Involved with the church forever - now questioning?

[latvdevelopment]

I've been reading a lot lately about people who have been involved in the church their whole lives - but once they get to college, they start to question their faith.

I feel like in this generation this is happening more and more...

Have people on here noticed this? Or experienced it themselves?

 

[RobertMerton]

Yes it's definitely a real thing.
Some of those who turn away will come back before they reach their 30s, or in their 30s.
It's happened to a few friends of mine.

One of them, the nicest guys I know (luckily he's back now haha).

They basically start becoming tempted by the ways of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, etc.

When they go to college they want to fit in and party.

 

[latvdevelopment]

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks so much for your responses.

I was curious as it seems to be coming up a lot in popular media. I am currently putting a project together that would take a serious look at the factors that go in to leaving your religion and am looking for participants to share their story.

Ideally we are looking for a group of friends who either knew each other in High School and are now questioning their faith in college, or individuals who have met in college and are now all having the same internal struggle around whether to stay true to the church, or involve themselves in more secular activities like parties, dating, etc.

If you know anyone who is currently experiencing this, please have them contact me on gmail - latvdevelopment[at]gmail[dotcom]

Thanks-

 

[youngthomas]

I wasn't going to church all through college. Yeah I partied did drugs, all that. I'm 24 now I'm back.. Once the world chews you up a bit and spits you back out there really isn't anything else to turn to. Most college kids don't realize that tho for many reasons. Either they don't spiral down as fast and are able to maintain, or they just don't believe God or Jesus is going to apply to their lives. Like Church doesn't apply to teens/young adults. That's been my experience at least.

 

[NaturallyGone]

Ok, my answer is a bit odd. I grew up in church, aside from a short time away from it early high school time. Nowadays, after going off to college for a year and just being around people from different styles of churches, I honestly can say that my faith was never really questioned since going to college, but I'm starting to see just how many ways my home church is just going through the motions and just acting like a stained glass masquerade. As it is, our church knows that, as of right now, we won't last through next year unless quite a few things change. Our pastor is starting up a replant task force (to try to "Replant" our church [same location, just completely revamping pretty much everything]), and as soon as I heard about it, that night, I told him I wanted to join it. My faith wasn't questioned by going off to college. If anything, it was strengthened and refined.

 

[KitKatMatt]

What I usually see is that people who go to college are exposed to a surprising diversity of thoughts and ideas that they didn't experience in their own towns as kids (I live in a very rural area, there's not a lot of diversity here, but I was totally blown away driving half an hour away and visiting a local college where things were completely different).

When people are exposed to new ideas after just automatically accepting that the ones they grew up with are true, sometimes they change their ideas on religion. Sometimes they drop it completely, sometimes they might switch religions, and sometimes they simply change their views on certain subjects and stay with their core belief.

"They want to take drugs and party" is not true for any one of my friends who stepped away from religion after they had attended college for a while. None of them have ever been interested in doing drugs or partying (too concerned about passing courses and getting their degrees), it was the introduction to new ideas and information that they'd never realized existed that changed them.

 

[Paradoxum]

The idea that it is only about partying, drinking, and sex is wrong, and a very simplistic understanding of what goes on.

I actually questioned my faith a year or two before university, for reasons unconnected to the above. I saw there was no reason to believe in God.

The same is probably true of many people who question their faith at university. They are no longer restricted to the faith of their family and church. They are more free to consider new ideas.

Of course for some people it could be about wanting to 'sin', bit for others it will be an intellectual reason.

 

[hedrick]

Here's an essay that cites data: http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Regnerus_Uecker.pdf. Like this one, most studies I've seen say that people who don't go to college lose faith more than those that do. That suggests that college itself does not result in decreased faith. It may, however, result in a more liberal type of faith.

Doing studies like this requires great care, because it's easy to confuse cause and effect. If you look at surveys, you'll see that the more education you have, the less faith and the more liberal the faith. But this doesn't mean that education causes it. On average there are differences in the backgrounds of people who do and don't go to college.

The essay I referred to suggests that the greatest impact on young adults is what they got from their parents. If religious parents are less likely to send kids to college (or if well-educated parents are less likely to pass on religion to their kids), then college-educated young adults would be less religious -- even though college has nothing to do with it.

As someone who works with teens at Church, I can tell you that I'm not impressed with the job that most of our parents do in passing on Christianity to their kids, even when the parents actually believe. There's only so much Sunday School can do. Parents have the biggest influence. The good news is that the atheist parents I've known also haven't always managed to pass on atheism to their kids.