Christianity Needs a "Teaching Moment" to Learn What is Going On

Christian numbers are declining and the drop is dramatic among the young needed to keep the enterprise from freefall. Yes, there are still billions of people who self-identify as Christians. Human history tells us once atheism was just as popular. Then it wasn't. 

I keep waiting for leader in Christianity to see the problem. Wouldn't it be fascinating, I am thinking, if Christianity could see the problem, explain it to believers and develop a plan to solve the problem. Today I was skimming over Christian Post.com, the largest conservative Christian site, and something jumped out. It was an article the said the author knew what the problem is in Christianity. The first of three problems is one called "Intellectual." Someone has finally figured it out, I thought. 

That is, I thought, a Christian writer finally recognizes people can no longer believe the far-flung fictional stories and tenets. People do not believe Christianity knows what sin is. Nor, do they believe someone died and came back to life nor that there are invisible spirits and beings and places to live when we are dead. Here is a writer, I thought, who will explore how people in the faith can deal with the critical thinking so prominent in society today. 

But, alas the writer had no clue. He admitted a very common, maybe the most common, answer people give when asked why they lost their faith is disagreement with some tenet or tenets of the faith. The writer goes on to acknowledge these doubts are important. But then he drops the subject.

He retreats to the old Christian trope that people leave the faith because someone at church was unkind to them. He does not explore how to deal with the intellectual problem he correctly identifies.

There are Christians who do not take any of the Bible as factual history. They are Christians for various reasons. For example, they find it pleasant to think of a kind invisible force somewhere, even if they admit the evidence says it is not there. Or, they feel "tradition" is an important force that civilized society needs to hold on to. Whatever their reason, it works for them. Why not broaden these concepts to a wider audience. 

Christianity faces an old marketing decision. If the product is not selling will it sell better if more is spent on marketing? Or, does the product need to be rebuilt to want the buyer likes? Most of the time, the latter is the best bet.