John W. Loftus
| John W. Loftus | |
|---|---|
|
John Loftus in March 2016 | |
| Occupation | Author |
| Alma mater | Great Lakes Christian College |
| Genre | Philosophy of religion |
| Subject | Atheism |
| Website | |
|
freethoughtblogs | |
John W. Loftus (born 1954) is an American author who writes about his conversion from Christianity to atheism.
Education and career as a Christian
Loftus earned a bachelor's degree (B.R.E.), from Great Lakes Christian College in 1977. He later earned two master's degrees, M.A. and M.DiV., from Lincoln Christian University under the teaching of James D. Strauss and a Masters of Theology degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.[1] He became ordained as a minister in the Church of Christ and taught apologetics for Great Lakes Christian College and Lincoln Christian University, as well as teaching philosophy and ethics for College of Lake County, Kellogg Community College and Trine University.[2]
Career as an atheist activist
During his almost twenty years as an evangelical Christian and Christian apologist, he experienced growing doubt about the tenets of the Christian faith. In the late 1990s he experienced a crisis of faith that led him to reject Christianity altogether.[3]
He eventually wrote a book laying out his case against Christianity, earlier published in 2006 as Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains and revised in in 2008 as Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.[4] In 2008 he self-published a companion book entitled, Why I Became an Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments.
He is the editor of three anthologies of essays that attempt to debunk Christianity, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, (Amherst, NY Prometheus Books 2010) ISBN 978-1-61614-168-4, The End of Christianity (Amherst, NY Prometheus Books 2011) ISBN 978-1-61614-413-5, and Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails (Amherst, NY Prometheus Books 2014). The titles of these books mirror those of the atheist best-sellers The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. He is planning a 4th anthology entitled Christianity: The Failed Hypothesis echoing the title of Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis.
In 2012 he collaborated with Christian author Randal Rauser on a book entitled God or Godless: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions.[5]
His book The Outsider Test for Faith proposes a method for evaluating religious belief from an outsider's perspective.[6] It is an expansion of a chapter in his earlier book Why I Became an Atheist arguing that everyone should examine their own faith from the perspective of an outsider.
He founded the website Debunking Christianity, a blog with many guest contributors.
References
- ↑ "John Loftus". Secular Web. Internet Infidels Inc. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
- ↑ "Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity". prometheusbooks.com. Prometheus Books. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
- ↑ Scot McKnight; Hauna Ondrey (July 14, 2008). Finding faith, losing faith: stories of conversion and apostasy. Baylor University Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-1-60258-162-3.
- ↑ John W. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-592-4
- ↑ Rauser, Randal. "God or Godless? The Loftus/Rauser Calgary Debate". Randal Rauser.com. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
- ↑ Talbott, Thomas. "The Outsider Test for Faith: How Serious a Challenge Is It?" (PDF). Willamette University. Retrieved June 10, 2014.