Читать книгу From Fear to Faith - Joel L. Watts - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

Joel L. Watts

This book has come to fruition by the insistence of my wife and wise counseling of Ric Hardison. It is a long time coming.

We are in the middle of something of a resurgence in the United States of conservative churches.1 There are numerous reasons for this, but the reasons are not so much the focus of this volume. Instead, the focus is something more tangible. This volume focuses on people who have lived in these conservative churches and have moved away from them. These are the stories of the why and the how. Why did they move and how they made it through. Some may laugh or dismiss the transition out of these conservative churches, but it is nothing to laugh at. If it goes wrong, the victim will be as militant an atheist as they were once militant Christians. If the transition is handled sloppily, it may result in severe emotional trauma. This is why they have professionals who help to bring people out of cults. Because it takes time, love, and know-how.

Some of these people were selected to tell their stories because I was familiar with them throughout my years of blogging at unsettledchristianity.com. Others volunteered. All of them are important. All of them, regardless of the outcome, have made it where so many have failed. Do not judge us or pity us, only listen to us. We have shared something that is unique, terrible, and ultimately, beautiful.

This is not a book about telling secrets, airing dirty laundry, or otherwise attempting to disparage others. Indeed, I suspect that many of these authors still have family and friends who remain still yet in the places they have come from. This is about warning, pleading, and hoping that more people will come out of sects that use nothing but fear, disguised as liberty, to coerce the human spirit into bondage, not for God, but in too many cases, against God.

The philosophy of this book is simple. These are the stories as lived by the authors. Whether or not they name names or simply stick to the deeply spiritual move, it is up to them. But the accounts are true. Sometimes, even repeated. You will notice a common thread, no doubt, between the stories, and that is in itself a part of the philosophy as well.

There is always a danger in putting oneself out there for the world to read, to disparage, to ridicule, but theirs is the benefit as well — these stories will touch a soul somewhere, to rescue them from fear, to pull them to faith.

1 Kelley, Dean M. Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion with a New Preface. Mercer University Press, 1996.

“Why Conservative Churches Are Growing.” Christian Post, n.d. http://www.christianpost.com/news/49988/.