Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith
The numbers are alarming--at least to people of faith. Many, especially the young, are leaving the church and abandoning faith in God. Social scientists have for decades been documenting with numbers what church leaders and families have experienced directly. What is much less noted and evaluated is the substantial number of those who leave faith and the church and eventually come back to both. Why people leave is an important question, but so is why people return--a question much less often addressed. Once people have made a clear and conscious break with their religious convictions and practice, what leads many to return? This book explores this important question primarily through listening to the stories these people tell. It relies on stories, not numbers, allowing people to tell their own stories in their own words--both why they left and why they returned. One discovers from listening to their stories that there are recurring patterns. People leave faith for common reasons and they also return for common reasons. In fact, many return for the flip side of why they left. The shared factor in all returns is God's relentless love for each of them.
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Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith
The numbers are alarming--at least to people of faith. Many, especially the young, are leaving the church and abandoning faith in God. Social scientists have for decades been documenting with numbers what church leaders and families have experienced directly. What is much less noted and evaluated is the substantial number of those who leave faith and the church and eventually come back to both. Why people leave is an important question, but so is why people return--a question much less often addressed. Once people have made a clear and conscious break with their religious convictions and practice, what leads many to return? This book explores this important question primarily through listening to the stories these people tell. It relies on stories, not numbers, allowing people to tell their own stories in their own words--both why they left and why they returned. One discovers from listening to their stories that there are recurring patterns. People leave faith for common reasons and they also return for common reasons. In fact, many return for the flip side of why they left. The shared factor in all returns is God's relentless love for each of them.
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Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith

Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith

by Daniel Taylor
Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith
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Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith

Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith

by Daniel Taylor

Overview

The numbers are alarming--at least to people of faith. Many, especially the young, are leaving the church and abandoning faith in God. Social scientists have for decades been documenting with numbers what church leaders and families have experienced directly. What is much less noted and evaluated is the substantial number of those who leave faith and the church and eventually come back to both. Why people leave is an important question, but so is why people return--a question much less often addressed. Once people have made a clear and conscious break with their religious convictions and practice, what leads many to return? This book explores this important question primarily through listening to the stories these people tell. It relies on stories, not numbers, allowing people to tell their own stories in their own words--both why they left and why they returned. One discovers from listening to their stories that there are recurring patterns. People leave faith for common reasons and they also return for common reasons. In fact, many return for the flip side of why they left. The shared factor in all returns is God's relentless love for each of them.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798385211562
Publisher: Cascade Books
Publication date: 02/24/2025
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 226
File size: 948 KB

About the Author

Formerly a professor of literature and writing, Daniel Taylor has published a wide range of books, from informal apologetics (The Myth of Certainty, The Skeptical Believer, Is God Intolerant?) to books on the shaping role of stories in our lives (Tell Me a Story, Letters to My Children, Creating a Spiritual Legacy), and Celtic Christianity (In Search of Sacred Places). He has also published a four-novel series beginning with Death Comes for the Deconstructionist.
Formerly a professor of literature and writing, Daniel Taylor has published a wide range of books, from informal apologetics (The Myth of Certainty, The Skeptical Believer, Is God Intolerant?) to books on the shaping role of stories in our lives (Tell Me a Story, Letters to My Children, Creating a Spiritual Legacy), and Celtic Christianity (In Search of Sacred Places). He has also published a four-novel series beginning with Death Comes for the Deconstructionist.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Daniel Taylor has written a much-needed word of encouragement to those of us who have watched loved ones abandon their faith. He gently reassures us of the truth that not all who wander are lost. In recounting stories of those who left the faith only to return once again, Believing Again is an oasis of hope in an ever-growing desert of deconversion stories both online and in print. This is the book I wish I had written, and I can’t recommend it enough.”

—John Marriott, director, The Center for Christian Thought, Biola University



“We’ve heard of the diminishing congregations in churches. But Dan Taylor’s Believing Again is about the return to church. These compelling chapters are life-stories of people who have come back to faith. This book is a hopeful read for those with family members still straying or are facing their own dipping faith.”

—Diane Glancy, author of Psalm to Whom(e)



“I’ve been enjoying Dan Taylor’s stories for most of my adult life. He is a master of the art—incisive, thoughtful, and immensely entertaining. Now he takes his craft to help others tell their tales, true accounts of people who lost their faith and returned to the faith, who came home to a home they’d never really known before.”

—Ben Patterson, campus pastor, Westmont College

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