Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor is one of America’s most renowned and beloved preachers. A frequent guest preacher and teacher at churches and universities across the country, Taylor teaches at Piedmont College as well as being adjunct professor of Christian spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary. Taylor has been featured in USA Today, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.” She lives in Habersham County, Georgia.

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Spirituality

Leaving Church

A Memoir of Faith

Talking Points

One of America’s most renowned and beloved preachers and author of the bestselling An Altar in the World, here eloquently tells the moving and delightful story of her search for her own authentic way of being Christian, even when it meant giving up her pulpit.

Description

For the first time in a beautiful new paperback package, reminiscent of An Altar in the World, Leaving Church is Barbara Brown Taylor’s journey through the struggles starting and sustaining a small church in rural north Georgia, from city to country, from full-time ministry to university professor is insightful, humorous, and wonderfully human. After ten years in a big urban church, Taylor arrives in Clarkesville (population 1500) to discover that she is one of the few professional women in town as well as the only woman in charge of a congregation. After five and a half years, and significant church growth, she finds herself with “compassion fatigue,” and when an offer comes to leave the church for an opening in the department of religion and philosophy at a local college, Taylor jumps at the chance, despite her feelings that she is betraying the church and losing a part of her identity. Academic life challenges her faith in new ways as Taylor is reminded of the deep, nagging questions in the Christian story.

Even though she has “left the church,” Taylor realizes it is possible to “keep the faith,” although not in a way that will fit back inside the orthodox Christian box. Anyone who has experienced doubts about his or her chosen vocation, or those who are drawn to worship God in community but who have a hard time finding a church that speaks to their real questions about faith in the twenty-first century, will find a kindred spirit in Taylor.

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Spirituality

An Altar in the World

A Geography of Faith

Talking Points

Barbara Brown Taylor was named by Newsweek as one of the top 10 preachers in America. She can speak to Americans of all walks of faith who crave personal stories about finding oneself in the world. During her career she has received widespread critical acclaim, including the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and NPR’s Fresh Air. She is a frequent writer for theological journals, guest preacher and teacher at churches and universities across the country, and is an editor-at-large and columnist for The Christian Century.

Description

In Leaving Church we followed Barbara Brown Taylor as she left full-time ministry to become a university professor, a decision that allowed her to discover new ways to “keep the faith” outside the orthodox Christian box. Now, in An Altar in the World, Taylor shares how she developed new skills for encountering God far beyond the walls of the church.

From simple practices (walking, working, getting lost) to deep meditations (on prayer, giving blessings, and on having skin), each chapter reveals meaningful ways to find the sacred in the small things we do and see. Through her expert guidance, we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in.

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