I’ll admit, I wasn’t terribly keen to read this book. The title (Not The Religious Type) and the sub-title (Confessions Of A Turncoat Atheist) had me moaning inside: “please, not another tale of struggling with God for five minutes before surrendering to cliches”. It’s all well and good if people find tranformation like that, but I don’t particularly find it revelatory or an enjoyable read.

I was happily mistaken.

Dave Schmelzer is not a breath-takingly stellar writer but he unveils truths and explores ideas with a simple matter-of-factness that belies their depth and potency. He’s honest about the fuzzy space between atheism and agnosticism, and explores the simple grace of an almost-failed class leading towards a spiritual epiphany.

The whole read is relatively seamless, and it’s especially useful in the language it employs; I have quoted it time and again to explain concepts and concerns that I have to those who are concerned by misunderstandings wrought by the more radicalist lingo oft employed elsewhere on JM. Let me share a couple examples.

The most bizarre and enlightening portion of the book is where Schmelzer is quoting pop psychology guru (his words), Scott Peck. Peck breaks down emotional/spiritual development into four stages. The criminal/infant stage is where selflessness is a foreign concept and boundaries must be enforced. Stage 2 is rule-based; case examples being most churches and/or the military. The third stage is described as rebellious – the questioning of the rules in stage 2, institutionally typified by the university. Here’s what really struck me, and I’ll quote Schmelzer here:

“A fascinating and unexpected corollary…is the observation that stage 3 is spiritual advancement from stage 2. And yet there’s every possibility that – if you belive in such things – in stage 2 you’ll go to heaven and in stage 3 you’ll go to hell…Peck’s theory explains the contempt stage 3 folks often feel toward the stage 2 faith they’ve left behind, that strange brew that often comes out something like, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m still more spiritually advanced than you are.”

The fourth and final stage is what is deemed the mystical stage; a realization that many of the rule-based ideas where correct, but in a very different and deeper sense than they realized before – and it’s driven by questions and exploration, not answers and stagnation. This is not to say that all truth is fleeting but that there is a sense in which it is fluid and one must seek it.

There are several other gems, well worth the price of the book, in discussing the current tone of discussion coming from modern atheists and the distinction between personal spirituality and the culture one finds themselves in. But perhaps the most common jewel is the most overlooked – the constant reflection on relationship. Many of the arguments for different ideas later in the book fall flat or incomplete as written, until one takes into account that this is not an autopsy being discussed, but a relationship that is somewhat inscrutable to those outside and indescribable to those involved…and the joy and hope that pours out is the better testament, anyway.

Author Bio:: Jordan & Jennifer Peacock live in Minnesota with their mischevious daughter, an are in the infant stages of learning all over again how to become the church in their small spiritual community.

About Chad Ellens