Reversion, I argue, is often like a
new conversion—from the worldview and faith with which one grows up to a new
form of that faith, or to a new faith entirely. As with conversion in general,
then, reversions take place because the old worldview meets a new context, and
the old worldview does not fit that new context very well.
But conversion
is always specific.[1] It
is a specific person who converts (for example, to Christian faith) or reverts
(leaves their religious faith). The general description flattens out the
specifics of each case and therefore to some degree falsifies each case.
So a specific
person might leave the faith of his/her parents because he/she does not want to
live up to the standards (moral and ethical) that their parents did. Certainly
in my background those who left the BIC were sometimes seen as simply “backsliding”—turning
away from God in a decisive way, and thus condemning themselves forever.
Although such a view of reversion is judgmental (and therefore problematic), it
is also sometimes correct. Some people do not want to be good, so they abandon
a worldview that says they should be good.
This kind of
negative reason can also apply when the one who reverts wants to live a moral
life according to North American standards[2]
(they do not seek to be “bad people”), but are unwilling to commit to the
rigour of the high ethical standards of, for example, the Sermon on the Mount.
This dynamic is one reason that the BIC have always held that each person in
each new generation must come to his/her own true faith in Christ. We emphasize
conversion even for those who begin their life with a Christian worldview
within a Christian family.[3]
But is reversion
simply negative? Is it simply a rebellion against one’s parents, or worse,
against God? I admit readily that one of my deepest desires is to pass my
Christian faith on to my children, and to see them pass it on to their children
in turn. But that desire is not enough to say that reversions are simply bad.
Those who leave
the church of their parents, but retain their Christian faith, may indeed have
internalized that faith more deeply than those who simply remain—and become
increasingly nominal. The fact that reversion is also a kind of conversion
suggests that it has a genuinely positive side. (This truth suggests that
responding to reversion, or seeking to preserve our children in their own
version of our faith, must include some way for the new generation to process
and choose—and real choice includes the possibility of saying no.)
Those who leave
Christian faith entirely are in a different situation, but again it is not
simply negative. I remember a friend who has left Christian faith for a form of
agnosticism, while exploring a variety of religious options—from none to
Buddhism to others I know nothing about. He could have held on to his Christian
faith by presenting his friends and family with a mask, concealing his real
self. Such dishonesty tears the soul and in the end does not truly deceive. His
choice to state his own stand openly (that is, to revert from Christian faith)
is a far better step than the pretense of maintaining a false faith.
The positive
effect of reversion is greater than simply embracing honesty. If reversion comes
from slippage between an old worldview and a new context, then reversions
reveal that slippage to those of us who remain in the church and love the
church deeply. We are not stuck with problems that we cannot identify. Reversions
reveal the problems that we must deal with to remain relevant and vital. Those
who revert are our best friends in dealing with these problems, helping us to
see problems in our worldview that we are unable to see without their help.
References
Smith, Christian with Melinda Lundquist Denton. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives
of American Teenagers. New York:
Oxford, 2005.
Smith, Christian with Patricia Snell. Souls in Transition: The Religious and
Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. New York: Oxford, 2009.
[1] In
the last blog I said that the next blog would talk about why patterned
boundaries are inadequate for passing on one’s faith. Instead I am digressing
to some reasons for reversions.
[2] This
is what Christian Smith (2005) calls “moral therapeutic deism”, which constitutes
the fundamental religion of most American youth of all religious backgrounds
today. See also Christian Smith (2009).
[3]
Whether or not this emphasis on conversion works is the subject for a different
series of blogs.
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