Debie Thomas to Teach at Annual Conference
About Debie Thomas:
Debie is the author of A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity, and Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ. She is also a columnist and contributing editor for The Christian Century. From 2014 to 2022, Debie worked as a staff writer for Journey with Jesus: A Weekly Webzine for the Global Church, and from 2014 to 2024, served as a lay minister for formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, CA. She studied English Literature at Wellesley College and Brown University, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing at The Ohio State University. Currently, Debie is a seminarian at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA.
Debie and her husband, Alex, their two "all grown up" children, and their labradoodle, Ruby, love living in sunny California. Debie was born in Kerala, South India, and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Like many children of immigrants, she grew up juggling a complicated and often confusing mix of identities: South Asian, New England suburban, evangelical, and feminist. In the murky "in-betweenness" of those identities, she learned that life is far more varied and messy than it is neat or certain, and that faith is not about finding once-and-for-all answers, but about delving deeper and deeper into mystery.
Debie Thomas was a preacher’s kid and a church nerd, but also the annoying little brat who asked all the “wrong” questions about God, faith, doubt, life, and the Bible. She started writing as soon as she learned to read and spell. Debie felt lucky to have a mom who introduced her early to the treasures of language and literature, and writing soon became her way of processing her world. Whenever Debie felt awed, bewildered, frightened, or joyful, she turned to pen and paper for refuge and grounding, and found that the "Word made flesh" is closer and more loving than one can ever imagine. She supposes not much has changed!
Debie claims she's not quite as conflicted as she used to be, but remains a seeker, an explorer, a believer, and a doubter. She writes about faith because faith is both hard and life-giving, both beautiful and bizarre. She writes because she doesn’t know, and because God somehow meets her in that unknowing. She finds solace in wrestling and seeking blessing on the page, and hopes that her journey gives others permission to wrestle, too.
