The Church Has Left the Building

"In The Church Has Left the Building, Michael Plekon compiles moving testimonies about what it means to depart from the structures that have held and sustained us. The voices in this book do not gloss over our situation with magical solutions or blind denial. Instead, they present real reflections of what it means to be church today. Through their honest grief, gratitude and liberation, they call out with a deeply hopeful vision."

--Carol Howard Merritt, author of Healing Spiritual Wounds; columnist and blogger for The Christian Century; senior consultant for the Center for Progressive Renewal



"Michael Plekon has in recent years brought to life a wide variety of extraordinary Christian figures, past and present, and thought through their witness in the light of his richly nuanced understanding of Orthodox theology and tradition. This new book is a sort of wake-up call to all who worry about the future of institutional Christianity: the Church as gift and mystery is a good deal more resilient than the various awkward structures in which it embodies itself, and we need a voice like Plekon's to remind us of this and to recall us to hopefulness."

--Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge