Ocean State Libraries

It's a cold, snowy December in the upstate New York town of Millers Kill, and newly ordained Clare Fergusson is on thin ice as the first female priest of its small Episcopal church. The ancient regime running the parish covertly demands that she prove herself as a leader. However, her blunt manner, honed by years as an army pilot, is meeting with a chilly reception from some members of her congregation and Chief of Police Russ Van Alystyne, in

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It's the Fourth of July, and a violent attack on the town's medical examiner triggers a series of assaults on other gay men in Millers Kill, New York. Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson wants to call them out as hate crimes. Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne wants to keep his investigation quiet. When a controversial resort developer is found brutally murdered, Clare and Russ must put aside their sharp differences -- and their keen attraction -- to connect...

"Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey begun in Leaving Church of finding out what the world looks like after taking off her clergy collar. While teaching the world's religions to undergraduates in rural Georgia, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students' eyes as she sets off with them on field...

In the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, acclaimed author Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey by building upon where she left off in Leaving Church. With the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and the spiritual depth of Anne Lamott (Grace, Eventually), Taylor shares how she learned to find God beyond the church walls by embracing the sacred as a natural part of everyday life. In An Altar in the World, Taylor...

"This beautiful book is rich with wit and humanness and honesty and loving detail....I cannot overstate how liberating and transforming I have found Leaving Church to be." —Frederick Buechner, author of Beyond Words
"This is an astonishing book. . . . Taylor is a better writer than LaMott and a better theologian than Norris. In a word, she is the best there is." —Living Church
Barbara Brown Taylor, once hailed as one of America's

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In the history of the Western World, the Bible has been a perpetual source of inspiration and guidance for countless Christians. However, this Bible has also left a trail of pain. It is undeniable that the Bible is not always used for good. Sometimes the Bible can seem overtly evil. Sometimes its texts are terrible. Bishop John Shelby Spong boldly approaches those texts that have been used through history to justify the denigration or persecution...

"In less than a year and a half, Liz's mother killed herself and her infant son died unexpectedly. In between these two deaths, Liz was ordained as an Episcopal priest. The Night Lake is the story of finding a way forward through the kind of tragedy that seems like it might be beyond surviving, and trying to do so while holding down a job that's all about leading a community in hope. It's the story of parenting a toddler who is delighted with the...

From Gene Robinson, the Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church, the first openly gay person elected (in 2003) to the historic episcopate and the world's leading religious spokesperson for gay rights and gay marriage, comes a groundbreaking book that lovingly and persuasively makes the case for same-sex marriage. It establishes a commonsense, reasoned, religious argument, made by someone who holds the religious text of the Bible...