Dear all,
I would like to draw your attention to the possibility of attending the online international symposium 'Gender and Religious Exit: Moving Away from Faith' organised by Sarah-Jane Page, Teija Rantala and myself. It takes place on 28 November between 9am and 5:30pm GMT time.
You find the full program below.
In case you would like to attend (part of) the day, you can register here until noon of Monday 27 November (GMT).
https://coventry.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/gender-and-religious-exit-attend
You will receive a link to the Zoom meeting by the end of 27 November.
Please, feel free to circulate this to colleagues and students whom you think might be interested.
Kind regards,
Nella van den Brandt.
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Gender and Religious Exit: Moving Away from Faith
We will be using Zoom videoconferencing for this event and you will receive a link to the Zoom meeting one working day before the event.
Introduction:
There have always been reasons for people to move away from a religious tradition, community or movement. Religious traditions are instrumental in providing individual members with a perspective on the world, a community and a relationship with the divine. Religious communities socialize their adherents regarding behaviour, embodiment and emotions. When people move away from their religion, their experiences may pertain to all or some of these aspects and dimensions. Leaving religion is thus a varied and diverse experience.
The one-day online symposium Gender and Religious Exit starts from the premise that motivations for moving away from religion range from experiencing cognitive or emotional dissonance to social marginalisation to a critique of power relations. The notions of ‘moving away’ or ‘religious exit’ should be considered in a layered and nuanced manner: they raise questions about what exactly individuals consider to leave, and what elements of behaviour, embodiment and emotions remain part of their environments, lives and futures.
Moving away from religion can thus involve complex processes and negotiations of all areas of life and understandings of the self. An intersectional perspective and analysis of leaving religious is long overdue, since notions and experiences of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and dis/ability are central in shaping identity and the self. The multidisciplinary symposium invites scholars to investigate the variety of contemporary dynamics of leaving religion in the lives of individuals and communities.
During the opening plenary session, research findings will be presented that emerged from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie funded two-year qualitative research by Dr Nella van den Brandt (Coventry University, UK) on women leaving religion in the UK and the Netherlands. Keynote lectures on gender, feminism, apostasy and non-religion / leaving religion in various national and cultural contexts will be provided by Dr Julia Martínez-Ariño (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands) and Prof. Dr Karin van Nieuwkerk (Radboud University, the Netherlands). During parallel sessions, we will further look into current international and intersectional perspectives on moving away from religion.
Kind regards from the organisers,
Dr Nella van den Brandt, Coventry University, UK
Dr Teija Rantala, Turku University, Finland
Dr Sarah-Jane Page, Aston University, UK
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Program Online Symposium 28 November 2023
Time: 9am – 5:30pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome & Opening by Sarah-Jane Page, Teija Rantala & Nella van den Brandt
9:30 – 11:00 Parallel Panel Session I:
Panel 1: Complexifying of Religious Exit
Panel 2: Viewing Religious Communities from the Perspective of Exit
Panel 3: Thematizing Masculinity and Sexuality in Religious Exit
11:00 – 11:30 Break
11:30 – 12:15 Keynote lecture 1 by Dr. Nella van den Brandt, Coventry University, UK
Title: “Women, Sexuality and Queer(ish) Religious Exit in the UK and the Netherlands” (25 min)
Abstract: Women’s trajectories of leaving religion in the UK and the Netherlands often negotiate issues of sexual embodiment. Questioning or losing faith, or disengaging from a religious community, entails relational dynamics: it is informed by everyday experiences of being in one’s body as well as in one’s social relations. Drawing on 61 life story interviews with women of diverse religious backgrounds, this presentation unpacks ‘sexual stories of religious exit’, seeking to illuminate the role of the intimate life – the erotic, the gendered and the relational. It distinguishes and discusses four recurring themes: the regulation of women’s bodies and sexual intimacy; the role of sexual abuse; the casting of those who articulate and shape queer lives and critique within religion as impossible subjects; and the loss of possible queer lives and imagination. From the point of view of my interlocutors, the gendered and sexual body is a vehicle for leaving religion. The discussion of these themes results in a foregrounding of gender, sexuality and queer(ish) experiences in research about leaving religion.
Q&A (20 min)
Chair: Prof. Dr. Kristin Aune, Coventry University, UK
12:15 – 13:00 Keynote lecture 2 by Dr. Julia Martínez-Ariño, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands
Title: “Apostatizing like a Feminist: Leaving the Catholic Church in Argentina and Spain” (25 min)
Abstract: Feminist mobilisations in Latin America and Spain have become key political actors in the last decade or so. Some of these feminist movements have adopted collective apostasies as a mobilization tool to denounce the role of the Catholic Church in maintaining the patriarchal system and interfering in the state and politics. By collectively and formally leaving the Church, members of these feminist groups bring together the fights for gender equality and for the separation of church and state. In so doing, they make apostasy a highly politicised action. These feminist movements identify the Church as an enemy of women’s rights and use apostasy as a useful tool to open up public debates around the contentious intersection of institutional religion and gender. This presentation draws on interviews, ethnographic observations and document and visual analysis of feminist collective apostasies in Argentina and Spain to unpack the discourses generated in and around them and to show how feminism and this specific form of anticlericalism intersect with one another. From the perspective of my interlocutors, their feminist and anticlerical positions cannot be disentangled as they co-constitute each other.
Q&A (20 min)
Chair: Dr. Sarah-Jane Page, University of Nottingham, UK
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 – 15:30 Parallel Panel Session 2:
Panel 4: Socio-Political Change, Activism and Religious Exit
Panel 5: Gendering Religious Exit I: Contesting Religious Transformations
Panel 6: Gendering Religious Exit II: Affects and Embodiment
15:30 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 16:45 Keynote lecture 3 by prof. Dr. Karin van Nieuwkerk, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Title: “Gendered Affective Responses towards Nonreligion in Egypt: A Practice Theory of Emotion” (25 min)
Abstract: Nonreligious men and women in Egypt face potent legal and emotional reactions. During a tumultuous episode of an Egyptian TV program, a “debate” occurred between a religious scholar, a lawyer, and two atheists hailing from Muslim and Christian backgrounds. The lawyer's agitation escalated to the point of him hurling his shoes at the atheists while denouncing them as a “national security threat.” Such an act, throwing shoes, carries deep connotations of contempt and insult. Parents' responses encompass a range of emotions: anger, sadness, concern, moral outrage, as well as shame. This is particularly evident among women who transition away from religion; they often face disciplinary measures, ostracism, or harassment. This presentation employs a practice theory of emotions to dissect these intense emotional reactions. Drawing on fifty interviews with nonreligious individuals from both Muslim and Coptic backgrounds, alongside analysis of atheist and religious media content related to atheism, this presentation seeks to illuminate several aspects: the legal standing of atheists and the nonreligious, their portrayal in state media, and the responses from parents and relatives. Notably, it will emphasize the difference in emotional reactions towards nonreligious men and women.
Q&A (20 min)
Chair: Dr. Teija Rantala, TIAS, University of Turku
16:45 – 17:00 Reflections: Dr. Anna Szwed, Jagiellonian University, Poland
17:00 – 17:30 Plenary sharing of insights
17:30 Goodbye
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Info Panels and Abstracts Panel 1: Complexifying Religious Exit
Parallel panel session 1
Time: 9:30 – 11:00 am.
Chair: Nella van den Brandt (Coventry University, UK)
Paper 1 Title: ““I Left Catholicism, but Catholicism Did not Leave Me”: Gender Perspective on Leaving the Church and Becoming Bahá’í”
Tova Makhani-Belkin, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Abstract: Are women more likely than men to leave Catholicism for the Bahá’í faith? Drawing on life stories interviews of first-generation Bahá’ís, and ethnography in the Bahá’í community in Ireland, the study isolates the gender-related reasons for leaving the Catholic church. In their narratives, the church’s patriarchal structure and history of misogyny are significant reasons for their decision to leave (push factors). They were also drawn to the Bahá’í faith's emphasis on gender equality, which they saw as a more progressive and inclusive approach to religion (pull factors). Most studies about religious conversion describe different models of leaving one religion to another religious community. Yet, in the Bahá’í conversion narrative, I found first-generation Bahá’ís in Ireland have left the church before becoming Bahá’í. In this liminal stage, they left the church and its institutions but did not convert, referring to themselves as 'culturally Catholic.' In that sense, they have moved away from the church and its institutions but took the Christian philosophies due to the 9 / 57 Bahá’í principle of progressive revelation. Moreover, they incorporated several religious and cultural practices into their new religious life after becoming Bahá’í. This has shaped their relations with their surroundings (e.g., family, friends, community) and renegotiated their religious and national identity. Among the questions this study explores: What role does gender equality play in the decision of firstgeneration Bahá’ís to leave the church and become Bahá’í? What gender roles do first-generation Bahá’í take on in their every life and religious practices? How does the liminal stage of leaving the Catholic church affect first-generation Bahá’í’s relationships with their families and friends and religious identity?
Paper 2 Title: “Sealed Doors, Sliding Doors, No Doors: Different Ways of Leaving Christianity and Entering Zen Buddhism in Italy”
Silvia Rivadossi, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Abstract: In this preliminary study, based on ethnographic work and interviews with Italian women who left Christianity to enter Zen Buddhism and become nuns, I intend to show how religious exit can have different nuances, depending on the degree of spiritual elasticity, personal experience and the way each religious tradition is perceived and lived. The boundaries between a space 'before' and a space 'after' religious exit are therefore not always clearly defined: if in some cases the door firmly closes the previous religious experience and religious exit can be described as definitive, in other cases one can see sliding doors that allow re-entry and re-exit as needed. There are also cases where no door separates the two religious experiences, and the 'exit' is also constantly and simultaneously an 'entrance', creating two contiguous spaces.
Paper 3 Title: “Leaving Faith and Religious Communities in the Netherlands: Why the Dutch Jewish Narrative is Different”
Ronit Palache, Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract: Since the end of last year I have been conducting research at the University of Amsterdam into Christian, Islamic and Jewish faith leavers in the Netherlands. Up to now little is known especially about the latter group when it comes to leaving the faith or religious communities. In my research I try to sketch both the similarities and differences in the life stories of the people who describe the process of moving away from their religion or/and religious communities. The language with which they give words to who they are now and what the process of leaving looked like is a special focus of my research.
Among the main findings in the interviews so far is the fact that a significant number of interviewees lack the feeling of unconditional love from the parents because god and community come first. Another common topic in their live stories is the search for what the self is. In the religious context, the interviewees in my research didn’t play a central role in their own lives, so that once they move further away from the faith, they have to reinvent themselves and get to know themselves in a very different and new, often secular, context. In my research I will show, among other things, that the conversations with Jews differ greatly from Christians and Muslims because in Judaism God plays a less evident role.
Panel 2: Viewing Religious Communities from the Perspective of Exit
Parallel panel session 1
Time: 9:30 – 11:00 am.
Chair: Sarah-Jane Page (University of Nottingham, UK)
Paper 1 Title: “Gender-Related Inclusionary and Exclusionary Practices within Evangelical Churches in the Netherlands”
Laura Dijkhuizen, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract: Inclusive and exclusive practices are part of innovation and changes in religious organizations like churches. In this contribution, two cases of change in leadership roles related to gender balance are analysed and discussed. The empirical research revealed dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, which are explored and interpreted through the lens of a social identity approach and related to the change in authority. Data show that the shift in Bible interpretation of female leadership, as well as the practice of including women in a previously male domain, affected the perception of the church’s social and religious identity. In some cases, this resulted in leaving the church due to the authority shift, which can be perceived as a form of apostasy.
Paper 2 Title: “A Troubling Inheritance: On the Challenges of Leaving Islam in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan”
Usmon Boron, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Abstract: What forces are at play when a person despising their religion consistently fails to renounce it? Can a religious tradition simply refuse to let one drift away from its folds? I was moved to ponder these questions during my fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan, when I was trying to understand how non-observant Kyrgyzstani Muslims relate to the ongoing Islamic revival in their country. As is well known, the USSR aspired to eliminate the religions of its people. In Central Asia, the Soviet state destroyed most Islamic institutions, thereby alienating millions of Muslims from some of the key aspects of Islam, including regular obligations such as the ritual prayer (namaz). As a result, mainstream Islam in Kyrgyzstan came to be centered mainly around life-cycle rituals (i.e., male circumcision, the marriage ceremony, and funeral prayer). After the collapse of the USSR, this form of non-observant Islam came under the criticism of Islamic piety movements, which became increasingly active in Kyrgyzstan in the late 1990s. Challenging Soviet 39 / 57 ways of being Muslim, these movements ignite interest and curiosity, but also trigger ambivalence, anxiety, and even hostility among the non-observant majority of Kyrgyzstani Muslims. The proposed paper tells the story of Begimai, a single mother in her 40s, whose encounters with the Islamic piety movements made her antagonistic towards Islam as a whole. Although Begimai did not face communal pressures to remain Muslim, her efforts at leaving Islam, including an attempt to convert to Christianity, failed. This paper explores how Islam for Begimai became both a repugnant “other” and an affective inheritance that is impossible to renounce. While experiences of leaving religion are often framed through the trope of individual agency, this paper considers how a religious tradition can resist individuals’ attempts at leaving it behind, thereby exercising an agency of its own.
Paper 3 Title: “Health Impacts of Religious Exit for LGBTQA+ People in Australia”
Timothy Jones, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract: LGBTQA+ people commonly experience rejection, conditional acceptance, or pressure to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity in religious contexts. These experiences can have serious and ongoing mental health impacts, including complex PTSD and suicidality. Qualitative data from life history interviews with LGBTQA+ people suggested that people who exited religious communities had better experiences of recovery from religious discrimination than those who sought to remain in their original faith community. It also suggests that people from minority cultural and faith backgrounds were better resourced to navigate membership in non- or partially accepting contexts. This paper analyses data from a survey of 1500 LGBTQA+ people in Australia’s experiences of religion. It explores the differences in mental health between cohorts of LGBTQA+ people who remained in their religion of origin, who changed religion, and who exited religion. It reflects on stakeholder implications from key findings and future research possibilities.
Paper 4 Title: “”I Just Didn't Feel It” Women's Stories of Affective Alienation, Religious Exit and Re-Enchantment through Feminine Spirituality”
Ella Poutiainen, University of Turku, Finland
Abstract: The field of contemporary holistic spirituality is flooded with women's circles, retreats and self help manuals inviting women to release their inner Goddess and find their true feminine power. These 'feminine spiritualities' are typically targeted to women, emphasise feminine ”energy” or divinity, and aim to take into account the alleged specificities of the female body and feminine spiritual experience. In general, the field of holistic spirituality is dominated by women and is often presented as feminine or womenfriendly in comparison to institutional religion. However, feminine spiritualities frequently accuse also maintream holistic spirituality of masculine bias. Based on interviews with adherents of feminine spiritualities, this presentation looks at how the journey toward feminine spiritualities is often preceded by a disillusionment in or exit from another religious or spiritual tradition. While scholars of religion have extensively discussed women's attraction to holistic spiritualities in general, feminine spiritualities in particular has gained less scholary 43 / 57 focus. Furthermore, previous research has tended to analyse women's attraction to spiritualiy from a rather secular perspective, pointing out how holistic spiritualities provide alternative gender representations, possibilities for identity formation, and validation of as well as cure for women specific health issues (eg. Sointu & Woodhead 2008; Woodhead 2016; Plancke 2021). Instead, this presentation looks at the desire for enchantment, spiritual experience and religious emotion as a crucial element of the attraction of spirituality. Furthermore, in the light of theories of affect, I suggest that the turn to feminine spiritualities is motivated by experiences of affective alienation in maintream religion/spirituality. Whereas mainstream religion/spirituality fails to provide women the ”right” kind of feeling or religious experience, feminine spiritualities appear as a way to re-enchant spirituality.
Panel 3: Thematizing Masculinity and Sexuality in Religious Exit
Parallel panel session 1
Time: 9:30 – 11:00 am.
Chair: Teija Rantala (TIAS, University of Turku Finland)
Paper 1 Title: “Shame and Guilt: Exploring How Gender Affects the Experiences of Former Jehovah's Witnesses”
J. Murphy, S. Towers, N. Holt, G. Askwith, and A. Alqadi, Faith to Faithless Research Team, Humanists UK
Abstract: Religious exit involves complex transitions in identities in relation to the self, the religious community, and the wider world. Gender shapes these experiences, particularly for individuals who are leaving patriarchal groups. This paper draws on data from a recent study where 20 ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses (11 women and 9 men) participated in semistructured interviews that explored their experiences within the community, factors associated with their exits, and post-exit challenges. The participants described their experiences in a patriarchal and gender-conservative organization where authority was assigned to men, and reported a diverse range of exit trajectories. The key themes developed in our analysis were experienced by both male and female participants but the strongly defined gender roles within the organization had lasting effects on all the participants. Many participants experienced being isolated and vulnerable after leaving, but young women who left alone faced especially high risks – including of coercive or exploitative 23 / 57 relationships. They often lacked the knowledge, skills, or resources necessary to build safe lives outside their former communities. Internalized misogyny also amplified the shame and sense of inadequacy that many women experienced during and after their religious exits. While being shunned caused distress for many participants, for men who had married in the community, losing access to their children was particularly challenging. Men who achieved positions of authority within the organization prior to their exits also struggled with the consequences of having taken disciplinary actions against other members and ex-members. The experiences of the participants show how the structural patriarchy of the organization harmed both women and men. The processes of healing and rebuilding were neither quick nor easy, but the ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses each developed new, healthier understandings of themselves and the world. Experiencing sensitive support and forming beneficial new relationships helped them process their exits and experience posttraumatic growth.
Paper 2 Title: “Counter-Rejections: LGBTQ+ People Leaving Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity”
Mark Jennings, Wollaston Theological College and University of Divinity, Australia
Abstract: My recently published monograph “Happy: LGBTQ+ Experiences of Australian Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) grounds narratives of LGBTQ+ people participating in - and usually leaving behind - Australian Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian (PCC) churches in a Foucauldian discursive contest over the “truth” of sexuality and gender. Most of the LGBTQ+ people I interviewed had left their PCC churches behind, in many cases constructing what Andrew Yip calls a “counterrejection” of the churches that they felt had rejected them. This presentation discusses four such counter-rejections. Jace, a bisexual female, experienced bi-negativity in her former church, describing herself as “half accepted” as long as she only dated men. Having left her PCC church, Jace was angry and hurt at this conditional acceptance, and worried about the impact on other LGBTQ+ people. LGBTQ+ males Otzar and Sasha were still drawn to PCC spirituality, but with support from allies had assembled an LGBTQ+ inclusive theology after damaging experiences of rejection led to them leaving PCC behind. Wynn, once a deeply committed PCC volunteer, drew upon scientific reasoning to reject both PCC and his former Christian faith entirely. Whereas in Yip's work LGBTQ+ Christians assemble counterrejections in order to remain in their churches and traditions, in contrast, these informants assembled their counter-rejections and left their PCC churches behind, although in some cases a faith was maintained. Even when leaving—perhaps especially because they were leaving—it was important for these four former PCCs to proffer a comprehensive counterrejection of their former tradition’s sexuality and gender discourse.
Paper 3 Title: “Why do Finns Leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church?”
Jere Kyyrö, University of Helsinki, LegitRel, Finland
Abstract: For several decades, the membership of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCF) has been steadily declining. In the end of 1990, 87.7% of the Finns were church-tax-paying members, as in the end of 2020 the membership rate was 67.8%. Increases in membership resignations were reported in the public in the 2000s and 2010s, particularly during media events involving disagreements between liberals and conservatives, where the right to same-sex marriage was discussed. But what are the reasons given by people who resign for quitting the church? Since 2003, it has been possible to resign from the ELCF online. Eroakirkosta.fi, an online service hosted by Freethinker organization VATA ry., also gathers the reason for the resignation in an open text field. We categorised the supplied causes and analyzed this data (collected between 2011 and 2020; n =3837) by looking how the gender and age of the resigners, as well as the time of the resignation (year and month) correlate with the cause-categories, using descriptive statistics and logistic regression (Äystö & al. 2022). 30 / 57 The most prevalent reasons provided were connected to financial and utility, and half of the resigners gave such reasons. Beliefs and dogmas were the second most prevalent reason provided by one-fourth of the resigners. Lack of faith is not the most prevalent subjective indicator of disaffiliation, as has been suggested in previous research. Similarly, disaffiliation is not mainly the outcome of disaffiliation surges associated with particular events. In terms of age and gender, our research confirms much of the current literature: Men under 35 are most likely to disaffiliate from the Church, chiefly for financial reasons.
Paper 4 Title: “Men’s Experiences in Two Abusive New Religions”
Sarah Harvey and Suzanne Newcombe, Inform, UK
Abstract: In this presentation, we consider the gendered dynamic of religious exit in two syncretistic new religions, with a focus on men’s experiences. In discussing these two small movements formed around charismatic individuals (Mohan Singh and Ali X), we usually focus on women’s experiences of sexual abuse. However, there were male members of both groups: whilst Singh only had a couple of men amongst his followers, X’s followers were evenly split between men and women, many of whom were in relationships or had familial ties. Whilst male followers did not directly experience sexual abuse in these groups, some of them experienced other forms of abuse including physical, psychological, spiritual and financial abuse. These were cited as reasons for leaving the movement, alongside realisation of the sexual abuse of women in the group. We introduce the idea of moral injury as a transgression of deeply held moral beliefs to explain the different reactions of individuals to experiences of abuse. We highlight the differences between 35 / 57 the two groups and between individuals within the same group. In both cases, but predominantly in the Singh case, some male followers were socialised into the same patterns of abusive behaviour as the leader, contributing to the creation of a misogynistic culture. In the X case, which began as a martial arts group, narratives of male pride and physical discipline were prioritised. Embodied norms and practices in the groups were along gendered lines with women providing personal care and domestic duties, men financial and physical labour (house maintenance and driving in the X case). This impacted the forms of abuse experienced and, consequently, religious exit. We note a range of forms of religious exit from leaving, to active campaigning, to reframing beliefs to justify continued membership, to recanting apostasy and returning. We also consider the important role of support groups and community building in religious exit.
Panel 4: Thematizing Masculinity and Sexuality in Religious Exit
Parallel panel session 2
Time: 14:00 – 15:30 am.
Chair: Dawn Llewellyn (University of Chester, UK)
Paper 1 Title: “The Church, the Secret Society, and the Political Struggle: Disaffiliations in Contemporary Catholicism”
Timo Koch, City University of London, UK & Luciano Santander, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Abstract: Over the last decade, the global phenomenon of religious disaffiliation has gained significant attention. While studies attribute this trend to societal advancements and the evolving individualistic nature of societies, political conflicts within religious institutions also play a pivotal role. This paper delves into the lesser known, but potent, political motivations driving exits from the Catholic Church. Using the Catholic secret society 'El Yunque' as a lens, it sheds light on the simmering tensions and confrontations in Chile and Spain. This research poses the question: How do political conflicts, particularly surrounding contentious issues like abortion, gender equality, and LGBTQI+ rights, fuel religious exits? By assessing newspaper articles, interviews, and videos, the analysis unravels the complex interplay between NGOs, religious institutions, and individual believers. Furthermore, it illuminates how these political struggles, deeply intertwined with gender and identity, reshape religious affiliations and identities in contemporary times.
Paper 2 Title: “Escaping from the Mother Pole? Women’s Apostasy and Contestation of the Gender Order in Poland”
Anna Szwed & Katarzyna Zielińska, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Abstract: Moving away from religion can have different meanings. It can be interpreted as weakening bonds with religious institution, religious disaffiliation or becoming irreligious person. However, it can also have a political meaning. In our presentation we propose to look at the act of exit as a way of resisting the established social order. In Polish context, the Roman Catholic Chruch is often perceived as embodying the societal norms that also include the prescribed gender roles. We claim that apostasy may serve as a tool to challenge such constructions. Based on individual in-depth interviews with women who apostatized from the Roman Catholic Church in the aftermath of protests against tightening of the abortion law in Poland (Women’s Strikes), we demonstrate how apostasy becomes a tool for building resistance against the established gender order. We focus on collective, individual, discursive and embodied dimensions of apostasy. We investigate women’s resistance in relation to the following dimensions of gender order (Connell 2006): the division of labour, power relations, emotion and human relations and symbolic representations.
Paper 3 Title: “Speaking Against Islam: Social and Political Participation after Moving Out of Religion in Spain”
Rosa Martinez-Cuadros, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Abstract: In the last years, a new phenomenon emerged and crossed my research on Islam and Gender in the public sphere in Spain: a group of “ExMuslim” women appeared in the public debates criticising Islam. Despite not all defining themselves as “ExMuslims”, their experiences as former Muslims were what seemed to justify their participation in events and conferences, as they were speaking against Islam. This phenomenon was not new in Western contexts, but other figures were already well-known in other countries such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Between 2019 and 2022 I analysed how in the case of Spain these women negotiated their religious identification in their social participation in the public sphere, through interviews and observation of events. In this paper, I discuss the narratives of women of Islamic background who have moved out of religion and became active in the public sphere talking about Islam with two main aims. First, I want to explore how the thematic narratives proposed by Vliek (2019) are useful for this 57 / 57 specific profile of women. In studying people of Islamic backgrounds who have moved out of Islam, Vliek (2019) presented four thematic trajectories: “religious break”, “social break-away”, “the entrance” and “unconscious secularisation”, while she argued their religious transformation was not “just about faith”. My analysis shows hoy religious break and social-breakaway are the most prominent narratives, while the entrance and the unconscious secularisation themes are almost absent in their trajectories. Second, I explore how these women negotiate their religious identification to justify their legitimacy in speaking about Islam in the public sphere. Despite their narratives showing that their process of moving out of Islam is not only about faith, they focus their discourses on the criticism of religion. Thus, paradoxically, their religious identification becomes a key feature of their social and political participation.
Paper 4 Title: “Atheism and the Women's Strike: New Insights from a Retrospective Study”
Michalina Trochimowicz, Ewa Dąbrowska-Prokopowska, Piotr Paweł Laskowski & Konrad Talmont-Kaminski, University of Białystok, Poland
Abstract: CBOS results show a significant decline in religiosity and increased atheism among young Poles in recent years (CBOS, 2021), confirmed by international research (Pew Research Center, 2018). Explicit discontent with the Catholic Church emerged during the 2020 Women's Strike. Scholarly works link these protests against abortion decisions to secularization trends among young Poles. Our interdisciplinary research uses retrospective questionnaire to understand secularization. We have observed that religiosity declines by age 25, forming atheist attitudes during adolescence, particularly, related to feminism and criticism of the Catholic Church. We suggest that participating in the Women's Strike expresses pre-existing atheistic and critical views towards the Church, rather than causing them. We tested these hypotheses through quantitative research within the "Dziewuchy Dziewuchom" Facebook group in May 2021. Our presentation will outline the framework, methodology, and findings related to respondents' atheism, its links to the Women's Strike, their views on the Catholic Church, and morality. The research was funded by the National Science Centre under grant number: 2019/34/H/HS1/00654.
Panel 5: Gendering Religious Exit I: Contesting Religious Transformations
Parallel panel session 2
Time: 14:00 – 15:30 am.
Chair: Sarah Harvey (Inform, UK)
Paper 1 Title: “Religious Disaffiliation and Gender Dynamics in British Evangelical Subculture”
Chrissie Thwaites, University of Leeds, UK
Abstract: This paper will explore gender dynamics in British evangelical Christianity, and the impact these can have on women within this religious subculture and their own religious identity. It will be based on the findings from my PhD research, which explores ‘purity culture’ in Britain. 'Purity culture’ is a recent Christian movement which centred around encouraging young people to be sexually ‘pure’ and abstinent until marriage. It was prominent in US evangelicalism in the 1990s and early 2000s, but had an international impact. My research explores this impact in on women in Britain. I use mixed methods, consisting of an online survey (580 responses) and a handful of one-to-one-interviews (with 5 women) with Christian/formerly Christian women in Britain. In this paper, I will discuss the role of gender dynamics within evangelical subculture, and how these can act as a contributing factor to questioned belonging, religious uncertainty, and ultimately (in some cases) religious exit. I will draw on the experiences of my participants, and focus on themes I identified across survey and interview responses: singleness, marriage, and the authoritative influence of gender roles. As my research focuses solely on evangelical purity culture in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), I will also consider the specific socio-cultural context which shapes the British iteration(s) of evangelicalism, and how the construction of gender can combine with these cultural factors to create a unique experience of both religious subculture and religious disaffiliation.
Paper 2 Title: “Women on the Run? Changes and Continuity of Female Religiosity in Catholic Italy”
Stefania Palmisano & Lorenzo Todesco, University of Turin, Italy
Abstract: The international literature reveals that in countries with a Christian tradition women have always been more religious than men, but some important cultural, social and economic transformations have contributed to alienating them from the churches. Is this dismissal - crucial in significantly changing the Western religious landscape - also taking place in Italy? How has female religiosity changed in Italy in the last decade? And have gender differences in this sphere diminished or have they remained constant? In our paper we propose to answer these questions using the Italian data from the European Values Study (EVS) sample survey, relating to 2009 (1,519 cases, of which 788 women) and 2018 (last available year, 2,277 cases, of which 1,134 women). The results of the analyses 41 / 57 on the religiosity of Italian Catholic women reveal that they too, while continuing to be more religious than men, contribute to that process of secularisation that, although 'weak' or 'soft' compared to most European countries, is unequivocally marking our country. The trends relating to the various aspects of female religiosity examined here confirm the image of a "tired Catholicism" [Garelli 2020]. All the dimensions we have analysed - spiritual, identitycultural, behavioural and institutional - return descending curves to represent, however, not a collapse - a flight - but, without a doubt, a creak. Thus, compared to the previous thirty years, the recent trend in women's religiosity (2009-2018) seems to indicate a clear inversion of the trend. If in that thirty-year period, the analyses did not presage a marked process of secularisation of Italian women, today, on the contrary, they seem to participate fully in it, albeit to a different extent depending on the dimension examined. The results presented must, however, be considered with caution, bearing in mind that longitudinal studies on the religiosity of Italian women are rare.
Paper 3 Title: “The Gendered Dynamics of Apostasy asylum Cases in the UK”
Lucy Potter, University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract: This presentation will discuss the preliminary findings of my research exploring the dynamics faced by people who have left Islam and sought asylum in the United Kingdom (UK). An overwhelming majority of countries globally violate the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief, and as more individuals are leaving religion for a variety of reasons, many are facing persecution. However, persecution on the grounds of apostasy and/or blasphemy is not solely recognised by the Refugee Convention (1951). Therefore, asylum determination processes in the UK often overlook that non-religious people should be protected within the scope of the Convention, and previous asylum cases have demonstrated there are significant misunderstandings on how they are handled. Thus, the participants in this study have not only left a religion; they also must navigate an asylum system which does not understand what it means to be non-religious. The ‘non- religious’ are a varied and diverse group understood to be on the rise. Current literature conceptualising non-religious identities are mostly situated within European geographies where the small amounts of research that exists outside this area are male- dominated. Hence, this presentation will present early fieldwork findings from interviews with people who have claimed asylum in the UK after facing persecution for apostasy or blasphemy. It will aim to highlight the experiences of women who have left their religion as well as considering the intersection of sexuality and non-religious asylum claims. By presenting at this symposium, I hope to contribute to a broader understanding of the diverse and transformative experiences of gendered religious exit.
Paper 4 Title: “The Contribution of Mualaf Quran Centre Jambi in the Advancement of Female Mualaf in Indonesia”
Ulya Fuhaidah, Coventry University, UK
Abstract: The transition from old beliefs to new ones frequently engenders conflict and exerts adverse effects on those involved. Numerous scholarly investigations have been conducted to examine the underlying factors and consequences associated with religious conversion pertaining to Islam, encompassing both conversions into and out of the faith in Indonesia. This article aims to examine the dynamics surrounding the process of conversion to Islam in the region of Jambi, Indonesia, while also focusing on the significant role played by the Mualaf Quran Center Indonesia in offering guidance and assistance to individuals who have embraced Islam, particularly women conversion. Data gathering approaches were employed through conducting in-depth interviews with the managers of the Mulaf Qur'an Center Indonesia in the Jambi region. Females exhibit heightened susceptibility to verbal, physical, and psychological aggression during the process of altering their belief systems. Hence, the establishment of the Mualaf Quran Center Indonesia holds significant importance in regulating religious liberties within the Indonesian context.
Panel 6: Gendering Religious Exit II: Affects and Embodiment
Parallel panel session 2
Time: 14:00 – 15:30 am.
Chair: Mariecke van den Berg (VU University Amsterdam / Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
Paper 1 Title: ““I Am Actually Living in My Body Now”: Ex-Evangelical Women and the Creative, Fleshy Processes of Deconversion”
Rebecca Laura Anne Davis, University of Groningen, the Netherlands & University of Münster, Germany.
Abstract: For eighteen months, I accompanied thirteen women in Germany as they moved through stages of losing their evangelical faith. This piece focuses on how their experience of themselves as emotional, social, and sexual bodies shifted during what they referred to as their ‘deconstruction journey’ away from Christianity. They relied on both mundane and extraordinary instances of experimentation and assertion to feel into what felt right and good after having abandoned their ‘good Christian woman’ moral compass. One woman traveled solo to get to know herself, another had a one-night-stand after divorcing her husband. One decided to try masturbation, another took up a dance class. One choose to publicly come out as lesbian, another privately recognized her asexuality. In some instances, experimentation and transformation was mediated on social media. One created an Instagram account to post scathing memes against the Christian institution and its treatment of the female body, another posted videos of herself singing songs that helper her heal from an eating disorder which she felt was rooted in a fundamentalist evangelical approach to the body. These are just some of the many instances where creative, curious, and soothing experimental moral choices led to transformation s in their experiences of being a body. Experimentation in deconversion, I argue, is an undertaking of the flesh to re-determine and understand one’s capacities, desires, and needs; this is all the more significant given the status of the flesh as sinful in their previous evangelical ontology. After having lost a solid outline for how they were to be as moral women in the world, the deconversion process was a space to renegotiate how they wanted to be as bodies in relation with the social world.
Paper 2 Title: “Let’s Talk about Gender: Women’s Narratives of Moving Out of Islam in Contemporary Europe”
Maria Vliek, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Abstract: Within Europe, gender and Islam have a complex and often polarized discursive history. Whilst some find only repression of women in patriarchal and religious structures, others hail Islam as the birthplace of emancipation. This article explores the experiences of women who have moved out of Islam in both the Netherlands and the UK and finds that many navigate in between these narratives of suppression and liberation. The aim of this presentation is twofold: based on 22 life-history interviews, I firstly explore gendered experiences whilst growing up (from personal experienced inequality to observing theological or legislative problems), which may have led to various degrees of doubt or distress. I further unpack gendered embodied experiences, such as veiling, modesty or mosque attendance as having relative importance when moving out of Islam. Secondly, I elaborate on how these women position themselves, within religious and secular expectations of what it means to be a former Muslim woman. I explore their positionality in a polarized debate: how did they relate to the discourses of suppression and liberation, from either secular(ized) or religious environs?
Paper 3 Title: “Blaming the Bored: Christian Affective Strategies Against Religious Exit”
Mariecke van den Berg, VU University Amsterdam / Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Abstract: Form its very beginning, Christianity has been haunted by the possibility of boredom. Ever since the youngster Eutychus fell asleep and plummeted to his death from a third-story window during a particularly long sermon from the apostle Paul (Acts 20, 7-12), exit by being ‘bored to death’ has been written into the story of Christianity. In the context of faith communities (and not just there), the open display of boredom has a disruptive potential (van den Berg, forthcoming). Arguably more so than ‘untruth’ or overt critique, boredom confronts religion with its possible irrelevance, at least to some of its members. Boredom has subversive and transformative potential, particularly when it is acknowledged and claimed by those who feel that their own (marginal) experiences and interests are not reflected in the shared (mainstream) story of the community. Feminist theologians Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, for instance, saw being a bore (“one who drills, penetrates, fills with ennui and depression, creating a State of Boredom”) as a sign of power abuse by male elites (1987, 186). In this paper I investigate how in popular church discourse (online blogs, popular theological publications, media) the disruptive potential of boredom is negotiated. Depending on denomination, churches have at their disposal a wide range of strategies to contain, pacify and silence the experience of boredom. These include (but are not limited to) the use of a performative linguistic arsenal that favours deeply felt experiences (e.g. ‘being radical’, ‘having a passion for Jesus’); acknowledging boredom only among youth and ignoring its presence among adults; and framing it as a personal failure of commitment or of the grasping of the deeper essence of faith. I argue that while much of Christian leadership is more or less consciously aware of the presence of boredom, the tools to address boredom in a constructive, transformative way are often lacking. While the silencing of boredom is likely a sign of fear for religious exit, its unspeakability may in fact have the reverse effect of accelerating disaffiliation, while the opportunity to have meaningful conversations about justice and the shared narrative are lost.
Paper 4 Title: “Millennials Unravelling: Questioning Purity Narratives and Deconstructing Religion”
Morgana Loze-Doyle, University of Chester, UK
Abstract: The American evangelical purity culture movement of the 19902 and 2000s communicated to a subculture of millennials, particularly young women, that their bodies were inherently sinful and that they were to be covered, minimised, silenced and controlled. Sexual exploration outside of heterosexual marriage for life was forbidden and signified the practice of religious commitment and devotion (Browning, 2010; Moslener, 2017). Starting in the US, this movement disseminated to evangelical communities across the world, including Britain. When interwoven with the existing evangelical milieu and theological interpretations of sex, sexuality and gender by silencing the body and minimising sexual desire the messaging served to reinforce the expectation of no sex before marriage to a zealous generation of young evangelicals. The legacy of this extreme culture and sexual repression is carried in the now adult bodies of many who lived under it and yet the British experience of evangelical purity culture and the American movement is an area of research that has only recently started to be explored (Sharma, 2008, 2011; Gaddini, 2019, 2021: Cross, 2020). As both an insider impacted by the culture and rhetoric of this movement and a feminist qualitative researcher, I draw on initial findings from my current doctoral project which explores the movement through the stories of millennials who self-identified as having been subsequently affected by it. This paper discusses the links between unpicking purity and deconstructing religion. First, how purity culture impacted their lives, and second how for some unpicking its impact contributed to deconstructing and leaving their religion. Finally, I explore the emerging theme of embodiment as a practice for healing.
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