The Transformative Power of Stories: New Editor of Geez Speaks about her Vision for the Magazine

Lucia Wylie-Eggert, Lydia Wylie-Kellerman and
Kateri Boucher of Geez.

In another post, I write about Geez magazine leaving Winnipeg for Detroit, where it will find a home with a new team led by Lydia Wylie-Kellerman. Below find a Q & A with Lydia, including her vision for the new magazine. 

Why do you and your friends want to take over Geez?

Lydia: I love Geez. I’ve been writing regularly for Geez since I first began to feel my own desire to be a writer. It has been a home for me. I never would have imagined in a million years that I would one day be stepping into this position.

For the last five years, I’ve been the co-curator of radicaldiscipleship.net which posts daily reflections from people around North America who are taking risks for justice, experimenting with creative acts of community and nonviolence, who are breaking open biblical study for liberation, who are planting gardens and raising kids.

It has been a delight. I have come to realize how much I believe in the power of stories and their intergenerational, transformative power. 

I find myself so grateful for the work that is happening all over the world and it is a gift to summon the stories as a way of honoring the work and inspiring the rest of us.

I want to keep summoning stories. I want to create beauty. I want folks to feel hope in these truly scary times. 

I want to gift the world with words powerful enough for us to dismantle “this filthy rotten system,” as Dorothy Day stated, and arise to build something new and wonderful.

What are some new things you want to try?

Lydia: My hope in these days is to maintain the current quality of Geez. I want readers to find the magazine in their mailbox and see that it is the same magazine just with some different folks behind the scenes.

That being said, I won’t deny I lie awake at night filled with ideas and dreams for themes or stories or new columns.

I would love to start a regular column that is called something like “The Elders Front Porch” where movement elders write pieces on how they see the world in these days and offer the nourishment and challenge we all need to move forward. These would be small and subtle changes.

You indicate a commitment to print, but also say you understand "in this generation we cannot hope to save print magazines." Are you open to going digital? Or would you let it close if it proves unsustainable in that format?

Lydia: It is hard to answer that question with any certainty. I have heard Aiden talk about Geez as an offline oasis. Through my work with radicaldiscipleship.net, I have spent a lot of time cultivating stories in an online format. 

It has its value. But I am not sure I want to give my life helping people be more addicted to screens.

I want to help create something that can be read around the kitchen table, that can be read as you lean against a tree, something that can be held in your hands, and treasured over time. 

So my instinct is to say that we are committed to print and will go down fighting for it, but I leave a small amount of wiggle room for the spirit to take us a different way.

In Canada, we have a general fear of being overwhelmed by the U.S. What can you say to Canadians to assuage their fears that this won't turn into another America-first magazine?

Lydia: I hear this fear in readers these days and in all honesty, I carry that fear with every step of this transition. 

The U.S. empire is a powerful and ugly thing. I’ve spent my life discerning in community how to live so that my body and spirit aren’t swallowed whole by the empire.

I believe that Geez’s roots in Canada is a tremendous gift to the work and identity of the magazine. I cannot pretend that things won’t change. The context from where the magazine goes out matters.

What I can promise is that I am mindful and paying attention to this concern. I will also make sure that the context from which we do the work will be amidst people who are resisting the U.S. empire with their lives.

And in the concrete, we commit to having Canadians on the board, keeping Aiden in the editorial circle, and making sure that a certain percentage of the contributions come from Canadian authors and artists.

Finally, say a bit about who you are and the group behind this new ownership.

Lydia: I am a writer, editor, organizer, and mother. My partner Erinn, and I are raising two boys (5 and 3) on the street where I grew up. My dad lives five houses away, my sister across the street, and a neighborhood filled beloveds.

We spend time planting urban gardens, tending chickens and bees, and throwing block parties. In our neighborhood in southwest Detroit, loving our neighbors also means organizing resistance to the water shut offs that are happening on a massive scale in Detroit, as well as resisting the immigration system that regularly tears families apart on our block.

I am the co-editor of radicaldiscipleship.net. I am also currently working with the Louisville Institute to put together an anthology on parenting with commitments to peace and justice.

My team is pretty amazing. These are three women who I have spent endless hours with gardening, canning, praying, and protesting. I’ve been at the birth of their children and walked with them through hard moments of transition. They are three women who I trust their analysis and hopes for the world.

On top of all of that, Em Jacoby understands a budget better than anyone I know. Lucia Wylie-Eggert create beauty through design. Kateri Boucher loves to talk with people and can effortlessly turn you into a subscriber.

I couldn’t do this without them. I am so grateful.

Margaret Atwood: "I'm Not Anti-Religious"

Atwood speaking at the Parliament of World Religions

I learned three surprising things about Canadian author Margaret Atwood recently.

First, she isn’t anti-religious—despite what some might think because of her book, and popular TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale.

When you consider that Gilead, the fictional republic in The Handmaid’s Tale, is a fundamentalist theocracy where the Bible is used to justify and guide the totalitarian regime’s oppressive policies—especially towards women—it’s easy to conclude Atwood is against religion.

But she says that’s not the case.  

I heard her speak about climate change and the role of women at the November 1-7 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto. 

During a Q & A, one of the first questions she was asked was about her stance on religion.

“I’m not anti-religious,” replied Atwood, who calls herself an agnostic. “I just think religion has often been misused in the service of totalitarianism.”

That doesn’t mean that “religion leads to totalitarianism,” she added. “We’ve had some atheistic totalitarianism.”

In an interview with American blogger AnnaCzarnik-Neimeyer, she elaborated on this question.

“People have sometimes said to me, ‘Oh, this book [The Handmaid’s Tale] is really anti-religion,’” she said.

“And I’ve said, ‘No, that’s not the point.’”

Religion, she said, has been “used as a hammer to whack people on the heads with. But it also has been—and is today—a sustaining set of beliefs and community that get people through those things.”

The second surprising thing I learned about Atwood is she believes religion has a role to play to “get people through” climate change.

During her presentation at the World Parliament of Religions, she said most faith traditions promote the idea of caring for creation.

“Unless people of faith get behind fixing the planet, it’s not going to happen,” she stated.

“We need people [of faith] who are vested in the earth,” she added.

And the third surprising thing I learned is that Atwood supports A Rocha, an international Christian environmental organization that promotes a “biblical call to steward creation.”

As it turns out, Atwood is a big supporter of A Rocha’s Canadian branch. She has participated in fundraising events for them in B.C. and Ontario.

She even lent her name for their website, where a blurb from her says: “If all Christians were like those in A Rocha, ours would be a radically different world.”

At one of those events, she said the organization “parallels the efforts of the fictional God’s Gardeners”—a small community of survivors of biological catastrophe in her book The Year of the Flood—by “seeking to cultivate a convergence of ecology, Scripture, and stewardship.”

Curious about how she became involved with the organization, I called Leah Kostamo, co-founder of A Rocha Canada with her husband, Markku.

It goes back to 2014, Kostamo told me, when she and Markku were booked on the same episode with Atwood on the Christian TV talk show Context With Lorna Dueck.

Titled God’s Gardeners, the show was about the need for Christians to care for the planet. Dueck thought it might be interesting for Atwood to actually meet a couple of “God’s gardeners”—the Kostamos.

Something clicked between them during the show, Kostamo said. It sparked a relationship that continues today with the two staying in e-mail contact about the organization.

“It’s humbling to have her recognize our work,” she says, noting that one of A Rocha’s goals is to build bridges between religious and secular environmentalists.

“Having an ally like Margaret shows we are able to build those bridges,” she adds.

A Rocha has had a presence in Manitoba since the early 2000s. It opened an office in Winnipeg a year ago.

According to A Rocha Manitoba director Scott Gerbrandt, its goal is to help people of faith to “take practical action” to address environmental issues, and “cultivate hope” that change is possible.

Based out of Canadian Mennonite University’s Centre for Ecological and Economic Resilience, one its big projects is the Boreal Ecology Centre in East Braintree, where visitors can learn more about the environment and talk about ways communities can be involved in creation care initiatives.

“The story of Christian faith is the story about the restoration of all creation,” he says. “We want to help people connect their faith with practical actions.”

Who knows? Maybe one day Margaret Atwood could even come to Winnipeg to give their efforts a boost.

Remembering Peggy Unruh Regehr, Pioneer for Women's Rights in Mennonite Churches

Before #MeToo and “#ChurchToo—before there even was the Internet—there was Winnipegger Peggy Unruh Regehr.

Unruh Regehr, who died September 27 last year at the age of 89, was a pioneer in championing the cause of women in leadership in Mennonite denominations in Canada.

She became interested in feminism in the late 1960s. By the late 1970s, the mother of three went back to university to study feminist theology.

In 1984 she was hired by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada in to start its new Women’s Concerns program.

Speaking at her funeral, friend Esther Epp-Tiessen remembered Unruh Regehr as “a middle-aged biblical feminist who believed that Jesus wanted women to flourish.”

She grew up, she said, “at a time when women in the church had secondary status, and limited roles. She chafed under it, and it sparked a passion to change things.”

Problem was, the world of the Canadian Mennonite church in the 1980s and 1990s wasn’t very open to those kind of changes. 

Although Unruh Regehr relished the job, she encountered challenges and obstacles right from the start.

As Epp-Tiessen put it: “She knocked on the doors of Mennonite denominational leaders, asking them to open them to women in leadership. They were resistant.”

Reflecting on that experience in the 1990s, Unruh Regehr said: “As I tried to address some of those issues, I found I [was] treading on toes . . . in fact I had some personal attacks and criticisms for what I am doing.”

“She paid a price for her outspokenness,” Epp-Tiessen said.

While her work generated a lot of negative reaction, it was a source of hope and encouragement for many women who wanted equality and full participation in the church.

But while that door to increased involvement in leadership was kept mostly closed, another opened.

During her travels, Unruh Regehr became increasingly aware of the problem of abuse against women and children in Mennonite churches. 

She was often pulled aside by women who told her about the abuse they were suffering in their families—physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Although the stories weighed her down, she always took time to “tap into the secret traumas experienced by women across the country,” as Epp-Tiessen put it.

“She validated those women by hearing their stories, and bore their pain in her own soul,” she said.

In response, Unruh Regehr was at the forefront of helping Mennonite churches and MCC respond. One way was by creating resources for pastors and churches to both make them aware and help them respond to these tragic situations.

When she met women who were ready to give up on their faith, she encouraged them to keep at it—despite the personal attacks and her own anger at the church. 

She told them to keep at it; if not for themselves, then for the women who would follow.

Her work with MCC came to an unsatisfying conclusion in 1989 when she was let go. 

She believed her dismissed was because of her forceful advocacy on behalf of women in Mennonite denominations, and also for battling for equal pay for women at MCC. It was a bitter pill that gnawed at her for the rest of her life.

Today, things are very different for women in most Mennonite churches. And Unruh Regehr’s advocacy on their behalf, as forceful and strong as it was, would seem tame in these days of #MeToo.

And yet, as Epp-Tiessen put it, the gains women have made would not have been possible without people like her.

“We stand on the shoulders of others who have gone before, people like Peggy,” she stated. 

“She was ahead of her time, committed to justice and equality for women, and we are deeply indebted to the sacrifice she made.”

As for Unruh Regehr herself, in the early 2000s she reflected on her legacy this way:

“It was a work that I cherished regardless of what I experienced. I do not ever regret having been involved with it. Personally, it sums up a great part of any legacy I may have left for the future. It may have been ever so small, but it was important to me.”

And, as it turns out, it was important to many other women as well.

Response to Yazidi Refugees, and Other Good News About Faith

Yazidi children in a refugee camp prior to coming to Canada.

The urgent appeal for help came in late August.

It came from Belle Jarniewski on behalf of Operation Ezra, a grassroots group of over 20 Jewish and Christian partners which had sponsored 55 Yazidi refugees to come to Winnipeg in 2017.

In her note, Jarniewski indicated most of the refuges they had sponsored were doing OK’ the children were enrolled in school and the adults were studying English.

In fact, many of the adults were already working.

But the same could not be said for another group of approximately 180 government-sponsored Yazidi refugees who also came to Winnipeg.

“They are struggling to adjust without the kind of supports that private sponsors—often faith groups—supply,” Jarniewski said.

One of the greatest needs was for food.

“The money they receive from the government leaves very little for groceries once rent and other essential expenses have been paid,” she explained.

Although Operation Ezra was not responsible for these refugees, “we feel an obligation to help, as do our Operation Ezra Yazidi families, who want to ‘pay it forward’ by helping families who are not as fortunate.”

Many of the government-sponsored refugee families were single mothers with children, she said, their husbands having been executed by ISIS.

“They are still dealing with the trauma of their experience at the hands of ISIS, where many of the moms were sex slaves for extended periods of time and many of the children were also captives and severely abused,” she shared.

Operation Ezra was helping as it could, providing bi-weekly food assistance. But its resources were stretched.

As the faith page columnist at the Free Press, Jarniewski asked: Could I do something to help?

I said yes—how could I not?

I sent an e-mail to a couple of dozen churches I had developed relationships with as a columnist, inviting them to help.

A few got back to me quickly, saying they’d like to do something but they had refugee families of their own, and were stretched to the limit.

But ten congregations came through. Of the donations, Jarniewski said: “We are so grateful!”

Of course, the help—as important as it was—won’t meet all the needs for the refugees.

They will continue to require various kinds of assistance now and into the future. But the response was still a great illustration of how people of faith rally to help when called upon.

The situation facing the government-sponsored refugees also showed the important role faith groups play in refugee sponsorship.

As a 2016 report by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada demonstrated, refugees sponsored by faith or community groups do better than government-assisted ones, with fewer refugees ending up relying on food banks and social assistance.

The experience is also shows there is a lot of good news about faith today.

So much of the news about religion in 2018 was about scandal and sexual abuse. These are things that need to be reported, as hard as it is to read.

Faced with this constant drip of negative stories, it can be tempting to think nothing good can come out of organized religion.

But as the response to the Yazidi refugees shows, there are also lots of positive stories about the ways local faith groups have made a difference in Winnipeg and beyond—something readers of this faith page are made aware of on a weekly basis.

Credit for this goes to the Free Press. You may not realize it, but the Free Press is of the only newspapers in Canada that still has a weekly faith page carrying local religion news.

While shrinking revenues have caused other newspapers to eliminate their religion coverage, or reduce it to a few wire service stories, the Free Press has maintained its commitment to telling the stories of Winnipeg’s faith groups.

So here’s to all the faith groups and individuals who keep on shining the light to make Winnipeg and the world a better place, and to the Free Press, which continues to provide a way to share those stories.

From the Jan. 5 Winnipeg Free Press.

Roman Catholic Eucharistic Adoration “A Great Response to a Contemporary Need”

Holy Cross Parish in Winnipeg marks 10 years of perpetual adoration 

Holy Cross perpetual adoration chapel

In 2008, members of the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Parish in the Archdiocese of St. Boniface had an idea for something new: 24/7 perpetual Eucharistic adoration.

They thought they’d try it just for a month, during Advent, to see if they could do it. Ten years—or 3,650 days and 87,360 hours—later, they are still going strong.

“When the idea came up, lots of people wanted to do it,” says Dawn Kautz, who together with her husband, James, helps coordinate the adoration.

“We were amazed by how quickly the slots filled up.”

For Catholics, perpetual Eucharistic adoration is a tradition that goes back to the 16th century. During adoration, worshipers sit or kneel before an ornate display cabinet, called a monstrance. In the monstrance is a piece of consecrated bread they believe is the actual body of Christ.

While there are many adoration chapels across Canada that welcome worshipers at select times, including 26 in Manitoba, there are only about 30 in the country that do it 24/7—someone is there every hour of every day, all year round.

Currently, only one is located in the province, at Holy Cross, although a second is underway at St. Gianna Beretta Molla Roman Catholic parish.

For Dawn, taking time for adoration is a way to take a break from her busy life and spend time with Christ.

‘As a busy mom of seven kids, it was hard to find time for prayer and reflection with God if I didn’t set a time,” she says.

“There is value in making a commitment, an appointment to ensure it happens.”

Dawn and her family recently moved to St, Malo; before that, she took a regular evening slot at Holy Cross.

While there, she found “peace as I sat and rested in the Lord’s presence.”

John Scatliffe is a Ministry Coordinator at the Holy Cross parish. He takes a slot each Tuesday from 2 to 3 AM.

“Adoration a powerful thing for Catholics,” he says, adding that he finds the early morning hour very peaceful.

“I think I get more out of it at that time,” the retired anesthesiologist shares. “It’s so peaceful there with the Lord.”

For Christopher Robison, retired from the air force, “it’s a marvelous privilege to be part of adoration.”

Robinson takes a one-hour slot one evening a week at midnight. During his time in the chapel, he prays, reads a devotional or meditates. “Sometimes I just sit quietly and be with Jesus,” he says.

Access to both the Holy Cross chapel is guarded by security systems with access cards. 

This is to protect the adorers, who can be there late at night, but also to guard the sacrament from being stolen—stories are told of how Satanists have tried to get consecrated sacraments for their rituals.

In addition to Holy Cross, since 2014 St. Gianna Beretta Molla Roman Catholic parish has also offered perpetual adoration.

Unlike at Holy Cross, however, it does not yet operate around the clock; the plan is to get enough volunteers to be able to do that.

For Father Darrin Gurr, the adoration chapel at St. Gianna Beretta Molla is “a prayer ministry for the parish,” along with a special experience for individuals.

“People can send prayer requests that people can pray for while they are doing the Eucharistic adoration.”

Adoration “is a great response to a contemporary need,” Gurr says. 

“People are longing for more mindfulness in life, a way to put them in the now, to know what God has in store for them, a break from the chaos and busyness of the world.”

Holy Cross is looking forward to many more years of adoration. They recently updated the security system to accommodate more card holders, and are looking for additional volunteers.

“I still find that many Catholics don’t know it exists in Winnipeg,” says Scatliffe, noting that members of any parish are welcome to participate.

At midnight one November evening, I participated with a friend at the Holy Cross chapel.

As a Protestant, I have to admit I didn’t feel any special spiritual connection through the sacrament—unlike my Catholic friend, who believed he was in the actual presence of Christ.

But I did feel a sense of peace in that quiet and sacred space. And no matter what your belief, that is never a bad thing.

Godless in Dixie: Neil Carter on What it's Like to be an Atheist in the U.S. South

Neil Carter is a 44 year-old high school teacher in Jackson, Mississippi, and author of Godless in Dixie, a blog about living as an atheist in the deep south of the U.S. 

In November, following a presentation to the Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba, he answered some questions about being an atheist in America today.

What is your religious background?

I was raised Southern Baptist and was saved at the age of 15. I graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary in 1998 with a Master's degree in Biblical Studies and relocated to Atlanta in 2000 to be a part of a small but international network of home churches. I was there for ten years.

I started helping with new church plants in 2004, and wrote a book about Christian community in 2007.

I left it all in 2009.

Was there any one specific thing that pushed you from belief to unbelief?

It was a death by a thousand cuts. I feel like I always lived with an inner skeptic. But toward the end there were a couple of primary factors, such as getting around more and seeing just how diverse Christian belief really is, and yet seeing how convinced everyone always is that their theology is the only right theology. 

That inspired me to ask myself harder questions about why I believe what I believe.

Also, my evangelical tradition stressed having an intimate, personal relationship with God. Yet after two decades I realized that I had to supply both sides of the relationship. The moment I quit "making" God real, he disappeared entirely.

One day it dawned on me that if I can't really point to anything objective, anything outside my own head that could validate the existence of this invisible person, then maybe I needed to think some more about why I believed what I believed. 

The rest just kind of added up from a dozen unanswered questions that made a whole lot more sense the moment I considered the non-existence of God as a better explanation than the previous religious answers I was given for everything.

What happened after you told others you were no longer a believer?

At first, I kept it very private. But in 2012 one of my students discovered I had liked a Facebook page about atheism and asked if I was an atheist. I said it wasn’t relevant to the class, and she said “why didn’t you say no?”

Soon after, the principal pulled me aside to ask me about it and later transferred me to another class. When the year ended, my contract was not renewed for the next year—no reason was given, but I knew why.

It also affected my family, driving an emotional wedge between me and my wife. A year later we decided our differences were irreconcilable, and we filed for divorce. 

Coming out as an atheist also fractured relationships with friends. They believed I was going to hell for rejecting Jesus. Some of them saw me as a project to bring back to faith. Some friends even staged an intervention.

Do you think that was because of where you live, in the U.S. south?

Yes, it is largely because of the central place religion plays in the life of people in the Deep South. 

Granted, rural areas all over the country have the same quality to them, the same culture, but down here it's even prevalent in our big cities. The first thing people do when they move to a new place in Mississippi is join a church.

People around here take religion very seriously. It's the most important thing about you in their minds. So coming out of the closet as an atheist is a problem.

You use the terms "come out.” Is that terminology common for atheists?

Quite common, especially among people who de-convert from evangelical and fundamentalist Christian families. 

Our families don't take this news very well at all. They all believe we are going to hell for rejecting Jesus, and they also are quite shamed by our departure. It hurts their reputation among other church members, and most of them feel very strongly that we are supposed to "come back."

Keeping this to ourselves saves us a ton of grief from our families, and in many cases it may also be necessary for protecting our jobs and the cohesion of our families. 

Has the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of the Christian right, made things more challenging for you?

Significantly. It would take a long time to flesh out just how badly his ascension has polarized public discourse in my country, but it's been like a giant toxic wedge that has emboldened the most racially intolerant, bigoted elements of our country to come out of the woodwork, as we say.

Do you know atheists who have left other religions?

Yes. I have a number of ex-Muslim friends. I know fewer who have left Judaism. Most Jewish folks I know were always pretty secular to begin with.

What advice would you give to atheists about interacting with people from the evangelical community? And what advice would you give believers for dealing with an atheist?

I always advise atheists who have very religious family to keep it to themselves until they are so financially and socially independent from their families that they could weather even the worst treatment as a response. 

The nicest, kindest people will turn mean overnight (or at least passive-aggressive)when they learn their family has "turned from the Lord." It's a scandalous, painful thing for them and it brings out a side of them that you can only see after you've "left the fold."

I advise people to build up a strong enough social support network that they have people to turn to for help when they need it. Only then will they be ready for the worst. 

And if their families surprise them by being consistently gracious, then it still didn't hurt to be prepared for the worst. Take your time and become more secure in your beliefs before you make yourself transparent to your family.

As for Christians, take time to listen to us and don't assume you already understand what makes us tick or why we stopped believing. 

Don't assume you know better than we do what we are thinking, and please believe us when we say we truly don't believe in spirits or ghosts or gods or afterlives anymore. 

They have the hardest time accepting that. They think we are lying to them or else to ourselves. 

I wish most that they could understand that changing our minds about God is usually an intellectual response to questions or realizations of things that make us see things differently. 

It’s  not a moral failing. We aren't "rebelling against God" even though they are certain that's how it should be seen.

We cannot help the fact that we've stopped believing and as far as we are concerned it wasn't a choice we made at all. It just kind of happened whether we wanted it to or not. 

I wish they would stop reframing it as a choice on our part. We cannot choose to believe something that no longer makes sense to us.

Click here to read what it's like to be an atheist in Manitoba; it isn't easy for some here, either.

Not Always Easy to be an Atheist in Manitoba

HAAM booth at the University of Manitoba.

Is it easy to be an atheist in Manitoba?

In our increasingly secular society, you would think so. Who cares what people believe—or don’t believe?

But for some Manitobans who have chosen not to believe in God, that’s not the case.

In November I met some of them at the monthly meeting of the Humanists, Atheist and Agnostics of Manitoba (HAAM).  

They had gathered that evening to hear a presentation by Neil Carter, a seminary graduate, former church planter and now author of the Godless in Dixie blog.

Speaking via the Web from his home in Mississippi, Carter, 44, said there were a number of factors that led him to leave his evangelical faith to become an atheist.

These included “seeing how convinced everyone always is that their theology is the only right theology,” and his own inability to have the kind of personal relationship with Jesus his tradition promoted.

“One day it dawned on me that if I can't really point to anything objective, anything outside my own head, that could validate the existence of this invisible person, then maybe I needed to think some more about why I believed what I believed,” he said.

When he “came out” to his family and friends—a term atheists use a lot to describe what it’s like to tell people they no longer believe—Carter lost his job as a public school teacher, his marriage and many friends.

While those who grow up in non-religious homes may find it easier to be publicly atheist, people who “deconvert,” especially from more conservative religious groups, find that the news isn’t taken “very well at all,” he stated.

“They believe we are going to hell for rejecting Jesus, and they also are quite shamed by our departure,” he said.

When Carter left his faith, some people saw him “as a project,” to bring back to belief in God. Some of his old church friends even “staged an intervention,” he said.

These are the kinds of responses that can cause some atheists to keep quiet, he added.

“Keeping this to ourselves saves us a ton of grief from our families, and in many cases it may also be necessary for protecting our jobs and the cohesion of our families,” he said.

This is especially true in the southern U.S. where he lives, a place where religion is woven into every part of life—family, friendships, business, education and politics.

“People around here take religion very seriously,” he said. “It's the most important thing about you in their minds.”

For members of HAAM, things are not nearly as difficult in Manitoba. Yet only one person I spoke with was willing to go public for this story—they wanted to be anonymous, or only use first names.  

“My ‘coming out’ wasn’t as dramatic as Neil’s, simply because I didn’t talk about it with anybody,” said one woman.

When she did ask questions about faith, she was “met with anger and lectures from family members, so I stopped talking,” she added.

Another man agreed. “I'm still not very comfortable making my atheism public,” he said, adding “I have friends and family in rural Manitoba and am reluctant to be open because of that.”

Arthur grew up Roman Catholic, but later attended an evangelical church. He also keeps his atheism quiet—something he feels has prevented bad experiences.

“People can be nasty if you say you aren’t a believer, they can react badly and you can be ostracized,” he said.

He knows some people who “have been rejected by friends and family for being atheists,” he added.

That’s why many local atheists like coming to HAAM’s monthly meetings—it’s a place where they can be open and feel safe with others who share their views.

Plus, as Arthur put it, the meetings are a great place to socialize and experience community. It’s the one thing he misses about church, he said.

For Peter, the social aspect is also one of the things he most appreciates about the group.

“Losing that social connection was the biggest loss after losing my faith,” he said. “I was glad to find a community of like-minded people.”

Click her to read a Q & A with Neil Carter that goes deeper into his experience as a de-converted evangelical and atheist in the deep south of the U.S.