You wrote “explicit unconversion would require greater parallel between exclusive religions like Christianity on the one hand and more flexible positions from which one might have been converting in the first place.” I think I understand what you're saying—you're talking about conversion as a movement from uncertainty to certainty, right? Certainty that excludes competing ideas and worldviews. What an interesting point—it makes me think back to the conversation that was actually the genesis of this essay, when someone was telling me two unconversion stories, from Christianity to something like atheism: his own and that of a friend of his. His stories shared with mine that sense of a flash thought that changes everything, and that's what made me think of conversion stories. So I guess what I'm saying is that atheism, like Christianity, is an exclusive religion that denies the validity of competing ideas. So whereas there might be stories of conversion from religion to atheism, it's unlikely that you'd find a lot of stories of a shift from certainty (e.g., fundamentalism of any sort) to uncertainty (lukewarm, not particularly committed faith)

Oh, and I love your point about new converts failing to “grasp the intended significance of conversion,” because it opens up a whole new vista of the social meaning of conversion—the externally narrated, socially prescribed meanings of conversion.

You wrote “explicit unconversion would require greater parallel between exclusive religions like Christianity on the one hand and more flexible positions from which one might have been converting in the first place.” I think I understand what you're saying—you're talking about conversion as a movement from uncertainty to certainty, right? Certainty that excludes competing ideas and worldviews. What an interesting point—it makes me think back to the conversation that was actually the genesis of this essay, when someone was telling me two unconversion stories, from Christianity to something like atheism: his own and that of a friend of his. His stories shared with mine that sense of a flash thought that changes everything, and that's what made me think of conversion stories. So I guess what I'm saying is that atheism, like Christianity, is an exclusive religion that denies the validity of competing ideas. So whereas there might be stories of conversion from religion to atheism, it's unlikely that you'd find a lot of stories of a shift from certainty (e.g., fundamentalism of any sort) to uncertainty (lukewarm, not particularly committed faith)

Oh, and I love your point about new converts failing to “grasp the intended significance of conversion,” because it opens up a whole new vista of the social meaning of conversion—the externally narrated, socially prescribed meanings of conversion.

“It was finally the thought of my children that forced me to acknowledge that there’s a lot more to the Catholic Church than the spiritual signature that moves me so much. Sure, you can play the guitar in mass and love Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and focus on the gospel of social justice. But at the end of the day, these are lone voices within an institution that systematically devalues women, that ruins lives with its obsession with sex, and that does it all with the kind of smug certainty that is objectionable in an individual but unconscionable in an organization with so much power to affect people’s lives.

“Whereas I myself can pick and choose, embracing the identity of “cafeteria Catholic” derided by the fundamentalist Catholics, I know that there will come a time in my children’s lives when they will be looking for something, when they will be in that state of ripeness for conversion. Both conversion and unconversion are all about trying to be a different sort of person, someone new, different, better, and young people are especially likely to want to be different than they were yesterday. When I was going to mass at a campus Catholic center, I saw how the college students were told that whatever they were raised with wasn’t the real Catholicism and were persuaded of the rightness of the real Catholicism, which to me looks a lot like the intolerant Catholicism, the prideful Catholicism, the uncompassionate Catholicism.

“Although I grew up thinking of religion as an individual choice, now I can see more clearly the ways that religion and ritual create connections from generation to generation and from individual to community. I don’t want that real Catholicism for my children, so after only a month of being found, I lost myself again, back into the quiet comfort of uncertainty.”

I can well understand your desire to raise your children Catholic, and honesty about one's own uncertainty is the sort of thing that children can respect more than the dogmatic adults of which there are so many. With my own two children, I've seen that each gravitates toward different things spiritually (as in everything else), for reasons that are mysterious.

“It was finally the thought of my children that forced me to acknowledge that there’s a lot more to the Catholic Church than the spiritual signature that moves me so much. Sure, you can play the guitar in mass and love Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and focus on the gospel of social justice. But at the end of the day, these are lone voices within an institution that systematically devalues women, that ruins lives with its obsession with sex, and that does it all with the kind of smug certainty that is objectionable in an individual but unconscionable in an organization with so much power to affect people’s lives.

“Whereas I myself can pick and choose, embracing the identity of “cafeteria Catholic” derided by the fundamentalist Catholics, I know that there will come a time in my children’s lives when they will be looking for something, when they will be in that state of ripeness for conversion. Both conversion and unconversion are all about trying to be a different sort of person, someone new, different, better, and young people are especially likely to want to be different than they were yesterday. When I was going to mass at a campus Catholic center, I saw how the college students were told that whatever they were raised with wasn’t the real Catholicism and were persuaded of the rightness of the real Catholicism, which to me looks a lot like the intolerant Catholicism, the prideful Catholicism, the uncompassionate Catholicism.

“Although I grew up thinking of religion as an individual choice, now I can see more clearly the ways that religion and ritual create connections from generation to generation and from individual to community. I don’t want that real Catholicism for my children, so after only a month of being found, I lost myself again, back into the quiet comfort of uncertainty.”

I can well understand your desire to raise your children Catholic, and honesty about one's own uncertainty is the sort of thing that children can respect more than the dogmatic adults of which there are so many. With my own two children, I've seen that each gravitates toward different things spiritually (as in everything else), for reasons that are mysterious.

(I don't mean to be asserting here that any religion excludes any people, I don't want to get into that. I'm referring to the fact that adhering to some religions requires people to exclude some ideas or acts from themselves as contradictory to right belief or practice.)

So the early part of the story of Christianity's spread to any group or area often is full of episodes of “backsliding,” which involves combining features of Christianity with features of prior practice or belief, as if the people involved don't immediately (or ever) grasp the intended significance of conversion. I suspect the same flexibility helps explain the rarity of stories of outright renunciation.

As an aside, if you once were found but now are lost, could this piece have also been titled “A Grazing Mace?”

(I don't mean to be asserting here that any religion excludes any people, I don't want to get into that. I'm referring to the fact that adhering to some religions requires people to exclude some ideas or acts from themselves as contradictory to right belief or practice.)

So the early part of the story of Christianity's spread to any group or area often is full of episodes of “backsliding,” which involves combining features of Christianity with features of prior practice or belief, as if the people involved don't immediately (or ever) grasp the intended significance of conversion. I suspect the same flexibility helps explain the rarity of stories of outright renunciation.

As an aside, if you once were found but now are lost, could this piece have also been titled “A Grazing Mace?”

I told a friend the other day that even though I'm not practicing anymore (and not sure what I believe), I will probably raise my children Catholic. When he asked why, the only thing I could come up is some of what you mentioned above. For me, there's a certain magic to their worship. I have many fond memories of going to church – my devout grandmother, the smells, the sense of sameness among strangers. It still feels very comforting and sort of spiritual, although not very holy or sacred.

I once read a quote (I can't remember who said it) – “To look for God is to find Him.” But I don't believe that's true. I've been searching a long time, and I don't feel closer to the truth.

But there's nothing wrong with uncertainty. As you said, I find comfort in it. Perhaps we're not meant to know it all. When my children ask me if I believe in God, I think I will just tell them, “I hope for one.”

I told a friend the other day that even though I'm not practicing anymore (and not sure what I believe), I will probably raise my children Catholic. When he asked why, the only thing I could come up is some of what you mentioned above. For me, there's a certain magic to their worship. I have many fond memories of going to church – my devout grandmother, the smells, the sense of sameness among strangers. It still feels very comforting and sort of spiritual, although not very holy or sacred.

I once read a quote (I can't remember who said it) – “To look for God is to find Him.” But I don't believe that's true. I've been searching a long time, and I don't feel closer to the truth.

But there's nothing wrong with uncertainty. As you said, I find comfort in it. Perhaps we're not meant to know it all. When my children ask me if I believe in God, I think I will just tell them, “I hope for one.”