One of my theological mentors was a great example of authoritative parenting, and yet two of his three adult children in no way considered themselves to be or lived as Christians.
Once I asked him and his wife what they thought about this, and their response was to point to their kids’ baptisms. This was not a desperate naiveté of the sort when a parent recalls that their kid once said the sinner’s prayer and therefore it meant that no matter how they lived their life and what their belief was, they were actually saved. No, when they pointed to the baptism of their children, they were pointing to the reminder of God’s promise: “Turn to me in faith, and I will be a God to you and your children.”
Their baptism is a permanent reminder of God’s promise to freely offer salvation. They were children of the covenant, and that would never change. Were they Christians? Not in any real sense, but the gift of baptism was a blessed comfort to their parents that God had already acted in their lives and marked them as his own and he wasn’t done with them yet. They may have wandered from the faith, but their story is not over.
This is true whether the kids were baptized as babies or baptized based upon their profession of faith and later abandoned Christianity. The great dechurching has come for the children of all Christian denominations.
And the great dechurching underscores the reality confronting many anxious parents: They can do everything right, or think they did, and their kids still may not remain followers of Jesus.
The hope of God’s people lies in his grace for the kids who have grown. And like with conversion, God’s gifts of the family and church have a role to play in building up the faith of adult children. Even when they have grown up, it’s never too late and no one is ever too far gone from the grace of God.
Parental influence remains the strongest factor in whether these adult children eventually return to the faith, with grandparents also playing a significant role. If pastors and churches desire to see young adults hold on to their faith—and to equip parents to exercise their lasting influence effectively—they must first understand why some kids walk away.
One of the most straightforward ways a transition away from faith occurs is when young adults stop identifying as Christian altogether. They no longer claim the label of Christianity, whether in surveys, conversations, or personal reflections. They may not be hostile to Christianity, but they don’t care about it anymore. This is related to but distinct from another significant shift: when kids cease to live according to Christian teachings, particularly in areas like regular church attendance, prayer, and engagement with Scripture.
While they might still consider themselves Christians in some sense, their lives no longer reflect active participation in the faith community or adherence to its practices. This drift often coincides with entering college or the workforce, where routines and priorities change.
Perhaps the most profound change occurs in those who undergo a process of deconstruction or deconversion. This involves reevaluating their beliefs, questioning long-held assumptions, and ultimately rejecting the faith they were raised in. The internet, with its wealth of information and diverse perspectives, can often play a significant role in accelerating this process.
My observation is that kids who are told they need to be a Christian in order to be a good person are most vulnerable to deconstruction. When they enter into a world full of non-Christians who are good people living fulfilled lives, many of whom are nicer than the Christians they know, it places into sharp relief the moral reasoning of their faith and invites a serious reexamination of it.
Faith Deconstruction Can Be a Search for Answers or a Search for Exits
Travis Dickinson
Why Are Women Leaving the Church?
Roxanne Stone
Mitigating this goes beyond parents and churches being transparent about sin, grace, and repentance (and therefore addressing hypocrisy) and requires getting the gospel right: Yes, Jesus sanctifies his people and they should improve morally, but the reason to be a Christian is to be rescued from sin and called into the fellowship of Jesus.
In many cases, these doubts and questions were already present during adolescence but were suppressed or unnoticed until the individual gained independence from parental oversight. It is this category of deconstruction and ceasing to believe that most people refer to when they speak of young adults leaving the faith. It represents a deep and often painful break from their religious upbringing.
Theologically, there are three ways we should understand why young adults raised as Christians might leave the faith. One perspective is that these kids never had genuine saving faith to begin with. While they were part of the covenant community, they were never truly united to Christ by faith. Their outward participation masked an inward lack of trust and transformation. As John writes, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19, ESV). As soon as the parental obligation to participate in the life of the church was lifted, they were able to act according to their true convictions. The good news here, of course, is that Jesus saves sinners, even sinners who grew up in church.
A second dimension is that belief is not a static state but a dynamic one. Many deconversion stories involve kids who sincerely believed in Christ during their youth but later moved away from that belief. These were not people who faked their faith or even deceived themselves. They truly believed in Jesus and the tenets of the Christian faith.
While saving faith is rational, its essence is trust in Christ, not intellectual assent or sheer willpower. Faith rests upon Christ as he is offered in the gospel, which means that someone’s earlier belief, even if it later fades, was not nonexistent simply because it didn’t endure.
Their belief was genuine in that it was rational and honestly held in the mind, but it was not a faith that truly rested upon Christ; the person’s mind and emotions may have been in the right spot, but they were never regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Just as belief can waver or change during young adulthood, so it is not permanently fixed in a current state of unbelief for a young adult.
The fact that someone no longer believes now does not mean they are beyond the reach of God’s grace. The sincerity of earlier belief and its current absence are both part of a larger spiritual journey.
The third theological lens is the story of the Prodigal Son, which offers hope for those who have wandered away from the faith. Many young adults enter phases of life where they become skeptical, disengaged, or entangled in sin. Yet the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) reminds us that God’s grace is always available, and those who stray can return.
The father celebrates the son’s return as if he had been lost and dead (v. 32) because relationally, that was what he was to his dad—estranged. And living estranged from God is as if we’re lost and dead to him. Returning in repentance is what restores us to life through God’s grace. The good news for parents of prodigals is that God specializes in finding the lost and raising the dead, and no one is beyond his reach.
Many parents do their best to protect their children from the sinful influences of the world—and they should! But sometimes that protection manifests in unhealthy ways, with the values and currents of the world unacknowledged and the curiosity of the kids met with dismissals. When parents impatiently or thoughtlessly pass over their kids’ questions and objections, they don’t prepare them for life outside the home. The faith of a child is like a tree; unless smaller winds blow on them to strengthen their resistance, they will collapse when the big storms hit.
Kids need to have the doubts and questions of their faith met lovingly and directly to build their resolve. For kids who walk away from Christianity, parental influence is often a determining factor in whether they eventually return.
God Understands Hard, Thankless Parenting
Diane Dokko Kim
How Grandparenting Redeemed Our Family
Erin Wyble Newcomb, guest writer
Parents who can maintain a sincere, confident, and routine faith while extending warmth—even to children who have left the faith—create an environment of trust. When adult children feel they can approach their parents without fear of judgment or rejection, they are more likely to remain open to conversations about faith.
Do the children trust that their parents will listen to their experiences and questions without dismissiveness? When kids bring up negative childhood faith experiences, will they trust their parents to be humble and open to the criticisms, even if the parents don’t ultimately agree with them? Will the parents demonstrate care and love regardless of their children’s current beliefs or choices?
This does not mean acceptance or endorsement; it means the same kind of warmth and patience given to the child as a toddler or teenager, though expressed in an age-appropriate way. Even into adulthood, this is what helps kids hold on to and return to the faith.
Encouragingly, parents who fell short during their children’s upbringing can still make a positive impact. By embracing sincerity, warmth, and a listening ear, they can rebuild trust and foster an environment conducive to their children retaining or turning to faith. You never stop being a parent, which means that even empty nesters can continue learning how to parent.
One common danger is reverting to the dynamics of the parent-child relationship from earlier years. Parents must remember that their children are now adults with their own autonomy. Attempting to assert control, dismiss their skepticism, or dictate their faith journey is likely to backfire, pushing them further away. Respecting their independence while maintaining a supportive presence is crucial. Parents should aim to model a faith that is both confident and compassionate, demonstrating how belief is lived out rather than imposed.
Conversion happens by faith and covenant. Sometimes parents are terrible, and by the grace of God he saves their children anyway. Sometimes parents are wonderful and do everything so right that it’s not even “doing” something but just the very essence of their home life, and their kids do not come to faith in Jesus. And sometimes kids don’t stay Christian, and the failure of their parents to raise them well is the worldly cause of their not remaining in the faith.
All three of these are common realities in the church.
We have the reminder that salvation is always by God’s sovereign grace. We live in a fallen world, and doing everything right does not change the arithmetic of salvation. We may have been the very best parents, but that does not save our children. When we do everything right as parents, we are just stewarding God’s blessings well; he works through the normal means of family and church, but salvation is still his gift and prerogative to deliver. We need to entrust our kids to our Father and his provision of salvation through Jesus by the Spirit.
When we fail, God’s grace is powerful. He can work despite our parental failures and save our children. If we did wrong by our kids and they are still in the church, we should be reminded that God worked for their salvation despite our missteps. If we are to serve the church as positive models, we must confront our mistakes through repentance and striving to do better. And when we fail and our kids do not stay Christian, God’s grace—the work of Jesus to save us from our sin and sorrow—remains our hope.
God remains our only hope in life and death, blessing and sorrow, and we need to place the affliction of our kids walking away from the faith in his hands. And we continue to trust the grace of God for our kids. The Holy Spirit goes where he wills, and the children of God are born not of blood but through the blood of Jesus and faith in him.
When the sorrow of our children departing from Christianity confronts us, whether or not we did our best when they were kids, there is nothing better to place our hope in than the grace of God. His grace and purposes cannot be thwarted and will prevail. Our children’s stories are not done, and God is at work. Because of this, prayer for our children can and should characterize our lives.
The hope that the church can provide parents is not the promise that God will assuredly save their children, but that assuredly God is almighty, gracious, and abounding in steadfast love. Parents of prodigals can trust that God is good and that the gospel of grace remains true even when the kids they love have wandered from the faith.
Cameron Shaffer is the senior pastor of Langhorne Presbyterian Church and serves on the board of directors for the World Reformed Fellowship. Content taken from Keeping Kids Christian by Cameron S. Shaffer, ©2026. Used by permission of Baker Books.
The post Parents of Prodigals Can Trust God is Good appeared first on Christianity Today.
