You love your children. You raised them in church. You model the behavior you expect. You are active in their lives. You have a loving home. Yet, as soon as they can, your children leave the church. WHY?
I can tell you from experience that this is true. I watched it happen in my own family. And we attended a liberal church with relatively little dogma.
For about ten minutes, I wondered why.
Now, I see the answer quite clearly.
There could be many reasons. There probably are. Let us look at some of those reasons and then look at the one that wins the contest, the one that leaves the others in the dust.
What are the reasons?
In no particular order:
- No perceived relevance to their lives
- Faith disconnect
- Peer pressure
- (A) bad experience(s)
No perceived relevance to their lives
As they get older, children try to relate their experiences to larger generalizable ways of looking at the world. That includes their personal circle of family and friends, their wider world of school and then work, and finally to the great big world of society with its politics, its conventions and its rules.
If church becomes so dogmatic and inflexible that children do not see how its teachings affect their lives in ways that they can understand, they will immediately tune out.
Faith disconnect
Faith is a tricky thing.
We rightly teach children to think critically. Parents do every day. So do teachers. Preachers and Sunday School teachers not so much. They teach children NOT to think critically, not to question.
Not to disagree.
Not to speak out.
Not to overturn the tables in the Temple.
Do you wonder what these conflicting messages do?
The truth is, you know the answer.
It might have been a good strategy in the 19th century to tell children that talking snakes are real and that two (or 14) of every animal on Earth lived within walking distance of Noah’s house, or that one could cast gold jewelry into a fire and retrieve a bull idol.
When they get older, tell them that the theologies of Yeshua and Paul the Letter Writer were the same. Go ahead.
Tell them that what is obvious (to anyone who thinks) that what is clearly symbolic and ritualistic is real flesh and blood. Use magic words.
Tell those things to a child today and he will likely laugh in your face (or just go back to Mario kart).
Peer pressure
Peer pressure is insidious and metastatic. It is extremely powerful. If peer pressure is strongly pulling a child away from church, those who would oppose such a change must act quickly but with extreme tact.
A direct opposition often leads to stronger resistance. Parenting is never easy.
(A) bad experience(s)
There can be many such experiences ranging from unfriendly peers to absolutely depraved and criminal behavior by church leaders. You might think this is an exaggeration.
IT SHOULD BE BUT IT’S NOT.
Pick up a newspaper. Any day. Catholic priests, Baptist youth leaders, Methodist preachers, the list never ends. Church leaders who molest children. The most unholy thing I could imagine.
Are these the primary reasons?
These four reasons why children leave the church are all quite true and are at work in every possible configuration in any church. These are not, however, I believe, the primary reasons of which there is only one.
The primary reason is HYPOCRISY.
Every seminarian learns how the Bible was created, by whom, for what purpose and when.
The way churches present the Bible and its stories to children (and adults) and the way churches expect belief in dogma and label any disagreement as WRONG or EVIL, is highly counter-productive.
The Bible’s production, itself, is the closest thing to a miracle that we can see and touch and feel. That we can hold in our hands. Yet we do everything we can to make it all look like a magic show with props.
They see the news and what is happening around the world. Poverty, disease, war, genocide, cultural hatred, anti-LGBTQ positions taken by the church.
They cannot possibly be expected to respect the teachings of an institution that prioritizes physical, man-made objects and buildings over help extended to people in need. The Christian church today is the most hypocritical institution we have.
If any institution should be honest with its members and supporters, it is the church. And yet churches are among the worst offenders when it comes to honesty. They lie and then wonder why people leave.
Until that changes, your children will continue to abandon your church.
I am certain that not everyone will agree with my opinions. I invite you to comment. Positively or negatively. Please comment.
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