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Why People Are Leaving Christianity

Why People Are Leaving Christianity

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 Hi Friend! Welcome to the Grounded Podcast 2026! We’re naming this season, ReJesus Everything! We’re going to explore the current crisis going on within Christianity worldwide, the reasons for it, and work to recover the original foundation of the Christian movement—Jesus himself. I hope you’ll stay with us throughout this series and add your perspective in the chat and comment section. Let’s dive in!47,000 is a Big NumberLast Sunday 47,000 Americans walked out of church for the last time. They didn’t plan it. They didn’t make a big announcement. They just... didn’t go back. And here’s the thing—most of them still love Jesus.They’re not rejecting Him.They’re rejecting This system that has grown up around Him. If you’ve ever felt that tension—if you’ve ever wondered whether it’s possible to love Jesus and still feel deeply unsettled by Christianity as you’ve experienced it—then this season of the Grounded podcast is for you.The DataAccording to research from The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, 40 million American adults—16% of the U.S. population—used to go to church but no longer do. This represents the last 25 years, roughly from 1998 to 2023.Let me put that in perspective. This is the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of the United States. More people have left the church in this period than all the new converts from the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham’s crusades combined.And it’s not just happening in America. Across Europe, church attendance has also plummeted. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and even among Chinese house churches, the story is the same. Traditional Christianity is in decline across most of the world.But here’s what’s important to understand: this doesn’t seem to be primarily a story of people rejecting Jesus. It’s a story of people rejecting what their local form of Christianity has become.According to the Barna Group, 42% of all U.S. adults say they have deconstructed the faith of their youth. Why We’re Devoting This Season to The Topic of Reconstructing the Christian FaithThis isn’t a fringe movement of angry ex-Christians. This is happening in the pews, in Christian colleges, in pastors’ families, and in missionary communities around the world.The quiet exodus is real. It’s massive. And it’s accelerating.Sherry and I’ve spent more than four decades in full-time ministry—inside churches, seminaries, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations. We’ve seen Christianity at its best.We’ve also seen it drift—sometimes far—from the person it claims to follow.This is the first episode in a new season of the Grounded podcast. It’s is not about defending Christianity. And it’s not about abandoning faith.It’s about re-centering everything—belief, discipleship, spirituality, mission—directly on Jesus, not the religion built around Him. The living person Himself.Most conversations about this subject leave you with two choices:* Defend Christianity as it is* Leave everything entirelyBut I believe there is a third way: to reJesus everything. (More on that later.)The Global Exodus from Institutional Christianity. Okay, so let’s unpack this.Something historic is happening beneath the surface of Christianity that many Christians haven’t noticed. Large numbers of people raised in Christianity (we’re talking millions here) are no longer finding spiritual nourishment within its institutions. In the last five years alone (basically since Covid), approximately 15 million regular church attenders in the USA alone have stopped going to church.Many others are still attending occasionally, still listening to sermons online, still praying—but with a growing sense of distance and fatigue. They are fading out. This is not rebellion; it’s disillusionment.Losing Faith in the TrainIt’s like being in a once-busy train station late at night. The lights are still on. The signs still work. The announcements are blaring, but fewer and fewer people are boarding the train. There’s no big protest going on. It’s just that fewer and fewer people still believe that train will take them home.The good news is that despite popular narratives, most people in the current faith crisis are not rejecting Jesus. They are stumbling over the gap between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Christianity they experience in real life. When belief systems, practices, power structures, or cultural battles seem to contradict Jesus’ words and way, something inside us resists. That resistance may actually be a sign of spiritual integrity.The Anatomy of a Faith CrisisFaith crises rarely happen all at once. They begin with small questions, quiet disappointments, unresolved contradictions. Over time, the weight accumulates until the structure can no longer hold. What feels like sudden collapse is often a long, invisible unraveling.Think of a rope under tension. It doesn...
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