Re: [asa] Youth leaving churches because of old earth

Heya James,

I agree with a lot of what you say. But I also think there's more to be
said.

I agree that a Christian lifestyle - and stressing the importance of God and
Christ not only in Church (or vaguely "in our lives") but in our every day
life is important, and is not stressed enough. Perhaps "lifestyle" is
incorrect here. Focus, perhaps? I really don't like the attitude that many
have, where Church (and even typical morals and ethics) are fine day to day,
but in other spheres it's different. How many poor choices have been
justified in the name of business, just to use one popular example?

At the same time, I also think there's an exploitative side to "Christian"
things. And by that I mean, when Christianity morphs into a brand. Christian
music is one example - a lot of what I encounter comes across as uniquely
atrocious. (True, most music, period, does. But "Christian music" tends to
do this in a particularly identifiable way.) There are, of course,
prosperity gospel examples where Christianity is presented as a way to
financial success. Almost as bad, Christianity as therapy, a "way to
actualize oneself" or some other fluff. Or Christian cookbooks, Christian
prayer-a-day $9.99/monthly cell phone subscriptions. Like most other things,
people want to turn "Christianity" into a commodity as far as they can.

On the school front, I have no children myself. But if I ever were to, I
would out and out refuse to put them into either the public or private
school systems. Full or partial home-schooling is something I view as
essential for a number of reasons, many of which simply come down to
"quality of education". I could agree with you on similar topics, but I
think there may be better ways to approach children's education than
engaging in a public school fight of any kind, or even urging on private
school funding. (I say this as someone who went to a Catholic high school.)

I'd also say that, yes, those leaving the faith aren't "strong Christians".
But neither are they "strong atheists". Indeed, that particular type of
person seems to exist only in vanishingly small numbers even nowadays. The
opportunities for bringing people back to Christ and having them see the
importance of God abound. We're not in a state of western decay for the
Christian church alone, but for western culture (largely built on
judaeo-christian understandings, admittedly) as well.

And I'd further agree with your views on how origins questions are
approached. I think what it boils down to there is that we need to
understand and better communicate just how far-reaching our Christian faith
can, and really should, impact our day to day lives. God is not some belief
that can be put in a convenient compartment nearby and stored among the
various conveniences and habits that make up our lives. God should be
central. Stressing how that should be understood and approached is of major
importance. It's a delicate issue.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 1:32 PM, James Patterson
<james000777@bellsouth.net>wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Bill Powers<wjp@swcp.com> wrote:
>
> > Most of the churches that I have been involved with lean toward a YEC
>
> > view, and yet there is hardly ever a mention of evolution, or the age
>
> > of the earth.
>
>
>
> I mostly attend a Methodist Church. They shy away from discussing origins -
> too hot a topic. I think many churches do. And those that DO discuss it,
> likely present it dogmatically as "God's truth" whether it is YEC, OEC, TE,
> or whatever. I sincerely doubt that most churches discuss it much at all.
>
>
>
> I wonder if this is the problem. I am not stating with conviction that it
> is, mind you. However, I feel in my heart that this is problematic. Let me
> see if I can write what I think is the crux of the issue.
>
>
>
> A child goes to church. In Sunday School, they learn about Adam and Eve,
> Noah and the Ark, and other stories that are likely to get children's
> attention. I went to a Missionary Baptist Church out in the country as a
> child, and it was certainly YEC in that these things happened 6000 years ago
> or so.
>
>
>
> In the Baptist church, young adolescents at 12 or 13 are educated about
> Christ and urged to accept Christ as their savior. Most do, and if they were
> like me, they did it so their parents would quit bothering them. In the
> Methodist Church, confirmation happens at age 13, and the vast majority of
> the kids do it, and I am sure some do just because of peer pressure and not
> because they understand what it is they are doing.
>
>
>
> That child grows up. If s/he is a "typical" American, s/he "believes in
> God", goes to church regularly or occasionally, goes to a public school, and
> pretty much lives in a secular world. For instance, the average American
> family now watches about 8.5 hours of TV per day (Nielsen Media Report
> 2007), and it isn't "The Christ Channel".
>
>
>
> By the time this child has graduated from high school, the probability of
> them being unmarried, sexually active, having tried substances of abuse, and
> being very involved in the secular world (in the world and of the world),
> are all likely (refs on request). The probability of them being very active
> in church and living a Christian lifestyle/having a strong Christian
> worldview is not. Yet, because they still live with Mom and Dad, they still
> go to church...occasionally, when they can't argue their way out of it, and
> if Mom and Dad wake up in time, or are not working.
>
>
>
> What do they learn from all this? They learn that God and Christianity are
> not important. Sure they "believe in God". But obviously, God and religion
> are not important…let's look at the evidence of what they have learned by
> the time they go to college:
>
>
>
> · The family of these “average” children do not think God is
> important – They didn’t do Bible study at home, didn’t go weekly, didn’t
> life a Christ-centered life. Sure, 91% of Americans are a member of a
> religion, and 83% think God is important, but only 47% attend church at
> least once a week (Gallup Millennium Survey). A friend of mine who works for
> the Alliance Defense Fund says that only about 9% of Americans life a
> Christian lifestyle. I don’t have a reference for that, sorry. But it brings
> home a quote that was originally from Brennan Manning, and popularized by DC
> Talk in a song:
>
> o “*The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is
> Christians, who acknowledge Christ with their lips, then walk out the door
> (of the Church) and deny Him with their lifestyle. That is what an
> unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.*”
>
> · The public education system doesn’t thing God is important. As a
> matter of fact, because of the ACLU and similar atheist organizations, God
> has been removed from the public school system. Christians are being
> discriminated against for being Christian if they even try to pray or
> worship God, never mind if it’s in the science class or not.
>
> · The public education system is in essence teaching children and
> young adults that God doesn’t exist. This is especially true in college.
> This is not and never was what was meant by “separation of Church and
> State”, but the atheists who run the ACLU and the NAS and the NCSE don’t
> care. They are using the extremist liberal interpretation of this
> foundational statement (intended to allow people to worship whomever they
> want, however they want, without discrimination from the state) to force
> secular humanism down the throats of children in the public school system,
> starting in kindergarten. By the time they get to college, they are ripe for
> the picking.
>
>
>
> So let’s see. Children are in class ~6 hours a day, 5 days a week, for
> about 34 weeks a year, from the age of 5 to 18 – 14 years. That’s 14,280
> hours. No God there.
>
>
>
> They come home, perhaps do homework, but spend 4 hours per day on the
> computer or watching TV (that’s conservative). That’s average, daily, an
> underestimate, and including weekends. By the way, in the year 2000, Baron
> found that the average child saw on TV annually 12,000 violent acts, 14,000
> sexual references, and 20,000 advertisements. This is up quite a bit from
> 1990, and it’s likely ever higher now…in 1990, the daily TV viewing per
> household was 6.5 hours, not 8.5 hours. Now be aware, that’s per household,
> not per person. So we have 4h/day x 365 x 14 years = 20,440 hours as a
> conservative estimate. Very little to no God there.
>
>
>
> Let’s say that the family goes to church 50% of the Sundays, and even goes
> to Sunday school too, 25% of the time. They don’t really talk about God at
> home, outside of church. They don’t pray over meals, they don’t pray with
> their kids. This goes on from age 5 to 18. That’s 25 + 12 x 14 = 518 hours.
>
>
>
> So the average young adult entering college believes in God, but has been
> taught that God isn’t important. S/he has had over 14,000 hours of secular
> education, and over 20,000 hours of worldly education, and about 500 hours
> of “Christian Ed”. That’s a 68:1 secular:Christian ratio. Yeah, they were
> “saved” when they were young teens. I think the point is, are they really
> and truly Christians?
>
>
>
> It is my assertion that they are leaving the church in crowds because they
> are NOT true or at least not “strong” Christians. Strong Christians are
> those who not only have faith, but understand the evidence as best it can be
> understood, and have not been living a secular lifestyle while pretending to
> be Christians. If you’re still reading this, you probably think I’ve gotten
> off topic…let me bring this back to my point.
>
>
>
> Our churches are not teaching children how to deal with secular education
> about origins. They do not teach about the varying viewpoints. They are
> either silent, or they are dogmatic on one “true” way. The “average” kid
> I’ve described above is already at high risk. The few times they do come to
> church, they learn very little about origins. Then they go to school, and
> learn about the “truth” of abiogenesis, evolution, naturalism, along with
> the implicit and underlying message that God is not needed. Nevermind TE…you
> can’t talk about God even in that context, remember?
>
>
>
> My children go to a private, Christian (Episcopal) school, and even THEY do
> not adequately integrate science and religion. They learn about religion in
> one class, and science in the other, and never the twain shall meet. Kids
> even ask about it…no go.
>
>
>
> It is my assertion that unless and until we as Christians decide to address
> this issue, the **only** rational education the average child gets about
> this is secular. Where do we all come from? Monkeys, that evolved from
> bacteria, they evolved from soup, naturally. Once again, nevermind that
> process could have been God-directed, they don’t hear that, not in school,
> not at home, and not in church.
>
>
>
> Faith is belief based on evidence. “Blind faith” is a hollow ploy used by
> atheists to try and convince others that Christians are idiots. And then, we
> don’t teach our children the evidence, we just tell them to believe. Hmm.
>
>
>
> Now, I know that much of this doesn’t apply to you (ASA members), or to me.
> We very likely teach our children MUCH more than the “average” family. But
> the fact is, we aren’t average, and the average ones are leaving the church
> in droves.
>
>
>
> James Patterson
>
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Received on Sat Aug 8 14:29:29 2009