By the age of twelve, Susan Campbell had been flirting with Jesus for some time, and in her mind, Jesus had been flirting back.

Growing up in the Missouri Ozark mountains, Campbell’s childhood was filled with boundaries, big questions and baseball. The Hartford Courant columnist has told us on this show that she considers herself a proud “hillbilly” – but her new book, “Dating Jesus” reveals her ties to another loaded American identity: The Fundamentalist.

Today, Where We Live, Susan Campbell joins us to talk about old-time religion and how it affected her upbringing – and her evolution as a feminist.

Campbell will be doing a reading at the East Hampton Public Library at 7 p.m. on July 8, 2009.

This program originally aired on March 27, 2009.