“If you see me at a party and I’m speaking, you need to come rescue the person I’m talking to, because they are not having a good time. Or better yet, I would like to inv
“If you see me at a party and I’m speaking, you need to come rescue the person I’m talking to, because they are not having a good time. Or better yet, I would like to invite you, the reader, into the corner with me to talk about the story I write over and over again: People are suffering.”
In her career as a journalist, Bekah McNeel has encountered (and written about) a lot of suffering. After all, the most polarizing topics in US politics all revolve around suffering. But when confronted with these stories of suffering, many people respond not with action, but by offering counterstories that justify their lack of compassion.
This set Bekah wondering: Whose suffering do we try to alleviate? Whose do we ignore? And how should our faith guide how we approach these debates?
In This Is Going to Hurt, Bekah analyzes the narratives surrounding six hot-button issues—immigration, COVID, abortion, critical race theory, gun violence, and climate change. For each topic, she exposes how “us versus them” thinking leads us to turn a blind eye to injustice. She also offers an alternative perspective on each issue, based on a sensitive reading of the gospel.
Amid culture wars that goad us to take up arms, Bekah reminds us that Christ calls us to take up our cross. Humorous and insightful, This Is Going to Hurt offers a breath of fresh air for readers seeking a nuanced and authentically Christian mode of political engagement.
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“McNeel has offered us a prayer for those who suffer and for the clarity of redemption that believers and unbelievers alike may share. There is a name for the redemption this book advocates: empathy. . . . [And she calls us to the highest sacrament of all: the sacrifice of self for another. The promise of sacrificial mercy she offers is unconditional, based only on faith and love. And that alone is the answer to suffering.”
—from the foreword by Frank Schaeffer
“Bekah McNeel offers a compelling challenge to the narratives that separate us from the suffering of others and, for the sake of healing, calls us to deeper compassion for all humanity.”
—Rev. Katey Zeh, author of A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement
“This Is Going to Hurt reorients narratives and demands a courageous reader. McNeel calls the people of America to hear stories of suffering and pay attention to competing stories that lead us to tolerate that suffering. McNeel challenges her readers to be willing to pay the cost of entering into ‘healing stories’ that include choices that are painful but righteous. Wrestling with some of the most fundamental issues of our day, McNeel doesn’t shy away from addressing critical divisions within the church while calling us to respond more faithfully as witnesses to the cross.”
—Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, author of Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and Beyond Hashtag Activism: Comprehensive Justice in a Complicated Age
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Bekah McNeel is a journalist and the author of Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith. Her work has appeared in Texas Monthly, The Guardian, Christianity Today, Sojourners, Relevant, The Texas Tribune, ESPN’s Andscape, The Christian Science Monitor, Texas Public Radio, and elsewhere.
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