Reasons to Believe
One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind
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1.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From a veteran journalist and former 60 Minutes producer comes an intimate portrait of evangelicals, one of the most influential forces in America today, and the story of how this lapsed believer came to terms with his faith.
"In 2003, while on assignment for 60 Minutes, I interviewed a couple for a piece on the Left Behind series, the bestselling Christian novels about the apocalypse. At the end of that meeting, they asked me a question: would I be left behind? In other words, had I accepted Jesus as my savior or would I go to hell? This book represents the answer to that question."
Born again at age sixteen, John Marks later abandoned his faith. In Reasons to Believe he attempts to cross a deep cultural barrier to understand those who now condemn his way of life. He grapples with the message that millions of evangelicals attempt to deliver to their fellow citizens every day and speaks at length with missionaries, political activists, theologians, Christian musicians, and filmmakers—the rich and powerful, the poor and broken, and the pastors who have turned small congregations into megachurches.
This is familiar and often comforting territory for Marks, and he still has a profound understanding of what it means to be an evangelical. In Reasons to Believe he presents this world from the inside out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marks's first work of nonfiction began as a segment that he produced for 60 Minutes on the Left Behind phenomenon. During the research, a devout evangelical Christian couple made a deep impression on him, leaving him with the question of whether he would be left behind when Christ returns on judgment day. The problem gnawed at him. After getting laid off from 60 Minutes, the novelist (The Wall; War Torn) embarked on a two-year quest to uncover the wellsprings of America's most popular religion. While this memoir of longing and doubt treads some of the same territory explored by atheists such as Sam Harris, it is the first that doesn't simply reject the evangelical worldview. Marks discovers much that is positive, especially in the way churches rallied to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. What makes this book most compelling, however, are the ways in which Marks allows his interviewees to engage him as a potential convert. He is so sympathetic to them that until the very last page it is uncertain whether he will decide to abandon his secular life. In the end, Marks gives us a stunning glimpse of American evangelicalism in all its variety.
Customer Reviews
Very pointless
I have to read this book as summer reading for the college that I am attending this fall and I am stunned at the amount of time I have wasted solely in reading this book. The author makes no clear point, instead trying too hard to establish his "ethos" by stating that he is just an all-American boy who "lost" his faith. I am not religious, but his narrative style is an instant turn-off, and the way he goes about Christianity bashing is laughable. Do not read this book under any circumstances.