All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality

by Wendy Reed (Editor), Wendy Reed (Editor), Sue Monk Kidd (Contributor)

Gives voice to a wide variety of Southern women’s religious experiences

H. L. Mencken first identified the South as the “Bible Belt” in the 1920s. To be sure, religion shapes and defines even those Southerners who don’t think of themselves as particularly religious. Practically no one who grows up Southern can escape being shaped, stimulated, harmed, or informed by religion and spirituality.
 
All Out of Faith gives voice to southern women writers who represent a broad spectrum of faiths, Catholic to Baptist, Jewish to Buddhist, and points in between. These essays and stories reveal that southern culture has always reserved a special place for strong women of passion.
 
Frances Mayes and Barbara Kingsolver investigate the importance of place. Dorothy Allison, among others, writes of the transformative power of art; in her case, of a painting of Jesus she loved as a child. Lee Smith is one of several women who write of religious fervor; she recalls the excitement of being saved, not once but many times, until her parents made her stop. Vicki Covington and Mab Segrest describe their conflicts between faith and sexuality. Pauli Murray, the first black female Episcopal priest, and Jessica Roskin, who became a Jewish cantor, tell of remaining within their original religious tradition while challenging their traditional roles.
 
Contributors
Shirley Abbott / Dorothy Allison / Vicki Covington / Susan Ketchin / Sue Monk Kidd / Cassandra King / Barbara Kingsolver / Frances Mayes / Diane McWhorter / Pauli Murray / Sena Jeter Naslund / Sylvia Rhue / Jessica Roskin / Mab Segrest / Lee Smith / Jeanie Thompson / Jan Willis
 

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, Short Stories, Essays, Memoir, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2006

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent compilation of essays by Southern women who have experienced faith and spirituality in their personal lives. Some remain faithful, others have changed their beliefs, some have relinquished traditional faith; but I would say they all remain spiritual in some form or other. It is thought provoking and extremely interesting to one who grew up in Georgia and migrated to Texas as an adult.

Many of the authors were reared in Alabama, some in Birmingham, in the Civil Rights era. Some were reared in Fundamentalist religions and came away disenchanted and angry at the perverse teachings by a racist society. This is a book to be read & reread and kept on one's shelf as a reference.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never could quite finish this book, hard as I tried. While a couple of the excerpts made me want to read the larger stories from which they were taken, the book as a whole did not read smoothly, and many of the excerpts felt choppy.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

8/10/2004

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was just curious about the theological journeys of some of the southern writers I've enjoyed. This had interesting essays. Not too shocked or surprising, but good as a reference.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring

[Margaret Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection. A little uneven. I picked it because of Dorothy Allison and Mab Segrest, whose essays I liked. Some great stuff though.

[Marna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't normally read books about people's individual spiritual beliefs, because, well, they are personal (as are mine). I chose this book because I was raised in the south, and thought it might hold some clues to my own meandering spiritual journey (that it contained the thoughts of some of my favorite authors didn't hurt). What I gained from this book was some comfort in that, for many people, the journey to ones beliefs turns out to be a (often changing) end unto itself.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25. I only read this because it had an essay by Pauli Murray. I enjoyed her essay and several of the others. Some of them just didn't touch me but I was surprised by the ones that did. Spirituality is a such a hard topic to pin down and verbalize.