Maybe They’re Not Rejecting Christianity After All

By: Briana M. McCarthy

There seems to be a surge in the number of people that we see turning away from the Christian faith. According to a study conducted by Pew Research Center, the number of people that identify as Christian is declining at a “rapid pace”. From the think pieces and social media posts that I have read, it seems that many of the people who have chosen to reject Christianity indicate that church abuse, hypocritical actions by pastors or church leaders, rigidity, and racism within the body of Christ are the most common reasons given for their departure.

 That got me thinking. Maybe what people are rejecting is not in fact true Christianity, but rather a misrepresentation of Christianity from people who either are ignorant of what Scripture really says or from people who are wolves in sheep’s clothing that infiltrate the faith with the intention to prey on immature Christians.

 Allow me to explain.

 I have a friend that has denounced the faith because she found Christianity to be too restrictive. She felt that there were so many things deemed as sin that she was unable to live freely. The reality is that many of the things that she was taught were sin were merely fence laws created by her church leaders, and were not actually categorized as sin in Scripture. This misrepresentation has caused her to abandon her faith altogether. This is reminiscent of the Jews in Acts 15 that tried to impose their convictions regarding circumcision on the Gentiles who were not required to follow that custom. 

 Whereas some people leave the church because of the burden of manmade rules, others leave because of disappointment with God. I know many people that have turned away from the faith because God didn’t live up to all the things that they heard that He would do for them. They never received riches. Their wombs are still barren. The companionship that was promised to them if they lived faithfully for God never materialized. Their lives weren’t free of stress and strain as the preacher on the television screen promised it would be once they gave their lives to God. And because God didn’t uphold promises that He never made, they concluded that God was a liar.

To take it a step further, many people have witnessed the immense amount of racial tension and division in the church in recent years. They have experienced Christianity cloaked in white supremacy and nationalism. They have seen a pseudo version of Christianity that refuses to hold Christ’s church accountable to the sin of partiality that James speaks of. (James 2:1) They cannot reconcile serving a God that allows his children to treat them poorly.

The common thread among each scenario that I have shared is that a person claiming to bear the name of Christ has misrepresented Him. They have misrepresented him by imposing their convictions as law, making empty promises, and by disregarding a people group who is equally created in God’s image. Their failure to communicate Scripture soundly and live it out faithfully has distorted the image of God and has left them to grapple with the fallout. 

 This is why apologetics is so important for the body of Christ. We must contend for the faith against un-Christian views from those both outside and inside of the church. As believers, we have the responsibility to portray God correctly and to have a sound theological framework from which we engage with others so that we don’t misrepresent who Christ is. 

 So, how do we remedy an issue that seems so pervasive? We do so by simply preaching the true Gospel of grace as represented in Scripture, by teaching others to live and love in a Kingdom fashion, and teaching others to consider Scripture in light of the redemptive narrative that is the glue that holds it together. We must confront and correct our brothers and sister in love. We must boldly proclaim the truth of the Gospel and we must commit ourselves to both rightly dividing and rightly proclaiming what Scripture says.  We can do this by simply committing to disciple one person that we know with a loose grasp of theology. We must also engage those that have turned away from the faith and offer a corrective to the misinterpretation of Scripture that they received and ask the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts.  

 In John 10, Jesus teaches that a good shepherd leaves the 99 to pursue the 1. Like the Good Shepherd, we should actively seek to restore those who have wandered from the faith.