By Patton Dodd
During this frank, humorous, and infrequently demanding memoir approximately lifestyles out and in of the church, twenty-something Patton Dodd unearths his quest for an real event of God. On his trip he makes an attempt to pinpoint and justify his trust in God, first with the fervent absolutes that signify a brand new believer’s religion yet then with a turning out to be knowledge of the cultural complexities that outline his religion and surround his realizing of Christianity. When a religious awakening in his final yr of highschool wrenches Dodd out of his rebellious celebration days, he embarks on a quest for God. He exchanges pot smoking for worship dancing, supplies up MTV for Christian pop, and enrolls at a Christian college. quickly, besides the fact that, he unearths himself sick relaxed with the opposite Christians round him and with the cloying superficiality of the Christian culture. Dodd tells his tale in contradictory terms—conversion and confusion, attractiveness and rejection, non secular highs and mental lows. With painstaking honesty, he attempts to barter a courting together with his religion except the cultural trappings that regularly dress it. Dodd’s relocating tale paints a nuanced and multilayered portrait of an earnest quest for God: the starvation for actual religion, the grim encounters with doubt, and the eating questions that problem the mind and the soul. it is a tale that might resonate with the rising new release of teens trying to holiday new flooring inside of their very own religion culture.
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Additional info for My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion
Example text
These words make me shudder with their veracity. I sob loud, powerful, guttural sobs. I do not feel self-conscious about my strident weeping because everyone around me is crying, too. At this church, we rip our hearts out every Sunday morning and hold them high for all to see. It is emotionally exhausting, and it feels good in the way all workouts feel good.
I follow him vaguely. “Lay hands” is plain enough, though it seems to contain some hidden meaning. c01 9/26/04 2:50 PM Page 14 14 MY FAITH SO FAR have Him. “Speaking in tongues” bangs around in the back rooms of my memory but finds little purchase; it too rings a faint bell in the Church Language category, but one that won’t resonate fully until later. I don’t find any of this off-putting, though; I take my unfamiliarity with his terminology as an indication of the sinful condition of my mind.
At the beginning of August, Matt prepared to leave for college. I knew that as soon as he left I would make a commitment to Christianity. I wanted to wait until he was gone partly because I didn’t want to ruin our fun while he was still in town. Matt appreciated this. We had talked about God enough at this point that he knew I was gearing up to become an honest-to-goodness Christian, and he had continued to be encouraging. He understood. He had thought a lot about God lately, too. He thought maybe when he got to college he’d look for a church.
