People Who Finally Left “MAGA Christianity” Are Sharing What It Really Took To Step Away

For many, leaving their faith community wasn’t a decision made lightly; they wrestled for years with what it meant to remain faithful in a culture where religion and nationalism had become inseparably fused.

“Leaving costs nearly everything,” said Levings. “Although that loss may come as a gradual spiral, step by step. The twist is that there’s so much hope and determination to live an authentic life that you realize you’re worth the fight.”

Stepping away was not a rejection of Jesus, but a reclaiming of a faith that felt morally and spiritually coherent.

Some experienced a sudden jolt of clarity: A sermon, a social media post, or a heated conversation that forced them to confront their dissonance. For others, the process was a slow erosion: a growing unease with the language of “us versus them,” a quiet question that eventually became impossible to ignore.

“My faith was forced to remain static, which made God very finite and small,” Levings said. “Life, by its very nature, requires growth — and so did leaving.”

Hawk describes the shift as gradual. She never stopped loving Jesus — she stopped recognizing him in the spaces that claimed his name.

“It started to feel like the church wasn’t about faith anymore,” she said. “It was about fear and control, about who was in and who was out.” 

“For white evangelicals, I believe part of the waking up often happens to waking up to bigger issues of justice and privilege — i.e., when white folks realize that theirs (which is to say mine) isn’t the only story and perspective,” Meredith said. Her process of disentanglement took 20 years.

Meredith said some people choose to leave over “monumental” cultural events — like the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the insurrection at the Capitol, or the government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis in Trump’s first term and its current treatment of immigrants.

“But to me, it doesn’t tend to be one big thing,” she said, “as much as it tends to be a series of lots of little things that make you realize, ‘Hey, something’s not right.’”

Meredith, who is also the author of The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Racial Justice, explained how MAGA-aligned Christianity often reinforces systems that benefit white communities — even as many congregants remain unaware of its racial and political implications. 

“While some white evangelicals are beginning to reckon with both racial injustice and the influence of nationalist ideology in their churches, others turn a blind eye, trusting pastors unquestioningly.” 

Meredith’s journey toward seeing the “image of God in everyone” underscores how ignoring racial realities, or dismissing progressive “woke” values from the pulpit, can perpetuate harm and marginalize voices seeking justice within the faith community. “They’re not questioning the influence of tyranny from the pulpit because how or why could a pastor lead them astray?”