‘Awake’ By Jen Hatmaker Doesn’t Belong In Your Church

Awake: A Memoir was published in September 2025. Generally, I’m not all that interested in Ms. Hatmaker’s work because I identified her as a teacher/author to avoid years ago. However, the response to this book was quite large among Christian women. All women, actually. Immediately, women’s Bible studies were meeting to pour over the pages of this woman’s disastrous marriage and even more disastrous theology and worldview. Having decided not to buy the book, I put it on hold at my library. Even though I’m in rural Wisconsin, I still had nearly four hundred holds ahead of me. So, yes, we really need to discuss this book and decide if its success is good for the Church or not.

Who Is Jen Hatmaker?

If you’re a Christian woman, you’ve probably heard of Jen Hatmaker. She’s a well-known and established New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, speaker and host of the HGTV show Your Big Family Home Renovation during its two-season run beginning in 2014. She was married to a pastor with whom she co-founded Austin New Church in Austin, Texas.

Hatmaker is unapologetically progressive. She formally came out in support LGBTQ+ lifestyles in 2016, and she takes a pro-choice stance regarding abortion.

Jen Hatmaker and her ex-husband, Brandon Hatmaker, had three children together and adopted two more from Ethiopia. Brandon has remarried, and Jen Hatmaker is living with her long-time boyfriend.

What Is Awake: A Memoir?

Jen Hatmaker’s newest book chronicles her life and healing after divorce…kind of. Each chapter is a short story from various times in her life with a very particular point she wants to make. Throughout the book, the main messages revolve around feminism, progressive “Christianity,” unfailing trustworthiness of one’s body, and a sprinkling of Jen Hatmaker’s belief that she is especially gifted and has always been.

The memoir is not meant to be a theology book, but anything Hatmaker writes is going to be taken by readers as spiritual teaching. Moreover, she leans into that role in this book by sharing her supposed insights into religion. (More on that later.) However, there is very little Bible in Awake, and you’d be hard-pressed to find any of it applied correctly.

This book makes up for its lack of Bible with a heaping serving of therapeutic and psychological language. At one point, she discusses mental health struggles following her marriage’s end, and she lists blood pressure medication, Zoloft, and antianxiety meds as her treatment. She doesn’t discuss prayer, her church family, the Bible, or biblical counseling, though. Please understand me on this issue. I’m not opposed to medications for mental health diagnoses, but a Christian can’t ignore her spiritual needs in this area. Hatmaker, however, breezes right past all that.

The Brandon And Jen Hatmaker Divorce

Awake opens with Hatmaker’s awful discovery. As she’s lying in bed, she’s awoken by the sound of her husband’s voice. He’s lovingly whispering a voice text to his mistress. I’ll pause here to say this. I will not have many positive things to say about Awake or Jen Hatmaker’s worldview and biblical understanding. On the other hand, it was impossible for me to read her divorce story and not feel terrible for her. I don’t wish for bad things for Hatmaker, and I’m so sorry her husband made the decision step outside of their marriage. As sad as her story is, though, it doesn’t inoculate her from criticism.

The divorce story is fleshed out throughout the book. Overall, it boils down to Brandon’s two-year affair which ultimately leads to the end of their twenty-six-year marriage. She married him when she was nineteen and he was twenty-one, so this married life was her entire adult life. Understandably, divorce blew up her world and hurt their five children (8th grade to young adult). Nonetheless, she acted fast. Within thirty-six hours, she was speaking to a lawyer.

Her divorce is the centerpiece of Awake, and I believe it makes everything else in the memoir more understandable. As I explain the reasons this book has no place in the Church, remember that many of her problematic teachings come, at least in part, from this trauma.

Jan Hatmaker Is Friendly With The Occult

The Bible warns against the occult in both the Old and New Testament. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell where the line is in the real world. Is Lord of the Rings acceptable? How about The Chronicles of Narnia? They both feature magic and witches/wizards. Is Harry Potter too far? Why or why not? Do you see what I mean. On the other hand, there are times the right or wrong move is evident.

Hatmaker repeatedly talks about her two “woo-woo friends.” They’re into yoga, chakras, crystals, and astrology…among other things. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to become friends with someone who isn’t a believer. In fact, I would encourage forming relationships with people outside of the Christian bubble. But we shouldn’t adopt unbiblical beliefs along the way. Jen Hatmaker certainly has.

On page eighty-seven of Awake, she says, “Never underestimate having a couple of witchy friends.” She could mean a number of things when that statement is taken out of context, but she makes her embrace of her “witchy” friends’ ways fairly clear. Jen participates in vision casting (a form of manifesting one’s wants and desires), and Hatmaker eventually allows her friend, Amy, to perform a smudging ritual in her home because her home feels scary after splitting from her husband. Essentially, this is a purification ritual to make the darkness and bad vibes leave the home. (Hatmaker believes it worked.)

“Amy reached into the divine energy of the universe and restored our home.”

Hatmaker, Awake (p. 90)

In addition to inviting pagan rituals into her home, she unsurprisingly identifies herself with the Enneagram, refers to her friend circle as her coven, and claims that her friend, Amy, brings witchcraft and Christianity together.

The Bible Disagrees With Jen

Witchcraft (i.e., sorcery) doesn’t mix with the Christian faith. I’m not the one saying that. God is. Below is a sampling of what the Bible has to say on this topic.

“If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.”

Leviticus 20:6

“Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.”

Acts 19:18-20

“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (emphasis mine)

Galatians 5:19-21

“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (emphasis mine)

Revelation 21:8

Jen Hatmaker Really Trusts Her Body

Now we enter murky waters. Hatmaker leans hard into trusting her body. It never lies, according to her. This is a quote from Oprah Daily in which Jen Hatmaker reveals the body as the best form of truth.

“Our bodies are beautiful, truly. All of them. Gorgeous inside and out. They are deserving of the good lotions, the good sex, the good words, the good interventions. They should be heeded like the safest, smartest, truest, most knowing source of wisdom possible, because they are.”

Jen Hatmaker, Oprah Daily

This idea of trusting your body over all else is seen from the beginning to the end of Awake. For example, she tells the story of her favorite teacher giving special attention to select students. Later, she finds out he was a predator. According to Jen, her body felt/knew that about him when she was a student. Did she, though? Hindsight definitely makes things much clearer. Besides, if her body knew he was a predator, it makes him being her favorite teacher a little odd.

Another situation she shares about her body takes place while laughing and having fun with her friends. As she’s having a great time, she begins to cry about her divorce. Hatmaker’s interpretation of this event is that her body can’t be fooled. She’s sad, and her body knows. Hence, tears. I venture to guess that plenty of women have been sad yet able to have fun for a little bit and laugh before giving way to sadness again. That’s not a truthful body. It’s the complicated realities of human emotions.

The most pagan version of trusting her body Jen described was her closing the bones ceremony. Closing the bones is traditionally a postpartum ceremony to help mothers physically and energetically close up after childbirth. Hatmaker explains that this can also be done for women like her who have been through something difficult and are in transition. Irasema, the woman conducting the ceremony, wraps Jen in a rebozo (a handwoven Mexican shawl) so tightly that Hatmaker begins to panic. The ceremony is a physical event, but it also appears to have a great deal of symbolism. By the end, she feels loved and trusts her body even more.

Contradiction

Despite all this love-and-trust-your-body messaging, Jen Hatmaker greatly contradicts herself. On page 298, Hatmaker says her body will never lie to her and will always protect her. Spend a little time researching mental illness, PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc., though, and you discover that our bodies lie to us a lot. Nevertheless, she claims to believe this.

At another point in her memoir, however, Hatmaker says that she has formed some dysfunctional patterns and is now trusting new behaviors she exhibits even if it feels wrong. Isn’t that her body saying something is not right? So, Jen Hatmaker is happy to trust her body when it tells her to do what she wants to do. However, she doesn’t trust it when it gives her cues to stop doing something she wants to do. Take note, ladies. This is blatant hypocrisy. It seems like Jen does what she wants and finds ways to convince herself and others it is always good.

Jen Hatmaker Doesn’t Understand Biblical Christianity

Awake needs to stay out of our churches and Bible studies, and Hatmaker needs to be removed from our recommended reading lists for Christian. It is filled with spiritual guidance but disastrous guidance.

A great deal of her liberal and progressive faith is a result of not understanding God’s Word when she was young. So, she paints a picture of conservative Christianity as oppressive and legalistic. The reader, if impressionable, will see Hatmaker as someone who escaped church and religion for true freedom and truth. You know… The truth her body has to offer. 

Jen Hatmaker’s Bad Takes On Conservative Christianity And Church From Her Upbringing

1. The right thing is always the opposite of what we want.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Jeremiah 17:9

Hatmaker believes the Church teaches that this verse means that intuition, instinct, sense of self, and dreams are all red flags. Perhaps she had a bad teacher, but as an adult with discernment, can she truly not understand that some people misunderstand some of God’s teachings without making it sound as if this is the conservative interpretation across the board?

This is common among Progressive Christians. They have a bad experience, and rather than taking a step back and seeking truth, they knee-jerk to victimhood and a theology as far from their upbringing as possible.

2. God watches for mistakes rather than loving us.

3. You should get saved…again…just in case.

Jen Hatmaker said she asked Jesus into her heart (can we stop using this expression?) practically once a week because she wasn’t acting or thinking how she thought a Christian should.

4. Christians must hate the world.

On page 39, Jen describes an interaction with an Episcopalian friend in which she says to the friend, “I had to love only God and hate the world.” Her friend responded, “Oh, that’s so weird. Because the Bible says God absolutely loves the world. I wonder why you were taught you had to hate what God said He loved?”

I find that interaction exhausting. They’re both missing the point. Yes, God loves the world. He gave His son, Jesus, for that reason (John 3:16). That doesn’t mean He loves the sins in this world. We shouldn’t love the world in the sense of its sin and rejection of the Lord, but we should absolutely love the world, meaning the people. We display that love through sharing the gospel, helping those in need, comforting those in need of comfort, etc. Hatmaker, however, internalized a hateful Christianity.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

1 John 2:15

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Romans 12:2

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Romans 13:8-10

5. Holiness, not happiness

Jen shares a story about her pastor telling the congregation that the faithful people will be at church that night instead of watching the Super Bowl. She then pontificates on how everyone gets to be happy and have fun except Christians.

“I guess we follow God until every enjoyable thing we ever wanted evaporates.”

Awake, Jen Hatmaker (p. 70)

6. Doing the “right” thing will assure a certain outcome.

Jen Hatmaker’s Current Bad Theology

1. Women can be pastors.

Can we not get into why women can’t be pastors? That’s a whole side quest for which we don’t have time.

For a quick overview of what the Bible says on this subject, read this article from Got Questions. What Does the Bible Say About Women Pastors?

For an in-depth study, check out Mike Winger. He’s amazingly thorough.

2. Truth should feel good.

LGBTQIA+ lifestyles are sinful, but because it feels bad to her, Hatmaker believes that can’t be true. She resents men for having spiritual authority, so it can’t be an accurate read of the Bible. When she says some women are held back from church leadership “regardless of their gifts, natural leadership capacity, brilliance, or innate power” (p. 143), you can’t help but feel like she’s talking about herself.

She’s not wrong to say some things from the Bible feel bad. Our flesh resists truth, especially difficult truths. We should also acknowledge that some things in life are terrible, but they’re a result of a fallen world. If you want a saccharine life, watch a Hallmark movie. This is the real world, and sometimes it hurts.

Jen Hatmaker outright lies in this section of her book, as well. She equates Christians acknowledging homosexuality as a sin to banishing homosexuals from their homes and churches. That isn’t Christian, and it paints a terrible picture of the Church. But that’s part of the purpose of this book, I think. Is this a sneaky deconstruction story disguised as a story of a woman’s healing after divorce?

3. “I am a powerful co-creator in my own life” (p. 223)

That’s a very God-identified statement. It sounds akin to NAR teachings, and it isn’t the kind of language someone who knows the Lord should use.

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

Colossians 1:16

“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

1 Corinthians 8:6

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

John 1:1-3

4. Life is about self-fulfillment and happiness.

Jen Hatmaker shares a short excerpt from Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan. It gives the picture of running from the life you lead or what others expect from you and charging toward what you want, no matter what it is, because you only have so much time.

We can all relate to feeling as if we don’t have enough time for the things and people we love, but we should tread carefully lest we become discontent with what God has given us. Pursue dreams and try to achieve goals you’ve set for yourself, but never let any of that come before what God is calling you to do. We live to love Him and obey Him, not to serve ourselves.

Sometimes we’re dealt a bad hand, but that doesn’t mean we get to throw the whole deck away and play a different game. Living for happiness is a fool’s errand and will only end in disappointment. Friend, you aren’t that special. Neither am I. And although I’m sure her flabbers would be ghasted to hear this, Jen Hatmaker isn’t either. Our preferences don’t supersede God’s commands.

5. Church attendance isn’t required.

Jen Hatmaker hasn’t attended church since Covid. In her book, she encourages the readers to do whatever they want. She definitely seems to encourage no church attendance, though. As she understands it, the Bible doesn’t say where to go when Jesus says, “Come to me.”

God gave us spiritual gifts to use among the body. We are instructed to love one another, serve one another, pray for one another, and gather in fellowship. Not to mention, there are specified qualifications for elders and deacons…which strongly insinuates leadership and a body of people. We even have warnings about false teachers being in the midst of believers and instructions on how to handle church discipline (Matthew 18: 15-20). It sure seems like we should formally gather, don’t you think?

I wonder if Hatmaker is simply happier not being under spiritual authority and living out her spiritual life in her coven. If so, I wish she’d just say that.

Purity Culture Hurt Jen Hatmaker

I missed the purity culture movement because I wasn’t a Christian yet. All evidence points to that fad doing quite a bit of damage. Hatmaker offers several examples from her life where purity culture hurt her in some way. That hurt has seemingly affected her current mindset regarding purity and sexuality.

In her youth, she was taught that purity, as a woman, was her job. Men can’t stay pure without women ensuring it. A teacher used a rose as an example. He plucked off each petal, explaining each lost petal was a time a boy touched her body or kissed her. After the petals were gone, he held up a stem. This was what girls who didn’t protect their purity offered their future husbands. Yikes!

The rose illustration is over the line, in my opinion, but not everything she deemed purity culture was that big of a deal. For instance, she wrote about how bothered she was at a Christian camp because she and other females were told to change for chapel. The problem? Their shorts weren’t long enough. Christian camps have completely expected rules about dress, but she was highly offended by this very common clothing standard. Perhaps her reaction was a carryover from her purity culture upbringing?

A Whole New Woman

Hatmaker has completely turned away from her upbringing. Purity culture was problematic, but it wasn’t completely wrong. There is wisdom to modest dress and not engaging is sexual activity with men other than one’s husband. Nonetheless, she has totally moved on.

Her friends took her on a trip to Mexico, and the most notable part of the trip was getting drunk and her friends giving her underwear with sexually explicit language on them. I won’t repeat what they said, but Jen had no problem putting it in print with nothing but appreciation for her friends’ lude presents.

Currently, she’s living with her boyfriend. We can assume the nature of their relationship by the living arrangement. However, Hatmaker leaves no gray area because she flat out says she won’t marry again until she has been sexually intimate with him first. I know purity culture did damage but talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

Awake Feels Like Jen Hatmaker Wants Us To Know She’s Talented

We learn early in the book that Hatmaker discovers she’s funny in the 6th grade, and she really leans into this identity. Eventually, she finds out her teacher called her “domineering.” After that, Jen sees herself as “too much.” This sets the stage for her to explain to us throughout the book that she’s actually not too much. That teacher was just a meanie. (Well, that seems possible.)

She submits proof that she’s uniquely gifted and we should take her very seriously when she discusses finding out she loved teaching women. Hatmaker receives an email from a woman she taught that said, “You have a power about you” (p. 129). This surprised and delighted Hatmaker.

Her other big example is from a day in her high school English class. Her teacher is transparent and shares a personal and moving story to help the students be more engaged. Jen Hatmaker, without irony, turns this emotional anecdote into a story about how gifted she is. Her teacher holds Jen’s face in her hands and says, “Jennifer, words have always mattered. You have a gift for them. Use it” (p. 176). She doesn’t neglect to inform us that she is married three years later which, I can only assume, means she feels marriage prevented her from using her gift.

By the time the reader gets to page 179, there is a poem written by David Gate entitled I Am Not Your Cup of Tea. It’s a sassy and short poem that makes it clear to the audience “I am not too much. You just can’t handle me.” This is Jen Hatmaker’s victory lap. She’s reminding women to embrace who they are just like she has…the incredibly gifted (everyone says so) author and speaker.

Maybe I’m Nitpicking

Unrelatable

Jen Hatmaker lives a life most of us never will. She has so much money that she didn’t have any clue how much she had when her husband left her. She didn’t even know how much she personally earned. Her healing journey, as they say, is peppered with expensive vacations and home remodels. In addition, her friends seem to live similarly because Hatmaker creates an image of women with tons of free time and enough money to drop on whatever strikes their fancy. I can’t say that’s true, but it reads that way.

The Language!

I counted the swear words in this book, and oh my! I may have made some mistakes, but these numbers are either accurate or very close.

The F Word: 13

A**: 8

B*** Sh**: 2

H-E-Double Hockey Sticks: 8

D**n: 11

S**t: 14

B**ch: 1

“WTF” (not everyone considers this a swear): 2

This Christian woman who influences the ladies in our churches wrote a book with fifty-nine curse words in it. Why? Frankly, she is too intelligent and talented at writing to be so lazy and crass.

Jen Hatmaker’s Desire For Power

On page 120, Jen suggests her husband isn’t meant to lead, and that she herself is powerful. She cannot stand that men can have something she can’t. It’s not just that it’s being kept from her, but she honestly thinks she’s better than them.

In the chapter called “Journal,” Hatmaker describes herself as a young woman who desired power and had a great deal of ambition. She was also trying to be “smaller”, but she knew she was so much more. Frankly, Christian life stifled her desires, and it’s no wonder she has walked away from biblical Christianity.

I Liked Some Of Awake

Jen Hatmaker is a talented writer. I know, I know! She might humble brag about it, but she isn’t wrong to think she can write. The book is funny, and the stories are entertaining. If this wasn’t a book circulating throughout the Church, I would have been less bothered by it.

One other thing, she tells a sweet Starbucks story. I enjoyed the simplicity of it and the reminder that encouragement and help can be a little out of the box. A friend she had made when going through adoption in Ethiopia hears about Hatmaker’s very public divorce. Without any fanfare, this friend begins sending a $25 Starbucks gift card every Monday for six months. I find this so touching, and I’m glad to have read it.

Final Thought

Jen Hatmaker’s book, Awake: A Memoir shouldn’t come within one hundred yards of a church. Women with a low level of discernment will be enamored by the funny stories, the girl power, the overcomer tales, and the super relatable foul mouth. And as they take that in, they’ll take in the occult, an over reliance on one’s body, progressive theology, and an unbiblical understanding of sexuality.

This book reads like it was written by a woman who never came to understand the God of the Bible and the difference between a church/religion and biblical Christianity. She sounds like a wounded woman who has reached her breaking point and is just “gonna do me.” And I think it reads that way because it probably is that way.

Don’t be fooled by Jen Hatmaker’s bold statements with vague details and limited support and evidence just because it’s packaged in sass and well-written stories. Sure, she might be likable, but she’s a danger to the women in our churches. Keep her and anything she creates at a distance.

Have you read Awake: A Memoir? What did you think?

Image courtesy of Nikitia Nikitin via Unsplash.