I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I still can't really come up with a good answer. It originally formulated in my mind at night school, where I heard about 5 students say they had grown up in a solid Christian home but have since disregarded their parents teaching and beliefs.
What makes people do this? Is it teachers? Bad experiences? Arguments against Christianity that sound great until you think about them? What is it?
Feel free to post your thoughts, I'd love to hear.
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5 comments:
First of all not many can turn away from a real God that they have experienced and honestly believed in. It's really easy to turn away from the dusty old God that we have just herd about though - really easy. People have said to themselves "I know what being a christian is all about I've been there and done that" when they've never touched on anything more than legalism or blinded passion. Let's face it life seems easier when you don't have to subscribe to a determined belief system that requires everything of you and asks you to take up electric chair daily and sacrifice everthing. But it is totally worth it.
along the same sorta lines... a major reason i could see/i have seen people leave is that christianity isnt all its cracked up to be. or, it doesnt seem to be the same as it should be.
example: someone hears about jesus all his life. how jesus brings peace and joy and fulfillment and satisfaction. how jesus makes life worth living. how jesus makes problems go away. how prayer fixes things. and yet in their own life, they do not experience these things. christianity fails to provide what it is supposed to, for whatever reasons... and so they grow disillusioned.
not necessarily anyones fault persay, just discrepancies between how its *supposed* to work, and how reality works.
and a solution? stop portraying christianity as something its not.
I think that's a big question w/many possible answers... Those noted already, the general alurement of what the world offers... Some only learn by doing.. Perhaps they need to find the emptiness without God; really experience it - not just believe it - before understanding faith! So perhaps "leaving the faith" is finding it the hard way...
I've heard some say that they walked away from Christianity because of the tough questions that they thought the Bible couldn't answer.
I've seen people walk away due to family or emotional issues.
I've seen people walk away because they were offered something more attractive. Either it was plain fun or it was a relationship with a non-Christian.
I've seen some walk away as a rejection of authority, out of bitterness, or because they took offense at someone. Rejection of family often ties into this one.
I've seen some walk away because the church or a Christian let them down.
I've seen some walk away because they were exhausted.
I've seen some walk away because they were lazy.
I've heard some people pretend that they were still involved in church even though that wasn't true.
I've heard people say why they left church and/or Christianity but what they said wasn't the real reason.
Most frequently, I see people come to God in two ways: friendship with a Christian, or learning about God with the Alpha program. There are other reasons but those are the most common reasons that I have seen.
To come back to the original question, I think that a lack of true, deep friendship with other Christians is the main reason people leave God. A Christian family is fine but you're not going to deal with all of the reasons above by yourself or just because you're in a Christian home. The reasons I mentioned above are genuine and we do need to open up and deal with them properly and continually.
You may all be wondering why I'm asking such a question...but I really wanted to know as for witnessing. Understanding why people who have grown up with God their whole life would leave him so drastically is (I think) important to understanding how to draw them back. Probably friendship and being an example through the way you live is most important.
Thanks for the comments everyone! Very helpful. :)
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