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Mattie and Daniel become friends and begin to attend church together. They fall in love with one another. There's just one thing: Daniel's married. Conveniently, his wife doesn't go to church; she is moody, demanding, and has "a large, round bottom."

I wish fiction by Christians offered more such realistic portrayals of Christians behaving badly. But it bothered me that, in my unguarded moments, I found myself rooting for Mattie and Daniel to get together. Was Lamott intentionally seducing me with the god of no consequences?

Lamott offers a disclaimer that I'm not sure jibes with the way the book ends: "There is no condoning going on," she says. "When Mattie falls short, she pays for it with her self-loathing. She prays and she is forgiven. There are those times when she's able to stop the behavior, and then she sins again."

She stops for a few seconds, then continues. "I don't sleep with married men, if you want to know. But I certainly have. I did a lot of stuff before I got sober that I wouldn't do anymore."

Then Lamott is back to what she does best: proclaiming the grace of God. "But there wasn't a single thing that I'd do that Jesus would say, 'Forget it, you're out, I've had it with you, try Buddha!' "

Agnieszka Tennant is an associate editor of Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

A ready-to-download Bible Study on this article is available at ChristianBibleStudies.com. These unique Bible studies use articles from current issues of Christianity Today to prompt thought-provoking discussions in adult Sunday school classes or small groups.

In December, Anne Lamott returned as a columnist for Salon.com. Her first column is free to all readers, but subsequent columns will only be available to Salon Premium subscribers. All of her old columns, however, are still available on the site.

Lauren Winner reviewed Lamott's Traveling Mercies for Christianity Today in 1999. More of Lamott's books are available at Amazon.com.

The Barnes & Noble website has a biography, audio interview, and more on Anne Lamott.

Other articles by Agnieszka Tennant for Christianity Today include:

The Ultimate Language Lesson | Teaching English may well be the 21st century's most promising way to take the Good News to the world. (Dec. 6, 2002)

The Good News About Generations X & Y | Watch out, promiscuity! Out of the way, relativism! A wave of young Americans just wants that oldtime religion. An interview with the author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy. (August 2, 2002)

The Auschwitz Cross | We must come to the cross with desperation, not political agendas. (May 10, 2002)

Nuptial Agreements | Two models of marriage claim biblical warrant and vie for evangelicals' allegiance. Advocates of both claim good results. But do we have to choose? (March 15, 2002)

Adam and Eve in the 21st Century | When it comes to gender roles, CT readers oscillate between complementarian and egalitarian ideas. ? (March 15, 2002)

Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due. (August 24, 2001)

Seahorses, Egalitarians, and Traditional Sex-Role Reversal | A dispatch from the Christians for Biblical Equality conference (July 11, 2001)

The Ten Commandments Become Flesh | A Polish director prods European and American audiences to consider God's timeless standards. (Feb. 14, 2001)

Tennant also interviewed Lech Walesa for the September/October issue of Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture.

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January 2003, Vol. 47, No. 1