Writing God's Obituary
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A former African American minister revealshis unusual journey from faith to atheism.
Anthony Pinn preached his first sermon at age twelve. At eighteen he became one of the youngest ordained ministers in his denomination. He then quickly moved up the ministerial ranks. Eventually he graduated from Columbia University and then received a Master of Divinity in theology and a PhD in religion from Harvard University.
All the while, Pinn was wrestling with a growing skepticism. As his intellectual horizons expanded, he became less and less confident in the theism of his upbringing. At the same time, he became aware that his church could offer only anemic responses to the
acute social needs of the community. In his mid-twenties, he finally decided to leave the ministry and committed the rest of his life to academia. He went on to become a distinguished scholar of African American humanism and religious history.
The once fully committed believer evolved into an equally committed nonbeliever convinced that a secular approach to life offers the best hope of solving humanity's problems.
Anthony B. Pinn (Houston, TX) is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities, professor of religious studies, and founding director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning at Rice University. He is the first African American full professor to hold an endowed chair in the history of Rice University. He is also director of research for the Institute for Humanist Studies and is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Humanist Association. He is the author or editor of twenty-eight books, most recently Introducing African American Religion, (Routledge, 2012) and The End of God-Talk- An African American Humanist Theology (Oxford University Press, 2012).