Parents, Here’s What Not To Do When Your Child Leaves Christianity

“What did we do wrong?” parents cry after another argument with their son or daughter.
“What is God trying to teach us?”

It’s a Saturday night. Someone is refusing to come to church on Sunday morning. Doors were slammed, forks thrown across the dinner table. Someone cried. It was just like any old family argument about dirty washing or dirty dishes, except it was about faith in something that is often difficult for both believers and non-believers to comprehend.

Here’s what people who leave Christianity say about their Christian parents

The first thing to do, before anything else, is to sit and listen to what your child is trying to say. Make them feel heard. Make them feel understood. After surveying a number of 20-30-year-olds about their experiences leaving Christianity, here’s what they had to say about how their journey influenced their relationship with their parents.

“I do think it hurt him [my father] and still does because he believes that myself and my siblings… are likely going to hell. I feel guilty when I do things outside of the Christian framework, e.g. sex before marriage, dating a non-Christian partner – we’ve been dating for a year and I still haven’t told my parents!”

“… I was upset about disappointing my parents. Quickly their disappointment turned to anger, which made me angry too. We fought a lot.”

 “…My Christian parents who would be so heartbroken if I was to walk away from church. If it wasn’t for them I would have left already. It’s hard because I don’t want to hurt them but at the same time need to live my life for what I believe.”

“I remember seeing a Christian study book on a shelf at home, I nonchalantly flipped through it and noticed it had been filled out. In the little box underneath the question “what is your greatest fear?” my mother had scrawled “my children dying, my children not becoming Christians”. I teared up while reading this, because I knew the impact my decision was going to have on my parents.”

These young people love their parents, and are deeply afraid of them too. They don’t hate them. They are worried about them. Many prioritise approval from their parents rather than the need to tell the truth. They are protecting both their parents and themselves. To hear another story, read Grace’s here.

Your children understand the fear of hell, but they don’t feel the heat anymore

We understand the ever-present fear of hell and Jesus’s imminent return. We get how overwhelming that is, most of us former believers used to feel it for our loved ones who didn’t believe in the resurrection and forgiveness of Jesus Christ as well. We get that there’s a fire coming and the smoke is here and it’s an emergency and you want to haul us out lest we burn to death. But you need to know that we can’t see fire and we can’t feel heat anymore. We’re numb. We’re floating out in a big blue ocean and the concept of fire burning here is completely unfathomable.

How do you tell someone a fire is coming when they’re in an ocean?

I think that if your child leaves Christianity, there should be room for celebration. Not necessarily for the rejection of God himself, but what lies beneath that rejection. You have raised a young person who feels bold enough to think about the world and their existence for themselves. They aren’t simply lapping up the Bible on a Sunday morning with no regard for its context in the world. You have raised an independent thinker who questions what they have been taught. This skill is integral in the workplace and in relationships as well. Someone who doesn’t question can often fall into the hands of harmful people.

My parents are Christians, but they read my blog and support my journey. Why? Because it’s my journey. Because I’m seeking. Because I have recognised I have only been taught one story and I want to know more stories so I know I’m making the right choice. But I think I (and a lot of us with Christian parents) can be a heck of a lot more understanding of our parents’ fear of fire. While religious belief isn’t as easy and consumable as it once was, our parents are not ‘dumb’ or ‘ignorant’ for consuming it. They have been on this earth so much longer than us and often they simply want us to experience the joy they have now found.

What to do when your children date non-Christians

A lot of parents realise that their child has ‘fallen away’ when they introduce their non-Christian partner. It’s a very public way of saying, at the very least, a mutual faith is not as important to me as is preached from the pulpit. The last thing any parent wants is to lose their child, especially to a partner that they deem is not the right fit. But there a few things that need to happen before that determination has been made:

Love before faith

Before you ask about you son or daughter’s partner’s beliefs, ask if they treat your child with love and kindness. Faith is not a guarantee of loving treatment, read this if you think I’m wrong.

Respect your child’s agency

Your child’s partner did not lead him/her astray and therefore should not be blamed or treated as a lesser a person. If your child is a young adult, respect their agency. Respect the immensity and strength of their love, which I argue is possible without Christ.

Make their partner comfortable

By vehemently rejecting your child’s already-made decision to be in a relationship with a non-Christian, your child’s partner will never feel comfortable with you, and will find it difficult to appease the whole “Christians aren’t judgemental” thing. They will immediately associate your dismissal with the Christian faith.

Don’t shame them for activities they don’t believe are sinful anymore. It won’t achieve anything.

If they’re already dating, welcome them into the family. I understand if you want them sleeping in separate beds under your roof. But if they are having sex, separating their beds is not preventing them from doing so. Separating them is simply preventing them from doing so in your house while you’re there, so don’t freak out if you find condoms in your son or daughter’s bedroom. They’re probably already feeling guilty about sex because of the teachings during their formative years. Sex is a beautiful thing, don’t shame them for it if they don’t believe in the reasons for abstinence.

“I know my family all discuss my life privately which makes me sick. My parents express how my life isn’t how they imagined it’d be, believe they own me & cannot accept that I have my own autonomy. They’d like to see my partner make a “real commitment” to me through marriage “before God” & believe our relationship isn’t as authentic as theirs. My boyfriend & I however are happily unmarried & might be forever. It sits right with us.”

Parents, it’s not your fault if your child leaves Christianity

I have spoken to Christian parents whose children no longer attend church, and they talk about the shame and embarrassment – not necessarily of their children, but from others (usually childless) in the church who wonder where they got it wrong, why their kids have ‘fallen away’ or ‘gone off the rails’. It’s probably because they didn’t bring the Christian faith into the home, some would say, they just constricted it to Sundays and shipped them off to youth group with little communication at dinner. I bet they didn’t pray together, or read the Bible together. The church doesn’t focus enough on bringing Jesus home.

I feel bad that parents have to feel this shame as well. I guess it’s similar to the shame that a child feels at home too, for not feeling like their automony is considered.

If your child leaves Christianity, it is because they have decided Christianity is not for them. Sure, maybe you didn’t ‘condition’ them enough. Maybe, instead, you allowed for critical thinking. Regardless of the outcome, you would rather your child believed in Jesus because it made sense to their head and their heart, not just because their folks told them to.

Be a parent before you be a preacher

Cultivating a space for your child to talk to you about sex, drugs and faith is more important than ensuring they say grace before every meal. Responding with Bible verses and prayer isn’t always the answer, because it’s situated in the context of the belief your child no longer upholds.

Don’t be afraid to let go and simply accept the adult they are becoming. Don’t force them to make a decision about their faith in Jesus right this second. Ask them how they are before you ask how they are with Jesus. Rest knowing that if it’s ‘God’s plan for them to become a Christian’ God will make it happen with or without you.

A word to the ex-Christian kids

Remember how difficult it was to understand our mates when they were falling away? How difficult it was to preach to the unconverted on the street? Remember how much love was in our heart as we tried to start those conversations?

Your parents may never understand. Your relationship may never be the same. Be prepared for this if and when you choose to have the conversation. Healthy relationships are important, but they require both parties to come to the table.

header photo cred: lostslideshows

Also published on Medium.