From the first female senior minister at New York's historic Riverside
Church, a deeply personal memoir about the nature of faith, the
inevitability of doubt, and the importance of radical love in facing all
the beautiful and terrible things that happen in our lives.
How does a young, single, and divorced Baptist mother of three come to
find herself leading from one of the most prominent pulpits in America?
In Beautiful and Terrible Things, Amy Butler works her way toward
an answer, probing the depths of her pastoral and personal life and
exploring her views on scripture, society, and family.
Pastor Amy grew up in a conservative Evangelical family in the diverse
culture of the Hawaiian Islands. As she realized she was more inclined
to be a pastor than to marry one, she began an unlikely journey,
breaking one stained-glass ceiling after another--first in seminary,
then in increasingly high-profile ministry positions in New Orleans,
Washington, DC, and New York. Along the way, she weathered rigidly
unwelcoming congregations and enormous trials: church conflict, the
death of a child, an unexpected divorce.
Despite it all, her experiences of radical love and healing empowered
Amy to lead others through the brightest and darkest moments of their
lives. Inspiring, candid, funny, and achingly true, Amy's literary
reflections sketch her path through the thickets of doubt and despair to
a durable, profound, and beautiful faith of her own.
