Raised in US evangelism, psychologist Darrel Ray formed Recovering from Religion in 2009. He spoke to our Communications Manager Greg about the group’s sister campaign, The Secular Therapy Project, which Darrel is bringing to the UK for a forthcoming tour, including dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh on 12-13 October. (Check our events page for updates).
Hi Darrel, please introduce yourself and the Secular Therapy project
I’m a psychologist by training, although I’m now retired. However, I still seem to work full-time for Recovering from Religion! I started that in 2009, but in 2012 I started, as a daughter programme if you will, the Secular Therapy Project. We just passed 1028 therapists. We’re based in ten different countries around the world and all our therapists are vetted to be secular: they won’t send you back to church, or tell you that your atheism is causing your depression.
I’m also the author of four books, two of which are relevant to our discussion today, The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture (IPC Press, 2009), and Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Our Sexuality (IPC Press, 2012). Both are topics that that are near and dear to me, and I’ve been talking about them now for at least two decades. I really think religion has created major damage in people, both psychologically and religiously, and I’m here to talk about that.
I was a substitute preacher around Eastern Kansas and Northern Missouri for ten years. I never got asked back because my sermons were way too liberal!
How did you come to reject religion?
I was raised in a pretty fundamentalist family, going to church three or four times a week. I was actually a tenor soloist for many churches for many years. I was also married in the church, though I later divorced. I got an undergraduate degree in anthropology and sociology, which opened my eyes to the fact that not everybody thinks like Christians do in the west.
But I still wanted to be a minister, and went to seminary college in Tennessee. After two years studying for a masters degree, I realised I didn’t know any more than I did at the start. It all seemed like mental masturbation. At that point I started to consider studying psychology. Though I was still a substitute preacher around Eastern Kansas and Northern Missouri for ten years. I never got asked back a second time because my sermons were way too liberal!
A question people often ask is: ‘how can I find community in my country?’
How did you decide to form Recovering from Religion?
I published my book The God Virus in 2009, and my public relations person told me – this sounds quite selfish, but I won’t disavow that – “you should start an organisation and call it Recovering from Religion to sell more books”. I arranged a meeting at the local restaurant and 11 people showed up; I only knew one of them. I asked people: “how did religion hurt you?” and “how have you benefited by leaving?” We were there for almost three hours and people who’d never met were crying, hugging each other, and telling very emotional stories of how religion hurt them. That’s when I realised this was no longer a gimmick to sell books, this was something I needed to do.
We’ve now got 523 trained volunteers that answer our phones, and we run both face-to-face and virtual groups, over 60 around the world. We pretty much cover every time zone, and we have special groups focusing on men’s issues, women’s issues, LGBT+ issues, and more. Of course, lots of our calls come from within the USA, and from the United Kingdom too.
We want to work with organisations like yours to link people up with services that can help them. Because a question people often ask is: “how can I find community in my country?”
Often people would say: ‘I’ve been to two or three counsellors and they all told me to go back to church’. One person told me, and I quote, ‘my counsellor says I’m depressed because I’m an atheist’.
What about the secular therapy project? How did that start?
Well, after starting Recovering from Religion, people started contacting asking for psychological help. I knew I couldn’t help them all, and I was no longer licensed as a clinical psychologist. Often people would say: “I’ve been to two or three counsellors and they all told me to go back to church.” One person told me, and I quote, “my counsellor says I’m depressed because I’m an atheist”.
There are so many therapists who cannot separate their religion from their professional practice. But you can’t always tell that from their website. So, I asked around 26 therapist colleagues, who I knew were secular, to help me develop this new service that helps people find non-religious therapists. We are always pushing for more therapists, but we are growing slowly and steadily, and just hit 1023 therapists this week. It’s entirely free: we just connect people with the right therapist.
What can you tell us about your speaking dates in the UK?
We initially partnered with Humanists UK’s Faith to Faithless project to arrange a tour of the UK. The core of it is a conference in London on 1 October called The Effect of Apostasy on Mental Health. Religionists will often tell you that you’re having mental health problems because you’ve left God, and I’m going to say: no, you’re having mental health problems because you’ve left your community.
Beyond that, we are coming to Glasgow on October 12 and Edinburgh on October 13 Sept. We’ll be in Nottingham, Oxford, and Newcastle too, as well as Dublin and Bangor in Ireland. What we want to do is help groups like yours to raise their profile, so that people in the UK and Ireland know who they can contact on the ground.
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