spectacular Specs. I'm still deciding what I think about it, but I do like reading out loud to him, and I will do that as long as he lets me. And then I'm reading Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer. I don't know if you've read him. Yeah, his is a long book. It's almost 600 pages. I'm not usually a 600 page reader. I like to get through things a little quicker, but it's an adventure in a story that is intriguing.
Charlotte Donlon (04:38):
Okay. I have seen that, but I have not bought it probably because it's 600 pages.
Cara Meredith (04:44):
I'm happy to mail it to you when I'm done if you'd like to read it. I'm not keeping it, which well,
Charlotte Donlon (04:49):
Lemme know if it's worth the 600 pages worth the time. So it sounds like it might be, it sounds like it is. So what are some comfort reads that you return to again and again?
Cara Meredith (05:00):
Oh my gosh, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard is my all time favorite book. It is spirituality, it is nature, it is God, it is mystery. It made me want to be a writer. So that is the book I return to all the time. I love Annie Dillard. I have read a number of other things that she's written, but I always return to that one. I hope someday to write a more naturey garden-esque book, and I'm going to fully be channeling my inner Annie Dillard. Otherwise, I also, I believe in the Annie's, so I love Anne Lamott, Annie Lamont. I feel like the amount of Anne Lamott that I've read makes me allowed to call her Annie as some of her friends do in her books, but I keep hoping to run into her. We both live in the Bay Area. I work once a month at a church that's in her town. I'm like, come on, Annie up. Just show up on a Sunday morning. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm hopeful. And otherwise, as far as fiction, I just love reading Susan Howatch. I don't know if you've read anything by her. She wrote Glittering Images a long time ago, which is one of my favorites. This other one I just read is called the High Flyer, but she is a fiction writer, and she oftentimes writes at this intersection of spirituality. This one was this super funky spirituality meets exorcism that I think only the weird religion people, those weird religion nerds would probably delight in which I did. So I love Susan how though.
Charlotte Donlon (06:43):
Okay. I don't think I've read her before. So good to know.
Charlotte Donlon (06:47):
She's so good. Okay, wonderful. So in addition to books and reading, what other forms and genres of art, and when I say art, I mean film, tv, visual art, photography, what has nourished you over the past few months?
Cara Meredith (07:08):
Over the past few months, I have been had somewhat of a medical crisis at the beginning of the year, end of 20, I don't even know what year we're in 2024 beginning of the year. So there's been a lot of simply at home time and not getting out. But the first thing that actually came to mind, which is not something you named, but there's deep beauty in nature and in my backyard and in my garden and in that space I'm creating.
Yesterday, I went out and turned up all the cover crops, which you oftentimes put over the soil in the winter to help the soil and just was delighted to see what was growing there. I was like, oh my gosh, there's some sugar snap peas. I don't know how that got in the cover crop bag of cover crop-ness that went over it, but it did. But also seeing the tulips, seeing this one sage bush that just had the most gorgeous purple flowers trailing down the end, these artichokes popping up, artichokes come up every single year. They're an annual and just starting to see them spring up. So to me, if I can make that count, that is the beauty in the world just right out my back door. And I relish in that every single day.
Charlotte Donlon (08:31):
It counts. Definitely. I love doing visio divina, which is, for those who may not know a contemplative practice, which is a close looking at art, but also using nature. So finding one thing, your artichoke stalk for 15 minutes and going through the visio divina exercise, I would love for you to do that and tell me how it goes if you want to, if have time for that. Using that visio divina practice in nature is so lovely and wonderful. What does the writing life feel like to you from nourishment/depletion standpoint? This is obviously not a typical season. We're not always in the month before a book comes out, but what is that like for you right now?
Cara Meredith (09:21):
Yeah, I would call it more depletion than nourishment right now. I think for anyone who's released a book there, I mean really releasing a book into this world is as much or as little of marketing as you want to do, but marketing can be such a big part of it. So I think that word marketing, I think a lot of creatives, we don't want to have to market ourselves because we just want to get to write, and yet oftentimes if we want to sell the book, we have to get the word out. That's where a lot of my writing right now is just trying to pump up the book. It's continuing to write about and point toward the book. A lot of the writing that I'm doing otherwise is just to get my name out there right now. So I don't want to say it feels icky, but there's not a whole lot of nourishment that's happening. It's one of those that it's all pointing toward February 29th and my hope after
Charlotte Donlon (10:23):
April 29th.
Cara Meredith (10:24):
Yeah, see, I don't even know. See, I'm, I'm already depleted. It's okay. I'm going to go do lectio divina right after this. But yeah, so my hope after this, it's one of those that I just go, okay, the big push is coming, but after that it's out of my hands. So I'm going to do what I can right now and there's going to be a big push and I'm going to forget what month it is, but also then the book's going to be here and we're just going to sit back and relax. So my hope after that is to certainly calm down.
As you can see on the wall behind me, I've been working on a middle grade novel off and on for the last couple of years, and it's about 40% of the way done. But I really, this middle grade novel, it is fun. I'm having so much fun with it. And so my goal after launch season after things calm down is to just finish it, but in a non-pressured, really fun, life-giving nourishing sort of way because I love everything that I've researched and that my mind has created and put together so far. So that's where I'm going. So if you can just ask me about that maybe in October, that would be great.
Charlotte Donlon (11:47):
I will definitely. I'll add it to my calendar because I won't remember, but I'll put it on my calendar.
Cara Meredith
It's on you.
Yeah, no, but what a beautiful kind of cycle that you're naming for yourself right now of this hard work push for this book coming out. And then you get to have some fun in a slower kind of organic, let it unfold way with a different genre, a different way of being with your creative process, which is lovely. And I know the writing life isn't super nourishing. It would actually be depleting for you right now. But thank God for your time in nature that is nourishing you and other things in your life that are nourishing you. We need the whole thing.
And speaking of your book, let's go on and transition into talking about your book. For listeners who aren't familiar with the church camp experience, what are a few things you want them to know about Church Camp?
Cara Meredith (12:49):
Yeah. Well, this is an invitation into a subculture of white evangelicalism that I think people are either very, very familiar with or very, very unfamiliar with. It's either a language they speak or something. They go, wait a minute, what are we talking about here? And for me as an Episcopalian on the other side of evangelicalism not being a part of that side of the church anymore, I mean, as I have morphed and evolved in my own spirituality in who I am in my belief systems, there are things that I have left behind and there are things that I continue to hold. And so when it comes to the church camp experience, I would say more than anything, this book is deeply theological, even if readers don't necessarily, even if that isn't how it fully presents, it's also spiritual memoir. It's also investigative journalism. It's this funky hybrid mix of all of the above.
(13:48):
But to me, because it is laid out and presented by the seven main talks that I gave as a camp speaker for nearly two decades, that is at the heart of it. And I think that is what I'm inviting readers to understand, hoping that also maybe it opens up doors for understanding more about what's going on in our country today, what's going on with a lot of the people who hold the power, who are making decisions, but also in understanding things like the 81% that keeps on voting, and who is that 81% and understanding who they are. So I think all of these things are part of the bigger conversation around church camp itself.
Charlotte Donlon (14:35):
Yes, I will say it's a lovely book, and I would say it's more memoir than anything, but we're not allowed to write memoirs unless we're famous. I mean, it's a good hybrid memoir. I mean, I'll call it that. And the research is great. The conversations you include about others' experiences of church camp are woven beautifully throughout the book. So, from a craft standpoint, I just have to say it's so well done. And congratulations on using this lens of church camp to explore a few different things with regards to evangelicalism and spirituality and Christianity. I would love to just start talking about your book, but I want to hear from you more. So one question I have for you is: what did you discover about yourself and maybe your faith that you didn't notice before you wrote the book?
Cara Meredith (15:29):
Yeah, I think if anything, it showed me how much I still needed to know and understand. And to use an old phrase, “plumb, the depths of,” I found myself sometimes defending that mindset on the stage that I knew I didn't believe anymore. So for instance, one of the talks, so to speak, that I gave for years, we would introduce kids to God and then we would introduce kids to Jesus, and then we would just be like, and you're a sinner. And I didn't actually say from the stage, “you're a dirty, rotten little sinner,” but it's almost like that was what was implied. And the reality is that I may not have given that sermon or talk or speech. The last time I spoke at camp was I think 2014. So, it's been a good 11 years since I've been in that environment. But those belief systems were still so ingrained with me within me.
(16:29):
I had to figure out what I really believed and who I was on the other side of it all because I knew that it didn't align with me, but I couldn't necessarily even always pinpoint or put words to it. And I think I also, because, and I write about the tension of “the both and” a lot, this was such a lovely life-giving time for me, but it also is a time and a place, but it also is a time and a place that I see harm, the harm that I caused, the harm that others received in what we believed and what we communicated in what happened there. And I found myself sometimes defending those places and those people, not because I even agreed with them anymore, but because it was still in me. I don't know how else to say that. And so how do you then wrestle through the tension of “the both and” but also be firm about who you are and what you believe and what you want to communicate and give to the reader? So that was unexpected,
Charlotte Donlon (17:39):
But it also kind of set up the structure for the book because each chapter takes the reader through what you used to think, what you used to believe, and then ends with, okay, this is what I know now and this is a new way of seeing this particular aspect of what I've been talking about.
Cara Meredith (18:02):
Well, do you know where that came from?
Charlotte Donlon (18:05):
Tell me.
Cara Meredith (18:05):
That came from our friend Lauren Winner, and that came from the writing weekend that you, Charlotte were the spiritual director for. And so I had just gotten the idea of the book and had just started writing about it, but I couldn't figure out how to put all the pieces together. And Lauren and I sat on her back porch and she goes, well, maybe you break every chapter up into three parts: What I said, what was wrong with what I said, and what we could say instead. And I was like, mind blown.
Charlotte Donlon (18:42):
That was a brilliant idea. And you executed wonderfully, I must say. Okay. Well, and it gave people like me who didn't grow up in the church camp thing like a way in because I'm like, I didn't go to church camp every summer or work there for however many years, but these concepts are what I was simmering in for 20 something years in evangelicalism. And, so it is a broader conversation than church camp. It is patriarchy, it's white supremacy, it's racism, it's all the things. But I love the interesting lens of church camp through which we see those things.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah,
Charlotte Donlon (19:23):
I do think the structure works, and it's interesting to me that that structure helps you navigate your defensiveness and come to terms with what you believe now, which is great. That's why we write, or one reason, one reason why we write.
Cara Meredith
Yeah.
How did writing this book and going through that process affect how you parent your kids or how you want to parent them with regard to their faith and spiritual lives?
Cara Meredith (20:00):
When I am asked some version of this question, whether it's that question or have you sent your kids to church camp? I often start with the fact that we had this wild thing that happened throughout the world. The pandemic and the pandemic flipped, turned upside down my relationship with religion and spirituality and the institution of the church, but also my family and my children's as well, and to the point where all of a sudden, especially here in the Bay Area, I mean, we were not allowed inside churches for over a year. They weren't allowed in churches or schools. I mean, things were just closed. So it was all Zoom Church, and if Zoom Church didn't work for your family, meaning it didn't for my Neurodivergent family, then it just didn't work at all.
(20:54):
So there was that critical piece. But also there was this place in time in which when I could have sent my kids to church camp, that's when the pandemic was happening, at least originally. And so we didn't jump on this train and we still could jump on it, but it's interesting now when it comes to faith and spirituality, because when I am asked a question like that, I think of the environment in which I was raised, and I think about the environment in which my spouse and I are raising our kids, and it is much more open. They very much know what we believe, and they do go to church with us. We don't necessarily go every Sunday. So I'm not going to, I'm going to be a priest, don't tell my bishop. But I mean, they do go with us, but also sometimes they don't.
(21:39):
And sometimes we pray before dinner and sometimes we don't. And sometimes we read books, the Book of Belonging, which is this beautiful book of children's stories that also is highly applicable for adults as well. And sometimes we don't. And so there is an open-handedness and openness to the way in which we are viewing faith and spirituality. We are a mixed race family, and we are erring heavily on the side of inclusion of everyone belonging, not only of different races, but of genders, of different sexualities, of whoever it is that walks through the door of our house or that walks on the sidewalk in front or that shows up in their classroom at school, that we are being inclusive toward all. And that to me certainly is, I hope, part of what I incorporate in the book, because it's who I believe God to be, but that is really how we're raising our kids when it comes to God and faith and religion.
Charlotte Donlon (22:42):
That's lovely. Thank you for sharing that. And I definitely would say this is a book about belonging. I noticed the themes everywhere throughout the whole book and who's belonging where, who's belonging to who, what are the places where we feel most like ourselves, where we feel welcomed and where we don't. Okay. So I would love for you to read a couple hundred words, a couple of paragraphs from the book that represent, at least in part, the mind, body, and soul space you are inhabiting right now, or one of the spaces.
Cara Meredith (23:18):
Absolutely. So I think the first one was actually from the prologue, and it speaks partially to “the both and” that I feel, and I think that's just, it has been the theme of my life for the last several years. But when I looked at that question, this was exactly what I thought
Within my body, church camp has housed my greatest joy and my greatest grief. Nowhere have I felt more alive, more in tune with the presence of God. And nowhere have I also mourned the damage done to others. And the damage done to me, too often in the name of Jesus, for the things we thought stood for Jesus as we sheltered under the umbrella of white evangelicalism. Church camp has been the source of some of my deepest hurts, just as it has been the foundation of some of the sincerest kindnesses and generosities I have ever known.
(24:09):
I have been publicly ridiculed, mocked and doubted. I've wept for the names called me and the assumptions made about me. I've mourned the loss of relationships of those I once thought would be around forever. But I whisper these words alongside the truth. That camp has also been a rock of genuine goodwill and bounty to me. A place I felt most at home and applauded for my gifts, a place that made me want to be a better person. Camp shaped me into the human I am today. Even if I sometimes wish I could hit the rewind button a couple thousand times.
Charlotte Donlon (24:46):
That really does capture “the both and” tension that is evident throughout the whole book. How does that “both and” present itself now with this distance from church camp? Where else do you see it or do you have to grapple with it?
Cara Meredith (25:08):
I mean, it's everywhere. It's like all of life. I mean, you might remember this from some of our conversations, but this book started with the tension of “the both and”, where it actually started in the pandemic. And maybe we just keep going back to the pandemic within this, but I had written a proposal and several sample chapters for another book, which was called Both Can Be True. And when I was trying to get a second book published, it was in the middle of the pandemic. And I just remember feeling this weightiness of life where there were these moments of great joy, but it was also filled with great grief.
So for instance, in my everyday normal life right now, my 10-year-old kid just broke his leg three days ago. There's actually mostly there's no joy in that. But the reality is that the moment in which it happened in which he was bouncing, jumping on this giant bouncy pillow was a moment of great joy while we were camping, when we were just eating marshmallows for dinner.
And when we smelled like campfire smoke, it was so good. And then this happened, and obviously it was filled with great grief and pain, and that might be kind of a silly example, but to me, it's so indicative of so many moments of life. So for me, that happened in the pandemic. I wrote all these chapters comparing the two together, these two different opposite words.
The book didn't get picked up. We couldn't find anyone to publish it because I don't have a hundred thousand followers who would buy a book of essays as we going back to Point A. But from that, there were a lot of publishers who were interested in an actual event as a specific place in time of “the both and,” and they just said, well, if you can find one instance of “the both and” in your life, maybe that is what you can and should write about. And so that's how the book came to be, which I realize is not actually answering the question that you just posed, but it does even.
Charlotte Donlon (27:20):
Yeah. And even with the writing life, there's the disappointment of not getting that book picked up, but it led to this book. It formed you to be who you would be when you needed to write this book, and then writing this book probably formed you in ways that you wouldn't have been formed if that other book was picked up. So yeah, there is disappointment and joy and sorrow and delight everywhere all the time.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah.
Charlotte Donlon (27:52):
Okay. No, I like your examples. They're real life examples.
Cara Meredith (27:57):
Good. Super.
Charlotte Donlon (27:58):
Yeah. Well, let me see. I would love for you to read. Let's see a couple of more paragraphs from the book that you wish people who love you would read and reread regularly. And we'll close with this question and maybe a little bit of conversation after.
Cara Meredith (28:19):
Okay. I'm hoping this is the right thing. You ready? This is from the epilogue. Apparently, I'm just book ending our readings.
Libby became my respite at odd hours throughout the day. Want to go on another walk? Libby, want to explore Libby, we do not venture to anything I've not explored a thousand times before. The hills are harder on my knees, but the Bay laurels and the Douglas firs the willow trees up at the top of the property, and the redwoods down below are all the same. The 11 mile an hour signs are the same. The wagon wheel and the campfire pit and the zip line were I dressed in Americana, red, white, and blue, and threw watermelons to the ground while Lenny Kravitz's “American Woman” played in the background are all the same too. As Libby and I stood in that place surrounded by a tower of trees, swallowed up by different shades of green and brown and gray.
I thought of a song we sang the campers each night before they went to bed:
May the Lord mighty God bless and keep you forever, give you peace, perfect peace, courage and every endeavor, lift up your eyes and see his face filled with grace and love. May the Lord mighty God bless and keep you forever.
The same God I met as a summer staffer in 1998 was still there. The same God was in me for that same God was still present in that place. Maybe the truth is this, even if and when, and as we change, even as we evolve and tear down and reconstruct new versions of faith, we are found enveloped in a mystery who meets us in that place, who looks over us with grace and love.
Charlotte Donlon
Amen.
Cara Meredith
Amen. I was trying to decide if I should sing that song or not, but I was like, I don't know if I've warmed up my vocal chords enough.
Charlotte Donlon (30:15):
Well, is there anything you'd like to share about the book or anything we've talked about or anything we haven't talked about before we wrap up?
Cara Meredith (30:23):
No, I think Charlotte Donlon is fabulous. I hope you saw yourself thanked at the end of book. No, I'm grateful for our time together.
Charlotte Donlon (30:33):
Great. And tell us the best places to find you, website, social media. What are your favorite places to be right now?
Cara Meredith (30:43):
I'm mostly at Instagram. On Instagram, although I am at other socials, my handle there is @carameredithwrites, I am on substack at carameredith.substack.com, and my website is carameredith.com.
Charlotte Donlon (30:58):
Great. I'll add all of those links to the show notes.
Cara Meredith (31:02):
Thank you.
Charlotte Donlon (31:02):
That everyone can access at all of this and more.com. And thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about your new book. I mean, I could say is out today because I think this episode will release on April 29th, so
Cara Meredith (31:18):
Boom, Shakalaka.
Charlotte Donlon (31:19):
Very cool. That is perfect. Cool. Yeah, that works out. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon.
Cara Meredith (31:24):
Thank you, my friend.