The 4 Most Common Reasons People Deconvert

October 15, 2020

Today I’m going the talk about four of the most common reasons people deconvert from their fundamentalist religion.

1. Research and study (my path)

This was my path to deconversion and it’s not unique. I think many people end up leaving the Church when they finally decide to dig into their faith and learn the concrete facts: history, archaeology, and science. I think this method is very common among Thinking Christians (which was the category I strongly fell into). Thinking Christians tend to be people that have a high esteem for objective truth and are committed to learning it, regardless of where it takes them. Even if that means learning that the faith in which they’ve built their entire life upon isn’t true.

In my case, this happened when I finally felt convicted about how, after more than a decade of considering myself a born again Christian, I still had not read the Bible in its entirety. I committed not only to just reading it, but studying it as I went along and learning about the Bible, not just what it said. I put myself through a simplified version of a self-guided seminary class.

That’s when everything fell apart for me. The Bible simply does not stand up to objective study. Not without forcing your brain go through some extreme mental gymnastics.

I even consulted trusted friends and pastors during my read through of the Bible. They had some insightful things to say about difficult passages, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.

It was important to me to follow truth wherever it led, and it soon became clear what had happened: I’d been born and raised in the deep south and the strong Church culture had influenced me greatly. I hadn’t done anything wrong. We are all shaped by our culture in some ways.

But now that I was older and wiser, I had the tools to take a step back, review my life from a distance, and course correct in a more sustainable and honest direction.

2. Miracles never happen

Some believers go through a phase where they go really, really deep into their faith. Maybe they feel convicted for being “lukewarm.”

One part of taking their faith super seriously is to start focusing heavily on miracles, particularly miracle healing. After all, these people feel like if they don’t believe in miracles, then they really don’t have faith in an all-powerful God.

So they throw themselves into this with everything they have. They fully believe that with enough faith and prayer, God will perform miracles.

Then God doesn’t come through.

This guy immediately assumes the problem is with him: lack of faith, lack of belief, subpar prayer. Whatever it is, it sends him on a downward spiral of guilt, shame, and self loathing. He tries harder and harder to achieve something that is never going to come. What’s worse is that he’s encouraged by this charismatic pastor and friends that what he’s doing is right and he’ll eventually get there as long as he keeps trying harder.

When this guy finally burns out and breaks down, he has no other choice but to consider that maybe there is no God hearing his prayers for healing after all. He’s done everything he knows how to do and yet God has seemingly ignored him.

These guys often have a “last chance prayer.” When the depths of despair have taken hold, the only thing he knows to do is to give God one final ultimatum.

He prays, “God, I’ve been faithful and given you everything and tried everything, you have one last chance to show me that you’re real. If you want me to stay faithful, then show me now. If you don’t, then I’m walking away.”

We all know how that story ends.

3. Cannot reconcile suffering and bad things that happen to good people

Why do good things happen to bad people?

This question comes up for every believer at some point in their journey. For some, it is the reason that they ultimately leave the faith. And it’s a damn good reason.

If God is good, why does he allow his people to suffer? If God is all powerful, then why doesn’t he stop good people from suffering? If he can’t stop the suffering, then does that mean he’s not all powerful? If he’s not all powerful, then does he deserve total commitment and worship?

These questions have been answered many different times in many different ways by many different people. The answer always ends up the same: have faith.

In the end, sane people eventually come around and realize they’re tired of trying to force themselves to be okay with the suffering that God allows. They ultimately come to the conclusion that the reason God allows bad things to happen to good people is because God does not exist, and therefore can’t prevent suffering.

4. Abuse, trauma, manipulation

Unfortunately, a lot of people are driven away from the Church because of the slew of terrible things that happen within its walls.

The Church tries to explain this away by saying something like, “The Church is created by God but is filled with flawed humans.” Or something like that. I’ve heard some version of that throughout my life.

But jeez, some of the stuff that happens is far more sinister than simple flawed humans: pastors touching children; sexual shaming of both men and women with Purity Culture; the megachurch lead pastor caught with this secretary, and then trying to cover it up.

It’s not just sexual stuff either. Like in the case of Mark Driscoll, former lead pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle, who was removed because of a long history of being a domineering bully to his employees.

It is already difficult sometimes for victims of abuse and trauma to extricate themselves from their abusive situations. It’s much harder when that abusive environment is the Church and the victim believes that leaving the traumatizing environment will damn them to hell.

A deconversion is a powerful and important spiritual development that should take as long as it needs to in order to process all the changes and feelings involved. Those who are forced into a traumatic deconversion because of these terrible things have a much more difficult battle ahead to recover from these affronts that were forced upon them by the Church and by people who purported to be followers of Christ.

Which of these describes your deconversion the most? Let me know in the comments below!