The story of an unusual apostasy.

For the fourth week in a row, a white ex-Catholic Buddhist sits down to teach us about humility. We, a group of six or seven teenagers, roll our eyes at each other. It’s 2013, and we’ve just left the gompa—the shrine room—of a Buddhist center in Raleigh, North Carolina, to attend youth group. The mostly white adult members will stay in the gompa to listen to the teachings of the Nepalese geshe (an advanced title earned by high-level Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns). A different parent teaches youth group every week, but a surprising percentage of them grew up Catholic and converted to Buddhism in young adulthood.

Being raised Buddhist from birth put me in a unique position among white Americans. I’ve heard white peers, professors, and Uber drivers praise Buddhism for being the only “unproblematic” religion—Buddhists typically don’t proselytize, the religion tends to accept and incorporate scientific discoveries,…