Customer Reviews

What Would I Believe if I Didn't Believe Anything: A Handbook for Spiritual Orphans

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4 star:		(1)
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I've read the manuscript for Kent's book. For the first time in any book I've ever read about spirituality, I felt connected. Finally someone (Kent) understands my experience with the Church.
I love God, but have always struggled with the institutional Church, which has seemed far removed from where I "live, move, and have my being." I have been a spiritual orphan and Kent's book normalized my feelings in a way that the institutional Church has never been willing to name or to even address. If anyone has ever felt like a spiritual orphan, this is THE BOOK for them to buy. John Sivley

Dr. Groff offers many images and stories which invite us to journey deeper to the place where we meet and are met by one greater than ourselves. He gently and playfully invites the agnostic to risk believing and the believer to risk questioning. He seems to trust that the richest place to walk in life is that thin line between faith and doubt (where we can learn from our the great faith traditions and contemporary culture without dismissing either). As a thirty-something pastor who struggles to believe much of what i've been taught and who continues to find great wisdom and grace in and through my doubts, i appreciate Dr. Groff's commitment to speaking to people like me, who thirst for meaning, but don't often find it where we are told to find it; and who often stumble upon it in the strangest of places. This is a book you'll want to read, return to, and journal with.

Many of the books out there are intellectual arguments. Those are important but that is not what a spiritual orphan needs. While this book has an intellectual foundation,it speaks to the heart and one's experience. This handbook doesn't offer answers but invites the reader to look deeply within oneself and honor one's journey. Kent Groff models this with his own personal reflections. The great thing about this book is that it enables the reader to journey with others. It is also easy to read with the lift-outs.

I am a Lay Pastor and was looking for a book for someone struggling with their faith. This book was not what I thought it was going to be. It is alright, but I would not recommend it to someone struggling with their faith. I think it would just confuse them more.