Books
Long-form writing by Ryan Thompson: the new 2026 edition of This Ragged Life Renewed, the 2001 autobiography it grew from, and the books published since 2023.
New edition · 2026
A Life of Rebellion, Faith, Loss, and Renewal
By Ryan Thompson · Memoir · Editing assistance: Grok
“That night changed my life.”
Ryan Thompson grew up behind the Zion Curtain in small-town Utah, a restless kid in a struggling family. As a young man he ended up on the streets, and one night under the I-90 bridge in Seattle he was beaten and stabbed for a backpack that held everything he owned. Just after Christmas in 1998, with no license, bald tires and a blizzard closing in, he slid off an icy road near Deer Park, Washington, and prayed.
What followed was marriage, children and businesses built side by side, and then a drunk driver on Interstate 5 who left him with forty-two fractures, back-to-back hurricanes that took everything his family had in Puerto Rico, and the end of a marriage of nearly eighteen years. This is his honest account of rebellion, faith, loss and renewal: what he got wrong, what he has learned, and the faith he has held on to through all of it.
Bookshelf
Books Ryan has published since 2023, most of them through Lulu. Pillars of Strength is free to read on the Internet Archive.
A Richard Garvey Banton chronicle
By Ryan Thompson
Engineer Richard Garvey Banton’s life splits between a family on Earth and a second family on a collapsing Mars, until a failing spaceship leaves him one last message to send to his children on both worlds.
Paul, Rome, and the Unveiling of Early Christianity
By Ryan Thompson, edited by OpenAI ChatGPT 4.0
Was Paul’s turn from persecutor to preacher a divine awakening or part of a Roman plan? The book follows Rome’s hand in early Christianity and compares the Nicene canon, the Ethiopian Bible and the Gnostic Bible.
Big Brother’s Algorithm: AI, Lie Detection, and the War on Deceit
By Ryan Thompson, edited by OpenAI ChatGPT 4.0
The non-fiction opener of The Transparent Future series asks whether AI and lie-detection technology could end everyday deceit, and at what cost. A second, fiction installment follows a city where that technology has become a tool of control.
Fatherhood and the Weight of Truth
By Ryan Richard Thompson
A candid account of fatherhood, integrity and parental alienation, written for fathers who have struggled and refuse to give up.
Testimony
My testimony is that God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost which are the All Mighty Creator of the heavens and the earth and everything there within are what has changed my life, and renewed my spirit.
For many years I wondered around the world deceived. I lived in many situations, with many different types of people, and the out come of all of my searching had came to a big empty void, one which I was unable to fill. In fact, the more that I seemed to put into the void, the more the void was noticeable to me. That void was in the shape of God as I later realized when finding the mediator, the Savior Jesus Christ.
As I found, even in defiance of Him, is that His love would be the only thing to quench the pain and desires and deception of my flesh. Even when running from the knowledge of Him, I found that He is my only strength.
It seems like when I am in my lowest times I need him the most. Maybe that is why I have been so zealous about my new life, because I had hit a very low point in life. Drugs, legal issues, suicide attempts, and horrible living standards; I had lived on the streets for a few years.
With Gods people loving me, and being helpful to me, I have been able to know Gods love for His children. I have also found how wonderful it is to serve others.
May the Lord bless you!
The original site’s scripture and research pages: “Dear loved ones”, Behind the Zion Curtain, the CG Zine and the newsletter.
Dear loved ones · Behind the Zion Curtain · CG Zine · all research pages
