ex-preacher

The following quote comes from a report at <a href="http://www.Barna.org," target="_blank">www.Barna.org,</a> a conservative evangelical research group.

Bold added by me for emphasis

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One thing that has not changed much is the number of teens who have an interest in faith. For more than a decade, teenagers have been among the most spiritually interested individuals in the nation. However, sensitivity to faith matters has not resulted in a boom in Christian conversions. In fact, while more than three out of five teenagers say they are spiritual, spiritual goals and life outcomes are not among the top-rated goals they have established for their future.

There is evidence that spirituality has been mainstreamed into teen life without radically affecting the lifestyles and values of most teens. For instance, in 1990 Barna found that 31% of teenagers were born again Christians. In 2001, in spite of increased dialogue about religious matters, a large majority of teens who cite spirituality as a major consideration in life, and the highest levels of church participation by teens during the past quarter century, the teenage born again figure is virtually unchanged at 33%.

Taking matters a step further, the Barna statistics show that the percentage of teens who are evangelicals - i.e., those who are not only born again but also believe in the accuracy of the Bible, personal responsibility to evangelize, believe in salvation by grace alone, and possess orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan - have declined from 10% in 1995 to just 4% today. This demise is attributable to growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation. This decline parallels a similar drop among adults: 12% were evangelicals in 1994, but just 5% fit the criteria today.

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There is hope for the future!

hezekiah jones

To coin a phrase, "Thank God."

Perchance

That's interesting. I wonder why they thought it would? Have such things happened in the past?
Hopefully this wave will hit Kentucky soon. (It doesn't appear to have done so yet).

Interesting, again. I wonder what it "ought" to have been?

Yes, it sounds as though there is hope. I think "moral relativism and pluralistic theology" are an important part of the intellectual foundation, as well. After all, if you can accept that other people believe in other gods and have other ways of life, you've probably taken the first step towards becoming at least a liberal theist.

[Edited to fix code mistakes].

-Perchance.

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]</p>

ex-preacher

You have to keep in mind that George Barna is himself a conservative, evangelical Christian. To me, that's what makes his research and analysis all the more interesting - he's what we might consider a "hostile witness." He's also the one who showed that Christians have a higher divorce rate than atheists. In fact, his data revealed that the more conservative the Christian, the higher the odds that they had been divorced.

It is hard for me to believe that only 4% of teens qualify as "evangelical." Even more unbelievable is that a mere 5% of adults are also evangelical. This can't be right?! It's just too good to be true. I'm wondering which item(s) it is that they disregard on his evangelical checklist. Maybe, it's that they don't think members of other religions are all going to hell. I wonder.

Vorkosigan

It doesn't surprise me. What exactly is Barna's belief? Is he a Dispensationalist? That would be about 5% of the population.

On the other hand, think what these numbers mean. 5% of the adults, but just 4% of the teenagers...that's a 20% decline across the generational divide....that's long term social decline for Barna's crowd.

CROW!!!!

Vorkosigan

ex-preacher

Here are Barna's definitions for "Born again" and "evangelical."

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"Born again Christians" were defined in the survey as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who then indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "born again."

Respondents were classified "evangelical" based upon their answers to nine questions regarding matters of faith. Those included

the criteria for being born again, as described above;

saying their faith is very important in their life today;

believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians;

believing that Satan exists,

that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works,

and that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth;

and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today.

Thus, evangelicals are a subset of the born again population. Being classified as an evangelical was not based on self-identification, and the classification had no relationship to church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church with which they associate.


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[spacing added for readability]

Eudaimonist

I'm not in favor of moral relativism or any kind of theology (unless these simply mean tolerance for others), but this is a very encouraging trend. There is hope.

excreationist

Here is a link to <a href="http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/MainArchives.asp" target="_blank">Barna Research Online's research archives page</a>.

One of my favourite category of statistics there are the ones about Satan.

from <a href="http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PageCategory.asp?CategoryID=6#Satan" target="_blank">Beliefs: Trinity, Satan</a>
I just read the Holy Spirit part - that is perhaps even more surprising:

Terracotta

I second this. Whereabouts do you live, Perchance? I live about 30 miles south of Lexington.

Perchance

It's split. I live and go to college most of the year in Lexington, but I still spend the summers with my family in a small town about 20 miles from Louisville.

I think I had never realized (until I went to college) just how fundy some Kentuckians are, because I've always lived close to the cities and so not in the more rural areas where "literal Bible-belief" seems to be stronger.

In one of my English classes my freshman year in college, I got into a two-day-long argument with several other people in the class about whether Genesis was literally true or not. Only about six people were actually vocal enough to talk, so I assumed that the rest were just shy, or something like that; I was assuming that at least one of them agreed with me. But when the teacher finally stopped the argument and asked, "All right, how many people believe the Bible is not literally true?" I was the only one of twenty-one people to raise my hand.

That was pretty scary.

Since then, I've encountered fundamentalism both in fellow students and in the students I teach. Most of them come from in-state, and most of the in-state students don't come from Lexington or Louisville. Thus a lot of them are Bible-believers.

On the other hand, if these statistics hold true, then maybe I'm only encountering vocal fundies, and the more liberal people just keep quiet. One can hope! .

-Perchance.