Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

by Barbara Brown Taylor

In practice, this means that my faith is far more relational than doctrinal. Although I am guilty of reading scripture as selectively as anyone, my reading persuades me that God is found in right relationships, not in right ideas, and that a great deal of Christian theology began as a stammering response to something that had actually happened in the world. Because Jesus died instead of ushering in the messianic age, Paul responded with a doctrine of atonement. Because the risen Christ struck his followers as very close kin to God, the early church responded with a doctrine of the Trinity. Because Christians did not turn out to be much better behaved than anyone else, Augustine responded with a doctrine of original sin. The doctrines are works of genius, for the most part, but like books they tend to draw people’s attention away from the living human neighbors who are standing right in front of them. They