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Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God
Lauren F. Winner--a leading writer at the crossroads of culture and spirituality and author of Still and Girl Meets God--joins the ranks of luminaries such as Anne Lamott and Barbara Brown Taylor with this exploration of little known--and, so, little used--biblical metaphors for God, metaphors which can open new doorways for our lives and spiritualities.
There are hundreds of metaphors for God, but the church only uses a few familiar images: creator, judge, savior, father. In Wearing God, Lauren Winner gathers a number of lesser-known tropes, reflecting on how they work biblically and culturally, and reveals how they can deepen our spiritual lives.
Exploring the notion of God as clothing, Winner reflects on how we are "clothed with Christ" or how "God fits us like a garment." She then analyzes how clothing functions culturally to shape our ideals and identify our community, and ruminates on how this new metaphor can function to create new possibilities for our lives. For each biblical metaphor--God as the vine/vintner who animates life; the lactation consultant; and the comedian, showing us our follies, for example--Winner surveys the historical, literary, and cultural landscapes in order to revive and heal our souls.
There are hundreds of metaphors for God, but the church only uses a few familiar images: creator, judge, savior, father. In Wearing God, Lauren Winner gathers a number of lesser-known tropes, reflecting on how they work biblically and culturally, and reveals how they can deepen our spiritual lives.
Exploring the notion of God as clothing, Winner reflects on how we are "clothed with Christ" or how "God fits us like a garment." She then analyzes how clothing functions culturally to shape our ideals and identify our community, and ruminates on how this new metaphor can function to create new possibilities for our lives. For each biblical metaphor--God as the vine/vintner who animates life; the lactation consultant; and the comedian, showing us our follies, for example--Winner surveys the historical, literary, and cultural landscapes in order to revive and heal our souls.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2014
175 people are currently reading
3169 people want to read
About the author
Lauren F. Winner
46 books327 followersLauren F. Winner is the author of numerous books, including Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath. Her study A Cheerful & Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia was published in the fall of 2010 by Yale University Press. She has appeared on PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Books and Culture, and Christianity Today. Winner has degrees from Duke, Columbia, and Cambridge universities, and holds a Ph.D. in history. The former book editor for Beliefnet, Lauren teaches at Duke Divinity School, and lives in Durham, North Carolina. Lauren travels extensively to lecture and teach. During the academic year of 2007-2008, she was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, and during the academic year of 2010-2011, she was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. When she’s home, you can usually find her curled up, on her couch or screen porch, with a good novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
September 19, 2015
The introduction to this book is great. Starts out with a short but excellent look at the problem of using gendered pronouns when referring to God, and how since language will always fail in any attempt to describe God, all we have is symbols and partial pictures, and those metaphors matter: "There are also social and political consequences to our images of God. As theologians Mary Daly and Judith Plaskow have pointed out, the characteristics we attribute to God will always be those characteristics that we value most highly in our own society: we will value what we take God to be (and perhaps, conversely, it is what we value that we take God to be). So if we say that a core characteristic of God is mercy, we will value merciful people. If we imagine God as one who nurtures, we will value nurturing. If we pray to a God who is a property owner (as in the parables of the vineyard), we will admire people who own houses and land. If we focus instead on God as a homeless man (as in Matthew 8:20 and Luke 9:58), we might accord homeless people more esteem." It then claims that the rest of the book will be a discussion of overlooked metaphors that the bible uses for God: God as a beekeeper! God as a tree, a dog, a drunk, as water - what could be better! None of those images are discussed though, and of the six metaphors that were focused on, only one - God as a woman giving birth - was especially interesting to me.
What I did like about this book though is that the introduction did something in my brain that made me start looking for metaphors everywhere. I remembered when I had a cat, I often thought that in our relationship sometimes I was like God and sometimes the cat was. My friends who have become parents have said similar things about their kids. Trees and mountains and flowering vines and lions and gravel roads and old women making bazlama are not God, but when they are in some way like God, they can help us understand God. Huseyin and Kubilay have both frequently said and done things that have startled me towards new and clearer ways of seeing and thinking about God, and I have even a few times startled myself. Sometimes these things make me feel so insane but I usually just feel so good: "I used to wonder where you are, these days I can't find where you're not."
What I did like about this book though is that the introduction did something in my brain that made me start looking for metaphors everywhere. I remembered when I had a cat, I often thought that in our relationship sometimes I was like God and sometimes the cat was. My friends who have become parents have said similar things about their kids. Trees and mountains and flowering vines and lions and gravel roads and old women making bazlama are not God, but when they are in some way like God, they can help us understand God. Huseyin and Kubilay have both frequently said and done things that have startled me towards new and clearer ways of seeing and thinking about God, and I have even a few times startled myself. Sometimes these things make me feel so insane but I usually just feel so good: "I used to wonder where you are, these days I can't find where you're not."
June 16, 2024
There were so many things I enjoyed about this poetic, personal work of theology. First of all, s/o my girl @anna who knows that I love a theological metaphor!!! I loved all the quotations the author sprinkled throughout from so many different ancient Christians. The author's interest in the subject and time spent in personal introspection on the topic was evident. Some of the author's applications of these lesser-used scriptural metaphors didn't feel consistent with the larger scriptural themes and depictions of God to me (comments about our prayers "soothing" God or it "feeling good" to God to provide for us). But I still really enjoyed my sloooow savory read of this book.
And @anna you were right, the "laboring woman" chapter was SOOO good!!! "Our souls are like fruit born of the Lord, born of his pain. Like a woman in the labor of childbirth, he gave birth to our souls in the anguish of his Passion, as the apostle remarks" (Anthony of Padua). God is at work in the painful labor of remaking the world and remaking us. He is also the midwife who comforts and encourages, the nursing mother who cannot forget her children or refrain from compassion for the child of her womb (Isaiah). And he himself underwent the experience of birth.
"And in accepting our nature he gave us life, and in his blessed dying on the cross he bore us to endless life" (Julian of Norwich).
And @anna you were right, the "laboring woman" chapter was SOOO good!!! "Our souls are like fruit born of the Lord, born of his pain. Like a woman in the labor of childbirth, he gave birth to our souls in the anguish of his Passion, as the apostle remarks" (Anthony of Padua). God is at work in the painful labor of remaking the world and remaking us. He is also the midwife who comforts and encourages, the nursing mother who cannot forget her children or refrain from compassion for the child of her womb (Isaiah). And he himself underwent the experience of birth.
"And in accepting our nature he gave us life, and in his blessed dying on the cross he bore us to endless life" (Julian of Norwich).
December 30, 2021
I did put this book down in the middle for several months. But I’m glad I picked it up again. The chapter on God as a laboring woman alone is worth reading the whole book, but I also appreciated Winner’s last chapter where she talks about the hidden-ness of God, talking about God as darkness. After the deconstruction of my former evangelical faith, I’m going through a season where God seems very hidden to me. I’m not sure what I think of Him/Her. Often I’m not sure if She exists, or exists in a way that can have anything to do with me. Winner’s image of God not as *in* the darkness, but *being* the darkness (and somehow, also, the light) stirred something in me I haven’t felt in a long time- something that felt near to hope. Her voice is one of the ones that give me hope that in this wild and woolly land of post-deconstruction, faith is still possible.
February 10, 2018
Absolutely lovely. Winner's prose is elegant and easy, a perfect fit for a book about the marvel of meeting God in the ordinary.
February 11, 2024
Goodness. I really love Lauren Winner. I want to lend this book out to so many friends/buy a copy for everyone I love! The God as a Laboring Woman chapter? I wept.
June 8, 2015
There were some spiritual gems in this book and some spiritual correctives. Winner argues that the abundance of images for God in the Bible are there to prevent focusing on just one or two. Sure we identify more with some images than others, but when we say that this image is what God is, we get beyond ourselves and our proper place. To me, her strongest chapter was the one on God as Clothing. The term "clothing yourself in Christ" never made sense to me - it was abstract theology that I didn't understand or know how to apply. Because this scripture is right next to the scripture about there being no Jew/Greek, Slave/Free, Male/Female in Christ, by putting on the clothing of Christ, we essentially are living in ways that unite instead of dividing into categories, as clothing often serves to do. Instead of Christ being an expensive, designer dress that makes us stand out, he is more like a school uniform that places us equal to our fellows. That is a real challenge to our desire for individuality and identity, but also comforting too. Much less abstract to me now and something I can work on putting on everyday!
December 28, 2018
The chapter on God as the laboring woman was perfect for advent. This book is the perfect mix of head and heart.
January 5, 2016
(3.5 stars) For readers who've followed Lauren Winner's career, Wearing God feels like the natural next step from her 2012 work Still. In the author q&a at the end of that book, Winner notes that "Among other things, divorcing has shaken up the assumptions I bring to reading scripture. In leaving my marriage, I was doing something that was simply not permissible, not in the way I have always interpreted scripture, and that is something I remain troubled by, confused by--it is not something about which I feel cavalier. I don't know, as neatly as I once knew, what my hermeneutic of scripture is. What does it mean to be someone who affirms scripture's authority, someone who wants to live inside the scriptural story, but who has made a major life choice that contradicts something about which Jesus in the Gospels is pretty clear? I don't have a straightforward, stable answer to that. I expect I will be trying to work it out for a long time." Wearing God feels like a lovely result of that working out.
In this book, Winner examines some of the less familiar descriptions of and metaphors for God in the Bible. Of particular note are the chapters on God as clothing, God's laughter, God as laboring woman. For any readers who worried, like I did, that part of Winner's working out of her hermeneutic would involve a lower or more cavalier view of scriptural authority, it quickly becomes evident that this did not happen and that Winner's approach remains thoughtful, creative, and rigorous. The two notes that bookend the text -- a short note on attempting to avoid gendering pronouns of God throughout and a short note on not including a chapter on the troubling metaphors of God as domestic abuser based on her work in a women's prison -- are particularly fine. In both, Winner balances between acknowledging troubling aspects of tradition/Scripture and not getting overly caught up in them, nor attempting to bend them or scriptural authority to her own preference. Throughout, there is a high view of the story that Winner finds herself in, even when it's complex and baffling. Maybe particularly when it's complex and baffling. I particularly appreciated the encouragement for the reader to link metaphors directly to their own lives (Winner argues that we're meant to do this, hence the many images of God as shepherd, God as king, etc, in the texts for an ANE audience who would've had such figures in their everyday lives) and the final chapter on Deus absconditas, how the hiddenness of God often is made manifest through language.
I did knock off a star for how the book overpromises -- in the introduction Winner talks about the richness of unexpected metaphors like God as beekeeper, tree, dog, metaphors which are ultimately left out of the text at hand. While Winner brings great insights to God as bread and wine and God as fire, neither of these images are unfamiliar to modern churchgoers (and maybe are as used and overused as God as shepherd/father/king). I would have loved to see more on the other, more radical metaphors in place of these two chapters. And while I appreciated the inclusion of lengthy quotations from various sources, I thought the book would have been better served by placing them all at the end of the chapters they were attached to, or as an appendix, rather than interspersed with the main text throughout. It made for a somewhat disjointed reading experience, personally.
The other way that I see Wearing God as being the natural next step of Winner's writings is how little she talks about the events/people of her own life. Unlike Girl Meets God, Still, and to some extent Real Sex, Wearing God really isn't in any way a spiritual memoir, even though Winner delves pretty deeply into her own feelings about the various metaphors. I couldn't tell if this was a kind of gun-shyness in the aftermath of the negative reactions to Still or if Winner felt like she had overshared in the past... or if it's the kind of humility that C.S. Lewis writes about -- not thinking less of oneself, but rather simply thinking of oneself less. At any rate, no one could accuse Winner of oversharing in this book (her new husband and congregation are mentioned rarely and typically only in passing), which may frustrate longtime readers of Winner's who are more used to the tone of her earlier books. To me, the restraint felt respectful and appropriate to the subject matter, though I would find it a shame if it came about mostly through Winner being burned so badly as a public figure in evangelical circles.
In all -- there are some real gems in this book, and it's made me want to be more on the lookout for unexpected metaphors as I read scripture.
In this book, Winner examines some of the less familiar descriptions of and metaphors for God in the Bible. Of particular note are the chapters on God as clothing, God's laughter, God as laboring woman. For any readers who worried, like I did, that part of Winner's working out of her hermeneutic would involve a lower or more cavalier view of scriptural authority, it quickly becomes evident that this did not happen and that Winner's approach remains thoughtful, creative, and rigorous. The two notes that bookend the text -- a short note on attempting to avoid gendering pronouns of God throughout and a short note on not including a chapter on the troubling metaphors of God as domestic abuser based on her work in a women's prison -- are particularly fine. In both, Winner balances between acknowledging troubling aspects of tradition/Scripture and not getting overly caught up in them, nor attempting to bend them or scriptural authority to her own preference. Throughout, there is a high view of the story that Winner finds herself in, even when it's complex and baffling. Maybe particularly when it's complex and baffling. I particularly appreciated the encouragement for the reader to link metaphors directly to their own lives (Winner argues that we're meant to do this, hence the many images of God as shepherd, God as king, etc, in the texts for an ANE audience who would've had such figures in their everyday lives) and the final chapter on Deus absconditas, how the hiddenness of God often is made manifest through language.
I did knock off a star for how the book overpromises -- in the introduction Winner talks about the richness of unexpected metaphors like God as beekeeper, tree, dog, metaphors which are ultimately left out of the text at hand. While Winner brings great insights to God as bread and wine and God as fire, neither of these images are unfamiliar to modern churchgoers (and maybe are as used and overused as God as shepherd/father/king). I would have loved to see more on the other, more radical metaphors in place of these two chapters. And while I appreciated the inclusion of lengthy quotations from various sources, I thought the book would have been better served by placing them all at the end of the chapters they were attached to, or as an appendix, rather than interspersed with the main text throughout. It made for a somewhat disjointed reading experience, personally.
The other way that I see Wearing God as being the natural next step of Winner's writings is how little she talks about the events/people of her own life. Unlike Girl Meets God, Still, and to some extent Real Sex, Wearing God really isn't in any way a spiritual memoir, even though Winner delves pretty deeply into her own feelings about the various metaphors. I couldn't tell if this was a kind of gun-shyness in the aftermath of the negative reactions to Still or if Winner felt like she had overshared in the past... or if it's the kind of humility that C.S. Lewis writes about -- not thinking less of oneself, but rather simply thinking of oneself less. At any rate, no one could accuse Winner of oversharing in this book (her new husband and congregation are mentioned rarely and typically only in passing), which may frustrate longtime readers of Winner's who are more used to the tone of her earlier books. To me, the restraint felt respectful and appropriate to the subject matter, though I would find it a shame if it came about mostly through Winner being burned so badly as a public figure in evangelical circles.
In all -- there are some real gems in this book, and it's made me want to be more on the lookout for unexpected metaphors as I read scripture.
March 15, 2016
Wearing God is a well written and enjoyable read but it strays far from true orthodox christian beliefs. I strongly caution readers to be careful and discerning while reading.
Winner's invitation to understand God in new ways directly violates the second commandment forbidding the use of images (including mental images) to worship God. God is not to be pictured as a bagel, sweater, or a blond labouring woman -to name a few.
Winner also incorrectly uses these metaphors by reinterperting them through the lens of present cultural context and personal experience. This risks changing the original divinely inspired meaning and can result in error and false teaching.
I found more errors in the book but cannot include them all in this review for brevity's sake. I wish is to encourage all readers to model the berean's in acts 17:11 and examine all books and teachings with the infallible inspired word of God to discern the truth!
Winner's invitation to understand God in new ways directly violates the second commandment forbidding the use of images (including mental images) to worship God. God is not to be pictured as a bagel, sweater, or a blond labouring woman -to name a few.
Winner also incorrectly uses these metaphors by reinterperting them through the lens of present cultural context and personal experience. This risks changing the original divinely inspired meaning and can result in error and false teaching.
I found more errors in the book but cannot include them all in this review for brevity's sake. I wish is to encourage all readers to model the berean's in acts 17:11 and examine all books and teachings with the infallible inspired word of God to discern the truth!
August 9, 2015
Oh the metaphors! I appreciated this book more than I imagined. While incredibly useful for preachers and others interested in interpreting scripture or (re)imagining God, Biblical story or life, I enjoyed engaging this conversationally written book without pen or highlighter in hand. It's a series of extended spiritual reflections intersecting mundane life and hard realities. Winner's scholarly knowledge provides insight, but it's her honesty, heart and imperfect faith that bring the metaphors (clothing, smell, bread and vine, laboring woman, laughter, and flame) to life as scriptural ways to re-understand God. The bookend essays provide context and content for further reflection. Let your understanding of God grow broader and deeper as you encounter this compelling, winsome writing.
April 4, 2016
Not quite as good as Still, because Still is incredible, but this is really, really good. I read it devotionally, 15 pages or so a day, and that was a great experience.
December 2, 2025
I really enjoy reading Lauren Winner. She is very relatable, and she has a very practical theology. In this gem, she writes about our senses and how we worship and can worship through the senses that God has given us. She inserts a lot of quotes every few pages which add a lot of spice to her topics.
I want to share this book with Annette when I finish it. She talks about how we dress, and I remember in Bangkok having conversations with my students. They always wish they wore an outward symbol that could explain their faith. Winner writes about a women who was grieving, but wasn't wearing black, and how she wished that others could empathize with her for her grief, when they had no way of knowing that she was grieving.
While writing this book, Winner was teaching a theology class in a women’s prison, including seminarians and incarcerated women. In the final chapter, she writes provocative statements about the injustices of God, pointing out scripture from Hosea where God commands the prophet to abuse and neglect his wife. It is difficult to wade into these hard sayings and not feel grief or anger. But Winner doesn’t shirk from the teachings, instead leaning into the Mother’s heart of God in order to adapt our understanding to experience God in a wider manner. This is both devastating and brilliant, truly inclusive in ways I could not before imagine.
I want to share this book with Annette when I finish it. She talks about how we dress, and I remember in Bangkok having conversations with my students. They always wish they wore an outward symbol that could explain their faith. Winner writes about a women who was grieving, but wasn't wearing black, and how she wished that others could empathize with her for her grief, when they had no way of knowing that she was grieving.
While writing this book, Winner was teaching a theology class in a women’s prison, including seminarians and incarcerated women. In the final chapter, she writes provocative statements about the injustices of God, pointing out scripture from Hosea where God commands the prophet to abuse and neglect his wife. It is difficult to wade into these hard sayings and not feel grief or anger. But Winner doesn’t shirk from the teachings, instead leaning into the Mother’s heart of God in order to adapt our understanding to experience God in a wider manner. This is both devastating and brilliant, truly inclusive in ways I could not before imagine.
June 2, 2021
This book is fabulous. It's fabulous in a unique way - it threads a needles between auto biography, literary criticism and religious navel gazing. The author writes as beautifully as anyone in the genre right now. This book is also a trampoline for jumping into other writers who have considered God's innumerable descriptions. At the end of the book, the author includes a quote from a prayer by Jeanne Murray Walker. I include it here because the quote explains what this book is all about. It shows us that we can and cannot talk about, to, and with God:
"Oh we have only so many words to think with. Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone, but there it is. i rings. You don't know who it could be. You don't want to talk so you pull out the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbered up metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up and a voice you love whispers hello."
This book shows us the twin relationship with God. God is both impossible describe and impossible not to describe. Winner does a fantastic job in this book. The only reason it isn't 5 is because the fire chapter seems to trail off before the chapter of apophasis, which is superb, lifts the book up again.
Pick it up and return to again and again.
"Oh we have only so many words to think with. Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone, but there it is. i rings. You don't know who it could be. You don't want to talk so you pull out the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbered up metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up and a voice you love whispers hello."
This book shows us the twin relationship with God. God is both impossible describe and impossible not to describe. Winner does a fantastic job in this book. The only reason it isn't 5 is because the fire chapter seems to trail off before the chapter of apophasis, which is superb, lifts the book up again.
Pick it up and return to again and again.
April 12, 2024
It often felt like Winner was using difficult language (words that are literally listed in the dictionary as "archaic") just for the sake of showing off. Jesus spent His ministry confounding scriptural scholars and speaking directly to "common" people. It bothers me that so much scriptural commentary is written for other scholars, not for "regular" people who want a closer relationship with God.
That aside, though, the ideas in this book are extraordinary. Winner paints some pictures of God that feel exactly right and others that initially made me uncomfortable, pushing me to examine my understanding of God more closely. The sections on clothing, bread and vine, and laboring woman were particularly impactful.
If you can get past the unnecessarily academic language, I highly recommend this.
That aside, though, the ideas in this book are extraordinary. Winner paints some pictures of God that feel exactly right and others that initially made me uncomfortable, pushing me to examine my understanding of God more closely. The sections on clothing, bread and vine, and laboring woman were particularly impactful.
If you can get past the unnecessarily academic language, I highly recommend this.
July 23, 2018
I really liked this book. The inclusion of the short note toward the beginning and the short note at the end were spot on- Winner comes across knowledgeable, opinionated, and imaginative, but also very humble and unconvinced of her own opinions. I loved the balance. I got a little bogged down in the Laboring Woman chapter- there were a few interesting points, but I got a little bored with the details, maybe because I’ve been through labor twice and didn’t need to read all about it. I found the chapter on laughter most interesting and caught myself meditating on those ideas during church today, during worship and during a slightly related sermon.
January 17, 2022
Maybe 3 1/2? I loved a couple of the chapters and found the others to be a bit harder to read. Winner is a dense writer, very bright and moves in and out of more scholarly writing. Even so, this is a thoughtful reflection on a few of God’s attributes. She every so often incorporates her experience teaching a class of Duke students along with inmates at a women’s prison. These two groups of people sitting together in a classroom shapes her understanding of God and I appreciate she shared those reflections in this book.
I would recommend this book with the caveat that some chapters will be excellent and some slightly less engaging.
I would recommend this book with the caveat that some chapters will be excellent and some slightly less engaging.
October 21, 2018
This book unpacks metaphors throughout the Bible used to describe God. Winner goes deep into these - sometimes a little too deep for me but sometimes not as well - offering a clearer understanding of how people in the Bible understood and related to God and what we can learn from that today. I used this book more like a devotion reading a small portion each day thus working myself through it over a course of three months and would recommend reading this way to fully take in all of the information.
May 17, 2020
I'm glad I own a hardcover copy of this. I'd like to read it multiple times and underline as I go. I just loved it, even though it was a different kind of book from Winner's memoirs. Her literary comparisons were thought-provoking and I liked the quotes for readers she placed along the way. A treasure.
September 4, 2021
I greatly enjoy the intelligence and thoughtfulness of this author. She brings a perspective different from mine and steeped in reading and study. I enjoy how I have to stop frequently and look up what words mean as I read her books. This one made me see new things, which is so valuable.
November 25, 2017
“I cannot describe God in the same way that I cannot describe the Metropolitan Museum of Art: there is too much there for me to describe” (p. 235).
January 28, 2018
Reading Winner feels like talking to a friend. An inspiring and intimate read.
September 17, 2019
Loved this book. Lauren winner writes persuasively and beautifully. I am grateful to have encountered new ways to think about God through this book.
June 2, 2020
i like the way it made me think about who and what God is. i 'forgot' that God is more than a shepherd, father and king. if i read the bible again, i will definitely focus on these other aspects of God.
that said, there were chapters that i found to be better than others. i don't know if it's my lack of understanding english and metaphors in general or that the connections made by lauren weren't that good. sometimes i just didn't get where she was getting at. my favourite chapters are probably the one about gender, God as a labouring woman and God as laughter.
that said, there were chapters that i found to be better than others. i don't know if it's my lack of understanding english and metaphors in general or that the connections made by lauren weren't that good. sometimes i just didn't get where she was getting at. my favourite chapters are probably the one about gender, God as a labouring woman and God as laughter.
June 3, 2024
Overall enjoyed this read. It was fun to explore different ways to encounter God in our every day lives (laughter, smell, fire, etc). The overall read of this book in my opinion was very scattered and too wordy at times. There are quotes that don’t tie in directly to the main text nearly on every page, so much so that I started to ignore them.
February 29, 2024
Probably the most unique book about faith and God that I've read; it explores many of the more unusual and uncommon metaphors describing God. I found the author's writing thoughtful, well researched, insightful, and entirely interesting. It made me feel like I needed to take the time to read and dig into my Bible more to really see these metaphors in use. I felt like I didn't know my Bible at all as I was unfamiliar with many of the examples.
February 5, 2021
Provided wonderful discussions for our book group. Didn't agree with all that she said but she certainly made me think about God in new ways. Challenged some long held beliefs about God and His Word.
February 23, 2016
It has been years since I read anything by Lauren Winner, though I remember loving Girl Meets God, liking Real Sex (ha), and really liking Still. I was in a completely different place for all of those, so maybe that is part of my bias.
I could not get into this one. So much so that I skipped huge chunks of it. A couple paragraphs in the section on laughter caught my eye, as Lauren discussed her discomfort with God's laughter as derisive, and there were some interesting comments on the Psalms. That was it. That part, for me, was so good that I flipped back to give the rest of the book a chance, but even then I still found myself bored.
Maybe it was the lack of personal story - I would much rather read a memoir than a theological treatise. Much of this read like an assigned text for school, and I have read too many of those. Almost too much substance - too many quotes, too many extra readings. I respect and understand Lauren's drive to research and include resources but I felt I was bogged down in so much information and so much extra, when I would have preferred to just read her words more clearly. She was completely obscured by information.
Finally, and maybe less overtly relevant (or maybe not), I dropped this down from two to one star after reading of Lauren's affiliation with Tony Jones. I pride myself on being completely ignorant of Christian culture and know of Lauren Winner from my college days. I don't know the nature of their professional relationship beyond the fact that they teach a class together at Fuller Theological Seminary, but that sounds cozy enough.
The abuse allegations against Tony Jones regarding his ex wife, Julie, are vile. Tony's actions online and as recorded in the court document are indefensible. His comments online alone have displayed a tendency to be manipulative, arrogant, and self-centered. He has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and that diagnosis alone should be a clue and a red flag as to how much destruction he has left - and will continue to leave - in his wake. This is a man who has no place in church or spiritual leadership at all. He most certainly does not have any business teaching future Christian leaders. I honestly do not know how anyone could argue otherwise after even skimming the court documents.
So the book lost a star for that, from two to one, except the bonus star was really only for those few pages on laughter and I don't know that a few pages are worth an entire star anyway.
I could not get into this one. So much so that I skipped huge chunks of it. A couple paragraphs in the section on laughter caught my eye, as Lauren discussed her discomfort with God's laughter as derisive, and there were some interesting comments on the Psalms. That was it. That part, for me, was so good that I flipped back to give the rest of the book a chance, but even then I still found myself bored.
Maybe it was the lack of personal story - I would much rather read a memoir than a theological treatise. Much of this read like an assigned text for school, and I have read too many of those. Almost too much substance - too many quotes, too many extra readings. I respect and understand Lauren's drive to research and include resources but I felt I was bogged down in so much information and so much extra, when I would have preferred to just read her words more clearly. She was completely obscured by information.
Finally, and maybe less overtly relevant (or maybe not), I dropped this down from two to one star after reading of Lauren's affiliation with Tony Jones. I pride myself on being completely ignorant of Christian culture and know of Lauren Winner from my college days. I don't know the nature of their professional relationship beyond the fact that they teach a class together at Fuller Theological Seminary, but that sounds cozy enough.
The abuse allegations against Tony Jones regarding his ex wife, Julie, are vile. Tony's actions online and as recorded in the court document are indefensible. His comments online alone have displayed a tendency to be manipulative, arrogant, and self-centered. He has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and that diagnosis alone should be a clue and a red flag as to how much destruction he has left - and will continue to leave - in his wake. This is a man who has no place in church or spiritual leadership at all. He most certainly does not have any business teaching future Christian leaders. I honestly do not know how anyone could argue otherwise after even skimming the court documents.
So the book lost a star for that, from two to one, except the bonus star was really only for those few pages on laughter and I don't know that a few pages are worth an entire star anyway.
April 16, 2015
Lauren F. Winner’s Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God is playful, serious, informative, devotional, and as important as it is gratifying. As a reader who has long been unable to resist Winner’s engaging if uneven oeuvre, I read it with the sort of joy one feels when watching someone utterly hit their stride.
Everyone has always liked to talk about Winner’s youthfulness. Plenty of ink was spilled over the horror of a 26-year-old memoirist. But Winner is no longer notably young. She’s written her way through more than a decade of life since “meeting God”—writing about sex and faith and divorce and doubt. Her work plots a religious life over time, the disarming girlishness of her early work giving way to the stark voice of Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. It’s only by looking at the whole shelf that you see the inevitability of Wearing God. Of course this is the book that follows the mid-faith crisis, just as the crisis followed the conversion.
Read the rest of my review at the Christian Century.
Everyone has always liked to talk about Winner’s youthfulness. Plenty of ink was spilled over the horror of a 26-year-old memoirist. But Winner is no longer notably young. She’s written her way through more than a decade of life since “meeting God”—writing about sex and faith and divorce and doubt. Her work plots a religious life over time, the disarming girlishness of her early work giving way to the stark voice of Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. It’s only by looking at the whole shelf that you see the inevitability of Wearing God. Of course this is the book that follows the mid-faith crisis, just as the crisis followed the conversion.
Read the rest of my review at the Christian Century.
March 10, 2016
I appreciate the beauty of the language in this book, and the opportunity to spend significant time digging in to particular metaphors that would normally be glossed over as part of a larger work. I also appreciate the last chapter in which the author notes that she has left one image unexplored, and why. I may disagree with her reasoning for leaving it out, but I appreciate that she recognized the omission and had thought it through.
This was a book I didn't want to rush through--the words and the way they were put together drew out thinking and praying in ways that required slowing down....which is, in itself, a way of meeting God.
This was a book I didn't want to rush through--the words and the way they were put together drew out thinking and praying in ways that required slowing down....which is, in itself, a way of meeting God.
March 2, 2016
Despite the fact that it took me almost six months to finish this book, I really loved Lauren Winner's thought provoking and beautiful engagement with Scripture. I have long admired her writing, but this is the first time I am considering purchasing a book of hers--this demands to be marked up and flagged with post it notes. I adored her chapter on God as a birthing woman. A wonderful read for anyone seeking to think about God beyond metaphors of father, shepherd, King.
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