Apostasy

Apostasy (pronounced /əˈpɒstəsi/) is the formal religious disaffiliation, abandonment, or renunciation of one's religion, especially if the motive is deemed unworthy. In a technical sense, as used sometimes by sociologists without the pejorative connotations of the word, the term refers to renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, one's former religion. One who commits apostasy is an apostate, or one who apostatizes. The word derives from Greek ἀποστασία (apostasia), meaning a defection or revolt, from ἀπό, apo, "away, apart", στάσις, stasis, "stand", "standing". The term is sometimes also used to refer to renunciation of a belief or cause by (generally facetious) extension of the religious connotation, such as in reference to a political party or a sports team.

Apostasy is generally not a self-definition: very few former believers call themselves apostates and they generally consider this term to be a pejorative. Many religious movements consider it a vice (sin), a corruption of the virtue of piety in the sense that when piety fails, apostasy is the result. Unlike apostasy, heresy is the rejection or corruption of certain doctrines, not the complete abandonment of one's religion. Heretics claim to still be following a religion (or even to be the "true believers"), whereas apostates reject it entirely.

Many religious groups and some states punish apostates. Apostates may be shunned by the members of their former religious group^[1] or worse. This may be the official policy of the religious group or may happen spontaneously. A church may in certain circumstances respond to apostasy by excommunicating the apostate, while some Abrahamic scriptures (Judaism: Deuteronomy 13:6–10) and Islam: al-Bukhari, Diyat, bab 6) demand the death penalty for apostates, although capital punishment for any offense is no longer permitted under Judaism, except for enemies of Israel.

Sociological definitions

The American sociologist Lewis A. Coser (following the German philosopher and sociologist Max Scheler) holds an apostate to be not just a person who experienced a dramatic change in conviction but “a man who, even in his new state of belief, is spiritually living not primarily in the content of that faith, in the pursuit of goals appropriate to it, but only in the struggle against the old faith and for the sake of its negation."^[2][3]

The American sociologist David G. Bromley defined the apostate role as follows and distinguished it from the defector and whistleblower roles.^[3]

• Apostate role: defined as one that occurs in a highly polarized situation in which an organization member undertakes a total change of loyalties by allying with one or more elements of an oppositional coalition without the consent or control of the organization. The narrative is one which documents the quintessentially evil essence of the apostate's former organization chronicled through the apostate's personal experience of capture and ultimate escape/rescue.
• Defector role: an organizational participant negotiates exit primarily with organizational authorities, who grant permission for role relinquishment, control the exit process, and facilitate role transmission. The jointly constructed narrative assigns primary moral responsibility for role performance problems to the departing member and interprets organizational permission as commitment to extraordinary moral standards and preservation of public trust.
• Whistleblower role: defined here as one in which an organization member forms an alliance with an external regulatory unit through offering personal testimony concerning specific, contested organizational practices that is then used to sanction the organization. The narrative constructed jointly by the whistleblower and regulatory agency is one which depicts the whistleblower as motivated by personal conscience and the organization by defense of public interest.

Stuart A. Wright, an American sociologist and author, asserts that apostasy is a unique phenomenon and a distinct type of religious defection, in which the apostate is a defector "who is aligned with an oppositional coalition in an effort to broaden the dispute, and embraces public claimsmaking activities to attack his or her former group."^[4]

Law

International law

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, considers the recanting of a person's religion a human right legally protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: "The Committee observes that the freedom to 'have or to adopt' a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views [...] Article 18.2. bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert."^[5]

Countries

• Iran – illegal (death penalty)^[6]
• Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty)
• Nigeria – illegal in twelve states (death penalty)
• Qatar – illegal (death penalty)
• Sudan – illegal (death penalty)
• Mauritania – illegal (death penalty)
• Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty)
• Somalia – illegal (death penalty)
• Yemen – illegal (death penalty)
• Malaysia – illegal in five states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)
• Canada – legal (protected under Section Two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
• Netherlands – legal (protected under Article Six of the Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands)
• United States – legal (protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution)
• India – legal, Although the Constitution of India allows for freedom of religion, in some provinces such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and some others anti-conversion laws exist due to the unfair ways adopted by some sects and religions for mass conversion and social tensions of the conversion arising due to it.) ^[7]
• Philippines – legal (protected under Article III, Section 5 of the Philippine Constitution)

Religions

Baha'i

Muslims often regard adherents of the Bahá'í faith as apostates of Islam and subsequently they may get harassed and persecuted.^[8]

Christianity

In addition to the Jewish tradition inherited through the Old Testament, Christian governments, sometimes with the approval of the Church, have punished both apostates and heretics individually and in campaigns such as the Inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I instituted the punishment of death for apostasy in the very first law of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), his code that formed a basis for several European countries' laws for many centuries.

Islam

In Islam, apostasy is called "ridda" ("turning back") and is considered to be a profound insult to God. A person born of Muslim parents that rejects Islam is called a "murtad fitri" (natural apostate), and a person that converted to Islam and later rejects the religion is called a "murtad milli" (apostate from the community).^[9]

According to most scholars, if a Muslim consciously and without coercion declares their rejection of Islam and does not change their mind after the time given to him/her by a judge for research, then the penalty for male apostates is death, and for women, life imprisonment. However, this view has been rejected by a small minority of modern Muslim scholars (e.g. Hasan al-Turabi), who argues that the hadith in question should be taken to apply only to political betrayal of the Muslim community, rather than to apostasy in general.^[10] These scholars regard apostasy as a serious crime, but argue for the freedom to convert to and from Islam without legal penalty, and consider the aforementioned Hadith quote as insufficient justification for capital punishment. Today apostasy is illegal in most Muslim countries, though it may not be subject to the death penalty. Executions for apostasy are rare, but allowed in many Muslim countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Apostasy is legal in secular Muslim countries such as Turkey.^[11]

The hadith has been used both by supporters of the death penalty as well as critics of Islam. Some Islamic scholars point out it is important to understand the hadith in proper historical context. The order was at a time when the nascent Muslim community in Medina was fighting for its very life, and there were many schemes, by which the enemies of Islam would try to entice rebellion and discord within the community.^[12] Clearly any defection would have serious consequences for the Muslims, and the hadith may well be about treason, rather than just apostasy. It must also be pointed out that under the terms of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, any Muslim who returned to Mecca was not to be returned, terms which the Prophet accepted. Despite this historical point, Islamic law as currently practiced does not allow the freedom to choose one's religion.

The Qur'an says:

Let there be no compulsion in the religion: Clearly the Right Path (i.e. Islam) is distinct from the crooked path.

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 2:256]}

A section of the 'People of the Book' (Jews and Christians) says: "Believe in the morning what is revealed to the believers (Muslims), but reject it at the end of the day; perchance they may (themselves) turn back (from Islam).

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 3:72]}

But those who reject faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of faith, never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have (of set purpose) gone astray.

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 3:90]}

Those who blasphemed and back away from the ways of Allah and die as blasphemers, Allah shall not forgive them.

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 4:48]}

Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief, – Allah will not forgive them nor guide them on the way.

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 4:137]}

O ye who believe! If any from among you turn back from his faith, soon will Allah produce a people whom He (Allah) will love as they will love Him lowly with the believers, Mighty against the rejecters, fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproachers of such as find fault. That is the Grace of Allah which He will bestow on whom He (Allah) pleases. And Allah encompasses all, and He knows all things.

—Qur'an, ^{[Qur'an 5:54]}

The Hadith (a collection of sayings attributed to Muhammad and his companions) includes statements taken as supporting the death penalty for apostasy, such as:

• Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.. Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:84:57

• The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I (Muhammad) am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims. Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a Pakistani Islamic scholar, writes that punishment for apostasy was part of Divine punishment for only those who denied the truth even after clarification in its ultimate form by Muhammad (he uses term Itmam al-hujjah), hence, he considers this command for a particular time and no longer punishable.^[13]

In 2006, Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity has attracted worldwide attention about where Islam stood on religious freedom. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for him. However, under heavy pressure from foreign governments, the Afghan government claimed he was mentally unfit to stand trial and released him.

Islam Online, a website, contains a fatwa dated 21 March 2004 and ascribed to 'IOL Shariah Researchers' says:

• "If a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished.‏ In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."^[14] No one besides the caliph or his representative may kill the apostate. If someone else kills him, the killer is disciplined (for arrogating the caliph's prerogative and encroaching upon his rights, as this is one of his duties).

It should be noted that the website Islam Online has an article by Jamal Badawi argueing against legal punishment of apostasy:

• "The preponderance of evidence from both the Qur'an and Sunnah indicates that there is no firm ground for the claim that apostasy is in itself a mandatory fixed punishment (hadd), namely capital punishment."^[15] References to early capital punishment for apostasy were not due to apostasy itself, but rather other capital crimes that were coupled with it.

Judaism

The term apostasy is also derived from Greek ἀποστάτης, meaning "political rebel," as applied to rebellion against God, its law and the faith of Israel (in Hebrew מרד) in the Hebrew Bible.

Other expressions for apostate as used by rabbinical scholars are "mumar" (מומר, literally "the one that is changed") and "poshea yisrael" (פושע ישראל, literally, "transgressor of Israel"), or simply "kofer" (כופר, literally "denier" and heretic).

The Torah states:

Deuteronomy 13:6–10:

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.^[16]

The prophetic writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah provide many examples of defections of faith found among the Israelites (e.g., Isaiah 1:2–4 or Jeremiah 2:19), as do the writings of the prophet Ezekiel (e.g., Ezekiel 16 or 18). Israelite kings were often guilty of apostasy, examples including Ahab (I Kings 16:30–33), Ahaziah (I Kings 22:51–53), Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:6,10), Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:1–4), or Amon (2 Chronicles 33:21–23) among others. (Amon's father Manasseh was also apostate for many years of his long reign, although towards the end of his life he renounced his apostasy. Cf. 2 Chronicles 33:1–19)

In the Talmud, Elisha Ben Abuyah (known as Aḥer) is singled out as an apostate and epicurean by the Pharisees.

During the Spanish inquisition, a systematic conversion of Jews to Christianity took place, some of which under threats and force. These cases of apostasy provoked the indignation of the Jewish communities in Spain.

Several notorious Inquisitors, such as Tomás de Torquemada, and Don Francisco the archbishop of Coria, were descendants of apostate Jews. Other apostates who made their mark in history by attempting the conversion of other Jews in the 14th century include Juan de Valladolid and Astruc Remoch.

Abraham Isaac Kook,^[17][18] first Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in then Palestine, held that atheists were not actually denying God: rather, they were denying one of man's many images of God. Since any man-made image of God can be considered an idol, Kook held that, in practice, one could consider atheists as helping true religion burn away false images of god, thus in the end serving the purpose of true monotheism.

Other religious movements

Controversies over new religious movements (NRMs) have often involved apostates, some of whom join organizations or web sites opposed to their former religions. A number of scholars have debated the reliability of apostate and their stories, often called "apostate narratives".

One camp that broadly speaking questions apostate narratives includes David G. Bromley,^[19][20] Daniel Carson Johnson,^[21] Dr. Lonnie D. Kliever (1932–2004),^[22] Gordon Melton,^[23] and Bryan R. Wilson.^[24] An opposing camp less critical of apostate narratives as a group includes Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi,^[25] Dr. Phillip Charles Lucas^[26],^[27][28] Jean Duhaime,^[29] Mark Dunlop,^[30][31] Michael Langone,^[32] and Benjamin Zablocki.^[33]

Some scholars have attempted to classify apostates of NRMs. James T. Richardson proposes a theory related to a logical relationship between apostates and whistleblowers, using Bromley's definitions,^[34] in which the former predates the latter. A person becomes an apostate and then seeks the role of whistleblower, which is then rewarded for playing that role by groups that are in conflict with the original group of membership such as anti-cult organizations. These organizations further cultivate the apostate, seeking to turn him or her into a whistleblower. He also describes how in this context, apostates' accusations of "brainwashing" are designed to attract perceptions of threats against the well being of young adults on the part of their families to further establish their new found role as whistleblowers.^[35] Armand L. Mauss, define true apostates as those exiters that have access to oppositional organizations which sponsor their careers as such, and which validate the retrospective accounts of their past and their outrageous experiences in new religions, making a distinction between these and whistleblowers or defectors in this context.^[36] Donald Richter, a current member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) writes that this can explain the writings of Carolyn Jessop and Flora Jessop, former members of the FLDS church who consistently sided with authorities when children of the YFZ ranch were removed over charges of child abuse.^[37] However, Donald Richter remains a member in good standing and loyal to the leadership of the fundamentalist sect from which the former members fled and has no apparent training or expertise in psychology or behavioral sciences. Richter has been criticized for his biased and propaganda-style writing.^[38]

Massimo Introvigne in his Defectors, Ordinary Leavetakers and Apostates^[39] defines three types of narratives constructed by apostates of new religious movements:

• Type I narratives characterize the exit process as defection, in which the organization and the former member negotiate an exiting process aimed at minimizing the damage for both parties.
• Type II narratives involve a minimal degree of negotiation between the exiting member, the organization they intend to leave, and the environment or society at large, implying that the ordinary apostate holds no strong feelings concerning his past experience in the group. They may make "comments on the organization’s more negative features or shortcomings" while also recognizing that there was "something positive in the experience."
• Type III narratives are characterized by the ex-member dramatically reversing their loyalties and becoming a professional enemy of the organization they have left. These apostates often join an oppositional coalition fighting the organization, often claiming victimization.

Introvigne argues that apostates professing Type II narratives prevail among exiting members of controversial groups or organizations, while apostates that profess Type III narratives are a vociferous minority.

Other uses

In popular usage, religious terminology like "apostasy" is often appropriated for use within other public spheres characterized by strongly held beliefs, like politics. Such usage typically carries a much less negative connotation than the religious usage does, and sometimes people will even describe themselves as apostates. Authors Kevin Phillips (a former Republican strategist turned harsh critic of the Bush administration) and Christopher Hitchens (a former left-wing commentator turned enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq War) are examples of people who are often described as political apostates.

The term "apostasy" is also used by several death and black metal bands to assert the fact that they are removed from, and against, religion.

Notable examples

This is a list of some notable persons that have been reportedly labeled as an apostate in reliable published sources.

Christianity

• Julian the Apostate the Roman emperor, given an Arian Christian education by those who assassinated his family, rejected his upbringing and declared himself to be a pagan once it was safe to do so.
• Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was declared 'The Great Apostate' by Parliament in 1628 for changing his political support from Parliament to Charles I, thus shifting his religious support from Protestantism to Arminianism.
• Abraham ben Abraham, (Count Valentine (Valentin, Walentyn) Potocki), a Polish nobleman of the Potocki family who is claimed to have converted to Judaism and was burned at the stake in 1749 because he had renounced Catholicism and had become an observant Jew.
• Maria Monk sometimes considered an apostate of the Catholic Church, though there is little evidence that she ever was a Catholic.
• Lord George Gordon, initially a zealous Protestant and instigator of the Gordon riots of 1780, he finally renounced Christianity and converted to Judaism, for which he was ostracized.
• Brian Moore, spoke strongly about the effect of the Catholic Church on life in Ireland.

Islam

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali labelled an apostate by Theo van Gogh according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali^[40]
• Tasleema Nasreen, from Bangladesh, the author of Lajja, has been declared apostate – "an apostate appointed by imperialist forces to vilify Islam" – by several fundamentalist clerics in Dhaka^[41]
• Younus Shaikh, from Pakistan was sentenced to death for his remarks on Muhammad^[42]

See also

• Religious conversion
• Forced conversion
• Religious intolerance
• Apostasia of 1965
• Defection
• Treason

References

Further reading

• Bromley, David G. 1988. Falling From the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Beverly Hills: Sage.
• Dunlop, Mark, The culture of Cults, 2001 [2]
• Introvigne, Massimo Defectors, Ordinary Leavetakers and Apostates: A Quantitative Study of Former Members of New Acropolis in France – paper delivered at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 23, 1997 [3]
• The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). The Kopelman Foundation. [4]
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, The Odyssey of a New Religion: The Holy Order of MANS from New Age to Orthodoxy Indiana University press;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, Shifting Millennial Visions in New Religious Movements: The case of the Holy Order of MANS in The year 2000: Essays on the End edited by Charles B. Strozier, New York University Press 1997;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, The Eleventh Commandment Fellowship: A New Religious Movement Confronts the Ecological Crisis, Journal of Contemporary Religion 10:3, 1995:229–41;
• Lucas, Phillip Charles, Social factors in the Failure of New Religious Movements: A Case Study Using Stark's Success Model SYZYGY: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 1:1, Winter 1992:39–53
• Wright, Stuart A. 1988. "Leaving New Religious Movements: Issues, Theory and Research," pp. 143–165 in David G. Bromley (ed.), Falling From the Faith. Beverly Hills: Sage.
• Wright, Stuart A. 1991. "Reconceptualizing Cult Coercion and Withdrawal: A Comparative Analysis of Divorce and Apostasy." Social Forces 70 (1):125–145.
• Wright, Stuart A. and Helen R. Ebaugh. 1993. "Leaving New Religions," pp. 117–138 in David G. Bromley and Jeffrey K. Hadden (eds.), Handbook of Cults and Sects in America. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• Zablocki, Benjamin et al., Research on NRMs in the Post-9/11 World, in Lucas, Phillip Charles et al. (ed.), NRMs in the 21st Century: legal, political, and social challenges in global perspective, 2004, ISBN 0-415-96577-2

Testimonies, memoirs, and autobiographies

• Babinski, Edward (editor), Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists. Prometheus Books, 2003. ISBN 1591022177; ISBN 978-1591022176
• Dubreuil, J. P. 1994 L'Église de Scientology. Facile d'y entrer, difficile d'en sortir. Sherbrooke: private edition (ex-Church of Scientology)
• Huguenin, T. 1995 Le 54^e Paris Fixot (ex-Ordre du Temple Solaire who would be the 54th victim)
• Kaufmann, Inside Scientology/Dianetics: How I Joined Dianetics/Scientology and Became Superhuman, 1995 [5]
• Lavallée, G. 1994 L'alliance de la brebis. Rescapée de la secte de Moïse, Montréal: Club Québec Loisirs (ex-Roch Thériault)
• Pignotti, Monica, My nine lives in Scientology, 1989, [6]
• Wakefield, Margery, Testimony, 1996 [7]
• Lawrence Woodcraft, Astra Woodcraft, Zoe Woodcraft, The Woodcraft Family, Video Interviews [8]

Writings by others

• Carter, Lewis, F. Lewis, Carriers of Tales: On Assessing Credibility of Apostate and Other Outsider Accounts of Religious Practices published in the book The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements edited by David G. Bromley Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-275-95508-7
• Elwell, Walter A. (Ed.) Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 1 A–I, Baker Book House, 1988, pages 130-131, "Apostasy". ISBN 0801034477
• Malinoski, Peter, Thoughts on Conducting Research with Former Cult Members , Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001 [9]
• Palmer, Susan J. Apostates and their Role in the Construction of Grievance Claims against the Northeast Kingdom/Messianic Communities [10]
• Wilson, S.G., Leaving the Fold: Apostates and Defectors in Antiquity. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0800636759; ISBN 978-0800636753
• Wright, Stuart. "Post-Involvement Attitudes of Voluntary Defectors from Controversial New Religious Movements". ''Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23 (1984):172–182.