How to Deal with Doubts about Faith

The Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) is a nonprofit organization affiliated with Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. They do research and create Christian resources geared specifically for teenagers and young adults. Their goal is to help churches better equip their youth, and help the young people themselves to be strengthened in their faith.

They particularly became concerned with the number of young people who have drifted away from the faith they were raised in. Various organizations have carefully researched this problem and found that between 70% and 90% of young people leave the church when they leave home. This is a staggering number, and is certainly worthy of concern.

Kara Powell and Steven Argue researched this for FYI over a three year period in order to discover the best way to deal with this issue. In their study, they interacted with 500 youth group graduates and found that over 70% of churchgoing high schoolers reported having serious doubts about faith. Interestingly, they found that less than half of those young people ever shared their doubts and struggles with an adult or friend.

With that information in hand, they came to a very interesting conclusion: It is not doubt that’s toxic to faith, rather it is silence. What they found was that the number of opportunities students had to express and explore their doubts was correlated to greater faith maturity. That is, the ones who had the opportunity to work through their questions with people who could help them find answers were more likely to stay strong in their faith, while those with less opportunity were the ones who drifted away.

While the problem concerning our youth gets the most attention, this is not just a problem for young people. All we have to do is look at the staggering number of adults who have not returned to church following COVID to see that this problem exists across the board. According to Christian pollster George Barna, 39% of American adults attended a Christian church at least once per month prior to COVID, and that dropped to 33% following the pandemic. That ends up being over 20 million people.

Looking at the trends is rather discouraging. However, the results of FYI’s research gives us precisely the solution to the problem – for both youth and adults.

The fact is, the Christian faith is the truth about how reality exists, and when it is understood in the context of all the possibilities, the various non-Christian alternatives are shown to be sadly lacking. The problem is, most churches don’t know how to clearly share that with their members.

There are two things that churches need to teach to their people. For the most part, they only teach one part. And without the second, there is no way to contrast the truth with what is false. What they are pretty good at is teaching Christian worldview beliefs. What they are woefully bad at is teaching the false beliefs that are prominent in society, and helping their members understand “why” they are false.

It is, of course, absolutely essential to teach biblical beliefs. People can’t accept what they don’t know. However, knowing only true beliefs is not enough. We live in a societal environment where false beliefs dominate in virtually every area – media, education, arts and entertainment, government, business, and even many families and churches. The problem is, these false beliefs are so pervasive, that most people are not even aware of them. The only way they become aware is to have them brought to consciousness by specifically comparing them to true beliefs.

When people drift away from the church, one of the biggest reasons is because they don’t know how to make that comparison. It requires an intentional effort by the church to provide that kind of training. Without it, we end up with statistics like those referred to above.

There are, of course, many false beliefs out there, and many of them relate to the various cults and false religions that most people are aware of. But the most insidious false beliefs – the ones that are responsible for so many people leaving the church – are mostly hidden in the fabric of modern society. They are not abortion, homosexual marriage, men playing in women’s sports, illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, rampant crime, and all of the other societal evils that Christians usually stand up against. Rather, it is the naturalistic beliefs that underlie all these things.

People can only deal with doubts when they know where the doubts come from and why the false beliefs that are causing them are not true. Until Christians are able to understand the underlying beliefs, they will continue to be blind sided without ever knowing how to effectively deal with them – both in society and within their own hearts.

Freddy Davis is the president of MarketFaith Ministries. He is the author of numerous books entitled The Truth Mirage, Rules for Christians Radicals, Liberalism vs. Conservatism, and his latest book Shattering the Truth Mirage and has a background as an international missionary, pastor, radio host, worldview trainer, and entrepreneur. Freddy is a graduate of Florida State University with a BS in Communication, and holds MDiv and DMin degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a popular speaker, particularly on the topic of worldview and its practical implications for the Christian life. He lives in Tallahassee, FL, with his wife Deborah.

You may also contact Freddy at Leadership Speakers Bureau to schedule him for speaking or leadership engagements.

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