Sarah Sentilles

Breaking Up with God

A Love Story

Talking Points

Sarah Sentilles’ previous work has been endorsed by Karen King, Jack Spong, and Margaret Miles. The “unconverted” or people who have left their faith are a growing number and Sarah gives them a voice, and the courage to “come out” as no longer able to conform to the faith of their childhood. MSNBC called them “religious drifters.”

Description

Sarah Sentilles’s relationship with God was not casual. When it began to unravel she was in the ordination process to become an Episcopal priest, a youth minister at a church and a doctoral student in theology at Harvard. You might say they were engaged and that the wedding was all planned. Calling it off would be more than a little awkward. But in the studying of the religion she’d been raised on and believed whole-heartedly, one day she woke up and realized… it was over.

In this powerful memoir of faith, Sentilles reveals how deep our ties to God can be, and how devastating they can be to break. Without God to mold herself to and without religion as her script, who was she and what was her purpose? Her relationship with God had been connected to everything-her family, her friends, her vocation, the places she frequented, the language she used, and her way of being in the world. Not unlike after a divorce, she had to reorient her life, find new friends, and face a future that felt darkly unfamiliar. But this beautiful, brave book is surprisingly filled with hope, a coming out story that lets others know it’s safe to come out too, and that there’s light on the other side.