Posted on 03/10/2009 1:55:01 PM PDT by Squidpup
Less than one percent of the youngest adult generation in America has a biblical worldview, found a new study examining the changes in worldview among Christians and the overall U.S. population.
The Mosaic generation, those between the ages of 18 and 23, “rarely” have a biblical worldview as defined by The Barna Group. The research data found that less than one-half of one percent of Mosaics have a biblical worldview.
A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.
Only if someone held all the above beliefs did the research consider the person as having a biblical worldview.
George Barna, who directed the research, commented on the “troubling” generational pattern that suggests “parents are not focused on guiding their children to have a biblical worldview.”
“One of the challenges for parents, though, is that you cannot give what you do not have, and most parents do not possess such a perspective on life,” he noted.
The research shows that only nine percent of all American adults have a biblical worldview, which although significantly higher than that of the Mosaic generation is still a small proportion of the total population.
Among “born again Christians,” the study found that they are twice as likely as the average adult to have a biblical worldview. However, that still amounted to no more than about one out of five (19 percent) born again Christians, a small minority, the study pointed out.
A born again Christian is defined by Barna as those who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is important in their life today and that they are sure they will go to Heaven after they die only because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior.
Some of the problems American adults and born again Christians have with the biblical worldview definition include believing that moral truth is absolute and unaffected by the circumstances.
Only one third of all adults (34 percent) hold this worldview, and while more born again adults believe in absolute moral truth, still less than the majority possess this outlook (46 percent).
Another belief that American adults struggle with is the view that Satan is a real force. Only slightly more than a quarter of adults (27 percent) believe Satan is real, and less than half of born again adults (40 percent) have this worldview.
Also, 28 percent of all adults and 47 percent of born again Christians believe it is impossible for someone to earn their way to Heaven through good behavior.
The general American public and the born again population differ greatly when it comes to the belief that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life while He was on earth. Forty percent of adults hold this belief, while 62 percent of born again Christians are convinced that Jesus was sinless.
George Barna commented, “There are a several troubling patterns to take notice. First, although most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and say they know the content of the Bible, less than one out of ten Americans demonstrate such knowledge through their action." continue>
I don’t believe you could take a poll on any true or false question and come up with only 1 percent.
Narrow is the poll too.
And we are seeing the societal results of no longer holding a Biblical view. How’s that working out?
I went to a Christian college, and even there this idea was unpopular with people my age. I'm surprised the number is so low, but I can believe it.
Of course if you identify numerous specific criteria and you have to agree with each, it would tend to give a very low percent.
apparently a series of five true/false questions
The one seems a little bit misleading. I would think that New Testament teachings would be the standard. The God of the Old Testament and his followers didn't exactly follow todays morality.
“Of course if you identify numerous specific criteria and you have to agree with each, it would tend to give a very low percent.”
You’re not supposed to say that, just swallow the interpretation of the results without question. You are also correct. It is a well established polling method for gnerating the results needed.
I count five or six.
“A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that absolute moral truth exists(1); the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches(2); Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic(3); a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works(4); Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth (5); and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today(6).”
A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that:- absolute moral truth existsOnly if someone held all the above beliefs did the research consider the person as having a biblical worldview.
- the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches
- Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic
- a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works
- Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth
- God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today
| "...These two world views [Christian theism vs naturalist, impersonal matter or energy shaped by impersonal chance] stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also in their natural results--including sociological and governmental results, and specifically including law. It is not that these two world views are different only in how they understand the nature of reality and existence. They also inevitably produce totally different results. The operative word here is inevitably. It is not just that they happen to produce different results, but it is absolutely inevitable that they will bring forth different results..." - Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (1981), page 2. |
It would have been more honest to just say, "X% of the polling sample agreed with the following statements."
Or they could have been even more honest and stated, "X% of the polling sample agreed with how we interpret certain passages in the Bible."
I don’t think these are particularly controversial points of Biblical doctrine: all orthodox Catholics would agree to them.
The fact that so few young people do merely indicates how badly catechesis has failed youth in the last 40 years or so.
fix the church first.
i haven’t been going to church for years now because i can’t find a pastor that could pass this quiz.
the sinless life and the omniscient, omnipresent God are the only two they all agree on.
I’m sick of pastors not believing in moral absolutes, or not believing the bible (last pastor “bible is a ‘story’ not a work of history”) or pastors that don’t believe in satan and his minions as a real force.
the worst is in “earning” your way in. going to church, doing good, tithing.. these thing alone won’t get you in.
Narrow is they way to buy the Barna Group’s Books, workbook’s and accompnaying CDs to solve the problems that are shown by the most recent poll.
Probably can give a nice seminar too.
I have Mosaic tile in my kitchen.
True, but which of those isn’t necessary for a biblical worldview?
The point wasn’t that young people aren’t Christians, but merely that even those who are don’t often have a completely biblical worldview.
This survey is nonsense... There are a large chunk of young adults who do hold a Biblical worldview, they just didn’t want to “put pearls before swine” so to speak. The one group in this country that is completely safe and posterity ever more is the Biblical Christian and the religious Jew.
No but the principles were the same, even if the precise rules weren’t. Otherwise, what would be the point of using the Old Testament today?
Barna required a study to discover what Catholics and Jews have believed and taught for ages?
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