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Loading... Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faithby Barbara Brown Taylor
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  ALincolnNut | Nov 10, 2009 |  I was given this book as a gift because I had left church, but not my faith. If I thought that was tough, I cannot imagine being ordained and leaving church. But, this book had many insights that I may not have considered. Throughout the book, as Brown's career as a priest seems to get better and better, her relationship with God seems to be put on the back burner. Talk about a conflict! She does not exactly see eye to eye with some of the elders and other officials at the small church where she preaches. This opens her eyes to the fact that what she may think is a good thing for the church, it may not be that good after all. After leaving the stress of preaching, she takes some time to get to know herself and God better. I loved this part of the book, because I could really relate to it. The word choice and sentence structure was amazing and kept the book moving quickly. My favorite sentence is where Brown was describiong her relationship with God, that she in bed, she would "peck him on the check, and roll over to sleep." I think the message is key to this day and age. In our fast-paced lives, it is hard to stop and detach from that world and look at the world God created. It is even harder to take the time to actually have a conversation with Him. But, if one takes to time and effort, it is worth the while. I would recommend this book to any, but especially to those who seem to have lost their connection with God. (  ) clparson | Jul 31, 2009 | I read a lot of memoirs these days. In fact they are probably my favorite literary genre. Maybe I should have been warned by Taylor's subtitle - not simply "a memoir," but "a memoir of faith." Because this is not a memoir in the usual sense. There is precious little of Taylor's childhood, youth or young adulthood - no real concrete stories and examples from her life. Too much of this book remains caught in the abstraction of ideas and beliefs, with not nearly enough examples. The people who show up in the book remain undeveloped vague outlines. And I have a hard time identifying with Brown's spiritual "quest," if that is what it is. I don't think it's because she's a woman either. What few facts that do emerge about her life outside this "quest" do not really serve to make her a sympathetic character. Daughter of a psychotherapist, sister of a lawyer, wife of an engineer - all these tidbits add up to what appears to have been a life of privilege and ease, and continued to be even after her ordination, as she speaks of her Saab and Audi and how they didn't fit into her rural community, and goes on at some length about everything she "wanted" in her custom-built home outside of town (in lieu of a parsonage near her church). What comes through in Barbara Brown Taylor's book is a story of a driven overachiever, who in fact drives herself into a near nervous breakdown, which finally causes her to leave her church and the active priesthood. While I do not doubt the sincerity of her quest for her true vocation and place in God's world, I do wonder about her motives. She became more likeable - more human - in the final section of the book, after she had left the priesthood, when she talks about her crisis of faith and things like her fears of inadequacy and the death of her father. Having said all of this, I still have to say that I'm glad I read the book, which has left me with much to think about in regard to my own role in the Church (Catholic in my case)and my relationship with God and my place in His world. I also think that Taylor is a person I'd like to know, but these 200-plus pages have not given me that opportunity. A memoir of faith? Perhaps. A "memoir"? No. - Tim Bazzett, author of Reed City Boy (  ) TimBazzett | May 23, 2009 | Ordained minister in the Episcopal Church, the author takes you through her spiritual journey which includes resigning from the ministry after 20 years. The author uses experiences, honesty, and a warm heart to give you a picture of why she made the hardest decision of her life. She left the official ministry so she could start a new one. pg 226 "On the twentieth anniversary of my ordination, I would have to say that at least one of the things that almost killed me was becoming a professional holy person." ( ) skokie | Jul 3, 2008 | While to a certain extent, Ms. Taylor's failures are more successful than any of my achievements, she still conveys her sense of desperation as she sought to be a spiritual leader while still taking care of her own spiritual needs. God must definitely still love her, since she fell into a nice college teaching job and didn't have to move away from her lovely home. But I did find this book encouraging as I am in the process of leaving my lay job at a church and seeking career paths that do not leave me feeling spiritually depleted. ( ) robinamelia | Nov 16, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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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.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
In "Leaving Church," she recounts how she came to accept the call to her final parish as priest, and how she decided to leave the pulpit to become a full-time college professor. Subtitled, "A Memoir of Faith," it has two main sections, "Finding" and "Losing," with an extended epilogue called "Keeping."
This is an interesting book as it allows a glimpse at the personal side of being a parish priest -- the joys and the headaches. It also serves as a biography of faith in how Brown Taylor explores the transition of her faith from her vocational responsibilities to something she seems to be seeking for again in the second half of the book.
As a pastor, I appreciate the open way in which Brown Taylor invites people to imagine faith seeking, looking for the hand of God in many forms, in many contexts, and in many ways -- including outside of formal worship services. It is also helpful for a gifted author to describe a bit of how the stresses of serving as a religious leader can sometimes become an obstacle to personal faith.
However, I was mostly disappointed with this book. Time and again, I had the sneaking suspicion that much of the story was being consciously left out. I can understand the need for anonymity and for protecting the privacy of others, so I understand that many stories probably could not be told at all, for fear that they would betray a confidence. Granting this, though, the book still seemed overly disingenuous -- that Brown Taylor was not protecting the privacy of others as much as she was protecting -- or maybe even avoiding -- herself.
Perhaps others who are not pastors will appreciate the book more, and probably they are Brown Taylor's intended audience. From colleagues and others, I have heard of many who have found "Leaving Church" to be wonderful. Sadly, I found it otherwise. (