How do tight-knit religious communities manage dissent? How do they employ social and emotional leverage to control the flock? This article explores the role of religious communities and the drive to live authentically. It draws upon the author’s experiences with Ahmadiyya Islam, as recounted in The Things We Think—a prequel to this piece.

I have made peace with the impending fallout in my personal life and with the social blowback my loved ones will incur within the Community. To normalize dissent, we have to start somewhere. Those who seek to shame the family members of we who are speaking out; these are the people onto whom our collective scorn should be directed. If anyone, these are the people who deserve to be the targets of a counter-campaign of naming and shaming. Not the families of those of us who are expressing dissenting beliefs. None of us should be discouraged from expressing open and honest disagreement with the ideological beliefs into which we were indoctrinated.