Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

Framed as a failed love affair with a small church in rural north Georgia, Barbara Brown Taylor's journey from city to country, from full-time ministry to university professor, and urban dweller to part-time farmer 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, she finds herself with "compassion fatigue," and when an offer comes to leave the church for an opening at a local college, Taylor jumps at the chance, despite her reservations. Ultimately, Taylor realizes it is still possible to "keep the faith," although not in a way that jibes with traditional Christianity.

Barbara Brown Taylor was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1983. A frequent guest preacher and teacher at churches and universities across the country, she was named one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University in 1996 and resigned from her parish soon thereafter to accept an endowed chair in religion at Piedmont College. She lives on a working farm in rural Habersham County, Georgia with her husband, Ed.

"A fiercely honest and gracious book about our primary vocation to be human. Here the reader will find an awesome reverence for mystery. This book comes as a refreshing challenge to reconnect with the longings in the depths of the soul. Many will read this book with relief and recognition."

- Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and author of Reimagining Christianity

--Nora Gallagher, author of Practicing Resurrection