Posttraumatic Spiritual Yearning: Religious Deconstruction in Psychological and Theological Context

We are currently experiencing a titanic shift in religious and spiritual identity, both in America and beyond. In 1972, the share of Americans who identified as having no religious affiliation was only 5%. Comparatively, somewhere between 25-30% of the American population today identifies as not belonging to any particular religious tradition (with the number reaching 40% among millennials). America, it seems, is increasingly nonreligious (Burge, 2023). 

Based on outdated polling techniques, this group is often currently labeled as the religious “nones” (since they check the box “none,” as opposed to a plethora of other denominational-specific options, such as “Baptist,” “evangelical,” “Catholic,” “Jewish,” etc.). And yet, it would be a mistake to assume that this growing population represents a religiously disinterested or spiritually inactive group. That is because, of the growing group of “nones,” only around 7% identify outright as atheist or agnostic. This means that the vast majority of nonreligious individuals in America do not profess disbelief or uncertainty about the existence of God (Burton, 2020).

The statistics of spiritual beliefs of the “nones” shed further light on their active spiritual interests. Of the “nones” in America, 72% say that they believe in God or some transcendent higher power like God.  Interestingly, 46% say that they talk to this God or higher power regularly. Moreover, 13% of them say that they hear this God talking back to them. The majority of “nones” it seems may be nonreligious, but they are decidedly not lacking in spiritual motivations, nor are they spiritually inactive (Burton, 2020).

Based on these statistics, the nonreligious are definitely not a homogenous or monolithic group, as if the spiritual lives of “nones” is simply synonymous with atheism. How are we to make sense of this diverse group? To borrow a phrase from William James, this paper will explore current trends in applied psychological and theological research to better understand the “varieties” of irreligious experience (James, 1902). In particular, this paper will disambiguate a distinct subset of non-traditionally religious individuals—namely, those who are “deconstructing” or “deidentifying” from traditional religion—and propose a theoretical framework for their theological interests and psychological needs. This paper will do so by presenting findings from a recent empirical study (currently funded by the John Templeton Foundation, grant #62952) that investigates the efficacy of a group-based experience for spiritual exploration and mental health care for the unique needs of this group.

In this paper, I first explore how many of the currently nonreligious were not always nonreligious. Global studies indicate that 1 out of every 5 individuals have arrived at nonreligious identify by de-identifying from a previously held religious affiliation. Drawing from the work of Daryl van Tongeren on the religious “dones,” I show how these individuals occupy a uniquely liminal social space because of their “religious residue,” which refers to residual psychological and behavioral processes that stay with individuals even after leaving religion (Van Tongeren et al., 2020). Religion, in other words, is “sticky.” Even after disaffiliating or deconverting, individuals may still feel the impulse to pray, affiliate with religious individuals, or be more prone to charitable giving or other prosocial behaviors normally associated with organized religion. Put in evangelical church terms, you can take the kid out of the “youth group” (perhaps through a faith “deconstruction” process in adulthood), but you can’t take all the “youth group” out of the kid. The residual effects of religion stick long after leaving religion behind.

This creates a unique challenge for this group. In my paper, I secondly show how many members of this group of deconstructing individuals often struggle with unique mental health challenges associated with their liminal or ambivalent spiritual identity. While roughly half of those deconstructing leave religion because of intellectual reasons pertaining to outgrowing their worldview, the other half of them leave because of distressing emotional and social reasons pertaining to religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and experiences of church hurt related to religiously simplistic views of profound pain and suffering. For these individuals in particular, they continue to attend church and engage religious practices even though they no longer identify as religious, which compounds their significant mental health challenges (McLaughlin et al., 2022). 

Thirdly, I show how all this data points to a significant spiritual public health need to address pathways for mental health and spiritual flourishing among individuals deconstructing their faith and negotiating “remixed” spiritual identities that do not easily conform to existing social infrastructures. Drawing from Tara Isabella Burton and Tanya Luhrmann, I propose that the religious residue of spiritually active individuals experiencing religious deconstruction can be leveraged to achieve mentally-healthy post-religious spiritual flourishing by engaging spiritual activities that bracket theological beliefs and moral behavioral norms and focus instead on practices aimed at transcendent ritual bonding and social belonging (Burton 2020; Luhrmann, 2020. Finally, I conclude my paper by discussing initial empirical evidence from a pilot study that provides evidence for the possibility of this program as a path to mental health and spiritual flourishing for individuals experiencing religious deconstruction.