Lauren Winner
American writer (born 1976)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lauren Frances Winner (born 1976)[1][2] is an American historian, scholar of religion, and Episcopal priest. She is associate professor of Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School.[3] Winner writes and lectures on Christian practice, the history of Christianity in America, and Jewish–Christian relations.[4]
Lauren Winner | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1976 (age 49–50) |
| Other names | Lauren Frances Winner |
| Spouse |
Griff Gatewood
(m. 2003; div. 2009) |
| Ecclesiastical career | |
| Religion | Christianity (Anglican) |
| Church | Episcopal Church (United States) |
| Ordained | 2011 (priest) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Material Culture and Household Religious Practice in Colonial Virginia (2006) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Institutions | Duke University |
Early life and education
Winner was born to a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother, and was raised Jewish.[5] She converted to Orthodox Judaism in her freshman year at Columbia University,[6] and then to Christianity while doing her master's degree at Cambridge University, and one of her books, Mudhouse Sabbath, is about becoming a Christian while appreciating the Jewishness of historical Christian faith. She completed her doctoral work at Columbia University in 2006.[7] Winner's fourth book, A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Colonial Virginia is based on her dissertation.[8]
Career
Winner has worked as a book editor of Beliefnet[9] and senior editor of Christianity Today. In 2000 she wrote a column asserting that few young evangelicals took a commitment to premarital chastity seriously, using the phrase "evangelical whores".[10] Julia Duin suggests that Winner was a "fairly recent convert" at the time, and "the evangelical response to Winner was livid."[11] Duin goes on to relate that "Christianity Today quickly demoted her to a staff writer spot when people started asking why such a recent convert in her early twenties and still in grad school had managed to attain senior writer status at such a revered publication."[11]
Winner completed a Master of Divinity degree at Duke University in 2007. She has been a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University[7] and the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University[12] and volunteers regularly at the Raleigh Correctional Center for Women.[13]
Her memoir, Girl Meets God has been described as "a passionate and thoroughly engaging account of a continuing spiritual journey within two profoundly different faiths."[14] A second memoir, Still: Notes on a Mid-faith Crisis (2012) chronicles her thoughts on God as she descends into doubt and spiritual crisis following the failure of her brief (2003–2009) marriage.[15] Christianity Today called Still "an instant spiritual classic."[16] Her other books include Mudhouse Sabbath; Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity; and Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God (2016).
Winner was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in December 2011.[17] She has taught at Duke Divinity School since 2007.[3][18]
Bibliography
- Girl Meets God: A Memoir (2003)
- Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity (2006)
- Sexo verdadero: La castidad al desnudo
- Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline (Paraclete Press, 2007) ISBN 9781557255327
- A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Yale University Press, 2010) ISBN 9780300124699
- Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis (HarperOne, 2012) ISBN 9780061768118
- Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God (HarperOne, 2015) ISBN 9780061768132
- (contributor) What Did Jesus Ask? (Time, 2015) ISBN 9781618930583
- A Word to Live By (Church's Teachings for a Changing World) (Church Publishing, 2017) ISBN 9780898692587
- The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin (Yale University Press, 2018) ISBN 9780300215823