Deconversion

Central question

Our original Study on deconversion (2002-2005, published in our 2009 Deconversion book that is now available Open Access) has, in its first phase, focused on deconversions from (high-tension) new religious and fundamentalist groups in the USA and Germany. In the second phase of this original project, the investigation widened its focus to include all kinds of religious traditions and organizations, including mainstream religions and churches. The aim of the research was the analysis of the variety of deconversion trajectories from a diverse spectrum of religious organizations in the USA and Germany. Special attention was paid to personality traits, motivations, attitudes, psychological well-being and growth, biographical outcomes and transformation in terms of faith development. Thus, our questions were: What does deconversion mean in terms of biographical change? Does deconversion result in psychological growth, well-being, and in religious development? Does deconversion imply crisis? Is professional support needed? The question about the losses and the gains of deconversion in terms of religious development was of special interest.

Since this first Deconversion Study, we have seen increasing interest in, and valuable results from, research on deconversion (see reviews by Steppacher et al., 2022 and Streib, 2021). And also our own research teams in Bielefeld and Chattanooga have continued the research on deconversion—by extending it into a longitudinal study (Streib et al., 2022).

Method

The research design has included narrative interviews, Faith Development Interviews, and a questionnaire, thus the triangulation of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Methodologically, the heart of the study was qualitative: focusing on the reconstructive-biographical analysis of narrative interviews and the evaluation of Faith Development Interviews.

The sampling procedure applied a modified version of theoretic sampling. First, deconverts have been identified, selected and invited to participate in the research. Then, it was our aim to interview ten members of the religious groups that our focus persons, the deconverts, had left. The goal was to profile the deconverts against the background of the milieus which they have left. Thus, our questionnaire has been administered to n=129 deconverts (n=100 agreed to a personal interview) and to n=1,067 in-tradition members (n=177 agreed to an interview).

The questionnaire included, besides demographics, questions for religious socialization and spiritual/religious self-identification: the Big Five personality scale (NEO-FFI), the Ryff Scale for Psychological Well-Being and Growth, the Religious Fundamentalism Scale and the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale. We conducted a narrative interview with all deconverts, with the opening question: “You have recently left the [religious organization]. I would like to know what happened in your life before and after this change.” Additionally, we conducted Faith Development Interviews.

Ten years later, we decided to approach all participants from the original Deconversion Study again and invite them to a re-interview and to answer our questionnaire. Unfortunately, attrition rate was rather high, but at least n=53 could be re-interviewed. After another three years, n=39 accepted our invitation for a re-interview. Even though this longitudinal sample was rather small in terms of quantitative analyses, for qualitative research it is impressive. And based on this longitudinal data, we have run new analyses and elaborated case studies that were included in a second book with the title Deconversion Revisited. Biographical Studies and Psychometric Analyses Ten Years Later.

Findings

The most important result from the analysis of the narrative interviews in the original deconversion study was a typology. Four types of biographical trajectories have been constructed:

• Pursuit of Autonomy is typically found in adolescents or young adults who have been raised in a religious tradition which was, however, perceived as constriction and was left behind for the sake of religious self-determination or secular autonomy.
• Barred from Paradise mainly applies to deconverts, typically adults, who previously have converted in adolescence or early adulthood into a high-tension religious group – which they later, sometimes after decades of membership, leave with feelings of disappointment, deception or even hate or feelings of delusion and disrespect; some are even expelled.
• Finding a New Frame of Reference is the type of deconvert, typically from mainline religions that were not able to provide a coherent framework of moral and ritual structures, plausible and strong enough to meet the deconvert’s needs and expectations; thus, these deconverts typically affiliate with higher-tension or fundamentalist groups.
• Life-Long Quests – Late Revisions, is typically found in persons in middle or late adulthood who, in their search for religious truth, for living ritual or for spiritual depth have tried out one—or more—religious traditions, and who have decided to look further for a new religious environment which typically has lower tension and a more liberal atmosphere.

Taken together, we had in the first Deconversion Study 66% (US sample) and 59% (German sample), who have left the field of organized religion and did not establish new memberships. In this group of deconverts who did not affiliate with a new religious organization, we have 36% (US sample) and 59% (German sample) who want to live without religion (secular exit), but more than a third (Germany: 38%, USA: 40%) continue to practice their religiosity, however in private only (privatizing exit), and another part (24% in the US sample and 3% in the German sample) of the deconverts feel attracted to one or more new religious orientations, without any new membership (heretical exit). Deconversion, thus, in many cases does not mean “falling from the faith” or losing religion, but migration into a less organized segment of the religious field.

While a surprisingly high number of members of religious organizations (37% in the US sample and 18.3% in the German sample) in our original Deconversion Study self-identified as being “more spiritual than religious,” in the group of deconverts, the “more spiritual than religious” self-identifications doubled (to 63.6% in the US sample and 36.5% in the German sample). This called attention to the necessity to study the semantics and psychology of spirituality, in indeed became the focus of our new Spirituality Project.

As characteristics (concurrent correlations) of deconversion, we have, in our original Deconversion Study, identified for both cultures: higher scores on openness to experience (Big Five), autonomy and personal growth (Ryff Scale), and lower scores on the Religious Fundamentalism Scale, and advancement in faith development. As “downside” of deconversion, but only for the deconverts in the German sample, we have identified signs of a (mild) crisis with regard to the relation to self (emotional stability, self-acceptance), others (positive relations with others, extraversion) and environmental mastery. Notwithstanding exceptions, we did however not conclude from this an extraordinary need for intervention for deconverts.

These concurrent characteristics for deconverts were largely corroborated in the most recent analysis of our quantitative data (Streib & Chen, in preparation); however, not all of the concurrent characteristics are also predictors for deconversion: This recent analysis has used all data from all waves of our research that included a response to the question whether, how often, and if more recently the participant has left a religious community to determine the predictors of deconversion (Streib & Chen, in preparation). Findings from longitudinal cases show that low self-rated religiosity and low agreement to questions of religious exclusiveness, but also low extraversion and agreeableness, and finally—and unexpectedly—low scores in psychological well-being (environmental mastery, positive relations with others, purpose in life, self-acceptance) are among the characteristics that predict disaffiliation from a religious community some years later. These results suggest that some characteristics, especially low psychological well-being may, have existed long before the deconversion has occurred.