The River Beyond the Dam: Shooting the Rapids of Progressive Christianity: A Memoir shares with readers your journey looking for a church that breaks from traditional dogma and focuses on being better community members and climate activists. Why was this an important book for you to write?

In a word, I couldn’t find anything like it. I stumbled into a progressive church almost by accident, encountering an old strand of Christianity so unlike the Christianity I knew (and had rejected) that it blew my mind. Why didn’t I know about this before? The only books I could find along this line were by religious professionals—clergy, theologians—exactly the kind of book I would never have picked up after rejecting the faith.

Yet my new experience was not simply an interesting discovery I wanted to share—it was changing deep thought habits in me. I had an American habit of judging others, of turning sour when disappointed, and trying to live as a modern person, one who sweeps away various disappointing heritages. And these narrowing habits were being replaced by—can I say it? A happier, wider state of mind.

I thought maybe a personal memoir, with a regular person’s findings of what church can be in this real world of ours, might reach and surprise general readers, especially those who, like me, had thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

I wanted to encourage a deeper look at the common conclusion that we would “be better off without organized religion,” even though I tended to agree with some of that, about hidebound religion. I wanted to see if I could get beneath the accrued barnacles of social control that put a few white males on top and get a look at the magnificent whale beneath those metaphorical barnacles. Just as important, I wanted to challenge the idea that, in spiritual matters, solo traveling is essentially the same as traveling with a community. Last, that churches can help pull together responses to the interconnected challenges of our time.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

Yowza. I was sorely tempted to exclude some of the personal stuff, like my silly overreaction to getting testy at the council meeting. As a worrier type of introvert, I would have liked to keep the personal at arms-length from the discoveries I wanted to talk about. But something told me to bite the bullet—that the story required I get real, get personal.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?

Whether or not you choose church for yourself, I hope that in your activism, whether on the environment or on race and gender equality, you will be open to finding allies in unexpected places. And that your daily life becomes happier.

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