'Coming Out' as a Faith Changer: Experiences of Faith Declaration for Arabs of a Muslim Background who Choose to Follow a Christian Faith

In the process of conversion, one of the greatest challenges faced by Arab Muslims who choose to follow a Christian faith, is determining how to relate to their birth communities, especially their immediate families. They continue to identify with their family and desire to function within its communal system and expectations, but also desire to be true to their new faith. For most converts in the Middle East, ceasing to adhere to the Islamic creed per se is not an act of apostasy, but declaring that one has left Islam and chosen another faith is, and is seen as an act of rebellion by the community. The process of self-disclosure, or "coming out", is complex, and many converts consider their decision about how to do this to be very important. There are various approaches converts may take, and various ways their families may respond, but one implicitly shared understanding between many converts and their families may be labelled "don't ask, don't tell", whereby converts speak openly about their changed beliefs without explicitly declaring they have converted, and their families respond in kind, deliberately not asking if they have converted, in order to maintain a strong relationships with their loved ones.

First published by SAGE in Transformation at http://trn.sagepub.com/content/30/2/96.abstract