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Florida State University Libraries )ORULGD6WDWH8QLYHUVLW\/LEUDULHV 2020 Reframing Smiths Atheist Development Model: Developing Metaphysical Beliefs Allen Clay Jr. and Bradley E. Cox Follow this and additional works at DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] 1 Reframing Smith’s Atheist Development Model: Developing Metaphysical Beliefs Allen Clay Jr. & Bradley Cox Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University 2 Abstract As the most prominent model of atheist identity development, Smith’s model relies on the assumption of atheism emerging from an explicit rejection of Christianity. This revised model presents atheism as more than just the rejection of Christianity, but also the development of a personal belief system independent of a deity. Keywords: metaphysical belief, fluidity, self-authorship 3 Reframing Smith’s Atheist Development Model: Developing Metaphysical Beliefs Within the United States, there is a growing shift from Christianity to a country that is diverse in religion, faith, and belief. Seventeen percent of the US population report no religious affiliation, 5% identify as agnostic, and 5% identify as atheist (Pew Research Center, 2019). Roughly 36% of the religiously unaffiliated are young adults between ages 18 and 24 (Pew Research Center, 2015a). Despite this uptick in students who identify as atheists, Smith’s Atheist Identity Development Model (2011) remains one of the most prominent models that guides postsecondary professionals’ understanding of how to support these students. However, Smith’s model relies on a number of assumptions, particularly relating to the idea that atheism grows out of an explicit rejection of Christianity, that no longer hold true. Without challenging these assumptions and/or accounting for recent shifts in American religiosity, educators taking guidance from Smith’s model could further alienate students who have already been “othered” for the simple fact that they do not adhere to theistic beliefs that permeate American society (Doane & Elliot, 2015). In this paper, we begin by providing an overview of Smith’s (2011) model and describe how we leveraged Dugan’s (2017) tools of deconstruction to challenge several problematic assumptions in Smith’s model. The remainder of the paper explains how we used Dugan’s (2017) tools of reconstruction and insights from Baxter Magolda’s (2008) pathways to self- authorship to reimagine Smith’s model. By shifting away from Smith’s emphasis on “faith” and expanding the model to be inclusive of more than just those individuals who reject their theistic (implicitly Christian) upbringing, our revised model describes a process through which 4 individuals develop metaphysical beliefs that need not be predicated on, but could be inclusive of, the existence of a god. Smith’s Atheist Identity Development Model Smith’s (2011) model includes four stages through which one progresses on the way to the development of an “achieved” (p. 215) atheist identity. The first stage, the ubiquity of theism, states that most people have a belief and certainty in God’s existence filtered through religious practices during one’s childhood. Stage two, questioning theism, explains how people question and unlearn their previous theistic beliefs through conversations with atheists and reexamining biblical scripture. Stage three, rejecting theism: ‘not theist, or atheism as a rejection identity,’” argues that individuals can only establish an atheist identity after “having explicitly rejected religion and the notion of God itself” (p. 227). In the fourth and final stage, “coming out” atheist, elaborates on how people accept an atheist identity and can contradict normalized conceptions of God and religion with both atheist and theist believers (Smith, 2011). Challenging Assumptions in Smith’s Model Theism as Normative A core underlying assumption is that there is a normative belief in theism. Due to the model’s emphasis on navigating a theistic society within the United States, it omits people who are born into atheistic families who did not participate in religious services. In a survey of 226 atheist parents who have children under the age of eighteen, 90% of the parents do not believe in God and 86% never attend religious services (2015b). Since there is a population of children who 5 have atheistic parents, religious values would not have been forced upon them and never needed to question theism in the household. All Atheists Were Christian Smith (2011) replicates hegemonic beliefs in their model by presenting the United States as a theistic culture largely dominated by Christianity; yet Smith omits other religions’ narratives despite having some non-Christian belief systems represented in their sample population. Since Smith only gives examples of reexamining the Bible and previous Christians’ interactions with atheists as a means of questioning theism (Stage 2), the model marginalizes evolving atheists of non-Christian traditions. As a result, “atheists are often further subjugated by Christian privilege, which is an ideology characterized by the belief that everyone is or should be Christian… while marginalizing non-Christians” (Zimmerman et al., 2015, p.1). This replicates the hegemonic norms of Christian dominance in the United States by remaining willfully blind to other belief systems (Dugan, 2017). The Power of Christianity Emphasizing former Christians’ narratives not only marginalizes atheists from non- Christian religions but also exemplifies how “Christianity is the majority, privileged religion in the United States… identifying as religious in general and as Christian, specifically, is perceived as closely associated with US American culture” (Abbott & Mollen, 2018, p.686). As a result, this model reinforces how Christians continue to set the spiritual norms of American society. On one hand, Smith states that emerging atheists must publicly accept their atheist identity to feel empowered, highlighting the importance of inviting and amplifying atheists’ voices to disentangle the Christian faith from the American culture (Smith, 2011). But Smith’s overt 6 emphasis on Christianity throughout the entire model marginalizes many of those same voices he suggests should be added to the public discourse. American atheists previously affiliated with non-Christian religions are thus intersectionally oppressed twice: first because of their difference from the dominant cultural norms established by Christianity in America, and again when a prominent model of non-Christian identity development omits their perspectives. The Power of Christianity Emphasizing former Christians’ narratives not only marginalizes atheists from non- Christian religions but also exemplifies how “Christianity is the majority, privileged religion in the United States… identifying as religious in general and as Christian, specifically, is perceived as closely associated with US American culture” (Abbott & Mollen, 2018, p.686). As a result, this model reinforces how Christians continue to set the spiritual norms of American society. On one hand, Smith states that emerging atheists must publicly accept their atheist identity to feel empowered, highlighting the importance of inviting and amplifying atheists’ voices to disentangle the Christian faith from the American culture (Smith, 2011). But Smith’s overt emphasis on Christianity throughout the entire model marginalizes many of those same voices he suggests should be added to the public discourse. American atheists previously affiliated with non-Christian religions are thus intersectionally oppressed twice: first because of their difference from the dominant cultural norms established by Christianity in America, and again when a prominent model of non-Christian identity development omits their perspectives. 7 Developing Metaphysical Beliefs: A Revision and Update to Smith’s Model Using Dugan’s tools of reconstruction (2017), we present a revised model that disrupts Christian normativity through changes to language and cultivates agency by reducing the extent to which atheist identity development is grounded in the specific rejection of Christian faith. While Smith (2011) constrained his model to atheists who explicitly rejected the existence of a deity, not all who identify as atheists agree to that definition (Smith, 2013b). Therefore, while we ground our model in Smith’s, we have crafted the language in our model to expand beyond atheists. Our more inclusive model cultivates agency for people from a wide range of spiritual backgrounds and with a wide range of beliefs, thereby enabling the development of broad coalitions of people concerned with the development of students’ metaphysical beliefs. The revised model specifically describes a process where people are born into a default belief system, subsequently question those beliefs, reject those learned beliefs, and ultimately adopt a personally chosen set of beliefs about the origins, order, and/or operations of the world. The new model also incorporates elements of Baxter Magdola’s (2008) self-authorship to explain how individuals develop their personalized beliefs. Individuals begin by following formulas consistent with the default belief system instilled by early authority figures. When presented with external information contrary to their socialized beliefs, or when their existing belief structure cannot adequately explain some personal observation or experience, individuals reach a crossroads where they actively question their default metaphysical
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