Sad statistic...

In my experience, the above is primarily a fantasy... a straw man argument... an argument to absolve the lost man of his own guilt, while simultaneously placing that guilt upon the Christian.

Let's look at it this way:
The ENTIRE LOST WORLD doesn't just suddenly realize they all need to "reach for God", and then they ALL go racing to the nearest church to find God.
That just isn't a thing.
That's imaginary.
The lost world isn't racing to church to find God.


Simple Logic:

A.) The lost world is not racing to church to find God.

B.) If the lost world is not ALL GOING TO CHURCH TO FIND GOD, then, by simple logic, it CANNOT BE the Christians at church who messed up ALL THE LOST PEOPLE at church... because the lost people were never there.

C.) Furthermore, if we read the Bible, we clearly find that most lost people are simply not looking for God... not ever.



Most lost people, in our current culture, will never step foot inside a church looking for God, because they aren't looking for God. And to make things worse, they have ALREADY been BRAINWASHED against GOD, CHRISTIANITY, and EVERYTHING DECENT through the immoral ethics and philosophies pervasive in the culture. So added to their natural sin nature, they also have an enormous amount of brainwashing and confusion, not to mention societal peer pressure... all of this preventing them from seeking after God.

Now, to be fair, Eli's scenario certainly must happen once in a while.
I'm sure there are some examples.
But Eli's scenario is not the PRIMARY REASON people hate God, or hate Christians.
To think the PRIMARY REASON lost people hate God, is because they ALL GO TO CHURCH SEEKING GOD, and the mean old church people turn them away... that is... well... just logically untenable.

I'm sure Eli is a nice guy.
He seems very loving, and concerned, and he seems like a very kind person.
Those are all great qualities.
However, when we desire so greatly to show kindness to the lost, so greatly that we place kindness above objective reality, so greatly that we begin to absolve them of their own responsibility... well, that's a very nice thought, but it just isn't helping them.

People are staying away from God, because, frankly, that is simply what they WANT to do.

.

The chosen has already changed the mind of many atheists.
God works in ways we don’t understand, according to His plan.

I agree with your point of view as well and yes I acknowledge that what I’m saying is not THE reason, but I’ve seen it too often so it may have made an impression on me.
Also as the article says, teens think that Christians don’t do a good job representing Christ and are very judgmental.
This is not THE reason, but a reason so I agree with you.

Hi Eli,
Thank you for your polite and intelligent response.

I DO believe Christians are CAPABLE of being unkind, or unloving, or simply saying incorrect things.
Christians are certainly capable of having moral failures, or making mistakes in judgement; it would be silly to pretend otherwise.
I think it is a given, a baseline, that we aren't perfect.

But admission of imperfection does not also obligate us to interpret survey data in one particular way.
Remember the old saying, data can be tortured till it says anything.
: )
So let's take a look at the survey data, from the link you posted.
https://www.brnow.org/news/christians-do-poor-job-of-representing-jesus-teens-say-in-global-study/




THE SURVEY - CHRISTIANS DO POOR JOB OF REPRESENTING JESUS:
https://www.brnow.org/news/christians-do-poor-job-of-representing-jesus-teens-say-in-global-study/


THE SURVEY DATA:
https://www.brnow.org/news/christians-do-poor-job-of-representing-jesus-teens-say-in-global-study/

1.) In this survey, 25,000 teens were surveyed, across 26 countries.

2.) Of these 25,000 teens, only 22% were Christians.
(47% were non-Christian, and 30% were nominal Christians who'd not made a faith committment... nominal means "in name only"... meaning these people were NOT CHRISTIAN.)

3.) In this survey, 49% describe Jesus as loving, but only 31% describe Christians as loving.

4.) But despite this disparity about the term "loving", the teens had a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT view of the term "friendly", with them believing Christ and Christians are just about equally friendly. So apparently they think Christians are just as friendly as Christ himself... and yet somehow unloving... which is a good indicator of the teens' general state of confused perceptions.

5.) Odd bits of miscellaneous data:
- 3% of the teens think Jesus is a hypocrite.
- 4% of the teens think Jesus is Judgmental.
- 51% of the teens don't even think Jesus is loving.
- More on this below.


MY ASSESSMENT OF THE DATA:
1.) Since the survey was across 26 countries, the survey does not particularly address either American Christians, nor Western Christians. So this has nothing specific to do with America or American Christians.... just clearing that up.

2.) Since 78% of the respondents were NOT CHRISTIANS, the survey primarily reflects the views of people with NO SIGNIFICANT UNDERSTANDING OF THE TOPIC.... and thus no ability to have meaningful opinions of the topic.

a.) Non-Christian teens likely have no understanding of the real historical Christ, his character, or his ministry. All they know is how they "hear him represented in pop culture"... and this has little to do with the real Jesus.
b. Likewise, non-Christian teens would have no understanding of how Christians SHOULD behave, or how they SHOULD answer questions, or even how the Bible defines "love", and therefore what the Biblical quality of "love" should even look like.
c. In a nutshell:
Non-Christian teens have absolutely no idea what the Bible says about Christ, or what it says about being "loving" - so they couldn't possibly have any idea if Christians are being Christ-like, or if Christians are being loving. If you have no proper definition of a thing, then you have no ability to speak about that thing, or even recognize it when you see it. They were literally giving opinions about things they couldn't even define.

3.) 51% of the teens DID NOT THINK JESUS WAS LOVING., and many thought he was judgmental and hypocritical. These teens, who don't even think the savior is loving... well... they are FAR FROM BEING GOOD JUDGES OF MORAL VIRTUE.

4.) Let's also clarify the difference between Personal Feelings and Objective Reality: This survey was not determining the Objective Reality of whether or not Christians are loving, it was only determining the FEELINGS, the PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE, of the teens.

a.) These teens were asked how they "FELT. " This ONLY INDICATES THEIR OWN PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE, it says NOTHING VERIFIABLE about OBJECTIVE REALITY.
b.) These teens, 78% of them Non-Christians, did not "FEEL" Christians were very loving. This tells us ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OBJECTIVE about the Christians - it only tells us about the psychology of the teens.
c.) In case there is any misunderstanding, this survey, asking teens their feelings, DID NOT give objective data about Christendom because it COULD NOT give any objective data about Christendom. Your "feelings" only give verifiable data about your own psychological state, they cannot do more than this.

Conclusion:
I see no reason to give ANY credence to this survey, regarding the state of the church.
1.) The majority of the teens are not Christians, and have no "biblical" understanding of how a Christian SHOULD behave, so it's virtually meaningless if they don't understand our behavior.
2.) If they don't understand the real Biblical Christ, or the real Biblical definition of love, then they HAVE NO IDEA IF WE ARE BEING CHRIST-LIKE, or LOVING. They literally have no idea.
3.) As the majority of these teens are Non-Christians, the Bible indicates it's likely they would actually HATE biblical virtue, and HATE light, and HATE truth... that's what the Bible says of the lost. The non-believers hated Daniel BECAUSE OF HIS VIRTUE. So it's entirely possible the Christians these teens are railing against, NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG!
4.) As 51% of these teens DON'T EVEN THINK JESUS WAS LOVING, they clearly have NO ABILITY TO JUDGE MORAL VIRTUE. They simply aren't capable of judging character or virtue, if they don't think much of Jesus.
5.) A survey about their "feelings" verifies nothing but their feelings... their own psychological state. It tells us nothing about reality, or how the Christians they dislike actually behaved.
6.) This survey does nothing but give us the "feelings" of 25,000 teens who are predominantly "lost." These are 25,000 teens, at their most confused and belligerent stage of life, who are too young to know much of anything, in the midst of a crooked and depraved world, who have no idea what the Bible says about love or being Christ-like, and who are so confused and morally damaged, that most of them think Jesus was unloving.
Their feelings tell us about their feelings... but their feelings tell us nothing about the church.



I want to thank Eli again for his thoughtful and gracious responses... he's been nothing but a pleasure to talk with.
I hope you all have a great week.
God Bless.

.

Thank you @maxwel for your thorough analysis and I have to admit that I may have a bias towards this probably because I’ve seen it too many times myself and I do acknowledge that my personal experience does not represent the true reason why people are turning away from God but it may be a very small reason.

Take care and God bless.

Hi Eli,
I really appreciate you making a conscious effort to read my posts thoughtfully and graciously.
It's always hard to do that when we begin to disagree.



As a final thought, I guess I would suggest some balance between these two Biblical points we were raising:

1. The churches are imperfect, and can always do better, and some (just as we find with Corinth in the New Testament) may be doing a really terrible job.

2. The opinions of the lost world are not a very good barometer of the health of Christendom - historically they've even been known to attack us when we're doing everything right!

We have to keep these two biblical ideas in constant tension: the lost world, because of it's spiritual condition, will often misunderstand us, malign us, and attack us... and the church will also fail sometimes in it's character and duties. Both of these are biblical concepts, and both of them simply co-exist.

But to understand the condition of the churches, I would be reluctant to go to opinions of the lost world; I would go to scripture, and hold that up as a mirror to each church, and just evaluate them with God's word.


Once again Eli, it was a pleasure talking.
God bless.
.

Thank you very much for your well-reasoned words.
I also see discussions not as disagreements but as a way to reach a higher truth or knowledge based on reason.
‘You have shown good logical reason and you have convinced me to understand something better.
‘I wish if the world communicated this way we’d all be in a better place but a lot of people are influenced, programmed and entrenched in their camps/ideology and they simply discard good reason when it’s shown to them.

Thanks again and God bless you.

People are leaving the church because it’s fake for the most part. There isn’t much discipleship so they choose easy things. Our spiritual bodies need milk, sure, but we also need hearty meat to get us through the tough times. Those kids leave because they learn evangelical Christianity is spun cotton candy. There’s nothing there to sustain you.

Satanism is largely an imaginary threat.
Satanist don't fly planes into buildings or behead teachers over cartoons.
By the way Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world

anyone not follwing christ by default is following Satan.. he just has many names to his collection...

well yeah but people killing other people in the name of Satan is not something that really happens in reality.
The Satanist I have communicated with on Facebook seem super chill. Most of them are in fact atheist and just use satanic imagery for shock value
Bombing airports, be heading teachers over drawing cartoons, stabbing a guy over a book he wrote 30 years ago..... These things are exclusively an Islam problem That's the threat you need to be worried about

Never worried about what world does . Either good or bad Gods will be done
However too many people are ignoring the fact false teaching within the church is the greatest danger as not all are able to discern .
Remember the anti Christs according to scripture come from within !

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

If I were in an airport and heard someone yell "hail Satan"I would be like okay bro do you

If I were in the same airport and heard someone you Aluha Akbar" I would run for the nearest exit

The world Is getting more and more about doing what they want and not fearing what GOD wantsIE.men nowadays use pronouns like she,they,ect..men thinking Its ok to dress like a women and have sex with a man.Etcetera…..

Meh.. I'm a libertarian. I don't care what anyone is doing if you can't point to a victim

It could be that the crazies like Greg Locke, westboro baptist, Kenneth Copeland etc are giving Christianity a bad name

Doesn't GOD In you care?

Happiness is hard to find in this world so if what someone is doing is making him or her happy then I say go for it as long as they're not hurting anyone

I'm pretty sure Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world. Europe is on their way to being Saudi Arabia minus the sand