An Irreligious Faith

My new book, An Irreligious Faith: How to Starve Religion and Feed Life, will soon be available

After twenty years of serving as a pastor and leading community-wide ministries, I  found myself without a church and also without a personal identity. An Irreligious Faith is my story of re-evaluating my faith and re-examining the church I loved for so long. I soon found out that I was not alone on my journey and eventually became an encourager to those who struggle with many of the characteristics of the church, but find Jesus very compelling.

Americans who describe themselves as ‘unaffiliated’ or ‘none of the above’ has been on a steady increase for fifty years and now stands at 16 to 20 percent. If this trend continues by 2042, “nones” and adherents of other religions will outnumber Christians.

The institutional church is no longer the exclusive outlet for people’s spiritual expression. Those who look for other avenues of involvement sometimes refer to themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” Researchers call them “nones” because they refuse to identify themselves with any traditional religious expression. Ironically, many of those who have turned from church find the ways of Jesus very attractive and aspire to the kind of life he lived, including his compassion for the poor and those on the fringes of society.

People are tired of carrying around the baggage of 2000 years of Christendom and are longing for a faith expression that makes sense. An increasing number of people are no longer willing to outsource their spiritual expression to an organization. They realize they are responsible for their own spirituality and growth and want to reunite faith and life, instead of trying to compartmentalize them. They want to jettison judgmental-ism and replace it with love for those who live on the fringes of acceptability.

I wrote An Irreligious Faith for people who want to bring the revolutionary ways of Jesus into their present daily experience, those looking for a stripped-down, raw and real way to live out their faith, right here, right now.

The book is divided into four sections.

• An Irreligious Journey: Coerced into Freedom is Glenn’s story of transitioning from being a pastor for twenty years to expressing his faith in a more natural way, integrated into his life.
• An Irreligious Jesus: Surprised by His Humanity is a study in contrasts between the church and the counter-intuitive, but compelling ways of Jesus.
• An Irreligious Church: Shifted into the Reality is a well-reasoned list of practical steps the church can take to be more like Jesus and more attractive to people.
• An Irreligious Life: Adjusted to the New Normal is an encouraging guide to help the person who has decided to forge a faith apart from the institution.

Resources:

• Author Q & A
• Cover & Author photo