Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion

by Marlene Winell

Identifying an old coping method does not make anything “wrong.” It opens a door for natural evolution as changes in your life occur.

You do what you can with the knowledge you have at the time. Your behavior patterns are the adaptations that you have made to the particular circumstances of your life. They are special, and you are a perfect example of someone who has adapted to your life!

As an analogy, imagine a tree growing on a windy hillside. The tree has become bent from the wind and rain and now has a special shape that tells the story of its life. It has departed from the prototypic straight and symmetrical tree. The real tree has made a special adaptation to its unique life experience — it is no more “wrong” than any other tree. It is strong and healthy and more beautiful because of its experiences. Similarly, you are “right” and perfect in being you. You have adapted to the storms of your own life. You have many magnificent qualities that you can learn to appreciate more completely.

You are not just your mind; you are your body as well. This is very different from saying that you have a body, as if it’s a vehicle that you ride around in, as if it’s something you have to take care of solely because you want to use it for a while.

Remember that your body is you. It’s not your car or your house or somebody else’s temple.

Along with a vague identity and a sense of being bad, the fundamentalist Christian often has a self-image that is empty.

The unavoidable result of this is that fundamentalists must view themselves as helpless and empty beings that can only be effective when relying on God. Your success at any particular time depends on your availability to God’s channeling. If you experience failure, it must be because you haven’t allowed God to have his way through you.

It’s not as though you were once a channel for God and now you are becoming your own person. You have been a capable human being all along. You have always had immense capabilities. You were simply taught to attribute your strengths to God. It may be true that the belief that God was working through you was helpful in developing your abilities, but they are your natural abilities, and you can continue the growth process on your own.

A focus on the hereafter makes it illogical and difficult to invest in a career or any other chosen pursuit. Most tragically, it is difficult for believers to make deeply human commitments to each other if they are not fully present.

Many human achievements cannot be celebrated because of comparison to spiritual, heavenly ideals.

For me, it came down to a very personal level, a sense that it wasn’t really worthwhile to do the things to make the world a better place or to make much effort at self- improvement because it’s all going to burn.

Emotionally, the devout Christian is insulated from the world and present life. Both the best of life and its problems are ignored. If this is not your home, you have little investment and a limited sense of responsibility or self-efficacy. If you believe powerful forces of darkness control the earth, you also feel helpless when facing significant human issues.

if you have been convinced that these ideals are necessary, you feel much more anxiety if they are not present.

Thus even though everyone has to come to terms with an imperfect world, as a former religious idealist, you are not starting at the same point as others. Other people can wish for something, feel let down, and more easily say, “It’s okay, and I can deal with it.” For the former fundamentalist, it is first necessary to let go of thinking you need so much. (Actually, this is tremendously liberating because you can then enjoy what you do have.) The tendency to black-and-white thinking can worsen this problem. The alternative to perfection is not total failure. Not having God’s blueprint for your life does not mean your life has no meaning. While relationships can be frustrating at times, people do not have to be like Jesus (or, more precisely, your idealized image of Jesus) to be worth knowing and loving. Life, with all its woes, is still pretty wonderful. We don’t need perfection to be happy.

However, an ideal is a vision of the end of a journey, not a true destination. The journey itself is the meaningful part — what you experience and learn. The vision just keeps you on track.

research in cognitive psychology shows that we cannot perceive anything without contrast. That is, you can see a black line on a white piece of paper, but not a black line on a black piece of paper. The same is true of all types of perception, thus emotional conditions also require contrast. A good day feels great because some days are not so good. Joy derives meaning from sadness. It is the differences in life that make you notice. You need all of your experiences in order to fully experience the positive ones!

When I’m not extremely busy and productive, I feel worthless. I have to earn my right to be on this earth.

amount of humor you have in your life really depends on how you judge your circumstances,

Much of life is simply not controllable, and the effort to master the world can be depressing and exhausting. Appreciating what is funny can help a lot.

Perhaps we can all love ourselves more and love each other better as we share the relief of more laughter.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

remember always thinking the future would be better. Not just the heavenly future, but in twenty years I wouldn’t have a kid in diapers. Always something around the corner that would make my life better.

dreamed once that I died and was confronted by this gaunt-looking figure. I asked him something like “All right, so here we are. Do I get to see heaven now? This is heaven?” And he looked at me like I had missed the whole point. He said “Well, that was it. Did you miss something?”

I can still listen to gospel music or a really moving Christian song and have the feeling just well up inside of me, and the tears will run down my face. It’s like there’s still something inside me reaching out wanting something, but I don’t know what.

Almost anything that is unfamiliar will teach you something, and the more information you have, the more wide-ranging your thinking will be. New experiences are challenging — not dangerous.

Just be sure to approach the process with a childlike curiosity. Remember that the world is here is experience, not master, It would be a mistake to search anxiously for new answers. As Joseph Campbell said, “Life is not a problem to be solved; it is a mystery to be lived” (Cousineau and Brown, 1990).

You need to be willing to let go of your dependency on your religion. Instead of seeking God’s help all the time, you must be willing to discover and develop your own abilities. You need

it is both your right and your responsibility to make your own life decisions.

While you do not have absolute control over all the conditions of your life, you do have the creative power to design the life you want to a large extent.

As you let go of your interest in the afterlife and decide to be here now, you can stop judging the world and notice countless good things.

we create our lives by investing in our choices.

there is no right or wrong, only alternatives. Either path can work if you choose to make it work. There is no wrong decision if it does not violate your sense of morals or ethics.

Not everything in life can be planned and directed.

We are still a part of the universe, interconnected with other people and nature and learning how to play our parts. Life is a dance, not a forced march. We don’t control our partners and we don’t direct every step. The act of responsibility is to accept the invitation to dance.

Anyone can live by a formula. It’s much harder to leave the straight and narrow. Yet many of us have found that we must leave. The imperative from deep within is too strong. Life beckons and to dishonor the call would be spiritual death.