Over the past five years, I’ve deconverted from Christianity. The decision felt comfortable following multiple rounds of reckonings in pews, parks, Burger King, and the comfort of my bed. My supportive husband, Jonathan, still identifies as a Christian. But throughout it all, he encouraged me to find out what I believed and affirmed that he would stand by me when I found out what it was. So, comfortable in the mystery, I began letting go of religious fear and discovered that I doubted the legitimacy of Christianity.
It began with a disillusionment of church. Throughout my childhood, I was a part of high churches and low churches. I received my first Holy Communion and told the priest in penance how I killed a spider in the garden. I visited congregations that marketed themselves as simple and positive Christian communities, but secretly were homophobic Southern Baptist church plants. My family joined an authoritarian, fundamentalist Baptist church for 10 years where my siblings and I made enough waves as teenagers that the pastor sat us down and poured out his wrath on us.
In my adult life, I thought that if I found a church I morally aligned with I would feel at home and Christianity would make sense. Overall in the U.S., church attendance has been declining. A recent Gallup poll revealed that only three in 10 adults in the U.S. attend a weekly religious service. The frequency of those who do attend services varies among religions and denominations. Thirty percent of Protestants and 23 percent of Catholics said they attend every week.
As my husband and I evolved, our choice of church did too. We started with a church that said their focus was on racial justice. But we were both suspicious of that claim, considering they typically sang Hillsong and Bethel worship music (both Bethel and Hillsong leaders were former President Donald Trump’s guests in the White House). Nonetheless, we tried to settle in and joined a small group. But after each service, I continued to feel unconvinced. Eventually, we left because the church failed to adequately care for and empower queer, infertile, and disabled communities. However, I knew that there was more to why I left.
Even today, it feels cruel to refer to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a time of learning and reflection. We were surrounded by mass death. Each of us carried the fear that our disabled or vulnerable family and friends could be next. However, amid the horror and fear, everything paused. In so many ways, this pause was a thing to grieve, especially for the ways it impacted the mental health of kids and teenagers. But, for me, the break from in-person church felt like a weight had been removed. At first, I attributed this feeling to simply being able to sleep in one more day. But then, as time passed, I realized I still did not miss church. We attended virtual services infrequently.
Once it was safe to return in person, we attended sporadically for a year and then stopped going altogether. Jonathan prompted us to reflect on why each of us no longer wanted to be at church. The first thing that came to my mind was how the story of Noah’s Ark is often painted in children’s Sunday school classrooms and nurseries. The cute animal heads poke out of the boat, viewing the rainbow with Noah, who always seems both cautiously optimistic and faithfully smug. The water is always an opaque, dark blue, and never depicts what has happened to those who didn’t make it onto the boat: drowning. In her Sojourners article, writer and podcaster Patty Krawec offers this reflection: “I’ve wondered if this story that celebrates obedience immunizes us to the suffering of others—if it teaches us to see suffering as proof of God’s judgment.” This is not the only time God condones or commits genocide in the Bible.
Slowly, then quickly, my thoughts turned from deconstruction to deconversion, and I felt a peace. If I had to pick a label today, agnostic feels comfortable. Jonathan had a different path. While his beliefs and spiritual practices shifted, he still felt strongly that his Christian faith was an important lens through which he saw the world and himself.
After the birth of our miracle son following our years-long battle with infertility, we started discussing church again. Jonathan, forever loving and supportive of where I am spiritually, asked me what I thought about occasionally bringing our child to church. We both agreed that we did not want him to feel the same pressure under religious education that we had. Still, I also wanted to honor Jonathan’s desire to be involved in a religious community again.
As we spoke, we looked out of our apartment’s windows toward the cars below, lined up for a local church’s food pantry. We walked into the same church several months later with our four-month-old.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. They used the same polish on the pews as the fundamentalist Baptist church my family had attended for a decade. It was something I never expected to be triggering, but I felt myself start to sweat and my head spun. I was anxious and fidgeted throughout the service. The pastor stood up to preach in jeans and a hoodie and gave a message about liberation. I resonated with the message but when she mentioned Jesus as a liberator, I didn’t believe it. I was still thinking about the people God killed in the flood. Previously, when I would be in church settings and have these thoughts, it felt jarring. But now, it felt affirming to recognize my disbelief even while sitting in the pew. Jonathan felt at peace after the first service, and the baby loved the music, so we went back twice more.
One warm Thursday morning in early spring, I woke up after a night of little sleep between myself and my son. I was drained physically, mentally, and spiritually, so I got us ready for the day, put the baby in a carrier, and set off on a walk. We wandered into a local coffee shop where I bumped into the pastor. Being seen and known and met with a smile was glorious. We sat and chatted with another member of the congregation and the pastor even held the baby so I could finish my coffee. As we left the cafe, the pastor assured me that I was not the only agnostic in the community and the church had no expectations of conversion or shared doctrine.
This small moment reminded me of church-thrown baby showers and potlucks. Even in the depths of high-control religion, there were moments of being fed and cared for that I did not know I missed until I did. I knew that this was what Jonathan had been missing too and I craved more.
If more churches turned away from pushing doctrinal expectations on their congregants, perhaps more people would stay. They would feel safe enough to deconstruct or deconvert in community rather than leave to find out what they believe in isolation. According to a 2024 Pew Research survey, most religious “nones” believe in God or a different higher power. The majority also believe that while religion can be harmful, it can also do good. As the U.S. shifts away from a Christian majority, it could also be moving toward a stronger doctrinally diverse community that embraces the “nones.”
Personally, deconversion has healed my soul, which had been long battered by religious trauma and control. I have returned to church, but not strictly or forcibly or out of guilt. Jonathan and I returned for community. What a glorious thing it is to have community without it being contingent on conversion or how well I follow the pastor’s rules. We still are introducing ourselves to this small church body but each smile and hello, each acknowledgment that we house precious thoughts and souls, is a welcome gift.
Elisa Rowe (@elisacwrites) is a writer and poet living in Boston. You can find more of their work at elisarowe.com.
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