Holy Envy, Barbara Brown Taylor
Holy Envy, Barbara Brown Taylor
3 Rating(s)
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Holy Envy
Finding God in the Faith of Others

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor

Narrator: Hillary Huber

Unabridged: 7 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/12/2019


Synopsis

The renowned and beloved New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World and Learning to Walk in the Dark recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching the world’s religions to undergraduates in rural Georgia, revealing how God delights in confounding our expectations.Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey begun in Leaving Church of finding out what the world looks like after taking off her clergy collar. In Holy Envy, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students’ eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques.Troubled and inspired by what she learns, Taylor returns to her own tradition for guidance, finding new meaning in old teachings that have too often been used to exclude religious strangers instead of embracing the divine challenges they present. Re-imagining some central stories from the religion she knows best, she takes heart in how often God chooses outsiders to teach insiders how out-of-bounds God really is.Throughout Holy Envy, Taylor weaves together stories from the classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been complicated and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions—even those whose truths are quite different from hers.  The one constant in her odyssey is the sense that God is the one calling her to disown her version of God—a change that ultimately enriches her faith in other human beings and in God.

About Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World and Leaving Church, which received an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association. Taylor is the Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College, where she has taught since 1998. She lives on a working farm in rural northeast Georgia with her husband, Ed.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Katelyn on February 16, 2020

I’ll start by saying that the aims of this book are admirable, given Western Christians’ general ignorance of what people of other faith traditions believe and/or their unwillingness to learn. I absolutely think there’s so much good that other traditions illuminate and that Christians can honor with......more

Goodreads review by Michael on March 30, 2019

Barbara Brown Taylor is perhaps the best thinker and writer that I ever blew the chance to hear live. Several years ago, I attended a conference at which she and Miroslov Volf were the featured speakers. Volf was the opening plenary speaker, and Taylor was the closing plenary speaker. I was not fami......more

Goodreads review by Charity on March 14, 2019

If you want to have some aspects of Christian elitism challenged, read this book. If you want to face up to the fact that we are not always right, read this book. If you want to find more understanding for other religions, read this book. If you want examples from Barbara's Religion 101 class, read thi......more

Goodreads review by Melora on June 05, 2019

I haven't been "wow-ed" by all Barbara Brown Taylor's books -- some of them have seemed a bit fluffy -- but this is a good one. While I don't agree with everything she says, I do agree with her mostly, and she makes me think about why I believe as I do, which is always a good thing.......more

Goodreads review by Donna on February 13, 2021

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest, a World Religions professor, and an accomplished author. This is the first book of hers that I have read. I read and discussed it with my husband. Holy Envy, as Dr Taylor explains, is seeing the practices of other religions and wishing you had them in you......more