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As millions of church members fall into inactivity each year, they've probably also started skipping church on Sunday. We need answers -- not statistics. We need to understand and hear from people who are leaving church so we can find a way to turn around the trend. This book uses in-depth sociological research to get to the heart of the issue. The data is collected from interviews with real people about why they left and who they really are. These...
2) The great dechurching: who's leaving, why are they going, and what will it take to bring them back?
Author
Description
"In The Great Dechurching, Jim Davis and Michael Graham along with renowned sociologist Dr. Ryan Burge examine the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching--the largest and fastest religious shift in US history--to drill down to exactly why people are dechurching with respect to beliefs, behavior, and belonging"--
"We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second...
Author
Description
Ira Wagler was born in the small Old Order Amish community of Aylmer, Ontario. One fateful, starless night, seventeen-year-old Ira, frustrated by the rules and restrictions of Amish life, got up at 2 a.m., left a note under his pillow, packed his duffel bag and left. Over the course of the next several years, Ira would leave and return home numerous times, torn between the ingrained message that abandoning one's Amish heritage results in eternal damnation...
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"Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the '80s and '90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, and that she, too, would go to hell if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower and--most of the time--a true believer....
Author
Description
"Mike Rinder's parents began taking him to their local Scientology center when he was five years old. After high school, he signed a billion-year contract and was admitted into Scientology's elite inner circle, the Sea Organization. Brought to founder L. Ron Hubbard's yacht and promised training in Hubbard's most advanced techniques, Mike was instead put to work swabbing the decks. Still, Rinder bought into the doctrine that his personal comfort was...
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A first book by the creator of the "Dear Amber" podcast describes her strict upbringing as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness and her efforts to find her true place in the world apart from the edicts of her family and faith.
A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She took the message to China, where immersion in a foreign language and culture turned her world upside down,...
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Description
"The day the train fell in the lake, Cassie stopped believing in much of anything, despite growing up in a devout Catholic family. Then she set her mind to forgetting the strange boy named Elias who was with her when it happened. When Elias comes back to town after many years away, Cassie finds herself talked into sneaking out at night to follow him ghost-hunting--though she knows better than to believe they will find any spirits. Still, the more...
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The niece of controversial Scientology leader David Miscavige presents a tell-all memoir about her life in the Church of Scientology. The author was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In this memoir, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org, the church's highest ministry, speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization,...
Author
Description
"In Flunk. Start., Sands Hall chronicles her slow yet willing absorption into the Church of Scientology. Her time in the Church, the 1980s, includes the secretive illness and death of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and the ascension of David Miscavige. Hall compellingly reveals what drew her into the religion--what she found intriguing and useful--and how she came to confront its darker sides. As a young woman from a literary family striving to forge...
Author
Description
"An unbeliever writes his way out of a "doomsday cult," one chapter at a time. As an adolescent, Daniel Allen Cox was a dutiful Jehovah's Witness, preaching door to door even before his baptism marked a formal dedication to the movement. Then, at eighteen, whispers of his sexual orientation made their way to his congregation's presiding elder and catalyzed his disassociation from the group. But the difference between "in" and "out" is never that simple....
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Description
Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful--in her marriage to a pastor's son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God--but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. Heretic is a memoir of rebirth. Within, Kadlec reckons with religious trauma and Midwestern values, as a means of...
Author
Description
Carly Gelsinger is an awkward and lonely thirteen-year-old when she stumbles into Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, the cracked stucco church on the outskirts of her remote small town. She assimilates, despite her apprehensions, because she is desperate to belong. Soon, she is on fire for God. She speaks in tongues, slays demons, and follows her abusive pastor's every word and it's not until her life is burnt to the ground that she finds the courage...
Author
Description
Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost. That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank memoir, the former King of...
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"Bornstein shares her story: from a nice Jewish boy growing up in New Jersey to a strappingly handsome lieutenant of the Church of Scientology's Sea Organization flagship vessel, and later to 1990s Seattle, where she becomes a rising star in the lesbian community. In between there are wives and lovers, heartbreak and triumph, bridges mended and broken, and a journey of self-discovery that will mesmerize readers."--Jacket.
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The activist and TED speaker Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, her life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.
At the age of five, Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded...
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Description
"Straight off the slopes and into the spotlight, Heather Gay is known to dish God's honest truth. Whether as a businesswoman, mother, or television personality, Heather is unafraid to blaze a new trail; even if at the isolation of her family, friends, and church. Heather was born and bred Mormon. Growing up in Utah, not even the snow-capped mountains could draw attention from the state's most prominent resident: the Mormon Church. Between attending...
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For years, Michelle LeClair, former President of Scientology's international humanitarian organization, tried to reconcile her sexual orientation with the anti-gay ideology of the church. Michelle finally ends her horrific marriage, finds the love of her life, a woman, and ultimately leaves the Church. But the split comes at a terrible price. Her once pristine reputation is publicly dragged through the mud, the police raid her home, her ex-husband...
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