Barbara Brown Taylor Once you have given up knowing who is right, it is easy to see neighbors everywhere you look. Lately I have begun to notice how my holy envy of friends in other traditions moves around the circle back to me. An observant Jewish friend tells me that he…
Barbara Brown Taylor “I’m working at it” Thanks to Nicodemus, I started borrowing a line from Maya Angelou, recipient of the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom, who said she was always amazed when people came up to…
Barbara Brown Taylor You do not know Preachers learn early on that we preach the sermons we most need to hear, and that was true of the one I had just preached as well. The story of…
Barbara Brown Taylor There is a place where human knowing runs out “We know,” Nicodemus says to Jesus when he first comes into the room. “You do not know,” Jesus says to Nicodemus right before he leaves. If you interpret this as…
Barbara Brown Taylor Entrusting yourself to God As variously as people describe it, they all discover that if you are determined to walk the way of Jesus, there comes a time when you must leave the lower…
Barbara Brown Taylor No one owns God God alone knows what is good. For reasons that will never be entirely clear, God has a soft spot for religious strangers, both as agents of divine blessing and recipients…
Barbara Brown Taylor Could it be that our favorite verses are the ones that make us feel most right? In the Christian New Testament, Jesus himself admits that he does not know everything there is to know about God. When his disciples ask him to tell them about the…
Barbara Brown Taylor A Deeper Message But there is a deeper message in the sermon at Nazareth, which is that no one owns God. The great religions may possess genuine revelations of God’s nature and purpose.…
Barbara Brown Taylor Love The Stranger However you define the problematic present-day stranger—the religious stranger, the cultural stranger, the transgendered stranger, the homeless stranger—scripture’s wildly impractical solution is to love the stranger as the self. You…
Barbara Brown Taylor Sit Me Down I can respect almost anyone who admits to being human while reading a divine text. After that, we can talk—about why we highlight some teachings and ignore others, about how…
Barbara Brown Taylor “Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian” - from “Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others” by Barbara Brown Taylor - HarperOne One of my favorite authors, Paul Knitter, has written a book called “Without…
Barbara Brown Taylor The most troubling question of all was why my religion seemed so much less gracious That first field trip opened a whole new folder of questions for me, both as a person and as a teacher of young persons. Is it better to read about…
Barbara Brown Taylor I miss a lot The fact that we need so much help understanding what we are looking at is a lesson in itself. How often do we assume that we know what we are…
Barbara Brown Taylor Which is giving me a better picture? This sets up a weird tension between the small window of my classroom and the small window of my phone. Which is giving me a better picture of the real…
Jana Riess Learning (again) to walk in the dark by Jana Riess A reflection on the pandemic, being a Christian, and Barbara Brown Taylor's book. https://religionnews.com/2020/04/28/learning-again-to-walk-in-the-dark/
Barbara Brown Taylor Christian Glasses Contrary to popular opinion, all religions are not alike. Their followers see the world in very distinct ways. Their understandings of the human condition proceed from different assumptions, leading them…
Barbara Brown Taylor Existential Dizziness Some are questioning whether the churches they grew up in have anything to offer them as they make their ways in a culture of many cultures with many views of…
Barbara Brown Taylor A conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor This interview focuses on two of her books, her latest, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others and the book she wrote in 2006, Leaving Church: A Memoir…
Barbara Brown Taylor, Religion News Service Barbara Brown Taylor: Reformation is a ‘delicious’ wilderness but lonely an interview https://religionnews.com/2019/10/18/barbara-brown-taylor-reformation-is-a-delicious-wilderness-but-lonely/
Barbara Brown Taylor When I take a breath "When I take a breath, God's Holy Spirit enters me. When a cricket speaks to me, I talk back. Like everything else on earth, I am an embodied soul, who…
Barbara Brown Taylor To Be Human “To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight, with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up. To want a life with only…
