Author and Influencer Jen Hatmaker No Longer Goes to Church — Is She Still a Christian?

Author, speaker, podcaster, and influencer Jen Hatmaker built her platform largely with Christian-focused work. She grew up as the daughter of a pastor and married an aspiring minister at 19. She has been profiled in Christianity Today, and she and her ex-husband even founded a church.

It is safe to say that Christianity has been a significant part of Jen's life for a long time.

However, after Jen and her now-ex-husband, Brandon Hatmaker, divorced, Jen stopped attending church regularly. While doing press for her new memoir, Awake, she talked about her ex-husband's affair and explained her complicated relationship with the church and her faith.

Here's what she said.

In short, yes, Jen is still a Christian. However, she doesn't know if or when she will resume attending church services, because she doesn't feel that the institution aligns with her values and needs.

She told the Associated Press, "Right now, that does not feel like an environment in which I can find God. She added, "If I thought church was the only place I could find God, we’d have a real problem. But I don’t think that."

She tried returning to church a few times to see if she wanted to attend services again, but didn't find what she needed. In her book Awake, she shared, "I found myself desperate for someone to say the grittiest, hardest thing. I wanted to hear the truth about being a human and trying to figure out life, and loss, and God. I needed the opposite of polished and produced," per AP.

Jen spoke about her evolving faith with Time, saying, "I'm out of the church right now. I don't know that I will ever go back, and I don't know that I will never go back." She went on to explain how she grew up in the church, and she's "always been a part of the machine."

Jen said, "I was a leader. I was an organizer. I was a pastor. I don't even know what church could or would be for me just as a person. My lifelong exposure has left me in a place where I know too much. I have been a part of the problem. So I need a break from the machine."

"I don't feel like I am forfeiting or want to forfeit my faith. I'm relearning what faith can look like outside of the structures. And I'm finding it very healing, very gentle. I did not grow up in a gentle faith," Jen explained.

After Jen advocated for same-sex marriage, her publisher dropped her. In 2016, she spoke up about racial justice after the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and she lost readers as a result. However, she also gained new ones.

"I see that as just faith evolution, and I find it a great and wonderful good," she told AP. She added, "I’m always proud of people who continue to grow. And I think that is indicative of a good faith, not a bad one."

Jen no longer worries about criticism from the religious right, and would rather "sit in the pocket of the the community that I have built." Rather than tiring herself out trying to oppose Christian nationalists and how they describe God's endorsements, she wants to focus on her own community.

She said, "I’m a better leader to simply build that community than try to convince another one to be better."