Why people ask it
Frequently because they experienced it. This is often the real objection sitting underneath the intellectual ones.
Short answer
The harm is real and should be named without qualification. But whether a claim is true is a separate question from whether its adherents have lived up to it.
Deeper answer
Do not defend the indefensible. Abuse, cover-ups, and cruelty carried out by churches are documented and are not exaggerated by critics. Any response that begins by minimizing them has already lost the person, and deserves to.
Logically, the behavior of adherents does not establish the truth or falsity of a claim. Doctors have harmed patients; medicine still works. But this argument, while valid, is rarely what the person needs first — and leading with it sounds like deflection.
There is a further point worth making carefully: Christianity itself is the source of the standard being used to condemn these failures. Hypocrisy is only visible against a standard, and the standard is the one the institution claims to hold. The critique is internal, which is part of why it lands.
Common mistake
Reaching for "no true Christian would do that." It is heard as evasion and it usually is.
Conversation-ready response
""You are right, and I am not going to defend any of it. Can I ask whether this is something you experienced? Because that changes what I should be saying to you right now.""
Source notes coming soon.