The Deconversion as Conflict Hypothesis

Religious deconversion studies are currently attempting to identify the psycho-social determinants of deconversion (see Streib, 2021). One of the stronger contenders appears to be value misalignment, which occurs when the values of the individual and their religious community are misaligned (see Hui, et al., 2018; Saroglou, et al., 2020). Value misalignment predates the loss of faith, and as Hui et al. argue, serves as fertile ground for a believer’s discontent and eventual departure. While Hui, et al. contribute compelling findings, their value alignment theory is also underdeveloped, relies on an impoverished conception of values, and leaves us with several pertinent questions. For example, leaving some religious organizations comes at a high social and psychological cost because members are socialized insomuch that organizational values, practices, and relationships play a primary role in their life and identity (see Hinderaker and O’Connor, 2015; Brooks, 2020); why do discontents pay this cost rather than remaining discontented members? What about value misalignment pushes them into disbelief, institutional exit, or both?

This paper uses original data from a case study of North American Latter-day Saints and Ex-Mormons to engage with such questions and argue for the deconversion as conflict hypothesis. It brings value misalignment theory into conversation with ‘conflict analysis and resolution studies’ to theorize social-ideological mechanisms which can push believers from value misalignment to religious deconversion, and may also push believers from value alignment to deeper conversion. 

The case study uses root narrative theory (see Simmons, 2020) to code representative discourse of Latter-day Saint Leaders, focus groups of Latter-day Saint members, Undecided Persons and Ex-Mormons, as well as the r/exmormon Subreddit. Unlike comparable approaches to the moral and political imagination, root narrative theory accounts for the four narratological abstractions we use to imagine political situations (i.e., the antagonist abuses power to create injustice for the protagonist), the moral values at stake in those situations (i.e., security for the state, liberty for the individual, equality for the people, and dignity for the other), and the four general types of social power existing materially in the world (i.e., military power or the means of violence, political power or the means of administration, bargaining power or the means of production, and status power or the means of socialization).

The results of the analyses match the expectations of value misalignment theory: the dominant moral values, critiques of power and imagined situations are aligned among Latter-day Saint leaders and their believing members, but are misaligned with undecided persons and Ex-Mormons. Furthermore, comparing their political discourse suggests a social-ideological mechanism pushing people from misalignment to deconversion, and potentially from alignment to deeper conversion. First, the misaligned are in a discursive trap with their religious community wherein the heroes of one are the villains of the other and one’s method of overcoming abusive power is seen by the other as an abuse of power. These ideological differences create a discursive setting in which conflict escalation is likely because either party acting on their differential moral imperatives produces the other's grievance. When conflict escalates, trust and willingness to cooperate declines and grievances intensify (Pruitt, et al. 1994). In other words, the paper hypothesizes that loss of belief is a consequence of conflict escalation within religious institutions, and sees exit as one move within an escalating social conflict. A move which seems increasingly less costly the more conflict escalates.