Religious conversion stories are hard to write--and often harder to read. The inescapable subjectivity of the convert's path is bound to strike many skeptics as too self-absorbed, while fellow-travelers may not find anything in common with the individual's personal experience.
Former atheist-turned-Catholic blogger Jennifer Fulwiler largely avoids these traps in her book, Something Other Than God, because she started out as a geek--with a great sense of humor.
An only child of atheist parents, Fulwiler started her professional career in web development, working long hours writing code and spending the rest of the time partying with her friends after work.
There were few shadows in her life, she writes, except for the one always there in the back of her mind since she was eleven years old, the day her father took her to visit the family land in central Texas where she encountered her first fossils.
And the reality of extinction. Ultimate extinction for every living thing, no exceptions.
She tried not think about it, Fulwiler writes, as she went on through school, and graduated, and went out into the workforce. Life was about keeping occupied, and entertained.
And as the prospect of death didn't seem to paralyze the other non-believers she worked and hung out with, Fulwiler didn't let it get her down. Perhaps she found some solace in Richard Dawkins, who in the opening pages of his book Unweaving the Rainbow famously observed, "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia."
Fulwiler made sure her life was kept busy with the professional challenges and diversions that kept the dark thoughts away.
Her life started to change when she met her future husband, Joe, at the office one day. An ambitious entrepreneur, he was only a nominal Christian. But that was enough to put her off.
Even if I had been thinking about dating, there was no way this guy and I could be a match. In high school and college I'd been the type of girl who wore ripped fishnet stockings and black lipstick. For a while I dyed my hair green. For fun I attended concerts of bands like Gwar, a group whose main claim to fame was that they'd have a man dressed up like the pope walk out on stage and they'd pretend to behead him and then spray his fake blood all over the audience. [p. 29]
Then there was the added intimidation, she writes, that he was a Yale grad, who finished his degree in three years with honors. "Unfortunately," she writes, "this revelation came to light after I'd revealed that one of my biggest accomplishments in college was that some buddies and I almost got on the Jerry Springer Show after a friend's boyfriend traded her car for a quarter bag of weed. I was sure that he looked at me as someone who would hold him back."
From this point onward, Fulwiler's story is about the pair of them: falling in love; getting married; getting out of the internet business and starting a law firm; struggling to make ends meet as their first child is born.
And finding that she can no longer dodge the ultimate questions.
Life became more complicated when Fulwiler discovered she had a rare mutation that causes her body to produce too much of the protein Prothrombin, which the blood uses to form clots.
A dangerous consequence for anyone bearing children with such a condition is deep vein thrombosis. The only way to treat the DVTs is to use a drug like Coumadin, an FDA Category X drug, which could cause miscarriage or birth defects if taken during pregnancy.
All of this came down on her as Fulwiler struggled with her search for answers.
Christianity seemed like the answer. In addition to reading book after book on religion and philosophy, she started a blog, The Reluctant Atheist (archived here) to put in writing all her questions and frustrations about religion.
She found a coterie of thoughtful readers offering their own perspectives. Many of them were Catholic.
But after several months of engaging with her readers, she found herself no closer to being convinced. "I could not believe that an all-knowing God would create a system in which a person had to be literate in order to know him," she writes:
I didn't see the fingerprints of the divine anywhere in this system. Instead, I saw a structure created by well-meaning people--people who had found comfort and peace in the Bible, who wanted to share it with others, who did their best to spread the words from which they'd derived inspiration. But, like any other human creation, it was flawed with imperfections that would ultimately doom it to collapse. [p. 101]
The Bible was out, then, as a sole source of inspiration and authority.
How the Catholic Church became the answer for Fulwiler and her husband occupies the rest of the book.
Without spoiling the rest of the story, this final section, I think, though very good, is also ironically the weakest part. It will appeal to the already-converted, but is less likely to engage skeptics.
Part of the problem I think is that--in places--Fulwiler is too reserved about herself and her history. I suspect this is due to editorial constraint. Ignatius Press is a Catholic publisher and obviously focused on marketing the book to a largely traditional family audience. But non-Catholic Christians may be puzzled by the author's lack of engagement with some obvious issues.
For example, there is no wrestling with the horrendous clergy abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, although Fulwiler was surely reading and hearing about it at the time it first hit the news. It's hard to believe it did not concern her and her husband as they considered Catholicism.
Evangelical readers are also likely to be puzzled by the fact that Fulwiler doesn't ever get down on the ground, so to say, with the words of the man who wandered all around Galilee, outraging the authorities of his time and healing, comforting--and most brazenly--assuring God's forgiveness toward the cast-outs and vagabonds of ancient Palestine.
This is a little surprising, especially when you consider other famous, skeptical Uber Geeks, on Jesus.
For example, here's Einstein from his 1929 interview for the Saturday Evening Post: (October 26th, 1929 issue)
"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."
"Have you read Emil Ludwig's book on Jesus?"
"Emil Ludwig's Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot!"
"You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"
"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."
Fulwiler recounts in detail her questions and struggles as she read many of the more famous Christian apologists: G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel. But not apparently, Edith Stein, or Karl Stern, two converts whose more intellectual approaches might have made a greater impact.
And skeptics are likely to be unconvinced by her acceptance of the Catholic Church's position on contraception and abortion.
But these are small quibbles in the end.
Something Other Than God is a spirited conversion story by a high-strung woman with a delightfully sharp tongue.
It's a nice balance to the all-too-familiar pantheon of apologists from the last century. And I think Fulwiler could be the start of a healthy trend.
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