If the Southern Baptists’ 2007 statistics are right and 70% of Christian young people are leaving their home churches between the end of high school and the end of college — then it follows that churches are failing their young people.

Why?

Unfortunately, the message a lot of young people get from their church homes is “perform and conform.”

The “perform” part comes in social, cultural and behavioral expectations and approval. If on the outside you can “put on the act” and do what everybody else is, you’re fine and that’s the end of it. As a result, many young people develop a double life: one suiting their parents and authority figures; and an entirely different one for their peers.

Just at that point in life where youthful idealism, integrity and honesty ought to be kicking into gear, the church provides precious little space (room for discussion) for those things to happen.

The “conform” part comes in appeals to “just believe” and “don’t ask too many questions” — ignoring or having impatience about dealing with the tough issues — treating the tough issues as if they aren’t important enough to address or think about. You’re trained not to rock the boat regarding any of the denominational, social and cultural baggage that comes with any church community.

It’s tragic that just at that point in life where young peoples’ minds are awakening to the wonders of nature and ideas — at exactly that point the churches abandon the field. Rather than walking through the big ideas with young people, most of them leave how young people are going to integrate their faith with adult thinking up to chance.

Now, humans are social, and any human institution or grouping is going to have group behavioral norms and a common ideational foundation. This includes churches. So we shouldn’t fault churches for being human organizations.

On the other hand, when churches lay “performance perfection” standards on young people, we conveniently ignore and effectively contradict what the Bible teaches: that as humans, none of us measures up. All of us have sinned, compromised, and fallen short of God’s intentions for us. That’s why we need God’s grace through Christ in the first place.

And when the church becomes a place of conformity to a long list of belief standards, we conveniently ignore and effectively contradict the fact that, while there is a white-hot core of Christian faith, our church or denomination doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth and that we can learn much from other Christian traditions. We also effectively negate what I think is one of the most important verses in the Bible:

“Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2).

What can be done?

We need to foster an environment where people can safely talk about the big questions that all worldviews ask and about how Christian faith relates to these questions. We need to respect these questions because they are part of the human condition — no matter which religious or philosophical tradition they come from.

That adverb “safely” is important. If we close out discussion too quickly, we’ll continue to convey the message that Christian faith is narrow and brittle, not broad and expansive.

This has been my motivation for writing the two books below:

• Blah, Blah, Blah addresses the issue of pluralism and tolerance (How can Christians claim to have the Truth when there are so many other truths out there?).
• The Late Great Ape Debate addresses the challenge of evolution and science (What are the four Christian responses to evolution and why are they so different?).

I hope they can serve as resources for you.