People Aren't Leaving Church Because of Trump
on the spiritual malaise we all know and feel, but refuse to engage
People aren’t leaving the church because of Donald Trump, nor are they leaving because of politics more generally.
Okay, some people are leaving because of all of that. But they’re not really statistically significant in the grand scheme of things.
We’re seeing unprecedented numbers of people leaving church in the United States. Never before have people left in terms of percentages or sheer numbers, which is truly harrowing.
So what is the number one reason is people are leaving church? According to Jim Davis and Michael Graham in The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take To Bring Them Back? the top reason people say they left church is because they moved. I had imagined (as I’m sure you had too) that the top reason (or reasons) must have had to do with toxic politics, church abuse scandals, or a turn to agnosticism.
The data are what people said, and sometimes it’s hard to grasp one’s own reasons for why one does something except retrospectively and at a great distance. And even then it can be difficult. Additionally, moving may have been a convenient reason to leave, but politics or abuse may have played a role in the background. But even if people haven’t fully grasped their own motives, it’s significant that in a survey, “I moved” is the option they chose. (You can read the book if you want to know more about the nuances of the research, or listen to George P. Wood’s podcast.
I grow weary of the Evangelical voices screaming that Donald Trump is ruining the public witness of the movement. Donald Trump is no moral paragon—no president is—and unqualified support of his candidacy is doing Evangelicals no favors. And it’s true that most won’t listen to our announcement of the gospel if it’s implied that one must become a Trump supporter (or at least a Republican) to become a Christian.
But if Davis and Graham’s research is to be taken seriously, then the Evangelical church, and the church more broadly in the United States, has much a more serious problem than Donald Trump or political fracturing. Again, some might leave because they’re disappointed with some churches’ political alignments. But there’s something much more serious going on.
It’s deeply unsettling to me that it seems we’re out of touch with why people are leaving the church. But the scariest part is not knowing how to stem the tide. In my reckoning, it would actually be an easier problem if politics is what was shrinking the church. Leaving because one moved, however, smacks of indifference. How does the church preach to apathy?
I’ve suggested before that it might be easier to evangelize hardened jihadists than many Americans in our current climate. It’s an absurd thing to say, but the point I’m making is that it’s always easier to engage someone with the claim of Christianity if they’re eager to reject it. Unfortunately, many Americans simply can’t be bothered to disagree anymore.
The Christian announcement is that Jesus is Lord because he died for our sins and on the third day rose again, and that all of this is in accordance with the Scriptures. It seems to me that one of the reasons people are afflicted with the creeping spiritual malaise the data reflect is the church’s failure to announce our gospel with conviction and vigor. That’s not to say that a return to that will by default bring about the Third Great Awakening. But I don’t really have any other ideas.
If you do, I’m open to hearing them.
To your concluding point, while I don't attend an evangelical church, I imagine there's a version of a problem I see in Episcopal churches: clergy having lost confidence in the efficacy of the Christian message. I know it is easy for clergy to rely on a handful of other factors to draw people to church and to keep them there: quality of music, availability of children's programming, charismatic personality of the leader, ability to make friends, etc. And it isn't that those things are unimportant, but, to misuse Paul a little, we really should count all these things as rubbish when compared with the actual substance of the gospel, offered in word and sacrament. Every Sunday, my family and I go to church, and without fail, I am desperately hoping to hear God speak to me, to have a meeting with God from which I will leave changed. I have rarely gotten the sense that the people in charge thought this was the job of the Christian minister. It feels to me like being invited to a banquet where they forget to serve the main course.
The idea is a bit mind blowing, but not surprising. I wonder if there is more. Was it just too hard to find another church? Did they go but no one said hello? Did they ask for community and no one listened? Did they go and the service wasn’t their old church? Or did they just not get out of bed to head to church on that first Sunday and it became a habit? And the question back to myself, how can I help them? Thanks for a great and thoughtful piece. I will be chewing on this.