The reasons behind the swap depend greatly on whether one grows up kneeling at Roman Catholic Mass, praying in a Protestant pew or occupied with nonreligious pursuits, according to a report issued Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
While Catholics are more likely to leave the church because they stopped believing its teachings, many Protestants are driven to trade one Protestant denomination or affiliation for another because of changed life circumstances, the survey found....
The report estimates that between 47 percent and 59 percent of U.S. adults have changed affiliation at least once. Most described just gradually drifting away from their childhood faith.
"This shows a sort of religion a la carte and how pervasive it is," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion. "In some ways, it's an indictment of organized Christianity. It suggests there's a big open door for newcomers, but a wide back door where people are leaving.
--"Survey: Americans switch faiths often," Associated Press, msnbc
Seekers are what all Christians--and all spiritual folk, for that matter--should be. We are invited by our reverenced Scriptures, and the Spirit that speaks to us in our quiet time with God, to be constantly evolving, changing, becoming that "new person in Christ," even "lost with Christ in God." So why should we be at all surprised that people feel called to set out anew in search of that spiritual place and identity best suited to lead them on the next steps of their spiritual journey?
Certainly it is understandable for those leaving the spiritual nest of their early faith life, and those who have moved to a new geographical location. And it is the necessary next step, of course, for those who are for the first time responding to a spiritual disposition to find God or are returning to relationship with Him. But it is also necessary for those who have been in some religious communities too long, so long that spiritual growth and change are now limited by the identity and lack of openness of that faith community. These are the more difficult, painful situations for all involved, but it is equally important for the seeker to move on from there, too.
From my essay "Getting Out," in the Beyond Life's Boxes series:
But to entertain change, to qualify or broaden your perspective, is not often encouraged or even abided. The limits and rigidities of most people’s emotional need for others’ unchanging identity, the need to define prevailing orthodoxy, those conforming and nonconforming, creates an ideological, philosophical and theological firewall which excludes truly open-minded inquiry, analysis and exchange.
And so, most cannot comfortably abide change in others—not without a sense of breach of faith or broken trust, that is. To grow further always seems to require a change in identity, an element of abandonment, pure and simple. That’s just life in those boxes. Change brings marginalization, and notable change, alienation. There is nowhere to go but out and away. And the relationships, at least anything enduring about them, often ends there, too.
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