Why Do People Repudiate Christianity?

People have become inundated with laws, systems, opinions, fake news – life in general. Most of us are searching for our purpose in life and wondering why we even exist in the first place as you think to yourself that there must be more to life than working in toxic environments, with people we tolerate daily, paying astronomical bills to companies who get away with robbing people blindly, then dying without ever exploring the world around them. But, what more could we be searching for, and why have we not encountered it yet? 

In my life, I have discovered that we are all searching for some level of happiness, peace, joy, and serenity that we have yet to experience. Many of us are looking for validation from others to gain some sense of belonging or added value. Even if we did receive that validation, we are still left empty, wanting to belong to someone or something.

As a child, I recall a feeling of emptiness because my mother fell victim to the streets, and drugs and alcohol took our family in another direction, as my father was left to raise three young girls alone. Feeling lost, empty, and saddened by my parent’s divorce, I turned to a stuffed animal I called “Mr. Bear.” Mr. Bear became my voice of reasoning even though he would never respond nor give me the guidance that I needed. Yet, he was all I knew.

During various stages of my life, I would encounter people who would begin to share the mysteries of Jesus Christ with me. If my memory serves me correctly, I was eleven when my next-door neighbor started depositing positive affirmations about God’s love for me. I would go on to have several encounters like those throughout my adolescence. It was like God would strategically use people to share about his Son Jesus in hopes that I would one day believe and receive his love and grace. Finally, at the age of seventeen, I did receive my salvation and accepted Christ into my life as my Lord and Savior. 

The years progressed, and God’s power was more evident than ever before in my life. I wanted other people to experience this same joy that I had found in Christ. However, I was often met with rejection when attempting to share my newfound faith, as I asked people if they were Christians or had they received Christ in their lives. I remember the looks of frustration and disgust as an old friend’s eyes rolled to the back of his head because I wanted him to understand this newfound faith.  If that wasn’t enough, I recall an argument with a relative who implied I thought I was better than everyone else. All the hurt I felt. Surrounded by rebuttals, my new faith caused me to wonder why people repudiate Christianity or negate Christ’s existence? 

With Christ offering salvation to the masses, people are prone to repudiate Christianity due to the conflict of their fear or misunderstanding of the spiritual versus rational and scientific thought. But, hypothetically speaking, could the answer to why people repudiate Christianity indeed be found in textbooks? In reality, probably not because we have been inundated by research and data that suggest there is no God, therefore concluding that Jesus Christ must be a myth. For example, according to Matt Williams in the article “What is the Big Bang Theory?” on phys.org (2015), Astronomers have long declared that the universe began due to the Big Bang Theory. This theory would mean that our existence started over 13.8 billion years ago as a small ball with infinite density and intense heat called a singularity (single point) that inflated and stretched – first at unimaginable speeds and then at a more measurable rate.

The Big Bang Theory brought to the forefront of our minds how the universe was created; then came the idea of the evolution of humanity, which says that the first humans emerged in Africa around two million years ago, long before the modern humans known as Homo sapiens appeared on the same continent. Becky Little, author of the article How Did Humans Evolve on History.com (2021), expounds on one of the earliest known humans were Homo habilis, or “handyman,” who lived about 1.4 million to 2.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa. Others include Homo rudolfensis, who lived in Eastern Africa about 1.9 million to 1.8 million years ago (its name comes from its discovery in East Rudolph, Kenya); and Homo erectus, the “upright man” who ranged from Southern Africa all the way to modern-day China and Indonesia from about 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago.

In addition to these early humans, researchers have found evidence of an unknown “super archaic” group that separated from other humans in Africa around two million years ago. These super archaic humans mated with the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans, according to A. Rogers, N. Harris, and A. Achenbach in the Science Advances February 2020 article. This marks the earliest known instance of human groups mating with each other—something we know happened later.

Evolution says that humanity started with ape-like beings; Christians would argue that Adam and Eve were the first humans to be created by God. While science believes in the Big Bang Theory and evolution, Christians today believe in a God who formed everything, then shortly after, sent his son Jesus Christ to die for us so that we might have an abundant life. If we live in a world that declares we can manifest anything we want, this insinuates that our words have the power to manifest something so great. If this is true, why couldn’t God’s command, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), be the same as the Big Bang Theory? This manifestation means that it could be possible that there is a God who commanded it all.

I have found that people are quick to dismiss what they do not understand or have not experienced. Maybe people repudiate Christianity because of the mystery of accepting what the naked eye cannot see. Yet, we can receive the oxygen we breathe, though invisible to the human eye. We also acknowledge that George Washington was the first recognized president in the United States in 1732, over 290-years ago, but none of us were born in that era to know if this was fact or fiction. We can only assume that the information about the president is accurate based on what was told.

Maybe my rational thinking is wrong. Could it be possible that people do believe that God exists but do not accept Christianity because of a horrific experience they encountered with the church? An online article in The Guardian, written by Harriet Sherwood (2018), spoke of Europe’s march toward a post-Christian society shows that most young people in a dozen countries do not follow a religion, and 70% of young people in the UK identify with no religion.

These figures were published in a report called Europe’s Young Adults and Religion by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at Mary’s University in London, which was based on data from the European social survey 2014-16. Religion was “moribund,” he said. “With some notable exceptions, young adults increasingly are not identifying with or practicing religion.” Moreover, the trajectory was likely to become more marked. “Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years,” Bullivant said.

After reading the article, a nerve in my brain cells sparked a greater level of curiosity, which led me on a journey to see what others had to say about this topic. To my surprise, I discovered many discussions online about the decline in the Christian faith. 

To expound upon the concept of why people repudiate Christianity, I turned to the TedTalk titled The Gospel of Doubt, where author Casey Gerald shared how he lost faith in Christianity because on December 13, 1999, at the age of 12, he found himself confused; after the church told him that Jesus was coming back as a result of Y2K. He then shares how in the face of uncertainty and depression, he began searching for things to make him happy and searching for his purpose. Since Gerald had lost hope in Christianity, doubt formed, and he began to entertain ‘false gods’ like money, time, and success. Ultimately, Gerald said he became a ‘fake savior’ trying to save the world. In the closing of his speech, he says that he learned that it is okay to have a gospel of doubt, and there must be another way.

While I can understand Gerald’s frustrations, as I intensely watched him deliver a very heartfelt message, I could see a man whose demeanor reflects a feeling of hurt and disappointment, searching for answers in a world that do not always have the answers to give. At this very moment, every speculation I had about why a person might withdraw themself from the gospel of Christ became evident. In this case, what became apparent was that the church was more focused on the return of Christ instead of the love of Christ, which is why Gerald assumed that the church knew when Christ would return. Yet no man has knowledge of the day or the hour of his return according to the scriptures in Mark 13:32.

As I ponder on the generation that rejects Christianity, I am at a loss for words because I believe that the church has somehow failed to represent Christ. If people only knew the God that I know through Christ, they would understand that we were once under the law of Moses by the authority of ten commandments that stated everything that we were doing wrong and should not do to offend God. Commandments like, “Thou shall have no other gods before me,” “Thou shall not kill, commit adultery, not steal, bear false witness against thy neighbour,” etc. (Exodus 20:2-17)

However, once God sent Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins, it then became the law of grace that governed us. The word of God clearly states, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Then, in Romans 8:1, the Bible declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. To paraphrase, God was saying that through Christ, there is no condemnation because God used Christ to become sinful flesh on our behalf so that he would be condemned for the sins that would have killed us in the old covenant. Therefore, I believe that if the church led with love and grace instead of condemnation, more people would be drawn to Christianity instead of repudiating it.

Christ is the best example of leading by love and grace, as he frequently sat amongst sinners, asked them questions about their life, or their shortcomings, without judgment or condemnation, but with love, he would draw them closer. Ultimately the love and grace shown to sinners through Christ’s agape love would soon cause them to turn away from the very sins they indulged. 

The beauty of Christianity is not the idea of a gospel (or religion) being forced on anyone but rather the opportunity to choose a God who exudes an agape love that no other being on earth can fulfill. God desires that we would all come to accept the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Still, until the church can learn to walk in the love that God intended for us and extend the same grace that Christ gives, there will be a nation searching to fill a void of peace, happiness, joy, and love that no carnal-minded person can provide.

Many believe that the universe formed from a big bang theory or human beings evolved from an ape-like creature; it can be brutal to convince someone to follow a spiritual God who cannot be seen. 1 Corinthians 2:14 best defines why it will be impossible for some people to ever come to the realization of Christ; “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Based on this scripture, it is safe to say that the church alone could never convince anyone to accept Christianity or draw closer to Christ if that person does not first believe that we are all spiritual in some fashion. 

As long as we continue to view Christianity as science does or rebuke others instead of leading with love and grace as Christ did, we will be content in our carnal-minded thoughts; never seeking after the spiritual relationship that is needed to understand Christ fully; and continuing to be a generation who repudiates Christianity, unlike our forefathers who dared to believe in a God that is much greater than we could ever imagine or think.