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More Than Conquerors: A Memoir of Lost Arguments
Megan Hustad and her family try to reconcile an evangelical upbringing in a post-Christian AmericaWhen Megan Hustad was a child, her father uprooted their family from Minneapolis to embark on a cross-cultural journey in the name of evangelical Christianity. As missionaries they brought the Gospel to the Caribbean island of Bonaire and later to the outskirts of Amsterdam. After a decade away, they returned to the States only to find themselves more alien than before. The evangelical landscape had transformed from the idealistic, market-averse movement it was in the 1970s to one where media-savvy pastors held sway over mega-churches. As the family struggled with the economic and spiritual aftermath of their break from middle-class Middle America, Megan and her sister, Amy, began to plot their escape.Megan sets her sights on New York City, where everything she was denied as a child would be at her fingertips, and Amy makes her home among the intellectual swagger of New Englanders. But fitting in proves harder than they'd imagined. As much as Megan tries to shake them, thoughts of the God she was ignoring follow her into every party and relationship.In More Than Conquerors , Hustad explores what happens when the habits of your religion coincide with the demands of your social class, and what breaks when they conflict. With a sharp tongue and deep insight, Hustad offers a vivid account of the cultural divisions, anxieties, and resentments that continue to divide our country and her own family.
- GenresMemoirNonfictionReligion
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 11, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 10, 2015
Hmm. Interesting enough story of growing up as the child of missionaries—missionaries who were not die-hard about their work, but who loved it nonetheless. I'm just...not sure what the book was trying to say.
Hustad talks at some length about her and her sister's relationships to religion, as separate from their parents' relationships to religion. She is clear that she does not equate her parents, or even her upbringing, with religion, but...oh, I don't know. It feels as though there were Big Things she wanted to address (her sister's adult life, for example), but they felt too big, or too personal, or something, so those things are skated around.
Her parents had what sounds like a fairly quiet relationship with religion:
Here's how it works, someone explained to us: You wear the T-shirt that has, oh, I don't know, a Bible verse on it or something catchy, something that might lead a person to ask, "Hey what's that on your T-shirt?" At that point you were having a conversation, a real conversation, and you could tell this person how Jesus had changed your life.
"Cute idea," by father replied. He resolved not to put a Jesus fish on the back of the Subaru. If anyone asked why not, he said, he would simply say that, sadly, our car had not accepted Jesus Christ as its savior. (132)
Makes me wonder more about what drove them to mission work, especially given that they seem to have spent very little time interacting with locals, in particular in the Dutch Antilles but also in the Netherlands. I suppose it's an odd upbringing for a child only if the child is used to something else, which Hustad was not... She did make one really interesting point about her upbringing, by the way: her family relied largely on the kindness of those back home, which she refers to in one place as growing up as a charity case (144). Definitely a more cynical look at things.
Hustad, meanwhile, grew to distrust the church and the ways in which adults presented religion, and God:
The youth group counselors lost me, however, when they asked us to imagine Jesus as friend. Sure, I thought. Surely Jesus wouldn't slop down some fake-nice sentences in my yearbook on the last day of school, bubbles dotting his i's. Not only did saying, in one breath, that Jesus was God and in the next breath, that he was our pal, sound incorrect, it sounded desperate, as if just one sales pitch wouldn't close the deal. And in my view pals were like pets. Nice to have, but inevitably you'd move across the ocean and they would be put in a kennel and flown to Philadelphia and there eat table scraps out of some stranger's hand and forget about you. They were never yours. So why youth group leaders would want us to think of Jesus in terms of potential loss and jealousy mystified me. That feeling unworthy was a necessary precondition for experiencing God I could accept. But Jesus as a friend insulted us both. (136–137)
Loss of faith doesn't seem to be the point of the book, though. It's part of it, but, but, it's not the book. Definitely some interesting, and funny, parts (see below), but it felt quite scattered.
My mother started studying up on the major Dutch artists: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Gerrit Dou, Adriaen van Ostade, and Vinvent van Gogh said not like Go but violent phlegm-balled Cough. Then the French impressionists and postimpressionists: Monet, Manet, Corot, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin, Courbet, Matisse. She worked hard to pronounce them all correctly. When that proved impossible she had the satisfaction of at least knowing which ones she wasn't pronouncing correctly, and that was some victory in and of itself. (88–89)
Hustad talks at some length about her and her sister's relationships to religion, as separate from their parents' relationships to religion. She is clear that she does not equate her parents, or even her upbringing, with religion, but...oh, I don't know. It feels as though there were Big Things she wanted to address (her sister's adult life, for example), but they felt too big, or too personal, or something, so those things are skated around.
Her parents had what sounds like a fairly quiet relationship with religion:
Here's how it works, someone explained to us: You wear the T-shirt that has, oh, I don't know, a Bible verse on it or something catchy, something that might lead a person to ask, "Hey what's that on your T-shirt?" At that point you were having a conversation, a real conversation, and you could tell this person how Jesus had changed your life.
"Cute idea," by father replied. He resolved not to put a Jesus fish on the back of the Subaru. If anyone asked why not, he said, he would simply say that, sadly, our car had not accepted Jesus Christ as its savior. (132)
Makes me wonder more about what drove them to mission work, especially given that they seem to have spent very little time interacting with locals, in particular in the Dutch Antilles but also in the Netherlands. I suppose it's an odd upbringing for a child only if the child is used to something else, which Hustad was not... She did make one really interesting point about her upbringing, by the way: her family relied largely on the kindness of those back home, which she refers to in one place as growing up as a charity case (144). Definitely a more cynical look at things.
Hustad, meanwhile, grew to distrust the church and the ways in which adults presented religion, and God:
The youth group counselors lost me, however, when they asked us to imagine Jesus as friend. Sure, I thought. Surely Jesus wouldn't slop down some fake-nice sentences in my yearbook on the last day of school, bubbles dotting his i's. Not only did saying, in one breath, that Jesus was God and in the next breath, that he was our pal, sound incorrect, it sounded desperate, as if just one sales pitch wouldn't close the deal. And in my view pals were like pets. Nice to have, but inevitably you'd move across the ocean and they would be put in a kennel and flown to Philadelphia and there eat table scraps out of some stranger's hand and forget about you. They were never yours. So why youth group leaders would want us to think of Jesus in terms of potential loss and jealousy mystified me. That feeling unworthy was a necessary precondition for experiencing God I could accept. But Jesus as a friend insulted us both. (136–137)
Loss of faith doesn't seem to be the point of the book, though. It's part of it, but, but, it's not the book. Definitely some interesting, and funny, parts (see below), but it felt quite scattered.
My mother started studying up on the major Dutch artists: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Gerrit Dou, Adriaen van Ostade, and Vinvent van Gogh said not like Go but violent phlegm-balled Cough. Then the French impressionists and postimpressionists: Monet, Manet, Corot, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin, Courbet, Matisse. She worked hard to pronounce them all correctly. When that proved impossible she had the satisfaction of at least knowing which ones she wasn't pronouncing correctly, and that was some victory in and of itself. (88–89)
June 28, 2015
Meh?
I was so looking forward to reading this, as it seemed from the description Megan's life paralleled mine in many facets. And in that regard it didn't disappoint. I could identify with her upbringing in many ways (conservative, Christian-centered, evangelical experience). As a liberal adult, now having similar discussions with my father (and mother), I related to her. I was disappointed with the book because I found the writing style to be sometimes choppy and disjointed. It just didn't flow well for me. Found it hard to stay "in it." Just MHO.
I was so looking forward to reading this, as it seemed from the description Megan's life paralleled mine in many facets. And in that regard it didn't disappoint. I could identify with her upbringing in many ways (conservative, Christian-centered, evangelical experience). As a liberal adult, now having similar discussions with my father (and mother), I related to her. I was disappointed with the book because I found the writing style to be sometimes choppy and disjointed. It just didn't flow well for me. Found it hard to stay "in it." Just MHO.
March 10, 2016
Apparently I read oodles of these faith-tinged memoirs, but I was surprised to find this one kind of bland. Despite the missionary field settings and the potential for all sorts of adolescent angst, I didn't feel the stories and anecdotes were very interesting, or that the author was very engaged in relating them. Another reviewer mentioned a sense of detachment, and I would agree with their assessment.
May 29, 2014
As a person who worked for a faith-based international humanitarian organization and interacted with an expat community that was largely composed of evangelical missionaries, I am familiar with the world of this memoirist. It was interesting to read about her experience with it. She was a missionary kid on a Caribbean island and in the Netherlands and now lives in New York City (that great Babylon) and works in the field of publishing, among intellectuals and artists and professionals whom she imagines disdain the kind of people she came from-- religious folk who set out to convert others to their rather narrow worldview. The author becomes alienated from her parents' faith as a teenager but, as an adult, regains a measure of respect and affection for the best parts of her Christian upbringing. Meanwhile, heart-breakingly, her father, whom she has portrayed as relatively enlightened among his missionary peers, now back in the US and bitter about his failed missionary career, becomes the kind of Fox News-watching, Limbaugh-quoting bore that really does discredit Christianity. Even more painful is her older sister's story, which is kind of like the elephant in the room/book. The author tells you just enough about it to alarm you but not enough to understand what is going on. Why this intelligent and well-traveled young woman has the guts to rebel against her parents' religion but not enough guts to leave her wife-battering, Christian-fundamentalist-turned-atheist husband is more than the book reveals. The subtitle, "a memoir of lost arguments" may allude to the author's efforts to get her sister to leave her husband as well as her father's failure to thrive in his mission career and her many arguments with him as an adult. Does the book sound depressing? It sort of is. I'm hoping there is a more joyful Part II coming on down the road-- but maybe that's just my own evangelical zeal coming out.
March 14, 2014
Reading this book felt like reading a diary or journal.
(Goodreads doesn't allow half stars. I want to rate this book 3.5)
Megan Hustad recounts her family life in More Than Conquerors: how they ended up as missionaries, how they were treated by the mission organization, their lives as missionaries, etc. She intersperses accounts of the past with reflections upon them from more recent times. It is an interesting way of writing. I felt like I was reading Megan's journal entries with her, and observing her present-day thoughts upon them.
The last portion of the book recounts how both Megan and Amy (older sister) rebelled against their childhood upbringing as they entered adulthood and moved out on their own to New York and Boston, respectively. The story of Amy doesn't seem to resolve, but the final pages show Megan coming to terms with what is most important and what she has come to see as genuine Christianity.
As an MK (missionary kid), there were some things that I could relate to in her accounts. As one who grew up in a somewhat conservative Christian environment, there were further elements that resonated with me.
I think that this book sounds a warning to all families who seek to "put God first" that sometimes that can lead to ignoring what is more important: family relationships. "Sacrificing for God" can turn into something evil when it is the family that is placed on the altar, especially the children.
(This review is based on an ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley.)
(Goodreads doesn't allow half stars. I want to rate this book 3.5)
Megan Hustad recounts her family life in More Than Conquerors: how they ended up as missionaries, how they were treated by the mission organization, their lives as missionaries, etc. She intersperses accounts of the past with reflections upon them from more recent times. It is an interesting way of writing. I felt like I was reading Megan's journal entries with her, and observing her present-day thoughts upon them.
The last portion of the book recounts how both Megan and Amy (older sister) rebelled against their childhood upbringing as they entered adulthood and moved out on their own to New York and Boston, respectively. The story of Amy doesn't seem to resolve, but the final pages show Megan coming to terms with what is most important and what she has come to see as genuine Christianity.
As an MK (missionary kid), there were some things that I could relate to in her accounts. As one who grew up in a somewhat conservative Christian environment, there were further elements that resonated with me.
I think that this book sounds a warning to all families who seek to "put God first" that sometimes that can lead to ignoring what is more important: family relationships. "Sacrificing for God" can turn into something evil when it is the family that is placed on the altar, especially the children.
(This review is based on an ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley.)
November 23, 2014
This is an incredibly beautiful portrait of Hustad's coming-of-age on the foreign mission field, and the fallout that resulted for her family. Hustad offers no easy answers or caricatures, only poignant observations of her parents, her sister, and herself. The growing questions she has about their faith as a teenager are especially resonate. In the hands of a lesser writer, the subject matter might be stale or treated with bitterness, but Hustad's lyrical prose is peppered with tender renderings of moments both hilarious and heartbreaking. She makes immediate, nimble connections that will leave an indelible mark on both your brain and heart.
July 30, 2016
She's a good writer, but she seemed to have a certain detachment, like she was reporting someone else's life. I felt like I didn't really know where she ended up in her own beliefs after all the diverse experiences she and her family had. She speaks with a slightly humorous, slightly ironic tone, as if she is trying to be cynical but is too nice to really pull it off. Her childhood experiences were interesting and rang true, but after that, it just drifted into reminiscences without any real cohesion or resolution.
March 30, 2015
Well-written, but lacking heart and narrative drive.
December 11, 2023
The author's smug tone when writing was a real turn off for me. I wished that she would have dropped the whole "everyone who is religious is so stupid" yet then talks about sleeping around like she's the better person in life. Super unlikeable personality and I fought my way to stay till the end only because I had bought the book with my own money.
March 19, 2019
I don't get the point.
Megan Hustad was the daughter of missionaries, but now seems to have no strong conviction about anything. Which is probably quite common - but she chose to write a book about it, and I can't quite see why.
Megan Hustad was the daughter of missionaries, but now seems to have no strong conviction about anything. Which is probably quite common - but she chose to write a book about it, and I can't quite see why.
June 28, 2018
“I trusted no one to listen to my questions without rushing to answer.” — Megan Hustad, More Than Conquerors, p. 146
I can't think of a quote more befitting of my early twenties.
I can't think of a quote more befitting of my early twenties.
May 4, 2014
Girl has religion, girl loses religion, girl finds religion again -- maybe. Her memoir is a spiritual autobiography of sorts about growing up a missionary kid, moving to NYC after college while cancelling the terms of her evangelical upbringing, and then, as the book ends, she seemingly is reconsidering the claim faith has on her. But it is just hinted at, rather than told -- something that weakens the story's impact. Her parents are a big part of the story throughout, and if this were a film, should be up for awards as best supporting actor and actress. Even though their daughter has caused them much worry and pain, they still love her and don't break their relationship with her.
December 13, 2015
This was just brilliant to me in so many levels. As the daughter of evangelical Christians with a slightly more liberal upbringing than the average mexican Presbyterian I have to say this woman spoke of many situations that I have either experienced or witness. I can cofidently say I will read this book years from now and I will uncover a whole different dimension.
April 19, 2014
I like Megan's writing and her story is a familiar one of missionary kids; yet, the story lacked a cohesive feel. There were too many footnotes and long quoted passages that didn't add much to the driving narrative.
April 21, 2014
Interesting book that made me glad my parents' born-again activities didn't extend to missionary work during our childhood years. Interesting exploration of the religious right and how they got that way, in this particular family's experience.
December 5, 2015
loved it, related strongly, was just a bit confused by the ending/epilogue. did she move back w/ her family? return to faith?
didn-t-finish
April 15, 2014Interesting but I didn't feel the need to finish it. Didn't like the beginning but it got better.
July 12, 2015
Fast, good read....!
Read
May 3, 2016Well-written book chronicling a somewhat depressing series of events.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews