The purpose of this study in the psychology of religion is to explore the process of an individual’s shift in orienting system, from a religious to an atheistic. The materials used are autobiographical accounts obtained from two books. One that has been used as a primary source and one as a secondary. By using Rambo’s process oriented theory of religious conversion relevant themes and categories were chosen and later subjected to further analysis using Pargament’s theory of religion and coping. In the first stage analysis themes and categories were chosen according to Rambo’s seven stages of conversion. In the second stage Pargament’s theory enabled an analysis of how the person’s means in different circumstances changed to reach certain important goals, significance. Results showed that the individual went through several of the stages and conversion motifs described by Rambo. In this process of conversion Pargament’s theory contributed to further explain the psychological transformation of the individual in each of these stages. Further research describing the process of an individual’s journey to atheism needs to be done and this paper might contribute to the understanding of this phenomena.

We need young people, because without them the Catholic Church will have no future. Increases in disaffiliation are seen in different races, genders, generations and countries. Using the Pew Research Center and Forum data, and Richard Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology, this paper will study first who are the disaffiliates, nones, and deconverts and then why they left the church. The Christian Church is based on a community of faith and worship, with evangelization at its heart. Christians need to participate, and evangelize to fully live as Christians. We will review several solutions on how to attract people back into church life. In becoming ‘cultural missionaries’ we can connect with modern culture, and use contemporary approaches to make the voice of the Lord accessible and comprehensible to all people. Unless we truly welcome modern culture, the young, divorced and transgendered into all parts of the Church, we are doomed to become just an anachronistic cultural curiosity.

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This dissertation investigates the development of progressive Christianity. It explores the ways in which progressive Christian churches in Canada adopt biblical criticism and popular theology. Contributing to the anthropology of Christianity, this study is primarily an ethnographic and linguistic analysis that juxtaposes contemporary conflicts over notions of the Christian self into the intersecting contexts of public discourse, contending notions of the secular and congregational dynamics. Methodologically, it is based upon two-and-a-half years of in-depth participant observation research at five churches and distinguishes itself as the first scholarly study of progressive Christianity in North America. I begin this study by outlining the historical context of skepticism in Canadian Protestantism and arguing that skepticism and doubt serve as profoundly religious experiences, which provide a fuller framework than secularization in understanding the experiences of Canadian Protestants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, I draw parallels between the ways that historical and contemporary North American Christians negotiate the tensions between their faith and biblical criticism, scientific empiricism and liberal morality. Chapter Two seeks to describe the religious, cultural and socio-economic worlds inhabited by the progressive Christians featured in this study. It focuses on the worldviews that emerge out of participation in what are primarily white, middle-class, liberal communities and considers how these identity-markers affect the development and lived experiences of progressive Christians. My next three chapters explore the ways that certain engagements with text and the performance or ritualization of language enable the development of a distinctly progressive Christian modality. Chapter Three investigates progressive Christian textual ideologies and argues that the form of biblical criticism that they employ, along with entrenched concerns about the origins of the Christian faith ultimately, leads to a rejection of the biblical narrative. Chapter Four examines the ways in which progressive Christians understand individual 'deconversion' narratives as contributing to a shared experience or way of being Christian that purposefully departs from evangelical Christianity. The final chapter analyses rhetoric of the future and argues that progressive Christians employ eschatological language that directs progressive Christians towards an ultimate dissolution.

This dissertation investigates the development of progressive Christianity. It explores the ways in which progressive Christian churches in Canada adopt biblical criticism and popular theology. Contributing to the anthropology of Christianity, this study is primarily an ethnographic and linguistic analysis that juxtaposes contemporary conflicts over notions of the Christian self into the intersecting contexts of public discourse, contending notions of the secular and congregational dynamics. Methodologically, it is based upon two-and-a-half years of in-depth participant observation research at five churches and distinguishes itself as the first scholarly study of progressive Christianity in North America. I begin this study by outlining the historical context of skepticism in Canadian Protestantism and arguing that skepticism and doubt serve as profoundly religious experiences, which provide a fuller framework than secularization in understanding the experiences of Canadian Protestants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, I draw parallels between the ways that historical and contemporary North American Christians negotiate the tensions between their faith and biblical criticism, scientific empiricism and liberal morality. Chapter Two seeks to describe the religious, cultural and socio-economic worlds inhabited by the progressive Christians featured in this study. It focuses on the worldviews that emerge out of participation in what are primarily white, middle-class, liberal communities and considers how these identity-markers affect the development and lived experiences of progressive Christians. My next three chapters explore the ways that certain engagements with text and the performance or ritualization of language enable the development of a distinctly progressive Christian modality. Chapter Three investigates progressive Christian textual ideologies and argues that the form of biblical criticism that they employ, along with entrenched concerns about the origins of the Christian faith ultimately, leads to a rejection of the biblical narrative. Chapter Four examines the ways in which progressive Christians understand individual 'deconversion' narratives as contributing to a shared experience or way of being Christian that purposefully departs from evangelical Christianity. The final chapter analyses rhetoric of the future and argues that progressive Christians employ eschatological language that directs progressive Christians towards an ultimate dissolution.

Ce mémoire analyse la question de la désaffiliation et les concepts afférents chez les évangéliques de deuxième génération au Québec nés de parents convertis et socialisés dans le milieu évangélique. Au Canada depuis 2011, on remarque une tendance générale à une croissance modérée, si ce n’est une stabilité des groupes évangéliques. Derrière cette relative stabilité, l’on trouve notamment le phénomène de la désaffiliation religieuse, à savoir une désadhésion, un désengagement et une désidentification du milieu évangélique. Cette recherche est menée selon une approche qualitative biographique et semi-directive auprès de douze désaffiliés issus du milieu évangélique québécois. L’analyse des données prend appui sur les cadres théoriques conceptualisant la succession des générations, la déconversion et la désaffiliation. Il ressort que du point de vue générationnel la désaffiliation constitue un produit de la modernité tardive autour de la question du choix religieux, de la mobilité géographique et de l’adaptation des nouvelles églises urbaines. Du point de vue des enjeux spécifiquement liés au milieu évangélique, la désaffiliation survient pour certains interrogés suite à des difficultés à reproduire un modèle de conversion dominant véhiculé par la première génération et central à l’identité évangélique. À la fin des années 1990, le passage de l’école chrétienne publique, ou de l’école à la maison, vers l’univers de l’éducation publique déconfessionnalisée, produit une forme de « choc scolaire » amorçant une remise en question suscitant un début de « désadhésion ». Au mode de vie évangélique « tout ou rien », s’imbrique l’idéal de la pureté sexuelle et du mariage dont l’échec vient aussi agir comme déclencheur de désaffiliation engendrant le « désengagement » religieux. Au fil de la vie de ces membres, la désaffiliation se produit selon une chronologie marquée généralement par un désengagement suivi d’une « désidentification ». Enfin, par son examen de la trajectoire des trois quarts des interrogés s’orientant vers la non-religion, cette recherche contribue à l’élargissement des connaissances concernant la manière dont la désaffiliation évangélique contribue à la croissance du phénomène des sans-religions. Elle comble un manque de données empiriques concernant le sujet de la désaffiliation religieuse au sein des milieux du Réveil évangélique et québécois. / This master thesis analyzes the issue of disaffiliation and related concepts among second- generation evangelicals in Quebec born of converted parents and socialized in the evangelical milieu. In Canada since 2011, there has been a general trend of moderate growth, if not stability, among evangelical groups. Behind this relative stability lies the phenomenon of religious disaffiliation, that is, disadhesion, disengagement, and disidentification from the evangelical milieu. This research is conducted using a qualitative biographical and semi-directive approach with twelve disaffiliated persons from the evangelical milieu in Quebec. The analysis of the data is based on theoretical frameworks that conceptualize disaffiliation, deconversion, and generational succession. It emerges that from a generational point of view, disaffiliation is a product of late modernity around the issue of religious choice, geographic mobility, and the adaptation of new urban churches. From the point of view of issues specifically linked to the evangelical milieu, disaffiliation occurs for some respondents as a result of difficulties in reproducing a dominant conversion model conveyed by the first generation and central to evangelical identity. At the end of the 1990s, the transition from public Christian schools, or homeschooling, to the world of deconfessionalized public education produced a form of "school shock" that initiated a questioning that led to the beginning of disadhesion. To the evangelical way of life "all or nothing" is interwoven with the ideal of sexual purity and marriage whose failure also acts as a trigger of disaffiliation generating religious disengagement. Throughout these members' lives, disaffiliation occurs according to a chronology generally marked by disengagement followed by disidentification. Finally, by examining the trajectory of three- quarters of respondents moving toward non-religion, this research contributes to the expansion of knowledge about how evangelical disaffiliation contributes to the growth of the phenomenon of the non-religious. It fills a gap in empirical data concerning the subject of religious disaffiliation within the Evangelical Revival in Quebec milieu.