Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith - Hardcover

Taylor, Barbara Brown

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060771747 ISBN 13: 9780060771744

Publisher: HarperOne, 2006

Synopsis

A leading female preacher chronicles her personal odyssey of faith and the tensions of her religious life, a conflict that leads her to leave the church in order to maintain her relationship with God and that takes her on an unexpected path of belief. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"Told with insight, humor and compassion." -- The Columbus Post Dispatch

"Wonderfully crafted . . . this memoir is a soulful conversation." -- San Diego Tribune

"A beautifully crafted memoir . . . a slice of courage in a world that too often refuses to admit vulnerability." -- San Diego Tribune

Leaving Church is a canticle of praise to creator and creation. --Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking and Booking Passage

"An Episcopal priest renowned for her eloquent sermons turns her talents to memoir..."--Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Such is the power of Brown Taylor's prose...and her humanity that this story becomes one of hope."--Columbus Dispatch

"Told with insight, humor and compassion."--The Columbus Post Dispatch

"A wonderfully gifted Christian writer and speaker."--Kansas City Star

"This memoir [...] is full of surprises[...] In her renewal is our own."--Peter J. Gomes, Harvard University

"Taylor is a better writer than LaMott and a better theologian than Norris. ...she is the best there is."--Living Church

From the Back Cover:

By now I expected to be a seasoned parish minister, wearing black clergy shirts grown gray from frequent washing. I expected to love the children who hung on my legs after Sunday morning services until they grew up and had children of their own. I even expected to be buried wearing the same red vestments in which I was ordained.

Today those vestments are hanging in the sacristy of an Anglican church in Kenya, my church pension is frozen, and I am as likely to spend Sunday mornings with friendly Quakers, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists as I am with the Episcopalians who remain my closest kin. Some-times I even keep the Sabbath with a cup of steaming Assam tea on my front porch, watching towhees vie for the highest perch in the poplar tree while God watches me. These days I earn my living teaching school, not leading worship, and while I still dream of opening a small restaurant in Clarkesville or volunteering at an eye clinic in Nepal, there is no guarantee that I will not run off with the circus before I am through. This is not the life I planned, or the life I recommend to others. But it is the life that has turned out to be mine, and the central revelation in it for me -- that the call to serve God is first and last the call to be fully human -- seems important enough to witness to on paper. This book is my attempt to do that.

After nine years serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta, Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia (population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life to country dweller is something of a shock -- Taylor is one of the only professional women in the community -- but small-town life offers many of its own unique joys. Taylor has five successful years that see significant growth in the church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep her faith she may have to leave.

Taylor describes a rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that life is about both disappointment and hope -- and ultimately, renewal.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060771747
• ISBN 13: 9780060771744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256