Leaving A Religion

At the end of April, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life generated a lot comments when a new study detailing why people left their childhood religion - that is the one in which they were raised - and became unaffiliated or had switched to another religious tradition.

Most of headlines of the stories dealing with this study trumpeted the fact that many adults had switched religious affiliation. Frankly, as many people have commented, that is not really news. People have been switching religious traditions for quite a while. Those who have may or may not switch back to their childhood faith; we will not know.

Of interest to me in the report, however, are the reasons given for such switches. Let me share with you the top reasons in the categories:
** Catholic to Unaffiliated
71% just gradually drifted away
65% stopped believing in the religious teachings
56% unhappy with church's stand on abortion or homosexuality
** Catholic to Protestant
71% felt spiritual needs were not being met
70% found a religion they liked more
54% just gradually drifted away
50% stopped believing in the teachings
** Protestant to Unaffiliated
71% just gradually drifted away
50% stopped believing in the religious teachings
** Protestant to Different Protestant Faith
58% found religion they liked more
51% felt their spiritual needs were not being met

As I look at these reasons, there seems to be less active investigation of one's faith and more passive drifting expressed. One can ask, perhaps legitimately, how strong one's religious faith was if that person could just drift away and become nothing or anything else.

While I will look at additional findings from this study, I wonder, if you are one of those who are now involved in another religion, why did you change?