Lauren Winner

The Reverend
Lauren Winner
Born1976 (age 49–50)
Other namesLauren Frances Winner
Spouse
Griff Gatewood
​
​
(m. 2003; div. 2009)​
Ecclesiastical career
ReligionChristianity (Anglican)
ChurchEpiscopal Church (United States)
Ordained2011 (priest)
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisMaterial Culture and Household Religious Practice in Colonial Virginia (2006)
Academic work
Discipline
InstitutionsDuke University

Lauren Frances Winner (born 1976)[1][2] is an American historian, scholar of religion, and Episcopal priest. She is associate professor of Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School.[3] Winner writes and lectures on Christian practice, the history of Christianity in America, and Jewish–Christian relations.[4]

Early life and education

Winner was born to a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother, and was raised Jewish.[5] She converted to Orthodox Judaism in her freshman year at Columbia University,[6] and then to Christianity while doing her master's degree at Cambridge University, and one of her books, Mudhouse Sabbath, is about becoming a Christian while appreciating the Jewishness of historical Christian faith. She completed her doctoral work at Columbia University in 2006.[7] Winner's fourth book, A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Colonial Virginia is based on her dissertation.[8]

Career

Winner has worked as a book editor of Beliefnet[9] and senior editor of Christianity Today. In 2000 she wrote a column asserting that few young evangelicals took a commitment to premarital chastity seriously, using the phrase "evangelical whores".[10] Julia Duin suggests that Winner was a "fairly recent convert" at the time, and "the evangelical response to Winner was livid."[11] Duin goes on to relate that "Christianity Today quickly demoted her to a staff writer spot when people started asking why such a recent convert in her early twenties and still in grad school had managed to attain senior writer status at such a revered publication."[11]

Winner completed a Master of Divinity degree at Duke University in 2007. She has been a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University[7] and the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University[12] and volunteers regularly at the Raleigh Correctional Center for Women.[13]

Her memoir, Girl Meets God has been described as "a passionate and thoroughly engaging account of a continuing spiritual journey within two profoundly different faiths."[14] A second memoir, Still: Notes on a Mid-faith Crisis (2012) chronicles her thoughts on God as she descends into doubt and spiritual crisis following the failure of her brief (2003–2009) marriage.[15] Christianity Today called Still "an instant spiritual classic."[16] Her other books include Mudhouse Sabbath; Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity; and Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God (2016).

Winner was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in December 2011.[17] She has taught at Duke Divinity School since 2007.[3][18]

Bibliography

  • Girl Meets God: A Memoir (2003)
  • Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity (2006)
    • Sexo verdadero: La castidad al desnudo
  • Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline (Paraclete Press, 2007) ISBN 9781557255327
  • A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Yale University Press, 2010) ISBN 9780300124699
  • Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis (HarperOne, 2012) ISBN 9780061768118
  • Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God (HarperOne, 2015) ISBN 9780061768132
  • (contributor) What Did Jesus Ask? (Time, 2015) ISBN 9781618930583
  • A Word to Live By (Church's Teachings for a Changing World) (Church Publishing, 2017) ISBN 9780898692587
  • The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin (Yale University Press, 2018) ISBN 9780300215823

References

  1. ^ Baumann, Paul (24 November 2002). "A puzzling memoir about a religious conversion". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
  2. ^ Shimron, Yonat (16 February 2012). "Author tackles doubt, divorce and the priesthood". USA Today. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Lauren Winner". Duke Divinity School. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  4. ^ "50 Women You Should Know". Christianity Today. 19 October 2012. Retrieved 16 November 2012.
  5. ^ "Lauren Winner". www.laurenwinner.net. Archived from the original on 7 August 2007. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  6. ^ "Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
  7. ^ a b "Current Fellows in the Study of Religion and Religious History for 2007-2008". Princeton University. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
  8. ^ Spangler, Jewel L. (2011). "A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia by Lauren F. Winner". The American Historical Review. 116 (5). The American Historical Association: 1483–4. doi:10.1086/ahr.116.5.1483. ISSN 1937-5239.
  9. ^ "Bio". Retrieved 11 December 2010. Official website.
  10. ^ Winner, Lauren F. "Sex and the Single Evangelical". Beliefnet. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  11. ^ a b Duin, Julia (2008). Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It. Grand Rapids: Baker Books. p. 34.
  12. ^ "Institute of Sacred Music". Yale.edu. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  13. ^ "Lauren F. Winner". Sojourners. 16 February 2011. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  14. ^ Lindbergh, Reeve (15 December 2002). "Born Again . . . and Again". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  15. ^ "Lauren Winner". Calvin College. Archived from the original on 28 October 2010. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  16. ^ "Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis". HarperCollins AUS. Retrieved 22 February 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  17. ^ "Lauren F. Winner: Most of Our Spiritual Life Is Not Spent in Ecstasy". Faith and Leadership. 23 April 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2025.
  18. ^ "Religion Notes". The Washington Post. 20 September 2007. ProQuest 410138834. Retrieved 10 September 2025 – via ProQuest.
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