Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church

I think they used that terminology in the book You Lost Me

My wife and I had the opposite experience with her son/ my stepson. My wife wasn’t raised with religion and has no interest in it. I was raised with religion but church ended before school began, and the Christianity I left was mostly what I pieced together before I could read without much guidance. Anyhow we didn’t raise her son with any religion and he is now a priest with a Brazilian group led by someone known as John of God. It obviously filled some need he had. That is part of what has increased my interest in understanding the phenomenon of God belief. Drastic changes in world view between generations in the same family strain relationships in either direction. I actually find it easy to talk with him about religion but we don’t have a very large place in his life.

It sounds like you are keeping yourself open to “going back”, as you put it above, if the right church came along. And it also sounds like you aren’t entirely uninvolved now. You wrote in an earlier post:

I realize there are always a lot of things in play (like what your S.O. thinks … he sounds like a good man.) Without wanting to pry into any details you aren’t comfortable sharing, it would be interesting to hear any more that you can share about what important role you hope/need for a church to play in your life, and perhaps what role do you think a church should have for communities generally?

In a (perhaps) related subject, you wrote:

[my own emphasis added above.]

I think you will find a lot of agreement here with that conviction: that faith is not rooted in blind acceptance. Very few, it would seem, walk away from their childhood religion with that sentiment still intact (or more likely, never had the chance to let such a thought take root in their young selves). But this forum is heavily populated with Christians, many of whom now strongly embrace that. …so the follow up to that might be to hear your thoughts on what faith is.

(I know… so many questions; don’t feel like you are obligated to answer all of them or even any of them. We’re just always up for discussion fodder around here.)
[I added edits to this post.]

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I looked up John of God.
Feel free to discuss. Sounds like it’s a good thing you can talk with him. He needs your anchor.

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I’m not one of the young Christians leaving the church that this article is about. I was probably 45-47 years old when I left, (I’m 58 now) and number one reason for me leaving is “Reason #3 - Churches come across as antagonistic to science.”
In the 1960’s and 70’s I went to a United Methodist Church and was taught Young Earth Creationism was true. In school, if they taught anything that contradicted YEC, I would learn it for the test, but I wouldn’t believe it.
Some time later, I read some of the Old Earth Creationist arguments and was considering the different versions of Old Earth Creationism, but then I read the YEC arguments again and was convinced the Bible clearly taught a young Earth.
In 1995-97 I took several vacations to the Western US and seeing the geology on display in the treeless mountains and thinking they all happened in one year during one flood, many things didn’t make sense. Several times the thought came to me “This didn’t happen in 6000 years.”
A few years later the internet came along and I decided to settle whether Christian Young Earth Creationism with its “flood geology”, or Christian Old Earth Creationism and regular geology was true. In the end I concluded that neither was true, but the YEC’s were dishonest and sometimes outright lying.
That started the dominoes falling, and I am no longer a Christian.
That said, I hope some version of Old Earth Creationism can win over American Christians because in my not so humble opinion, the YEC’s are in the majority, and they are definitely wrong.

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“over 50” can still qualify as “young at heart” (at least in my books now.)

Welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you saw the Christian world mostly in terms of an OEC/YEC division. Do you recall if ‘TE’ (or now ‘EC’) was ever on your horizon at all at that time? To be sure, I think it has grown much bigger now. But it is interesting to me that you don’t mention it at all.

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I grew up assuming YEC was the only thing serious Christians should believe. For 23 years I was United Methodist. My wife grew up attending a Mennonite church. When we married I joined the Army and the churches we attended were mostly Baptist. When we moved home we went to her Mennonite church for years.
In about 2000 we switched to a Brethren in Christ church. To this day no church I attended taught anything other than YEC, although many were silent on the subject, so I assumed they were YEC by default.
They might just have avoided the subject because it would cause conflict in the church.

As I was leaving that last church I talked to the pastor and the associate pastor separately about the problems with what the church taught vs science. The lead pastor knew almost nothing at all. During my explanation of why YEC wasn’t true I had complained about what Pat Robertson said about the Haiti earthquake being caused by them making a pact with the devil, and I said “We know what causes earthquakes now.” He got a blank look on his face and said “What does cause earthquakes?” I was speechless.
After a similar talk with the assistant pastor he said that he couldn’t disagree with anything I had said, but don’t expect him to announce it to the congregation. So, he knew YEC was wrong, but he was letting it be taught to the children in Sunday school. To be fair, he would have probably been out of a job for challenging YEC.

“Do you recall if ‘TE’ (or now ‘EC’) was ever on your horizon at all at that time?”
I’m not sure the time frame, probably after 1993, but when I looked into OEC possible being true, some of the choices I remember were Theistic Evolution, Day Age Theory and Gap Theory. I do know that the first book about the Big Bang that I allowed myself to read was “Genesis and the Big Bang” by Gerald Schroeder, because he was a believing Jew trying to explain how the 6 days of Genesis and the Big Bang can both be true.

I grew up with and have remained in the Mennonite faith, and can attest that Mennonites (probably with most other denominations now) are all over the map on the issue of origins. My own particular congregation is very accepting of science, but we are in an urban university town, and so may not be typical in that regard.

Methodists too must have a variety (and probably also much change over the decades since.) Consider Methodist Reverend Adam Hamilton who when he wrote this book back in 2010 or preached this series of sermons back in 2005 had a large congregation consisting of YECs, OECs, and ECs. Today that congregation is over twenty thousand people in the K.C. metro area. Note the fourth sermon listed there: “Where did we come from? Apes, Evolution, Adam, and Eve.” which may be of particular interest. It’s an mp3 download (48 minutes to listen to, though most playback software allows you to listen at 1.5x or double speed which is often handy for such things.) While some of Hamilton’s material from that series is dated by now, much of what he says is still spot on and very grounded in the realities of God’s works (creation) and his word (scriptures). [Added: In that sermon, Hamilton showcases his awareness and sensitivity to present members of his congregation who are YEC, OEC, and EC – and I think how he does that is of enduring relevance to us now.]

How might you have reacted had you landed in such a church as that?

I hear and share your exasperation regarding folks like Robertson making proclamations about earthquakes and such. On an interesting side note, would you be surprised to hear that Robertson does not write off evolutionary science as he may have at one time? Change happens.

Whether or not you choose to re-engage, I’m glad you’re here. It sounds like you have quite a diverse background of church and life experience to share.
[with edits]

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