5 Possible Reasons He Walked Away From The Christian Faith

1. His Weakness
Our weakness is the reason we are away from God. Notice how I didn't first say it is one reason we walk away from the Christian faith. Our weakness is the very reason we’ve been away from God in the first place. But he brought us to himself in spite of it. This reminds us of our condition and God's heart through it. Salvation, however, does not take this reminder away, it reinforces it. We are weak in many areas. I am weak, just as you are. Although some people would like to think of weakness as something we ought not have or involve God, God thinks of it as something he can use to reveal himself. When Paul prayed about his weakness in second Corinthians, God showed him the sufficiency of his grace. How's that? What has God showed you through your weakness? This question is one of paying attention to God and not your weakness. Some people walk away from the faith because they paid too much attention to their weakness and little to God. Our weakness can consume what God is revealing to us when we pay too much attention to it. His revelation, however, is what draws us, knowing very well our weakness.

2. The problem of suffering
Suffering can be one reason someone would walk away from the Christian faith. It's really a matter of not setting your eyes on what God has revealed of himself, especially about your suffering. ‘I know my redeemer lives,’ Job said even before God revealed himself in his suffering. We Christians have an even greater advantage over Job, because of the full revelation of God in Christ. That revelation is evident enough for God’s presence in our suffering. His relationship with us in suffering is made certain through the person of Jesus Christ. But oftentimes we feel that relationship is broken because of what we're going through. It is not, and the Gospels gives us that assurance. Ravi Zacharias, at the age of 17 wanted to take his own life. He was on a bed of suicide when a bible was brought to him, and the book of John was read to him. He's still alive as I'm writing this article, and my prayer is that he lives longer because of how he's blessed my life with his Let My People Think podcast. It doesn't, however, mean that he wouldn't suffer anymore. In fact, according to him, he has two metal rods at his back. There was one time, his doctor told him to sit at one place, (he said, he chose to sit on a chair), for four good days! It isn't that he doesn't suffer, but he knows that even though he still suffers, his relationship with God is never broken.

3. The life of fellow Christians
Most people are reliant on the life of Christians, in general, for the gospel. According to Ravi Zacharias, Muslims specifically rely on that as well as dreams. Fellow Christians also count on the lives of their brothers and sisters in Christ for the gospel. The Pharisees knew how people would count on them so much so that they pretended to have a life that's in keeping with the law, when in fact they don't. Jesus calls that hypocrisy and warned us seriously against its spirit. It was one of my prayer topics. Essentially, our lives matter. Our relationship with God should reflect in our life as a whole, not just parts of it. Paul asks of us to have a character that's in keeping with our calling. And he's right. We can't be working in our calling and not work on our character. The two must be united, in order to reach people with the gospel. I've heard many stories of people walking away from the church, because one way or the other, someone in it did them wrong. Eventually, they turn away from God. If something which happened in the church can go a long way to affect your personal relationship with God, then having a Christlike character must really be that important. But I think also that we expect too much from our Christian brothers and sisters, and are too sensitive to noticing wrong. If that's the case, then we need to first watch our lives and work on it.

4. Entertaining other worldview
This can lead you away from the Christian faith. Every worldview has its own design, agenda and vision. Christopher Hitchens wants a belief in God to be broken from our mentality. He stated plainly in his debate with John Lennox that such a break would make us free. I don't know why freedom from the God-mentality is such a good thing anyway. For him to say that we need a break from the God-mentality, means he thinks it is an objective good. Meanwhile, his atheistic worldview does not have any grounding for objective good. His statement, therefore, is begging the question. We can say an atheistic vision has been made known here by Christopher Hitchens. And entertaining such a worldview would mean a gradual break from the God-mentality, especially for those who can't discern the break in their atheism. I find the gift of discernment very helpful here. The Islamic worldview at one time had its grip on me because of the details, (at least, that was what I thought), it gave to the stories I read in it. The account of Jesus’ birth, for example, was, to my mind, richer than the Gospels. I was entertaining their view not knowing the historical gaps it took to even put those stories together. The worldview we entertain are most at times filled with gaps and breaks, which would take some discerning, study, critical thinking, truth-testing, and so on to figure out. We need to be sure we have these gifts and skills before considering them. I once heard Mensah Otabil say he was reading a book titled, The God Delusion. Guess what, it was written by Christopher Hitchens!

5. His University professors
They're busy teaching on subjects that would knock every idea of the existence of God within you. There's no God, they firmly assert. The movie, God's Not Dead, sends a direct response to these professors who still hold to this view because of the reality of suffering. If a good God, why do people suffer? If people suffer, there's no God. Notice how the first premise is stated:

1. If a good God, why do people suffer?
It's a question— why do people suffer. That's a question of purpose and meaning. If you're an atheist professor asking this about suffering, you really don't need an answer. For answering a question of purpose and meaning doesn't fit into his meaningless and purposeless worldview. So the question only shows how meaningless and lonely the world is. They show this to you and then move to their second premise and conclusion: if people suffer, there's no God. What is more, Frank Turek gave a lecture on how these professors teach about religion. And again, it was only about showing the students why God cannot possibly exist among these religions. Evolution is taught with such firmness, as though what's being described is even possible. Many scientists can grant the possibility of microevolution, but not macroevolution. Natural selection at its core means there must be something in existence for selection. But they'd like to tell us there's nothing. Pictures of what may look like support for evolution actually were photoshopped into our science textbooks. When you get deep into these issues, you'd feel the determinism to which these professors appeal, so much so that they try to force their view on students. Parents have shared their concerns for their wards with Ravi Zacharias and his team. It's heartbreaking when your son leaves the home a Christian and returns an atheist. Ravi Zacharias would like to think such children have not been exposed to the reasons for a belief in God. Hence, he encouraged it. I wrote on this in one of my articles, titled, Today's Christian.