I've noticed a theme among my parents' and grandparents' generation of Christians -- those aged around 35 and up.
They seem to have this idea that Christianity is easy. That if you're being a good Christian, everything is perfect and you're rich and comfortable.
And they wonder why their children, faced with an increasingly hostile world with pressures from all sides and all people -- including these 'well-meaning' Christian authority figures in their families -- turn their backs so vehemently on Christianity.
This Christianity that guarantees health, wealth, and happiness does not fit with today's world of anger and war and pressure and financial instability and political tension. Those of us who were raised in a Christian environment, saturated with this 'Christianity makes everything better!!!' mindset, quickly come to the conclusion that if God did exist, He would fix all our problems the second we pray and ask Him to. After all, how many women's studies (to call them 'Bible studies' is a bit of a stretch) guarantee this? 'If you pray for five minutes every day for a week, watch how God will change your life -- He'll fix your marriage, make your children little angels, provide money for the best food and brand-name clothing and that Caribbean cruise that you so desperately need to relax and get away from it all.'
Your children and the young people in your churches see that mindset and, however unconsciously, they buy into it. If that is what Christianity does, great. So they pray to God for the first three days of every new year and wait for the miracles to start falling in their lap.
But the miracles don't happen. Because -- news flash -- that is not and has never been how God works.
But my generation doesn't know that, and, naturally, we get disillusioned when we don't get the riches and abundance we ask for. You, Christian, told us it was our birthright. Just pray, you said. Just pray and everything bad will magically disappear. Just pray and it will fix everything. Just repeat these empty words, this carefully crafted mantra/phrase, and watch your heretofore abysmal savings account soar into the stratosphere. I guarantee that...
But the guarantee doesn't work. Because that is not and has never, ever been how God works.
Do you even know, Christian, how God works? Do you remember that out of the remaining eleven disciples after the resurrection, all but one were killed for following Christ? Do you remember all the years during the Depression and the dust bowl, when the crops of honest, God-fearing people failed just as badly as the crops of their heathen neighbours'? Do you remember that the apostle Paul, a man who you would probably list as your hero, died in prison (in the greatest and most politically and culturally with-it city in the world at that time) for telling people about God?
Ask them if Christianity made their lives easier.
And then, ask if Christianity has changed in the last couple thousand years and, if so, did it change before or after all the persecution that has happened (and is still happening) in places like Asia, Africa, and the Middle East? When did it change to Cloud Cuckoo Land and why doesn't it work for all Christians? You say 'you don't have enough faith?' Did Paul not have enough faith? Did Peter not have enough faith?
You who wonder why your children are walking away from the faith, ask yourself what they're walking away from. If you're peddling a false gospel, maybe it's better that they do walk away.
