Why Young People are leaving the church

Dear church,

You don't get it.

You wring your hands and ask why Young People are leaving the church, and when we try to tell you, you fire us.  When we come forward with our honest questions, you tell us that the problem is we're having too much sex and it's making us doubt. 

The problem is that a lot of the time, you don't actually want to know why Young People are leaving. What you're really asking is, how can we convince Young People to stay without changing our bigotry, our intolerance, our sexism, our corruption, our hypocrisy, our terrible stewardship, and our grossly misplaced priorities? How can we convince Young People to stay without taking the logs out of our eyes? And when we tell you, you can't, you throw your hands up and decry our lack of morals.

Don't get me wrong: my generation is also bigoted, intolerant, sexist, corrupt, and hypocritical. But the institution that's supposed to model a better way for us is failing us.

In my lifetime, the one single issue that has motivated the church to its greatest heights of passion and activity has been banning same-sex marriage. It has not been ending poverty, or ending world hunger, or ending systematic injustice. You may think I'm wrong. I'm open to reasonable evidence. Show me the ballot initiatives to amend state constitutions to prohibit discrimination on any grounds. Show me the enormous rallies against child hunger. Show me the presidential candidates who give their position statements on poverty as a bellwether of their faith. Show me the denominations publicly chastising other denominations for not doing enough to feed the hungry. Show me the churches splitting away from their own denominations because those denominations aren't taking a firm enough stance against injustice.

You may now be saying, “But protecting the sanctity of marriage is important!” I am not going to argue with you about what the sanctity of marriage is or how it is best protected. I will simply ask, is preventing same-sex marriage more important than ending world hunger, human trafficking, slavery, sexual assault and rape, systemic poverty, economic exploitation, genocide, and our systematic degradation of God's creation? Because the church is acting like it is.

And if it is, then I don't want to be a part of your church.

I am not leaving the Church. But I am leaving your church. I am a Young Person, and I have told you why.

Will you listen?