Today on the Leonard Lopate show a memoirist and novelist named John Marks was featured in a segment called A Former Evangelical's Crisis of Faith.  Lopate and Marks, who are both not practicing Christians, showed a stunning secular understanding of American Protestantism, being that they are outsiders.  It helped that Marks had been an evangelical before leaving Christianity altogether, but Lopate also showed a surprising knowledge of the differances between charismatic and Pentacostal expressions of faith and worship.  In summary, the segment discussed how:

American evangelical Christianity can be misunderstood by outsiders.  Veteran journalist and former 60 Minutes producer John Marks was born again at age 16, but later abandoned his faith.  His new book about the religion he left behind is Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind.  ... more