Several incidents and friends led me to write this book. Perhaps you have had a similar experience or belief.

• The distinguished National Public Radio commentator Daniel Schorr remarked one Saturday morning that he didn’t know any Evangelical Christians. Yet, they were becoming a key part of the political scene.
• When I studied astrophysics back in college, I had some Evangelical Christian friends. I had serious questions about the nature of God and how to know about Him. Yet they used odd terminology that made little sense to me. One of my Christian friends said, "God is like a father." Another said that I had to "have faith" and believe. Another told me "God is Holy". (I certainly had no idea what that meant!). Frustrated with not getting my questions answered, I gave up on Christianity for many years.
• My wife has a friend who sadly lost a couple of children as infants. She firmly believes that those children have been turned into angels who are watching over her and her other children, based upon the Hollywood idea that people become angels when they die.
• Another friend believes that Hell is "party city", while Heaven must be the dullest place conceivable. He thinks that Evangelical Christianity is about giving up his freedom.
• Another Christian friend says that you can't possibly be a Christian if you believe in modern science. I have other friends who aren't Christians because they agree.
• Another friend won't go to church because of "all the hypocrites" he knows that actually attend. He also "hates all those Christians."
• We have a Chinese friend who is an Evangelical Christian. When she met a guy, they began to talk religions. He was shocked to find she was Christian and said, "Since you are Chinese, you are supposed to be Buddhist! Why are you Christian?"
• I have a Moslem friend who thought the Christian Trinity was God, Mary, and Jesus. We have another friend who believes that all Catholic Christians are going to go to Hell. And a homosexual friend once said that his hand "would fry" when he touched the doorknob of a church.
• An acquaintance has decided to "find God in herself" and says that she is a Christian. Another woman we know refuses to condemn or discipline some out-of-control teenagers who visit her household, because she says that Christians "should not judge".
• I know others who spend their time reading conspiracy theory books. They believe that the entire world is controlled by a handful of families who have run the world for the last several thousand years. They think that Christianity is a temporary mechanism by which these families control people.
• And finally, I have many, many friends who think that all preachers are either the scary old man from "Poltergeist", the anti-fun fellow from "Footloose", political people like Jerry Falwell, or money hustling fakes.