Carol Howard Merritt is an author, speaker, and minister who grew up in a white evangelical church and with an unpredictable and sometimes violent father. These experiences shaped her view of a punitive, judgmental God. She writes from personal experience and as professional minister about spiritual wounds inflicted by the church and how people can heal from them in her latest book.

In Healing Spiritual Wounds: Reconnecting with a Loving God After Experiencing a Hurtful Church, she discusses her experience and that of others who have been spiritually abused by authoritarianism, patriarchy, and negative self-image propagated by a fundamentalist religion. She devotes each chapter to specific wounds with exercises as to how healing can happen.

She has written several books on the church with a special focus on the needs of younger generations. She was previously on Progressive Spirit when we discussed Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation.

Carol hosts God Complex Radio and is a regular contributor to the Christian Century, the Huffington Post and she blogs at Tribal Church. Carol and I are both Presbyterian Church (USA) ministers and it is a pleasure to introduce her compassionate and honest work to my listeners.

This is the second in my series of interviews with holy, healing, spiritually disobedient, creative, and awakened women.