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People often say that #Exvangelicals left our former faith (for agnosticism, atheism, or other kind of Christianity) so that we could "be popular" or "fit in." It's true that for many of us, exposure to different people and sources of information did play a role in our shift.
It's also true that many of us have gone on to form friendships, build community, and even gain some sort of platform on the basis of our newly formed beliefs, our shared journeys, or our more "progressive" views. So when we respond to those accusation by saying...
"Look at how much we've lost," outsiders see how much we have gained and think, THAT must have been our motivation--not truth, not goodness, not love. But when we started to doubt, were kicked out, walked away, or outright rebelled, what we were certain to lose was far greater...
than anything we were certain to gain. The new friendships, communities, and platforms came later. They are good and we enjoy them, but back then we had no way of knowing what would lie ahead--if we could create found family, make new friends, or ever feel safe again.
What we knew was that if we left, the people we had respected and admired our entire lives would not support us. They would never be proud of whoever we might become. We would never hear "well done" from our parents, our mentors, our heroes.
And that is still a source of grief and loss for many. We can enjoy the people we have become and the friendships we share without our motivation for leaving having been "capitulating to culture." We left on conviction, in trauma, in pursuit of truth...for a plethora of reasons.
The determination to stand for what we believed in despite the cost that our mentors taught us--that was why most of us left. Tell us we are wrong, deceived, mistaken. Fine. But do not tell us that we are weak, give in, and capitulate. If we were, we would have surely gone back.
