A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
Minister Carol Howard Merritt writes for people whose relationship to Christianity has been damaged by authoritarian teaching, shame, exclusion, or betrayal. Through pastoral reflection, memoir, spiritual practices, and engagement with psychology, she names wounds involving harmful images of God, the body, gender, sexuality, family, and religious authority, then explores forms of repair that do not require denying what happened.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
This book offers a bridge for travelers who need their religious harm taken seriously but are not necessarily ready to abandon every Christian symbol or practice. Merritt treats healing as reclaiming agency rather than restoring institutional loyalty, and she makes room for anger, grief, boundaries, and revised images of God. It belongs as a pastoral companion for one possible path after spiritual injury—not as proof that healing must remain Christian or culminate in church return.
Good starting place if…
You have been hurt by Christian teaching or community and want a gentle, practice-oriented companion that leaves room to renegotiate faith rather than prescribing return.
Know before you begin…
The book remains explicitly Christian and may feel too close to the language or symbols through which harm occurred. Its exercises and pastoral stories are not trauma therapy, an investigation of abuse, or a substitute for medical, legal, or safeguarding support. ‘Healing’ need not mean reconciliation, renewed belief, forgiveness on demand, or access for people who caused harm. Readers can decline any practice, retain uncertainty, or choose a fully nonreligious route.