Falling from Grace

“The transition is complete”. “I believe my tree and all other living things believe and feel in

their particular living ways. I want to work on being as good a human as I am able, just as my

tree does her job with grace and elegant treeness” (Kamps). Ruth Kamps experienced a

transition from someone who was raised deeply in organized religion to someone who simply

believed that all of nature has a job and when the job is done, we simply “fall and fertilize the

earth”, nothing more, nothing less. Taking a queue from Ruth Kamps, why are people falling

away from God?

Ruth Kamps grew up as a Catholic Christian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended an

all-girls Catholic prep high school and Jesuit college. After marrying, she moved from the city

suburbs to her husband’s childhood home near a stream that glowed red in the setting sun. It

was a small town, about an hour from Milwaukee. She missed the busyness of the city, as her

father had warned; the family, the fun, and the laughter, not to say that she didn’t have some of

that, just not as much and with not as many people surrounding her. Then, in a year when she

was pregnant with one of her four children, her mother died, and so did nine other

family-related people, each in their own way, and at their own time, but within that same year.

Ruth tried to mourn the Christian way. She went to church to be still and cry, turning to God,

trying to understand how this could be. When she arrived at the church, she discovered the

church was locked and the priest who knew her well was standing there looking at her and then

he turned her away and did not unlock the door. She turned to go, so confused, crying to

herself, and overwhelmed with grief. Wasn’t she supposed to go in to light a candle and cry out
to Jesus? Instead of turning to Christ, she left and never looked back. As she stated in her

essay, “it was a nail in the coffin of my traditional beliefs” (Kamps).

Research led me to Tomgreentree.com, which states there are ten reasons why people turn

from Jesus, either as primary reasons or through a set of circumstances that causes the

transition. Tom Greentree is a Christian pastor of the Erickson Covenant Church in Canada who

has done research on why people leave the church. The 10 Reasons are as follows: “Disgust in

other Christians, Disappointment with God, Difficulties, Distractions, Discouragement, Doubt,

Desires, Distance, Drift, and Deceit” (Greentree).

Take Ruth for example. She seemingly left because of Disappointment with God and Doubt.

She lost her mother and nine other family members in one year. That would certainly make me

doubt. Then she went to church to pray like she knew she should, but oddly enough, a priest of

all people, who knew her well as a member of his congregation, turned her away, never opening

the church or asking her why she was there. He was not a confidant the way a priest or pastor

should be. As she turned away from the church, she turned away from God.

According to Dr. Alex McFarland, author of “Abandoned Faith: Why Millennials Are Walking

Away and How You Can Lead Them Home,” “college-aged millennials today are far more likely

than the general population to be religiously unaffiliated. This is true when they are compared

to previous generations as well” (McFarland). There are ten reasons millennials are backing

away from God and Christianity. 1. that they have no loyalty to anything and they will switch

from idea to idea, 2. through the breakdown of the family, 3. secularism that is imposed on

children in school, 4. people lack spiritual guidance, 5. the hometown church is immaterial and

is no longer a cornerstone of life, 6. there is no longer a universal sense of right and wrong, 7.
systemic prevalence in college leads to a generation of cynics who require material evidence

rather than blind faith, 8. atheism which seems to have gone from people who just don’t

believe in God to those who believe in not believing in God as though it is some kind of

anti-religion, 9. those who believe in blanket tolerance of those who make their own definitions

up as they please like non-binary, 10. young adults who have a blatant disregard for authority,

especially religious authority.

Ruth turned both inward and toward nature. She seems to fit into the original atheistic form;

someone who does not believe in God, but believes all things do the thing they’re designed to

do, ex: trees do tree things, squirrels do squirrel things, and she did her thing by being a good

person, wife, grandmother, etc. She doesn’t believe in heaven or hell or any other afterlife, but

she does believe in being the best person she can be, regardless of divine condemnation or

reward.

Given these twenty reasons of why people leave Christianity, including ten on why millenials

are the least religious generation, all of these definitely resound with the world today. Divorce

rates are insane, although they are coming down from the mid-80s/90s when they were at their

peak. Hook-up culture, i.e. Tinder, Bumble, Match, etc, lead to a culture where you can solicit

sex with little difficulty or expectation of further contact and responsibility. People have

become pronouns rather than people. Humanism is no longer a given indicator of personhood,

but now we can identify as whatever we wish, being non-binary, LGBTQ+, and whatever anyone

decides in that moment they are. Gender is no longer specific or culturally grounded. Men are

no longer expected to be men, women women, etc. Christianity once stated men were men and

women were women and there was no mistaking the two. It set a standard of behavior and
expectations. Unified morality is no longer unified and isn’t taught at a young age like when you

grow up in a church. Parents no longer discourage immoral behavior. No longer is there societal

retribution on morality, aside from the laws we have that distinguish crime against another.

Today we are allowed to make fun of someone’s hair and personhood and only criminalize

assault. I am not a Christian, but it seems to me the lack of cohesive society-wide Christian

values upon which this country was founded, has led to a severe lack of moral unity, along with

a general lack of “give-a-crap” in our U.S. culture and population today.

 Works Cited

Greentree, Tom. "10 Reasons People Turn Away From Faith in Jesus." Tom Greentree: Helping

People Live Their Whole Life, 28 Sept. 2018, tomgreentree.com/10-reasons-people-turn-

away-from-faith-in-jesus/.

Kamps, Ruth. "Statement on Signing of Texas Anti-Immigrant SB4 Law." National Immigration

Law Center, 8 May 2017, www.nilc.org/2017/05/08/statement-on-texas-sb4/.

"Lists of Former Christians." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 16

Mar. 2012, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_former_Christians. Accessed 4 Apr. 2022.

McFarland, Dr. Alex. "Ten Reasons Millennials Are Backing Away from God and Christianity." Fox

News, 28 Apr. 2017, www.foxnews.com/opinion/ten-reasons-millennials-are-backing-

away-from-god-and-christianity.