Tim Townsend, a for­mer reli­gion reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dis­patch, holds master’s degrees from the Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Grad­u­ate School of Jour­nal­ism and Yale Divin­i­ty School. He’s writ­ten for the Wall Street Jour­nal and the New York Times, among oth­ers. A three-time win­ner of the Reporter of the Year award by the Reli­gion Newswrit­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, this is his first book.