Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
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Book Reviews of Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith
Book Review: This book should come with a WARNING LABEL
Summary: 2 Stars
Heterodoxy and syncretism run rampant throughout this memoir. Such qualities are highly valued by some. But for those who are looking for "a memoir of faith" that points to Jesus, this book is not it. Taylor early in the book states that she could have as easily developed her faith by way of non-Christian religious practices as through the Episcopal Church, and ended up with just as good a relationship with whoever the Supreme Being happens to be. A lot of people share her opinion. They are the ones for whom this book is written.
I'm not questioning Taylor's sincerity or criticizing her right to her own religious beliefs; I'm just saying that some people may pick up the book under the false impression that Taylor will be describing a spiritual journey that is more in line with traditional orthodox Christian beliefs than it really is.
If you are sympathetic to Taylor's philosophy of faith, you'll like the book. It has some nice prose and turns of phrase. If you'd rather read a memoir by someone who developed a relationship with God through Jesus, believing him to be "the way, the truth and the life" as Jesus himself asserted, then you should avoid this book. It all depends on which camp you fall into.
Book Review: Testimony to self-absorbtion.
Summary: 1 Stars
Taylor has made a name for herself in the Episcopal Church as a speaker, and I read this book as an entree into her work. What I found was a woman so wrapped up in herself that her "vocation" was at best a soliloquy from the very start rather than the dialogue implicit in a call. The present Episcopal Church is in theological disarray, and her very fuzzy explication of even her own position, let alone that of the church she claimed to represent, is a good example of why. I read this book to the very end, hoping that there might be a substantial surprise in the last chapter, but it remained a picture of a woman looking at only herself in her mirror and empty to the last.