Cold Case Christianity Cold Case Christianity with J. Warner Wallace

(Updated on October 20th, 2017) Much has been written about both the Biblical illiteracy of teenage believers and the flight of young people from the Church. Many have observed this trend, and I too have witnessed it anecdotally as a youth pastor (and shamefully, I contributed to the trend for some time before I changed course). Some writers and Christian observers deny the flight of young people altogether, but the growing statistics should alarm us enough as Church leaders to do something about the dilemma. My hope in this post is to simply consolidate some of the research (many of the summaries are directly quoted) so you can decide for yourself. I’m going to organize the recent findings in a way that illuminates the problem: Research Related to Spiritual Life of Teenagers: Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Oxford University Press, 2005 Book Findings: The majority of teenagers are incredibly inarticulate about their faith, religious beliefs and practices, and its place in their lives. The de facto dominant religion among contemporary U.S. teenagers is what they call ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’: A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human …

In this blast from the past, J. Warner examines the challenge offered by Bill Keller in his New York Times Article, “Asking Candidates Tougher Questions About Faith”. Keller’s challenge to political candidates is also an important test for those of us who want to be good ambassadors for Jesus. You can also subscribe to the Cold-Case Christianity Weekly Podcast on iTunes, or add the podcast from our RSS Feed.

Wendy Griffith interviews J. Warner Wallace on the 700 Club and asks why it’s so important for the current generation of Christian believers to be prepared to give the reason for the hope they have in Jesus. More young people are walking away from the Church than ever before. What can we do, as older believers, to address the problem? All believers must recognize their duty and train themselves to develop a more reasonable, evidential faith, as described in the book, Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith. To see more interview videos with J. Warner Wallace, visit the YouTube playlist.