On this day, ten years ago, I told my immediate family that I was going to quit the family religion. This has changed my life in so many different ways, and the change has been for the better.

I said at the start of the year I wanted to write about the anniversary in much more detail, and I still do. Hopefully some of that will come in the next few months. But I also wanted to specifically mark this day, since it started a new life more surely than my baptism did.

Why this day?

One year after quitting, I chose the anniversary of sending a formal resignation letter to write a post. That felt like an important step, and it was the obvious bookend to officially joining the religion via baptism. But now, looking back, telling family seems far more important than going through the motions with the ecclesia.

My parents were both born into Christadelphian families, had been committed Christadelphians all their lives, and had raised their children Christadelphian. We were what you might call “core” members - attending everything as well as taking on lay preaching and administrative roles as needed. That also meant that all four of my grandparents, most of my uncles and aunts, and the majority of my friendships and community were within the religion.

Baptism was still a big decision, sure - but it had always felt like a “when”, not an “if” (even if 13 was probably earlier than I would have expected as a child). It was also the decision other siblings had made. What that meant was that family life and the church were closely connected. Rejecting the family religion could have been seen as a rejection of family, or perhaps have triggered rejection from family.

Standing up in that happy family environment and saying I was going to quit is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I believed I was (finally!) doing the right thing, so I don’t think it felt as much of a betrayal as it had. But it popped that happy family religious bubble without knowing how it might be patched. For me, it was the point of no return.

Realistically, I was done with the whole thing weeks, perhaps months before, but I could still have chickened out and delayed further. Once the words were out of my mouth, though, the biggest shock had come and gone, and I just wanted to get through all the rest of the steps. Some family members told me all the reasons I shouldn’t make a hasty decision - but I knew it wasn’t hasty, and it wasn’t going to change. I knew I was doing the right thing.

A couple of days later I had further discussion with my parents. Then I sent the resignation letter that I felt needed to be sent. The one I’d drafted so many times in my head. I had a meeting with a couple of ecclesial elders. I received an avalanche of messages from concerned friends and ecclesial members, mostly positive. But it all started from those initial words.

The other reason that family now feels more important than ecclesia is that out of it all, that was the bond that I was able to keep. Things aren’t exactly the same as they were. They can’t be. There’s no discussing, say, the Bible talk you both heard last week or the strange things brother X, sister Y, or committee Z are doing. But we still enjoy spending time together, and we still have things that connect us.

In retrospect, what I see is that it also carved out so much more space for me to be me, not just an extension of the family (“yet another Morgan”). That’s not why I quit, and sometimes that independence can lead to awkward situations - but it’s also important.

Just another Sunday…

Given I’m writing about leaving religion, perhaps it’s fitting that it was a Sunday today.

I didn’t go to church today. I haven’t been to a formal church service for so many years that it feels odd even thinking of the time when it was routine. Instead, I had a day free to do whatever I decided to do (I don’t think this is the biggest benefit of quitting religion, but it is one of the most obvious ones - I’ve heard many others say some variation of “at least we get to sleep in on Sundays now”)

So what did I do? I visited my alma mater, the University of Melbourne. I went to a session on poetry at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. And I also spent time in the Royal Exhibition Building - Melbourne’s only UNESCO World Heritage site.

I walked through some gardens in the city. I saw autumn leaves and a variety of birds. And I took lots of photos.

It would have been different if you caught me last Sunday, and it will be different if you catch me next Sunday, but the overall principle is the same.

University reflections

I hadn’t been to the campus for a while. There’s a fair amount of nostalgia, sure, but it’s also just a lovely place. It was a good opportunity to check out the new Parkville station (part of the Metro Tunnel), and to see some autumn leaves.

But while walking on campus, it’s hard not to wonder how different my university experience might have been if I’d already quit the religion. And then how much the rest of my life might have changed if I’d left that many years earlier (After all, stereotypically that is supposed to be the point people lose their faith!)

Perhaps I would have been more involved in the social life of the campus. Perhaps I would have made more friends and kept them better. Perhaps I’d have learned more about sex, about relationships, about all those things my religion stopped me exploring. Perhaps I would have discovered more of the world and of my place within it.

But I think the truth is that I really wouldn’t have been any more ready for any of that. Sure, often the religion - and the associated family expectations - was the reason I gave for not exploring those areas, but I suspect if it hadn’t been there I’d have found different excuses. Leaving religion has certainly given me new opportunities, but it’s taken time and hasn’t fundamentally changed the person I was and am.

Had I quit sometime during university, some things might have been better, but other things would probably have been worse. I might have saved some drama, but I’d almost certainly have introduced other drama. Perhaps I left too late,b ut there are definitely advantages in being able to leave the religion at a time when I was completely independent, having moved out of home and being gainfully employed. Moving out of home had also been necessary to give me the mental space to re-consider and to come to my own conclusions.

But what this really shows, the reason I really consider it, is that I can see life has got better as a result of quitting. That being the case, it’s logical then to wonder whether earlier might be better.

Uni really is a bit early, because I don’t think I doubted the religion at all then. But how about when I started doubting? Obviously I can’t be sure whether overall I’d have been better off quitting in 2010 or 2015 rather than 2016. I can see many things I’d have missed out on if I’d kept putting it off till 2020 or 2030, and perhaps there are similar things I missed out on due to those years of delay.

At the same time, the fact is that each of those years contained moments of joy and times I look back on fondly today. Every year I delayed meant I was in a better place financially and had more of the self-knowledge needed to launch out on a completely new life path. That also means if I delayed longer I might not have ended up current 2026-Jon, but I wouldn’t have remained 2016-Jon either.

My life wasn’t wasted then - but it’s also better now.

Politics, voting and the Royal Exhibition Building

My association with the Royal Exhibition Building also goes back to university. For many years it was just “the place I did most of my Uni exams”. Sure, it had a lot of history and it was pretty inside, but engineering exams were hardly the time to admire the artwork…

Then they opened up the dome area for sightseeing with a historic display, and I visited it a couple of years ago. Last year, I went to an opera staged in the building, as well as to the Italian Festa (a mere week after I returned from Italy…). I’d seen many beautiful buildings and artworks in the UK and Europe, and was better able to appreciate what we had here in Melbourne.

That brings us to this weekend: The Royal Exhibition was open in celebration of its role hosting the Parliament of Australia (yesterday was the actual anniversary - 125 years since the opening of the first federal Parliament in Melbourne, at a time before Canberra had even been sited, let alone built).

It was also a reminder that ten years out of the religion also meant ten years since I’d first allowed myself to get interested in politics and to vote. It was a bigger deal than it perhaps sounds: as good Christadelphians we were supposed to be citizens of a future heavenly kingdom. The Australian citizenship we were born with was just a thing of convenience, not our real place of belonging. Rejecting that allowed me to acknowledge that being an Australian was actually meaningful to me.

In the years since, my politics have probably changed a bit as I’ve grown firmer opinions on a range of issues (hopefully better informed ones, too…). I haven’t got very strongly involved in politics, but I have at times written to both state and federal MPs and candidates about things I cared about. Some readers would probably think my views too liberal, others too conservative, but I don’t think the details matter here. What was important was that it was an example of life decisions that had been made because of my religious upbringing. I’d made those decisions in good faith, but it’s nice now to be able to change them.

Why are you still writing this stuff?

It’s easy to ask why I haven’t moved on yet. In my experience this can often be a silencing measure - but it’s also a valid question. And my answer is that as far as day-to-day life goes, I’d largely moved on within months after quitting - but that doesn’t stop my upbringing affecting me sometimes.

I’ve used both “Ex-Christadelphian” and “Ex-Christian” as labels over the last decade, and they’re going to continue to apply to me. They don’t define me, but they do describe some aspects of my life. My religious upbringing is part of what made me who I am today - sometimes because of things from my upbringing I’ve kept, sometimes because of the ways in which I consciously reject that upbringing. Plus of course I still interact with religious family members, and that’s not something I want to change.

Leaving the religion gave me the time and space to do other things, to explore other options, and to better become my own person.

So what am I? I’m an Aussie. A writer. A software developer and a team leader. A reader and a theatre-goer. A hiker and a photographer. And I’m also wholeheartedly an ex-Christadelphian atheist.

So why do I write this? I write for myself, so I can better understand myself. I write for others who’ve gone through similar experiences and might recognise something of themselves in my writing. But I also write for those in a similar situation who are still hesitating on taking the plunge.

I can’t tell anyone what’s the right thing to do with their life. What I can say is that ten years ago, after numerous low points, I had nothing but hope that after I ripped the bandaid off things would get better. Now that hope has become certainty. The world makes much more sense to me, and I know that the choice changed my life for the better.