“Why do people – who once followed Jesus – quit Christianity?”
Someone recently asked this question of the pastor of my former church. He decided to preach a message answering this question. When I saw the topic of his upcoming sermon, I reached out to him via Marco Polo and we had a brief conversation about it. A few days later, I listened to his sermon. It was fairly innocuous for the most part. He was trying to walk the line of making people who have questions or who have left the faith still feel welcome and loved by the church, but also making it clear that they were wrong. While I didn’t feel like his sermon was as judgmental as some, I don’t think he gave a very good answer to the question. So, this post isn’t intended to be a criticism or rebuttal of his sermon, but more of a supplement, a letter from the trenches so to speak, from one who has been in this deconstruction/deconversion space for the last 2 years and has actually experienced the pain and loneliness and terror of it myself.
“Why do people – who once followed Jesus – quit Christianity?”
First of all, we have to acknowledge that there are A LOT of different ways to “do” Christianity. When someone asks why you’re leaving christianity, they’re meaning, why are you leaving the particular brand of christianity you had previously ascribed to, or why you are leaving their brand of christianity (that they think is the best kind). There is a sort of arrogance that, just because someone no longer aligns with a particular brand of this religion, they have left ALL brands of christianity. This is not always true.
Second, there is an assumption that just because someone deconverts from the faith or deconstructs their faith, that they have “quit.” In my case, I feel fairly confident that I have read more books, studied more about God/Jesus/faith, prayed more fervently, and sought harder after God in these past 2 years than your average believer. Just like thousands of others in this space, I did not quit anything – I went deeper than I had ever gone before.
With those comments out of the way, here are a few reasons I’ve come across as to why people have entered into deconstruction and/or deconverted from Christianity:
- Because they realize their beliefs are toxic, harmful, and unloving, and they don’t want to live that way anymore.
I considered myself an evangelical christian for 30 years. I do not make these kind of statements lightly because I LIVED THESE BELIEFS. I BELIEVED THESE THINGS TO BE TRUE. I speak as one who was once on the inside. But at a point, many people realize that the beliefs of mainstream Christianity are not objectively loving, kind, compassionate, gracious, accepting, or honest. As people grow and mature, they often want to be more loving, kind, compassionate, gracious, accepting and honest than their faith enables them to be. They may experience something that brings that point close to home – like a child coming out as LGTBQ+, a death of someone who they’ve been told is going to hell, etc. They are faced with a choice: do I choose my beliefs or do I choose love? And, no, they are not necessarily one and the same.
2. Because they love Jesus and want to be more like him, and realize that they cannot do that within the confines of evangelical Christianity.
I hope it doesn’t come as a shock to anyone to hear that the church of today is not a true reflection of the character of Jesus. Often when people deconstruct or leave the church, they do so because they are sick and tired of the hypocrisy within the faith, and they want to be part of something that genuinely embraces the causes of Jesus – ending racism, calling powerful leaders to accountability, loving all people, helping end oppressive regimes, etc. Many people in the deconstruction circles desperately cling to Jesus. They are filled with a deep respect and love for him and what he stood for but they don’t see the church stepping up and actually living out the life and love he called us to. So they leave to go be the hands and feet of Jesus somewhere else.
3. Because “christians” have taken hypocrisy and hate to a new level and they don’t want to be associated with that anymore.
There are a lot of us in this space that really dislike the term “christian” now because it has taken on such an awful meaning, at least here in the U.S. “Christian” has become nearly synonymous with nationalism, hypocrite, and conspiracy theorist, just to name a few. Whenever you tell someone you’re a christian, you feel the need to define just exactly what kind you are – “I’m a progressive christian…” “I’m not a Trumper christian” “I’m a christian but I voted for Biden” “I’m a pro-life christian.” It’s a mess. I’ve had conversations with several people who still maintain their faith in Jesus as savior, yet don’t want anything to do with the christian church. So, maybe consider that someone who you think has “deconverted” from Christianity has really just distanced themselves from what they see as being a toxic, corrupted environment, in an effort to preserve the good and beautiful things about their faith.
4. Because God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Consciousness, something “OTHER” called them to become a higher, truer, more loving and accepting and inclusive version of themselves.
Once you get into this community of christians who have deconstructed, you’ll find that many of them claim to have had some sort of mystical experience that sort of wakes them up to a new way of seeing themselves and the world. They can’t explain it, can’t deny it, but something happens to them that changes their understanding of who and what “God” is and christianity is too narrow to contain it. In nearly all of these circumstances, the person did not want to leave their faith. They would not have chosen to deconstruct had they not felt like something beyond themselves was inviting/drawing/challenging them into it.
5. Because people start to take ownership for their lives and their beliefs, and they realize that they cannot be their true selves because christians insist on a certain way of living, thinking, believing, and acting in order to be accepted. I.E. The church effectively kicks them out.
Too many people come to deconstruction with immense emotional trauma inflicted by other believers and the church. From pastors dismissing or minimizing abuse, to churches isolating gay members, to divorcees being ostracized from their christian community, to new moms exhausted by the demands of church nurseries, to men being shamed for not being aggressive spiritual leaders… It’s heart-breaking to hear of all the ways that christians have attacked, demeaned, and failed to support their own. And you hear too many people excuse or justify the behavior and attitudes of christians, or disguise it under the name of Jesus. The reality is that the church has abused its members, and now it wonders why they left. Perhaps a little deeper personal reflection is in order.
6. Because people have been praying and believing and doing all the “right” things for a long, long time, and nothing has changed for them; the peace and comfort and transformation they were promised just isn’t happening.
When you have invested decades of time and energy and love and sweat and tears into a relationship and a community, you expect there to be something to show for it. You expect your heart to change, your compassion to expand, your fruits of the spirit to become more evident to you and everyone else. When you are still dealing with pain, shame, guilt, loneliness, lack of self-worth, anger, grief, and it doesn’t feel like the Holy Spirit has been showing up for you, you can begin to feel like there is no power in your faith. And then you can start to wonder – if nothing is changing, then what is this all for? No one likes to put their efforts into something that gives them so little return. While, on a level, this may sound shallow, it is a very real problem. We have ONE LIFE and, at some point, there can be an overwhelming shame that whatever you’re doing or believing has not allowed you to become the person you want to be. There is guilt and embarrassment that maybe you just don’t have enough faith or that there is some other secret remedy that you don’t know about. You feel stupid that you still struggle, but you are afraid to be honest for fear that others won’t understand. You keep going through the motions, but you can’t shake the feeling that it’s all empty. Eventually, it becomes too exhausting to pretend and then a pandemic happens and you’re in lockdown and you can’t go to church so you don’t and then you just don’t ever go back and not having to pretend – or believe – anymore is a relief.
7. A multitude of other valid stories and reasons that are as unique as the individuals experiencing them.
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Often when someone who hasn’t experienced deconstruction tries to explain it, they fall back on a Sunday School answer that perhaps the person deconstructing didn’t really have a true relationship with Jesus. Or that their faith was built on rules and dogma and rigid theology.
Honestly?
BLECH.
First of all, all religions are built on rules, dogma, and rigid theology. C’mon, let’s be real. Second, any relationship with Jesus is going to be influenced by who our church/faith told us Jesus was and what he thought and what he did and what he was about. Many evangelical churches will tell you that no, Jesus wasn’t accepting of everyone; no, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross wasn’t for all people; no, Jesus wasn’t really inclusive. For me, I felt like I had a very deep, passionate, loving, extremely real relationship with Jesus. A theme among those who have deconstructed is that WE LOVED OUR GOD. WE LOVED JESUS. WE LOVED OUR FAITH. We were really really really invested believers. But eventually, for some of us, we had to face the fact that who we thought Jesus was – who we had been taught Jesus was – was not a Jesus we wanted to continue being with.
But to say that we had no relationship with him… It’s so arrogant and dismissive and condescending and ignorant. Such a statement immediately shows that the person has no real interest in learning or hearing from those who are deconstructing, and is only interested in pursuing their own agenda of luring you back into the fold through the typical shame and gaslighting tactics.
Here’s the thing: When a person “quits” Christianity, it comes at a HUGE cost. People have lost their jobs, witnessed the downfall of their marriages, lost friendships, lost their church relationships, been isolated or ostracized from their support system and community… Parents have disowned children, families have turned their backs on one another… we lose our source of comfort and hope, our identity, our purpose, our worldview, our understanding of life and death…
And, yes, walking away is our choice.
But we almost always, always, do it because we believe we’re choosing a higher good. More love. More compassion. More truth. Our discomfort and misery may come as a result of our own choice, but we accept it because we believe there has to be a better way to live.
Pastors and books and other christians can make it sound like this is something people just wake up and decide one day. Maybe it is sometimes, but most of the time, people have been struggling with their faith for years before they finally get the courage to leave.
And to act like it’s just some light, easy, no-consequence decision is incredibly dismissive and disrespectful of their experience. So, please don’t do that. Most of us had to carefully weigh the decision to “come out” to others as having left the evangelical world. There are hundreds of people who live in fear that someone will learn their truth and “out” them to their community. If nothing else, when you deconstruct from evangelicalism, you get a glimpse of the pain and judgment the church has inflicted upon the LGTBQ+, abortion, divorce, and non-christian communities.
The crazy thing is that when people deconstruct or deconvert from their faith, the eventual end result is that they tend to become more like Jesus. They become more loving, more compassionate, less judgemental, more open-minded, more inclusive, less dogmatic, and all-around more interested in pursuing good for all people. Of course, there are exceptions. Of course. But, the bottom line is that most of us are not “quitting” anything. We are taking our spiritual life to a new level, and it tends to look a heck of a lot more like what Jesus’ talked about.
We are not static beings. We are supposed to change, we are designed to change! We are gifted with intelligence and discernment and the ability to think and analyze and adapt… yet our faith would tell us that this is a bad thing, a negative thing, something to be afraid of and to fight against.
Look, if you are doubting, seeking, struggling with your faith, and you’re wondering if there is anything more out there for you, or if atheism is your only other option… talk to me. Email me. I have resources for you. I can connect you with an online community that will welcome you and encourage you. I have books and podcasts I can tell you about that will address every question you could possibly have. I can introduce you to other christian-based traditions that will reassure you that this kind of spiritual development and “crisis” is a sign of maturity and is something to be celebrated and embraced.
When I got thrown into deconstruction in 2019 – not something I was looking for or asking for – it felt like death. Because it was. It was lonely, isolating, confusing, scary… But now I’m in the latter part of it and I feel FREE. I have an inexplicable peace, a more beautiful perspective on life and death and what it means to be human. I’m happy and I feel seen and loved and accepted and cared for on such a deep, real level.
If THIS is what it means to “quit” christianity, I highly recommend that everyone do it.
