Rev. Dr. Amy Butler is the founder of the philanthropic initiative Invested Faith. She previously served as the first woman senior minister of The Riverside Church in New York City, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church (D.C.), associate pastor at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, and intentional interim minister at National City Christian Church (D.C.). Pastor Amy holds degrees from Baylor University, the International Baptist Theological Seminary, and Wesley Theological Seminary. A mother of three children, she currently lives in Hawaii.
“When I survey the state of institutional religion today, I find so many reasons to despair. But as Amy Butler reminds us, the church is not God. Informed by her deeply personal experiences, Beautiful and Terrible Things casts a vision for a wide-armed faith that is capable of making sense of these fractious and chaotic times. She fearlessly navigates white-hot cultural debates—from abortion to LGBTQ inclusion—with grace and humility, eschewing extremes and forging common ground. If you feel spiritually unmoored or religiously disillusioned, you’ll find more than a mustard seed of hope in the pages of this book. Amen and amen.”—Jonathan Merritt, award-winning author and contributing writer for The Atlantic