People are leaving church because

[Secret Chief]

Nice and cool in the draughty old ones now I should imagine. Worth going in just for that.

Went to the supermarket yesterday - air-con city. Must go shopping more often...and for longer

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

The primary reason why I left the Christian church is because I renounced my faith and belief in God. And the second reason I left the church was perfectly described in this post by @1213. The hypocrisy I saw in other conservative Christians that I either knew in real life or interacted with online and the way these Christians treated me after they learned that I refused to support Trump (and I voted for Joe Biden and other Democrats instead) definitely contributed to my decision to reject Christianity and leave the Christian church.

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” - Brennan Manning

 

[idea]

So I thought this would be a good topic. I am just wondering how many Christians out here have left church.

I left, started with clergy abuse of kid, then avalanched to seeing all the problems (sexism, anti-science, confusion/contentions between denominations, learning what "the spirit" sensation really is, etc etc.

 

[metis]

Based on what I read and hear dealing with the polls and my own observations, I think it's a bit of "all of the above", and this just didn't start with covid.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

I think these articles and the video are worthy of consideration for the topic of the thread. In my opinion, I think the video is spot on and I recommend watching it. I also recommend doing some research online for yourself about why people are leaving the church. I think being informed is a good thing. There are a plethora of articles trying to explain why people are leaving the church in droves.

Barna Poll: Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church

USA Today: Why American Christians are turning people off from the Church

Pew Research Center: In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

 

[Wildswanderer]

So I thought this would be a good topic. I am just wondering how many Christians out here have left church.

All of the above.

 

[Twilight Hue]

None of the above.

People are leaving chuch, congratulations congregations declining, for several years. My view is the better education and communication (internet etc) are the cause.

Definitely. I agree. People are more educated on how the world and universe actually works, and abandoned the mythological and supernatural stories and tales drummed up by ancient goat farmers and fishermen.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

people-are-leaving-church-because

Several reasons:

• The appearance of best sellers and the rise of the Internet have given humanists a platform (like RF) and made atheism much more respectable.
• Scandal after scandal has flown by since the rise of the televangelists in the 70's continuing today, right up to the church pedophilia cover up and the failed Palin and Duggar examples of Christian family values. Jim Jones and David Koresh didn't help the church any.
• The entertainment media mostly depict the church and clergy as hypocritical or ineffectual.
• People are put off by Christian homophobia and hell theology.
• People are put off the religious incursion into government and people's freedoms. The Handmaid's Tale look isn't a good one for the church.
• Science and evolution have made atheism more tenable.
• People find the church and religion increasingly less relevant in daily life. It doesn't meet their contemporary needs.

 

[Ashoka]

I left for many reasons. Past trauma, rejection of friends who said they would "always be there." Also, the god of the bible is a monster, and his people are (mostly, not always) carrying out terrible things in his name. I don't want to be part of it. So I left.

 

[Aštra’el]

There are many reasons. Great religions rise, and they fall, and they may even rise again. Culture does the same. It rises and falls, it shifts and it changes.

Today, social media in particular has completely fractured the minds of those who spend their days in the internet obsessing over Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, etc. It is all destroying peoples’ sense of culture. Rarely do they have any genuine religious identity, rarely do they embrace any concept of a national identity. It’s no wonder they are so confused about who they are and so desperate for attention. They are broken and cultureless. Confused. Undisciplined. Shadows of their former selves.

This is one reason.

Another? Some people do not resonate with Christian culture. Many people, even. It’s not for them. Perhaps they left on good terms, or maybe they obsess over it night and day bringing it up in every conversation. Maybe they never joined at all.

There are many people who expect religious communities to make significant cultural changes, so that the individual might feel accepted no matter what. They expect their church, coven or whoever to to make special accommodations and “affirm” their unacceptable and incompatible choices, behavior and lifestyle. No. It is the individual who must make some adjustments to his or her own life, if one seeks to be truly welcomed into a genuine religious community.

I would take a small yet genuinely devout religious family, over a large community of uncommitted hypocrites. Perhaps it is for the best that certain people do not walk through those doors.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Reminds me of the time I was in church and the pastor knowing full well I was the only openly transgender person in the audience went on a rant at the pulpit about all transgender folk being pedophiles. She of course did this while staring directly at me. She also said she'd never allow a transgender person in her church...And many of the congregants were like Amen.

I would've walked out but I was a young teen and it was my foster mother's sister who was the pastor and I didn't want to get in trouble when I got home.

Yikes!

These attitudes are so ill-fitting for a religion founded by a mythological figure who would be more likely chilling with the so-called "sinners."

 

[VoidCat]

Yikes!

These attitudes are so ill-fitting for a religion founded by a mythological figure who would be more likely chilling with the so-called "sinners."

If Jesus really was born of a virgin named Mary it'd be through parthenogenesis. Which mean he wouldve had XX chromosomes. That means jesus was likely trans.

 

[Ashoka]

Reminds me of the time I was in church and the pastor knowing full well I was the only openly transgender person in the audience went on a rant at the pulpit about all transgender folk being pedophiles. She of course did this while staring directly at me. She also said she'd never allow a transgender person in her church...And many of the congregants were like Amen.

I would've walked out but I was a young teen and it was my foster mother's sister who was the pastor and I didn't want to get in trouble when I got home.

That's so horrible. I am so sorry this happened to you.

 

[Riders]

There are many reasons. Great religions rise, and they fall, and they may even rise again. Culture does the same. It rises and falls, it shifts and it changes.

Today, social media in particular has completely fractured the minds of those who spend their days in the internet obsessing over Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, etc. It is all destroying peoples’ sense of culture. Rarely do they have any genuine religious identity, rarely do they embrace any concept of a national identity. It’s no wonder they are so confused about who they are and so desperate for attention. They are broken and cultureless. Confused. Undisciplined. Shadows of their former selves.

This is one reason.

Another? Some people do not resonate with Christian culture. Many people, even. It’s not for them. Perhaps they left on good terms, or maybe they obsess over it night and day bringing it up in every conversation. Maybe they never joined at all.

There are many people who expect religious communities to make significant cultural changes, so that the individual might feel accepted no matter what. They expect their church, coven or whoever to to make special accommodations and “affirm” their unacceptable and incompatible choices, behavior and lifestyle. No. It is the individual who must make some adjustments to his or her own life, if one seeks to be truly welcomed into a genuine religious community.

I would take a small yet genuinely devout religious family, over a large community of uncommitted hypocrites. Perhaps it is for the best that certain people do not walk through those doors.

Yes, and the old-timey rigid churches will go out of style too. I may be getting a job setting appointments for office supplies for businesses. I was thinking if I get it Id be calling lots of retail and book stores, and even though I would not call for any adult stores, my old church would not approve. Unless you're going to a Christian book store secular book stores are evil. So even if I stay away from any obvious group like x rated businesses if my church knew they still would say its wrong!

 

[blü 2]

I am just wondering how many Christians out here have left church.

There was a time when I was 14 when I wanted to go to Confirmation classes and be confirmed as a Pisco ─ because I had the idea in my head that the secrets of, in particular, the afterlife were held in club, and you had to join the club, become a member to get hold of them.

I can't pretend to perfectly reconstruct my state of mind from this distance, but I think it was because nothing else made sense.

At Confirmation Classes, the omens weren't good. I'd start to ask my questions about the afterlife and (instead of leveling with me and saying, No one has a clue) be cheerfully interrupted and be told either that we'd come to that later, which we never did, or that I just needed to read my Catechism, which I'd done and of course found nothing meaningful.

But I went ahead, and was confirmed, and everyone was in a good mood. And nothing happened, nothing changed, no epiphany was provided, no secret was revealed.

So the natural result followed ─ within a couple of months I'd drifted away and have never found a reason to go back.

Part of me is still fond of the Piscos, I admit. Through them I know most of the hymns at funerals, and I wince when another foolish scandal gets in the press, and so on; and I feel a bit sad that they, like so much else, are divided clearly into left / liberal / accepting and right / rigid / excluding. I don't mind if they do my funeral ─ they run a good ceremony, and you need a good ceremony.

Even if they don't have any answers.

 

[1213]

Do you have any evidence for this?

Do you mean for that they are hypocrites? One reason why I think they are hypocrites is that, by what I see, they say Jesus is God, but don't respect him enough to teach what he taught. Instead of that they teach their own doctrines that are in contradiction with words of Jesus. They are not loyal to Jesus and his teachings and don't live by them. And this is why I have heard many think they (the leaders) are not credible and many who believe in God don't like them, because they are not loyal to God, nor Jesus. That is the idea what I have gotten by listening people. I have no way to give recording of that. But, don't worry, you don't have to believe me.

 

[1213]

...
What people often want from a church leader is single minded absolute assurance. They want a rock solid assurance of whatever the creeds are. They want that person to speak with no reservations about whatever is to be corporately assured, and they want them to speak cleverly and lively. That is the #1 requirement: not experience, not humility, not good children and a good marriage, not a successful person, not any kind of good fruit. No, what people want is the right words; and when they get corrupt leadership they are surprised.

Thanks, that is interesting to know. Apparently there are lot of different people. And maybe those who still go to Church wants just that.

 

[exchemist]

Do you mean for that they are hypocrites? One reason why I think they are hypocrites is that, by what I see, they say Jesus is God, but don't respect him enough to teach what he taught. Instead of that they teach their own doctrines that are in contradiction with words of Jesus. They are not loyal to Jesus and his teachings and don't live by them. And this is why I have heard many think they (the leaders) are not credible and many who believe in God don't like them, because they are not loyal to God, nor Jesus. That is the idea what I have gotten by listening people. I have no way to give recording of that. But, don't worry, you don't have to believe me.

No. I mean do you have evidence that this is the reason why people are leaving, if indeed they are leaving, which seems open to doubt, at least in the USA.

 

[pearl]

People leave the church simply because it's incapable to withstand modern challenges.

The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or he will not exist at all. Karl Rahner

Unless the Christian religion is lived from the heart, from the experience of God in some way, it will be empty and will not be attractive. If it’s a purely institutional form of life, or even if it’s an interesting intellectual exercise, it doesn’t have the vitality that comes from the interior experience of the presence of God. And that, as I have been saying in all my work, is the mystical element in religion. (Prof Bernard McGinn)

Is not listening to the pulse of wonder worth silence and abstinence from self-assertion? Why do we not set aside an hour for devotion to God by surrendering to stillness. We dwell on the edge of mystery and ignore it, wasting our souls and risking our stake in God. (Heschel)

No man who seeks liberation and light in solitude, no man who seeks spiritual freedom can afford to yield passively to all the appeals of a society of salesmen, advertisers and consumers… Keep your eyes clear and your ears quiet and your mind serene. Breathe God’s air. Work, if you can, under His sky… But if you have to live in a city and work among machines and ride in the subways and eat in a place where the radio makes you deaf with spurious news and where the food destroys your life and the sentiments of those around you poison your heart with boredom, do not be impatient, but accept it as the love of God and as a seed of solitude planted in your soul. If you are appalled by those things you will keep your appetite for the healing silence of recollection. But meanwhile keep your sense of compassion for the men who have forgotten the very concept of solitude. (Thomas Merton)

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

is all destroying peoples’ sense of culture

I have a global sense of culture. When aliens are a thing, I will add them to my culture.