Healing Spiritual Wounds: Reconnecting with a Loving God After Experiencing a Hurtful Church

Merritt (Tribal Church) soothes the sin-sick soul with religious balm. Having grown up in a violent household and attended a fundamentalist church, she writes with startling honesty about the war that raged inside her childhood home with the full complicity of church elders. Eventually she escaped to college, only to learn that the Moody Bible Institute, a fundamentalist school in Chicago, was prepared to inflict the religious lash once again, its force multiplied by sexism. After putting up with misogynistic treatment for years, Merritt decided to join the Presbyterian Church, where she became a pastor. She now leads retreats for the religiously wounded that create safe places to discuss “all the bitterness caused by the church... while finding a way to hold on to the sweetness and wholeness and healing the spiritual life can bring.” The first step in healing, she writes, is to separate God from the wounds inflicted in his name. The next step requires a process of repairing the results when people or communities violate the commandments to love God, self, and neighbor. Merritt’s tender prose, interesting stories, and practical, workbook-based approach make this book invaluable for those working in what Pope Francis calls “the field hospital” of the church. [em](Feb.) [/em]