The dilemma of empty churches

Source: Huffington Post

By Carol Kuruvilla; Associate Religion Editor

I couldn’t tell you exactly when I started losing my faith. I can only describe it like this: It’s something like standing near the ocean and watching the sun glistening on the water, only to realize much later that the tide has gone out.

That’s exactly where my conservative, evangelical faith left me in college, when it collided with the extraordinarily complex and vibrant religious fabric of New York City: stranded on dry land. The faith my parents gave me had been constructed like a delicate house of cards. I needed to believe all of it ― the miracles, the commandments, the eschatology, the sexual ethic, etc. ― in order to be considered safely out of the reach of hellfire. Let just a little bit of doubt creep into that “all or nothing” system, and the whole thing can come tumbling down.

It did.

I’m not alone. America is full of people who have asked tough questions about the religion they were raised in. This phenomenon is so common that the Pew Research Center has a name for it ― religious switching.

According to the center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study, about 34 percent of American adults have participated in religious switching, meaning their current religious identity is different from the one in which they were raised.

As a whole, Christianity loses more followers than it gains through religious switching. Although 85.6 percent of American adults say they were raised as Christians, more than a fifth of that group (19.2 percent of all U.S. adults), no longer identify with Christianity. The exception to this trend is evangelical Protestantism, which actually gains more adherents through switching than it loses.

But for the individual, the journey isn’t easy. To break out from your religious tradition is a brave thing, especially if you come from a tight-knit community where religion permeates the culture. In such an environment, it’s hard for religious seekers to be honest about their doubts.

For some of my friends and family, religious identity is a matter of heaven or hell. When your religion has such stark eternal consequences, it makes sense that when you see a loved one doubting, your instinct is to find a way to bring that person back into the fold as quickly as possible. But to achieve that goal, perfectly well-meaning Christians sometimes do more harm than good ― even though they may not be aware of it.

I’m still in the process of building my faith back up from the ground. I’ve learned to live with my doubt, wrestle with it daily, even cherish it. I’ve found people who are willing to take my doubt seriously and admit it when they don’t have the answers. But that peace of mind came only after years of bitterness and anger towards God ― most of it fueled by the unhelpful and borderline profane advice I got from some of my religious friends and family.

With the help of a few writers and HuffPost contributors who have gone through periods of doubt in their own lives (some who have come back to Christianity and others who have left the faith altogether), I’ve put together this list of common phrases that people hear when they express doubt in their religion. Keep scrolling to the end because we’ve also included a list of the opposite ― advice and support that doubters wish they had received from their loved ones.

From tone deaf, quick-fix remedies (“Just read the Bible”) or claiming to know how the seeker’s journey will end (“It’s just a phase”), here are 6 things I wish Christians would stop saying to people who are doubting their faith.

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