Jumping Ship by M. Pearl

[Joanne]

I have fairly strong opinions and theories on this subject; they might be better suited in Intense Fellowship.

I think "leaving the faith" can be a natural, expected developmental stage. I think this is so regardless of the parenting culture/tone/style.

I also think that "leaving the faith" is a bit of a misnomer. I don't think that children, even older teen minors, can authentically choose - especially when their life experience has been Christianity imposed by the parents.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that you don't bring your kids to church, do family devotion, read, or study. I am suggesting, though, that humans have to have a sense of autonomy of ownership before something IS theirs. Even in the least coercive, mainline, liberalish churches coercion exists simply in the act of requiring attendance. It might be "good for them" coercion, but it IS coercion. The power and force behind parental enthusiasm for faith-based initiatives such as confirmation is HUGE. Kids, even strong, independent ones, may not feel they can express a full range of doubt, uncertainty, unwillingness, or disbelief.

Now, I think that leaving OR staying in the church can be exaggerated by extreme legalism and/or punitive parenting. I think some kids will "stay" out of the cultish dynamic. And some will seriously rebel. They are both operating out of the same place.

I also remind myself that the scriptre says "when he is OLD". My 17 year old who does not want to attend church anymore isn't old.

[saturnfire16]

I agree with Joanne. I HAD to get to a place of rejecting pretty much everything I was taught before I could come back to believing in God and trusting him because of *my own* experiences instead of "that's how I was raised." It was a vital part of my journey. I probably could have stayed "in the faith" in a very shallow, superficial, just go to church on Sundays way if I had not had that experience. It would have looked ok on the outside, but would have been nothing compared to the relationship I have with God now.

[forty-two]

Bit disjointed here - musing "aloud" - but my thoughts:

There is a difference in our *response* to our faith in God - what we believe, how we worship, how we act - and our faith itself. God creates and sustains faith - it exists apart from our response to it. The faith of a little child is just as vital and real as the faith of an adult - their respective abilities to understand it and express it and live may be wildly different, but the core reality and meaning of it is the same .

So when we grow up and start examining our parents' beliefs and practices, experimenting and exploring to see if we want to make them our own - in short, starting to make our *response* to our faith our own - that does not mean we are making our *faith* our own in some new and qualitatively different way . It is just as much ours, just as real and vital and powerful, at 18mos as it as at 18 years . We are just relating to it, experiencing it, in a new way.

And so I don't see any of that process of exploring our faith and what it means to us as "leaving the faith" . Might lead to it, but isn't itself anything of the sort . Leaving the faith is just that - rejecting God and one's salvation (or declaring that one never had it in the first place and has no desire for it).

I too had a crisis of belief in high school (which I pretty much worked through in my head, that being how I deal with things - I was very fortunate to be in a church that welcomed questions and did not cause me to equate my doubts about my faith with my faith being in actual jeopardy - things could have gone ever so badly otherwise), but though I doubted all over the place, I never left the faith - and in fact it never changed a whit - God was right there the whole time . And it was a beneficial, if angsty , experience .

[NewCovenantMama]

Reading this thread with interest as it's a topic which has been on my mind lately.

I made a committment to Christ through a youth club when I was 11. My parents came through to faith when I was 22, after my brother was healed of ADHD. So all through my teen and part of my preteen years I was the Christian kid in a non-Christian home. My parents preferred me to be involved with church than into the disco scene with my cousins, but they were sceptical and periodically tried to convince me all roads led to God and that the Bible was a collection of stories which had been distorted in the telling before being written down. My home was quite dysfunctional, and the excellent youth work and good relationships I had at church were a refuge from that. I find it hard to relate to the whole "church kid" culture, because I wasn't one! I went to church because I wanted to.

I've seen kids from Christian homes who rebelled, and kids from Christian homes who didn't, and I've been thinking a lot about the differences between the two groups. It seems to me that the two factors which keep kids in the fold, so to speak, are the quality of their relationship with their parents and whether they are personally experiencing God or just experiencing church. I also think quality relationships with other Christians than their parents as they grow up is important. How to give my kids the opportunity to experience the realities I experienced is something I'm exploring at the moment.

[Maggirayne]

The only reason I haven't is I have experienced God's grace. People in the church, seeing stuff thru the eyes of a PK. . . being raised a la Dobson. . .

Even now, at our old church where people believe God is a punishing God and Babywise is the only way. . . if I were still there and hadn't found GCM, I think I'd just ignore Christianity.

Steve Saint said he called himself a God-follower since being a Christian has certainly lost it's original meaning. Calling myself that really resonated with me.

[mountainash]

Originally Posted by saturnfire16

I agree with Joanne. I HAD to get to a place of rejecting pretty much everything I was taught before I could come back to believing in God and trusting him because of *my own* experiences instead of "that's how I was raised." It was a vital part of my journey. I probably could have stayed "in the faith" in a very shallow, superficial, just go to church on Sundays way if I had not had that experience. It would have looked ok on the outside, but would have been nothing compared to the relationship I have with God now.

I had to get to that place, too. It's was terrifying. It was what is described in Phillipians as "working out your salvation with fear and trembling." I felt like I was jumping off a cliff when it came time to decide whether I was going to rely on my knowledge of doctrine and theology to save me or if I was going to cling to Love. I kept thinking, "What if I'm wrong? What if God doesn't really love me that much?"

Originally Posted by Maggirayne

Even now, at our old church where people believe God is a punishing God and Babywise is the only way. . . if I were still there and hadn't found GCM, I think I'd just ignore Christianity.

This is precisely why I believe right relationships are so, so important to God. We can have all the right answers but if we're not living love from the inside out, those answers can't grow into faith.

Spoiler for Maggirayne:

Don't think I'm implying anything passive aggressively here. I love you, Friend. Even with recent bumps in the road, you live that love--it shines through in your warm, cheery smile. Your daughters, the way they cling to you, they soak it up like sponges! And all the time and energy you put into reaching out to local mamas, it radiates love! Don't be down on yourself, Dear. His mercies are new every morning.

http://www.last.fm/music/Sara+Groves/_/Kingdom+Comes

Steve Saint said he called himself a God-follower since being a Christian has certainly lost it's original meaning. Calling myself that really resonated with me.

I can relate.

[CelticJourney]

Originally Posted by saturnfire16

I agree with Joanne. I HAD to get to a place of rejecting pretty much everything I was taught before I could come back to believing in God and trusting him because of *my own* experiences instead of "that's how I was raised." It was a vital part of my journey. I probably could have stayed "in the faith" in a very shallow, superficial, just go to church on Sundays way if I had not had that experience. It would have looked ok on the outside, but would have been nothing compared to the relationship I have with God now.

I agree in so far as it is one response and part of some people's journey. I disagree that it is an 'expected developmental stage'.

I think what forty-two describes

I too had a crisis of belief in high school (which I pretty much worked through in my head, that being how I deal with things - I was very fortunate to be in a church that welcomed questions and did not cause me to equate my doubts about my faith with my faith being in actual jeopardy - things could have gone ever so badly otherwise), but though I doubted all over the place, I never left the faith - and in fact it never changed a whit - God was right there the whole time . And it was a beneficial, if angsty , experience

Is probably what I would see as a developmetal stage - a point of true decision based on enough cognative and emotional maturity to be able to decide for one's self - a point of discernment, not necesssarily whole rejection. In a healthy system this decision is made with the support of information and discussion. In an unhealthy system it is based on fear.

[Beauty4Ashes]

I remember feeling like I wasn't a good enough Christian because I didn't speak christianese or that some things didn't feel right. I stepped away to try to figure out what I **did** believe. I think that my faith became authentic when I started the kind of scary process of questioning.

[Peridot]

I think too that the phrase 'leaving the faith' is an unweildy and deceptive way to describe what we fear.

We tend to fear any choices our children might make that do not echo our own. This usually includes attending a different denomination, marrying a 'non-believer', or for women especially- choosing a career over children.


WHat we really SHOULD fear (actually we shouldn't fear it but this should be our true concern) is that our children fail to see Godly example in us or that having seen it- fail to choose relationship with Him.

It is my sincere belief that you MUST not use PAIN to teach LOVE!!! Using pain to teach obedience and using pain while saying 'This is because i love you' teaches children to accept all kinds of abusive relationships.

If my children fall in Love with Christ- I want it to be because they have seen how deeply He loves them- and how His love creates real Love in me and how Holy Spirit creates desireable fruit in me.

so don't confuse 'leaving the faith'- ie. church- with leaving Christ. They are NOT the same thing.

[forty-two]

Originally Posted by peridot

I think too that the phrase 'leaving the faith' is an unweildy and deceptive way to describe what we fear.

We tend to fear any choices our children might make that do not echo our own. This usually includes attending a different denomination, marrying a 'non-believer', or for women especially- choosing a career over children.
<snip>
so don't confuse 'leaving the faith'- ie. church- with leaving Christ. They are NOT the same thing.

Agree and disagree .

Agree that leaving any given institutional church or given belief/behavior is not the same as leaving the *Church*, as leaving Christ . Changing our *practice* of our faith, rejecting some practices, is not rejecting our faith itself .

But leaving the faith *is* leaving Christ.

And I think the reason we conflate the two is that we see the visible things - choice of church, beliefs professed, actions lived - in short, how we *practice* our faith - as proxies for the invisible, key thing - actual faith in Christ (which is a gift from God, not an action of ours).

And it *is* true, to an extent. Our faith *does* shine forth in what we think and do .

The problem comes when people mistake the proxies for the real thing . When they start thinking that it's a two way street - that not only does our *practice* of our faith flow from our faith itself, but our actual faith is likewise strengthened or weakened by our practice of it . Our *experience* of our faith certainly is impacted by our practice or non-practice of it , but our faith itself is a gift from God and its validity, its existence, rests in *God's* hands, not ours .

Thus you get the phenomenon of Christians wanting to make sure their (presumed unbelieving) children (or fellow citizens) outwardly behave like believers because they believe that it will pave the way for true belief . That just as true faith leads to good works, good works lead to true faith .

It gets even worse when you get locked into seeing one particular set of proxies as the One True Way . Or even insist that the proxies aren't just visible reflections of faith, but are in fact essential components of faith, of salvation - and leaving them really *is* leaving the faith . That right practice is *essential* to salvation .

It seems to me that in this thread people are still falling into the same trap - equating our practice of our faith with our faith itself - combating the symptoms of that false assumption but not digging deep enough to combat the assumption itself .

---------- Post added at 11:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 AM ----------

Originally Posted by peridot

WHat we really SHOULD fear (actually we shouldn't fear it but this should be our true concern) is that our children fail to see Godly example in us or that having seen it- fail to choose relationship with Him.

It is my sincere belief that you MUST not use PAIN to teach LOVE!!! Using pain to teach obedience and using pain while saying 'This is because i love you' teaches children to accept all kinds of abusive relationships.

If my children fall in Love with Christ- I want it to be because they have seen how deeply He loves them- and how His love creates real Love in me and how Holy Spirit creates desireable fruit in me.

Speaking to the rest of this, I *do* fear my children leaving the faith - i.e. rejecting Christ. It is an understandable fear, imo. The key is what I do about it. Ultimately, *I* can't keep them in the faith. I can model it for them, but *I* can't make them believe . All I can do it turn it over to God - pray that He keeps them in the faith . That they won't fall - that *I* won't fall . That I don't drive them from God .

The problem comes when I think *I* can do something about it, that *I* have some control over *their* faith . And focusing on *me* and *my* efforts to show God to my dc in a loving way is just as fear-inducing and counterproductive as focusing on *me* and *my* efforts to make them behave godly . In both cases the focus is on *me* and my kids believing or not believing b/c of *me* . This is just as fear and guilt-inducing a place to be - it's the *exact same place*, in fact - just with different techniques. But the core idea - that *I* can and must do things sufficiently "right" for my dc to have a relationship with God - is identical.

But the blessed reality is that it's *not* all on me .

(And I'm not trying to pick on you specifically . I just wanted to point out that "showing God through our love" can easily turn into parenting from a place of fear instead of parenting from a place of love and faith .)

[Peridot]

I don't feel picked on at all. In fact- when I read your words, it seemed to me like we are making the same points- from different directions.


I do err on the side of brevity - i think you explained the ideas better than I did.

[mwwr]

bbl

[allisonintx]

Growing up, all of my cousins received very Exclusive denominational upbringings that including severely punitive or punitive/permissive parenting. All but one of the nine of them are currently squarely turned from their faith.

I received very punitive permissive parenting with heavy emphasis on pleasing my mom and making her look good to her friends.

The one thing that I got which I value most was an extremely ecumenical church experience, because the grandparents were vying for my soul I went to church, VBS and camps in three very different denominations, with very different perspectives on the nature of God. I am the only one of us who has never fallen away completely renouncing God.

My faithwalk is unique, and my beliefs do not match any single church I've ever attended, because what I learned from my experience was discernment about dogma vs. the Holy Spirit.

I want this for my children. I expect that they will have faith-walks that are vastly different from mine, and come to some conclusions that I have and some entirely of their own. I pray that their conclusions draw them to the Lord, when I pray about it, I have great peace.

[klpmommy]

This is one thing I don't fear *at all* and I think it is b/c I was not raised as a Christian, I only went to church a handful of times growing up. But God very much pursued *me* when I was in college. And I see how my faith is so different from so many who were raised in the church & that is a good thing. I don't think being raised a Christian is bad by any means (obviously) but I do see the advantages of coming out of nothing to being a Christian.