{"id":2301,"date":"2012-06-29T11:37:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=2301"},"modified":"2012-06-29T11:38:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:38:21","slug":"rightness-versus-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/06\/rightness-versus-truth.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Rightness&#8221; Versus Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Barbara Brown Taylor spoke at First Baptist Decatur yesterday six years following the publication of her memoir, <em>Leaving Church. \u00a0<\/em>She is one of my role models for her authenticity (an over-used word, I know, but for lack of a better term), groundedness and commitment to telling the truth as a preacher turned writer.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor began her talk with a helpful distinction. \u00a0Pastors spend much of their time being concerned with &#8220;rightness&#8221; and &#8220;wrongness.&#8221; \u00a0Taylor had spent years in the pastorate doing just this, because &#8220;being right&#8221; had been part of her implicit job description. \u00a0But when she sat down to write <em>Leaving Church<\/em>, Taylor set out to tell a story that most fundamentally was simply &#8220;true&#8221;- true to her own experience, which may or may not be true for her readers, but was indeed true for her.<\/p>\n<p>I like the distinction. \u00a0It helps to explain the gap between our smiling faces in church that show only &#8220;shards&#8221; (Taylor&#8217;s term) of ourselves on Sunday mornings and the rest of our lives- why it is that we so often retreat from church when life throws us a curve ball in the form of a divorce, or depression or some other kind of devastating new story line.<\/p>\n<p>In times like these, we&#8217;re not looking for rightness or wrongness. \u00a0We&#8217;re looking for Truth. \u00a0We&#8217;re looking, whether or not we know it, for Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>And, the good news here is that we don&#8217;t have to look far for the Truth. \u00a0The Truth just &#8220;happens&#8221; to us. \u00a0All we need to decide is whether to <em>tell<\/em> the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Many of us don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barbara Brown Taylor spoke at First Baptist Decatur yesterday six years following the publication of her memoir, Leaving Church. \u00a0She is one of my role models for her authenticity (an over-used word, I know, but for lack of a better term), groundedness and commitment to telling the truth as a preacher turned writer. Taylor began&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,15,13,122],"tags":[144,205,831,751,372,830,829],"class_list":["post-2301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-mission","category-spirituality","category-theology","tag-barbara-brown-taylor","tag-depression","tag-divorce","tag-leaving-church","tag-spiritual-but-not-religious","tag-spiritual-memoir","tag-telling-the-truth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Rightness&quot; Versus Truth - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/06\/rightness-versus-truth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Rightness&quot; Versus Truth - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barbara Brown Taylor spoke at First Baptist Decatur yesterday six years following the publication of her memoir, Leaving Church. \u00a0She is one of my role models for her authenticity (an over-used word, I know, but for lack of a better term), groundedness and commitment to telling the truth as a preacher turned writer. 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