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Before You Go: Uncovering Hidden Factors in Faith Loss
A crisis of faith isn’t always what it seems.
To alleviate a crisis, you have to get to its source, not just treat the symptoms. Many say they are leaving the faith as the result of conscious intellectual doubts or relational hurts. But often, what’s driving the doubt is just outside of one’s conscious awareness. Unbeknownst to those struggling—and those trying to help them—these unconscious factors can be the actual source from which their doubt springs.
Before You Go is a diagnostic tool for addressing doubts. Rather than rehash surface-level apologetic answers, Marriott and Wicks dig deeper into overlooked factors that frequently are the real culprits when it comes to faith crisis, namely the unconscious aspects of our experience. Find real hope for those struggling to maintain their faith and genuine help for those trying to prevent faith loss in those they love.
To alleviate a crisis, you have to get to its source, not just treat the symptoms. Many say they are leaving the faith as the result of conscious intellectual doubts or relational hurts. But often, what’s driving the doubt is just outside of one’s conscious awareness. Unbeknownst to those struggling—and those trying to help them—these unconscious factors can be the actual source from which their doubt springs.
Before You Go is a diagnostic tool for addressing doubts. Rather than rehash surface-level apologetic answers, Marriott and Wicks dig deeper into overlooked factors that frequently are the real culprits when it comes to faith crisis, namely the unconscious aspects of our experience. Find real hope for those struggling to maintain their faith and genuine help for those trying to prevent faith loss in those they love.
176 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2022
There are three groups of people who should read this book:
1. Those who are struggling with their faith. If someone is having a "crisis of faith" whether it is from a sudden dramatic event or something that has been creeping up slowly on them, this is a great book to read.
2. Those who are family or friends of someone who is saying they have stopped believing in God (or are hinting that they are leaning in that direction.)
3. Everyone.
This isn't really a book about apologetics as much as it is an examination of common characteristics shared by those who have walked away from the faith. Author John Marriott is also the author of books like: Going Going Gone, An Anatomy of Deconversion, and Set Adrift. So he is bringing in a wealth of experience and research and hundreds of conversations into this work. Throughout this book, I kept remembering back to what I learned in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. That book was probably the most important book I read in '19. That book changed my thinking about thinking and made me a wiser, more self-aware person. This book has taken the science related in TF&S and gives it practical real-world application.
Before You Go is broken into three sections with a few chapters each. The first section, "Preliminary Issues" deals with issues like our subconscious, the reasonableness of faith, and why doubt isn't necessarily a bad thing or something to be avoided. The second section, "Pulling Back the Curtain" shows how the stated reasons for leaving the faith are rarely the true reasons, even though those leaving might sincerely believe they are. He gives an excellent illustration of an elephant with a rider who truly has no control of that elephant. The elephant is our subconscious thought that goes wherever it wants. The rider on top is our reasoning mind that creates logical explanations for why the elephant is going wherever he wants it to. The third section, "Assumptions and Expectations" seems pretty self-explanatory.
I never really walked away from my faith, but in the five years or so after finishing my undergrad at Bible College, I did walk away from many of the doctrinal things I did believe. Some of them I have come back to. Some I have not. But in the process of learning and adopting a faith of my own, rather than what was spoon-fed to me, I truly spent many sleepless nights wondering what was happening to me. A book like this would have been so helpful to me. It also would have been so helpful to one of my mentors who instinctively knew the maturation process God was doing in me but didn't know the right words to help me through the process. We had both been ingrained in a well-meaning but unhealthy church that said doubt and questioning are taboo. This book is an antidote to that poison.
1. Those who are struggling with their faith. If someone is having a "crisis of faith" whether it is from a sudden dramatic event or something that has been creeping up slowly on them, this is a great book to read.
2. Those who are family or friends of someone who is saying they have stopped believing in God (or are hinting that they are leaning in that direction.)
3. Everyone.
This isn't really a book about apologetics as much as it is an examination of common characteristics shared by those who have walked away from the faith. Author John Marriott is also the author of books like: Going Going Gone, An Anatomy of Deconversion, and Set Adrift. So he is bringing in a wealth of experience and research and hundreds of conversations into this work. Throughout this book, I kept remembering back to what I learned in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. That book was probably the most important book I read in '19. That book changed my thinking about thinking and made me a wiser, more self-aware person. This book has taken the science related in TF&S and gives it practical real-world application.
Before You Go is broken into three sections with a few chapters each. The first section, "Preliminary Issues" deals with issues like our subconscious, the reasonableness of faith, and why doubt isn't necessarily a bad thing or something to be avoided. The second section, "Pulling Back the Curtain" shows how the stated reasons for leaving the faith are rarely the true reasons, even though those leaving might sincerely believe they are. He gives an excellent illustration of an elephant with a rider who truly has no control of that elephant. The elephant is our subconscious thought that goes wherever it wants. The rider on top is our reasoning mind that creates logical explanations for why the elephant is going wherever he wants it to. The third section, "Assumptions and Expectations" seems pretty self-explanatory.
I never really walked away from my faith, but in the five years or so after finishing my undergrad at Bible College, I did walk away from many of the doctrinal things I did believe. Some of them I have come back to. Some I have not. But in the process of learning and adopting a faith of my own, rather than what was spoon-fed to me, I truly spent many sleepless nights wondering what was happening to me. A book like this would have been so helpful to me. It also would have been so helpful to one of my mentors who instinctively knew the maturation process God was doing in me but didn't know the right words to help me through the process. We had both been ingrained in a well-meaning but unhealthy church that said doubt and questioning are taboo. This book is an antidote to that poison.
October 4, 2025
This was a super informative and helpful book in understanding the perspective of why someone would walk away from Christian faith, well also reinforcing reasoning for Christian Faith, the only reason I didn’t give it Four stars was because it was really dense and hard to read at times, felt like it could go above the head of some people who are trying to read it for the sake of learning about their own faith which may discourage them more
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews