A Reflection on Gateway Grief

Impersonal Grief as a Gateway to Worse Misery

A recent study by the Family Research Council and Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center reveals a troubling trend: regular churchgoers are losing their biblical convictions on fundamental matters of faith, family, and morality. In just one year, self-identification as pro-life amongst monthly church attenders dropped from 63 per cent to 43 per cent. Only 46 per cent now uphold a traditional view of family, falling to a mere 34 per cent amongst Gen Z believers. Trust in Scripture's clarity on abortion declined from 65 per cent to 51 per cent over the same period.

Lead researcher Dr George Barna observed that "once-firm beliefs about family, life, and morality are giving way to cultural influence and personal opinion." This erosion represents something more profound than a shift in opinion; it signals a form of grief that goes largely unrecognised and unaddressed.

The Isolating Nature of Spiritual Drift

As I have noted in my journal, grief isolates. It separates us from others, from normalcy, from our former selves. When believers begin to impose personal standards in place of God's standards, they initiate a subtle but devastating form of self-isolation. They may still take to pews, sing hymns, and participate in ritual, but in their hearts they grow steadily disconnected from the community's theological centre. This is the Enemy's work at its most cunning - not a dramatic fall from grace, but a quiet, incremental drifting away.

The loss of shared conviction creates a peculiar form of communal grief. Those who remain steadfast in biblical teaching find themselves mourning the loss of brothers and sisters who are physically present but spiritually absent. Meanwhile, those who have adopted cultural standards over scriptural ones experience their own hidden bereavement: the loss of certainty, the erosion of a once-solid foundation, the disquieting sense that they have untethered themselves from something essential.

This spiritual drift does not announce itself with trumpets. There is no moment of conscious apostasy, no deliberate renunciation of faith. Instead, there is accommodation, rationalisation, and the gradual substitution of divine wisdom with personal preference. The (dis)believers believe themselves to be justly reasonable, compassionate, or modern. They do not recognise they are grieving the loss of conviction until the void where certainty once resided begins to ache.

Gateway Grief: The First Step Towards Desolation

Consider the progression of substance abuse. Few, if any, addicts begin with heroin. They start with something seemingly manageable: a drink to ease social anxiety, a pill to manage pain, a joint to take the edge off stress. Each substance serves as a gateway, lowering inhibitions and resistance, acclimatising the user to altered states of consciousness until more potent and destructive substances become not only conceivable but sought after, and finally, essential.

Spiritual compromise follows a similar trajectory. The loss of biblical conviction on one matter, perhaps beginning with something that seems marginal or culturally contentious, acts as a gateway to grief. Once the soul becomes accustomed to substituting personal judgement for divine instruction, the pattern establishes itself. If Scripture can be reinterpreted or set aside on this matter, why not on that one? If cultural pressure can override biblical teaching on family structure, why should it hold firm on sexual ethics, or the sanctity of life, or the exclusive claims of Christ himself?

The schism with one's natural spiritual home - the community of faith where one ought to find belonging, direction, and accountability - leaves the soul bare and vulnerable. Like an exposed nerve, it becomes exquisitely sensitive to further injury. More perfidious and insidious forms of grief begin to take root: the grief of meaninglessness, the grief of moral confusion, the grief of cosmic loneliness.

Possible Catastrophic Consequences of Compounded Grief

When foundational convictions crumble, they do not simply vanish. They leave behind wreckage. The believer who has drifted from biblical moorings often experiences a cascading series of losses: loss of purpose, loss of identity, loss of hope. These are not abstract philosophical concepts but visceral, agonising forms of suffering.

David Closson, co-author of the FRC report, rightly identifies this as "a discipleship problem, not primarily a political one." But it is also, fundamentally, a grief problem. The failure of discipleship means the failure to equip believers to withstand the onslaught of cultural catechism. When "the people of God lose moral clarity on something as fundamental as the sanctity of life," they lose more than a position on a social issue. They lose a piece of their spiritual architecture. And when enough pieces are lost, the entire structure becomes unsound.

And the consequences can be catastrophic. A soul adrift from its theological foundations, isolated from its faith community, grieving the loss of certainty and meaning, becomes vulnerable to despair of the darkest kind. The statistics on mental health crises, depression, and suicide amongst those who experience religious or existential crises bear witness to this reality. When the soul has no anchor, when personal opinion has replaced divine truth, when the Enemy has successfully isolated the believer from both God and community, thoughts of ultimate self-harm can become not only conceivable but seductive.

The Road Paved with Small Steps of Unbelief

We are often told that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. More accurately, however, it is paved with small steps of unbelief. Each compromise seems minor in the moment. Each accommodation to cultural pressure appears reasonable, even compassionate. Believers do not set out to abandon their faith; they merely seek to make it more palatable, more acceptable, more aligned with the values of the world around them.

But these small steps accumulate. The first step away from biblical conviction makes the second easier. The second makes the third inevitable. Before long, believers find themselves in territory they never intended to enter, having travelled a distance they never meant to cover. They look back and can no longer see the path that brought them here. They look forward and see only darkness.

This is the particular cunning of gateway grief. It masquerades as liberation, as freedom from restrictive doctrines, release from judgement, and alignment with love and tolerance. But what it actually offers is isolation, confusion, and ultimately, desolation. The soul that has cut itself off from its spiritual community, from its theological heritage, from the wisdom of Scripture, finds itself profoundly alone. And in that loneliness, every subsequent form of grief finds fertile ground.

Rebuilding from the Ruins

Dr Barna concludes his report with a note of hope: "The vast majority of churchgoers still affirm core biblical truths about God and human value. These convictions provide a foundation for rebuilding." This is crucial. The diagnosis of grief must be accompanied by the possibility of healing. The recognition of loss must be met with the promise of restoration.

Yet, rebuilding requires more than optimism. It demands, as Barna rightly notes, "courageous leadership: pastors, parents, and educators willing to confront increasing cultural confusion with biblical clarity." It requires the church to acknowledge that its members are not merely experiencing political disagreement or generational shifts in preference. They are experiencing a particular form of grief, an encapsulation of the loss of certainty and the erosion of shared conviction; it's the painful separation from theological foundations that was once the immovable foundation of being.

Addressing this grief means creating space for honest conversation about doubt, confusion, and cultural pressure. It means equipping believers not just with right answers but with the spiritual resilience to withstand the daily catechism of secular culture. It means rebuilding discipleship in a way that acknowledges the reality of grief whilst pointing steadfastly towards the truth that transcends personal opinion and cultural trends.

Most importantly, it means recognising that the Enemy's most effective strategy is not the dramatic fall but the subtle drift. Not the explosive crisis but the quiet accommodation. Not the sudden loss but the slow erosion. And in recognising this, let's respond with compassionate urgency rather than with condemnation. Let's keep in mind that souls hang in the balance, and that the small steps of unbelief, if left unchecked, lead inexorably towards an abyss from which return becomes ever more difficult, if not ultimately impossible (though God knows best).

The grief of lost conviction is real. Its consequences can be catastrophic. But it is not inevitable, and it does not have to be irreversible. The first step towards healing is acknowledgement. The second is a return to the foundation that cannot be shaken, even when all else falls away.

"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."