Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1028336
BsHDfC e-Mag september 2018 | Page 7 to pray and fast (as I have been doing) for this ministry. I am looking for investors who will give BSHDFC just $25 a month (the cost of a casual lunch for two). Actually, that's pre y simple and uncomplicated! I 've already begun to ask pastors of churches I know, and businesses I do business with and individuals I have known for years to support this ministry with just $25 a month. Will you do the same? Watch your mailbox. The tools are coming! Will you help me finish this road? Somebody came before you and made your role in BSHDFC possible. I need you to press on with me for the next chapter and the next. We will never "arrive" or be finished un l Jesus comes or every HOG member in the world has come to Christ. Even then, I suspect God will have something else for us to do. J. Warner Wallace A new, 2018 Pew Research Center Report polled a growing group in America: "religious nones." This group describes themselves as "nothing in par cular" when asked if they iden fy with a specific religious group. The vast majority are ex-Chris ans, and most are under the age of thirty-five. Pew asked a representa ve sample of these "religious nones" why they now reject any religious affilia on and provided respondents with six possible responses. According to the Pew report, most "religious nones" le because they "ques on a lot of religious teaching" (51% agreed with this statement), or because they "don't like the posi ons churches take on social/poli cal issues" (46% agreed with this statement). To a lesser extent, "nones" agreed with the statements, "I don't like religious organiza ons" (34%), "I don't like religious leaders" (31%), or "Religion is irrelevant to me" (26%). From this data, one might infer that Chris ans leave the faith because they no longer agree with the teaching of the Church or that they don't like religious organiza ons or leaders. But this is not why young Chris ans are leaving the Church. One glaring sta s c was largely overlooked in the latest data collected by the Pew Research Center. When religious "nones" were asked to iden fy the most important reason for not affilia ng with a religion, the largest response was that none of the six responses provided by Pew were actually very important. In this poll, Pew did not allow respondents to answer in their own words. So, even though respondents searched for an answer that approximated their experience, most didn't believe that any of the reasons offered by Pew were very important to them when deciding to abandon their religious iden ty. What, then, is the real reason young Chris ans (and other religious believers) leave the faith? The answer lies in a prior, 2016 Pew Research Center survey which allowed respondents to answer in their own words. In this study, most "nones" said they no longer iden fied with a religious group because they no longer believed it was true. When asked why they didn't believe, many said their views about God had "evolved" and some reported having a "crisis of faith." Their specific explana ons included the following statements: "Learning about evolu on when I went away to college" "Religion is the opiate of the people" "Ra onal thought makes religion go out the window" "Lack of any sort of scien fic or specific evidence of a creator" "I just realized somewhere along the line that I didn't really believe it" "I'm doing a lot more learning, studying and kind of making decisions myself rather than listening to someone else." The data from this 2016 study may explain why ex-Chris ans "ques on a lot of religious teaching," as reported in the 2018 study. The teaching they ques on seems to be about the existence of God, and this is consistent with the explana ons offered by ex-Chris ans in a variety of other recent studies. When Chris ans walk away from the faith, more o en than not, it's due to some form of intellectual skep cism. Ex-Chris ans o en describe religious beliefs as innately blind or unreasonable. But that doesn't accurately reflect the rich, eviden al history of Chris anity. The psalmist appealed to the design and fine-tuning of the universe to demonstrate the existence of God (Psalm 19:1). Jesus appealed to both eyewitness tes mony (John 16:8) and the indirect evidence of his miracles (John 10:38) to argue for the authority of his statements. The disciples iden fied themselves as eyewitnesses and appealed to their observa ons of the Resurrec on to make the case for the Deity of Jesus (Acts 4:33). Ex-Chris ans o en leave the Church because they don't think anyone in the Church can answer their ques ons or make a case. It's me for believers to accept their responsibility to explain what Chris anity proposes and why these proposi ons are true, especially when interac ng with young people who have legi mate ques ons. Rather than embracing a blind or unreasonable faith, Chris ans must develop an informed, forensic faith that can stand up in the marketplace of ideas. We know why young Chris ans are leaving. Now it's me to give them a reason to stay. J. Warner Wallace is a Cold-Case Detec ve, Chris an Case Maker, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Chris an Worldview, and the author of Cold-Case Chris anity, God's Crime Scene, Forensic Faith Young Ex-Christians