FamilyLife Today®

John Marriott: When someone leaves the faith, they will always say that they're leaving because they no longer believe that it's true. Because they just came to the place where they don't think that the Bible can be the word of God. And unfortunately, in the church, I think we have sort of set them up for that crisis of faith because we haven't done a really great job of letting young people know this is where the New Testament came from. Here's why we think this person wrote it. Here's how it was put together. This is why we think that it's reliable.

And then they go to university and they hear what would be more the skeptical, critical side of the history of the Bible. And they say, what are you kidding me?

Dave Wilson: Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Anne Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

Dave Wilson: You know, as we've already talked about, all the signs of the next generation in the Christian faith are sort of scary. There just seems to be like they're walking away. Now, we know that not everybody's walking away. Our kids aren't all walking away, but when you read the stats, you think, man, it's an epidemic.

Ann Wilson: Yeah, and I think as a parent, we're thinking, how can I avoid this? How can I keep my kids in the faith that is dynamic?

Dave Wilson: Every parent listening right now is like, help me, help me, help me.

Ann Wilson: Even parents with little kids

Dave Wilson: Oh, especially.

Ann Wilson: as they're raising kids in a culture where God isn't a topic that we often discuss as it used to be.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, and so we have John Marriott back in the studio with us. Welcome back, John.

John Marriott: Good to be here again.

Dave Wilson: And I mean, I called you last time the expert, but you know, I never asked you, why did you start I mean, you're a professor of Biola, you work with students every day.

Ann Wilson: You're an author.

Dave Wilson: But years ago, you decided, I'm going to dig into this whole thing called deconversion or deconstruction where our kids, our children are walking away. What got you so interested in this? I mean, you were sort of studying it before it's a known entity in our culture.

John Marriott: Yeah, there was one significant event that happened in my life that really motivated me. I was in 1996 I was at a a division one university on the East Coast. I was on a track and field scholarship. My event was the triple jump. And I had been there a year and things had been going really poorly. I felt as though I was getting worse instead of better. And I really wanted to quit. I had a good conversation with my coach and he said, no, you got to hang in there a little longer. Then we went to Florida for the Florida State Relays.

The first morning there, one of my teammates came to me and said, you'll never guess who's in the weight room. And I said, I have no idea who's in the weight room and I'm not really interested in playing a guessing game. You know, I'm really discouraged at this point. And he says, Jonathan Edwards is in the weight room. And the year previous to that, Jonathan Edwards out of the UK had broke the record in the triple jump. And he had broken it three times.

Dave Wilson: The world record?

John Marriott: Yeah, the world record in the triple jump in that year. He was the world champion. And I guess he had decided to move to the United States to train. And he was at Florida State University where we were. And he was in the weight room. And if there was one person who I felt could have understood me, it would have been Jonathan Edwards because the UK press was more impressed with his personal life than they were with his amazing triple jumps. He sacrificed very much like Eric Liddell did in Chariots of Fire an opportunity to go to the Olympics and the world championships in previous years because he didn't want to compete on a Sunday.

Dave Wilson: Well.

John Marriott: Deeply committed believer. And so you can imagine what I felt when I knew that Jonathan Edwards was in the weight room that day.

Dave Wilson: Sure.

Ann Wilson: Hero.

John Marriott: He was my hero. Pictures of him were all over my dorm room wall.

Dave Wilson: Really?

John Marriott: I went in the weight room. There he was. I waited till he was done. I went over and I told him my sad story. I told him that I was a Christian and that, you know, I knew that he was a believer and I was really struggling and could he, you know, help me? And he said, well, I I'm not a great coach, but my coach can help you. But would you like to go for lunch? So we went out for lunch and he told me all about how when he was done track and field, he was going to go to Dallas Theological Seminary and he was going to study Israelology, do a systematic study of the nation of Israel.

Dave Wilson: Wow.

John Marriott: He went on. He won the gold medal in the Olympics. And then he won the World Championships one more time and then he retired. When he retired, he became the host of Songs of Praise, which is the BBC's longest running television show. And it's a Sunday morning praise television show. So he was one of the most well-known Christians in the UK at the time. In 2007, I Googled him and I thought, I wonder what Jonathan Edwards is doing these days. And the first headline I see is Olympic triple jumper takes leap out of faith.

Ann Wilson: No.

Dave Wilson: Really?

John Marriott: Yeah, I actually felt my stomach flip. And I clicked on that link and I read how he no longer identifies as a Christian. And what really bothered me was when he said, and I am happier and more content without my faith than I was with it. And I don't think there is any more reason to believe in the existence of God. And I said, how is that possible? And then the rest of that night, I started looking into stories of people like Jonathan Edwards. And probably many of us are familiar with famous Christian celebrities who have recently walked away from the faith.

But for each one of those, there are tens of thousands of other stories of people online who are not celebrities, but who say, yeah, I used to be committed to this, but I don't believe it anymore. And so I said, why does that happen? What's the process look like? Is there anything that we can do? Is there anything that we're doing that might be contributing to it? And that's what started the research for my dissertation.

Dave Wilson: Wow.

John Marriott: Everyone who leaves the faith has a different story. We can't just broad brush and say, this is how it happens. This is what it looks like. Here are the specific reasons because there are factors we can identify. There's a general model that people kind of go through that we can identify. There are some triggers that we can identify. But everyone is unique and everyone comes into faith from on their own unique journey. And everyone who leaves the faith also has their own unique journey.

Ann Wilson: And yesterday you talked about a profile. There's type of profile of people that are leaving.

John Marriott: Yes. Yes.

Ann Wilson: Okay. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because we mentioned it yesterday.

John Marriott: Sure. I think that it 's important to say that just because people fit the profile

Dave Wilson: Mm.

John Marriott: does not mean that they are going to walk away from the faith. One of my good friends read it and said, oh, I don't think I'm going to be a Christian for very much longer. This identifies me. And he's one of the most deeply committed believers that I know. And And so what I 'm saying is that this is just a generalization. And so first off, there's a set of personality traits that people who deconvert typically have. And one of them is being above average in intelligence.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Well, I guess we're out, honey. We don't have to worry about it.

John Marriott: There are there are a number of studies done and one of the most significant is a study of 63 different studies that show that people who either have left the faith or or some religious faith or or who don't adopt a religious faith, they score higher in intelligence tests. And so there is this sort of connection between, you know, intelligence and people who say, you know, I I don't believe. People who are open to experience Now, this is one of the big five personality traits that psychologists say that we we're born with and it seems to be consistent throughout our life.

And we are either open or closed to varying degrees to new experiences. Do you want to go skydiving? Yeah. Do you want to do bungee jumping? Sure. Do you want to go hear a Buddhist speaker down at the Student Union? I'm open to hearing new things. People who are more open to experience are significantly more likely than people who are are a bit more closed off. And that seems to make sense because you're opening yourself up to new ideas, new ways of thinking. Whereas if you, you know, you you you don't do that, then maybe you're not going to be challenged as much in what you believe.

Those who have a low tolerance for authoritarian leadership should not be surprising, right? Because sometimes religious communities can be a bit overbearing. And if you come from one of those and you have a low tolerance for that, you're going to maybe buck against that. Then there are some values that we have. There are about 12 basic values that everyone has. And And we hold them to varying degrees. None of these are better or worse than the other. We all esteem some of them. But there are a set of values that if you esteem them highly, you are more likely These are actual predictors.

One is if you esteem high in the value of self-determination right? Doing what I want to do, my own freedom, my own autonomy, that is that's one. Another one is if you score high in what's sometimes called hedonism, which is pleasure is really important for you and seeking pleasure, that would be another one.

Dave Wilson: That That's not everybody.

John Marriott: Well, see, that is everybody, but to varying degrees, right? Everybody does want to be independent. Everyone wants their freedom. Everybody wants pleasure. But people for whom this is a really high important prioritized value

Dave Wilson: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

John Marriott: that's the difference.

Dave Wilson: Well, it's interesting even as you're talking, John, it's like I can picture a mom or a dad, you know, a husband or wife listening right now and they've got their pencil out or they got their phone and they're they're jotting these down and they're like, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. I mean, it just feels like it's stacking up.

John Marriott: Uh-huh.

Dave Wilson: I mean, definitely our sons, a couple of them are they've ding ding ding ding every one of them so far. And again, I know you 're not saying that means they but it does give an indication that they're going to be more open to this than anybody else, right?

John Marriott: Sure. Yes.

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

John Marriott: Should we keep going? It is getting scary.

Dave Wilson: I kidding. Yeah, you don't need to do all of them, but as you look at that

John Marriott: Okay.

Dave Wilson: you've got the personality, you've got values. What else is in there that would be really important for us to understand that this is a a profile that's at least worth looking at.

Ann Wilson: Okay, Dave, who do you think would win a game about how well we know each other?

Dave Wilson: Me. Definitely me.

Ann Wilson: That confidence is exactly why we need