Incognito: Lost and Found at Harvard Divinity School
Dead set against ordination when she first enrolled at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), Raynor here recounts her change of heart in becoming a Methodist minister. Disarmingly candid, Raynor’s story reveals her own character as the independent-minded daughter of conservative midwestern parents, attracted as a girl to poetry and intrigued by medicine, but strangely drawn to religion. Not that her attraction to religion makes Raynor dourly orthodox. Anything but. Her romantic life resembles a kinetic carousel, while her piquant friendships land her in jail as an anti-Reagan protester and win her fame as cosponsor of HDS’ wildest Mardi Gras bash. Doctrinal strictures, in fact, seldom surface in the HDS world in which Raynor first experiences her calling to serve as a pastor. Surrounded by classmates immersed in Hindu philosophy, curious about Gnosticism, passionate about feminist and homosexual causes, and open to sex-change operations, Raynor emerges as a preacher with a decidedly nontraditional outlook. Even readers resistant to Raynor’s liberal Protestantism will find this an engaging, often amusing memoir. --Bryce Christensen