Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Breaking Up with God: A Love Story
    Breaking Up with God: A Love Story
    Breaking Up with God: A Love Story
    Ebook208 pages6 hours

    Breaking Up with God: A Love Story

    By Sarah Sentilles

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "Honest,like down-to-the-core honest, beyond what most people are capable of,especially in public on the topic of faith." —Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place

    Inthe tradition of Barbara Brown Taylor and Sue Monk Kidd, Sarah Sentilles offers a poignant, beautifully wroughtmemoir of her personal crisis of faith.  Sentilleswas on the way to becoming a priest when she ultimately faced the truth: she nolonger believed. Her moving story examines the question of how youleave the most powerful being in the universe—and, if you do, where do you go? Breaking Up with God is an inspiringreflection no matter where you stand on the matter of faith.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 7, 2011
    ISBN9780062090683
    Breaking Up with God: A Love Story

    Related to Breaking Up with God

    Related ebooks

    Inspirational For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How God Loves Us

      Mar 30, 2024

      How God Loves Us
      7 min read

    • Article

      Absolute Mystery

      Sep 22, 2017

      I HEAR THE WORD, of course. I go to Mass some Sundays, listen to Al Green’s Greatest Gospel Hits, and have lived in or near the Bible Belt for the better part of the past decade. Even still, the word God has never quite fitted itself to my ears. And

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Conversation

      Sep 1, 2021

      I’ve known Melissa Broder for almost a decade. I invited her to my first book party because I was a big admirer of her writing and I wanted to meet her. She was smart and funny and I could tell she wanted to know something about what any of us are do

      11 min read

    • Article

      The List

      Jul 30, 2021

      The List
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mohsin Zaidi

      Aug 28, 2020

      Mohsin Zaidi
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Apr 14, 2023

      Send your letters to editor@joymag.co.za Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for

      7 min read

    • Article

      Is God a Christian, Jew, Muslim or Hindu?

      Oct 14, 2020

      WHY I am not a religious person. I owe no one an explanation. Of late, however, it has become necessary for me to respond to my harshest of intolerants, those who anoint themselves as gatekeepers or enforcers of the faith and worse still those who ar

      2 min read

    • Article

      Getting Personal

      Feb 22, 2024

      Getting Personal
      2 min read

    • Article

      Longing To Fill The Emptiness Of My Life, I Traded My Body For Money

      Sep 23, 2022

      People ask me why I am so crazy about a God I can’t see. I attended church since young and knew of a God who is holy, but I did not understand how people could serve and obey Him with such fire. I would only find out for myself many years later. Alth

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Path to Redemption

      Mar 26, 2022

      My Path to Redemption
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Incurable Optimist

      Sep 11, 2019

      The Incurable Optimist
      8 min read

    • Article

      Everybody Has A Story

      Feb 2, 2020

      Everybody Has A Story
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Grandpa Taught Me

      May 27, 2022

      What Grandpa Taught Me
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Most Powerful Words

      May 28, 2021

      The Most Powerful Words
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Marriage Made in Heaven

      May 19, 2020

      A Marriage Made in Heaven
      8 min read

    • Article

      Final Determination

      May 10, 2023

      Living people get a lot wrong about the After Life. It isn’t binary Heaven or Hell but a spectrum where most people end up somewhere better than their Earthly life. There’s also a state of Abeyance where you stay if you have unfinished business. For

      12 min read

    • Article

      God & Me magic Mushrooms

      Oct 5, 2023

      God & Me magic Mushrooms
      22 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Mar 18, 2022

      Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to ke

      7 min read

    • Article

      Chelsea Wolfe

      Feb 4, 2020

      Chelsea Wolfe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Our Second Act

      Sep 26, 2020

      Our Second Act
      6 min read

    • Article

      Why Michael Arceneaux 'Can't Date Jesus'

      Jul 25, 2018

      Becoming an author has been a long time coming for Michael Arceneaux. In fact, despite a recurring column for the digital magazine Into called "Dearly Beloved," his personal blog "The Cynical Ones" and articles published everywhere from the New York

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Seven Signs That You’re in a Cult

      Jun 18, 2014

      A former member of a tight-knit college prayer group describes his community’s disintegration—and how one of its members ended up dead.

      11 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Mar 10, 2023

      D ear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to k

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Brand-new ending

      Jan 29, 2022

      A Brand-new ending
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Love That Forgives

      Jul 25, 2023

      A Love That Forgives
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Breaking Up with God

    3.5/5

    15 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I have been wanting to read a book like this for a while. When I was studying theology as an undergrad, I remember reading a theologian or philosopher who had left faith behind comment that theology was the weaker for having no balance on one side. There is a range and diversity of ways to believe and degrees of faith, but once a person crosses a line of doubt to unbelief (or no longer thinking "Do I believe?" is an interesting way of framing a question.) that person's voice is no longer part of the religious conversation. So when I broke up with g*d and Christianity, I had to leave behind the conversation entirely, even though I only moved incrementally away from the place I used to stand. Breaking Up with God allowed me to revisit the conversation. I'm grateful for that.

      The opening of the book was good, but I did not identify with her childhood experience of G*d. It wasn't bad or poorly written, but it was for me, the least engaging part of an otherwise very engaging book. Her story about being a young woman at college with an eating disorder was also foreign to my understanding, but compelling. It matched what I've with other biographies about eating disorders (Such as She Was Once a Runner) and is clearly something I should understand better to keep from perpetuating the abuse and suffering.

      The story of her theological education was emotionally and intellectually very powerful. It was cathartic to read another love story of theology. Personally, I never felt as at home in a church as I did in a theology or religious philosophy class. That was my place and immersing myself in those thought-spaces again was comfortably nostalgic. I left Christianity over 15 years ago, but I remember intense pleasure in discovering that a better concept of g*d did away with much of the troubling nature of religion, especially dealing with power, epistemology, and gender issues.

      It was especially comforting to read her experiences with loving the kind of g*d certain theologians help us see and then not recognizing that in any of the manifestation of church. I'm not attempting to be rude or rain on anyone's parade, but since I became an adult, churches have been universally horrid places for me to be in. Yes there is love and acceptance, but it comes at a price I'm unwilling or unable to pay. I've found that, as related in Breaking up with G*d, my difficulty with the text of prayers, lyrics of hymns, questioning of gender roles, or labeling evil behavior in scripture as evil, is unwelcome and I won't leave that behind. I am welcome, but my thought processes are not. What I love as a vital part of my being I'm supposed to gratefully cast aside as a burden and a sin. Breaking up with G*d helped me remember that there are beautiful things connected to theology that are outside of church and religious society. Even if I don't want to get back together, it's a nice feeling to miss the old relationship.

      The close of the book, with its abrupt shift of focus to food felt right to me. The author has a clear heart and a story worth telling, but she is still learning the craft of writing. At times the narrative seemed tentative or the structure seemed unplanned. So, when she suddenly turned to food, I feared for the narrative. Somehow, it felt right. She found an emotional and spiritual metaphor that rang true without making it overly blunt or pedantic. What she found by breaking up with g*d is similar to what we can find by breaking up with Agriculture Inc. We all have to eat, but there is something wholesome to be found in locally grown produce that simply does not exist in Monsanto or McDonald's fare.

      I suppose that's not going to sit well with people who feel healthy and satisfied in the system she left, but I found great comfort in it. I also found a hope that since she succeed in articulating what I loved about thinking about g*d and what also what repelled me, I could also succeed in bridging that gap with others who never felt the need to leave. I love a lot of believers, but I struggle to respect the institutions of belief.

      So, yes, this isn't a perfect book. Not every part of her experience resonated with my own, but it brought me to a place of gratitude and love for an effort I have abandoned. For that I thank her.
    • 3/5
      About fifty years ago, there was a hymn entitled “A Mighty Fortress is our Church”, a parody of Luther's standard “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, about people who confuse their physical church with their faith. The title came into my mind while reading this book. My first reaction is that I don't think Shenilles ever had a faith to lose, but perhaps if one means faith in the sense of trust, rather than faith in sense of believing in the existence of God, it makes some sense. This is a rather rambling memoir, and a little long for its content, in my opinion. The book went on long after I thought point was concluded, apparently to show that she and her husband are good people, even if she decided not to espouse God. I lost track in the meanderings of whether or not she still believes that God exists, but just doesn't believe that He is the one for her. Shenilles found a church that she really liked, and made the decision to leave it behind to study theology on the opposite coast. She wanted to be the special one, the chosen one, the leader, the priest. This, apparently, is her idea of faith. She didn't bother to go to another church while she was studying, which she admits should have told her something, but then she would only have been worshipping God, not leading the congregation. While working on her doctorate and beginning the process of ordination, she became disillusioned with the actual business of serving as a priest, which seems to me to be separate from what one normally thinks of as faith. The congregants were a great disappointment, failing to share her beliefs and not always liking her sermons. One would have thought that all that studying of various theological ideas would have prepared her for controversy. Perhaps she feels that God failed her by not supplying a descending dove and an approving voice out of heaven. If he wasn't more supportive, then the wedding/ordination was off. I am trying not to be too disappointed because this wasn't what I expected, which was something of a struggle with religious ideas and ideals. Instead, Shenille comes off as a rather bewildered young woman. One can only hope that she will find a use for her education and a sense of direction in life. Hopefully her marriage will give her the sense of being special that she craves.

    Book preview

    Breaking Up with God - Sarah Sentilles

    =`ebook_preview_excerpt.html[]q+[RדEEQҵEɕ ˏb\#_sNKJI*Ϟӧ*Sί_뷭g?UVzy|%,M^}b_9WzwOUs)TͭX”q'ꆹcL?SFusuu}[[.^8UpFx6ֱTxzQݒu_V9bTc\i :doyraЃsѻWX!عÂuWM frӯS<,_ Ck[5! &<9z!Tu% &N`8Ʌ|aY~W}1ݧ0׭݄yO j r85 (]ߏЖ@pd> +}r<[\׿pNSǭ2Et팧|\h*Qh.bKuɻiƥK~_N>uޏ9@4n 6P>Cw{0g۾ƥkpg)g&Vp)f=AIՐ`wѹs}\dNS~a98_4Ug`  ap]ř%+Dj:q;[ƻWA]}YU#Gƀ.1L'"$9cx{GocÌV+kžhD61Nu[i)O,i[A$2X=]PlG u2谚yLR[h3hЯ'B}Aܟ հfE o8B:C2rAl}(H4$c03:GfLΉ{rcP]2GU<)ֆa]K_:k 5XIs/ v ""sEdw,zqf3͂;`ZasYXz)x hzj5]`Y95dVxIB>z͏Ր&pHu{uJ!qnz}SG>ᴓGÝRϪPLh4nBI8 Wo~Ot# w3']ba1cM :Նe{ ȥ픑i~0;kQ-iB j"W@>$\4!jި{17+!LKzupRwK[5NR06wyfJBM^@ 5;bP Yސ|ɞKzIgD(pcÎ,v0iBMxv5f=z^Wj^@EE|jBU,g Ψ)+y\~ D',̲߭ e@.fh NAbJR_H.Ƈ8El'y·A6:ˈ?19.G =ݏtCZ E>fӖ.W1ExOkwB!1FEqFޯSHԍn,QEf B%*̷ѳovVM,A܀+CZ{ "+D {_Iyl -iZe[%XV!& )rѰpݛ2a]M!r}n7ҘI@3Bn q$zz`y)(jDy?*d9r=w;z# ]cPKpl'oI(z8bs=Т eX-F %/q(VTdKف8{eA[4vTRlayX+EHD, 7YYY!E/E] fT_}Ϲ۷_[n-Wfꈳ=-e`|deV]8'eФdTjJ6!CR4g1a8FYLL~qJRgvqi-?- r[9F1fymPcK8Ux 'p>Q;siK+-7 %j~U_e 1!ð eFalϋ5tpC"6+ 9sDq|3/͎gvwvSB$H+$*8FpYcU.g m^ۛ"k.0 áOK޶4 E6&tS8u d"ZK dLa[Vi 7xw%BM[`U9sTWZ̄\mBy b ݭT8TT53059JK7!2, tEێx~w 'uؼ-ATewjEh6V#}R64)B.kfѬW<'vVɄ`TvW_bzSGJ lk^X7l)Puw3[N~HO: e`Dz#+ o eFҤQG#S5vP``+@`PPElU'&JgJҌe2#!#cbQ7wժ薼Uz4C-P0}r 5c"cG3 {X5w2W00<;F$c. չn0_w uPT+,P:;]6A l,b M7g .SgC==T۟JFt:;`)p}lBtK$IOFi d^dΥ8/ى+e:I)JRhL\ӖHȨX$_(Ӑ~ڷ9-q1Ϗb˖g̱ÿ8dꙂ`w8`٪ ryKiqeBCG[A06cjmUfqӊԌ~F#Y jpybQMZ\-3wJ$Gu4vP|2cM{fˋc n|V˞ylh+vƨx1omѩ׮*l:&2d,S|. $EkzwOT=g9D#îT&% ;sأG2ĊMlƪwڬp5@Ty#6&P ò#3J<}'O.% b3.ěa LȽ5Lۍ}XGIMЧҺNB9N*x;ʙO ۯL0uOn4)mWфE`s{;= XH9'Y\Yb̥|`q=ŲJn8Nv$nkn.5 V :$oU.kQtYI>oUѳH J$3)lJ<[@]:vX`b|2EJ}{r%?gHU %>_1a4QʻeUFs5Im!s3P(zevMќ-zH=-H{Nd'pr5nAwB͐NԈ>~' = GogmgoK朌ou|h[2,k ? \K< 9oZUuϢ_|#t/y^a@&Snkv Bo j^\ KE9f9V蛳I;2̬ O |~o~P^`ecfkt9 nva|>W_acwRN)C,d?)bi5+":cuN7Kuj}:ar?0Sp&5<]%NÓ|<nZ.Wsވr| WՌ9]׈Jeff2½,|uD@$*g@K?+,,gYVn5߻7K ؽKG:?)0Xٞl\Vv3>lCWrBj{@vվ9>reL 2vMʜ"qL{G?Mt62{x'}&u1 _6wzc'Wדbξ3SϮE3 ]6f!QY&@kʆǃ8wRG_'/Q1Zg)eer¡ ))0]"{z[42rqbՋ0lhwvaX `X:ۭ\nRIS蛋I9KX2&dوN(qX%^3my5Cg O*u?%ܷR2U*쳟yZ;],c!Y/[Mȭg3鋋mg{񳈎Ns(ȼ?qc_;߬MBwU8*G,JQ ˥d+gۚQeϨhFDzMtOqn}#skoס|c0c4nqQ̅;*=ETQ䚮d|(}5%$J%(_f!Ү1i/DԺLaWs8*z6~F5zd$cP?[ w.ҶO d̿g`.bS{Μwe9byXM:(<ا\N5?
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1