Deconversion: When They Walk Away

What’s needed to save the dwindling Church is a new paradigm: the embrace of atheism as the true religion and religion as the true atheism. . . . Belief in Jesus is getting harder to ‘do’ when deep down we all know that the Bible is fading away into pre-science irrelevance.”

Wouldn’t you suppose that the source of this quote is the product of a godless upbringing, an education steeped in humanism, a home which failed to elevate the gospel? Surely, the person who said this is well-schooled in philosophical materialism and trained to reject all things metaphysical. Think again. This came from Frank Schaeffer, son of the famous Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer. Few people have had such great opportunity to breathe the rich air of Christian philosophy and apologetics. His home was a constant milieu of the leading thinkers and teachers of evangelical theology. And yet, he turned his back on his parents’ faith. The title of his autobiography tells it all: Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. What went wrong?

At the risk of tipping my theological hand, I will offer that nothing went wrong other than the common brokenness of mankind. Frank’s rejection of Christianity is repeated time and again among those whose formative years were marked by loving and consistent Christianity. Conversely, people like Lee Strobel demonstrate that converts to Christianity can come from the most unlikely backgrounds, hostile to all things God-wise. If we believe that the circumstances which result in conversion and life-long commitment to Christianity can be contrived by the proper environment and education, we miss the point made by Jonah from within the fish: “Salvation belongs to the Lord!” As evangelical parents, educators, or clergy, we may (and should) do all in our power and understanding to provide our children with godly nurturing, but in the end, embracing and being embraced by Christianity is an individual thing. Frank Schaeffer, alone, must answer to God.

What brought me to reflect on this topic was an article in Christianity Today by Ed Stetzer in which the author reacts to the news that Tony Campolo’s son, Bart, is now serving as a Humanist chaplain and speaking at the Secular Student Alliance conferences designed to gather a “community of atheists, agnostics, and nonbelievers.” Here is a man who once worked side by side with his evangelist father in the ministry of spreading the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Stetzer did point out that Bart’s defection is somewhat of an anomaly. That is, statistically, children from evangelical homes are far less likely to depart from their churches than those from main line churches. Still, it happens. So, what do we do? What should be our response to this?

Stetzer raises five considerations which resonate with me. First, we must ask ourselves, “Do our children have genuine faith or just community?” The assumption of our children’s faith is so easy when we have provided such a plethora of opportunities for them to engage in spiritual community. But our Amercanized version of evangelicalism generally misses the boat when it comes to reaching youth with propositional truth necessary for genuine faith. Instead, they are wooed with a post-modern emphasis on story, experience, relational psychology, and just plain entertainment. This is the point made in one of my favorite blog posts titled, “Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church.” (If you have not read this, you should!) Bart Campolo points out that he thoroughly enjoyed the loving community in which he was raised, but because genuine faith never became a reality for him, community was not enough to keep him. What a tragic mistake we make when we believe that, simply because we have connected our children to Christian activities, youth groups, camps, even schools, they are automatically exposed to the gospel and will respond to it with personal faith.

Community is one of the eight core values embraced by Westlake Christian Academy, and we love to see our children and their families engaged in the exciting and messy experience of doing life together. There is an exquisite sweetness to it all, and we do what we can to foster the transparency that such a community requires. Yet, this is still only one of eight inter-related values. Community by itself does not bring a child into the family of God. It is not enough.

Stetzer then asks a painful question, “Does our faith tradition produce children who turn away?” By that he means, are there barriers to genuine faith raised by the way we practice religion? If we give our children the impression, however unintended, that what we do or don’t do, how we dress, where we go, who our friends are—that these all somehow make us more or less acceptable to God, we work at cross-purposes to the gospel. We also send messages that our own approval of them is contingent upon keeping rules. This in turn drives undesirable behavior underground and creates hypocrites of our children. They learn to be great pretenders, actors, able to create the outward impression of a “spiritual maturity” based on performance. They cease to live transparent lives simply because they are fearful of the consequences of being found frauds. In the end, the house of cards falls, and when they finally become honest with themselves, they see through what appears as a sham and walk away from it all.

In contrast, a constant focus on the gospel keeps us humble as we realize that we, our children, and our clergy are all broken people in need of Christ’s redemptive work. That work has already been accomplished for us on the cross and applied with grace to all those who are trusting Him by faith. Nothing in our performance can make Him love us more or less than He does. Working with children in the context of grace as opposed to law leads naturally to a fresh openness, a transparency which discourages subterfuge. We can then deal honestly with the doubts harbored by our children without creating walls of fear and resentment. Will this automatically result in their conversion and lifelong connection to God’s family? Not necessarily, but we should keep the door open for them to share with us no matter what they profess to believe. Legalism as a faith tradition will almost invariably isolate a “prodigal” from his former community of believers. That is always tragic.

That brings me to the third consideration, and it is closely related to the preceding paragraph: love is attractive. There is a winsomeness about a parent who displays unconditional love to his children, even when they stray. In fact, that kind of behavior is outrageously counterintuitive, so totally unexpected. Such love is a reflection of that displayed in the gospel and stands as a constant illustration to the wayward child that, contrary to his belief (or lack thereof), there is a God who stands ready to embrace him, kiss him, and honor him. Reaching out to the “prodigal” with genuine interest, concern, and sacrificial love without condemnation or acrimony is disarming. It builds a bridge which makes possible conversations which may turn in the direction of eternal matters.

Fourthly, never stop praying for those who walk away. Never give up hope. Never despair. Since “salvation belongs to the Lord,” we should always be hopeful. All things are possible with God. In fact, with a child who has left an evangelical upbringing, there is much stored up truth buried deep within him which can be used by the Holy Spirit to bring about conversion. But take care how you pray. If the straying one denies Christ and is living obviously as an unconverted person, our prayer must be for conversion, not for a return from “backsliding.” Many a parent has begged God to bring a child back while all the time clinging to a “conversion” experience or a prayer that supposedly guaranteed that child’s eternal salvation. How much more helpful it is to realize there never was genuine salvation, and pray for him as for any heathen—that God would open blind eyes, give hearing to deaf ears, and regeneration to a dead heart. As an aside, I know this goes against the grain of some modern evangelical thought which creates a category called “carnal Christian,” but a careful reading of 1 John should lead one to a different conclusion.

Last, pray for the parent whose child has departed from their spiritual community. Every one of those parents experiences a range of negative emotions, from self-blame to hurt, anger, disappointment, and bitterness. What goes through their minds are questions like, “How did I fail my child?” Or, “How could he do that—he knew better—he wasn’t raised that way,” or, “What will my friends think of me? They all seem to have perfect Christian kids!” And so on. The last thing they need is for believers to gossip about them and their families, or speculate about their home life, or throw accusations at them (but behind their backs, of course). I don’t know Tony Campolo, and I have not spent much time involved in his ministry, but I can pray for God’s grace to still his heart and encourage him. Also remember, Frank Schaeffer and Bart Campolo are only outstanding examples of modern “prodigals” because of their fathers’ renown. There are so many more like them whose parents are relatively obscure, yet they agonize over wayward children.

As a post script to this, I need to address the perplexing question about the effectiveness of parenting. If “salvation belongs to the Lord,” and if ultimately this comes down to a person’s individual encounter with the gospel and his faith in it, what sense does it make to expend time, energy, and other resources in carefully thought out biblical training for our children? If there are no guarantees, why do church with them? Why involve them in things like Christian camping? Indeed, why spend all that money to give them a Christian education? Let me offer just a few reasons:

• God commands that parents (specifically fathers) “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). We are told in Deuteronomy to be actively engaged with our children’s instruction in all things at all times (Deuteronomy 6:7). There is no wiggle room here. Also, there is no promise of salvation attached to those commands.
• I like to think of child rearing as “stacking the deck” (if I can borrow a gambling term). I want to put as much good stuff into my children’s lives as I can so that they have every advantage, and so that the Holy Spirit has plenty of scriptural “ammunition” to use to bring them into His family—even if it takes longer than my own lifetime to accomplish.
• I have been involved in Christian school ministry for close to forty years, and I never thought of this ministry as primarily a tool to evangelize my students. That is especially true of the school I am with now: Westlake Christian Academy. A Christian education is primarily to equip Christian students to do kingdom work as Christ’s disciples. Children can learn of the gospel and trust Christ by faith in any setting, whether in church, at home, on vacation, wherever. C. S. Lewis came to Christ in the side car of a motorcycle! Given a strong home life where the gospel is sweetly communicated, a child is no more likely to become a believer as a Christian school student than he is if he attends a public school. That’s not the reason to send a child to a Christian school (though we do see children trust Christ in our school, because they hear and experience the gospel). A Christian education is meant to strengthen and prepare students for success as believers spiritually, intellectually, aesthetically, physically, and socially.

Pray for your children. Keep your relationship with them transparent. Don’t take their salvation for granted just because they perform the Christian life well. (I will share some thoughts on this in a future post.) Above all, speak often and deeply to them of the gospel—it is the power of God!