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发帖数: 38403 | 1 Atheism’s leading lights have long been intellectuals raised in the secular
and academic worlds: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher
Hitchens. By contrast, Jerry DeWitt was born and bred into the church and
was in fact a Pentecostal preacher before arriving at atheism through an
extraordinary dialogue with faith that spanned more than a quarter of a
century. Hope After Faith is his account of that journey.
DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture of
the community. In private, however, he’d begun to question his faith. Late
one night in May 2011, a member of his flock called seeking prayer for her
brother who had been in a serious accident. As DeWitt searched for the right
words to console her, speech failed him, and he found that the faith which
once had formed the cornerstone of his life had finally crumbled to dust.
When it became public knowledge that DeWitt was now an atheist, he found
himself shunned by much of DeRidder’s highly religious community, losing
nearly everything he’d known.
DeWitt’s struggle for identity and meaning mirrors the one currently facing
millions of people around the world. With both agnosticism and atheism
entering the mainstream—one in five Americans now claim no religious
affiliation, according to a recent study—the moment has arrived for a new
atheist voice, one that is respectful of faith and religious traditions yet
warmly embraces a life free of religion, finding not skepticism and cold
doubt but rather profound meaning and hope. Hope After Faith is the story of
one man’s evolution toward a committed and considered atheism, one driven
by humanism, a profound moral dimension, and a happiness and self-confidence
obtained through living free of fear.
http://www.amazon.com/Hope-after-Faith-Ex-Pastors-Journey/dp/03 |
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