Few who have heard or read [Barbara Brown] Taylor are surprised that she is nudging people down a path toward endarkenment. For years, her sermons have been required reading at seminaries nationwide, and she often lectures at Princeton, Duke and the National Cathedral in Washington. She is the most requested Sunday speaker at New York\u2019s Chautauqua Institution and draws both atheists and divinity students to her book signings. And 13 books on, she has chronicled her own fascinating and complex faith journey for hundreds of thousands of readers. Taylor, says Randall Balmer, chair of Dartmouth\u2019s department of religion, \u201cbelongs in the pantheon of spiritual writers that includes such luminaries as the late Will Campbell, Anne Lamott and Frederick Buechner. She doesn\u2019t shy away from big issues, and her honesty is disarming.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Certainly, Taylor\u2019s new memoir, Learning to Walk in the Dark\u201d\u201con spirituality and self-help shelves in time for Good Friday\u201d\u201cchallenges the broad theological belief that darkness is evil, scary and just plain bad. But she is also taking on the sometimes far-too-sunny fashion in which churches tell their most important stories. It is easy to forget, amid \u201cthe Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets and bright streaming light,\u201d\u009d she notes, that the Resurrection happened in a dark cave. \u201cGod and darkness have been friends for a long time,\u201d\u009d Taylor says. \u201cIt\u2019s just one nighttime story after another\u201d\u201camazing.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a> and take a look at the Time Cover picture also<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few who have heard or read [Barbara Brown] Taylor are surprised that she is nudging people down a path toward endarkenment. For years, her sermons have been required reading at seminaries nationwide, and she often lectures at Princeton, Duke and…<\/span><\/p>\n