In the 2021 spring semester my friend Ann Pederson, professor of religion at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, taught a class called “Exploring Christian Faith.” My Flashes of Grace: 33 Encounters with God, was on the syllabus, along with Lenny Duncan’s Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S.; Barbara Brown Taylor’s Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others; and Keith Ward’s God: A Guide for the Perplexed.
At the end of the