Why Do Young Evangelicals Leave The Faith?
In the US and Europe, there is a significant trend of Evangelical youths leaving the Christian faith, often identifying as religiously “unaffiliated.”
My former students live in more than two dozen countries. Some of them lead exemplary lives. A few of them quit the faith. I am particularly ashamed of one of my best students, an Indian girl, who joined the IDF. When I think of the younger generation of Christians in countries like the USA or South Korea, I am deeply pained. These points I have noted down are concerning exEvangelicals in the US. This may not be an exhaustive list. I hope to learn more.
- A number of evangelical children and teens were abused either physically or emotionally by pastors and church staff. “Spiritual abuse,” too, is common. Youths who need psychological or psychiatric help were denied professional help. Instead, pastors and parents who were ignorant of their actual need tried to spiritualize the problems faced by the youths. Is it any wonder that many left the church at the first available opportunity?
- Evangelicals often raise their kids in highly sheltered environments. Many fail to arm their children to give proper answers to people who promote alternate scientific theories or political views. Some American Christian homeschooling syllabi are so bad. (While living in Kenya, we were forced to follow one such curriculum because we didn’t have any other option.) When these sheltered children learn of evolution, they are unable to counter it. They don’t know how to defend the Gospel when faced with the New Age, Hinduism, Yoga, Islam, the Gender Ideology, the LGBT movement, etc. When some of them go to Bible Seminaries, their faith gets knocked off when they read the works of liberal sceptics!
An example that comes to my mind is Joshua Harris. He became the famous author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye by the time he was 20. Some years later, he became a pastor. And, then, he went on to pursue theological studies! He could not handle variant views and skepticisms. He also discovered how his books ruined the life of many young Christians. Instead of questioning his strict denomination and moving on to another Church, he quit the faith. (Many Asians welcomed his books without understanding how important dating was to Western culture!) - The authority of the Bible took a big hit when prominent Christian preachers and authors offered Christians a way to reconcile the theory of evolution and the creation narrative in the Bible. These authors and speakers were not experts or trained in science. They failed to understand that that Evolution took aim at the very foundations of the Christian faith. Some of them referred to Genesis 1–11 as a myth. Others invented theistic evolution. Whichever way they adopted, they were bending backwards to adopt a theory that did not stand the scrutiny of proper science.
- American evangelicals have distorted the Gospel by portraying America as something special for God. They created and promoted Christian nationalism. They justified American misdeeds in the wider world, be it unjustified wars or meddling in the affairs of other countries.
- American evangelicals follow the discredited model of Dispensationalism to interpret the Bible. This model gave rise to Zionism. Jesus and the apostles were not Zionists even though they faced a political situation in which the Jews were oppressed under Rome. The term “Christian Zionism” is therefore an oxymoron. The two don’t mix at all. Support for Zionism is irrational and unbiblical. The plight of the Palestinian church is ignored by the church. Every atrocity committed by the Zionist state is being justified in the name of Christian belief. Young evangelicals are troubled by all these things.
- A majority of White evangelicals are deeply racist. Racism is deeply embedded in their system. Most of them fail to recognize the perspective of the underdogs: the Blacks, Asians, South Asians, etc. Young evangelicals see through this hypocrisy.
- Long before this exodus of youths started, American evangelicals lost their moral right to preach the gospel. Families were disintegrating. Financial improprieties and sexual misconduct by the clery, normalisation of divorce and remarriage, prosperity gospel, etc., contributed to the disillusionment experienced by teens and youth.
- Majority of American evangelical leaders failed to deal with the rise of feminism in the church. On one hand, evangelical feminists had a few good demands. But when the feminists challenged the authority of the New Testament by saying, “Who cares about what Paul wrote?”, their leaders failed to do justice to the Word of God. John Piper and company fought valiantly. But some of these evangelical men lost their credibility among the youth because they supported a corrupt politician who pretended to be Christian.
- Evangelicals rightly hold on to biblical patriarchy. But when faced with evangelical feminism and the egalitarian view, very often they are unable to defend biblical patriarchy successfully. Why? Because they grossly erred in their definition of the term “image of God.”
The Western Church teaches that both men and women are made in the image of God. Any alternate view is viewed with suspicion because they think that that the concept of “image of God” is the very essence of being human. “Image of God” is NOT about being human. It’s about rulership. The Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern definition is about being God’s vice-regent on earth. God made man in his image. Adam was a king on earth in God’s place. When God made Eve, He did not make a second king. He made a queen for him. If you say that both Adam and Eve were made in God’s image, you are declaring that Adam and Eve were both equally kings. You won’t be able to teach about “male headship” in the family and the church. Is it any wonder that most Western church and families are in shambles?
If Biblical patriarchy and the Fatherhood of God have to be upheld, we must understand Pauline statement on image of God (1 Cor 7:11) in the light of this ancient definition. Otherwise, our claims of “male headship” in the family and the church cannot be upheld.
Evangelical youth are not able to uphold biblical patriarchy in today’s world where the focus is on “equality.” Men and women are not physical quantities to be compared and equalised. They are created different. They must uphold their differences and uniqueness.
The saddest thing is that Indian churches are aping Western evangelical churches: their music, their theology, their feminism, and their arrogance. When we throw open our doors to Western influence, even our youths get poisoned by the very ideas that drove youths out of American churches. And worse still, we adopt the same Dispensationalism, anti-intellectualism, and lifestyles of Western evangelicals. God help us.
*Pastor, Corpus Christi
Former HOD, Department of Religious Studies, Hebron School, Ooty
Former Academic Dean, IPTSK