Among all things, could debates about the age of the earth, intelligent design versus evolution, and six-day versus gradual creation be drawing young people away from the Christian faith?
Ken Ham, famous for his Answers in Genesis creation-science ministry, says a major study he commissioned reveals the reasons why many young people are leaving the Church. According to
a recent article, a respected researcher uncovered that two-thirds of young people in evangelical churches will leave as they approach their 20s.
In Ham's new book, "Already Gone: Why Your Kids Quit Church and What You Can Do to Stop it," a collaborative effort with researcher Britt Beemer, church youth are already "lost" in their hearts and minds during elementary and high school, not college as many expect.
Beemer conducted this study via phone interviews and surveys with 1,000 20 to 29 year-olds who used to attend evangelical churches on a daily basis.
The results struck Ham with surprise. According to these interviews and surveys, children who faithfully attended Bible schools are more likely to question Scriptural authority and eventually fall away from the church. He calls this the "Sunday school syndrome."
The survey reveals that children who regularly attend Sunday school are more likely to leave the Church, believe that the Bible is less true, defend the legality of abortion and same-sex marriage and defend premarital sex.
Although Ham believes that there are various reasons for this, he thinks the source of the problem is how churches and parents teach children to interpret the creation account in Genesis.
Ham firmly believes in six-day creation that occurred 6,000 to 10,000 years ago and argues that the Church opened up the door for the exodus of youth in the 19th century as soon as they began teaching that "the age of the Earth is not an issue as long as you trust in Jesus and believe in the resurrection and the Gospel accounts."
Ham believes that the youth of younger generations may have been better able to deal with this inconsistency and hold onto their faith, but today, with a highly secular and athiestic public education system, it becomes harder for young people to mesh together what they have learned at church and in school.
According to Ham, when parents and teachers tell kids that it's okay to believe in evolution that occurred over millions of years, they come to believe that what they learned in school is always correct. And what is taught in school has nothing to do with, and often contradicts, what Scripture teaches.
After reviewing the survey results, Ham came to the conclusion that as soon as youth believe that Scripture is not the authority on the creation of the universe, they instantly question Scriptural authority as a whole. This is dangerous, because the foundation of Christianity rests on Scripture.
In Ham's book, he intends to prevent youth from leaving Christianity by proving that the Bible connects to reality and is based on history.
Why do you think many youth are drifting away from Christianity? Do you think it has anything to with confusion about the origin of the universe and humanity, as Ham argues?
Comments (685)
@S_K_O_T@xanga - I was just trying to find out if u were a racist a hole too
gender +gender=good
race+race=good
@SandPaperTears666@xanga - Racist?
There's another cliched, hack, liberal guilt-phrase...right there with 'homo-phobe'.
I'm definitely a racialist, and God made the different races...and once in a long while when some people are deserving it, yes, I'll be racist.
Some meeting, some inter-marriage, some inter-mixing is very good, is wonderful, is healthy....but I also don't want to see humanity turned into a dull muddy mess....there are different races, rejoice in that, Vive Le Difference!
There are many amazing girls and women around the world, and God know's I'd love to marry one of them!
The races are the races...and over the millenia, if people hadn't protected themselves, the races, ethnicities, and nationalities would no longer exist....and don't forget, another thing in common, ALL races, ALL ethnicities, ALL nations, ALL peoples forbid and condemn "homo-sexuality" which is AS great a threat to any people as any external force.
Some degree, some form, of 'racism' is at least sometimes, to some degree, necessary....there is absolutely NO good point, and NO value in biased, barren, dead-end "homo-sexuality".
Racist?....well, far beyond, and much worse than, that...those so arrogantly going "gay" or "lesbian" are the very worst SEXISTS!
And depending upon which gender they are, that they self-idolise, that they self-obsess over, it is then the absolute worst extreme of misogyny or misandry!
The callous, cruel, irresponsible, arrogant vanity of "homo-sexuality" is the Everest of SEXISM !
And your glib, grey, dull, monotonal equation of 'gender + gender = good' is just so completely and totally wrong.
...same + same = zero.
It is one gender, Male + the other gender, Female that = GOOD.
Male + Female = LIFE !
"Those indulging in this biased, elitist, vain, "same -sex" 'lifestyle' clearly despise...or, at best, barely tolerate' those of the DIFFERENT gender. They are clearly, yet completely unjustly, entirely and cruelly prejudicial!"
Most of the gay men I know get along fine with women. They are just not attracted to them in a sexual way. They sort of treat them the way another woman would treat a woman.
I am utterly disgusted by Ham's conclusion that students "who regularly attend Sunday School are more likely to ... defend the legality of ... same-sex marriage...." He says it like it's an outright bad thing! What a close-minded idiot! I have regularly attended Sunday School for a year now. I am 18 years old. I am constantly growing stronger in my faith, diving into the Word, praying to God, but I ALSO defend the legality of same-sex marriage. The "legality" of it has NOTHING to do with Christianity or God. Yes, God created the law, but the law is in the hands of people that may not necessarily be in the hands of God. It doesn't matter whether one believes same-sex marriage is right or wrong. God gave people free wills, and He wants them to use it, even though they may choose the wrong thing sometimes. That's HIS business.
@scepticjoe - "Most of the gay men I know get along fine
with women. They are just not attracted to them in a sexual way. They
sort of treat them the way another woman would treat a woman."
I agree with you. My best guy friend was gay. He was better than any girl friend I ever had.
I'm catholic now, and I used to go a evangelical church. I will never go back to the evangelical church again. Maybe young adults are leaving because of the religon, not because of the school system.
The reason why young people are leaving the church is primarily from lack of involvement. I know there are youth groups and things like that, but there is a lack of community in our "community churches" that falls far short. An example of this is that it is easier to get 50 congregants to donate to a missionary in Africa to dig a well than it is to get 3 congregants to donate 3 hours a month at a local soup kitchen. There is no responsibility of time in the church anymore and therefore no reward.
If church is all about laws, behavior modification, think like we do and you'll go to heaven and no time for those outside the church, no time loving the world, of course they will want to leave.
I know there will be those who take issue with "loving the world" because we are called to be in the world and not of the world, but you have to realize that God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son. If we are to be Christlike, we must love the world as well.
The church has also allowed the words of Paul to become like the bondage of OT scripture. There is much more emphasis on his letters than the Gospels of Christ. How much time do we really spend on the sermon on the mount anyway but instead we quote Paul about acceptable behavior.
The whole point of the events of Christ was to free us. Our relationship with God was no longer that of law but rather "what you do unto the least of My Brethren you do unto Me" and "I and the Father are One". What we do to our fellow man, how we treat them, how we spend time with them IS OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. Much more so than prayers every night or before meals. Prayers are important, but they should not be a substitute for our responsibility to show God's compassion.
There is also a problem of the feeling that there is no freedom to make mistakes as a Christian. We are taught that we a a new creation when we accept Christ, yet we are still human. Christian is supposed to mean Christ-like and -- well-- a messiah is a lot to live up to. However we are taught that the Bible has all the answers in life, so if we mess up we are kind of unclean again. So we ask for forgiveness... again. All this time on our knees, very few learn how to WALK with our Savior. Most young people don't get past the alter, and as a result lose interest.
When the "like mindedness of Christ" isn't decided for us, but rather learned together, the church will be in less danger of becoming irrelevant.
When a single expectant mother (teenage or otherwise) becomes embraced rather embarrassed by the church or is the church scandal (there by increasing the probability of abortion), the church will be in less danger of becoming irrelevant.
In the end, because our relationship with God (as defined above) is falling through the cracks, I don't expect young people to stay in the church. Less apologetics. Less law (OT or Paul). Less condemnation of others. More Christlike behavior. More focusing on the Sermon on the Mount.
(oh yeah, less Creationism as well too. Gen 2 says that Adam was created before there was light which is direct contradiction with Gen 1. If you are going to put out Creationism as science, you can't just ignore the order of creation given in the account of Adam and Eve. If you do then you cede that parts of the Bible isn't literarlly true--- which is the whole point of the Creationist arguement,,,,,,,,,,, however that is another arguement for another day)
Sure, kids are confused about where we come from and if God is real, etc, etc, etc. But you want to know the real reason kids are leaving the church? Hypocrisy. Church teaches kids about God's ever-enduring love, how he loves every single person. It also teaches them that no sin is any greater than another. But look at the church, they don't love everyone. They don't love homosexuals, transexuals, cross-dressers, or anyone else they consider to be "living in sin". well guess what! we're ALL living in sin, and if no one sin is greater than another, the church should be shunning every single person, because we all fall short, not just certain groups of people. Christianity is supposed to be about love, faith, acceptance, and forgiveness for everyone, not a few select individuals. And kids can pick that up at any age. Like when their christian parents tell them to be friends with everyone on the playground, but then when they find out susie has two mommys, well you can't go over to susie's house. God forbid you "catch" the homosexual "disease". And don't even get me started on how we can send missionaries to foreign countries to preach to tiny tribes in africa, but we can't even preach to everyone here in America. I'll join the church again when they stop the high and mighty act, accept that we're all sinners and fall short of the glory of God (as the bible states), and start loving everyone like God wants us to.
Anyways, that's a couple of examples from a seemingly never-ending list of why this "kid" and many, many, many others are leaving the church.
****EDIT****
And please, don't tell me kids are leaving for lack of involvement. I was highly involved in church up until i was 18 years old, I was part of the worship team, the youth group, bible studies, teaching sunday school and VBS. I LIVED the church until one day, it dawned on me. What if i were different? what if i weren't straight? What if I liked to dress like a boyinstead of a girl? Would the church still love me? Would the church still help me learn and grow in Christ? and as I listened very intently and watched and learned, I found my answer. No, they would not. And not because I had any less drive to learn about God or any less faith in the religion, but because they would be too focused on my "sins" to see past them. They would first focus on "un-gaying" me before they would help me in my quest for spiritual truth. And as soon as I realized that, it was over for me. The church no longer made sense, because it wasn't about God anymore. It was about human judgement. And i personally don't believe God put me or anyone else on this planet to judge the lives of others. Rather, He put us on this planet to love others. And not a select group of others, but everyone regardless of race or sexual orientation or anything else. God is love, and it is His and only His job to judge us.
public schools are not atheistic, they're just for us people who can't afford to send kids to schools with ridiculous tuition. I'm about to enter 12th grade at a public school, and I've been in one my whole life, I love it and I know it has nothing to do with why young people are leaving the church.
I'd say the thing about more kids that go to sunday school leave the church is because most kids aren't going to sunday school out of choice, their parents are making them, therefore they're miserable and want to get as far away from church as possible.
There are a variety of factors that are causing it, not just one reason alone. I have seriously considered becoming a Christian, but the reason it hasn't yet happened for me is because of the way some "Christians" act.