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Telling the questioner to

‘just have faith’ gives the

questioner the impression

that there are no answers

to his questions.

Who has an answer?

Providing real answers may arrest the hemorrhage of young people from the church once they leave home

by Lita Cosner 

Published: 27 August 2009(GMT+10)

 “Creation is just a side issue!” This protest is one of the main reasons

people remain uninformed about the issues surrounding creation and

evolution. But lack of understanding of such “side issues” is a major reason

why young people abandon Christianity once they are out on their own. A

Barna survey showed that around two-thirds of Christian teenagers will

abandon their faith once they leave home. And most teenagers who grow

up in the church will become disengaged from their faith in their twenties,

even if only temporarily (and for many, it is not). Or else their “faith” 

makes l itt le difference to how they live in the real world. An obvious example is that about a third of professing

evangelicals under 30 voted for the first overtly pro-infanticide president in American history. These disturbing

figures are supported by statistics that show that teenagers are less interested in Christianity than their parents.

A co-worker told me once about her son, who left the faith while in a secular college, despite having had a

Christian upbringing. Although he had been taught to believe the Bible, he had no basis for his beliefs when they

were challenged by his atheist professors and pagan friends. By the end of his first year of college, he had

renounced his faith. When his mother tried to talk to him about the Bible, he gave various ‘village atheist’ 

arguments against the accuracy of the Bible and the existence of God which one finds on many atheist forums

(which CMI answers on its Frequently Asked Questions page). I offered to teach her the answers, or even talk to

her son myself, but my co-worker refused both offers, saying that she believed his intellectual arguments were

simply an excuse, and that his real problem was spiritual. I tried to show her that at the very least his excuse

could be taken away, but she was not persuaded. She sadly said, “Perhaps someone like you will bring my son

back to Jesus.” But she refused any help.

I believe my co-worker’s account points to several problems which lead many young people to desert the faith

when they become independent from their believing parents.

Fideism and anti-intellectualism

Evangelicalism has unfortunately been characterized as anti-intellectual; an

accusation which is too often true. This problem stems back to the “Enlightenment”,

when many churches reacted to the materialism and anti-God philosophies coming

out of the various branches of science by simply retreating from those areas

altogether instead of combating them. Today the attitude lingers in some churches

that science and advanced theological study are questionable at best and soul-

destroying at worst. This att itude causes Christians to rebuff questions about their

faith, often tell ing the questioner to “just have faith,” of course, meaning that the

questioner is supposed to leave his brain at the church door. This gives thequestioner the impression that there are no answers to his questions. But the sort of 

blind faith this attitude encourages is not enough for many college students who

need a stronger foundation than just warm fuzzy feelings about Jesus if their faith is going to survive their college

education.

Lax biblical education

The average Christian receives most of his theological instruction at church on Sunday, and if he is lucky, Sunday

school or a midweek Bible study. In the best case scenario where the pastor and any lay teachers are educated

and teaching sound theology, this amounts to maybe 1½ hours a week. If someone only attends church on a

weekly basis, he is only getting a 20–30 minute sermon, usually given by a pastor who has had four years of Bible

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When the youth group

becomes all about fun and 

things the leaders think

are ‘relevant’ but in

reality are not, the church

wastes what could be the

best way to make sure that

teens stay in the church

once they leave home.

College, of which two years were taken up with general education courses like Algebra and General Psychology,

and the other two divided between homiletics, counseling, and Bible survey courses. By the time someone

graduates with a bachelor’s in pastoral ministry, he has had as few as four biblical studies courses, and may not

have taken a biblical language (Greek or Hebrew). While these courses include much more than the layperson will

usually learn, it hardly makes the student a competent biblical teacher; there are usually whole areas of the Bible

he has not had a class about. Some pastors make up for this deficiency with reading and independent study, but

many simply do not preach out of the Old Testament, since this is usually where the pastor’s knowledge is

deficient.

People in churches led by this sort of pastor who are dependent on the pastor for most of their biblical instructionwill inevitably have even less knowledge of the Bible, since most do not have the education or resources to

investigate the issues for themselves. No wonder many churches discourage questioning!

Compromising theology

Many educated pastors embrace an illegitimate figurative interpretation of the Genesis accounts where the days

become “long ages” or serve merely a literary function. Unfortunately, many Bible Colleges have compromised

badly (see Crisis in the colleges: A call for reformation), often leaving students feeling confused—or worse.

(Graduate survivors of such colleges have been known to counsel eager young believers against pursuing

theological qualifications, warning that pathway is strewn with those who “lost their professed faith”. No wonder

certain theological seminaries have been dubbed “theological cemeteries”!)

The more conservative compromisers will still accept a literal Adam (as Romans 5 teaches, for example), but

believe he was created billions of years after the advent of death and suffering. (In stark contrast, the Bible

teaches that death and suffering was the result of Adam’s sin. Many evangelicals have this compromising view,

and though it is possible to be a genuinely saved ‘progressive creationist’ or theistic evolutionist, it makes the

foundation of one’s theology unstable since all major doctrines have their origin in the first chapters of Genesis .

In particular, it is hard to answer what is probably the most common atheopathic attack: how could a good all-

powerful God permit so much suffering in the world?

Fun-oriented faith

The average youth group is full of fun social activities and games, and youth pastors

constantly are looking for something new to keep the youth group fun and “relevant”.While this is not an evil in itself, the pursuit of fun often overshadows any teaching

function of the youth group. And some youth leaders’ quest to be “relevant” has in

reality, sadly, meant missed opportunity. Youth group is the ideal t ime to teach

teenagers about the basics of how to defend their faith, and a basic education in

apologetics could be critical for those who go on to college and have their faith

challenged by unbelieving professors and peers. The problem is that when the youth

group becomes all about fun and things the leaders think are “relevant” but in reality

are not, it is hard to differentiate the youth group from any other social group, and

the church wastes what could be the best way to make sure that teens stay in the

church once they leave home. Teens also learn that faith is al l about fun, and can

develop a very self-centered faith. People tend to do what is expected of them, and

most teenagers (and adults, for that matter) are capable of a lot more than the

church is expecting of them.1

Lack of preparation

All these conditions contribute to the average church’s inability to respond to arguments against Christianity.

Many evangelical churches tend to not discuss major challenges to the Christian faith from various secular

sources. A few years back, The Da Vinci Code convinced many uninformed readers that the Catholic Church had

usurped the rightful female leadership of the church, and that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and fathered a

child, although the book was littered with historical errors nearly as egregious as the theological misinformation

(see CMI’s articles).

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In any given week, one can find a supposedly historical television show that asserts that the Gospels are pieces

of propaganda, that the early Church suppressed literature that did not conform with their narrow views, or that

Christianity was copied from various pagan religions (see CMI’s refutation of copycat nonsense). These

productions are often created with budgets of millions of dollars and prestigious scholars which give the program’s

claims an air of reliability, even if there is litt le to no evidence for the truth of those claims. Few churches actually

contest these claims, even though various apologists have addressed nearly every argument against Christianity.

Another problem is susceptibility to non-Christian cults. Sadly, their “missionaries” can run eisegetical rings

around many churchgoers. Yet their distortions of the Bible would be readily exposed if more churchgoers were

taught the fundamentals of the faith, e.g. the deity of Christ and the Trinity.

Many people in apologetics ministry even make their work available freely, so there is no excuse for not taking

advantage of it.

The answers do make a difference!

Some people, as my co-worker did, say that the real problem is spiritual, so intellectual answers cannot do

anything; the Holy Spirit must do the work. While we certainly affirm that no one can come to salvation without

the Spirit’s help, this view ignores the command to all Christians to defend the faith and to contend for the truth.

(And sometimes, having answers has a very real effect. This has been shown to be true for many people who have

been converted through the ministry of Creation Ministries International, including myself (see my testimony,

showing that creation was a real issue for me at least.2,3

)

It is wrong to assume that any questioning of the Christian faith is done from a hostile view; sometimes the

questioner is sincere, and even if he is not sincere, a strong answer may help him. Street preachers have likewise

found that a good grounding in creationist apologetics enables them to handle the most common questions. See

Street preacher says creation ‘is the issue’: It’s time for the church to stop avoiding the questions people want

answers to.

Apologetics by its nature is not primarily evangelist ic, but for the Church. The apologist does not aim to convert 

those who promote arguments against the Christian faith (though it is wonderful when this happens), but to

refute him so he cannot harm anyone else’s faith. Many Christians have a hard time with a relative or co-worker

attacking their faith, and they have found their faith shored up when a CMI apologist demolishes the attacker’s

arguments (see The Indoctrinator). This often has the result of neutralizing the attacker and making him back off.It’s no wonder that a poll a few years ago found that feedback responses were the second most popular type of 

article on our website.

The way forward

If churches hope to reverse the loss of young people from the Church, they must abandon the so-called “seeker-

friendly”, pop-Christianity style that pervades much of the Church. Pastors should start confronting anti-Christian

claims in popular media, and to prepare their teenagers for the hostile environment they will encounter in college.

Christianity has a rich history of apologetics and theological teaching of which most Christians, even most

pastors, are unaware of. While not every Christian can or should go into full-time apologetics ministry, there is no

excuse for being ignorant about the very basic questions that one could be expected to give an answer to.

Related Articles

The Importance of Evidence

Why use apologetics for evangelism?

What? A Christian mind?

Street preacher says creation ‘is the issue’ 

The ‘Indoctrinator’ 

Why is the church losing its young people?

Further Reading

Christian Apologetics Questions and Answers

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Creation Compromises

References

1. I know of one church where its leaders noticed nearly a decade ago, with growing alarm, that the 20-somethings were not moving intoresponsibility and leadership roles as their predecessors had done. On realising that these were all “graduates” of a youth group culturethat had been served with fun and entertainment, which had almost completely displaced the formerly regular Scriptural teac hing t imes,the church swiftly enacted sweeping reforms to its youth programs. Interestingly, the teens actively supported the reforms, saying “Wedon’t come to youth group to be ‘entertained’. If we want entertainment, we could go to tons better places,” and they wholeheartedlyembraced the new emphasis on Bible study, with concomitant calls to sobriety, selflessness, maturity. Not surprisingly, these youngpeople soon showed a much different attitude t o Christian service and mission than their entertainment-fed predecessors, quicklymoving up to take on responsibilities appropriate to their talents and calling. Other churches too, disappointed at the “fruit” of their own “fun”-centred youth programs, are being similarly goaded to return to scriptural counsel re the training of young people in Christ. Return

to text.2. I began this article with a comment I’ve often heard from people; in essence, t hat c reation is not an important issue. On occasion,

when I have replied: “But it was an important issue for me!”, the rejoinder is “But you’re only one person.” Indeed. But Jesus taughtthat the good shepherd will leave the 99 in pasture to go after the one who is lost … (Matthew 18:12–14). Return to text.

3. See also the subsequent article Caged lions … And the young generation in the church, which c ited this, among other examples. Thetitle was an allusion to a faulty anti-apologetics platitude by a famous preacher, who, when asked about defending the Bible, repliedsomething like, “How would you defend a lion? Open his cage and leave him to defend himself!” Return to text.

 A reader’s comment

Eric B., Australia

Copyright notice:http://creation/our-copyright-policy

Comments closedComments closed

Thank you for this article, particularly for raising the issue o f christian’s response to the cults. As a young christian many years ago, I

encounted the Jehovah’ witnesses, then the Mormons, which caused me to seriously look into the who le area of apo logetics. I soon found

that most christians are poorly taught in these areas , which some ex-Jehovah’s w itnesses that I have met agree with. There is a similar

situation with the creation/evolution issue; a lack of sound apologetics; but I am as much at fault as anyone here — it took me a long time

to investigate fully this matter. Keep up your good work.