Disengagement From Religion
Religious disaffiliation (see also apostasy) means leaving a faith, or a religious group or community. It is in many respects the reverse of religious conversion. Several other terms are used for this process, though each of these terms may have slightly different meanings and connotations.
Bromley (1998) describes a problem with the terminology used to describe the process of religious disaffiliation. He asserts that affiliation with a religious group is referred to as conversion, and describes the continuing debate over the referent for this term, as he sees no parallel term for dissafiliation. Researchers have employed a variety of terms to describe it, including:
- dropping out
- exiting
- disidentification
- leavetaking
- defecting
- apostasy
- disaffiliation
- disengagement
This is in contrast to excommunication, which is disaffiliation from a religious organization imposed punitively on a member, rather than willfully undertaken by the member.
Read more about Disengagement From Religion: Secularism, Coerced and Voluntary Disaffiliation, Stages of Religious Disaffiliation, Factors Affecting Psychological and Social Aspects
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Is there any religion but this, to know, that, wherever in the wide desert of being, the holy sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower, it blooms for me? If none sees it, I see it; I am aware, if I alone, of the greatness of the fact. Whilst it blooms, I will keep sabbath or holy time, and suspend my gloom, and my folly and jokes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)