You might remember William Lobdell.

He’s the former reporter whose up-close and personal coverage of religion for the Los Angeles Times ended up completely eroding away his once ardent Christian faith.

You can learn more in the entry I posted on July 23, 2007.

Well, Lobdell has a new book out now that describes his deconversion in detail.

The reaction of many Christians has been pretty predictable – at least if you happen to be an atheist who has “come out” to a Christian yourself.

Here is an essay Lobdell has written in response to their various attempts to win him back for Jesus:

—– Abandon All Hope, Christians (Los Angeles City Beat; March 4)

I may be the most prayed-for atheist in America.

Since my memoir Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace was released last week, I’ve received scores of e-mails and phone calls assuring me that God hasn’t give up on me and that I’ve been put on various prayer lists around the world.

So far, it’s not working.

Losing My Religion details my journey from a gung-ho evangelical Christian who became a religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times (I thought God had answered my prayers) to a reluctant atheist because of what I saw in eight years on the faith beat. Because the book isn’t a rant against religion – it’s more a story of a love found and lost – I’m seen by many as re-convertible. And if I returned to the fold, my testimony would be a valuable commodity within the evangelical community.
Several Christians boldly predict that my next book will be Finding My Religion Again or something along those lines. To that end, I’ve been sent a small mountain of Christian books, pamphlets, DVDs, CDs, and workbooks that the senders promise will hook me back up with God.

To save everyone time and effort, let me tell you what absolutely won’t work:

—– Sending me scripture verses

his super-popular approach is problematic. First, I’ve studied the Bible quite a bit, so it’s not like there’s a passage I haven’t read that will instantly restore my belief in God. And more to the point, I no longer believe the Bible is the Word of God, so passages of scripture no longer hold supreme meaning for me; they’re fascinating from a sociological or literary perspective, but they’re not history. Sending me a Bible passage would be like a Latter-Day Saint sending you – an evangelical Christian – a passage from the Book of Mormon to prove Mormonism is true. It just doesn’t work.

—– Handing me a book by a believer

As a Christian, I’ve spent two decades reading the best Christian works throughout history. Like you, I hope, I’ve read Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, G.K. Chesterton, St. Theresa of Lisieux and others. If those giants can’t convince me God is real, no other author will.

—– Threatening an eternity in hell

This is another standard tactic, filled with Christian love. The e-mailers are usually succinct, writing something along these lines: “I hope you’re prepared for an eternity in hell.” I’m not sure whether I’m headed for hell, but do know that someone can’t magically believe in Jesus just because they are threatened.

—– Giving me a Christian movie

Left Behind. Facing the Giants. One Night with the King. Do you understand how awful popular Christian movies are? Any film in that genre would tend to reinforce my atheism. Stop sending them to me.

—– Asking me to have lunch or to attend a specific church

It took me four years of investigation, study and internal struggle before I could finally admit to myself that I had lost my faith. Ninety minutes over a cheeseburger with your pastor isn’t going to bring it back.

—– Debating the truth about Christianity with me

Look, Christian apologists (defenders of the faith) can be very intelligent. So can Christian critics. Generally, debate in this area changes no one’s mind. Having read the arguments on both sides, I put in with the critics. For me, there’s no point in rehashing it all – unless someone comes armed with a new argument or evidence.

Perhaps you can sense a double standard here. An army of Christians is trying to pry me away from atheism by any argument necessary, with no invitation or apologies. (An e-mail just landed in my inbox with the subject line: “I have all the answers to your questions.”) But you wouldn’t expect to see a high-profile Christian bombarded by atheists trying to ruin his faith. Unless provoked (conservative Christians’ influence on politics and society sparked the recent New Atheist movement), atheists have a live and let live mentality. Christians can learn from them.

But wait, my Christian friends say. We believe Jesus has commanded us to bring lost sheep back into the fold. It’s our duty. If that’s the case, I’d suggest you follow the words of St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”

In other words, make Christianity attractive to outsiders through your actions. And retire the rest of your conversion material.

Lobdell’s experience with crusading Christians seems quite similar to my own. The combination of extreme arrogance and extreme simple-mindedness that I’ve often found in the “warriors for Christ” is either extremely sad or extremely irritating or both, depending on how long it’s been since a cookie has had a positive impact on my blood sugar levels. One thing that combination *never* is is effective. Maybe every Christian on earth will realize this someday and try a different approach, but I wouldn’t bet on that happening anytime soon. Many of them seem to be *very* slow learners….

That said, I’m less than impressed with Lobdell’s suggestion that Christians can and ought to make Christianity attractive to outsiders with their actions. Being a nice and generous person may make others like you, but it can’t transform a false belief system into a true one.
Being nice and generous in order to entice others to embrace a belief system that can’t be defended logically or empirically isn’t commendable or to be encouraged – it’s manipulative and a type of fraud or bribery that ought to be avoided and condemned. (It’s also what I call a “value neutral” technique that works just as well for radical Islamic groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as it does for Buddhists or Jains or Catholic Sisters of Mercy or Mormons. Embracing the beliefs of whoever happens to be nice to you is not only not a reliable path to the truth, it fails entirely when two or more people who are nice to you have very different opinions of what the truth is.)

The thing that continues to impress me most about Lobdell is that he once was an ardent Christian who immersed himself for years in the facts of religion and ended up an enlightened atheist. He could have instead rationalized away every challenge to his faith. He could have embraced his old delusions even more ardently and become a paid propagandist for a Christian organization or publishing house. He could have run off and shut himself up in a monastery some place where he might never again have had to deal with information that his religious worldview couldn’t accommodate. Instead, he spent years collecting and analyzing new information and ended up revising his beliefs accordingly despite the obvious difficulty and pain.

Bart Ehrman, you might recall, did something very similar.

If you happen to still be a Christian yourself, you might want to consider either explaining why Lobdell and Ehrman are wrong or adopting them as your new role models.