Are you an Exvangelical?

If you were raised in an evangelical church community and have since left, you’re not alone – and you’re not overreacting.

Christian nationalist authoritarianism is on the rise in the U.S. and it is being fueled by, among other forces, many evangelical Christian leaders. In 2024, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that 3 in 10 Americans are Christian nationalist adherents or sympathizers — but that number skyrockets when correlated with religious beliefs. The same survey found that 66% of white evangelical Protestants hold Christian nationalist beliefs — so much so that being white and evangelical is, according to the survey, “predictive” of holding Christian nationalist beliefs. The Pew Research Center goes further — they found that 81% of white evangelical Protestants believe that America should be a Christian nation, a cornerstone of the Christian nationalist belief system.

While PRRI’s research shows that most Americans do not support authoritarianism, more specifically, those numbers again change radically when correlated with religious beliefs, with 64% of white Protestant evangelicals scoring high on the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWAS). The same survey also showed that many white evangelical Protestants agree with apocalyptic religious views such as “God wants Christians to take control of the ‘7 Mountains’ of society” (48%) and “America was chosen by God to be a new promised land for European Christians” (33%). It also shows that 77% agree that “America is in danger of losing its culture and identity” — a significant indicator for belief in authoritarianism and Christian nationalism.

An article in Baptist News Global sums up the problem well: “Indeed, many evangelical churches are knowingly complicit in cultivating this cultural identity among their followers. They promote a version of Christianity that emphasizes all the elements of Christian nationalism, while deemphasizing any teachings from Jesus that might undercut their very narrow perspective. They will say Jesus was a capitalist, when, in reality, Jesus despised materialism. They will say Jesus desires violence against the enemies of the United States, when, in reality, Jesus was heavily pacifistic. They will say Jesus deplores homosexuality and abortion, when, in reality, he never addressed the subjects at all in the Gospels.”

If you grew up evangelical but are no longer – regardless of whether you call yourself Exvangelical, former evangelical, post-evangelical, or someone who “grew up in the church” – click here to go to the contact form and select “Exvangelical community” from the drop-down menu.

Why people are leaving evangelicalism?

Much has been written about “religious nones” — those who do not identify with a religious tradition. Religious nones might be atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” — and many of them are formerly evangelical. According to both qualitative and quantitative surveys, people are leaving Christianity generally for many reasons — including that they just stopped believing the teachings. But those leaving the evangelical church specifically are disproportionately more likely to leave because of “the religion’s negative religious teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people,” “you stopped believing in the religion’s teachings,” “it was bad for your mental health,” and/or “your church or congregation became too focused on politics.”

While there are some efforts to describe this “dechurching” as purely pragmatic (someone moved, got married, couldn’t find a church they liked that was convenient, etc.), this only tells part of the story. The harm experienced by many in the evangelical church (often referred to under the umbrella term “religious trauma syndrome”) takes different shapes, including LGBTQ condemnation, purity culture, white supremacist ideology, and more.

What happens after leaving?

All of this leads to the question – what happens to those who leave the evangelical church? Where do they go? How do they find support? What can former evangelicals share with folks who are trying to shore up our democracy and confront growing anti-democratic/authoritarian efforts?

Project 21:12 aims to provide clear on-ramps for community-building and solidarity organizing to former evangelicals (“Exvangelicals” or “post-evangelicals”) in order to help folks make meaning of their experiences, be emboldened in community with others, and take action to diminish the power of rising Christian Nationalism fueled in part by evangelical leaders, while building the power of a social justice solidarity movement.

Most Exvangelicals experienced some form of hurt, harm, abuse, or trauma growing up in evangelical communities and congregations – the spectrum of harm is wide, but none of us left evangelicalism unscathed. Project 21:12 is an effort to help Exvangelicals find other folks who have some level of shared experience and to re-connect with a community of support and trust. It is also a mechanism to make Exvangelicals more visible – both so that more people can find their way out of a harmful religious system and so that we are better able to contest the narrative that white evangelicals are a majority population in the U.S. (they’re not). Finally, it is an effort to intervene on the harm that evangelical leaders are exacting on so many of us right now – offering a pathway for the folks who used to sit in evangelical church pews to use that inside understanding of the community to organize intervention campaigns.

There are 15 million Exvangelicals in the U.S., according to PRRI, and many more folks on the fence about remaining in vs leaving their evangelical community. Project 21:12 addresses this gap by developing a trustworthy organizing structure that can help Exvangelicals connect with a values-aligned community with some level of common experience, and to translate that connection into action that supports the communities most targeted by the evangelical leaders who are leading their congregations toward Christian nationalist authoritarianism.

You can help create the infrastructure to support those who have left the evangelical church and are looking for both community and organizing opportunities. Exvangelicals are highly skilled – we were, after all, trained by evangelicals! – so we’re eager to deploy those skills and experiences to do some good in the world and to help stop the authoritarian march of these congregations and leaders.

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