The fastest growing religious group in America is now those that no longer identify with a particular religion.
Why would that be? Is it because we’re growing more secular, more sinful, further from God? I’m sure some evangelical types may take that position, but what if it’s really due to the condition of the modern church?
These same people leaving the church continue to identify themselves as spiritual, meaning in some way they continue to seek the infinite, whether they call that “God” or not. This isn’t surprising in the least, as humans we’ve always had some sort of call to the infinite. At the very least, we’re called to determine some sort of meaning during our short stay in this world. Something that not only comforts our fear of death, but also provides some purpose during life.
Back in early society, it was this calling that founded our religions. Fueled by a few significant characters, the revelations that they conveyed to the world were so powerful that they gathered followers. Those followers then grew, and began writing down what was taught. This continued, passed from generations, modified by future people, and turned into large organizations. The commonality between them all is simple:
A human had a glimpse of a relationship with the infinite
That human taught others
Those humans organized the teachings into a structure
Then the rails fall off…
The structure becomes the important part instead of the relationship to the infinite. That’s when humans, being human, decide that those that don’t agree with their version of the structure must be wrong. This, depending on the “humanness” of those in charge, leads to a variety of ills within the structure. This can be evident in an exclusion of those that don’t buy into the documented structure, either indirectly by trying to convert them somehow, or directly by ostracizing them. The exclusions only get more severe from there, right up to systemically murdering entire swaths of those that believe differently than those in power.
The one single element that is common in this corruption is this: humans.
The Bible is pretty clear on the kingdom of man and its potential problems, instructing us to focus on the kingdom of heaven instead. Why do we then follow and belong to organizations that are built by man? Why would we believe that our chosen organization is either free from or minimally corrupted by man, while other organizations are not?
Don’t get me wrong, many of these organizations do significant good in our society. They run charities, they help those in need, they love each other, and often love those outside their ranks equally. But not all do… and those that don’t do irreparable damage to the perception of their own religion and organization. It’s a nasty fact of human perception that the negative outweighs the positive in our memory and perceptions. Need evidence? Look no further than the daily news cycle and ratings. Drama, fear, hatred all have higher Neilson scores than love and compassion. The negative wins our attention every time, with all of us unintentionally feeding it by tuning in and paying attention while we condemn it. Condemning it verbally and among friends and family does nothing to stop this, you still tuned in, you still watched, which means you still supported it.
We see Christians and other religious representatives in media passing judgement, aligning with fear rather than love and compassion. We see them in our neighborhoods, passing more judgement on their neighbors. Just one of those experiences quickly cancels the hundreds of kind encounters that may or may not have involved a member of the church.
Perhaps those leaving the church are doing so based only on this… if that’s the church, I want no part of it.