Although for some people, faith or membership in a faith community is a life-long, unwavering endeavor, for others, such as this author, initial belief systems can crack and crumble into dust, leaving behind complicated memories that are overlaid with what feel like clearer and more real, contemporary understandings, although at times threaded with sorrow at loss of affiliation (Smith, 2011). This shift from believer to non-believer is nuanced and disquieting, and in many settings, may leave the new non-believer in a dangerous or vulnerable position (Berger, 2013) as an apostate. Informed by an unintentional, un-sought-after outsider, non-believer status, this autoethnographic article highlights the gradual process of falling-away, drawing from critical frameworks (Solórzano & Yosso) intended to both problematize the author’s (my) positionality (Duffy, Weltsek, & Marin, 2013) and speak to the idea of performed identity (Derrida, 2002)
