Books

Jeffrey Dahmer’s Story of Faith

A prison minister who led the mass-murderer to Jesus tells the story.

This book tells the disturbing yet redemptive story of how, by God’s grace, an atheist, pedophile, and mass murderer repented and believed in Jesus Christ. Roy Ratcliff—the erstwhile preacher-turned-prison-minister who baptized Jeffrey Dahmer—discovered through him this deep sense of grace that flies in the face of our compunction to condemn, voiced by one college professor who said, “If Dahmer’s in heaven, I don’t want to be there.”

DARK JOURNEY,DEEP GRACE:Jeffrey Dahmer’sStory of Faithby Roy RatcliffwithLindy AdamsLeafwood Publishers208 pp.; $13.99

Ratcliff says he became convinced of Dahmer’s sincerity during seven months of prison visits. “I feel very, very bad about the crimes I’ve committed,” Dahmer told Ratcliff. “In fact, I think I should have been put to death by the state for what I did.” A fellow inmate killed Dahmer in 1994.

Ratcliff called Dahmer by his first name, Jeff. “He became a real person to me, so I referred to him the same way I would anyone I knew personally,” Ratcliff said. “He was ready to die. I was the one who was unprepared.”

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Dark Journey, Deep Grace is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

More information is available from Leafwood Publishers.

For book lovers, our 2006 CT book awards are available online, along with our book awards for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997, as well as our Books of the Twentieth Century. For other coverage or reviews, see our Books archive and the weekly Books & Culture Corner.

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

Cover Story

Young, Restless, Reformed

Collin Hansen

'Divine Conspirator' Dallas Willard Dies at 77

Christine A. Scheller

It's All About God

Inside C.S. Lewis's Toolbox

Reviewed by Louis A. Markos

Embrace Your Inner Pentecostal

Chris Armstrong

China's New Legal Eagles

Tony Carnes

Spiritual Classics

Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman

Class Warfare

J. Edward Mendez, RNS, with reporting by Jason Bailey

What Happened to Religion in Canada?

Reviewed by Mark Noll

Despair Not

The Call of Samuel

Tim Stafford

Logic Left Behind

Reviewed by Collin Hansen

The Whole Word for the Whole World

For Shame?

Amy Laura Hall

Christ's Story

Reviewed by Gary M. Burge

Postcard from Africa

Editorial

God's Will in the Public Square

A Christianity Today Editorial

The Truth Is Somewhere

Deann Alford

Wrongful Love

Brad A. Greenberg

Theology for an Age of Terror

News

Quotation Marks

The New Missions Generation

Jonathan Rice

News

Go Figure

News

<em>Christianity Today</em> News Briefs

CT staff

News

Passages

Compiled by CT staff

Excerpt

A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future

Together in the Jesus Story

Nicholas Kristof on Evangelicals, China, and Human Rights

Interview by Collin Hansen

'Volcanic' Response

Sarah Pulliam

We're Not Spectators

Bygone Protests

John W. Kennedy

Two Degrees of Separation

Rob Moll

News

Scrubbing CleanFlicks

A Christianity Today Editorial

Thinking Straight

Madison Trammel

Echoes and Voices from Beyond

Reviewed by James W. Sire

How to Create Cynics

Sermons of Frederick Buechner

Reviewed by Wendy Murray

Estranged Bedfellows

Chris Hall reviews Jaroslav Pelikan's 'Whose Bible Is It?'

The Problem with Prophets

Paul Marshall

Sit Down, Sit Down for Jesus?

Pluralist Impotence

Douglas LeBlanc reviews 'American Mythos'

Dr. Willard's Diagnosis

Cornelius Plantinga Jr.

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