Strength for the Journey: A Pilgrimage of Faith in Community - Hardcover

"The book you are holding in your hands is as much an amazement as a book. Though it may be--and is--gentle and unassuming, the tale told on these pages spreads in one's soul over time like a powerful music heard or a rich brandy well savored.... Strength for the Journey is a sui generis, a thing unto itself, a one-of-a-kind book." (From the foreword by Phyllis Tickle, author of The Divine Hours and The Shaping of a Life)

"Diana Bass is an astute, acute, and articulate commentator on the religious scene, with a knack for detecting the resonances between her own story and the larger story of religion and culture. A clear and witty voice, laced with humor." (Patrick Henry, executive director Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research)

"With the insights of a mystic, Diana Butler Bass recounts her spiritual pilgrimage from Methodism to evangelicalism to the benumbing diversity of the Episcopal Church, where she found a spiritual home. Along the way, she offers a guided tour of the crises and the controversies afflicting mainline Protestantism over the past several decades. For anyone looking for evidence that the glass of mainline Protestantism is half full rather than half empty, Strength for the Journey offers a persuasive case." (Randall Balmer Author of Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith)

"A compelling intertwining of a personal spiritual journey and the recent history of Protestantism. Diana Butler-Bass makes the case that Baby Boom seekers are drawing the Church into a new, more authentic Christianity." (Nora Gallagher Author of Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith)

"This book is the story of intertwined journeys--how one woman observed and experienced the shifts and struggles of mainline religion as she lived her own journey in eight Episcopal congregations over two decades. And it is the story of each congregation at a particular moment in its history. Each experienced some degree of ferment about its identity, about the denomination, about its vocation and mission in the world, and about the nature of faith community. Those conflicts have changed me, have changed the congregations, and, I believe, are changing the nature of mainline churchgoing."
— from the Introduction

"Embroidering her commentary with the intricate knots and binding strands of the Church's history among us, Bass renders for us a new fabric of many colors and invites us to shelter ourselves within its triumphant folds. She also, as I have said from the very beginning, thereby creates something of a post-modern amazement."
— From the Foreword by Phyllis Tickle

"Diana Butler Bass has written a rare kind of book. Part religious travelogue, part contemporary tracing of one pilgrim's progress, part spiritual autobiography, Strength for the Journey gives us a very personal and a very acute view of what life is like for a committed Christian today."
— James P. Wind, president, The Alban Institute

"A compelling intertwining of a personal spiritual journey and the recent history of Protestantism. Diana Butler Bass makes the case that baby boom seekers are drawing the Church into a new, more authentic Christianity."
— Nora Gallagher, author, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith

"With the insights of a mystic, Diana Butler Bass recounts her spiritual pilgrimage from Methodism to evangelicalism to the benumbing diversity of the Episcopal Church, where she found a spiritual home. Along the way, she offers a guided tour of the crises and the controversies afflicting mainline Protestantism over the past several decades. For anyone looking for evidence that the glass of manline Protestantism is half full rather than half empty Strength for the Journey offers a persuasive case."
— Randall Balmer, author, Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith