Why I Am Not an Atheist

“Beha is sincere, honest and likable on the page. Unlike a traditional pilgrimage, this book is an odyssey of the mind . . . [a] deep-dive meditation on faith and philosophy [that] shows his ambidextrous literary talents.” —Timothy Egan, The New York Times Book Review

“The greatest strength of Why I Am Not an Atheist is this humility. Beha never tries to win. He doesn’t preach or posture. Instead, he offers the rarest thing in modern writing on belief: openness without hostility, emotion without excess, and a measured voice without a hint of self-importance. The highs are the moments of insight that feel earned. The lows are the dark corridors he walks without self-pity. Beha leans on the idea that meaning grows when we face the world in its fullness, with all its doubt, difficulty, and wonder.” —John Mac Ghlionn, World

“Former Harper’s editor Beha recounts his decades-long struggle to find answers in atheism before embracing faith, and along the way tackles questions about suffering, pain, mortality and purpose.” —Publishers Weekly, Top 10 Religion and Spirituality titles for Spring 2026

“A nuanced philosophical investigation of belief and nonbelief . . . [Beha] is a smart and fluent interpreter. A lucid, thought-provoking treatise.” —Kirkus

“This powerful and poignant book lays bare Christoper Beha’s heartfelt and erudite journey from Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian to John Henry Newman’s legendary conversion to Catholicism, American-style! Like Dante’s Beatrice, his transformative experience of earthly love opens the windows to genuine divine presence! His literary artistry sparkles as his heart yearns for and burns with transcendence!” —Cornel West, author of Black Prophetic Fire

“What a thrilling and fascinating mind Beha has, and what a brilliant and beautiful (and sometimes very funny) book he has written with Why I Am Not an Atheist! It’s a joy to read him probing the philosophical traditions underlying our contemporary worldviews, and when the book moves into his own attempts to live out various faiths, from atheism to Roman Catholicism, the book doesn’t just offer us a brilliant portrait of sophisticated faith in the modern age but also gives us a genuinely moving narrative of spiritual longing and love.” —Phil Klay, author of Uncertain Ground

“Sometimes a matter of personal, existential urgency will impel a man to start questioning the certainties of his time. Christopher Beha found himself at such a juncture, and the fruit of it is Why I Am Not an Atheist. Beha recovers and reconstructs the steps by which Western man got himself into a jam—that is, how we ended up with a world-picture that renders important swaths of experience unintelligible. We bracket off moments of wonder and grace as unexplainable, and therefore as unreal. The result is a flattened world. But it is not the only world available. In tracing the intellectual genealogy of our superficial metaphysics, Beha clears the way for us to hear the quiet, clear call of . . . well, of something very large that addresses us.” —Matthew B. Crawford, New York Times bestselling author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

“Christopher Beha’s brilliant memoir takes to heart Saint Augustine’s injunction to ‘read your life.’ In doing so, Beha offers his own, deeply personal confrontations with religious faith, even as he examines the philosophical traditions that both underpin and undermine his attempt—anyone’s attempt, really—to respond to that simple and persistent question: How should we live? A profound and honest book that proves intelligent belief is not an oxymoron, that both faith and doubt can nurture the soul.” —Alice McDermott, author of Absolution