Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion
Book Summary
Daryl R. Van Tongeren’s Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion (2024) explores the psychological, social, and existential challenges faced by individuals who no longer identify with a religious tradition. Written for those in the midst of religious deconstruction, deidentification, or reconstruction, the book blends empirical research, personal narrative, and practical guidance to illuminate the complexities of leaving faith behind.
Introduction: The Great Disillusionment
Van Tongeren begins by situating the book within the broader cultural trend of declining religious affiliation, citing Pew Research Center data on the rise of “religious nones.” He frames this departure as a “great disillusionment,” acknowledging the grief, loss, and longing that often accompany the process. The book is designed to help readers navigate three possible destinations:
1. Deconstruction: questioning and dismantling one’s religious worldview.
2. Deidentification: leaving religion altogether, often toward atheism or agnosticism.
3. Reconstruction: rebuilding a modified religious worldview that diverges from the original faith.
Why People Leave Religion
Van Tongeren identifies four broad reasons people give for leaving faith: cultural stagnation, religious trauma, simplistic views of suffering, and problematic labels. He cautions that reasons often function as justifications rather than causal explanations, reflecting the social nature of human reasoning. His own experience of grief—losing his brother at a young age—illustrates how simplistic religious responses can intensify doubt and alienation.
Religious Trauma
A central theme is religious trauma, defined as harm experienced in the name of religion, often by vulnerable individuals seeking help. Drawing on research, van Tongeren highlights how marginalized identities are disproportionately affected, how denial of abuse perpetuates harm, and how trauma erodes trust in self, others, institutions, and God. He warns against spiritual narcissism, where leaders claim divine authority to justify superiority and control. Such dynamics foster environments where abuse is normalized and accountability is absent. Coping strategies include naming trauma, seeking therapy, finding supportive communities, and setting boundaries.
Walking Away: Deconstruction and Deidentification
Leaving religion often begins with doubt, leading to questioning, struggle, and eventual revision of beliefs. Van Tongeren shares his own journey of doubt following his brother’s death, describing the psychological toll of uncertainty and nihilistic depression. He references Julie Exline’s work on spiritual struggles that may accompany deconstruction. Some reconstruct a modified faith, while others undergo deidentification, characterized by disbelief in God, emotional disengagement, discontinuation of religious practices, and disaffiliation from religious communities. Importantly, leaving is not always linear; some drift away casually, while others oscillate between belief and disbelief.
Religious Residue
Religion, van Tongeren argues, is sticky. Formerly religious individuals often retain attitudes, emotions, and behaviors resembling those of current believers. This residue manifests in persistent moral values, prosocial behaviors, and even lingering fears of hell or the devil. Research suggests that disbelievers who were once religious are more likely than lifelong nones to retain negative religious beliefs. He explains this persistence through psychological principles: negative information is more salient than positive, habits are hard to break, and social networks reinforce old patterns. Residue fades over time, but its effects can be profound, especially among ex-evangelicals.
Meaning and the Existential Chasm
Religion provides coherence, significance, and purpose—three pillars of meaning. Without it, individuals may face existential anxiety, particularly regarding death. Van Tongeren describes grief, anger, shame, and fear as common reactions, but also notes potential positives: awe, curiosity, and freedom. Flourishing requires distress tolerance—accepting existential truths, embracing uncertainty, and building new meaning systems through curiosity, relationships, and purpose. He emphasizes that meaning making is gradual and requires revision over time.
Creating a New Identity
Identity reconstruction is another challenge. Van Tongeren warns against replicating fundamentalist patterns in secular ideologies, such as puritanical rigidity, epistemic exclusivity, and public allegiance. He encourages readers to avoid new gurus, echo chambers, and replacement dogmas. Instead, he advocates for growth-focused beliefs that foster tolerance and cooperation, even if they provoke existential anxiety. Building a new identity involves crafting an integrative narrative, living authentically according to values such as science, humanism, equality, and care for the earth, and embracing freedom despite its risks.
Navigating Relationships
Leaving religion often strains relationships with family and friends. Van Tongeren’s research shows that religious individuals often view “Dones” as likely to return, while lifelong nones distrust them as inherently religious. This leaves Dones caught between two groups, mistrusted by both. He outlines the “reverse ABCDs” of relational reactions: denial, conversion attempts, derogation, and avoidance. Coping requires setting boundaries, seeking supportive networks, and acknowledging anger as a healthy response to violated boundaries. Family systems theory helps explain why leaving religion destabilizes familial equilibrium, especially in patriarchal structures. Ultimately, flourishing involves balancing grief over lost connections with the pursuit of new, authentic relationships.
Commentary
Van Tongeren’s Done makes a significant contribution to the psychology of religion, particularly in its exploration of how individuals navigate the transition from faith to nonreligion. I come to this book as a psychologist with more than four decades of helping Christians cope with a variety of spiritual struggles intertwined with other challenges to their wellbeing.
One of the strengths of the book is its careful distinction among three groups—religious, Nones, and Dones. Yet, as I reflect on his framework, I find the categories somewhat problematic. While his research supports these distinctions, it may be more helpful to think of Nones as Nevers, since Dones, by definition, have already become Nones in the sense that they want nothing to do with religion. Reframing Nones as Nevers underscores the fluidity of religious identity and highlights the need for more nuanced categories in future research. I concede that given the precedence in the literature, changing labels could be confusing, but investigators should be aware that Nones and Dones have different characteristics.
Equally important is van Tongeren’s discussion of religious residue. His perspective on residual religiosity among Dones is insightful and will likely aid psychotherapists working with patients who struggle with lingering beliefs, emotions, and practices. However, more research is needed to understand how Nevers—those who have never been religious—experience Christian culture. In places like the UK, where I grew up, Nevers often retain appreciation for church art, architecture, and music, much as one might admire the legacy of the ancient Greeks, without adopting religious belief. This observation suggests that cultural Christianity persists even among atheists, shaping identity in subtle ways.
I also suggest further exploration of religious metaphors, which permeate discourse in Christian cultures regardless of belief. Many of my British friends, for example, casually mix quotations from the King James Bible with Shakespeare, illustrating how deeply embedded religious language remains in everyday communication.
Ultimately, Done offers much of value not only to those leaving religion but also to psychotherapists, counselors, and even religious individuals seeking to understand their friends or relatives who have left the faith. Van Tongeren’s distinction between religion and spirituality is particularly useful, reminding us that being religious is only one way of expressing spirituality. For clinicians, his insights into spiritual struggles and their psychosocial impact provide practical guidance for supporting clients through the complex process of religious change.
Book Author Bio
Daryl R. Van Tongeren, PhD, is a social psychologist and professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. His research focuses on the psychology of religion, meaning in life, and virtues such as humility and forgiveness. Van Tongeren has published widely in academic journals and is known for bridging empirical research with practical applications for everyday life. In addition to Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion (2024), he has authored books and articles that explore how people find meaning, cope with suffering, and navigate identity in a rapidly changing cultural landscape.
Book Reference
Van Tongeren, D. R. (2024). Done: How to flourish after leaving religion. American Psychological Association. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Post Author
Geoffrey W. Sutton, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Evangel University, holds a master’s degree in counseling and a PhD in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His postdoctoral work encompassed education and supervision in forensic and neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. As a licensed psychologist, he conducted clinical and neuropsychological evaluations and provided psychotherapy for patients in various settings, including schools, hospitals, and private offices. During his tenure as a professor, Dr. Sutton taught courses on psychotherapy, assessment, and research. He has authored over one hundred publications, including books, book chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed psychology journals.
His website is https://suttong.com
Many publications are free to download at ResearchGate and Academia
Find chapters and essays on Substack. [ @GeoffreyWSutton ]
NOTICE:
Note
There is a link to The Psychology of Spiritual Struggle by Pargament and Exline in this Templeton Article: https://www.templeton.org/news/wrestling-with-god-the-six-varieties-of-spiritual-struggle
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