Colorado Springs
I drove into Colorado Springs in late October. Pikes Peak had snow on top and the Air Force Academy chapel was doing that thing where it looks like a row of fighter jets pointing at God. I thought I had seen intense religious environments before. I was wrong. Colorado Springs is what happens when you take evangelicalism and add military discipline and institutional money and a mountain range that makes you feel small. It is the most concentrated religious power center I have ever experienced outside of Salt Lake City.
Evangelicalism on the West Coast has a different flavor than the South. It often arrived here through migration — California megachurches planted by transplants, Pacific Northwest churches that grew alongside the tech boom. The theology is similar but the culture is different. You could be an evangelical here and also a tech worker, a creative, someone who reads widely. The cognitive dissonance — between the world you work in and the world you worship in — can be sharper here than anywhere else.
Personal advice, not therapy. Email is free.
Leaving Religion in Colorado Springs
Leaving religion in Colorado Springs is not like leaving a church. It is like leaving a fortress. Focus on the Family is headquartered here. The Navigators. Compassion International. Young Life. Every major evangelical parachurch organization planted roots in this city during the eighties and nineties. The result is a town where faith is not just practiced. It is exported. Thousands of people work for these organizations. Their paychecks come from the evangelical industrial complex. Leaving the faith means leaving your livelihood. Your professional network. Your entire career. I know people who stayed in the closet, spiritually speaking, for years because they could not afford to lose their job. That is not weak. That is survival.
The West Coast is secular enough that leaving your church might not cost you professionally or socially in obvious ways. But the internal cost is just as high. The guilt. The identity loss. The sense that you built your whole life on something that turned out not to be true. In a culture that values authenticity, realizing you have been inauthentic about your faith for years — to yourself as much as anyone — is devastating.
Local Mental Health Context
Male suicide rate in Colorado: 28.3 per 100,000. Medicaid expanded — therapy coverage is available. Crisis line: 988 (Colorado).
What Actually Helps
Garden of the Gods early on a Tuesday. The red rocks and Pikes Peak behind them. Go before the tour buses arrive. Stand in a place that is older than any religion. Let geology preach for a while.
Manitou Springs. Eight miles west. The hippie antidote to the Springs. Mineral water fountains. A downtown that feels like a different century. People here rejected organized religion decades ago and built something weirder and softer.
The hiking. This city has three hundred days of sunshine a year. The trails do not care what you believe. Barr Trail up to the summit of Pikes Peak will humble you more than any sermon.
Downtown on a weekend evening. Tejon Street. The bars and restaurants that exist completely outside the evangelical ecosystem. Find the bartenders who moved here for the mountains not the ministry. They will become your people.
Guides That Match Colorado Springs
Which tradition you came out of matters more than where you live. These are written for the specific traditions relevant here.
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.
Leaving Pentecostal & Charismatic
For people leaving Pentecostal, charismatic, Word of Faith, IFB, or Apostolic churches. Speaking in tongues, prophetic words, faith healing, demons under every rock — and what it does to a body to come out of all of it.
Questions About Colorado Springs
Is Elder X based in Colorado Springs?
I work remotely with men all over the world by phone and Zoom. This page exists because leaving the faith you were raised in feels genuinely different in Colorado Springs than it does anywhere else — and the writing here reflects that. Where I am physically does not matter. The advice is for you wherever you sleep.
What is it actually like to leave religion in Colorado Springs?
Leaving strict religion in Colorado Springs is one of the hardest places in America to do it. This is not a city with a strong religious presence. This is a city built by and for evangelical organizations. The headquarters are here. The publishing houses. The radio networks. Tens of thousands of people work in faith-based employment. Leaving means potentially losing your job, your career path, and every professional reference you have. The military presence adds another layer. The Air Force Academy and Fort Carson bring thousands of Christian military families who reinforce the conservative culture. At the same time the permanent population of Colorado Springs is actually more moderate than the organizations headquartered here. You can find secular community. It just takes work. The mountains help. They do not judge.
How hard is it to leave religion in United States?
Nine out of ten if you work in a faith-based organization. Walking away from both your faith and your career simultaneously is brutal. People have spouses and kids and mortgages. You cannot just quit. The closet becomes a survival strategy. If you work outside the evangelical economy the difficulty drops to about a six. The cultural pressure is still intense. Your neighbors. Your kids' school. The sheer number of churches per square mile. But at least your paycheck is not tied to your belief. The military community has its own religious dynamics. Base chapels. Religious pressure in the ranks. But military people also move a lot. They understand transition. You can find allies in unexpected places.
What does working with Elder X cost?
$250 per week — one hour phone or Zoom plus unlimited texts between calls. I respond personally. If cost is a barrier, mention it in your first email. The first email costs nothing.
Is this therapy?
No. I am not a therapist. I am a man who left strict religion, went through bipolar and psych wards, nearly lost my marriage, and rebuilt. I offer personal advice from lived experience. If you need clinical care, get a therapist.
Can I write in my own language?
Yes. Write in whatever language is most natural for you. I read English natively and use translation tools.
What should I say when I reach out?
Whatever is on your mind. What you were raised in. What started cracking. Where you are now. Be specific. There is no wrong way to start.
Also Near Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is built around a paradox. The mountains say you are small and temporary. The megachurches say you are chosen and eternal. Those two messages cannot both be true. I chose the mountains. The granite does not care about my salvation. It was here before Focus on the Family and it will be here after Focus on the Family is a footnote in a history book. That permanence matters when everything else you believed has crumbled.
Not therapy. Personal advice. $250/week — phone or Zoom plus unlimited texts.