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Abstract

This research study explores how emerging adults who have disaffiliated from a Christian tradition understand faith, articulate why they are “done” with the church, and want to receive spiritual care. Part one of this article overviewed the existing research on emerging adult spirituality and explored the results of a quantitative survey with college students at a Protestant Christian university. This article explains the qualitative portion of the study, in which the researchers conducted group interviews with college students who identify as being “done” with church. This article then provides an analysis and suggested application of the results of this study. The participants shared that they care deeply about community but experienced deep disappointment and pain when their faith communities hindered their experience of God through what they perceived as hypocrisy and judgment. This sample of “dones” revealed that they are “done” because they experienced harm from decisions and practices of their faith communities, particularly regarding patriarchal practices, exclusion of the LGBTQ+ community, and the prevalence of abuses of power within the church. The majority of them are not “done” with God but feel strongly about their disaffiliation from church. They desired non-judgmental spiritual guidance from a mentor figure but struggled to articulate their needs beyond that.

Author Bio

Falon is the Campus Minister for the University Church of Christ at Pepperdine, focusing primarily on the spiritual formation of college students. She also co-hosts a podcast called Emerge: Questions that Matter for Young Adult Spirituality. She has her Doctor of Ministry from the Hazelip School of Theology at Lipscomb University, as well as an MA in Religion and BAs in Journalism and Hispanic Studies from Pepperdine University. She is especially interested in the calling on disciples of Jesus to love our neighbors by caring for God’s earth.

Rachel is a Visiting Assistant Instructor of Religion at Pepperdine University and a former Associate Chaplain. Her work in higher education focuses on the ways spiritual struggle contributes to the spiritual formation of emerging adults. She holds an MDiv with an emphasis in Christian Ethics from Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as an MBA with a certificate in dispute resolution from Pepperdine University.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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