From an article of the same title by William Lobdell in the LA Times (the story is long but worth reading):

I began praying each morning and night. During those quiet times, I mostly listened for God's voice. And I thought I sensed a plan he had for me: To write about religion for The Times and bring light into the newsroom, if only by my stories and example. My desire to be a religion reporter grew as I read stories about faith in the mainstream media. Spiritual people often appeared as nuts or simpletons. In one of the most famous examples, the Washington Post ran a news story in 1993 that referred to evangelical Christians as "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command." Another maddening trend was that homosexuality and abortion debates dominated media coverage, as if those where the only topics that mattered to Christians. I didn't just pray for a religion writing job; I lobbied hard.

First as a columnist and then as a reporter, I never had a shortage of topics. I wrote about an elderly church organist who became a spiritual mentor to the man who tried to rape, rob and kill her. About the Orthodox Jewish mother who developed a line of modest clothing for Barbie dolls. About the hardy group of Mormons who rode covered wagons 800 miles from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, replicating their ancestors' journey to Southern California. Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism, with its low-key evangelism and deep ritual, increasingly appealed to me. I loved its long history and loving embrace of liberals and conservatives, immigrants and the established, the rich and poor. My wife was raised in the Catholic Church and had wanted me to join for years. I signed up for yearlong conversion classes at a Newport Beach parish that would end with an Easter eve ceremony ushering newcomers into the church. By then I had been on the religion beat for three years. I couldn't wait to get to work each day or, on Sunday, to church.

William goes on to discuss several stories that he covered that began to take a toll on him:

• the molestation scandals in the Catholic church and the way that both church leadership and common parishioners exacerbated the problem by supporting and protecting the perpetrators rather than the victims
• lack of acceptance for misfits in the Mormon culture
• Trinity Broadcasting Network's televangelists fleecing of the vulnerable with their prosperity gospel and living in luxury as a result: "TBN's creed is that if viewers send money to the network, God will repay them with great riches and good health. Even people deeply in debt are encouraged to put donations on credit cards."

His perspective evolved from...

...I was comforted by the advice of a Catholic friend: "Keep your eyes on the person nailed to the cross, not the priests behind the altar."

to...

As part of the Christian family, I felt shame for my religion. But I still compartmentalized it as an aberration - the result of sinful behavior that infects even the church.

to...

On Good Friday 2002, I decided I couldn't belong to the Catholic Church. Though I had spent a year preparing for it, I didn't go through with the rite of conversion. I understood that I was witnessing the failure of humans, not God. But in a way, that was the point. I didn't see these institutions drenched in God's spirit. Shouldn't religious organizations, if they were God-inspired and -driven, reflect higher standards than government, corporations and other groups in society? I found an excuse to skip services that Easter. For the next few months, I attended church only sporadically. Then I stopped going altogether.

to...

The questions that I thought I had come to peace with started to bubble up again. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God get credit for answered prayers but no blame for unanswered ones? Why do we believe in the miraculous healing power of God when he's never been able to regenerate a limb or heal a severed spinal chord?

to...

My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago - probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up. Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don't. It's not a choice. It can't be willed into existence. And there's no faking it if you're honest about the state of your soul. Sitting in a park across the street from the courthouse, I called my wife on a cellphone. I told her I was putting in for a new beat at the paper.

I thought this story was really interesting. It made me wonder how the church could be more successful and active in preventing and eliminating its characteristics that, in some instances, enable it to become a predator upon the weak rather than a source of love, hope, and support. I'm also especially intrigued by his observation that two people can see the same tragedies and hypocrisy or go through the same agonizing illness or loss...and one emerges with a faith that is strong while another's faith evaporates.