“I’ve left the church, but not my faith.” This phrase has become increasingly common in today’s secularised society. Millennials are often the first to express this sentiment, but they are not the only ones. A letter sent to a church that someone has abandoned is both poignant and powerful, serving as a heartfelt plea for churches everywhere to take this message seriously.
“Dear Church, it’s been almost a year since I left you. I grew up with you. I memorised all the Bible verses and had all the ‘right answers’ ingrained in me long before I ever had time to ask my own questions. I learned to speak your language very well.” This is how Meghan Ableson begins her letter, a letter that could be seen as representative of an entire group of people who have distanced themselves from the churches they once attended. Meghan doesn’t name the church, which makes her message relevant across many Christian denominations.
“I remember the guilt I felt when I missed a few days without reading the Bible, those few minutes before bed when I would retreat to read a few verses out of context and force myself to say a prayer,” Meghan continues in her message to the church, which was published by the site On Faith.
The wounds of believers: seven complaints or a finger on an open wound
Although Meghan acknowledges that attending church often caused her “anxiety and fear,” she feels the need to return to church life at least once every few months. However, she does not do so without highlighting a few important aspects about herself in the letter.
First, Meghan affirms her love for Jesus Christ, emphasising that even though she has left the church, she has not “strayed far from Him.” Secondly, she urges the church not to assume that someone who doesn’t attend its services lacks a religious life. On the contrary, she argues that on ski slopes, along riverbanks, and in the mountains, that person—and likely many others like her—continues to pray.
Third, she wants the church to understand that she doesn’t need its pity, nor should it assume that if she isn’t there every Sunday, she no longer “knows God.” Meghan also asks that her personal boundaries be respected, and that she not be pressured into doing things she feels she cannot do sincerely, including being asked to greet others in a way that feels inauthentic.
“I don’t want to be your project,” Meghan continues, expressing her belief that when she’s invited to Sunday gatherings, it’s often because her name is simply one of the “names on a list” that someone has been assigned to follow up on.
She also insists that her questions be respected, and that the church should not be quick to offer answers. “I live with these questions and I’m comfortable with them. I won’t ignore them, nor will I satisfy them with superficial answers,” Meghan says.
Additionally, Meghan expresses her longing for a genuine community. “My heart yearns for fellowship,” she says, “but can you allow me to enter it naturally and when I’m ready?”
A mere fanciful letter or a reflection of reality?
Given the increasing number of religiously unaffiliated individuals, a letter like Meghan’s might not seem particularly noteworthy. Leaving the church has already become a common occurrence.
Even Orthodox churches, which hold majorities in Eastern Europe, are grappling with trends that, until a few years ago, might have seemed unusual: leaving the church while holding onto faith. Recently, a study confirmed that even in ‘Mother Russia’ people are returning to faith, but not to churches.
Numerous statistics indicate that “people are walking away from institutional expressions of church. They’re trying to renegotiate man’s relationship to God,” says David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, a research institute focused on religious issues.
This trend of ‘renegotiation” was highlighted in 2012 by a viral video that garnered nearly five million views within the first three days of its release on YouTube. The video, titled “Why I Love Jesus, But Hate Religion” sparked a variety of reactions. The intent of the author (a young American artist) was to draw a distinction between religion, often associated with rituals and rules, and spirituality as an expression of a personal relationship with Jesus. “Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums,” the young man says in his message.
The phenomenon of “escaping religion” shouldn’t come as a surprise. In his book Le Christianisme éclaté, Michel de Certeau noted a long-standing trend toward the deinstitutionalization of Christianity, suggesting that men would increasingly challenge not the idea of God, but that of the church. The author anticipated the emergence of so-called “churchless Christians” and also predicted that reading the Bible “would no longer be part of a shared faith experience and would fall outside ecclesiastical authority.” Essentially, society is witnessing the dilution of institutionalised religiosity.
Are there any solutions?
Yes! At least that’s the answer offered by Jon Paulien in his book Everlasting Gospel, Ever-Changing World, which is part of the Signs of the Times collection. However, he notes that this comes with a condition: churches must wake up to reality and accept that the world has changed. People have questions, they reject simplistic answers, disregard doctrinal absolutism, and seek deep, meaningful relationships. Moreover, if religion fails to meet people’s immediate needs, it has lost its purpose. “We will be taken seriously on major religious issues if we can prove that our perspective on life leads to positive changes in the everyday problems people face,” Paulien says. Otherwise, many are likely to seek spiritual fulfilment elsewhere—a trend that, for now, seems to be happening.
