Why Do Our Children Leave the Faith?

“Mr. Jones, this is the police. We have your son here; he was arrested for possession of marijuana… “Mom, I’m pregnant…” “Dad & Mom there’s something I have to tell you, I’m gay.”  “You force me to go to church, and now that I’m 18, I want you to know that I am an atheist and will never go again!!”

Nothing strikes fear, guilt, and grief into a parent’s heart like hearing that their child has chosen to turn their back on our cherished beliefs.  When they embrace a lifestyle that we not only don’t agree with, but also have spent all of their childhood years trying to inoculate them against, many parents sink into despair and say, “How did I fail?” Others may reject the child, cutting him or her off from the family until they repent. In their anger, they blame the devil, blame the church, the pastor, or God, even leave the faith themselves.

I believe the #1 reason children reject God is that they feel shame when they think of Him. Inadvertently as parents, we use shame to teach them obedience. After all, that’s how our parents taught us right and wrong. Shame is toxic. It can be defined as the belief that “I am bad,” and differs from guilt, which says “I did something bad.”  When a person feels that they are bad to the core, there is a despair that comes, for we were not designed to live in shame.

Theologically we know that mankind has fallen into sin and needs to be restored to a relationship with God through Christ in order to remove our shame. But all too often we teach our children that that occurs through works, not grace. We can quote Eph 2:8 & 9 backward and forwards but still in our heart of hearts we communicate that a person’s acceptance depends on their performance. Why? Because we (emotionally) believe that ourselves! And it robs us of peace and joy daily.

Take our common child rearing practices for example. Jack hits his brother and steals his cookie.  “Jack, WHY did you do that?” we cry in distress. Really the only correct answer to this question is “well, mom, theologically speaking, I have a sinful nature, and my flesh got the better of me, I am bad to the core.” When we ask a child WHY he did something that is usually a shaming question.

Another error parents make is to focus too much on the behavior and not enough on the relationship. If we are honest, we are really worried what others will think of US if our children misbehave.

An international authority on raising troubled children, Dr. Karyn Purvis, says, “Connection needs to come before correction. Every child needs to know his or her preciousness.”  (www.child.tcu.edu) Day after day the child gets the idea that he is never good enough, he can never totally win our approval unless he is perfect. So why would he serve a God that is even more difficult to please? God’s way to bring change to lives is through a mentoring, guiding, and loving relationship. Grace changes people from the inside out, and it is really the exact opposite of shame-based methods we all too often employ.

I asked several adult children why so many of their peers have left the faith, and got very similar answers.  They can be summarized in two words:  “hypocrisy” and “legalism.” As such an indictment on our spiritual walk, no doubt these words will serve to produce copious amounts of guilt in parents’ hearts. But let’s look at them. No one would deny that we make mistakes, but it seems that if our children name it “hypocrisy,” they are saying that we are refusing to admit them. Jesus was very blunt with the Pharisees, calling them out on their refusal to admit that they were putting up a religious façade. People who cover up their failures, who put forth a pretentious front are actually covering up their own shame. 

I’ve told countless parents that one of the best gifts they can give their children is to deal with their own emotional issues. We can only reproduce what we are. How can we expect our children to get it about a loving God when we are so filled with shame? One indication of this is that we always have to be right! When my dad was teaching me to drive, he warned me to be very careful at intersections where I had the right of way. “You can be dead right,” he explained. This analogy carries over into relationships. Being “Right” can do more to kill your relationship than many other things.

Legalism is the attitude that we gain our standing with God through following a series of rules. Such performance-based Christianity is taught both explicitly and implicitly in many churches and families around the world. It produces tired, self-righteous, and discouraged people whose concept of God is that He is harsh, distant and unloving. “Try harder,” the leaders, tell their people when they struggle. Parents inadvertently pass this concept on to their children, and then wonder why some them choose not to follow Him.  Again, the answer is to get our own hearts right with God, to press through past the “Try harder” stage into true grace, which is accepting God’s power and love, cooperating with Him so He changes us from the inside out. Motivated by love, experiencing brokenness, and receiving His gentle, firm correction when we need it is a far cry from the legalism that our children perceive, as we rush around trying to perform to a certain standard, then not admitting it when we fail.

I’d add to this list, a wrong use of power. Some parents, pastors, teachers, and bosses become very enamored with their position of authority. They somehow get the idea that they are infallible, and conduct their relationship with those under them as if they are always right. Pity the person who is spirited enough to challenge them! They will be immediately labeled “rebel”, “incorrigible” “not able to receive correction.” And dealt with accordingly, which usually involves shaming, crushing, or ostracizing them. Some pastors and parents conduct an emotional “Reign of Terror” by having this mindset, especially if they are in a system that perpetrates such beliefs.  Is it any wonder that 80% of our young people run from the church when they get the chance?  Sarah Bessey, popular author and speaker (www.sarahbessey.com ) said, “I got PTSD from the church.” She along with many others such as Micah Murray, (www.micahjmurray.com  ) blog regularly about the need to respect the dignity of each person. Abuse of authority is a major reason many youth are launched in to the world wounded, and do not succeed for an extended length of time in pursuing their goals.

Some authorities think that to be abusive, one must be volatile, and display temper outbursts. This is not always the case. I know cases where people in authority were “quiet bullies.” They never lost their cool, and prided themselves on it. However, their self-righteousness did not allow them to see other people’s points of view, and they took their own authority so seriously that they caused much hurt and division in the organizations they were part of. Many, many young people have been hurt in the fallout created by self-righteous “quiet, calm bullies.”

How can parents and other leaders learn to model respect, dignity, and humility? In future blogs I’ll address this question, as the future of our children depends on our ability to do it.