June 7, 2006 7:30 PM
Leaving Church: From Public Truth to Private Truth
After 15 years of devoted parish ministry, Episcopal priest and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor found herself losing her faith, her soul no longer nourished by her work. She made the decision to leave her church and took a teaching position at a small, rural college. In her new book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, Taylor paints a loving and deeply personal portrait of her journey through ambiguity and loss to the discovery of her true vocation.
“This is a book about the wonderful mess of being alive in this world,” says preacher and writer Frederick Buechner, “…the wonderful and terrible things that happen to us in it, and the dream of God.”
Barbara Brown Taylor spoke about her search for a real life that honors both God and the fullness of her own humanity and told the personal story of her journey as mirrored in her shift from being a writer of sermons to a chronicler of private struggle to discern God’s call.
If you have ever lost track of your faith, had reservations about God or with the church, or felt yourself drawn forward in an uncertain direction, you will find wisdom, grace and comfort in her story.