Debie Thomas
Writer, Seeker, Wonderer
AVAILABLE NOW
When your faith begins to feel too small, too confining, you could choose to leave it. But what if the faith we inhabit is roomier than we'd thought? What if our collapsing faith is just a closet in a much larger dwelling? Disillusioned by narrow theologies, church dysfunction, and constricted readings of Scripture, people are leaving Christianity in droves. But Jesus describes the reign of God as a house with many rooms. The kind of God who decided to experience the world as a guest likely feels constrained by our pinched theologies too. What sorts of ruptures and revisions would it take to find a more spacious faith--and then to inhabit it with authenticity and joy?
A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity
TESTIMONIALS
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For years, Debie Thomas has offered fans like me a winsome, enlightened approach to the word of God. This time, in this book, she opens the door to God's whole, colorful, many-winged house—a house where our cultures are gifts, our ancestors are prophets, everyone’s story matters, and God is always near. Brilliant, carefully crafted, and heart-stopping in its beauty and honesty, this is Debie Thomas at her best.”
THE REV. STEPHANIE SPELLERS
Canon to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and author of The Church Cracked Open
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I have been feasting on Debie Thomas’s words for years. I often say that she reads the Bible like a radiologist reads an MRI, seeing things I could never see. But in this book I get a glimpse of Debie herself, and I’m grateful. The story of her journey from the cramped closet of an evangelical childhood to the “many rooms” of a more generous faith is one of her greatest gifts to the church, and one I hope she will continue to share. It inspires my own journey.
THE REV. JIM SOMERVILLE
Pastor of Richmond’s First Baptist Church and Founder of A Sermon for Every Sunday
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I found myself feeling very at home and unexpectedly exposed reading Debie Thomas's quest for a faith and a place to be at home and not an outsider. Thomas rests in Jesus's promise of a spacious, roomy Christianity that travels with us, crosses borders, and bears our sorrows. If you are curious about a faith capacious enough to embrace the entire world with reverence and humility, this story of one Malayalee woman's journey to bare her whole self to the God of the universe is a must read. Me too, Debie, I have caught myself saying blessed Thomas (and Mary) of India, pray for us.
THE REV. WINNIE VARGHESE
Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta, GA
BIO
I’m the author of A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity, and Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ. I’m a columnist and contributing editor for The Christian Century, and from 2014 to 2022, I was a staff writer for Journey with Jesus: A Weekly Webzine for the Global Church. I now serve as the Minister for Lifelong Formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, CA.