Breaking Up with Jesus is an intimate look into one man’s loss of faith in God. Steve Dow guides readers through his journey from being deeply religious - as a child, Dow aspired to be a Catholic priest - to realizing that the views he’d held for decades no longer made sense.

Dow’s deep-dive into his transformation from devout believer to contented atheist offers a rare look at the mental and emotional struggles that accompany a break from a once-cherished faith. A professional engineer with a business background, but also a poet and songwriter, Dow taps into multiple perspectives, using storytelling and critical analysis to examine the historical underpinnings that religions have used for centuries to spread their teachings while silencing dissent.

His deeply personal accounts explore doubts that many believers still hold and the existential fear that comes with them. Dow explains what he told himself to be able to kick those doubts down the road. Once he and his wife had to decide what they would teach their children about religion, however, Dow realized that he could no longer ignore the hanging thread. He pulled it, and this book is the result. Lastly, Dow presents a hopeful vision for the future focused on shared values of the religious and irreligious alike.

Born into a middle class, Irish-Catholic family in 1970s New Jersey, Dow’s childhood was immersed in religious belief. His Catholic studies were coupled with Protestant youth events with neighborhood friends, including a Protestant missionary trip to Indonesia. His mother was paralyzed after suffering a stroke when Dow was young, and she died years later when Dow was just 14. Her death shook his religious beliefs to the core, affecting the shy and pensive kid well into adulthood. Attempts to honestly inspect his doubts proved difficult as a young man, and Dow found a way to shelve them for years…until now.

Dow lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.