Preview
  • When I Spoke in Tongues

  • A Pentecostal Girlhood
  • By: Jessica Wilbanks
  • Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
  • Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (21 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

When I Spoke in Tongues

By: Jessica Wilbanks
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A memoir of the profound destabilization that comes from losing one’s faith - and a young woman’s journey to reconcile her lack of belief with her love for her deeply religious family.

Growing up in poverty in the rural backwoods of Southern Maryland, Jessica Wilbanks and her family built their lives around the Pentecostal church. At 16, though, driven by a desire to discover the world, Jessica walked away from the church, trading her faith for freedom and driving a wedge between her and her deeply religious family.

But fundamentalist faiths haunt their adherents long after belief fades; former believers frequently live in limbo, straddling two worldviews and trying to reconcile their past and present. Ten years after leaving home, struggling with guilt and shame, Jessica began a quest to recover her faith. It led her to West Africa, where she explored the Yorùbán roots of the Pentecostal religion and was once again swept up by the promises and power of the church. After a terrifying car crash, Jessica finally began the difficult work of forgiving herself for leaving the church and her family and for finding her own path.

When I Spoke in Tongues is a story of the painful and complicated process of losing one’s faith and moving across class divides. In the end, it’s a story of how a family splintered by dogmatic faith can eventually be knit together again through love.

©2018 Jessica Wilbanks (P)2018 Random House Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

“Wilbanks’s slow deconstruction of her family-given religiosity is an evocative inversion of the average spiritual journey.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“This debut memoir conveys a down-home feel with a literary voice.” (Library Journal)

“An earnest account of an adult maintaining ties with her family of origin.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Wilbanks writes with a journalist’s keen eye, capturing the loving chaos of her family’s house and the fervent, bombastic clamor of revival meetings in both the US and Nigeria.... Her narrative provides a fascinating glimpse into a faith subculture whose popular image is often reduced to arm-waving televangelists. But even more compelling is Wilbanks’s honest rendering of the profound uncertainty that comes after leaving behind a place that hasn’t changed, but is no longer home.” (Shelf Awareness)

What listeners say about When I Spoke in Tongues

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I found this book very insightful

As someone who spent first 50 years of my life raised in and deeply aligned with Christianity, and last few years gave it up, I could relate to Jessica's journey. She does so well at describing her feelings, struggl;es, hopes, including what she missed from her religious past, and her attempts to understand it, and even her attempts to get it back. she is not accusing or coindeming, but rather like a reporter.. laying it all out on the table, good and bad..
One of my favorite lines is "Perhaps it is not God who saves, but our belief in God that gives us the strength we need to save ourselves."
near the end she talks about child witches, and is very sad.
i have listened to this twice now, and will listen again. Listening to Jessica tell her story helps me understand and process my journey.
Thank you Jessica!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!