by Drew Dyck
14. Alyssa M. Strenger, “The Moderating Effects of Attachment to God on Disordered Eating Behaviors,” Dissertation Abstracts International, 2015.
15. Chris Norton, “Leaders and Friends Remember John Stott,” Christianity Today, July 29, 2011, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/johnstottroundup.html.
16. Ibid.
17. Everett Rosenfeld, “Fond Farewells: John Stott, Theologian, 90,” Time, December 14, 2011, http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102136_2102268,00.html.
18. Tim Stafford, “John Stott Has Died,” Christianity Today, July 27, 2011, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/john-stott-obit.html.
19. Fred Smith, “David Brooks: A Holy Friend,” October 2, 2014, https://thegathering.com/david-brooks-holy-friend/.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. John Stott, “A Vision for Holiness,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 94, https://www.preachingtoday.com/sermons/sermons/2005/august/094.html.
23. “John Stott’s Last Words of Advice,” PreachingToday.com, May 14, 2015, https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2015/may/5051115.html.
24. Sophie DeMuth, “Whole30 and the Counter-Cultural Nature of Self-Discipline,” https://christandpopculture.com/whole30-and-the-counter-cultural-nature-of-self-discipline/.
25. Ibid.
26. Hunter, 213.
Chapter 8: Disciplined Living in an Age of Distraction
1. John Koblin, “How Much Do We Love TV? Let Us Count the Ways,” New York Times, June 30, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-survey-media-viewing.html.
2. Jacqueline Howard, “Americans Devote More Than 10 Hours a Day to Screen Time, and Growing,” CNN.com, July 29, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/index.html.
3. Jayson Maclean, “Households Now Use an Average of Seven Connected Devices Every Day: Report,” August 25, 2016, https://www.cantechletter.com/2016/08/households-now-use-average-seven-connected-devices-every-day-report/.
4. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), chapter XIV.
5. https://twitter.com/ahc/status/880407602580123648.
6. Ali Drucker, “Here’s Exactly How Many Hours of Porn People Watched in 2015,” Maxim, January 6, 2016, https://www.maxim.com/maxim-man/how-much-porn-do-people-watch-2016-1.
7. Brandon D. Smith, “Farewell, Social Media,” Patheos, July 1, 2017, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/brandondsmith/2017/07/farewell-social-media/.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. @StephenFurtick, “One reason we struggle w/ insecurity: we’re comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel,” May 10, 2011, https://twitter.com/stevenfurtick/status/67981913746444288.
11. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (London: Macmillan, 1962), ix.
12. Philip Yancey, “Reading Wars,” PhilipYancey.com, July 20, 2017, https://philipyancey.com/reading-wars.
13. Ibid.
14. “E-mails ‘hurt IQ more than pot, ’” April 22, 2015, CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/22/text.iq/.
15. Mike Allen, “Sean Parker unloads on Facebook: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,’” Axios, November 9, 2017, https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains-1513306792-f855e7b4-4e99-4d60-8d51-2775559c2671.html.
16. James Olds, Peter Milner, “Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain,” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 47, no. 6 (December 1954): 419–27.
17. Susie East, “Teens: This Is How Social Media Affects Your Brain,” CNN.com, August 1, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/health/social-media-brain/index.html.
18. Eric Andrew-Gee, “Your smartphone is making you stupid, antisocial and unhealthy: So why can’t you put it down?,” The Globe and Mail, January 6, 2018, updated April 10, 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/your-smartphone-is-making-you-stupid/article37511900/.
19. Kelly McGonigal, “The Science of Willpower: Kelly McGonigal at TEDxBayArea,” TEDx Talks, YouTube, May 18, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_fQvcBCNbA.
20. Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (New York: Avery, 2012), 127.
21. Chamath Palihapitiya, quoted in Amy B. Wang, “Former Facebook VP Says Social Media Is Destroying Society with ‘Dopamine-Driven Feedback Loops,’” Washington Post, December 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/former-facebook-vp-says-social-media-is-destroying-society-with-dopamine-driven-feedback-loops/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dcfcad54a508.
22. Laura M. Holson, “Putting a Bolder Face on Google,” New York Times, February 28, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01marissa.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=A9C1B34992829EE9D36225DBD3C310D0&gwt=pay.
23. Clifford Nass, “Does Multitasking Lead to a More Productive Brain?,” interview by Ira Flatow, NPR, June 11, 2010, https://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861382/the-myth-of-multitasking.
24. Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 85.
25. Ibid., 144.
26. C. J. Coffee, “Sermon: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 – Part 2 – Pornography,” December 10, 2017, http://www.thewellchurch.com/sermons/1-thessalonians-41-8-part-2-pornography/.
27. Ibid.
28. Brett McCracken, designed by Jeremy Hamann, “The Wisdom Pyramid,” August 13, 2017, https://www.brettmccracken.com/blog/2017/8/3/the-wisdom-pyramid. Used by permission of the author.
29. Betsy Mikel, “Former Google Designer Says 1 Simple Trick Can Curb Your Smartphone Addiction,” Inc., January 15, 2018, https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/former-google-designer-says-1-simple-trick-can-curb-your-smartphone-addiction.html.
30. A. J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2018), 100.
Chapter 9: Learning from Addicts
1. John, “I Am an Addict,” Time, March 5, 2018. 21.
2. “Dope Sickness,” Detox to Rehab, https://detoxtorehab.com/dope-sickness.
3. “Definition of Addiction,” ASAM, August 15, 2011, https://asam.org/resources/definition-of-addiction.
4. David DiSalvo, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011), 88.
5. Elizabeth Scalia, Little Sins Mean a Lot: Kicking Our Bad Habits Before They Kick Us (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2016), 5.
6. Lauren Brande, edited by Dan Wagener, “About the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-Step Recovery Program,” created on May 14, 2018, modified on August 23, 2018, Recovery.org, https://www.recovery.org/topics/alcoholics-anonymous-12-step/.
7. Bill Wilson, “Step One,” https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_step1.pdf.
8. Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (New York: Avery, 2012), 191.
9. Marco Battaglini, Roland Benabou, Jean Tirole, “Self Control in Peer Groups,” Journal of Economic Theory, April 6, 2005, https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/JET2005%20pdf.pdf.
10. “The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,” Alcoholics Anonymous (Great Britain), https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/about-aa/the-12-steps-of-aa.
11. Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (New York: Random House, 2012), 68.
12. Ibid., 70.
13. Ibid., 71.
14. Ibid., 84.
15. Quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations: Over 6000 Quotations Arranged by Theme, Compiled by Martin H. Manser (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 284.
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More from the Author
Generation Ex-Christian addresses what may be the church’s largest challenge: the exodus of young people from the faith. Drawing on recent research and extensive interviews, the book brings readers face to face with young “leavers” and provides battle-tested counsel on engaging them in relevant, life-changing conversations about God.
Go HERE to learn more about how postmodernism has contributed to young people leaving the church.
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Immeasurable helps ministers recognize the cultural forces shaping their view of the calling, and then reimagine what faithful church leaders can look like in the twenty-first century. Through short essays and reflections on aspects of the pastor’s soul or skills, it commends the true work of ministry—shepherding, teaching, encouraging—while redefining what we mean by success in ministry.
Go HERE for the author’s outlook on ambition and effectiveness in today’s church.
1- Good-bye, God
My friend Abe was raised as a Christian, but abandoned his faith during college.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said with a shrug. “I just left it.”
When I heard about Abe’s “deconversion,” my mind jumped to the last time I’d seen him. It was at a Promise Keepers rally the year after we graduated from high school. I remember being surprised to see him there; neither of us had been strong Christians in school. But watching him standing next to his father in the coliseum, it was clear something had clicked. As the voices of twenty thousand men lifted in unison, Abe squeezed his eyes shut and extended one slender arm skyward. He seemed solemn yet peaceful, totally absorbed in God’s presence.
It was a powerful evening. I can still hear the words of one of the event’s speakers. He wasn’t the most eloquent in the lineup, and he had a slight speech impediment, but his passion for Christ was palpable.
“I don’t know about you guys,” he said. “But I want to run the race so hard that when I reach the end, I fall exhausted into the arms of Jesus.”
After he spoke, the stadium was silent. In that moment I think we all felt the same way. We didn’t want to just hobble through our spiritual journeys. We wanted to sprint. When we came to the end, we wanted to collapse into the arms of Jesus.
I’d considered myself a Christian ever since my dad walked into my room one night in 1983, knelt beside my lower bunk, and led me in the sinner’s prayer. I was five years old when that happened and probably didn’t understand exactly what I was saying. And yet, it was real. It wasn’t until my late teens, however, when I carefully read the gospels, that the faith truly became my own.
When I saw Abe worshiping at the rally, I assumed he had undergone a similar transformation. We were both pastors’ kids. We had both gone through the proverbial rebellious phase, but that didn’t mean we didn’t believe.
That’s why I was shocked by his decision to leave the faith. I was a little curious too. What had prompted Abe, who was my age, and from a remarkably similar background, to defect? How could the guy I’d watched lost in worship turn cold toward God?
EXODUS NOW
It’s a question that’s being asked a lot these days. Young adults are fleeing the faith in record numbers. Abe may be a riddle, but he’s not rare.
Religious beliefs are elusive targets for conventional research. No survey or study can fully probe the heart of a person, much less the mind of God. So when it comes to assessing how many people are joining or leaving the faith, we’re dealing with educated guesses. To steal the apostle Paul’s beautiful phrase, “we see through a glass darkly.”
Still a number of recent surveys give us important clues about the emerging generation’s patterns of belief. And it’s not a pretty picture. Among young adults, there’s a major shift taking place—away from Christianity.
The first indicators are church attendance and involvement. Here the statistics are grim. According to Rainer Research 70 percent of youth leave church by the time they are twenty-two years old.1 Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those reared in the church will be “disengaged” by the time they are twenty-nine years old.2 Unlike older church dropouts, these young “leavers” are unlikely to seek out alternative forms of Christian community, such as home churches and small groups. When they leave church, many leave the faith as well. One commentator put the reality in stark terms:
Imagine a group photo of all the students who come to your church (or live within your community of believers) in a typical year. Take a big fat marker and cross out three out of every four faces. That’s the probable toll of spiritual disengagement as students navigate through their faith during the next two decades.3
I don’t need a “big fat marker” to perform this experiment. I’ve watched it play out among my friends over the past decade. The social networking website Facebook has emerged as the younger generation’s preferred way to communicate with large numbers of friends. It’s a great way to keep tabs on people from the past. As I scan the online accounts of former youth group friends, the drift from God is unmistakable. Many no longer even wear the Christian label. Others have not explicitly renounced the faith, but their online pictures, comments, and profiles reveal lifestyles and attitudes few would describe as Christian. Some were particularly surprising to me. Under the “religious views” category in her profile, one previously devout Christian had simply written: “God has left the building.” Another shock came from a sweet, soft-spoken girl who used to sing on my church’s worship team. Now her album of pictures looked like an advertisement for Girls Gone Wild. She had sent me a message wanting to catch up. I wrote back and asked if she was “still into Jesus.” Her response said it all—I didn’t get one.
Of course Facebook accounts hardly serve as reliable gauges of spiritual health. When it comes to most of my friends, I probably won’t discover where they are at in their relationships with God. I might not have the opportunity to see them again face-to-face, let alone delve into their most deeply held beliefs. Thankfully, I did have that opportunity with Abe.
“I FELT NOTHING”
Fast-forward six years from that Promise Keepers rally and Abe’s sitting in my studio apartment, slapping a cigarette from a pack of American Spirits. The intervening years had taken us each down very different paths. I was married. He was single. I was headed to seminary. He was wrapping up law school. I was an active Christian. He’d rejected the faith. At the time of his visit, he was celebrating a last stint of student-life freedom by motorbiking across the United States. I offered him my futon when he rolled into town. It wasn’t much, but compared to the nights he’d been spending in his pop-up tent, it probably felt like the Marriott.
We talked late into the night. Since high school he’d lived an exciting and eclectic life. I felt a twinge of jealousy as he described experiences that seemed lifted from a Jack Kerouac novel. He had lived in London, and worked as a bartender. He backpacked through India. He spent summers tree planting in northern Alberta, a lucrative seasonal gig that funded his nomadic existence. Somewhere in Asia he suspended his travels to meditate in a Buddhist monastery. He’d become a vegetarian.
“I can’t see how people can justify using animals as a resource,” he said as he fried up a delicious feast of falafel balls for me and my wife.
His experiences had changed him—most significantly in his views about God. When I broached the subject, his voice grew quiet.
“When I left the faith, I thought it would feel really bad. I assumed I’d come right back. But I didn’t feel bad. I felt nothing.”
Though he was philosophical about his departure, he didn’t regret it. In fact he felt liberated. And he was slightly combative.
“Can you honestly say that Christianity has been good for humanity
?” he asked.
His tone was equally critical when he talked about his parents, especially his father whom he described as “a right-winger.”
If I had been saddened by Abe’s decision, his father was devastated. When he heard of Abe’s decision, he rushed him the book Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, hoping it might bring him back.
It didn’t.
Abe read the book, even enjoyed it, but didn’t change his decision to bid his faith farewell.
“Growing up I had an uncle that wasn’t a Christian and we prayed for him all the time,” Abe said wistfully. “They probably pray for me like that now.”
A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE
Why do young people leave the faith?
Whenever I ask people inside the church I receive some variation of the same answer. They leave because of moral compromise, I am told. A teenage girl goes off to college and starts to party. A young man moves in with his girlfriend. Soon the conflict between their beliefs and behavior becomes unbearable. Something has to give. Tired of dealing with a guilty conscience and unwilling to abandon their sinful lifestyles, they drop their Christian commitment. They may cite intellectual skepticism or disappointments with the church, but don’t be fooled. These are just excuses, smoke screens designed to hide their real reason for going astray. “They change their creed to match their conduct,” as my parents would say.
There’s even an academic basis for this explanation. Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance.” Basically the theory goes like this. Opposing beliefs or behaviors cause psychological distress. We seek to resolve the tension by dropping or modifying one of those contradictory beliefs or behaviors. Once we do, our psyche’s harmony is restored.
I think there’s a lot of truth to that hypothesis—more than most young leavers would care to admit (and we’ll explore this reason for leaving later in the book). “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. “It’s been found difficult and left untried.”4 Even practicing Christians can attest to the truth encapsulated in that clever verbal twist. Living the Christian life is hard, and when you’re falling short, as we all do, it’s easy to forfeit relationship with an invisible deity in order to indulge sinful, real-world desires.