Losing the Twenty and Thirtysomethings

Our Sunday School Class has been discussing the phenomena of people that grew up in the church, but upon leaving for college or beginning their careers they leave the church. Many of them seem completely disinterested in the idea of organized religion, but claim some form of spirituality. The ultimate question is what has caused them to decide the church they once embraced at least on a superficial level has little importance to them in their 20s and 30s? Does it have little importance or is it important, but they can't find a place that meets "their" needs?

I have been reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell for quite a while now, but this weekend while flying to Nashville I came across an interesting point of view on the subject. Bell is discussing the idea that "Truth" is everywhere and that even non-believers, as Paul says, "who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."(Romans 2:14-15)

Here is an excerpt from the book:

"Imagine what happens when a young woman is raised in a Christian setting but hasn't been taught that all things are hers and then goes to a university where she's exposed to all sorts of new ideas and views and perspectives. She takes classes in psychology and anthropology and biology and world history, and her professors are people who devoted themselves to their particular fields of study. Is it possible that in the course of lecturing on their field of interest, her professors will from time to time say things that are true? Of course. Truth is available to everyone. But let's say her professors aren't Christians, it is not a 'Christian' university, and this young woman hasn't been taught that all things are hers. What if she has been taught that Christianity is the only thing that's true? What if she has been taught that there is no truth outside of the Bible? She's now faced with this dilemma: believe the truth she's learning or the Christian faith she was brought up with. Or we could put her dilemma this way: intellectual honesty or Jesus?

How many times have you seen this? I can't tell you the number of people in their late teens or early twenties I know, or those I have been told about, who experience truth outside the boundaries of their religion and abandon the whole thing because they think it's a choice (which is a fatal flaw in thinking we'll address in a moment). They are experiencing truth in all sorts of new ways, and they need a faith that is big enough to handle it. Their box is getting blown apart, and the faith they were handed doesn't have room for what they are learning. But it isn't a choice, because Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, the life.' If you come across truth in any form, it isn't outside of your faith as a Christian. Your faith just got bigger. To be a Christian is to claim truth wherever you find it. It's not truth over here and Jesus over there, as if they were two different things. Where we find one, we find the other. Jesus is quoted in the book of John saying, 'I and the Father are one.' If Jesus and God are one, if Jesus shows us what God is really, truly like, and God is truth and all truth is God's truth, then Jesus takes us into the truth, not away from it. He frees us to embrace whatever is true and good and beautiful wherever we find it. To live this way then, we have to believe in a big Jesus. For many, Jesus was presented to them as a solution to a problem. ... It's not that it is wrong, it's just Jesus is so much more. The presentation often begins with sin and the condition of human beings, separated from God and without hope in the world. God then came up with a way to fix the problem by sending Jesus, who came to the world to give us a way out of the mess we find ourselves in. ... Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. Jesus' teachings aren't meant to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are. ... For Jesus then, the point of religion is to help us connect with ultimate reality, God. I love the way Paul puts it in the book of Colossians: These religious acts and rituals are shadows of the reality. 'The reality ... is found in Christ'" (Velvet Elvis, pgs. 80-83)

I think this may serve to explain where some people are coming from and in turn allow us to contemplate a new way of teaching that empowers our students to see that "Truth" can be found outside of the Christian box and the Bible. We are not making a choice to replace one with the other, but expanding our concept of "Truth" and seeing the possibility of believing in things that may at first test our faith. If we cease to question our faith it ceases to be "our" faith and only becomes that which was taught to us.