Why People Walk Away

An Old and Painful Story

Every pastor knows the empty seat. Every Christian parent knows the fear. Someone who once sang the songs, prayed the prayers, and carried a Bible to church now wants nothing to do with any of it. The question comes in the middle of the night: why?

The story is as old as the Gospels. When Jesus taught hard things in the synagogue at Capernaum, many who had followed Him turned back.

“From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”JOHN 6:66–68 · KJV

Jesus did not soften His words to keep the crowd. Paul knew the same grief. He wrote, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world (2 Timothy 4:10). Scripture does not tell us how Demas's story ended, and we should not write an ending for him. Paul also named Hymenaeus and Alexander among those who concerning faith have made shipwreck (1 Timothy 1:19–20).

The numbers today are sobering. Pew Research's 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study found that 62 percent of American adults call themselves Christians, down from 78 percent in 2007, though the decline has slowed. About 57 million adults raised as Christians no longer identify as Christians, and for every person who has come to Christianity from outside it, about six have left. Lifeway Research found that two out of three young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly as teens dropped out for at least a year between ages 18 and 22.

Those figures measure labels and attendance. They cannot tell us who was ever born again. But behind each number is a real person, and often a mother still praying.

People seldom leave for one reason. Usually several reasons tangle together, and the reason a person gives first may not be the deepest one. In this study we look at four: wounds, questions, drift, and desire. First, though, we need to hear what Jesus said about it.