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About Leaving Church: A Memoir Of Faith
Product Description “This beautiful book is rich with wit and humanness and honesty and loving detail….I cannot overstate how liberating and transforming I have found Leaving Church to be.” —Frederick Buechner, author of Beyond Words “This is an astonishing book. . . . Taylor is a better writer than LaMott and a better theologian than Norris. In a word, she is the best there is.” — Living Church Barbara Brown Taylor, once hailed as one of America’s most effective and beloved preachers, eloquently tells the moving and delightful story of her search to find an authentic way of being Christian—even when it meant giving up her pulpit. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. A widely acclaimed preacher, Taylor draws on her homiletical skills in this finely crafted memoir with a simple plot: an Episcopal priest exhausts her inner resources, first in an urban church and then in a small country parish; she changes jobs, struggles and finds renewal. Such a synopsis, however, does not do justice to Taylor's literary style in this rich evocation of her lifelong love affair with God. "When I think of my first cathedral," she writes, "I am back in a field behind my parents' house in Kansas, with every stalk of prairie grass lit up from within." Drawn to the church, she compulsively overworks: "I had such a strong instinct for rescue that my breasts fairly leaked when I came across those in need of rescuing." Though she has found new employment, she realizes she is still a priest: "I miss being a lightning rod, conducting all that heat and light not only from heaven to earth but also from person to person." Current and former clergy will relate to her comical and sometimes touching descriptions of parish life, while memoir buffs will savor her journey as she identifies her core beliefs, sets boundaries and learns to relish her "blessed swath" of the world. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Episcopal priest Taylor, a respected and beloved preacher, ended a 20-year career when, after much reflection, she left the church. She had expected to spend the rest of her life writing sermons and leading worship. Instead, she now teaches full time at a college in Georgia. With its three indicatively titled sections--"Finding," "Losing," "Keeping"-- Leaving Church aims to explain her compulsion to leave the familiar behind. When she was first ordained and for years thereafter, she felt certain about the fundamentals of her own faith and what it meant to be Christian. But she slowly realized that she was conflicted, internally and with the church, in large part because of church-inclusiveness controversies, including gay and lesbian issues. She laments that while ostensibly protecting the integrity of scripture and church doctrine, people can trample the rights of others. She discovered that change isn't easy. Sometimes, even getting dressed in the morning seems an insurmountable challenge. Ultimately, Taylor's is a luminous portrait of faith not lost but questioned, refound, and regained. June Sawyers Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “I cannot overstate how liberating and transforming I have found Leaving Church to be.” (Frederick Buechner, author of Beyond Words) “This memoir [...] is full of surprises[...] In her renewal is our own.” (Peter J. Gomes, Harvard University) “Taylor describes doubt, faith and vocation, their limits, and how the church both blesses and muddies the waters.” (Nora Gallagher, author of Practicing Resurrection) “A fiercely honest and gracious book about our primary vocation to be human.” (Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and author of Reimagining Christianity) “ Leaving Church is a canticle of praise to creator and creation.” (Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking and Booking Passage) “A finely crafted memoir . . . a rich evocation of her lifelong love affair with God.” (
