The very public conflict around atheism and religion was at its height during the 2010s, with both sides being equally vocal. During that time, it was not uncommon for religious people to claim that atheists were simply angry at God. The common response from atheists was that they were not angry at God so much as they were at religion – a response which makes sense, given that they did not believe in God. It was somewhat surprising, then, when... Read more
In 2020, the American Atheist Society [AAS] released the results of an online survey they had conducted regarding discrimination against atheists. The results were posted on the organization’s website as an article, breaking the numbers down to percentages presented in various graphs and population maps. The resulting article boiled down to two essential points: atheists are widely persecuted, and their interests are underrepresented in the public forum. The article states: “…it is our goal to use the data acquired through... Read more
Two important studies have been released within the last several years, the topic of which relates to the role of social support in the process of religious deconversion. The first article is titled “Deconversion process and quality of life among Polish adolescents: The mediating role of Social Support” (Zarzycka et al., 2021). The research question of this study was how the process of deconversion in adolescence is affected by quality of life and social support systems. In this paper, deconversion... Read more
Cross-Conversion Conversion studies began in the 19th century in a very religious culture. As a result, most “converts” being studied already had a religious background when they “converted.” What they essentially did was to commit to something more formal than what they already believed or practiced. Similarly, early deconversion studies took place in the 20th century, and largely relied on studying what happened when a person left one religion or denomination for another. As a result, both conversion and deconversion... Read more
Philip Vander Elst is a freelance writer and lecturer who works primarily in the fields of politics and journalism. Growing up in an unbelieving family, Elst was given to believe that religion was passé. He was convinced that religion existed to enslave believers to a kind of blind, unthinking devotion; and that science had essentially discredited all religions. Since Elst was a strong believer in human rights and freedom, he was consequently opposed to the oppression he saw in religious... Read more
The Importance of Reconversion As under-studied as deconversion is, the matter of re-conversion is practically untouched in the literature. If studied, reconversion could tell us a great deal about both conversion and deconversion. So it is always a privilege when I, as a researcher, have the opportunity to speak to a reconvert. Such a person is author Wade Brown, whom I was able to interview upon the release of his first book. The God Conclusion The God Conclusion is a... Read more
John Marriott is far from the first researcher to look into the process of deconversion, nor is he the most published researcher in that field. Likely that honor goes to the German researcher, Heinz Streib who has been researching and publishing on the subject since the early 2000s. Nevertheless, Marriott is probably the most visible researcher in the field, having done his dissertation on the subject in which he developed a stage model of deconversion which has not visibly been... Read more
Dan Barker is an itinerate and outspoken atheist, whose life is so entangled with his atheism that he spends a vast amount of time speaking, writing books, and advocating for the advancement of atheism and the freedom from religion. This was not always the case. In his younger life, Barker was quite the opposite. Converted at the tender age of 14, Barker was immediately passionate about his faith, and found himself street preaching by the age of 15. By the... Read more
John Warwick Montgomery is a renaissance scholar and a true renaissance man; having made a name for himself as a lawyer, professor, Lutheran theologian, and prolific author. Currently still practicing law, he is also both Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Wisconsin, Emeritus Professor at University of Bedfordshire, England, the director of the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism & Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and is the editor of the theological online journal Global Journal of Classical Theology.... Read more
Religious Conversion: The Standard Model This column has covered the famous and influential model of religious conversion constructed by researcher Lewis Rambo a number of times. By way of a brief recap, Rambo’s model states that a potential convert undergoes some kind of stressor – minor or traumatic – but the stressor persists until the person experiencing the stress enters what Rambo calls the “quest” phase. During questing, the person is looking for solutions outside of his or her immediate... Read more
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