Leaving a covenantal religion: Orthodox Jewish disaffiliation from an immigration psychology perspective

Abstract

This study explored psychological variables associated with disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism (a covenantal community), and subsequent wellness. A web-based survey (N = 206) assessed factors previously used to study immigrants: push (distress within origin community), pull (toward destination community), and goal attainment. Psychological wellness, perceived stress, overall health, and loneliness were also assessed. Findings included: 1) strong pull toward opportunities for physical and ideological autonomy; 2) those who experienced more push toward disaffiliation, reported decreased current wellness; 3) goal attainment was associated with increased wellbeing; 4) significant differences in the experiences of disaffiliation between men and women; 5) most who disaffiliated left religion altogether; those who remained religious decreased their participation, and few joined non-Jewish faith communities. Results demonstrate that this immigration paradigm can be adapted to advance research on individuals who disaffiliate from covenantal religious communities.

Disbelief, disengagement, discontinuance, and disaffiliation: An integrative framework for the study of religious deidentification.

“…That is, some struggles arise from feeling judged by others within a particular religion, such as when one does not fit into the norms of a group or possesses an identity that is purportedly at odds with a set of religious teaching. This may cause individuals to create distance from their religious community and cause them to no longer wish to affiliate with the social group (e.g., Engelman, Milstein, Schonfeld, & Grubbs, 2020). When there is a strong disagreement between an individual and a religious community, that individual may sever those social ties to reduce conflict and regain psychological equanimity.…”

Examining Exit: The Roles of Push and Pull in Leaving Religion

“…Relatedly, if the disaffiliation is concurrent with a loss of meaning of life which was provided by religious group membership, the individual may have reduced coping skills to cope with life-stressors (Park, 2005). Negative outcomes of disaffiliation may be particularly salient for individuals leaving insular and or covenantal religious communities (Engelman et al, 2020).…”

“…In contrast, pull has often been demonstrated as a positive force regarding those same wellbeing factors. In a previous study examining the process of disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism, Engelman et al (2020) used the push-pull immigration paradigm to predict individual disaffiliate wellbeing through their process of disaffiliation.…”

“…Given the above, we expected that when performing a factor analysis using the push-pull item bank from a previous study (Engelman, et al, 2020), we would find a two-factor solution reflecting both push and pull as relevant factors in religious exit. Further, we expected that disaffiliates and switchers from religious groups that reported higher costs of leaving would also report increased levels of push.…”

“…MeasuresPush-pull. Owing to the lack of established measures to test the push and pull dimensions of religious exit, original measures for each dimension were created byEngelman et al (2020). A group of individuals who had disaffiliated from Orthodox Jewish communities provided feedback and input on the items.…”