Vorkosigan

I was just bouncing around <a href="http://www.barna.org," target="_blank">www.barna.org,</a> the Christian polling firm's website, and found this press release about their surveys from last year. Interesting stuff....

<a href="http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=103&Reference= F" target="_blank">Release Here</a>

The 7 Most Important or Revealing Results

Poring over hundreds of statistics released during 2001 through The Barna Update, the bi-weekly report on American culture and faith, Barna chose the following seven outcomes as those that have the most significant implications.

1. When people who regularly attend Christian church services were asked to describe the importance of various spiritual endeavors, a minority of regular attenders described evangelism, having meaningful relationships with other people in their church, and giving 10% or more of their income to their church as very important endeavors.

2. After studying more than three dozen different faith practices and biblical beliefs, adults under the age of 35 were the least likely to have a biblical perspective or consistent participation in each of the factors examined.

3. Forty one percent of the adults who attend Christian church services in a typical week are not born again Christians - meaning they have not embraced Jesus Christ as their savior.

4. After exploring the religious life of adults attending a variety of Protestant churches, only three types of churches - Pentecostal, Assembly of God, and non-denominational churches - had a majority of adherents who had shared their faith in Christ with a non-Christian in the past year.

5. Based on people's reactions to a series of moral issues, Americans are comfortable legalizing activities - such as abortion, homosexuality and pornography - that they feel are immoral.

6. Religious teaching or values minimally affect people's moral choices. The major influences on such decisions are the expected personal outcomes of their choices, minimizing conflict over their choices, and the values their parents taught them.

7. Compared to two years ago, just half as many Americans believe that absolute moral truth exists, dropping from 38% in January 2000 to only 22% in November 2001.

They also have their most controversial and surprising claims...interesting list.

And my favorite:

3. At least three out of ten born again adults say that co-habitation, gay sex, sexual fantasies, breaking the speed limit or watching sexually-explicit movies are morally acceptable behaviors.
Michael

[ April 07, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

MadMordigan

3. At least three out of ten born again adults say that co-habitation, gay sex, sexual fantasies, breaking the speed limit or watching sexually-explicit movies are morally acceptable behaviors.

Well I know it makes me hot to think of Sven racing to the video store to bring back porn to our place. Glad to know I'm not alone.

trunks2k

hmmm could this:
possibly in some way be due to this:

Sheesh, once you start thinking that other people may have different moral values from you all hell breaks loose!

Mageth

3. At least three out of ten born again adults say that co-habitation, gay sex, sexual fantasies, breaking the speed limit or watching sexually-explicit movies are morally acceptable behaviors.

The "or" makes this a little ambiguous, IMO; it implies that most if not all of the "three out of ten" may have answered "yes" to breaking the speed limit, for example, and "no" to the rest.

never been there

Isn't that a great site? Pretty intellectually honest, although a narrow view of what constitutes Xianity (in my unbelieving opinion).