New shocking study!
75 percent of teens fall away from the church.
We've all heard these kinds of statistics before.
But what's behind them?
Understanding why youth leave the church.
This week on Creation Magazine LIVE!
Welcome to Creation Magazine LIVE!
My name's Richard Fangrad…
…and I'm Matt Bondy.
Now, this week on Creation Magazine LIVE our topic is, 'understanding why youth leave the church',
understanding why it is that so many young people from Christian homes
continue to fall away from the faith of their parents.
And, yes, there is a solution to prevent young people from leaving the church and growing
in their walk with Christ.
We'll tell you what it is after explaining why they're leaving in the first place.
Now, there've been many polls conducted about why people are leaving the church in droves.
You can see some of the results here.
These cover a range of denominations in both the USA and Canada and the most shocking thing
is how high these percentages are.
Yes
These are children that have grown up in Christian homes and gone to church.
Massive numbers walk away from Christianity in their early 20's.
That's right, yes.
And I think when Christian parents see these kinds of percentages there's kind of a paralysation
that sets in.
They just don't know what to do.
Or they think that this is such a massive problem, that a solution must be really complex
or logistically impossible – too big to handle, in any case, they feel powerless to
make any difference at all.
And along with that there is a hope that this falling away won't apply to *their* congregation,
or *their* children.
But, we see this everywhere we go.
Creation Ministries with our 7 offices around the world, ourselves included, we visit hundreds
of churches each year, and at most events there is at least one parent that relates
how they tried their best with their children but now they're not interested
in God and Christianity.
It's really heartbreaking!
It is.
And there are, no doubt, some of you watching who have experienced exactly this kind of thing.
It's very difficult.
Reaching those people who have a church background but have turned away, that's not the focus
of today's show, our focus today is, how can we prevent it from happening in the first place?
How can we, as Christian parents and church leaders make a difference in the future of the church?
And is there even a solution to this?
Right.
Now in 2016 CMI produced a documentary called 'Fallout'.
Yes
We conducted interviews with students on university campuses and we found a very interesting pattern.
We did, yes.
The interviews show that the majority of young people who were *not* exposed to apologetics
teaching and specifically evidences for Biblical creation in their youth now embrace evolution
and no longer attend church.
But, every student that was interviewed, who was equipped with answers as a young person,
still retains their Christian convictions, in spite of the evolutionary teaching that
they receive in higher education.
Better still, every student interviewed who affirmed biblical creation still attends church regularly.
Yes
Now, you might be thinking, "Are you saying that if you teach people evidences for Biblical
creation they *absolutely* won't fall away from the church?"
Like it's some cure-all solution for every situation?
No, that's not what we're saying.
We all know that's not the case.
You might recall Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when
he is old he will not depart from it."
But, given the nature of Proverbs it doesn't mean that in every single case this will happen.
But, as a *huge* trend, yes, there is a correlation between young people being equipped with solid
apologetics and them staying in the church.
And that's not really surprising, is it, when you think about it.
Evolution is this concept that teaches that we can explain everything without a Creator.
So learning about the massive amount of evidence against that view, will go a long way in helping
young people to understand the truth about where the universe came from.
That's right, yes.
And in addition to understanding why evolution doesn't work - where it's wrong - having
apologetics training in church, in Sunday School and throughout the youth group, and,
by the way, apologetics means giving a reasoned defence, giving reasoned arguments, for the
truth of the Christian faith; we need that kind of training in churches today, and in
homes as parents raise their children.
Now, that kind of training would include teaching the answers to common questions that people
have about the Bible.
And people have *a lot* of questions when it comes to Genesis 1 to 11.
Questions like: How do you fit dinosaurs in the Bible? and What about natural selection,
and the ape-men and Noah's Ark and the Flood?
And many others.
That's right, yes.
Now when we come back we're going to add support to what we have just said.
We'll be back in just a minute.
In Job 40, in response to Job's questioning of God's wisdom, God sets out his credentials
and challenges Job to answer a 77-question "creation science" exam.
He says to Job, "brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me."
The exam covers the breadth of God's creative power, mentioning the wonders of many animals
that we are familiar with such as the lion, raven, deer, ox and ostrich.
Finally, there is "Leviathan" – a terrifying aquatic creature with an impenetrable hide
impervious to harpoons, fearsome teeth and a back covered in rows of shields.
It even has firebrands streaming from its mouth and smoke from its nostrils.
Though this may sound mythological to us, Job recognised it as a real creature.
Indeed, one candidate from the fossil record is Sarcosuchus, a 12-metre (or 40 foot) monster
with an unusual bulbous cavity at the end of its snout that could conceivably have been
used for mixing fire-generating chemicals.
To find out more from Creation Ministries International, visit our website, CREATION.com.
Well, if you've just tuned in, this week we are talking about understanding why it
is that so many young people who grew up in the church will leave the church when they
get out on their own – when they go to university, for example, and what can be done to fix that
problem in the future.
That's our topic today.
Yes.
Now in the last segment we mentioned CMI's documentary Fallout.
Yes
It really highlights the need for creation apologetics for young people in Christian
homes and how effective it is in stopping the massive exodus of young people from our
churches.
The teaching inoculates them to evolutionary ideas.
Of course, some of you are probably thinking ya, but 'Creation Ministries', you guys
are probably pretty biased about this!
Right.
Like: "Get some creation resources", "Buy some CMI books", and, "Go to the website"…
It might seem like a pretty convenient conclusion from us, right?
But, it's not just CMI that is saying this.
To back this up we're going to look at a few studies done by a couple of different
groups, and the first is a major 2016 study done by the Intelligent Design group, 'The
Discovery Institute', and it's called, "Darwin's Corrosive Idea - The impact
of evolution on attitudes about faith, ethics and human uniqueness".
And, no surprise here, what they found was -- ta da!-- that evolution makes people less
likely to believe in God.
Wow, shocker!
No, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been engaged with the creation/evolution
debate for a while, because evolution is supposed to be *purely* naturalistic, no supernatural
activities are required to *supposedly* evolve from nothing to everything.
By the way, you can find details about the biggest science-related ideas that have made
the existence of God less believable for atheists at creation.com/corrosive
Yes, and in that article, which summarizes some of the study's findings, it's actually
not just evolution, but also the big bang and *suffering* that are stumbling blocks
to people believing the Bible, which have led people toward atheism.
Yes, and that highlights the error of organizations like BioLogos, who promote theistic evolution
as the only viable view for Christians in the age of science.
But even though they call themselves a Christian organization, they don't even defend Jesus
as the Creator God as revealed in the book of Colossians.
You know, in Colossians 1:16 it says, "For by Him [referring to Jesus] all things were
created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him."
That's right!
Now, from Biologos' own website they have an article titled, "On what grounds can
one claim that the Christian God is the Creator?", and their response, again from their website,
is, "The creation story of BioLogos is compatible with many faith traditions.
Muslims, Jews and Christians alike can align their faith with the BioLogos account of our
origins, and there is no way to give a scientific proof for one monotheistic faith over another."
So much for being a *Christian* apologetics organization!
As a 'Christian ministry' they defend Islam as much as much as they defend Christianity!
And they claim exactly the opposite of what we're finding in these studies.
They say that if you teach Biblical creation, *that's* what will drive people away from Christianity.
Yes.
Right.
So by twisting Scripture, especially to try to not only fit in the millions of
years timescale that evolution needs, but also evolution itself.
And then you just chuck what's written in Genesis about God creating and insert evolution
beginning with a Big Bang then hydrogen gas and ending billions of years later with people.
That's going to help?
And by promoting that in churches, that's supposed to make people see
how trustworthy Scripture is?
How's that going to work?
So they say that teaching biblical creation will cause people to reject Christianity,
and 'Creation Ministries' says that teaching evolution makes atheists out of people.
So, one of us has got to be wrong here.
One of us is wrong.
And surveys, like this one, show that teaching evolutionary ideas is what atheists point
to when you ask them why they don't believe in God.
The most effective way to promote belief in God's Word is to proclaim its truth confidently,
right from the very first verse, and to show how science supports, how there's evidence
that supports, what God's word says, not by twisting Scripture to try to make it conform
with materialistic ideas.
Exactly!
While they are probably well-meaning in trying to 'harmonize' Scripture with evolution,
they are actually deferring to evolutionism as their authority, and surveys, like the
one we're talking about today, show that their thinking is completely
upside-down on this issue.
So the Intelligent Design movement's study provides even more back up
for what our Fallout DVD shows.
When we get back we'll reveal the findings of the most extensive study ever done
on youth and religion.
Are you skeptical about Christianity?
Perhaps you're a Christian but know someone who won't consider Christianity.
Christianity for Skeptics is one of CMI's most popular books.
Written by Drs Steve Kumar and Jonathan Sarfati, this powerful resource refutes many attacks
on the Christian faith.
It contains cutting edge research, solid theology and a summary of the Christian roots of science.
Questions about Islam, atheism, suffering, evidence for God, and more are answered.
Full of bright, catchy illustrations and a sleek, modern style, this book draws in any reader.
Purchase this resource, and many others at creation.com
On this week's episode we are talking about why youth leave the church and we're just
in the process of providing some support for what we've suggested is a powerful solution
to keeping youth *in* the church.
In the church!
Yes.
OK, we're going to reference another survey.
The conclusion from The Gospel Coalition's article titled "FactChecker: Does College
Cause Young Adults to Lose Their Faith?"
reads this way, "In the last few years, social scientists have 'found that the religiously
undermining effect of higher education … has disappeared'."
Now, it references in-depth research done by the National Study of Youth and Religion
that shows higher education is *not* the 'faith killer' that it once was.
Ok, hang on a second here.
CMI speakers around the world *often* describe the negative effects that evolutionary indoctrination
in the education system has had on young people from Christian homes.
So, does this study contradict what we've been saying?
Well, the study was done under the direction of Christian Smith, Professor of Sociology
at the University of Notre Dame, and it was a massive study!
Conducted over a 16 year time period from 1999–2015, it's the most extensive sociological
project on youth and religion ever undertaken.
It sampled over 2,000 13–17 year olds from all over the US.
It collected data from the participants in a variety of different ways including ongoing,
extensive, personal interviews over many years.
The study started with people in their teens and continued into their mid to late 20s,
and it asked in-depth questions regarding faith, spirituality, family, moral behaviour
and other things.
Before the mid 90's, studies showed that 'higher education' definitely made a negative
impact on student's faith, but this new study concluded that, "… among recently
surveyed college students, 2.7 times more report that their religious beliefs have strengthened
during their college experience than say their beliefs weakened".
Ok, so what changed?
Well some reading the study may think there's been a big turnaround and the church isn't
losing young people at the rapid rates often reported, but the Christian church in 'western'
nations is still going downhill, still declining.
For example, the American Culture and Faith Institute's 2016 survey concluded that,
"During the past decade alone there have been huge declines in the proportion of people
who claim to be deeply spiritual (down by 21 percent); who say their religious faith
is very important in their life (down by 16 points); who claim to have made a personal
commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life (that's down by 12 percentage points)."
So belief in God, trust in the Bible, and reliance on Jesus alone for salvation have
all declined a lot.
Yeah, they're still going down.
In the United States, less than one in five adults believes that absolute moral truth
exists and is defined by the Bible.
So the 'big picture' of a church exodus remains the same.
And high percentages of young people from Christian families still tend to fall away
from their religious upbringing.
What this is actually meaning is that young people don't abandon their faith at College
or University age, but they do it earlier on.
Earlier on, yes.
It seems likely that the students that thrive in higher education are the ones that already
had solid faith going in.
It's reasonable to conclude that they were already exposed to apologetics and taught
how to defend Biblical truths before entering higher education.
And again, this is exactly what the interviews from our Fallout video support.
So the takeaway point then is that young people who don't get apologetic preparation; those
who aren't equipped with answers to faith-hindering questions when they are young, are indeed
more likely to reject the Christian faith.
And putting all the survey results together suggests that they are checking out earlier
rather than later.
And this matches exactly what we captured on the Fallout video.
Yes, now again, the Fallout video shows only, obviously, a small selection of University
students in the US, but as this new survey shows, the results can be *reasonably* extrapolated
to the majority of young people.
Now when we get back we are going to look in more detail into the specifics of the National
Study of Youth and Religion's findings.
We'll see you in just a minute…
In 1947 a crash landing occurred in Roswell, New Mexico, that people still talk about.
According to many UFO believers, aliens from another world crash-landed their flying saucer,
and the US government has tried to cover it up ever since.
This claim was given impetus with the release of a 1995 documentary that claimed to show
genuine footage of autopsies on aliens that were recovered from the crash site.
But the credibility of this film experienced its own 'crash landing' when one of the
actors paid to take part in the documentary publicly confessed it was a hoax.
So what really did happen at Roswell?
Well, 1947 was the beginning of the Cold War and the USA was secretly monitoring the Soviets
via weather-type balloons with specialized monitoring equipment.
When one crashed on a ranch at Roswell, they wanted to keep things secret so that the Soviets
didn't know they were being spied upon.
To find out more from Creation Ministries International, visit our website, CREATION.com.
Alright, our subject this week is 'Understanding why young people leave the church'.
Yes, and we were just discussing the *most extensive survey ever done* on youth and faith.
In an online video explaining the National Study of Youth & Religion's findings titled
'How American Youth Misunderstand Science and Religion', Professor Smith specifically
addresses how the topic of 'science' affects youth in America.
How *science* affects…
Yes.
His research indicates that seven out of ten college-age, emerging adults believe there
is a conflict between science and religion and that religion is quote, "always the loser".
However, again, these conclusions were reached earlier on in life.
He says by age *thirteen*, seventy percent of youth across all Christian denominations
indicate they 'strongly agree' that, "The teachings of science and religion often ultimately
conflict with each other".
Yes and the summary of his research is, "Nearly all American youth associate 'science'
with 'evidence' and 'proof', but associate religion with 'blind faith' and 'private',
subjective 'opinion'."
Right, yes, but in Smith's presentation, it's important to note that there is no
indication that he's making the vital distinction – that we've talked about many times on
Creation Magazine LIVE before – the difference between science and history.
So, what Smith is referring to isn't actually a conflict between 'science' and 'religion',
but the evolutionary history contrasted with Biblical history.
Right.
By 'science', he isn't referring to chemistry, biology, physics, those kinds of things.
He sometimes says 'science' when he should be saying is 'history'.
This is reflected in a quote Smith uses in his presentation from one of the study's
participants who said, "I mean there is proven [scientific] fact and then there is
what's written in the Bible-and they don't match up.
So it's kind of whatever you wanna believe; there's fact and there's a book, and some
people just don't wanna believe the truth [of science]."
Evolution is not "proven scientific fact", it's a belief about what happened in the
past and so outside of the realm of science.
There's no doubt that living things change over time, and the changes can be observed
genetically, that's science.
But the types of changes that scientists observe aren't the types of changes that will evolve
a single cell into a human!
Right, yes, wrong kinds of changes.
Creationists and evolutionists don't argue over the observations of science.
It's the teaching of evolutionary *history*, and then *calling* it science, that drives
young people away from belief in the Bible.
Right.
Because they are taught evolution as fact, in science class, it appears to have a veneer
of scientific credibility that often outweighs what they've been taught from the Bible.
But in reality, it's really one belief about the past versus another belief about the past.
No one has observed *either* of these two histories.
Right, creation or evolution… as we've said many time before.
Professor Smith's research also contains a *giant clue* as to what the antidote to
this huge problem of youth falling away from church is.
Look at this quote: "We did look at which … teenagers are the ones that are most likely
to say religion and science can integrate fine … they are not in conflict.
Which are the ones who had the combination of answers that said it can all work together?
The one factor that put kids way up there … is that they went to private, Protestant schools …"
Interesting!
Of course, Protestant Christian schools are more prone to teach the scientific evidence
for biblical creation.
At least, more so than religious schools that may teach theistic evolution.
Right, that's true!
All of these survey results were captured in our mini-documentary FALLOUT.
This 27-minute video features interviews with students, so you can hear for yourself about
their background and why they stayed in church, or left the church.
We've been talking about this thing since we started today, so here's a short clip
from the trailer.
Creation or evolution – which do you believe?
Umm, I'd probably have to say evolution.
Evolution.
Evolution.
Is there any powerful argument that makes you think evolution is true, that causes that
confusion?
I think the studies that have been done on apes and monkeys are pretty compelling.
I think that the genetic sequence can change over time, over billions of years.
Mostly fossil records, and databases of…
Really just the fossil records.
In your church background, were you ever exposed to any scientific evidence for Creation by
the church leaders, pastors, anything like that?
Definitely not.
Nothing in particular, no.
No, I don't believe so.
Do you still attend church today or not anymore?
Only for holidays.
We kind of stopped going together as a family.
Did your church leaders, student leaders, bring in any Creation teaching that showed
you there was scientific evidence to support the Bible's account of Creation?
Yes.
Yeah, we learned a lot about different Creation scientists and proof of young earth creationism.
What are you studying now?
Biology.
Biology – right – steeped in evolution.
But you're not convinced by the evolutionary argument in your biology classes?
No.
Still attend church today?
Yes.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, every Sunday.
Would it be fair to say then, that being able to discuss Creation openly at church has helped
strengthen you in that area, prepare you for what you've learned here at college about evolution?
Yes.
From the mouths of students themselves, they confirm what Professor Smith is saying: that
young people who are taught creation apologetics from an early age, and throughout their formative
years are much more likely to continue in their Christian faith, even through the university years.
That's right, …and not be swayed by evolutionary arguments, on top of that.
So, as we said earlier, they've been inoculated against the false history of evolution and
have answers for the true history recorded in Scripture.
You can see these conclusions played out in real people's lives in CMI's eye-opening
little video there, "Fallout!"
You know, the *most exciting* conclusion of all these studies and the Fallout documentary,
is that there is a solution to the problem of children leaving the church.
More on that after a short break.
For a more in-depth understanding of topics relating to the creation/evolution debate,
the Journal of Creation contains peer-reviewed research papers that support the biblical
account of Creation, the Flood and the Fall.
One subscriber said: "I always assumed that this journal would
be too academic for me… not so.
I am a Christian with a very enquiring mind….
With each issue I find powerful articles that open doors and shine light on my understanding
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Each Journal of Creation is more than 120 pages and published 3 times per year.
To subscribe visit Creation.com!
We've been talking today about people leaving the church in massive numbers, in some denominations
recent surveys suggest around 90 percent of children who grow up in the church will leave
the church once they're out on their own – they go off to university, get out from
underneath mom and dad, and they're gone.
These numbers are a nightmare for church leaders.
Especially for youth pastors.
I mean 90 percent of their target audience is leaving the church.
That means they're essentially unable to accomplish their goal in 90 percent of the
people under their care.
Yeah.
And that's depressing.
And everyone is ready with some idea for how to keep young people in the church.
Some of them are more gimmicky, kind of bait-and-switch – let's have a pizza night and we'll
throw in a Bible study at the end, and that kind of thing.
But when the data is in, what's going to do the job of keeping people in the church?
Teaching biblical truths and helping young people get to the point in their spiritual
walk, in their walk with Christ where they *know* the Bible is true and can refute attacks
on Scripture that are so popular today.
We had a student call us up a few years back – went to university, the first day the
teacher walks in he says, "Are there any Christians in the class?", and a few of
the people put up their hands, and "Ok, I want you to drop out of this course because
you will not pass".
Incredible!
Just blatant attacks on Christianity.
Well, remember, it's the Holy Spirit that ultimately gets the job done!
Yes, you're right, of course.
It's the Holy Spirit who does the job.
Yes, ultimately.
But, you know, just like evangelism, we are called to preach, that's our role in leading
non-believers to Christ, the Holy Spirit's role is changing their heart.
In Ezekiel 36:26 it says, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put
within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
So, we're talking about discipleship.
And there's our part, and then there's God's part.
Right.
And our part is getting into the Word, getting our *children* into the Word, our youth into
the Word, teaching them apologetics, a reasoned defence of the Christian faith.
Start with apologetics training at an age appropriate level.
Even in Sunday School, maybe try something like, instead of teaching Bible "stories"
(you know, "The Story of the Fishermen", and "The Story…" here and there),
call them "The Account…", it's "The Account of the Flood", "The Account of this and
that", and so on.
If you want a parable of what we're talking about here, it's the parable of the soils
from Matthew 13.
The seed of the Gospel is sown and it only produces a crop on the *cultivated* soil.
By teaching in this way, in your church, in your youth group, in your home, you remove
the rocks of evolutionary geology and the weeds of evolutionary biology so that the
soil in people's hearts is prepared to receive the Gospel and they grow.
Yes, by teaching Biblical truths *along with* apologetics, Biblical truths take root and
grow in people's lives.
And, Proverbs 22:6 comes to mind again, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when
he is old he will not depart from it."
So, there's no reason why a young person, properly equipped and discipled with good
Biblical teaching should abandon their faith.
That's right, yes.
Properly equipped.
And that's what CMI is trying to do – to provide Christians the resources to equip
young people throughout their formative years, learning about the Bible, and so on.
And when you run up against those faith hindering questions that prevent further spiritual growth,
there are answers to those.
Absolutely, yes.
The website has become a great tool.
Yes, it's got…
11 000 articles on it?
(Even more by the time you watch this.)
Yes, that's right.
And then we shouldn't forget about the "Fallout" DVD that we've been talking about – a
phenomenal resource.
And it's not the kind of thing where we just cherry picked certain participants and
put the best clips in there, it includes all the results on that DVD.
That's right, yes.
The magazine as well.
You can view a free digital copy at creation.com/free-mag.
If you like it, subscribe.
That's what this show is based on – the content from the magazine.
We'll see you next week.
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