Ten Things I Learned Wrong from a Conservative Church

by John Killinger

In this eloquent memoir, one of the grand figures of conservative Protestantism reveals what he learned from his upbringing and how, with trust in God and compassion for others, his faith matured. With gentle humor and compassion, Killinger shows how faith is a constant, even as beliefs and the world around us change.

Genres: Spirituality

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

The Rev. Dr. John Killinger lives with his wife, Anne, in Warrenton, Virginia. A former pastor in Baptist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches, he also taught for fifteen years at Vanderbilt Divinity School and was Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Samford University in Birmingham. He is the author of over 50 books, among them God, The Devil, and Harry Potter. Because Dr. Killinger's interests are broad, his writings have touched on many subjects: Christian history, personal spirituality, world religions, preaching, worship, church politics, a female Christ figure, the Gospels as devotional literature, secular writers and artists, the nature of pastoral ministry, and the relationship between theology and contemporary culture. His prayers and utterances often find their way into Sunday church bulletins and other ministers' sermons. You will find inspiration and spiritual sustenance within.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has largely left his own faith tradition behind, largely because I have trouble accepting the conservative elements that seem to be hijacking the narrative within the Church, I was curious to see what this author might have to say on this subject. Unlike me, the author hasn't largely abandoned religion, but remains a believer, albeit one who has adopted a more liberal, open approach to religion. I find his approach to be familiar to what I believed (when I did), and I also found that I agreed with much of what he finds to be problematic with the conservative Christian approach to theology.

My background in the Catholic Church gives me a slightly different point of view, from the author, who comes from a Southern Baptist tradition. While the conservatives in the Catholic Church do embrace some of what he talks about here, the Catholic tradition is not so monolithic in the way that the SBC is, so that his experience is significantly different than mine. But it was interesting to follow the evolution of his understanding of theology, and to see the problems he identifies in the conservative Christian theology.

In the years since this book was written, conservative Christian groups have become a powerful political force, having largely co-opted much of the political right in this country. This book is useful in understanding their world-view and why they embrace the policies they do. Unfortunately, it does not really provide much inside into how to change that world-view or how to address their attempts to co-opt public policy.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. The major problem that I had with this was that one had to agree with the author on his first point, if not, the whole basis of the book kind of fell through. Very thought provoking though.