A Rise in Atheism
In the year 2000, atheism was a social curiosity in America. This is not to say that America was entirely religious, but rather than the anti-religious sentiment which characterizes modern atheism comprised a rather unremarkable portion of the overall population.
The event which changed this was the terrorist attacks of September 11th. At this point, atheist popularizers published books and gave lectures using these terrorist activities as an illustration of the idea that religion (in this case Islam) is a destructive force and ought to be discouraged.
In the twenty years following these events the atheist subculture in Europe and America has expanded, and atheism has become a viable social alternative to religion.
The increase in secularization, meaning the movement away from religion as a social sub-structure, has increased in that time, with a 2019 census reporting that church attendance and religious affiliations were at an all-time low in the United States – which has historically been a significantly religious country.
The Rise of “Deconstruction”
A concurrent phenomena has also become evident in public media in this same time period. The migration of committed Christian figures to atheism is nothing new. In the late 19th century, monk and theologian Joseph McCabe became a passionate spokesman for atheism and against religion almost overnight.
In the 1940’s, Charles Templeton, who was a co-evangelist working alongside the notable evangelist Billy Graham also became an outspoken atheist in a relatively short period of time.
Other notable deconverts of the past include Bart Campolo, son of evangelist Tony Campolo, as well as former minister John Loftus, Bible scholar Bart Ehrman, psychologist Michael Shermer, philosophers and theologians Robert Price and Dan Barker, and former minister Matt Dillahunty.
But all of these represent relatively quiet deconversions which later became publicized as these individuals became atheist activists.
More recently, however, notable deconversions have become very public and these accounts are aired in the media in close proximity to the deconversion events themselves, with notables such as Rachael Slick – daughter of Christian Apologist Matt Slick, former minister Ryan J. Bell, Christian musicians Michael Gungor, Jon Steingard and Marty Sampson, author and minister Joshua Harris, and campus ministers Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Neal all publicizing their experiences to their social media followers and media publications almost within real time of the experience itself. All of these figures have come out as deconverts in the space of the last decade.
Consequently, the subject of religious deconversion has become very public, and is rapidly becoming one of the more studied phenomena within psychology of religion.
The purpose of this article, then, is to provide an update on the current state of research as relates to religious deconversion, and then to point out gaps in that research.
Personality Traits and Deconversion
So let’s talk about the state of research on the subject of deconversion.
Research in this area has revolved primarily around three things. The first relates to the characteristics and personality artifacts one finds in deconverts. The second relates to the social context in which the deconversion occurs, and the third relates to the specific drivers of deconversion.
As relates to the first, the work of Heinz Streib has been informative. In Streib’s 2021 paper , “Leaving Religion: Deconversion” he was able to identify “emotional instability,” “agreeableness,” and “openness to new experiences” as personality factors shared by a majority of deconverts. In terms of personal values, Streib identified such things as hedonism, self-direction, stimulation, achievement, and power as values in deconverts, and a significant lower level of the traditionally conservative values of security, conformity, and tradition.
The Social Context of Deconversion
Related to the second primary focus of deconversion study – social context – Paul K. McClure in his 2017 study identified internet usage as a factor. McClure essentially found that the usage of internet brings the religious individual into contact with ideas outside of their religious experience. The individual then begins a process called “tinkering” wherein he or she attempts to integrate these novel ideas into his or her existing worldview. Also in 2017, James Nagle came to similar conclusions related to religious education. Nagle found that exposure to a broader range of worldviews and religious ideas made students less likely to accept exclusivism and to begin to tinker with extra-religious ideas and modes of thinking.
These conclusions were expanded upon by Starr, Waldo, and Kauffman in their 2019 study titled “Digital Irreligion.” In this study, they found that the internet was a contributing factor in deconversion insofar as it made available arguments against religion and a community of non-believers making deconversion a live option for the religious person.
In her 2014 article in The Humanist, Ada Fetters also suggests that religious education may be instrumental in deconversion, but not because of exposure to other worldviews, rather because of the exclusion of other worldviews. Fetters suggests that once the religiously educated individual is exposed to the broader intellectual world, the flaws within their religious education become obvious and religion seems less tenable.
This conclusion is not unlike that of Raoul J. Adam in his 2009 study titled “Leaving the Fold.” Adam found that deconversions were far more likely to come from fundamentalist church backgrounds than from others. Adam connects this higher rate of apostacy within fundamentalism with the sort of absolute certainty fundamentalism demands, such that challenges to belief have more potency given that the level of certainty required to maintain belief is difficult to maintain in the face of challenges.
What Causes Deconversion?
The third focus of current deconversion research is causal factors. Researchers almost universally In their 2019 paper “Digital Irreligion, Christian deconversion in the online community,” researchers Starr, Waldo, & Kauffman identified three realms in which deconversion occurs. The first is in the intellectual realm which identifies various intellectual objections to religious dogmas or ideas. The second is the emotional realm which includes objections to biblical or church teachings on emotional grounds, and the final is the social process, wherein an individual transitions away from the religious community. This is where these researchers determined that the internet was instrumental, by providing a digital community to replace the religious community.
Also in 2019, researchers Sergio & Vallières nearly duplicated these same conclusions. What Starr, Waldo, and Kauffman termed the intellectual, emotional and social, Sergio and Vallieres termed “reason and enquiry,” “criticism and discontent,” and “personal development.”
In his 2014 dissertation, The Cost of Freedom: a Grounded Theory Study of the Impact of Deconversion from Christianity to Atheism. Dr. John Marriot had similar findings, but identified specific sub-categories for each trend. For the intellectual objections, Marriot identified problems with the Bible, specifically inerrancy, morally objectionable material, and the scientific evidence for Darwinian Evolution as the primary intellectual objections given.
For the emotional, Marriot found objections were centered around failures within the church environment, including hurtful actions of Church leaders and of fellow Christians and the way in which the Congregation responds to these hurtful actions. The second he identifies is disappointment with God.
Holes in the Current Research
While the research related to deconversion has demonstrated some of the features of individuals who are likely to or have already deconverted, what research has not accounted for is the environmental contexts within which people deconvert. Adams, mentioned earlier, identified Fundamentalism as a possible environment from which deconverts emerge, but what about Fundamentalism causes deconversion to become more probable than, say, mainline Presbyterianism?
What distinguishes my personal research from that of the others mentioned in this article is that I aim to identify the contextual features which deconverts share in their religious history.
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