What Do You Actually Believe Now
After you leave a religion, the question that everyone in your life — and at some point you yourself — eventually asks is some version of "so what do you actually believe now?" Many people in deconstruction find this question almost impossible to answer for a long time, and then feel guilty about not being able to answer it, as if the inability to give a clean theological position is itself a moral failure.
It is not. You do not owe anyone a final position on whether God exists, what happens when you die, what is sacred, what is not, or what you will tell your kids. You may not have one for years, and the years are not wasted years. They are the years of figuring it out honestly. The need to declare an endpoint, to be able to write down a clean creed, is itself a leftover from the inside of the religion. Outside it, most people who think seriously about these questions live with more uncertainty than the inside-the-religion version of the question suggests.
That said, there are a few things worth saying about what tends to happen, what reliably helps, and how to live well in the in-between. Most people, given enough time, settle into something that is not a doctrinal position so much as a way of being a person. The way of being a person is the actual answer.
The map of where people end up
A rough map of where ex-religious people end up, drawn from listening to a lot of them: some become strict atheists, with confidence that there is no God and the universe is what physics describes and the religion they left was a cultural artifact and nothing more. Some become softer atheists, agnostic-leaning, who think a God is unlikely but cannot rule it out and do not think it matters much. Some land at "spiritual but not religious" and develop a private practice of meaning-making that draws from many traditions. Some end up in a different religion than the one they left — an ex-evangelical who becomes Anglican, an ex-Catholic who becomes Buddhist, an ex-Mormon who becomes a non-denominational Christian or a Quaker. Some end up in a softer version of their original tradition — Reform Jewish after Modern Orthodox, progressive Catholic after conservative Catholic. Some never settle and live the rest of their lives as honest doubters, comfortable in the not-knowing.
All of these are real outcomes. None of them is failure. The original tradition’s framing of "in or out" — saved or unsaved, in the truth or in the world, frum or OTD — does not map onto the actual landscape of post-religious life. The actual landscape has many more positions on it, most of them honest, most of them livable, most of them useful to other people on similar roads.
Why the urgency to land somewhere is its own trap
A lot of ex-religious people, in the first year or two out, feel intense pressure to declare a position. They want to be able to tell their parents what they are. They want to be able to write the bio. They want to be able to fill in the blank when somebody asks. The pressure is real and it is also, mostly, a leftover from the inside-the-religion mindset where having a clear, bounded answer was a mark of seriousness.
In adult intellectual and spiritual life, having a clean answer to "what do you believe about God" is not actually a sign of seriousness. Often the opposite. Most thoughtful adults you will meet, religious or not, hold their actual position with more nuance and uncertainty than they would have at twenty-five. The clean position is a young person’s position. The lived-in position is messier and more honest, and it usually takes a while to grow into.
You do not have to land. You can live in the question for years. The question itself, taken seriously, is a worthy occupation. Some of the best people you will meet over the next thirty years are people who never landed, and their lack of landing is part of what makes them good company.
A small daily practice that helps
A practice that has helped many ex-religious people figure out what they actually believe is, oddly, not to argue about it more. It is to stop arguing for a while and start practicing, in a very specific sense.
Five minutes of silence at the end of the day. Not meditation as a religious practice — just silence. No phone. No music. No book. Just sitting with your own life, in the presence of whatever you do or do not think is out there. Notice what shows up. Notice what you find yourself grateful for, and to what or whom. Notice what you find yourself worried about. Notice whether the silence feels populated or empty. Do this for six months. Do not draw conclusions in the first month. Do not argue with what shows up.
A surprising number of ex-religious people, doing some version of this practice over a long enough period, find that something coheres for them. Not necessarily a return to belief. Sometimes the opposite. But a settling — a sense that they know, by their own lights, what they are doing here and what they care about and what kind of person they are trying to be. That settling is the answer to "what do you believe now," in the form that the question can actually be answered. The form it cannot be answered in is the form of a theological position paper. The form it can be answered in is the form of how you live your day.
What you do is what you believe
A useful idea to sit with: in adult life, what you actually believe is mostly a function of what you do, not what you say. If a person says they believe in honesty and lies all the time, they do not actually believe in honesty. They believe in the look of believing in honesty. If a person says they are not sure about God but lives a life of attention, gratitude, kindness to strangers, and care for the people around them, they have a kind of operative faith that is more substantial than most stated theologies.
Stop trying to figure out what you believe by introspecting on your beliefs. Pay attention to what you do. Pay attention to what you find yourself drawn to. Pay attention to what you cannot stop noticing. Pay attention to what you would still do if nobody was watching and there was no reward and no punishment in any frame, religious or social.
The shape of the life you actually live, over years, is the answer to the question of what you actually believe. The doctrinal sentences are downstream of that. Build the life. The doctrine, if it ever shows up, will fit the life. If it never shows up, the life will be the answer all by itself.
A last note for the people still in the dark
Some of you reading this are in the worst part of it — out of the religion, not yet at any new shore, in the middle of the sea, with no compass that works. The old beliefs do not hold. The new ones have not formed. The certainty you used to have feels embarrassing now, but the uncertainty you have now feels worse, because it is not stable enough to live inside of yet.
I want to tell you that this part is a real stage and that it ends. Not in the sense that you arrive at a new certainty. Most people do not. It ends in the sense that you stop needing certainty in order to live well. You start to be able to take a Tuesday seriously, to be a good friend to someone, to do your work, to love a person, to laugh at a joke, without needing a settled metaphysical position behind the laugh.
You did not lose your faith because you were lazy. You lost it because you were honest, and the cost of staying was higher than you could pay. The work now is to be honest about where you are and to live in a way you can be proud of, even on the days when you cannot say what you believe in any clean sentence. That is enough. That has always been enough. The clean sentence was the religion’s thing, not yours.
Not therapy. Personal advice. Elder X is not a licensed therapist. This is honest writing from someone who has walked the road and sat with people on it.
Other Pieces of After
The guilt that does not switch off
For people who left their religion and still feel guilty for things that used to be sins. Why the guilt persists, what it actually is, and what reliably helps it loosen.
Finding friends after the church
For people who lost their friend group when they left the religion they were raised in. Honest writing on how adult friendships actually form, and why the loneliness after leaving is not permanent.
When your spouse still believes
For people in a mixed-faith marriage where one spouse deconstructed and one did not. Honest writing on whether the marriage can survive, what to talk about, what to avoid, and the kids in the middle.
If You Came Out Of...
Pages written specifically for people leaving these traditions.
Leaving Evangelical Christianity
For people deconstructing from American evangelical Christianity, non-denominational megachurches, Southern Baptist, and conservative Protestant traditions. Honest writing about losing your faith, your tribe, and the certainty you used to have.
Leaving the Catholic Church
For ex-Catholics, lapsed Catholics, and people walking away from the church they were raised in. The guilt machinery, the family Mass, the saints you still half-believe in, and what comes next.
Leaving the LDS Church
For people who left the Mormon church or are in the middle of leaving. The temple, the family, the testimony you no longer have, and what comes next. Honest writing from someone who walked it.
Want to Talk?
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