I Hate Religion: 10 Counts Against Performance Christianity

By Alex Hall

If you've ever loved Jesus but felt slowly crushed by church, this book is for you.

In I Hate Religion, writer and poet Alex Hall gives language to the ache so many of us carry but are afraid to name. Drawing on years of life in and around ministry, he traces how religious performance quietly replaces grace with grind, turns the Bible into a slogan bank, and builds churches that feel more like brands than families.

Through vivid stories and "field notes" from real congregations, Hall guides readers through ten honest chapters, moving from grace versus grind and Scripture as a story, to spectacle churches, scoreboard metrics, money games, captured pulpits, gated tables, hashtag justice, and care that performs instead of heals. Each chapter gently exposes the ways religious culture can wound, and then points toward practices that help us recover a more human, Jesus-shaped way of being together.

Hall writes with the insight of a historian and the imagination of a poet who has already released three poetry collections. The result is a book that sounds like sitting with a wise friend who isn't afraid of your questions and doesn't flinch at your anger.

Whether you're a burned-out church kid, a pastor wondering how to change the culture you're in, or someone standing on the edge of walking away from faith entirely, I Hate Religion offers you something rare: honest critique, deep compassion, and a hopeful path back toward a church that looks and feels like good news again.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G42QBQWQ
• ISBN13: 9798275984439
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 106 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"