Standing Naked Before God

by Molly Phinney Baskette

We suffer when we screw up, but we suffer doubly when we conceal our screwing up from each other and from ourselves. As the good folks in AA say, "we are only as sick as our secrets."We all like to think of ourselves as 'good people,' but that's only half the story--and to tell only half the story is to live only half our lives. Standing Naked Before God is a book about telling the whole story--one amazing, vibrant progressive Christian church's countercultural practice of public confession of sin. Every week, millenials, Gen-Xers, Boomers and even young teens at First Church Somerville UCC, the church Baskette pastors in hipster Boston, take the stand to tell about a time they messed up, broke bad, or made Jesus want to cry. The book is part how-to, part devotional reading, part how-to, and part anthology of stories of personal loss, vulnerability, failure and redemption--stories to make you laugh and cry in equal measure. It's a book, in our tell-all culture, that is not about baring our souls to get more likes or it's about putting our wounds into the service of others. Telling the stories of our sins in a sacred setting means learning to see how God has entered those stories, turning even our failures and flaws to goodness and grace. All we have to do is show up--and tell the truth. All of it.This is a book for spiritual seekers of any stripe who love true stories, and who might be aching for a spiritual practice that will move them toward a wholehearted, vulnerable and fully integrated life.

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 19, 2015

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an important ritual, and compellingly portrayed. It's got theology, how-to, and real peoples' stories.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a stewardship project at church. It is about a church where its members truly share their stories with the congregation in a somewhat "confessing" mode.