Five Reasons That I Am Developing a Strong Distaste For “Five Reasons People Are Leaving the Church” Articles

It seems like every second time I open my computer these days I come across the latest instance of what is becoming a very familiar (and obnoxious) brand of writing: the “Five reasons for ____.” genre. Sometimes this takes the form of an “open letter,” a form of writing that is surely unparalleled in its odious ostentatiousness (“Dear church, here’s why no one is interested in you anymore” or “Dear church, let me explain to you why all your young people are leaving,” etc.). Sometimes writers of these pieces come up with really clever and original titles like “Losing My Religion” (I’m sure R.E.M. would be pleased). But more common these days are plain old lists. “Five Reasons Why Nobody Goes to Your Church,” for example, or “Five Ways That You as a Pastor Can Stop Being So Boring and Lifeless” or “Five Ways to Stop Being a Soul-Sucking, Hollow Institution and Start Being Spiritually Vital and Appealing for Twenty-First Century Sophisticates.”

(Those last three may not have been actual titles, but, well, you get the point.)

This morning, after encountering two of these articles before 9:00 am, I thought about writing an angry blog post with the title, “Five Reasons to Avoid Hurling Your Coffee Mug Through Your Computer Screen After Reading the Latest ‘Lists for Why People Don’t Go to Church’ Article,” but I thought better of it. Or, at least, I was persuaded that liking my computer was enough of a reason to avoid this course of action.

But, I must confess that I almost without exception find these kinds of articles spectacularly irritating. Perhaps you might be thinking, “Well of course he would say that. He’s employed by the church!” And you might be (partly) right. But most people who know me well would likely say that I am not exactly averse to criticizing the church when the church deserves it. I even agree with some of the well-rehearsed critiques leveled in these types of articles. Churches can do more to create space for honest questions and doubts. Churches should teach more holistic theologies. Churches ought to be more “authentic,” abused and overused as this term is becoming. Churches must seek to be more welcoming and inclusive and less rigid… And to serve better coffee… Yes, yes, fine. All of this is probably true.

But even as I would gladly acknowledge that the church is far from perfect, these articles still annoy me, and for one simple reason. Almost without exception, they seem to assume that if people don’t like or aren’t attracted to or can’t be bothered with church, that it must be the church’s fault. The customer is always right. Right?

Wrong.

Sometimes, the problem is precisely the customer and her cocktail of (perceived) needs/wants/expectations of the church.

This should not be surprising, of course, if we take Christian theology seriously (which we mostly don’t, but that’s another matter). Central to any remotely Christian anthropology is the basic assertion that human desire is disordered. We are image bearers of God, to be sure, and gloriously so, but we are also perpetually turned inward. We are selfish and proud and a whole host of other things, besides. So, given this general picture of human beings and human nature, it surely should not be beyond the realm of possibility that some of the reasons that people—young people, old people, in-between people—are leaving or rejecting the church have less to do with the church than with themselves.

And what about these selves of ours—these selves that the church is failing, according to all the expert articles and open letters and lists? What do these selves look like? Well, this is some of what I see out there (in the broader culture) and in here (in my own life).

1. We are obsessed with ourselves. Matthew Crawford, in his book The World Beyond Your Head, puts it like this: “[A]utonomy is arguably the central totem of modern life. It hovers above our concepts of individuality, creativity, and any number of other items that convey the existential heroism we’re expected to live up to on a daily basis. It is an idea that we moderns have made our dignity hinge on.” The self is the central totem of modern life. Indeed, it is.
2. We are obsessed with entertainment and easily bored. If you don’t believe me, um, look around next time you are in a public space with other humans. Or spend 10 minutes on Facebook. Or consider the phenomenon of “cat videos.” Increasingly, questions like, “Is it true?” or “Should this matter to me?” or “What might this demand of me?” take a back seat to “Is it entertaining?” and “Did I feel good afterward.” This is, of course, true both inside and outside the church. To our shame.
3. We have short attention spans. See #2. The Internet is destroying our brains and making us incapable of doing things that once seemed utterly ordinary. Like spending 20 minutes listening to someone talk without checking our phones every 45 seconds. Or being in a public space where there isn’t a screen somewhere with things moving on it. I was in a restaurant the other day where I counted no fewer than twenty television screens all going at the same time. Not that anyone was watching, mind you. They were all staring at their phones.
4. We like the idea of community far more than the effort it might take to contribute to one. “Community” is a word that makes us feel warm and fuzzy, and it feels like the kind of thing we know we should want, but it requires things like commitment and showing up even when we don’t necessarily feel like it and interacting with people who aren’t like us or who we wouldn’t necessarily choose. So we embrace community, we commit to it, we love it. Except when we don’t.  Then we go do something else.
5. Deep down, we don’t really think that any of this God stuff is terribly important. Religion takes its place on the “lifestyle choices” shelf alongside hot yoga and Oprah and scrapbooking and marathon running and spending time in nature. It is one of those things that you do if you’re “into it,” if it plays a role in making your life meaningful or inspiring. It does not situate us in anything like a grand narrative of existential meaning or hope, it does not call us to align our thoughts and actions with something (or Someone) external to us. It is a tool to be pressed into the service of the self and its own projects, at best. Which brings us back to #1… All roads begin with and lead to the self.

There are probably other features of the modern self that play into all this, too, but these are a few things that I observe with some regularity out there in the culture and in my own life.

So in light of this general picture, it is difficult for me to start panting after the avalanche of popular diagnoses of the five “real” reasons that demographic x is leaving the church or has been wounded by the church or isn’t interested in the church or thinks the church should be different. It’s not that I am uninterested in helping the church reflect Christ well, or that I think the church shouldn’t repent when it has been less than it is called to be. I am and I do. I’m just convinced that we humans are not always interested in or drawn to the things we should be. Sometimes the reason that we walk away from things is because they are calling us to things that are hard or inconvenient. Or, because they are calling us away from things that we really like.  Like ourselves.

At least some of the time, the “real” reason people are walking away from the church is a very old and uninteresting one. We are expert idolaters, and we prefer our totems. We want God, if at all, on our own terms. Ever since the garden, it has always been easier to leave than to stay.