This Dark World

I read this book a month or so ago and it bothered me. I would have blogged about it sooner, but I couldn't remember the title... so I had to make a special stop at the library just to find it again. :-) It's still bothering me, that's what's weird. Sometimes books will stay with me a day or so... but not a month or more.

I picked it up randomly in the non-fiction (religion) department of the library. The subtitle is "A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost". It reads like a novel and was basically a good story (maybe a little long, but I had no difficulty staying interested). I liked the "Found" part of the story... which was most of the story..... And then I didn't really get the "Lost" part... why she suddenly decided she needed to leave God behind. It baffled me. I think she was trying to paint a picture of christianity, the church, etc. as being "weird", but all it seemed to me was "sweet". And her dissatisfaction with her husband (who is a good man) seems to build until she thinks she needs to leave both he and God. Why? I didn't get it. But mostly I just felt sad. And I put Carolyn S. Briggs on my prayer list. :-)

I had a hard time putting into words what I thought about this book- until I found a review of the book on Amazon and so I stole someone else's words.... this is what I felt about the book....


"The vast majority of the book details the author's life as a Christian, but it is written almost with the mindset she had at the time. That is to say, her thoughts and experiences at the time are vividly described, but moments of introspection are rare - seldom is there a thought looking critically at her inner life with the benefit of subsequent experience. There is no attempt at analysis of the Christian experience from the perspective of an experienced unbeliever. In fact, the "deconversion" is somewhat lukewarm (and sudden, in terms of the amount of space devoted to it), and is motivated mostly by a desire for a more fulfilling relationship rather than a critical examination of the narrow cosmology she espoused as a born-again."

Yeah. If I ever used words like "cosmology", I would have said the same thing! I just didn't get how someone so in love with God one moment could decide they didn't even believe in him the next. That is pretty scary. And it all seemed to be primarily because she didn't want to be married anymore. If anyone ever reads this book, or already has... let me know what you think. :-)