Deconstructed Do-Gooder

Many Christian communities place a high value on having the right answers and building visible movements, and believers often feel pressed to confirm that everyone around them is on the correct path before they can be considered faithful. Britney Winn Lee, who admits she has been caught up in this herself, comes back to a question a legal expert puts to Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan: what must I do?

Lee approaches the story by stepping into each of its figures in turn, from the priest and the innkeeper to the robbers and the injured traveler. She invites readers to find their own place in the parable as well, whether their experience is conservative evangelicalism, cross-cultural mission work, new monastic communities, doubt, the grief of postpartum depression, or the end of a ministry.

Told as narrative, her path through theological deconstruction shows how a sincere desire to do good can produce harm, and where mercy can be found once a person's religious routes and goals have fallen away.