Posted on 06/29/2009 6:37:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Bible calls the Church "the Body of Christ." Today, that body is bleeding profusely, says a Christian author and sought-out speaker.
"The next generation of believers is draining from the churches, and it causes me great personal and professional concern," said Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis and a Young Earth creationist.
Hoping to shed light on what he believes is a monumental problem, Ham enlisted the services of America's Research Group to study why young people were leaving. The results, published in Already Gone, will shake many churches to their very core, Ham states in the new book.
While previous surveys have shown that Christian students tend to quit church during their college years, the data collected by ARG found that most of them were already gone in middle school and high school.
According to ARG's survey, 95 percent of 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. Only 55 percent went to church during high school. And by college, only 11 percent were still attending church.
"They're sitting in our churches right now ... and they're already gone," Ham said during a "State of the Nation" address last week.
Delving deeper into some of the reasons for the exodus, the research group found that nearly 40 percent of the surveyed twentysomethings first had doubts about the Bible in middle school. Another 43.7 percent said they first doubted that all of the accounts and stories in the Bible are true during their high school years. Only around 10 percent said they first became doubtful about the Bible accounts during college.
Among those who said they do not believe all the biblical accounts are true, the top reasons they gave for doubting the scriptures were: "it was written by men" (24 percent), "it was not translated correctly" (18 percent), "the Bible contradicts itself" (15 percent), and "science shows the world is old" (14 percent).
In an even more alarming finding, attending Sunday school proved to be of no help in strengthening a young person's faith. In fact, the survey revealed that Sunday school is actually more likely to be detrimental to the spiritual and moral health of children.
Recognizing that such data may not sit well with many Christians, Ham encouraged believers to consider the research before reacting.
He stressed, "We're not advocating getting rid of Sunday schools." Instead, we're advocating a revolution of them, he added.
Sixty-one percent of the surveyed young adults said they attended Sunday school while 39 percent said they didn't. When comparing the two groups, the survey revealed that those who attended Sunday school are actually more likely: not to believe that all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true, to doubt the Bible because it was written by men, to defend keeping abortion legal, to accept the legalization of gay marriage, to believe in evolution, and to believe that good people don't need to go to church.
Part of the problem, Ham pointed out, is the curriculum. While Sunday school teachers teach "Bible stories," children are left to learn biology, anthropology, geology, astronomy and other science courses at public schools.
By merely calling it Bible "stories," churches end up communicating the biblical accounts as "fairytales" rather than history, Ham noted.
"To them, the Bible is not real," he said. "In churches we're teaching moral things, spiritual things, relationships, doctrine ... [but] we're not teaching those earthly things. We gave that up to the world."
"Who said that's not for the Church?" the Young Earth creationist asked, noting that the Bible deals with geology, biology and other sciences.
"We gave it up because we didn't know how to deal with it and now we're losing generations," he said.
Ham – whose Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., displays dinosaurs next to humans – finds many pastors and Sunday school teachers teaching what he believes are compromised positions, informing youths that they can believe in evolution and that the age of the earth is millions or billions of years, rather than 6,000 years, while still believing in Jesus.
But by being taught such views, students begin to question the first book of the Bible, particularly the creation account. Later they find themselves not trusting the entirety of the Bible and its authority.
"If we teach our children (or anyone) to take God's Word as written concerning the Resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, and the account of Jonah and the great fish ... but then tell them we don't need to take Genesis as written but can reinterpret it on the basis of the world's teaching about millions of years and evolution – we have unlocked a door," Ham wrote in his book.
That door is the door to undermining biblical authority.
"When we undermine the word of God, the next generation undermines it more and more," Ham said.
The foundation of biblical authority and God's word is crumbling in America while human reasoning and man's word is being held high.
There's a spiritual problem in America, Ham said, and sadly it is Christians who have dropped the ball and allowed moral relativism and secular worldview to rise.
Churches have failed to raise the younger generation on the authority of God's word and to teach them how to defend their faith or give answers to secular attacks, Ham said.
"We let them (secular humanists) take generations of our kids and give them a different foundation," he lamented.
Christians have an epidemic on their hands and what they need now is a "complete renovation," not a mere remodel, Ham stressed.
It's time to call the Church back to the authority of the Word of God. And for the Young Earth creationist, that call begins with Genesis.
Kent Hovind, tax cheat, shares some responsibility as well.
On the other hand, I know of NO fellow naval aviators without a strong and abiding relationship with God (as they envision HIM).***
That’s another point that comes to mind. You have to walk the walk with younger adults and teens, not just talk talk talk. They want to see men of action, not some sentimental wuss or some irritating dictator.
bump for later read
Please read the book. It is well reasoned, and crucial!
I teach a group of upper elementary kids in Sunday School. I pour it on, talk to them about what the characters were thinking and why they were thinking, what motivated them, etc. The same character flaws they seen in their peers are usually found in the scripture lessons. What is too often ignored about the Bible is that the stories often reveal a lot about human nature,which is essentially the same now as it was thousands of years ago.
When you show that and relate it to the here and now, and how it is relevant to them, they listen and absorb it. They deal with complicated issues in school and everyday life. Why bore them with a simplistic, fairy-tale approach?
I have one thing to say about mass appeal. The masses are a$$e$.
You have just described Joel Osteen.
“You have hit the nail on the head.”
Or the palms and feet. (rimshot)
Young people yearn for knowledge, true knowledge, period. I am 24, a christian, and a computer scientist. I have a pretty decent pulse on both the mentality of youth, as well as liberal youths, as well as conservatives, as well as christians. I liken the detection of truth by youths today to the evolving eye of audiences of digital graphics. As you see newer animated scenes in the latest movies, the older graphics in the movies of yesterday, seem more obviously fake. In this way youths are processing the messages from churches;, old, out-dated, not “up-to-date”. How is a youth supposed to rationalize both a creationist museum, and the discovery of a monkey skeleton which directly links the evolution of tree monkeys to humans in the evolutionary tree in the same gasp? Isn’t it obvious why such a situation is almost pre-built for rejection by a bright, intellectually honest youth population? Simple arguments of “God created the earth with the bones there” is just too lacking, to much of a cop out, and frankly comes across as just plain lazy. As conservatives and Christians we should not be afraid to challenges our own beliefs, to be curious, and to act in such a way as to actually add to our faiths! Did not the writers of the bible originally have to do this same act? Are we so afraid of being used by God as a force of good? If we truly believe and have faith in God to guide us, why shouldn’t we move forward and open our minds to new ideas in terms of the real life application of the bible in a very literal sense. At some point children reach an age where they have grown up loving the “stories” and they are ready to learn what the “real” stories behind them actually are. If there are no “real” stories or intellectual dialog which juxtaposes the outside world with the text of the bible, then you can guess and are seeing exactly what happens.
Parents are the most important conveyors of the faith. And it is woven into the fabric of everyday life, as things come up in the news, in the textbooks, and in things that happen to friends and family. Maybe the ex-Christians in the survey did not have parents who spoke deeply with them about important things.
Also, a lot of parents just don’t care too much about how devout their kids are, “as long as they are a good person”. To paraphrase G.W. Bush, it’s the “soft bigotry of low expectations”. My kid’s never gonna be a priest/nun/pastor/rabbi, so let’s not overplay this religion stuff, ok?
As to the science vs. religion issue, in our family, we just keep pointing out how marvelous the universe is, and how humans know only a little. And the arrogance of thinking that one has “grown out of” God is to be met head-on, with plenty of historical perspective on the failed know-it-alls of the past.
As to non-belief, well, so far, we just point out that without God, we’re a pile of interesting chemicals, and that’s pretty much it. Not very inspiring.
Also, I think apologetics needs a lot more emphasis, because not only are many people, old or young, unable to defend their faith from outside attack, they have nothing to answer their own questions with. I don’t think you can argue yourself into faith, but you can sure talk your self out of it, if you aren’t well-fortified.
As to Sunday School, well, at some point everybody is tired of singing too many dorky songs and making too many hokey crafts. Actual information about Christ and his Church, and actual experience of reverent prayer might be given some more attention, while still maintaining some of the fun and energy.
>>>It wouldn’t surprise me if the people at Answers in Genesis were really Atheist pretending to be Christians in order to make them look bad.
>>>teaching “young earth” creationism will blow your credibility all to hell for the next fifty years. Anyone who wants to kill off Christianity for good would do well to show pictures of Alley Oop and his pet dinosaur walking around together, and pretending it is Biblical.
I’ve had similar suspicions about the people on FR pushing the “temple of dawrin” crap thread genre.
Sadly, it would be hard to say that the actions of those who call themselves Christian make them stand out as followers of Christ.
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