Barna Group has conducted an online survey of 1296 people between the ages of 18-29, who in their teens were active in a Christian church, to determine their reasons for leaving the Church when they became adults. They claim to have found 5 myths about church dropouts, and 6 reasons why this happens. Their 5 “myths” are :
1. Most people lose their faith when they leave high school.
(One would hope so)2. Dropping out of church is just a natural part of young adults’ maturation.
(One would hope so)3. College experiences are the key factor that cause people to drop out.
(Translation : Drinking, drugs and sex can have detrimental effects on faith, and so can meeting rational people or unbelievers)4. This generation of young Christians is increasingly “biblically illiterate.”
(I think Christians are taught the nice bits from the NT in Sunday school, and often don’t bother with the rest, while reading the thing from front to end has produced many happy atheists)5. Young people will come back to church like they always do.
(Maybe they did when death, shunning or social isolation were still common reality for those who didn’t want to come back)
And the 6 purportedly “real” reasons for leaving the Church are :
1. Churches seem overprotective.
(I think the word is totalitarian)
2. Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
(To me, Christianity is shallow. Shallow and what’s worse, a lie)
3. Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
(that’s because faith is the opposite of science)
4. Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
(no kidding !)
5. They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
(just like the other 35000 religious sects who are convinced that their god is the real one)
6. The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.
(the understatement of the century)
I could have saved Barna Group the time and effort. You want to know why young people stop going to church or believing in god when they go to College or Uni, when they leave their parents’ house and sphere of influence ? Because finally, they can.
