Why “Religious Nones” left the church, according to an article in Fox News 11 September 2018.
J. Warner Wallace commented on recent surveys of young people who describe themselves a “nothing in particular” when asked if they identify with any particular religious group. Wallace described them as “ex-Christians, and most are under the age of 35”. A 2018 Pew survey indicated that they main reason they left the church was because they disagreed with the teachings of the church and didn’t like religious organisations or leaders. However, Wallace noted the survey gave people options to choose such as “question a lot of religious teaching”, or “don’t like the positions churches take on social/political issues,” but it did not give the people the opportunity to write their own reasons.
Wallace then quotes from a 2016 survey that did allow them to express themselves. In this survey, the common reasons given included:
“Learning about evolution when I went away to college”
“Rational thought makes religion go out the window”
“Lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator”
“I just realized somewhere along the line that I didn’t really believe it”
“Learning about evolution when I went away to college”
“Rational thought makes religion go out the window”
“Lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator”
“I just realized somewhere along the line that I didn’t really believe it”
Wallace summarised the results: “In this study, most “nones” said they no longer identified with a religious group because they no longer believed it was true.” He concluded with the following challenge: “It’s time for believers to accept their responsibility to explain what Christianity proposes and why these propositions are true, especially when interacting with young people who have legitimate questions. Rather than embracing a blind or unreasonable faith, Christians must develop an informed, forensic faith that can stand up in the marketplace of ideas.”
Editorial Comment: Wallace’s challenge is a good one, especially to those who think they can avoid facing the clear differences between what the Bible tells us about our origin, as described in Genesis and affirmed in the rest of Scripture, and what the atheists teach, as described by evolutionary theories. Trying to put a veneer of God over what atheists believe fools no-one, except those who value their credibility in the secular academic world above the Word of God, but for some reason want to remain in the church. There was, and is, no need to compromise with those who claim everything and everyone got here by evolutionary processes.
Evolution makes God an optional extra whom young people are smart enough to realise is unnecessary specially when they have been taught that the atheist’s view of the world from Kindergarten onwards is reality i.e. scientific fact, and the Bible is just moral stories imposed on the real world. Whereas, in fact, the Creator God is the real Fact, and the Bible is the real history of the real world. Therefore, the church needs to be clearly teaching what the Bible actually says about creation, sin, judgement and salvation, and presenting the abundant the scientific and historical factual evidence that backs this up. Creation Research.
