Why People Leave the Church

I had an interesting conversation today at church and it got me thinking about why people leave the church. The person we were discussing believed that the Church (with a capital "C") was corrupt and that the world should be "fair". In the end, this person decided to leave the church because it no longer had a valid view of the world. This put me in mind of something one of the panelists from Genesis : A Living Conversation (PBS Series)had to say:

It's an interesting fact that until now, there's never been another civilization in which people have left religion because they see evil in the world. The traditional religions remember the word of Christ--that only God the One is good. Therefore, this world, not being God, cannot be good. The imperfection of the world was accepted as part of human existence. Then in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with Marx, Hegel, and others, the idea of progress began to take hold. People began to think that this world was meant for happiness and goodness, and if there was not sufficient happiness or goodness in life, then there must be something wrong with God rather than with the nature of the world. (p. 246)

One could, I suppose, make the case that God is some how lacking based on the condition of the world. After all, He did create it, right? Often though an argument like this is constructed, not to accurately portray reality but, to avoid our own failures. If we can somehow shift blame for our own species' gross immorality and our own personal shortcomings, then we don't have to be a part of anything that is "corrupted" by the notion that God is a good God.