Maybe it's just me, but I find it interesting that there is a seemingly increasing front against the cultural American Christianity known as Evangelicalism, not to mention against God himself (thank you Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, et. al.). I say this because of some recent books published where each author at one time considered himself a conscious, consenting troop in the evangelical front.
I find this trend particularly interesting, because I myself, an "evangelical" (though I might act a lot like our beloved Apostle Peter when confronted with a potentially threatening situation concerning my allegiances to the evangelical identity, though not concerning my faith [knock on wood...]) must seriously consider the issues raised within these publications.
John Marks, author of:
Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind?
Bart Ehrman, author of:
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer
Franky Schaeffer, author of:
Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
What am I to make of these? These are people who have credentials. They have thought about these issues long and hard, a lot longer than I have. All have expressed and would admit genuine (at the time) conversion experiences. They don't appear to be reactionaries (though maybe Franky Schaeffer is...). All have found evangelicalism wanting. Marks is polite. Ehrman is indicting. Schaeffer is disillusioned. Schaeffer still maintains some expression of allegiance to the Christian faith, though doesn't know how much. Marks and Ehrman have found Christianity itself as a faith without sufficiency since it fails to answer the fundamental question, "Why is there so much evil, if God is so good?" They no longer believe. Why do I?
What is going on? Why are so many people publishing "their story" and why do they think we care? Well, unfortunately (I say this because of the gruesome process of simply trying to comprehend the issues), I do care. I wish I didn't, but I do. I don't care about politics, but I do care about religion. Especially my own. At this point, I confess with Augustine, "Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” and Anselm, "I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand: for this I also believe, that unless I believe I will not understand."
I find a book by Randall Balmer to have been especially helpful in my case. It's called "Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith". It's his story about his "leaving" fundamentalism for the academy and how ultimately he embraced the faith of his father, just not the same expression of faith.