My story wasn’t quite like this one—I spent a lot of time as an uncommitted before finally deciding that there wasn’t much reason in hanging on to belief.
But I can relate to the end of this story because when I left my church, I left everyone behind. I didn’t have friends who weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses, and when I Ieft, they stopped talking to me. Mind you, I didn’t seek them out, but that’s because I knew the deal. The same happened with my parents—we stayed in touch until I was officially kicked out of the church, but then there was practically nothing. Even today, our contact basically consists of emails with updates about my father’s health.
It’s no doubt part of the reason I joined a fraternity that fall when I started my second semester as a 26-year old freshman. A fraternity was a social group who was willing to accept me without too many preconditions, and that’s what I needed at the time. And I got some good friends out of the deal as well, people I talk to regularly even now.
And in the years since, I’ve made other good friends as well, some religious, some not. Mostly it doesn’t come up, though I’m glad to talk about it if it does. And I think that’s why I’m writing this post, to let people who may be in a similar situation know that the nervousness they’re feeling over maybe losing everyone they’re close to if they acknowledge their lack of belief is legitimate. But it’s also something you can come back from. It’s not the end of the world.
