Why are so many millenials leaving the Church? The election, basic science that the Church projects a disagreement towards, an apparent dislike for defending the types of minorities for whom Jesus and His apostles encouraged fighting...
Off the top of my head, these are some basic things that have discouraged me from going to church. Bear in mind that I have committed my life to the pursuit of Jesus and His purposes for me, but that does not stop me from recognizing and feeling the very distrust that is pushing away my generation.
I grew up being and experiencing the real thing with God. I prayed and He answered. First through others, then to me personally. I gobbled up sermons, took to heart the sermons at youth camps and elsewhere, and was given a calling that I neither expected nor was naturally gifted to undertake. With many difficulties and delays, I am still working toward that aspiration. But even as I was jealous of my peers who seemed so much more spiritual and gifted as I was growing up, I now see many of those same people giving up most of that in the name of being a regular person. This is not a bad thing in itself, as I see it. I could hardly relate to people before I dabbled in the realm of being a less than perfect Christian. But there comes a point at which one is living for the sake of living rather than for the sake of God, and in a world such as this, the line between those two can blur. The line has an even greater propensity toward becoming hazy when one is not involved in ministry to some degree.
As far as Christianity in the States, the message seems to have a strong message of anti-immigrant, anti- other religions, anti-science, anti-environment, and anti-alternative lifestyles. This, of course, is contrary to the message of Jesus Christ. I do not mean to say that Jesus endorsed other religions, lifestyle choices, etc., but rather, his message was salvation to all who believe. His message is a positive one, meant for all people, but people (including yours truly) have the habit of complicating it to the point that we form judgments. Since we are specifically not called to judge, but rather to bring salvation to all people, the formation of judgments seems odd, or, you know, stupid.
But maybe there is some part of Christianity that I never grasped when I read the Bible. Maybe the millions of child refugees in Syria are not worth the risk of helping. Perhaps I have a fool's understanding of healthcare and the need to help as many people as possible. I am an idiot on a number of levels, but it does not seem that difficult to grasp how easy it should be to apply verses from the book of James (which is one of the more critical books when it comes to emphasizing the need for changing one's lifestyle following salvation) to our own time in the world "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." (James 1:27)
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