Deconstructed Do-Gooder: A Memoir About Learning Mercy the Hard Way

In a Christian culture driven by answer-knowing and movement-making, we have largely become addicted to figuring out the way and ensuring that others are walking it as well in order to be counted faithful. An addict to this end herself, Britney Winn Lee is no stranger to the question posed by the lawmaker in the story of the Good Samaritan: “Teacher, what must I do . . . ?” Here, she takes us through her journey of becoming every character in the parable--from Priest to Innkeeper, from Robber to Wounded. Lee offers us an invitation to find ourselves in the story, be that in conservative evangelicalism, overseas missions, new monastic communities, cynical doubts, or the pain of postpartum depression and ministries ending. Her complicated road of theological deconstructions (expressed through narrative) exposes the harm that can be caused by a deep desire to do good as well as the mercy that can be found when all of one’s religious paths and purposes are lost.