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Select a Category biography Conversion Stories Deconversion Stories Historical Religious Figures Psychology Uncategorized

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December 2024

December 17, 2024

Complex Simplicity – A Book Review

In a previous article, I reviewed research which suggested that, despite the reputation Christians have...

November 2024

November 29, 2024

Devout: a Book Review

The 2024 book Devout by first-time published author Anna Gazmarian is an autobiography exploring her...

March 2024

March 28, 2024

Craving Confidence: A Simple Model to Explain Deconversion

How Human Attitudes Form Versus How We Think They Form I am a researcher whose primary...

December 2023

December 11, 2023

When Women Deconvert: The Research

The History of Religious Research While religious movement (people entering religious communities, switching religious communities,...

December 01, 2023

The Research behind Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse, and Church Hurt

A subject I have addressed in previous articles is the concept of “Religious Trauma,” also...

November 2023

November 24, 2023

Atheist Police Officer Comes to Christ After Investigation

Jim Wallace likes to brag that, for roughly half a century now, if you called...

November 14, 2023

When Teens Deconvert: What the Research Says

The Teenage Exodus It is an established fact that the teenage years are a time...

October 2023

October 16, 2023

“Faith of the Fatherless”: Do Fathers Make or Break a Person’s Faith?

Of Fathers and God Author, speaker, and former counselor Debbie W. Wilson writes about an...

October 09, 2023

The Academic Link Between Deconversion and Anger Toward God

The very public conflict around atheism and religion was at its height during the 2010s,...

September 2023

September 25, 2023

Can Parent and Peer Relationships Affect Deconversion?

Two important studies have been released within the last several years, the topic of which...

August 2023

August 07, 2023

A Return to Rambo: Testing the most Famous Model of Religious Conversion

Religious Conversion: The Standard Model This column has covered the famous and influential model of...

July 2023

July 24, 2023

The Science Behind Religious Conversion

The Nature of Research When William James formed his model of religious conversion in 1902,...

July 17, 2023

Conversion, Deconversion, and Radical Personality Change

"William James (1901) in his famous study, Varieties of Religious Experiences, understood conversion to be a...

June 2023

June 26, 2023

Deconversion and Midlife Crisis

William James and other conversion researchers have long noted that adolescence is a time of...

June 05, 2023

A Brief History of Psychology: From Philosophy to Cognition

Social Psychology began within philosophy. It was assumed early in the development of psychology that...

May 2023

May 15, 2023

Five Paths to Reconcile Christianity and Psychology

In a previous article, I explained the long history of conflict that had existed between...

May 08, 2023

What Deconversion Researchers Do and Do not Know

A Rise in Atheism In the year 2000, atheism was a social curiosity in America....

May 01, 2023

Tales of Deconversion: The Crisis of a Preacher’s Wife

Currently, Cassidy McGillicuddy is a Patheos blogger who writes on the topics of video games,...

April 2023

April 24, 2023

Tales of Deconversion: The Monk Who Became an Atheist

Joseph McCabe is a man who vies for a place as perhaps the most eloquent...

April 03, 2023

Philosophy and Deconversion Research

Readers of this column will be aware that I am a researcher specializing on the...

March 2023

March 27, 2023

The Religious and Atheist Experience in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“’Imagine what it's like. A person smiles at you—you're confused because you don't understand a...

March 20, 2023

Psychology and Religious Deconversion: What we Know so far

The Beginning of High Profile Deconversion In modern times, the first high-profile Christians to make...

March 13, 2023

Lone Christians: People who Exit the Church but not the Faith

Today, nearly half of America is unchurched. But even though more and more Americans are abandoning...

March 06, 2023

What Happens in the Brain When Beliefs Change?

Since the challenging and changing of beliefs is integral to the study of conversion and...

February 2023

February 27, 2023

Leftward Drift: Why Deconverts Begin at the Religious Right and Migrate to the Atheist Left

In 2009, during the height of the “New Atheism” trend, but a comfortable distance...

February 20, 2023

Rapture Anxiety and Deconversion

A significant portion of my initial investigation into deconversion involved listening to interviews and reading...

February 16, 2023

The Asbury Revival and Religious Intensification Phenomenon

On February 8th, of 2023, a group of students at Asbury University, a private Christian...

February 13, 2023

“Stages of Faith,” What can 50-Year-Old Research Tell Us About Conversion and Deconversion?

Stages of Faith is a 1981 book by psychologist James Fowler wherein he lays out...

February 06, 2023

The son of a Famous Evangelist who Became a Convinced Atheist

As a column that discusses the process of religious conversion and deconversion, this space will...

January 2023

January 30, 2023

Research into Religious Deconversion Flourishes in the Post Christian West

A Brief History of Conversion Research Ever since William James’ landmark study, A Variety of...