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The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

WOF 045: Why Young People are Leaving the Church

The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

Brandon Vogt

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 ā€¢ 5.8K Ratings

šŸ—“ļø 18 October 2016

ā±ļø 35 minutes

šŸ”—ļø Recording | iTunes | RSS

šŸ§¾ļø Download transcript

Summary

After perusing the latest Pew Study on why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity, Bishop Barron noticed that (once again) the reasons they offer for abandoning Christianity are entirely not compelling. That is to say, any theologian, apologist, or evangelist worth his salt should be able easily to answer these objections to faith and hopefully encourage the youngster to reconsider the Truth of the Church. With this in mind for today's episode, Bishop offers smart, passionate responses to the common misconceptions and objections that continue to lure young people away from God. The listener question asks which books are best for evangelizing atheists from both a rational and emotional standpoint.

Topics Discussed

  • 0:17 Ā - Introduction, Bishop's trip to Lake Placid and current reading list
  • 3:25Ā - Bishop's reaction toĀ young people leaving the church?
  • 5:15Ā - Should we avoid pressuring them and let young people return on their own?
  • 7:48Ā - Some common objections: Is religion the opiate of the people?
  • 11:10Ā - Has science disproven religion?
  • 15:15Ā - If religion causes so much violence, how can it possibly be right?
  • 17:50Ā - Does the sex abuse scandal invalidate the Church?
  • 20:53Ā - Is it better to be open-minded to all world religions?
  • 26:48Ā - What if church is too boring and you don't have time?
  • 30:40Ā - How would Bishop Barron encourage young people to return to the Church?
  • 32:09Ā - Question from listener: What are some good books to battle atheism both from a rational and emotional standpoint?

BonusĀ Resources

Find bonus links and resources for this episodeĀ at http://WordOnFireShow.comĀ and, again, be sure to submit your questions at http://AskBishopBarron.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Brandon Vot, the host and the content director

0:08.0

at Word on Fire. And joining us is the great Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron, welcome.

0:12.9

Good to be with you Brandon as always.

0:16.3

Now as we do with the beginning of each episode, before we dive into the main content, I want

0:20.1

to catch up with you. You've had a lot of really cool travels and meetings and stuff

0:25.0

over the last couple of weeks here. Let's talk about one big event. You went to Lake

0:29.4

Placid for a big vocations event. So tell us about that.

0:33.2

I did. It was adventurous. I must say getting there, you know, travel is much more difficult

0:38.4

now that I'm in LA when I was in Chicago, kind of the middle of the country was relatively

0:43.0

easy. And I signed up for that talk when I was still in Chicago. Anyway, so I left Santa

0:49.5

Barbara took me about two hours to get to LAX. Then the plane was delayed and then there

0:53.7

were bad storms in the middle of the country. So the plane took a very circuitous route.

0:58.9

I barely got to my connecting flight, got on the plane and then that was mechanical problems.

1:04.1

And that was the way two more hours. Then I got to Burlington, Vermont, which was as close

1:09.0

as I could get by plane to Lake Placid. And a very nice young priest picked me up and

1:13.4

I said, well, it's now about 10, 15 pm. And I said, well, hoping to get there quickly

1:18.9

and he goes, well, I think we can make it in under two hours. Two hours. And he goes,

1:23.8

yeah, depending on whether we catch the ferry, I said, ferry. As part of the trip, the

1:29.8

car's got to go on a ferry across Lake Champlain. Anyway, make a long story short. I arrived

1:34.6

at the hotel at about one o'clock in the morning and then had to get up and give a talk.

1:38.4

The talk went very well. It was a great crowd about 3,000 people from that northern reach

1:43.1

of the state of New York and some Canadians. So you're not far from Quebec and Montreal

...

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