{"id":560,"date":"2024-04-04T15:11:38","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T20:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/reflectionsofarecoveringevangelical\/?p=560"},"modified":"2024-04-04T15:11:38","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T20:11:38","slug":"buckets-of-reasons-people-are-leaving-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/reflectionsofarecoveringevangelical\/2024\/04\/buckets-of-reasons-people-are-leaving-christianity\/","title":{"rendered":"Buckets of Reasons People Are Leaving Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
In my last column, I wrote that we (the United States) are becoming less religious. It prompted a good deal of discussion and most of it was civil. That is one of the goals I have for this column: civil discussion about important issues.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m following up that article with this one which will address the question of \u201cWhy.\u201d Why are people leaving their religious faith and traditions behind? It is less researched than the phenomenon of de-churching, which is plain to see.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll offer up\u00a0three buckets of reasons<\/strong>\u00a0why this is happening.<\/p>\n
Leaving one\u2019s religious beliefs and affiliation behind is a personal decision. Each person has their unique reasons for ditching a belief system which in some cases, they\u2019ve known their whole lives. So, to try and generalize too far about why millions of people in the United States have decided to do so over the past three decades may be fraught with error and oversimplification. But let\u2019s give it a try, shall we?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How many people are we talking about? According to a September 2022\u00a0Pew study<\/a>, people identifying as Christian have decreased from 90% of the U.S. population in 1972 to 64% in 2020. And in the aftermath of the COVID crisis, that number is now lower. Those identified as \u201cnone\u201d comprise roughly 30% of the population. So, three out of ten Americans no longer identify as a Christian or \u201creligious.\u201d<\/p>\n
The future for religion doesn\u2019t look much brighter. If the current trends continue, researchers estimate that by 2070, less than 50% of the US population will still be identified as \u201cChristian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, this certainly has ramifications in every sphere of culture, society, and our institutions. But let\u2019s get back to the fundamental question of why.<\/p>\n
Why are people leaving the church? Researchers are on this, and there are a few good studies that have identified dozens of reasons given<\/p>\n
by those who have been interviewed.<\/p>\n
Why I Left Evangelical Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n
Since no one has interviewed me, I\u2019ll offer a first-hand account of my decision to leave Christianity behind. It happened around 2006. My experience was a slow, gradual migration out of the evangelical circles I had lived in for over 40 years. I was \u201cborn-again\u201d in 1964 at a Billy Graham Crusade, and until 2006, I identified as an evangelical. I taught in private Christian schools and participated in various local conservative churches as a teacher and youth sponsor.<\/p>\n
Over the years I developed what I called, \u201cevangelical fatigue.\u201d It was a combination of factors that are common within evangelical communities. You had to accept other people\u2019s religious interpretations as more valid than your own; oppose rational science; pretend to be something different than a normal human on Sundays while attending church; learn to speak the secret language that evangelicals use; and generally, work hard to gain the approval of God, pastors, and other people. It was exhausting.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ll point to two major factors beyond just general evangelical fatigue with the religious system that ultimately led to my exodus out of the church. The first was the politicization of evangelical churches and the second, was a lack of empathy and concern for personal pain during a difficult time in my life.<\/p>\n
I was confronted as early as 1980 with the sage advice that I better be voting for Ronald Reagan that year if I were a \u201cgood Christian.\u201d That was rather shocking to me since many evangelicals had voted for the Democrat, Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, including me. Carter was the Baptist Sunday School teacher who was faithful to his wife and spoke of being born again, while Reagan was the divorced nominal Presbyterian (no disrespect to Presbyterians) who seldom attended church. Yet my faith was called into question if I supported Carter. This made no sense.<\/p>\n
But the evangelical faith continued unabated politicization over the next 20 years with each year getting worse. By the early 2000s, evangelicals had taken over many Republican Party state and local organizations, especially in Iowa. They infused politics with a winner-take-all, apocalyptic mindset that demonized their opponents and pressured any evangelical who had a different policy position than the Republican Party. They were called RINOs. It was becoming apparent to me that the \u201cchurch\u201d was by then set on a trajectory toward pure political power at the expense of any meaningful \u201cgood news\u201d that was related to the teachings of Jesus. In fact, by then Jesus was an afterthought, if that.<\/p>\n
But there was another issue for me that had surfaced by the early 1990s. Politics was certainly concerning, but I faced a personal crisis in 1993 that ended up in a divorce from my first wife who was also the mother of our two children.<\/p>\n
Divorce was an existential crisis if you were involved in any sort of Christian ministry. Instead of reaching out with care, support, and help, both my ex-wife and I were subject to judgment and dis-membership in the leadership roles we had at the time in our respective evangelical ministries. The divorce was amicable, and we tried to do what was best for our children, but the evangelicals in our lives seemed more interested in the \u201ccompromised role model\u201d we had become. Shaming someone in distress was more important to them than loving someone in a crisis.<\/p>\n
That event along with the disillusionment of the political motivations of evangelicals set me on a private journey of personal reflection, doubt, and questioning over the next decade or more. Those are three things evangelicals do not want you to do: think for yourself, doubt what you\u2019ve been taught, and ask difficult questions. But I did, and by 2006, I became aware that I was no longer part of the evangelical community. I just couldn\u2019t do it anymore. I wasn\u2019t angry at anyone, and I didn\u2019t leave in a huff. I just in good conscience could no longer call myself an evangelical. I had moved on and finally admitted it.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t realize it at the time, but I was part of a growing number of people who were experiencing a similar thing. I didn\u2019t know about the \u201cnones\u201d in 2006 and I didn\u2019t hear that term until much later. However, my experience has paralleled the experience of millions of others who came to terms with their evangelical mindset and found it lacking.<\/p>\n
Another descriptive term I learned later was \u201cdeconstruction.\u201d I had deconstructed my faith but rather than leave the pieces lying around, I reconstructed something for myself that has proven to be much more rewarding, fulfilling, and satisfying. It isn\u2019t a new belief system or religion it is the opposite. It is the rejection of relying on a belief system to find connection and meaning in my life. If you want to read more about this, I will point you to my book,\u00a0Confessions of a Recovering Evangelical<\/a>. I hope you will check it out.<\/p>\n