Jul 28, 2013
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper and an
initiator of StopPatriarchy.org and the Abortion Rights Freedom
Ride. She is also a very proud atheist who has done a lot of
speaking promoting Bob Avakian's book, “Away With All Gods!
Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World.” The Abortion
Rights Freedom Ride, which runs from July 24 through August 20, is
a caravan from both coasts to locations where attacks on abortion
rights are most severe. It will stop for one day in Minneapolis,
tomorrow, Monday, July 29. Taylor joins us for the first segment of
our show to talk about the event and the ride. When it became known
that Jerry DeWitt was an atheist, he lost the job he had been
raised to do. He lost his community and his wife. But he gained his
freedom and a new community of nonbelievers. In his book, Hope
After Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey From Belief to Atheism, DeWitt
shares his story with us. From the publisher's description: "DeWitt
was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture
of the community. In private, however, he’d begun to question his
faith. Late one night in May 2011, a member of his flock called
seeking prayer for her brother who had been in a serious accident.
As DeWitt searched for the right words to console her, speech
failed him, and he found that the faith which once had formed the
cornerstone of his life had finally crumbled to dust. When it
became public knowledge that DeWitt was now an atheist, he found
himself shunned by much of DeRidder’s highly religious community,
losing nearly everything he’d known. DeWitt’s struggle for identity
and meaning mirrors the one currently facing millions of people
around the world. With both agnosticism and atheism entering the
mainstream—one in five Americans now claim no religious
affiliation, according to a recent study—the moment has arrived for
a new atheist voice, one that is respectful of faith and religious
traditions yet warmly embraces a life free of religion, finding not
skepticism and cold doubt but rather profound meaning and hope.
Hope After Faith is the story of one man’s evolution toward a
committed and considered atheism, one driven by humanism, a
profound moral dimension, and a happiness and self-confidence
obtained through living free of fear." Join us this Sunday as
DeWitt talks to us about his astounding journey.