Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace

In this open and honest memoir, Billy, a newspaper reporter, explains how he became a born again Christian and grew in his faith and prayed that he could get a job reporting on religion.  He got the job and believed it was an answer to years of prayer.  He enjoyed learning about religion through the stories that he reported.  As he grew in his faith, he moved on from the evangelical church he met with to a Presbyterian church and then began attending a Catholic church going through a one year catechism class in order to convert and join his wife in her faith.  Then, he was assigned to report on the Catholic church priest sex scandals.  He was one of the first reporters to learn about it as the first stories came out.  He continued in his faith, believing that the problems he was reporting on were confined to that one parish.  As time went on, he went to meetings w/ the survivors of the priests' sexual abuses (which were disgusting and horrifying), and he interviewed priests and biships and he learned just how corrupt the Catholic church really is.  At the end of the year, he could not join the Catholic church.  He then was given more investigative religion stories and met Ole Anthony and interviewed Benny Hinn.
After all that, it is no wonder that he lost his religion. 
Sadly, he lost his faith in God as well, believing that what religion teaches and what he saw of the religious institutions was what God is all about. 
This book is well-written and very interesting and thought provoking.

1 comment:

  1. I am sad to hear about that downward spiral that he took. As believers, we really have to guard ourselves against things like that. Very good review, thanks for sharing.

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