A FAITH OF MANY ROOMS

A memoir and argument for a more inclusive version of Christianity.

Thomas explores her experiences as the daughter of Indian immigrants, growing up as an evangelical Christian in a community largely separate from the broader American culture. She also delves into her own faith journey from evangelicalism to progressive, mainline Christianity. The author’s family belongs to an ancient Christian tradition that can be traced to the first century C.E. and to the missionary efforts of the Apostle Thomas. However, her family’s own particular brand of Christianity was also influenced by 20th-century evangelicals. Thomas spent her youth immersed in a faith life that exacerbated her senses of shame and low self-worth. Growing up a cultural Indian in the U.S. also made her youth difficult to navigate, as she felt like an outsider in her own land. As Thomas matured, her views became more progressive and she found herself at odds with the faith of her family and childhood. However, she notes that she found room in the Christian tradition for her own, burgeoning faith direction. It was not an easy transition. “When I left evangelicalism,” she notes, “I felt like I was entering a wilderness in the darkest hours of the night.…The terror was ominous and total; all I felt was dread.” In time, however, she found faith in a Christianity less defined by belief systems than by a generous view of both sin (incorporating social issues more than mere rule following) and salvation (a possible healing for humanity as a whole). “A roomier understanding of sin requires an equally roomy vision of salvation,” she writes. Through a Christianity rooted in unrestrained readings of scripture and open to moral and ethical paradoxes, Thomas discovered a way to retain her faith and reaffirm her identity.

A solid defense of modern, progressive Christianity from a unique perspective.