The Missing Message In Today’s Churches

The Washington Post published an op-ed piece by me this morning entitled “The Missing Message in Today’s Churches”:

America’s churches came back into the media limelight a few weeks ago after a well-publicized Pew study showed a meteoric rise of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, shooting up from seven percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010. The percentage more than doubled for those under the age of 30, reaching almost 35 percent. The group is now being referred to as “the religious nones.”

There has been no lack of theorizing to account for the numbers. Some chalk it up to a more visibly secularized society, others to doctrinal confusion, and others to the social media-fueled culture of distraction among today’s youth. Some dismiss the charge as alarmist, claiming that young people have always had a distaste for organized religion. The list goes on.

Many inside the church have responded to the decline in attendance by attempting to “remarket” Christianity by updating worship services and unwittingly playing into consumerist biases, presenting themselves as one more product in the spiritual marketplace. By and large, these tactics have backfired. There may be noble intentions at work, but the collective impression is that these Christians are trying too hard to be “cool.” No wonder “authenticity” has become such a buzzword. Young people are not finding it at church.

Read the rest here.