December 4, 2022 | Speaking on Tongues: Confessions of the Radically Saved (Josh Harris, Tara Teng)

What happens to your life after you leave the church? Moderated by 2022 Writer in Residence Harrison Mooney (author of Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery, HarperCollins, 2022), this panel is a conversation with author and former Evangelical pastor Josh Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and Tara Teng, ex-evangelical writer and Miss Canada 2011. The panellists will examine the impact of their religious upbringing, illuminating the confusion and trauma that many former evangelicals are still grappling with. Josh Harris is an American former Evangelical Christian pastor. Harris' 1997 book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped shape purity culture for many Christian millennials. Harris was lead pastor of Covenant Life Church in Maryland from 2004 until 2015. In 2018, Harris disavowed I Kissed Dating Goodbye and discontinued its publication. The following year, Harris announced that he had "undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus," and had given up on his Christian faith. Tara Teng is a writer and Embodiment Coach who helps people heal trauma and dismantle purity culture. She is also a TEDx Speaker, a former Miss Canada and one of the Globe and Mail’s “Top 25 Most Transformational Canadians.” Teng received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for her advocacy work which advanced the socio-economic status of women. Her first book, Your Body is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationships with Our Bodies, Each Other and the Earth, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in May 2023. This program is supported by the Friends of The Vancouver Public Library, a community of library lovers who volunteer, fundraise, and advocate in support of the Vancouver Public Library. The Friends also operate book’mark, The Library Store, on the main level of Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library.