Hope after Faith

Jerry DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, where he was a fixture of the community. In private, however, he'd begun to question his Pentecostal faith, until late one night in May 2011 when 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, he found that the faith which once had formed the cornerstone of his life had finally crumbled to dust.

When DeWitt was eventually outed as an atheist, he found himself shunned by much of DeRidder’s highly religious community, losing his job, his wife, and nearly everything he’d known. Hope after Faith tells the story of Jerry DeWitt's life passage from a pastor with a deep Christian faith to a committed and considered atheism, one driven by humanism, a profound moral dimension, and a happiness and self-confidence obtained by living free of fear.

JERRY DeWITT’s ministry began when he was 17. After 25 years of preaching, including pastorship of two fundamentalist congregations, he became an atheist. DeWitt lives in rural Louisiana. ETHAN BROWN is the author of Queens Reigns Supreme, Snitch, and Shake the Devil Off. He lives in New Orleans.