By Victor Ochieng
The younger generation, more specifically millennials, are leaving the church at an alarming rate. Many groups have shared their reasons why they believe the young people aren’t comfortable in church anymore, with a good number of the reasons being more speculative than factual.
Now gospel musician Kirk Franklin is adding another reason to the list, and he is straight to the point: “We showed them our scriptures without showing them our scars.”
The “Imagine Me” singer shared his thoughts on Instagram and it has so far garnered more than 40,000 likes and close to 2k comments. One commenter wrote, “They show scriptures and don’t live by example.”
In the comment section, many people, including millennials, shared some of their thoughts as well. Some even give reasons why they left the church. Another wrote, “No no. I left church because I got tired of hearing pastors condemn homos*xuality like premarital s*x wasn’t banned in the same chapter. How trifling do you have to be to pretend like you aren’t sinning yourself? I’ll never give up on God, but I’m done with pastors for a while.”
The involvement of the church in partisan politics also featured as one of the reasons why young people are running away from the church. “They are leaving Church because Christians are hypocrites!!! Check out the number of Christians who support the party that’s trying to take healthcare away from the poor, the party that’s also filled with the most racist piece of sh*t on Earth! Millennials are woke!” said one user.
Whatever the reasons, the rate at which young people are leaving the church is worrying, especially because this is the time when they should hold dear to salvation.
A 2015 Pew Research study showed that 35% of Americans born between 1981 and 1996 are either not affiliated to any religious grouping or are “nones.” That’s not the group that doesn’t believe in God; no; they’re just not adherents of a given church.
Years of research have indicated that the younger generation is clearly less religious compared to the older generation. In fact, even in cases where both young and old are church-going, the older generation is taking the church more seriously than their younger counterparts.
While different bodies have been trying to figure out why millennials are leaving the church, many believe it’s all because of the outside influence, which is brought about by cultural glorification of agnosticism, removal of religion from most schools and the desire to shun all they consider “intolerant,” more specifically because most religions believe that they’re the only way and the truth.
