Dionne Yvette Brown
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DIONNE YVETTE BROWN is a minister of the gospel who has been duly anointed by God, but refused ordination by the institutional church. She has been driven by education, excellence, and ethics all her life. Those qualities did not serve her well in the church. Subsequent barriers to professional ministry have not deterred her from exercising her calling. Her writings and service are an extension of her defiant commitment to who and whose she is. Dionne earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, a Master of Public Policy from Duke University, and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is a native of Washington, DC where she currently resides with her Chihuahua, Phoebe Tyler.
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Deinstitutionalizing God: A Minister's Journey on Leaving Church to Save Her Faith
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Memoir/Christian Life
DEINSTITUTIONALIZING GOD chronicles the author’s journey from early religious exposure to full faith formation and pursuing ministry as a vocation. This tell-all memoir is laced with humor, applied psychology, and theological reflection to produce a compelling account of maintaining faith when all around you contradicts it. Her first-hand account of experiencing sexual harassment, denial of ordination, and apathy in the church is cast against the backdrop of the universal story of striving for a relationship with the divine. All she wanted to do was preach. All the church wanted to do was stop her. Pursuing that goal should have been a lot easier. Church is supposed to be safe space, but quite often is not. Spiritual trauma occurs because evil likes to cloak itself in benevolence. People are often not as guarded in religious settings as they would be in the world and thus become more vulnerable to invisible injury. It goes unaccounted for and is seldom addressed. Therefore, the most self-preserving thing to do at times is to leave. And that, she did. Being a management consultant by profession enabled Dionne to examine the church organically beyond its spiritual persona. The same dynamics occur in secular settings, but are tolerated in sacred space in full view of people who would like to think their hands are clean. This book is a stinging indictment of the church, but one with a path to restoration. 
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