"If conscience leads you to shadowed paths, take heart; prophets trod there first."
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Many people who leave a religious group due to frustration with leadership find themselves on a complex, often circular journey. The need for connection is so strong that it pushes them toward another group with the same underlying dynamics they were trying to escape. Though they initially experience relief and freedom in leaving, it’s not long before they’re drawn to a new organization, one that seems, on the surface, to promise everything the old one failed to deliver. But over time, they start noticing familiar patterns—rigid rules, expectations of conformity, or flawed leaders who still claim special authority over others and, the constant solicitation of money.
Leaving a group that once shaped your life is no small thing. It leaves a profound void, and that emptiness can be overwhelming. Yet, even as they start with hope in this new community, many realize they’re re-living an old story, hoping this time it will end differently. They desperately want to be part of a group where they can be themselves, but that desire often leads them to overlook red flags. They might find themselves rationalizing behaviours or doctrines they initially disagreed with, telling themselves that it’s different this time. Slowly, they realize they’ve ended up back where they started.
Perhaps most ironically, those who join these new groups often become obsessed with their old ones. For some, leaving doesn’t mean freedom; it only transforms the struggle. Instead of focusing on new beliefs or practices, they spend countless hours denouncing the group they left. It becomes almost a Sisyphean task—forever rolling the stone uphill as they bash their former faith over the head, recounting every flaw, every wrong, in endless detail. Rather than moving on, they become locked in a cycle of resentment and critique, investing more energy in tearing down their past than building up their present. It’s as if they can’t resist the urge to keep proving—to themselves or others—that leaving was justified, that they were right to reject what they once held dear.
The Bible speaks to this tendency. Psalm 146:3 reminds us, “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.” This wisdom holds true whether we’re following leaders within a religious group or in our personal lives. When we place too much trust in human leadership—whether that’s the leaders we left or the new ones we’re following—disappointment is almost guaranteed. We risk becoming bitter, lost in a perpetual cycle of anger and frustration. Yet, Jesus’ teachings offer a different path. Throughout his ministry, he repeatedly warned against putting spiritual dependence on flawed human authority. Instead, he emphasized a direct relationship with God, describing himself as the way to God.
In leaving one group for another, many people compromise their beliefs simply to belong. They ignore the subtle ways their conscience twinges, just to keep that sense of connection. But Christ calls his followers to a deeper kind of independence, saying, “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). True belonging isn’t about abandoning one’s convictions for the comfort of conformity; it’s about finding strength in a personal relationship with God that doesn’t depend on any human mediator.
Being around others who share similar beliefs can provide encouragement and support. But joining a group with an unquestioning mindset, expecting them to fulfil all our needs, is a recipe for repeated disappointment. When people place their trust in God above any human leadership, they are free to engage in community with balance, knowing that their faith isn’t contingent on any one group or leader.
Perhaps the path forward is this: to approach every community with an open yet discerning heart. Instead of depending on human leaders to guide every step, we can rely on our personal relationship with God without the need for a spiritual middleman.
Breaking the cycle of dependency on flawed human leadership means taking to heart the truth that true spiritual strength doesn’t come from groups or leaders. It comes from a relationship with God that allows us to connect with others without compromising our convictions. It’s this kind of connection that truly liberates, lifting us out of the endless task of justifying our past and enabling us to look forward to a faith that is free, genuine, and deeply rooted. Instead of endlessly battling the shadows of our old beliefs, we can step forward in peace, confident that God walks with us—our ultimate guide, our ever-present friend.
Part 2
Finding God in the Quiet: Embracing Solitude
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4
Leaving a religious organization can feel like stepping into a void, a place where the familiar structures of support and community fall away, leaving us alone with our thoughts and questions. It’s a journey that often brings a mixture of relief and pain, freedom and fear. You may have hoped for warmth, compassion, and a reflection of God’s love, only to find the harsh reality of human imperfection. And now, as you look around, you might feel as though you’re on the outside looking in, wondering where to turn next. Yet in this solitude, even in the shadows, you may find something quietly transformative waiting.
The Bible gives us story after story of individuals who found themselves in the darkness, far from the comfort of home or the embrace of community. They, too, walked a lonely path, but it was there—in the quiet, empty spaces—that they came closest to God. Think of Joseph, imprisoned unjustly, or Moses, who spent decades in the wilderness after fleeing Egypt. These are men who knew isolation deeply, who wondered if anyone else understood. And yet, it was in these shadowed seasons that they encountered God in profound ways, ways that perhaps would not have been possible in the busy rhythms of community life.
C.S. Lewis, no stranger to questions of faith and doubt, once he compared it to God’s megaphone.” He believed that pain and solitude, however unwanted, often work as tools that deepen our spiritual lives. He once wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Lewis knew that these experiences have a way of stripping us down to our essentials, making us aware of how deeply we need God—God alone, free from the trappings of institutions and expectations.
For those who have left religious communities, this solitude can feel jarring, even desolate. You may feel the loss of shared rituals, the absence of familiar faces, or the awkwardness of unlearning old beliefs to discover faith anew. Yet, like the biblical figures who found God outside the city gates, beyond the temple walls, there’s a beautiful, quiet strength in this moment of solitude. Here, where you are free from others’ interpretations, judgments, or expectations, you have the opportunity to experience God in a raw, personal way, unfiltered by anyone else’s lens.
Elijah, the prophet, also experienced something similar. After standing up against the prophets of Baal, he fled into the wilderness, alone and exhausted, ready to give up. But it was there, in the silence of the wilderness, that God didn’t come in a great wind, or earthquake, or fire—He came in a whisper. Elijah’s story shows us that God doesn’t abandon us in our wilderness. Sometimes, He’s closer than we ever realized, present in ways that only the quiet and the solitude can reveal.
There’s comfort in knowing that when we find ourselves in these shadowed places, we are in good company. For the apostles, it was often in prison cells or lonely stretches of desert that they wrote some of their most stirring words, finding strength in the assurance that even in their trials, nothing could separate them from God’s love. The Apostle Paul, isolated in prison, wrote that he had “learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” His words are a reminder that this peace, this closeness with God, isn’t tied to our external circumstances or surroundings but to something much deeper within.
Leaving an organization doesn’t mean leaving behind the possibility of finding God; if anything, it opens up new ways of seeing and experiencing Him. In the absence of structured routines, we have the freedom to discover what a relationship with God truly looks like—perhaps in long, solitary walks in nature, or in quiet mornings with scripture, or even in simple, heartfelt prayers whispered in the quiet of night.
And yes, the dark places can be disorienting but remember Lewis’s words about darkness: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” When we’ve been in the dark, the smallest light becomes all the more precious, and we begin to see God not as a distant deity, but as the One who walks beside us, even when no one else does.
So if you find yourself alone, walking away from a community that once shaped your life, take heart. You are not abandoned, and you are not truly alone. This may be your wilderness, but as the stories of scripture reveal, the wilderness is often where God does His deepest work within us. And as you gravitate towards this solitude, you may find, as those before you have, that this is the very place where God’s voice becomes clearest, His love most evident.
It’s a hard journey, yes, but you may find that in losing the crowd, you’ve gained something even greater—a direct and personal encounter with God. And one day, when you emerge from this season, you may see that it was here, in the quiet, that you grew roots of faith stronger and deeper than you ever imagined.