A Social Anthropology dissertation on the Religion-exiting Experience:
Personal Journeys of Exploration Beyond Early Learned Faith Subcultures
Introduction:
Politics and religion are reputedly the two topics most advisedly left untouched at an extended family Christmas dinner. They certainly are personal, and often fraught with an intensity of emotion, making that advice perhaps sage. That being said, academic exploration of topics as forbidden from normal conversation as child abuse is constructively undertaken, and can yield insights which may well guide deepened understanding of human nature, history, and future policies in democracies claiming “the social contract.”
To clarify the title of this study, I have not focused here on people exploring beyond the faith of their upbringing and then confirming and returning to it; I focused on people leaving the faith of their upbringing, whether becoming agnostic, atheist, or switching to a fairly different faith (with the significance of difference being largely left to the perception of the respondent).
In the very recent book, “Handbook on Leaving Religion,” (2019; Enstedt, Larsson, and Mantsinen; p. 3) the authors note that academic study in this area has not yet settled on any broadly accepted definition of ‘what “leaving” entails’, and that “the study of leaving religion” could be seen as a “neglected topic.” As we will see though, that has started to change, and this study is an attempt to modestly contribute to that change.
It is understandable that this has begun to change. Gerhard Lenski’s 1961 prediction that “religion in the modern world is merely a survival from man’s primitive past, and doomed to disappear” (1961; Lenski; p. 3), coupled with Peter Berger specifying in 1968 that what remains of religion in the twenty-first century would amount to it being “likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture” (1968; Berger) have by now become infamous. Obviously that has not become our current reality, as religion is showing no signs of erosion in the developing world; however, recent changes in the west are noteworthy. Summarizing changes from just 2007 to 2015, Michael Shermer points out that in 2007 16% of Americans claimed no religious affiliation, but by 2015 that figure was up to 23%, with about 35% for those born since 1980. (2018; Shermer) After noting that these non-affiliateds can include ‘spiritual but not religious’ like new-agers, he goes on to share some informed speculation from University of Kentucky psychologists Gervais and Naile who point out that there could well be many more atheists than the polls have shown because “social pressures favoring religiosity, coupled with stigma against religious disbelief…, might cause people who privately disbelieve in God to nonetheless self-present as believers, even in anonymous questionnaires.” This is not to pretend that growth in the secular community is the only growth, as there has been growth among evangelicals or other specific small groups too, but that is not the focus of this research.
The US is not the only place in stages of multifaceted change. In the chapter focused on people leaving Catholicism in “Handbook on Leaving Religion,” Turpin focused on Ireland. He points out that “…self-identification as nonreligious is rising (growing from 269,800 to 468,400 people between 2011 and 2016, a relative increase of 73.6 percent,…).” He adds to this by noting that in the leadup to that brief time-period, religious ‘practice’ measured by weekly mass attendance had already declined from “85 percent in 1980 to 35 percent in 2012.” (2019; Turpin; p. 187)
Yes, globally speaking, the 1960’s predictions of religion’s demise have not come about, and no-doubt never will, but understanding what’s behind the growth of the non-religious in the west is a real need. They’re coming from somewhere… from within religion. Any group this large and more actively growing now than 40 years ago, whose process of evolution or becoming has been a neglected topic, calls for study.
To this general need I would add this: atheists have frequently been viewed in negative lights such as not trustworthy, a key factor discussed by Will Gervais (2011; Gervais) in noting that in 2008, 84% of American said that they were not ready to accept an atheist President, while majorities said they were ready to accept a black, a woman, a Jew, a Hispanic, or a Mormon. Further, those leaving a religion are often, we could say understandably, viewed negatively by those they left. Thus it is clear that if a degree of cohesion and general confidence/trust is a constructive factor and worthwhile goal in a democracy, that there is a need to increase an understanding of these atheists and leavers so as to decrease, to the degree possible, the fear and misunderstanding of these. It is important here to distinguish between ‘better understanding’ in contrast to ‘promotion.’ The former is a standard goal in social anthropology, the latter clearly not.
The goal then of this research was to explore the reasons for, experiences during, and perceived results of, the faith-exiting personal lived-narratives of a small variety of people from a variety of faith backgrounds. Because this study is exploratory, the central question is rather broad: What are some of the key factors which prompt exiting, how does that experience transpire, and how do the long-term results play out?
Questions of Belief- some theoretical considerations
General
In the title I have used the short phrase ‘faith subculture.’ Since that is perhaps not in common use, for simplicity and clarity let me state that what I refer to there is any given religion. The use of the term religion in anthropology has seen a winding path.
Berliner and Sarro (2007; p. 4) summarize part of this by noting that the early anthropologist Edward Tylor defined religion as “belief in supernatural spiritual beings.” They point out that before long Geertz revised that to ““a system of symbols through which people constructed a meaningful world,” pointing out that belief is not included. They add that later Talal Asad, William Arnal, and several others dismissed defining religion as “futile,” and that it “should be given up.” They point to the pinnacle of this rationale being that for some, religion (including this form of belief) does not exist as a thing to study.
They clarify though that we simply can’t assert that “…whatever it is that we… call ‘religion’ (be it their inner convictions or social institutions) is something that just came ‘out of the blue.” They point to people living in society, experiencing socialization there, and that religion is “sometimes” included. (Berliner and Sarro, 2007; p. 5)
Because among my respondents the role of ‘belief’ as a factor in their experience varied, I want to here briefly address the belief aspect of religion. As warned about by many anthropologists, western academic anthropology was significantly influenced by Christianity, which in general viewed belief as quite central to religion. Rodney Needham (1972; p. 152) argues that belief is not a universal feature of religion, but only “…the arbitrary product of an intricate and unique historical tradition.” He clarifies that belief is applicable, accurately, only to western religions (Greek, Jewish, Christian). “The crucial mistake has been the uncritical acceptance of a traditional Western definition of a mental state called belief.” (Needham, 1983; p. 41) Even inside Christianity, the idea of belief became more significant after the Reformation. (2013; Dein)
In summary here, I will simply suggest that it seems reasonable that even in Geertz’s constructing of meaning, inside this ‘constructed’ meaning — once put in descriptive words — would be found some beliefs. But this case need not be belabored. In a summary which I find very accurate, appropriate, and applicable to my analysis of my respondents’ stories, Kaufman’s early crystallization seems balanced and insightful: “In religion, practice, feeling, and belief are intertwined, and every definition that would see the essence of religion in just one of these three facets is too partial.” (Kaufman, 1961) (my emphasis)
I feel compelled to note here that the field of anthropology broadly has at times proposed explanations to the very rise, evolution and existence of religion, and at other times backed completely away from even the effort toward such. A discussion of this would be interesting and potentially lengthy, and there is much that I would recommend an interested person read, from Frazer’s 1890 publication of “The Golden Bough” to Boyer’s 2001 “Religion Explained,” but much more significant than the controversial nature of considering the evolution of or an explanation of religion per se, an exploration of the exit experience of different individuals from different religions does not require an exploration of theoretical proposals on its origin broadly, or any attempts at consensus on such; a discussion of such here might only serve to cloud an understanding of these experiences.
A Note on the “Native Anthropologist”
Before dealing with any of the details from the literature on this, I must disclose to any reader that the reason I bring this up as relevant is that in this instance I am acting in the role of the proverbial native anthropologist. That is to say, I am a leaver; in my late 30s I left the faith of the Seventh-day Adventist church, a protestant denomination, in which I was raised as a missionary kid, educated in until graduate school when I was in my mid 20s, and for which I worked for nearly a decade. Thus, as I study the exit experiences of various others, I too have had my own exit experience and after-life.
Kirin Narayan (1993; Narayan) leads her readers on a delightfully convoluted exploration of many nuances of the native anthropology experience, positionality, and perspective from which I summarize here several factors. She notes that the ‘native — non-native’ distinction should not be considered fixed; the anthropologist has constantly shifting identifications. She also points out that a single aspect of positionality, in the case of her analysis it being culture, is only one of many — there also being education, age, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, etc., in my case the exit experience.
Narayan also gives the very practical and wise advice that what matters is not so much the commonality or the differences, but the quality of the relations, the communication. One might be an insider in some way and an outsider in many others, as is certainly the case with me and my respondents, but the question is, do you become a trustworthy person in the eyes of the people sharing their perspectives, their life experiences and values, from their heart? In my case this has been possible in a good number of cases where we have known each other quite well for considerable time, but, as I will discuss in my section on methods, with those whose relationship with me is recent and focused on this research, with some the back and forth has been in depth, with openness and trust increasing, but with others I simply accepted the story as told, necessarily limiting the back and forth to fewer respondents.
Lanita Jacobs-Huey adds some important specifics to this issue of native anthropology. She put some emphasis on honestly facing the issue of positionality in consciously noticing whether one’s presence and perceived position may influence those being studied, and seeking to limit that possibility. She also spoke of the danger of having an axe to grind, and of being perceived to have such. (2008; Jacobs-Huey) To me, a primary illustration of this in my position is that while I attempt to better understand the perspectives and experiences of leavers through their eyes, and to share that understanding, that I am not then going on to mingle that with justifying and advocating these positions.
The Exit Experience
As I alluded to in the preamble, the exit experience could be considered a neglected topic, but that is changing. I noted there a very recent work that is a substantive part of that change: Brill’s “Handbook on Leaving Religion,” edited by Daniel Enstedt, Goran Larsson, and Teemu Mantsinen, with over 25 contributing expert authors. (2019; Enstedt, Larsson, and Mantsinen) Before drawing on some important selected elements, I am briefly here providing for any interested reader a general description of what this work covers. After a general orientation to the field and overview to this point, this work is divided into three parts: Part 1. Historical and Major Debates, in which broad looks are taken of the exit phenomenon in the contexts of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and in Antiquity; Part 2. Case Studies, in which many specific sometimes (though not always) ethnographic studies, from leaving Mormonism, to leaving the Amish, to the case of Queers leaving Islam, and many more, are shared; and Part 3. Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, in which the subfields of statistics, geography, historical approaches, and the subapplications of psychology, sociology, media, and autobiography are addressed as related to leaving.
In their Chapter 1 introduction to this business of leaving, these editors clarify that one way of viewing leaving is to use the term deconversion. They point out that conversion has been greatly studied, not so with deconversion, and that it is fundamentally different enough that it should not be considered simply a reverse process. (p. 3) This particular simple but profound point was made much earlier in a broad sense, not focused on religion, by Helen Ebaugh in “Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit” with the neat summary that “role exit is not simply… role entry played in reverse. It is unique.” (1988; Ebaugh; p. 8)
A point that is touched on in the introduction to the Handbook is brought home in powerful terms a number of times later in the book. The point is this: Leaving involves more personally powerful factors than dogma — it involves “core identities,” forming “new selves,” (p. 203), “an overhaul of one’s previous conception of self, a re-creation of one’s way of being in the world,” can be a “crash,” a “pulverization of my fortress,” and because of this “it is rarely smooth.” (p. 164) The thoughts in this paragraph, and the all-encompassing aspects of one’s life potentially impacted shared briefly in the paragraph after next, have given me an almost frightening sense of being privileged to peer into what may be some of the more private and gut-wrenching corners of my respondents’ life experiences.
Several ways in which exit experiences can vary, and to which a researcher can usefully be attentive, include: one can compare the different facets of reasons, processes, and consequences (p. 2); if looking at reasons, they might varyingly be based in “intellectual doubt, moral criticism, emotional suffering, and disaffiliation from a community” (p. 2); and the experience might be manifest “early/ late, shallow/deep, and mild/transformative,” with any single case showing different combinations. (p. 3) I will point out here that my stated focus on “reasons for, experiences during, and perceived results of” closely align with these editors’ three terms: reasons, processes, and consequences.
Keeping in mind the potentially powerful nature of such a change in core identity , way of being in the world, the editors raise the reader’s attention to the range of factors which could well be impacted, from food, clothing, music, social network, family, politics, addictions, vocabulary and speech patterns, sexual orientation and behavior, status, to risks of exclusion, severed family relations, fear, guilt, notions of punishment, grief, or even hate crimes, and (fortunately relatively rarely) being killed. (p. 4–6, 69, 85, 93, 204)
Because I didn’t succeed in contacting someone who had left Judaism or Hinduism, I am here going to draw some from their chapter on leaving Orthodox Judaism, and from an essay by Hari Sri in New Humanist. And finally here amidst this connection with the literature, particularly because the two ex-Muslim respondents I was planning on receiving stories from have either suffered intervening circumstances or may have changed their minds, I will draw significantly from another recent substantive work in the field of leaving: Simon Cottee’s “The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam.”
I earlier pointed out that deconversion cannot simply be viewed as an exact reverse of conversion. The author of the chapter on leaving Orthodox Judaism, David Belfon, explains that one key difference in nature is that those deconverting are not given “readily available scripts” with which to tell their story (and I would suggest, first understand it), as those incoming converts regularly are. (p. 144) Thus there can be much greater confusion and sense of disorientation, of not having any community to which one feels they belong. Although this observation is made in the context of Judaism, from my other reading, I would contend that this can be reasonably generalized more broadly.
It is interesting to ponder the possible broader applicability of another observation developed by Belfon in studying leaving Judaism. He suggests that many respondents had “a similar trajectory of dissatisfaction, questioning, investigating alternatives, surreptitious leavetaking, outing themselves or being outed, and new identification as different.” (p. 148) Although I don’t find a nearly identical list among other writers, I do find elements of this description showing up in many varied ways. It is my observation in both my reading and my life experience living in, not simply visiting, seven countries beyond the US and Canada, that exposure to alternatives (only then is investigation at all likely) is one of those almost ‘necessary but not sufficient’ factors for this type of change.
A perhaps noteworthy difference brought out by Belfon in the case of leaving Orthodox Judaism is that returning in degrees to variants of Judaism seemed relatively commonplace. (p. 149) This may well be at least partially understood as possibly coming from the fact that being a Jew is both a religious descriptor and an ethnic descriptor, discussed in Part 1’s (Historical and Major Debates; not Part 2’s Case Studies) chapter on Judaism. (p. 55) The identity component significantly remaining intact because of ethnicity then, the belief component seems to have more flexibility for renegotiated fit with one’s life, making a degree of ‘return’ more likely.
The essay connected to leaving Hinduism, by Hari Sri, is titled “Why I am not Hindu.” The focus in this New Humanist publication is more on reasons than experience, with nothing on results. Hari expressed objection to “the pressure to fulfil a predetermined role in society,” the presence still of “violence and chauvinism,” and most intensely to Hinduism being “intrinsically misogynistic.” This conclusion seemed to be drawn primarily from realizing that under even updated Hindu expectations, his mom couldn’t attend his dad’s funeral when he dies because women are “too mentally fragile, thus incapable of being able to withstand loss.” (2014; Sri) He made no pretences of these reasons forming an exhaustive list, or being broadly applicable; they were his reasons.
In Simon Cottee’s “The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam,” he puts his focus in simple and clear terms: “… the central concern of this book is to explore the social situation of ordinary non-activist ex-Muslims,” not focusing on the expressed opinions of famous or politically active ones. Based on his extensive interviews with 35 ex-Muslims living in Britain and Canada, he explores “what it means to renounce religion in toto and to live a life beyond religious belief and practice,” and adds, “This subject remains neglected in the social sciences.” (2015; Cottee; p. 9) In honest anthropological fashion he states that he does not see apostasy from Islam as either “a moral problem in need of correction…” or as “a moral achievement.” (p. 10)
Cottee identifies the “core issues” in his ex-Muslims’ internal deliberations as being both belief — “what is true?” and identity — “who am I?” (p. 54) In exploring what he called “pathways to” doubt holistically (not exclusively focused on belief), he summarized these five routes: personal experience; exposure to alternatives; scriptural discoveries; spiritual alienation; and political events. (p. 35)
A theme that shows up many times in his interviews with his respondents is the depth of personal angst in process and in result. For example, some respondents left “internally,” but in terms of public appearances remained hidden in the closet. The degrees of openness-closetedness varied completely, from everyone knowing, to no one knowing, obviously with many increments along the way. Speaking of this closet, his summary is that:
“It is endured because it is supposed to preserve and protect relationships with family members and friends. But because of all the deceit required to sustain it, and the emotional distance this creates, it ends up imperiling these, as well as fueling resentment and distrust between loved ones.” (p. 153)
The highly variable mixed bag of results is illustrated by these words from one respondent: “In the end I really did miss belonging to something.” He went on to describe the struggle to sort out and hang on to elements of culture which aren’t directly religious. (p. 155) The sense of loss and the perceived threat of further loss were palpable in the conversations of many. Still, although some leavers went back in, it was temporary, and they left again, seemingly with greater certainty and finality. Whatever the price was in each case, it appears that it was worth paying in order to not pretend, at least to one’s self, to believe and practice with sincerity that which is no longer part of one’s beliefs and identity. It struck me that along with perhaps a few other faiths, the combination of price actually paid and risk of higher potential further price is among the highest in the case of leaving Islam. One can objectively argue, and we in anthropology should argue, that whatever might be right or wrong about any faith or all faiths, that the modern recognized right to believe according to one’s own conscience, and thus to change faith, including leaving any such, ought to exist in principle and in reality, without threat of any kind.
Before moving on to my methods and the personal stories of my respondents, I want to draw on several ideas from one more very recent book, Alec Ryrie’s “Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt.” (2019; Ryrie) As can be suspected from the title, the ideas I wish to share here connect not so much with the leaver’s processes/experience, or consequences/results, but with reasons, things related to doubt.
Ryrie argues that while many vaguely attribute the rise of doubt (of faith) to leading figures of the Scientific Revolution and then the Enlightenment, that there are many records showing that doubt was not only common in cities like Paris, but that in the 1590s it was said that “there is no sect now in England so scattered as Atheism”, and that clear back in 1305 a Florence preacher warned that “the question ‘how can it be that God exists?’ was being ‘put by madmen every day.’” (p. 3) Ryrie summarized his point here this way: “Intellectuals and philosophers may think they make the weather, but they are more often driven by it.” (p. 4) I would argue that modern history as illustrated by US Supreme Court rulings from ending segregation to allowing gay marriage further strengthen this point.
Ryrie spends considerable time making the case of doubt being not simply intellectual, but emotional, an “unbelief of anxiety,” someone “so paralyzed by the possibility of being wrong that he will never settle on anything as right.” (p. 107) But a good number of times he touches on things more of the head than of the heart. In discussing what he called “doubting piously” (Chapter 6; p. 173-) he mentions seekers who refused the comfort of easy answers, who, while continuing to live wrapped in good behavior, still asked deep questions.
In bringing this into relatively modern times, he notes that after WWII “It now seemed plain that cruelty, discrimination and murder were evil in a way that fornication, blasphemy and impiety were not.” (p. 202) These new ideas were the result of doubting old ideas.
He wraps up his exploration of doubt, relative primarily to Christian faith, with what seemed to me to be a surprisingly practical and principled way. He points out that believers hoping for a return to the past “…are deluding themselves. Indeed, they are in some danger of being tempted by authoritarian nationalist voices that want to unlearn the Second World War’s moral lessons.” He ends with “Our cultures’ moral frameworks have shifted before and they will do so again. Our beliefs will, inevitably, follow. Believers and unbelievers alike share an interest in where that story goes next.” (p. 206)
The Method Used Herein
This being an exploration of the variety of experiences in leaving faith, I have chosen to have respondents from some variety of different faith backgrounds, ages, and nationalities, both men and women. As mentioned earlier, my plans to include Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam did not work out.
So as to limit my potential influence on their thoughts and memories, I chose to give them a writing-prompt (see the appendix), and not interview them. In several instances, probing follow-up questions were able to help me gather further enriching background, explanation, and perspective. The more typical ethnographic technique to use in exploring this might have been the informal interview. As mentioned, I was concerned about my potential influence in an interview for two specific reasons: my position as a ‘native’ anthropologist, and the fact that the initial eight respondents whom I had in mind because I knew they were leavers (but didn’t know their details) were people with whom I was fairly well to quite well acquainted. That mutual knowledge, of them knowing that I too am an ex, combined with me asking questions live, and following up live, posed risks of me unintentionally directing the conversation.
A practical consideration was that in most cases an interview would have been by phone or skype/zoom, which I felt left me with the potential negative of my influence and without the positive of direct person-to-person conversation, facial expressions, body language, and human warmth included.
A writing prompt, after several iterations, encouraging honesty and depth, but deliberately cautioning on emotionally hazardous material (“…deal with those in levels of depth that work for you.”), would limit more concretely my influence, especially when we were mutual acquaintances.
One of the strengths or having respondents do autobiographical writing when touching on particularly sensitive topics, in the case of Andrew Gorman-Murray’s research (2007), stigmatised sexuality, and in this case leaving a faith, is that it “offers an unobtrusive means to explore…” A clear limitation is that not everyone has well-developed writing skills and comfort levels that make for expressing complex thoughts, emotions, and experiences. In the case of two respondents, they expressed a preference for not writing, and for interviewing instead, and I readily agreed. One of these worked out, and one quit responding when trying to schedule the interview.
Particularly in asking a few follow-up questions, I was drawing on myself having gone through this experience, thus in a sense acting the well-known anthropological positionality of participant observation.
In deference to depth over breadth, and on academic advice, I am focusing on discussing just three of the 13 responses. Of the three axes, early/ late, shallow/deep, and mild/transformative, mentioned in Handbook on Leaving Religion, I used shallow/deep and mild/transformative as my key criteria for selecting which three to focus discussion on, choosing the more deep and transformative relayed experiences. (In addition to my acknowledgments, I wish here to clearly thank All my respondents; any story not discussed here still broadened and deepened my understanding. I was limited by strict word-length rules; I genuinely appreciate your time, effort, and choice to participate. I thank you!)
I will add here that my participants also knew that, separate from my studies and my dissertation, I am also planning to later pull together and publish an anthology of exit experiences.
Religious backgrounds are listed in the appendix.
A table summarizing Type / Degree of Change is also there.
The Three Cases told and discussed at length:
Case A:
Amy grew up the child of missionaries, who themselves had grown up as missionary kids. Faith saturated her young years in happy ways, extending outward from her family to encompass other workers for and members of the Seventh-day Adventist church. A life-impacting event when she was four left her needing leg braces. In her words, these braces
“didn’t seem to slow me down any. My playmates and school mates in grade school and academy were kind and supportive.
The only fly in the ointment was that except for 3 instances during my 4 years (in the boarding high school), I didn’t have any dates. It hurt to be ‘an old maid’ with no dates or steady boyfriends like most of the other girls had. My only life dream was to be a missionary wife and since that didn’t look like much of a possibility, I resigned myself to the idea of being an ‘old maid’ with 15 cats!”
When finished with high school she returned to North America to study nursing, in Adventism one of what she calls the ‘sanctified’ professions. The social challenges associated with leg braces continued. Faith was a major way of dealing with this:
“During my teen years there was a prominent movement within the church teaching the ABC’s of Prayer — Ask, Believe, and Claim the Bible promises. I was born with an independent nature and a ‘can do’ happy nature which was fostered by my parents especially in the face of my handicap. I chose not to dwell on marriage because then if it didn’t happen, I would be all the more depressed. So only once during my college years did I let myself claim the ABCs of Prayer for a husband.
My world revolved around mission work, God and the Adventist church, which I believed to be the truest interpretation of the Bible.”
She then met and married a “tall, handsome, fun and talented” Adventist fellow nursing major who was also interested in missions. A match made in heaven…
“My survival as a person with a handicap had depended greatly on leaning on God to get me through. It was deeply tattooed in my brain that God loves people as a father and He never gives bad gifts. I considered it a direct answer to prayer that God had reached out his septre and deemed that I could be married. Adult mission field surrogate aunts and uncles even told me how they had been praying that I would find someone and what a miracle it was that God had given me such a wonderful husband.
I had followed church standards carefully and devoutly. Since I didn’t have boyfriends I had very little chance to hold hands or kiss as a teenager and I was a virgin on my wedding night. I had done as God wanted and saved myself for marriage.”
But the wedding night, and then three decades plus of marriage and ‘general’ love, never made her feel that she generated real physical passion in her husband.
“Because of my physical handicap I came to think that his lack of interest in sex was because I was not womanly, sensual or sexy enough. It was easier to suppress my own sexuality than to build anticipation and then suffer disappointment. … By the end of our marriage, I had suppressed my sexuality to the extent that when I stood naked in front of the mirror my mind fogged out my boobs and pubes as they do in news reports.
I felt depressed and trapped.”
Despite this, they had two sons. And then
“At age 21 our youngest son revealed he is gay. Then my husband told me how he had suspected all of our son’s life that he was gay. Surprising to me was my husband’s ability to accept our son’s gayness. He had been very critical of our son for his worldly music and his earrings. How could he accept him unconditionally when he revealed he was gay?”
Insights, new perspectives and understanding, came in fairly rapid-fire.
“I’ve always been close to my kids. When Alex came out he sat with me into the wee hours of the morning while we worked on a project. He talked of the fear that homosexuality carries. People threw things at him and his boyfriend as they walked down the street. People on bikes tried to run them over. Alex spoke of all the beautiful, fun, talented girls he had dated in high school. He was tall, handsome, musical, funny, interesting, intelligent and the life of the party, and basically could have dated anyone he wished. But, he said, “they were all soul sisters, Mom. I had no sexual feelings for any of them, but when a good-looking guy walks by on the street, the chemistry is there unbidden!” He talked of how he had known since grade school that he was attracted to boys and was able to name his crushes. He said, “There is no way that I would choose to be gay and put myself in this danger and hurt you and Dad the way that this hurts you. I didn’t choose this and can’t make it go away.”
Where some parents choose disowning, Amy chose reflecting, re-evaluating. She came to accept, and to understand, that this was not a choice.
One of the consequences was that in her rural conservative “rigid and unbending” church congregation, it was like living in Russia where you never know who’s hidden KGB. She briefly went into her own sort of closet of hiding.
“Within a few months I became a very strong advocate for lgbtqi individuals. I could identify with them on a deep level in 3 areas of emotions. 1) I had grown up as a Third Culture Kid, wanting to be accepted into the community of locals, but continuing to be different from them. … I was an amalgamation of 2 cultures and not fitting 100% in either one. 2) I had a physical handicap I hadn’t chosen and couldn’t change that strongly defined me, as a differing sexual orientation defines the lgbtqi community. I can feel their pain and desire to fit in 100%. 3) Because of my lack of dates and attentions from the boys in my expatriate community, I developed feelings for a local boy and he was attracted to me. Because our religious community viewed a mixed racial relationship or marriage as ‘being unequally yoked,” we had to hide our feelings for each other. I believed in that era and community a ‘mixed’ relationship would have ruined my 4 grandparents’, my aunt and uncle’s, and my parents’ missionary reputations. … So our attraction had to go underground and consisted of a silent attraction to each other; conjuring up benign situations where we could be together; secret looks; holding hands once secretly and him giving me a good-bye kiss on the cheek when I left for college.
But I was left with a feeling of deceit and dirtiness for something innocent and pure. I felt like a slut.”
Then the big kicker:
“Five years after our son came out and after 33 years of marriage, my husband Anthony revealed that he is gay and has known since he was a child. He learned in dormitory worship that he should marry a nice straight girl and all those homosexual feelings would go away. He married me in great anticipation but discovered that his homosexual feelings didn’t evaporate.
It hadn’t been about me! Nothing was wrong with my womanliness, femininity, sexuality and sensuality! I couldn’t believe what it had taken for him to be in the closet and pretend to be attracted to me. I knew that I could never pretend to be attracted to a woman and live in a lesbian relationship. I knew from the knowledge I’d gained from Alex’s journey that homosexuality wouldn’t be prayed or counseled away.
Through those first months after Anthony came out I was a deer in the headlights. I cried for months. Couldn’t sleep. Had to live in the closet myself for 9 months, telling only my kids and a couple of cousins. So I hid out in my house a lot. I couldn’t trust anyone with the news that Anthony was gay. I was sifting alone through the rubble of what had been my life like a Katrina (hurricane that hit New Orleans) survivor sifts through the wreckage for any small piece of their former life and identity. I now had to separate my life from my former identity as a wife, church pillar, leader, missionary and mentor. My journey with the church was tenuous after my son came out and it was completely finished when my husband came out.”
Re-evaluations led inevitably to new tentative conclusions, certainly initially driven primarily by emotion, but then by far more. Issues as deep as one’s very identity, role, and a sense of betrayal don’t make for easy processing.
“I was and still am very angry at Christianity and God. My sense of betrayal by God was overwhelming. I couldn’t hear references about God, religion, his fatherly love, his omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence or any religious music without feeling that I was suffocating. I’ve never been raped, but I imagine my emotions were parallel to those of a rape victim when thrown back into the presence of the rapist again.
I trusted God, and He let me down. He couldn’t find any husband for me (a handicapped girl) besides a homosexual ‘fake’ husband. — to me the very definition of kicking someone when they are already down. If Christianity/SDA Biblical interpretation is so wrong about homosexuality, why would I have any trust for the rest of their Biblical interpretations such as women in ministry, the Sabbath, tithing, dress, diet and behavior?
Religion of any kind has become to me nothing but other people’s mental crutch and delusion. A way for rulers, leaders and powers to hold sway over the populace. The Bible to me now is a book of fables and fiction. Prayer now holds the same meaning to me as the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It is an exercise that one does to trick their mind into a sense of control and complacency — pie in the sky!
If God truly existed and was all loving and accepting why would one need to request thousands of people around the world in prayer chains to beg God to do something. Why would thousands of prayers have more power than my single prayer?
My belief system has evaporated. I’m not even sure there is a higher power. I do think there is energy in the universe. The best way I can describe myself is as an atheist. I’m repulsed by the con-tactics of religions and their proselytizing methods; by the way children are brainwashed into Christian perspectives and thought processes before they can even think for themselves.”
Early on, Amy had approached church leadership in search of support, understanding, and counsel; later she shifted to attempting to make recommendations to church leadership, having seen how they were hurting people. Sadly, the responses, and non-responses, revealed a lack of understanding, a refusal to change.
In looking back, looking at the now, and looking ahead, while she is honest, even with pain, fortunately Amy is not preoccupied with bitterness. While she had been conditioned to
“think that those who left the faith carried a heavy mantle of guilt. I’ve found in leaving the religious community that there is amazing freedom and peace. … No religion, or community of any kind will ever ‘own me’ again.
I’m now happily married to a heterosexual man the last 13 years and know what was stolen from me in my first ‘marriage’.”
But she does list her angers: her youth is gone, her only experience of true marriage is in her ‘old age’, and that she can’t share having and raising children with her true husband.
Among many constructive focuses in her life, Amy has dedicated considerable effort to getting religious leaders of all kinds to not counsel young homosexuals to go into hetero marriages in the hopes that that will ‘cure’ them.
Some who might experience such emotional jarring might simply double down on their traditions in an effort to stay oriented, but Amy moved on to re-evaluation of fundamental practices and beliefs.
In follow-up I asked Amy if she thinks she would eventually have questioned and re-evaluated so much from her past if she had not had such an emotionally jarring experience.
Her response gives anyone room to continue reflecting on issues like this. It “might have delayed my departure and kept it from being so abrupt, but not prevented it.” The complexities shown in Amy’s experience remind us that Kaufman’s “practice, feeling, and belief” are indeed very “intertwined.”
Case B:
Brady describes his deep roots and close-knit Mormon community with seeming pride, but with honesty too, giving some details on the restrictions, from entertainment, to friendships, to diet.
His first moment of some discomfort with his church occurred following a conversation he had with a non-Mormon junior high friend. Brady had asked why outsiders often viewed his church harshly, and his friend had replied that it was polygamy. Brady replied that that was the old days, and his friend challenged him with, “Homie, ask your parents. I guarantee it’s still happening.”
After his parents gave him an explanation for the old days, he replied,
“Ok, that makes sense. But why did he say it’s still happening?” My parents looked at each other, straining to come up with a satisfactory response. My father started, “Well son, it technically is still happening. In the temple, your mom and I were sealed, remember? If Mom were to die, I could, if the Lord willed it, be sealed to my new wife as well.” I was flabbergasted, “Mom would you do the same thing if Dad died?” My mom sighed, “No son, I am only sealed to your father.” I became a little frustrated; “How does any of that make sense? Why would Dad need a second woman? Wouldn’t that take away from the love you have for Mom? For ETERNITY???”. My parents denied that there would be love lost or diminished. It was at this moment that I first officially disagreed with the Mormon Church.”
On finishing high school, he had what he calls a “crisis in faith” when he had to choose between pursuing a career in atypical Mormon music and going on the expected Mormon mission. He chose the mission, and never looked back, but it wasn’t an easy road.
He had faced one “worthiness interview” before being baptized at eight, and now took his second and more intensive one. He remembers knowing that he was lying when affirming that he supported the church’s “spiritual polygamy” belief. His questioning was at least briefly acute during the peculiar and formal temple endowment ritual before being sent to one of the “missionary training centers” when he consciously questioned “…am I in a cult?”
After only five weeks in the training center he became progressively sicker, and after several levels of prayer and blessings failed, he was finally taken to a doctor and diagnosed with a rare fungal infection of the cerebrospinal fluid, and went home for treatment and recovery. With the seriousness with which the Mormon mission is viewed, this setback was unfortunately accompanied by lots of hurtful rumors within his church community.
After eight months of treatment and rest, he was well enough to go on his mission. Among what he otherwise described as an enjoyable experience, an unanticipated challenge arose from the fact that local politics in that state included an effort to pass a law against same sex marriage… and most people knew that the Mormon church was a chief sponsor of this effort. While some appreciated that political effort, many didn’t, and made sure that the young missionaries knew that.
Eight months into his mission, his csf fungal-induced fever returned, he was given an honorable discharge, and went home. Two side benefits to his mission were strengthening his Spanish language skills, and meeting another young Mormon who would later become his wife.
Although she was from a Mormon family too, she was somewhat a cultural outlier in that she felt fine not only having real thoughts and opinions on things, but also expressing those. Some members of his family, in more typical Mormon fashion, struggled with that.
College was next. Among the eye-opening experiences in college was simply getting to know a happily gay-married man who, instead of being “evil and disgusting” as he’d been “conditioned” to believe, was a very decent man who loved his husband like Brady loved his wife. Although he was still involved with formal responsibilities (Financial and Membership Clerk) in his local church, this contradiction led him to begin to “distance myself from the church.”
A very troubling discovery made in carrying out his church responsibilities was witnessing the level of financial micro-managing and privacy invasion done in providing any financial help to poorer members… all the while sending “shocking” sums to Salt Lake. “Realizing that the church had billions of dollars in real estate and other financial holding made me sick… My connection with the church continued to wane.”
He also studied more deeply into religions, including his own. He realized that Joseph Smith was a “dishonest child who became an adult conman.” He learned of plagiarism involved in the Book of Mormon, of church history “filled with lies, murders, massacres, and polygamy” which he found “appalling.” With these epiphanies, some walls of prohibition crumbled, and he tried alcohol… and liked it.
In this confusing time he admits to periods of depression because “Not only was I doubting the church, but I was losing my faith in God.” This expression says a lot: “I was all alone.” Extended family wouldn’t understand, and he felt he couldn’t even share honestly with his wife. He “suffered in silence for over a year.”
Perhaps wondering how alone he in fact was, he searched “atheist mormon” on Youtube. One of several that he watched was a talk by Richard Dawkins “speaking plainly about Joseph Smith.” Emotionally he says he “went from sadness to anger.”
Looking for a new sense of orientation, he took a Nietzschean philosophy class, joined a Freethinkers group, and attended a live talk given by Dawkins, with whom he was afterward able to have an extended personal conversation. Though still formally in the church, he began to post questions on Mormon history and doctrine on social media. Responses weren’t kind or accepting. Members on both sides of the family “were angrier than a kicked hornet’s nest.” Examples: “I am so ashamed to have you in our family”, “What is wrong with you? Are you a satanist”, “You should just leave the family if you are going to leave the church.”
The strained relations included that between his wife and him. He admits that “She got hit with the emotional shrapnel” because he was angry.
He finally resigned from his position at his church, and, perhaps looking for a sign of progress, stated that he would no longer be attending until the church changed its policy that children growing up with gay parents could not be baptized until they were 18 and had denounced their parents, ending their relationship.
He had managed to calm down enough to have had some non-intense conversations with his wife, and she had started to understand his “side of things.” His parents came for his graduation, and,
“Sitting on the back porch after my graduation, the mood took a turn. It went from light banter to annoyance, then frustration and then righteous indignation… “You are spitting in the face of your great grandparents”, “You are breaking up our family”, and the worst thing said was “You are spiritually abusing your wife and children by your actions”.
“I remember holding a glass cup of water. Then I saw red. The glass ended up shattered on the ground, supposedly I threw it down as I stood up. I remember shouting, “I am ashamed that you think so little of me. I am still the same son you raised. I love my wife and kids. If you honestly believe I am abusing my family spiritually, get the fuck out of my home and never come back. You are never welcome here again!” With that, I turned around and stormed into my house. I remember walking in to check on my toddler son napping in his crib. All of a sudden, I hear my wife shouting at my parents, defending me. She told them they should be ashamed of themselves, and that she has never felt spiritually abused. She then asked them to leave.”
Slowly though, anger changed to an ability to simply ignore “big Mormon events because they no longer mattered.” For two years things were uneventful, without his being formally disfellowshipped or him formally resigning his membership.
The last move in his saga occurred because Sam Young, previously a Mormon Bishop, was putting pressure on the church to properly investigate and prosecute many cases of grooming and sex abuse particularly during the leadup to the pre-baptismal worthiness interview at age eight. The church preferred the quiet of secrecy and internally handling everything, and Sam Young’s 23-day hunger strike and demonstration in front of church headquarters brought public attention. Instead of listening to a man trying to protect the vulnerable, they formally excommunicated him.
Brady and his wife watched as Bishop Young read his excommunication letter. They wept. “It’s time to fully resign my membership,” he told her. She couldn’t quite join him, but she understood, and so accepted and supported.
Brady’s trajectory included broad ethical issues of questioning basic equality (or its lack) of treatment and value, of women, and of homosexuals. Shortcomings there led him to notice the heavy-handed power structure that caused or permitted other unethical inequities, including financial. It seems to snowball; noticing certain failures leads to noticing more. The lack of truth, the very use of lies in church history, led on to doubting the existence of a god. Exposure to other ways of seeing things, alternative understandings, was again a significant factor. And again, things of the head didn’t remain in some isolated domain; they connect to the heart, to one’s sense of identity, of belonging.
Case C:
A few of the mileposts of her young Catholic life Cindy summarizes neatly with, “I was baptized when I was two months old, received my first communion at eight, and was confirmed at age 14,” but then notes of the latter two that at that point she “had very little understanding of the world, my own religion, other religions, and of myself.”
In high school she began to seriously expand her initially small, sheltered, small-town American world to include issues from world poverty, to religion, to disease, to globalization, to varieties of ways of life. On going off to college, her world of steady and deliberate horizon-widening was quite quickly torn much more open “with several hardships. Sexual abuse, being a victim of bullying, my parents divorcing, more sexual abuse, suffering from severe anxiety and anorexia, and the unexpected death of a friend.”
She naturally turned to the faith that had been a constant background foundation in her life, and remembers “screaming out to god, begging for help, and feeling as though I was never heard.” She searched for the comfort that family and others reassured her was there, but instead found confusion, shame, hopelessness, and fear.
Her questions went beyond the personal of her case, to mix in the broad ethics of what was likely reality. She puzzled that
“though god was all loving, he should be feared. It seemed that although god created you in his image, could forgive your most horrible sins if you repented, and loved you more than you could ever comprehend, god also had absolutely no problem sending you to hell so that you could burn for all eternity.”
In painful summary, she says: “I was scared. I didn’t feel loved. I felt controlled. I felt obligated, restricted, and as though I was always walking on thin ice.”
Amidst all these clanging emotions, Cindy tried to use a sort of anchor point she had learned to respect intellectually. Studying in a biology major, she had learned the importance of testing ideas, of gathering objective evidence before forming conclusions, and of being willing to change one’s mind. She was encouraged, and believed it was good, to use this even
“outside of class. I feel the need for things of high importance to have credibility, proof, and reproducible results. It’s hard to say prayers are answered when those praying in Texas live in a developed world full of simple luxuries all the way to excessive luxuries, but those in areas of sub-saharan Africa, who pray just as much, do not have access to basic human needs. It’s hard to say “God has a reason for everything” when you consider there are hospitals full of children with horrible forms of cancer that will take their lives, or why so many women on this planet are oppressed, sexually abused, and raped. When you consider the number of children who die every year from malaria or for the horrific non-sensible amounts of violence seen in nearly every single nation on this planet, how are you supposed to believe this holy benevolent force is watching over you and protecting you? We simply lack proof of this “wonderful deity”.”
To this she added:
“I know that religion is supposed to be a faith, and that you follow it blindly, without legitimate proof. But how can Christians say that Muslims are wrong? (Or vice versa). Most Christians I know who feel this way know very little about Islam… the overwhelming sense of “we are right and you are wrong” has destroyed “faith” and has become a divisive way to frame an “us versus them” dynamic that only caters to the ego…”
In the process of re-evaluating her faith, and religion and god broadly, Cindy gave herself open latitude on exploration. For an English class group blog assignment on religion, she chose to learn and write about a modern version of Satanism whose central purpose is primarily advocating “for religious pluralism and diversity. In reality, they fight for what the founding fathers fought for,” adding, with an obviously very intact sense of humor, “except the Satanic Temple wears more leather and eyeliner.”
In looking back and reflecting on her own relatively young life, and noting her appreciation for tradition and music and architecture and history, and still being able to be comfortable in a Cathedral and with ‘certain’ religious rituals, she adds that “I don’t consider myself religious now, but I consider myself spiritual even though that is now the most cliché thing to say. I like to believe that there is some type of unseen energy in this world that we can’t quite explain.”
She takes this reflecting a bit further:
“I have spent most of my life feeling negative and cynical, and sometimes I just want to feel hope and connection. I know that hope and connection is why many stay devoted to their religion, but because I couldn’t stay with my own religion, I made my own beliefs that are open for change and different interpretations. For many years now, I have felt particularly connected with Buddhism because it does not have a god. I am fine with Buddha being a teacher that followers look up to. Buddhism does not instill fear into its constituents, nor does it try to tell you that everyone else is wrong and going to suffer in the afterlife.”
Expressing confidence that she would have arrived at a similar conclusion even if by another route, she states that, “Religion did not make me happy, and I feel freer without it. I do believe I would have reached this same conclusion had I not experienced all the trauma in my early twenties as I had already been questioning my beliefs for years.”
Her final reflection reveals some of the depth to which a science-like approach to testing ideas, and being open to changing one’s mind, has impacted even her approach to something as personal as religion.
“I am not a Satanist, and I still read books about Buddhism but do not consider myself a Buddhist. I think it’s a shame that I lead my life happily, I have a master’s degree in biological sciences, I do volunteer work, I try to lead a respectful and peaceful life and despite those positive things I am still told my soul is destined to burn in hell, simply because I do not believe in god. The more I learn about this world the more I cannot fathom the possibility of an all loving deity. Would I ever change my beliefs if I was given concrete proof? Yes, I will always do my best to follow a path of truth and evidence, even if it means admitting I was wrong.”
The last sentence of her introductory paragraph turns out to be quite insightful about herself and her approach to living. Of her lack of understanding of receiving communion and being confirmed, and of the world, her religion, and others, and of her very self, she says, “I am still learning about all of these things and will always be until the day I die.”
Analysis
One of the features that these stories share is that of exposure to and deepening awareness of other ways of seeing/understanding life, of alternate belief systems. In Amy’s case this was vaguely the background to her whole life experience, then brought into focus when intensely emotional experience brought into focus inconsistencies and contradictions in her up-until-then perspective. She quite quickly moved from ‘I no longer subscribe to X, therefore I also re-evaluate Y and Z; there are other ways of seeing this.’ In Brady’s case this began in junior high with a friend’s critique of polygamy, and accelerated in college with both formal classes/seminars/groups, after some somewhat difficult times associated with his Mormon mission. Again, the snowball of other perspectives can grow quickly when triggered. In Cindy’s case this began in general awareness of other in high school, and then accelerated in college, triggered again in part by some significant emotional turmoil.
One can see in these cases a generally more emotion-involving triggering set of events, but I would caution on making too much of that. On one hand, those with some degree of inside exposure to strong faith/belief have no doubt heard many stories of emotionally intense experiences resulting in doubling down on one’s faith. And on the other hand, it is important to note that in these three cases they were ready and open to honest if uncomfortable re-evaluation of their previous perspectives. The idea that ‘If this particular experience had not prompted a fairly time-compressed response, I still would eventually have realized what I did, and made the same ultimate changes’ is there.
One also sees in these cases that a key factor in their re-evaluating existing beliefs was to view them in a broad ethical sense of what is, in simple terms, fair, decent, just, and if applied to the concept of a deity, worthy of worship. Accepting that ‘I not only can judge what I find acceptable and will support, but that I have the responsibility to make this kind of judgement’ seems to be a common denominator.
It must also be recognized that in each of these cases, there were at least temporary prices to be paid in emotional pain of the process itself.
Recommendation
This being a preliminary investigation, I will simply acknowledge that there is no doubt that there is much more unknown than known in this field. I am sure only that there is much room for the in-depth study of many PhD dissertations taking this orders of magnitude deeper.
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Appendix
The writing-prompt:
For inclusion in Personal Journeys of Exploration Beyond Early Learned Faith Subcultures, thank you for being willing to tell the story of your journey out of the general belief system of the family you grew up in, to where you are now. Please include thoughts, emotions, questions, experiences, etc. that played a part in your journey, and deal with those in levels of depth that work for you.
Please write in the first person. If in the telling, though, you are recreating conversation where you were called by name, feel free to use your real name OR to choose a pseudonym. When you refer to your mom or dad or siblings or neighbors or relatives or teachers or pastors etc., you may well choose to protect their identities through the anonymity of pseudonyms.
While I would ask that you identify the general faith community which you ultimately grew out of, please don’t put your readers through a comprehensive list of what that group believes. However, when there are specifics which were relevant to your evolving thoughts and questions, do describe in any chosen level of vivid detail the mental picture(s) of what you were taught, and of course why you questioned or embraced it. It may also be useful to your readers to be able to picture the country/culture/region/geography/city or even neighborhood, of events in your life.
If you have some thoughts on why you are willing to share personal details from your life, on perhaps what you hope a reader might consider or learn, feel free to include that explicit explanation.
You are being given a wide range in length. I hope you can comfortably tell your story in 1,500 to 10,000 words.
My masters dissertation involves my collecting, reading, and thoughtfully writing about these various journeys. In this dissertation, no one’s story will have very long sections of it treated as a giant quote. (The later pulling together of these stories to then publish an anthology will be a separate step.)
After reading your story, I may follow up with some questions for further exploration, but you obviously have the right to withdraw from this research project at any point in time.
There probably is no “typical” experience, so don’t worry about fitting in. While relatively few people will probably read my masters dissertation, the later anthology which would carry your story and a good number of others, without my application of anthropological theory, could be read by many. These people would read this anthology with different perspective, and different motives. Do tell your story in a way which will hold their attention, and perhaps provoke thought, but never resort to fiction. Let this be true… your truth.
You will have a right to request a copy of my dissertation.
(I will be in contact later about the publication of an anthology.)
Thank you in advance for your participation.
Table summarizing Type / Degree of Change
(sadly, this table can’t seem to be formatted to work here)
Starting point Ending point
Denominations included
Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic 2, Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, non-denominational Chr. 2, Orthodox Chr., Pentecostal, and Seventh-day Adventist 2.
Acknowledgements
I wish to again acknowledge the time, effort, and perhaps pain, each of my participants so willingly gave and subjected themselves to. It was and always will be deeply appreciated. I also wish to thank my Professor of Religious studies in Anthropology, and mentor and advisor, Dr. Emma Tarlo, for the many insights and useful advice she contributed to my studies in anthropology, and to this dissertation.
