Meaning-making and well-being among exiters of religious fundamentalism

The rate of religious disaffiliation has been on the rise in the United States, yet little is known about how religious 'exiters' reconstruct meaning in their lives or about their efforts at meaning-making related to perceived well-being. This study applies a meaning-making framework to investigate an understudied sub-group of exiters—individuals who left Christian fundamentalist religions. The qualitative research draws on 24 semi-structured interviews and reveals the meaning-making process through which former religious participants reconstruct meaning after experiencing exiting as a stressful life event. The findings demonstrate that, while there are challenges in the early stages of the process to make sense of their exiting experience and reconstruct meaning, the construction of new meaning-making pathways gradually contributed to participants' overall positive well-being.