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Why do people stop going to church? This big question is the subject of Julia Duin's small book, Quitting Church: Why teh Faithful are Fleeing and What To Do About It. Duin is not a disinterested observer of the phenomenon of church-dropping; rather, she's a churchgoer who wants churches to work well, and also a skilled reporter who knows how to apply the tools of her trade. 

The result is a book that makes for uncomfortable reading for anyone invested in good church ministry; Duin is straightforward in her examination of the myriad ways churches can fail Christian believers. But she's not without hope in American churches and their ability to find a way forward. 

Duin took on some questions via email. Our exchange appears after the jump. 

A.J. Jacobs, the author of The Year of Living Biblically, calls it "equal parts Tom Perotta and Rob Bell." Couldn't be a more apt description of what Rob is able to accomplish in his writing: it's a kind of pastoral satire. 

The merit award is a runner-up prize. CT's top fiction award went to some writer named Marilynne Robinson. Who? What has she ever done worth doing?

Ted Haggard enjoyed frequent television appearances during the years when, as the outspoken president of the National Association of Evangelicals, his star rose high enough for Barbara Walters, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Brian Williams, et al to come calling on a regular basis. In November 2006, he disappeared quickly when he was caught in a sex and drugs scandal with a male prostitute in Denver. But this week, Haggard is gracing television screens once again. Oprah Winfrey and Larry King are profiling Haggard and his family, and HBO subscribers will watch "The Trials of Ted Haggard," a documentary by Alexandra Pelosi that follows the ex-minister through the dreary months after his star crashed. 

In his two decades as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, one of Haggard's most legendary sermons was titled "There's No Such Thing As a Secret." Truth will out, preached Haggard, so you may as well confess your darkest impulses and actions. I was Haggard's writer and editor for eight years, and I don't know anyone who was not shocked that there was such a thing as a secret for him. Haggard's double life was a searing revelation to his family, his church, and his closest friends.

It is also the right touch for a story about Haggard's afterlife: after two decades of pastoring a megachurch, after high-profile years as an international spokesperson for evangelicalism, and after a very public sex-and-drugs scandal that brought his life to the ground. Pelosi's movie follows Haggard as he applies for his first job, takes up golfing, moves from house to house, and sorts through the remains of his life. Her camera is compassionate toward him inasmuch as it allows him to have that afterlife, but it's also unflinching in capturing his fear, his anger, and his confusion about his own identity. 

Pelosi was kind enough to answer a few questions by email. Our exchange is after the jump. 

Note: I sent these questions to her on Friday, before the story broke that another young man says he had a sexual encounter with Haggard. Pelosi mentions that new story in one of her answers below.