Cait West is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the author of Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy, a book that is profound especially in how the movement she grew up in uses God as a justification to control women.

West’s work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre and Hawai’i Pacific Review, among others. As an advocate and a survivor of the Christian patriarchy movement, she serves on the editorial board for Tears of Eden, a nonprofit providing resources for survivors of spiritual abuse, and co-hosts the Survivors Discuss podcast.

In this episode, West opens up about her book out in May 2024, and her journey of growing up in a movement that significantly affected her life. But, she chose for herself a new life and to step away from an unhealthy ideology that governed her life for far too long.