Posted on 08/30/2020 8:52:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
More than half of American adults, including 30% of evangelicals, say Jesus isnt God but most agree He was a great teacher, according to results from the 2020 State of Theology survey.
Even though the Bible and traditional teachings of the Christian Church hold that Jesus truly existed as both man and God, among the key findings of the biennial State of Theology survey from Ligonier Ministries conducted with LifeWay Research, is that 52% of American adults believe that Jesus was a great teacher and nothing more.
And nearly a third of evangelicals also support that view, a preliminary release on the findings of the study said Thursday. The complete report on the survey, conducted March 10 to 18 among 3,002 U.S. adults including 630 professing evangelicals, is expected to be released on Sept. 8.
"Statistics like these from the State of Theology survey can give us quite a shock, but they also shed light on the concerns that many American Christians and churches have expressed for decades. As the culture around us increasingly abandons its moral compass, professing evangelicals are sadly drifting away from God's absolute standard in Scripture, Stephen Nichols, chief academic officer of Ligonier Ministries and president of Reformation Bible College, said in a statement.
It's clear that the church does not have the luxury of idly standing by. This is a time for Christians to study Scripture diligently, engage confidently with people in our culture, and witness fearlessly to the identity and saving work of Jesus Christ in the Gospel."
For the study, evangelicals were defined as people who strongly agreed with the following four statements: the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe; it is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior; Jesus Christ's death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin; and only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation.
Some 65% of evangelicals in the study were also found to agree with the statement, "Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God," which theology experts say suggest a dire need for Christians to be taught Christology the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Findings of an earlier Barna study this year also showed that only 51% of Americans consider God to be "all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect and just creator of the universe who still rules the world today. In 1991, 73% of Americans believed that to be true.
Some 44% respondents in this survey agreed that since Jesus was both man and God when He walked the earth, He committed sins like any other person. Only 41% held the biblical perspective that Jesus was both man and God and remained sinless.
The spiritual noise in our culture over the last few decades has confused and misled hundreds of millions of people," Barna said at the time. "The message to churches, Christian leaders, and Christian educators is clear: we can no longer assume that people have a solid grasp of even the most basic biblical principles."
But God is omnipotent, all knowing and all powerful. God can do anything that he wants, including making his heavily son be born into a virgin and give that perfect sinless son the authority to forgive sins and make that son the one and only path to heaven.
If one doesn’t believe Jesus is God, then he is not saved. That is a critical distinction.
just curious, what denomination are you?
See post 42.
um.. post 42 doesn’t mention anything about your denomination.
If you are a protestant in a denomination without baptism.. and you are in church and the pastor calls you to the front to receive Christ. He says something along the lines of “do you accept Jesus into your heart and proclaim him to be your lord and savior?” In a denomination with Baptism you would added water in some form, either dribbling of full emersion.
But that’s it. You are saved at that point. Knowing the answers to no other mysteries is required.
Then they arent Christian
Some Japanese Christians claim that Jesus is buried in Japan. They even have a tomb.
I do...
We are made in 'their' image...We are made in the image of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit...
Gen_1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
It's obvious how we are made in the image of God the Son, Jesus...He had a body like we do...But what about the other Two???
We have a body, a soul and a spirit...All wrapped up into one body...We are three, but we are one...
1Th_5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gen_2:7 And the LORD God formed man (body) of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spirit); and man became a living soul.
We are created as a trinity in the image of the Holy Trinity...
that was pretty profound honestly.
If Jesus is not God, his authority is removed...The authority of the scriptures is removed...
If Jesus is not God, the Izlamist's religion is just as legitimate as Christianity...
Mat 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Can any of that be said of any one who is not God???
Japanese Christians are... interesting. If I remember my history correctly, the church in Japan was subjected to persecution, and in the midst of that persecution they lost access to both the Scriptures and missionaries, and so the relatively new Christians had to reassemble the Scriptures as much as they could from memory.
Jesus didn't put much stock in human philosophy which is nothing more that man's failed wisdom...
Col_2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
And keeping that in mind, so much more of the bible becomes more clear, and understandable/explainable...
Meat....
Yup.
Some can claim they are Christian but if they dont believe Jesus is God Incarnate, they are not saved. They are not believing in the Jesus of the Bible and no other Jesus can save them.
When people think they never persecuted God or that God coming in weak flesh would not be bullied when in a humble place, we have Thomases who are too afraid to acknowledge or to defend Him.
People feeling more innocent than the innocent in soullessness is the problem.
To be sure, the church has failed to build souls. To have a saved soul one must have a soul in the first place! A sense of right and wrong and consciousness.
Just that the deep state and media of then killed Him is 3nough reason to suspect He was murdered for what He did right and not for what He did wrong... Most obviously the false witness was pervasive throughout the trial.
God in flesh is easy to persecute. A good deed you do is easy to answer in despise and ridicule. Money lended in good hearted way is easy to steal away from the one who cannot ask it back.
They wanted God to come in all powerful way and take back His, not to be tested in their hearts.
I guess someone needs to let God know that the trinity is rubbish. He may not take it well.
I look at all the glory hadjawoodja stage monkey preachers on tv.
I know that for some truthtellers, there exist a vast more storytellers.
I know, too, that with the onset of the Internet, there is more fact checking of pastoral lies, half truths, and all sorts of misrepresentations, as well as scandals abound.
Just for those who may not know what the bible says will happen near the end is a falling away and that is exactly what is happening now. I hope everyone reading this understands the Jesus is in fact a manifestation of God and is actually the one who created everything. I know its hard to grasp that he who sees the son sees the father statement but it is very literal, he is one and the same. Its like trying to comprehend that God has always existed and always will exist, and he is not affected by time and space and he is everywhere all the time. Perhaps when we get to heaven we will be able to grasp such things but our mortal brains are just not equipped to understand such things.
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