The 'anti-cult" movement and self-construction

The International Journal for the Study of New Religions had an interesting essay in Volume 3, No. 2 from 2012 that touched on the place of anti-cult movements in the process of disaffiliation from new religions. This essay dovetails with my own reflections on the efficacy of Evangelical counter-cult apologetic approaches and allegations of "effectiveness" in strategy. Here is the title and abstract:

"The Significance and Purpose of the 'Anti-Cult Movement' in Facilitating Disaffiliation From a New Religious Movement: Resources for Self-construction or a Justificatory Account" by Dominiek Coates 

Abstract 
The current study investigates the experiences of 23 former members of New Religious Movements (NRMs) or cults with anti-cult practices and discourses in Australia. All the participants in this study report some involvement with anti-cult practices and/or engagement with brainwashing explanations of NRM affiliations; however, they describe the significance of these anti-cult resources for their sense of self in different ways. The findings suggests that for some former members anti-cult resources, in particular the brainwashing discourses, merely served as a convenient account through which to explain or justify their former NRM affiliation and manage embarrassment or possible stigmatisation, while for others these resources served an important identity function at a time of loss and uncertainty. These participants describe their involvement with anti-cult practices as a much needed identity resource in which they could anchor their sense of self following the dramatic loss of identity associated with NRM disaffiliation. To make sense of the variations in the way in which anti-cult practices and discourses informed the participants” sense of self Symbolic Interactionist understandings of the self are applied. 

Translation: Anti-cult organizations provide a secular means by which the individual disaffiliating from a new religion can reduce their cognitive dissonance and construct a new sense of identity. In application to the Evangelical counter-cult an approach is used wherein brainwashing is eschewed (for the most part) in favor of theological narratives of false teaching and demonic ensnarement, whereby the rejection of former identity and teachings in a new religion, coupled with an embrace of new doctrines in an alternative religious community helps provide the formative elements of ongoing identity (re)construction.

New Transitions trailer

Transitions trailer from WIIS on Vimeo.

A new trailer has just been completed that promotes Transitions: The Mormon Migration from Religion to Relationship. This will be used in a new social media marketing campaign to increase awareness of the resource, and it will be featured in a revised form of the website at www.LDStransitions.com. Please take a look at the trailer and pass along the link to others.

Transitions Featured in The Salt Lake Tribune

 

Transitions, a resource I helped put together as co-executive producer, is the focus of a story by Lisa Schencker in The Salt Lake Tribune with this title and byline: “The ‘ex’ factor: Videos help former Mormons find new faith. Transitions >> New videos help those leaving the LDS Church make the sometimes difficult and lonely jump to evangelical Christianity or mainline Protestantism.” The story can be read here.

"Divine Disenchantment" Session Accepted at Sunstone Symposium

Sunstone has accepted my proposed session, “Divine Disenchantment: Transitions and Assisting Those in Religious Migration,” for the 2012 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, 25-28 July 2012 at the University of Utah. The presentation will be Saturday, July 28, 3:45-4:45 p.m.

Abstract:

Reliable statistical data from social science research indicates that thousands of Latter-day Saints leave the Mormon Church each year. Over time, these individuals adopt a variety of irreligious and religious pathways as a result of their prior Mormon experience. Although the social scientific literature includes helpful material that sheds light on religious affiliation, disaffiliation, and reaffiliation, this material is rarely consulted as an aid to assisting others in their spiritual migration.  This seminar will discuss the background behind Transitions, a new video and workbook resource designed for immigrants shifting from Mormonism to more traditional forms of Christianity. It will consider the perspective and needs of the transitioner, the multidisciplinary perspectives and resources that inform Transitions, and how religious institutions might better assist those making the journey from one religious tradition to another.

  

Topic outline:

I.               Religious shopping: disaffiliation and migration

II.             LDS religious disaffiliation narratives

III.           Need for transitional resources

IV.            Background to Transitions resource

A.     Perspective of the transitioner

B.     Multidisciplinary approach

1.     Identity theory

2.     Process of role exit

3.     Social scientific literature

4.     Religious culture considerations

V.              Application and considerations for religious institutions

Relevance to Mormon studies:

As indicated in the abstract, there is a body of scholarship that addresses the process of not only religious affiliation, but also how people leave religious traditions (disaffiliation), and how they shift to new religious commitments (reaffiliation). A consideration of the needs of those undergoing Mormon disaffiliation and reaffiliation to another tradition provides an opportunity to understand the complex personal, religious, and social dynamics related to religious migration.

Why Mormons Leave

John Dehlin of Mormon Stories Podcast has created a new website and Facebook page titled and devoted to the subject of "Why Mormons Leave." In his description of the rationale behind and purpose of this project, Dehlin writes:

I just wanted to let you know that Mormon Stories Podcast and Mormon Stories Podcast Community are embarking on a new initiative to build greater empathy and support for people who choose to leave the LDS church. We think it's going to be important.

I applaud this worthwhile new project and hope that it helps bring understanding and empathy for those making the journey out of Mormonism. Although Why Mormons Leave is done from within Mormon culture, it is an approach in keeping with that of our Transitions resource produced by those outside of by sympathetic to Mormon culture.

Pew Forum and Religious Shopping

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life just released their new report on religious affiliation, disaffiliation, and religious reaffiliation, or the process of "religious switching". The report is titled "Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.," and is a follow up and expansion to the the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, also from Pew, which was released in 2008. The survey looks primarily at the religious switching of Protestants and Catholics and excludes respondents from certain traditions, including "other Christian," "other world religions," and "other faiths."

Overall the survey finds that "Americans change religious affiliation early and often." Some of the highlights related to this process include the following:

* Most switching occurs at an early age, usually by the age of 24. In addition, the level of religious devotion in childhood also impacts religious switching later in adult life.

* The “unaffiliated” category is an interesting one which deserves further and more nuanced analysis. It has seen a net gain in growth as one-quarter of those who change religious affiliation end up in this category. Those in this category cite disenchantment with traditional organized religion and their members as a primary reason for disaffiliation. Even so, they retain certain beliefs imparted by those institutions and may be understood as "believers but not belongers" as they have been referred to in other academic studies. The Pew Report indicates that 16 percent of the overall population falls under the unaffiliated category.

The survey also mentions great diversity in the unaffiliated group. "Not all those who are unaffiliated lack spiritual beliefs or religious behaviors..." This diversity and the presence of beliefs within the unaffiliated category may be paralleled in other surveys in the category of "None" stated as the preference for religious affiliation.

In terms of the propensity toward religious change in America the survey states that "previous estimates actually may have understated the amount of religious change taking place in the U.S.". It also reports that both former Protestants and Catholics report leaving "their former religion because they stopped believing in its teachings." These two areas will need to be examined carefully by scholars who interpret the survey results as they need to be harmonized with the results of previous sociological studies on religious affiliation and reaffiliation. For example, scholars such as Rodney Stark and Roger Finke have stated that:

"Even in the extremely diverse, unregulated, and very competitive American religious economy, most people remain within the religious organization into which they were born, and most of those who do shift from one organization to another remain within the religious traditions into which they were born - even including conversions across the Christian-Jewish divide, fewer than 1 percent of Americans convert." (emphasis mine; Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion [University of California Press, 2000], 115.)

Stark and Finke also note that converts tend to explain their conversion due to the attraction of "particular new doctrines", however "conversion is seldom about seeking or embracing an ideology." Social scientific studies indicate that converts have a tendency to reinterpret their experience post-conversion in terms of doctrinal reasons, and while beliefs certain play a part in religious affiliation, social networks may play a greater role.

The Pew Forum Survey reveals the continuously changing nature of religious dynamics in the United States, and the significance of the issues related to identifying and interpreting religious affiliation, disaffiliation, and reaffiliation.

"Transitions" Project: Phase I Completed

The Transitions Project : The Mormon Migration from Religion to Relationship from WIIS on Vimeo.

Religious migration occurs when someone transitions from one religious group to another. This takes place from time to time and with differing levels of "religio-cultural distance" between the religious (sub)cultures in which the journey takes place. What is not often appreciated is the difficulties that individuals can experience in making this journey.

One of the places in which religious migration takes place is between the subcultures of traditional Christianity and Mormonism. As people journey between these religious groups individuals have a need to draw upon resources that assist them with their journey. For those shifting from traditional Christianity to Mormonism new converts might draw upon Clark L. Kidd and Kathryn H. Kidd's Convert's Guide to Mormon Life (Bookcraft, 1998) or Elaine Cannon's Beyond Baptism: A Guide for New Converts (Bookcraft, 1994). For those making the journey the other direction and out of Mormonism and into traditional Christianity there are a small sampling of resources put together on a local level, but what has been needed is a large scale educational resource that can be marketed on a national level.

The Western Institute for Intercultural Studies is pleased to address this need having just completed the first phase of production for Transitions, a multimedia resource that assists those leaving Mormonism and entering traditional Christianity as they grapple with the emotional, relational, church culture, and doctrinal and worldview issues involved. Phase I was the completion of the promotional trailer which can be viewed above. For further information see the WIIS website at the Transitions page. I invite interested evangelicals and other Christians, particularly those who have made this journey of migration themselves, to get involved in this project through their prayers and financial support.

Religious Disaffiliation and Migration

My work on a new resource from WIIS quickly moving from pre-production to the production phase has given me an opportunity to revisit one of my areas of research interest, that of sociological insights on the processes of religious affiliation and disaffiliation. In the past I have posted on religious disaffiliation among Latter-day Saints, and with this post I take up that issue again with reference to further reflections on the implications of an article by Howard M. Bahr and Stan L. Albrecht, "Strangers Once More: Patterns of Disaffiliation from Mormonism," from the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28, no. 2 (1989): 180-200.

Movement from one religious organization to another takes place constantly in a variety of contexts and for a variety of reasons, and the author's of this article frame it in terms of "moving to a new country" and taking "citizenship in a new spiritual country." With this imagery in mind, those who change churches or religious organizations may be likened to immigrants moving from one country to another. But what does this process of religious migration look like under careful analysis?

In their research, Bahr and Albrecht drew upon two state-wide surveys in Utah among Latter-day Saints in the early 1980s and considered the results in light of their further research on religious disaffiliation, the creation of new roles of "ex" identity, and interviews with disaffiliates. Several aspects of their research struck me, not only in what it tells us about religious disaffiliation in general, but also in the implications for evangelicals working among new religions.

First, due to the small number of interview subjects the authors consider their findings "exploratory and illustrative or sensitizing. They are not statistically generalizable in any way." Further, they did "not attempt to generalize [their] findings to religious disaffiliates generally, or even to Mormon disaffiliates." I hope to find more current research done along these lines with a greater survey sample that will permit statistical generalizations, but if no such research has been conducted it needs to be financed and conducted so that we might further understand the process of religious disaffiliation among Latter-day Saints, a topic that has not received nearly as much attention as religious affiliation. In addition, small survey samples related to methodological considerations should remind evangelicals that current claims about migration among Latter-day Saints into evangelicalism are anecdotal in that the research work has yet to be done, and perhaps we too should resist generalizing our understandings of "what works" among Mormon disaffiliates.

Second, Bahr and Albrecht draw upon the role theory work of Helen Ebaugh in her description of the "role-exit process" in a variety of relationship contexts. She defines this as involving four stages that include "doubting one's role commitment, searching for viable alternative roles, experiencing a 'turning point' which reduces dissonance and mobilizes resources to exit, and creating an 'ex-role'". Role theory and the four-part process of role-exiting provide a helpful framework for understanding the process of disaffiliation which might be studied further by evangelicals.

Third, the authors are cautious in the interpretation of disaffiliate accounts of prior group membership. They remind us that such accounts are "flawed" in that they "reflect only a single point of view - that of the disaffiliate - in a social process that involves scores, if not hundreds, of actors." Further, Bahr and Albrecht note that the narratives of disaffiliates often "tend to interpret the past in ways that reduce personal dissonance about the decision taken. As a consequence, the perceptions of a typical former Mormon about an event are likely to be more anti-Mormon." Yet even with these cautions concerning disaffiliate accounts the authors find value in them. They state that "the partiality of the observers is not reason to dismiss their reports as useless" since every human observer involves bias, "preconceptions and perceptual 'screens' which limit the scope and accuracy of his or her observations." These considerations are helpful reminders of the need for caution in interpreting disaffiliate accounts, and that the many negative portrayals of Mormonism in evangelical literature may help "color" disaffiliate accounts even further beyond the individual's experiences and perceptual reconstructions.

Fourth, the patterns and processes of disaffiliation are interesting. Bahr and Albrecht's research indicates that "[a]pparently most apostates from Mormonism were never truly 'in' the faith" in terms of being deeply devoted "fervent followers." Most maintained marginal commitment levels of belief and identification. In terms of the disaffiliation of "fervent followers," while four out of six cited "intellectual defection" as a major part of their exiting process, the authors note that "[f]or even the most committed seeker, the intellectual struggle was only part of the process, since it occurred in a context of personal problems, disappointments and betrayals." This feature of disaffiliation is a reminder that the process involves multiple factors of causation, and that intellectual issues are processed and strongly influenced within the important context of social relationships.

Finally, in the conclusion of the article one of the points raised by the authors is worth noting when they state:

"It is also probable that patterns of disaffiliation observed among former Mormons in Utah are quite unrepresentative of former Mormons elsewhere. Both the dynamics of disaffiliation and the options of reaffiliation are likely to be quite different outside Utah, where Mormons do not represent the 'establishment' and typically are a small minority rather than the majority."

I share the authors' feelings that their research is tantalizing. There is a great deal to be learned about why people join and leave religious groups, particularly in the new or minority religions. I hope that fellow evangelicals express greater interest in the body of academic literature on religious affiliation and disaffiliation that will help us understand the fascinating dynamics involved in people's lives.

LDS Religious Disaffiliation Narratives

In my continuing research in religious studies I have found the sociological material on religious affiliation of great interest and help. The material on religious disaffiliation is just as helpful, and evangelicals might consider the implications of some of this material in their understanding of new religions and their interations with their adherents.

In my interactions with a Latter-day Saint I recently came across two academic articles, including Stan L. Albrecht and Howard M. Bahr, "Patterns of Religious Disaffiliation: A Study of Lifelong Mormon Converts, and Former Mormons," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 22/4 (Dec. 1983): 366-79, and another, Howard A. Bahr and Stan L. Albrecht, "Strangers Once More: Patterns of Disaffiliation from Mormonism" from the same publication, 28/2 (Jun. 1989): 180-200. According to the former article, some 22% of those who left Mormonism became Roman Catholics, and only 5% bcame "Baptist, Born-Again Christian." In addition, the majority, 42%,  appear not to join any Christian church, including evangelical ones, but instead opt for various forms of atheism or agnosticism. Richley Crapo's research from 2007 reports differently in that while the largest segment of former Mormons identify with nonbelief, 34% identified with Protestantism and 22% with Roman Catholicism.

While some readers may scoff at such studies given their publication in the 1980s, similar findings were reported recently at the recent Sunstone Symposium meeting in Salt Lake City. In the session titled "Purposeful Strangers: Examining Ex-Mormon Narratives and Reasons People Give for Leaving the Church" involving a paper by Seth Payne and a response by Ryan Wimmer, their research confirms that of the 1980s studies. This presentation touches on sociological studies in religious disaffiliation, secular anti-Mormon critiques of Mormonism, evangelical counter-cult critiques, and ex-Mormon narratives. Several elements of this presentation (available on CD or in MP3 from Sunstone) are noteworthy.

First, the presenters note that no recent scientific survey work has been done to confirm why people leave the LDS Church or the religious or irreligious direction their lives take after their departure. This is significant in that evangelicals are prone to make statements about the effectiveness of theological and rational apologetics aimed at "worldview annihilation" in regards to Mormons which then allegedly leads to migration into evangelical churches. Although some religious migration undoubtedly takes place, such claims as to why and the numbers of people involved in the process are merely anecdotal, and my hope is that funding can be found for scientific surveys that can provide good data for a better understanding of the religious disaffiliation process in this context.

Second, even without good, current scientific data, as noted above, scientific research from the past, and more recent informal research, indicates that those who do leave the LDS Church are more likely to become atheistic and hostile to all forms of religion, including and particularly Christianity. Rather than ex-Mormons for Jesus, often they become ex-Mormons for atheism.

Third, another interesting facet of the Sunstone seminar was that secular "anti-Mormon" critiques tend to be more prevalent than evangelical ones, and that many of the secular arguments against Mormonism can be turned against traditional Christianity. For example, while evangelicals are quick to cite the "secular" argument of DNA against aspects of Book of Mormon genetics, many of the same scientists quoted in a popular video on this topic could argue against popular interpretations of the Genesis story in regards to human origins.

Fourth, Payne makes the important observation that while the General Authorities inform the faith of Latter-day Saints they do not dictate it. Thus, we should expect to find diversity and heterogeneity in Mormon faith and practice rather than the homogeneity often assumed by evangelicals on a popular level.

Fifth, another interesting aspect of the study was a discussion of how ex-Mormon narratives take on a distinctive flavor that need to be studied by scholars carefully in order to understand them and the dynamics that inform them. One area I would like to see included in future survey research is how evangelical counter-cult depictions of Mormonism shape ex-Mormon concepts of Mormonism and the LDS Church.

In my estimation the body of literature on religious disaffiliation has much to say to evangelicals seeking to understand those in new religions. It can help us understand why people join particular groups, why they choose to disaffiliate with some, reaffiliate with others, and many times never to affiliate with organized religion again. It can also provide a means of critique for evangelical assumptions about the efficacy and appropriateness of their critical interactions with Latter-day Saints.