The following applies to professing Christians in The West
The Bible
63% – God is not the provider of truth and the Bible cannot be trusted to fully
represent God-given principles
13% – Read their Bible regularly [which means 87% are open to man’s interptation]
41-43% – consider scripture to be “accurate in its teaching”
Regarding Jesus
45% – admit that certainty about Christ is impossible
46% – believe that Jesus sinned while He was on earth
65% – deny the Incarnation Of Christ, believing that Jesus is a just being whom
God created
30% – Outright deny Christ’s divinity, saying that “Jesus was a great teacher, but
[He] was/is not God”
Great Commission
64% – Believe witnessing to the lost is a Christian Duty
47% – Believe that evangelism is morally wrong, as it may pressure someone
to change faiths
25% – Could not even remember what the term “Great Commission” is
51% – Have never heard the term “Great Comission” in Their lives
Holy Spirit
58% – The Holy Spirit is a Symbol, not a member of the trinity
20% – The Holy Spirit can and will tell a Christian to do something the the
Bible “expressly” forbids
34% – Believe God is “involved in their life” In any way
Core doctrines of the Christian Faith
40% – A lie is no longer a sin, so long as it advances personal interests
50% – Believe that premarital sex is fine
34% – Say Abortion is morally acceptable
44% – do not think the Bible’s teaching on abortion is clear
40% – Do not believe human life is sacred
81% – people can be their own moral compass because humans are essentially
good
48% – Salvation can be earned just by doing good and being a good personal
42% – believe God accepts the worship of all religions
26% – Church ministries cannot be effective to the world unless their worship
services are “entertaining”
39% – That “material blessings” are a guaranteed reward of faith
Regarding Christian practices
33% – Confess sins and seek forginess
2% – Pray in front of others
39% – Do not respect people from other faiths
This is why…
33% – of young adults reject Christianity because of the hypocrisy
they see in the church
50% – of young adults “still feel the church cannot amswer their questions…
[because of] flaws our gaps in our teachings
32% – of American Christians did not return to their church when the national
Quarantine lifeted
The most basic of all biblical world views (Per Barna Group)
- Absolute moral truth exists
-
The Bible is wholly reliable and accurate
-
Satan is a real being, not a symbol of sin
-
Simply being a good person does not send one to heaven
-
Jeus came to earth and was sinless
-
God is the all-powerful creator of the world whole rules today
Barna Groups Survey Says?
Only 17% of professing Christians in the West Agree
In 1984, in his book The Great Evangelical Disaster, Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Holding to a strong view of Scripture or not holding to it is the watershed of the evangelical world. The first direction in which we must face is to say most lovingly but clearly: evangelicalism is not consistently evangelical unless there is a line drawn between those who take a full view of Scripture and those who do not.” 1 If Scripture cannot be trusted in some areas, it cannot be trusted in any area. Once full inspiration is denied, it leaves the mind of man to determine what is inspired and what is not. Once there is a “crack in the dam” in our belief in full inspiration, the flood is imminent. Dr. Schaeffer understood that once the flood begins “there is no end … The Bible is made to say only that which echoes the surrounding culture at our moment of history. The Bible is bent to the culture illStead of the Bible judging our society and culture.” 2 Our belief in inspiration and inerrancy has a very practical effect on our daily life. As Dr. Schaeffer states, ….. compromising the full authority of Scripture eventually affects what it means /0 be a Christian theologically and how we live in the jIIll spectrum of In/man life.” 3 With so much at stake, we need to be very clear on what the Scriptures themselves teach about inspiration and inerrancy.
Francis A. Schaeffer. The Great Evangelical Disaster (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984) p. 51.
2 Ibid., p. 60.
3 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
The following is excerpted from “Top 10 Most Seductive Unbiblical Ideas Embraced by Americans,” Cultural Research Center, June 22, 2021: “The American public flaunts its free will in many ways, not the least of which is by embracing a number of seductive–but decidedly unbiblical beliefs–as part of their worldview. According to new analysis of data from the American Worldview Inventory 2021 from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, the ‘Top 10’ most prevalent ‘seductive unbiblical ideas’ embraced by American adults include: the spiritually inclusive idea that ‘having faith matters more than what faith you have’ (62%); all faiths are of equal value (62%); belief in ‘karma’ (57%); the dismissal of absolute truth (67%); the idea that people are ‘basically good’ (69%); sexual relations apart from marriage are morally acceptable (68%). … The AWVI 2021 shows that even the 6% of adults who have a biblical worldview harbor many of these counter-biblical ideas as part of their personal philosophy of life. … [M]illions of Americans have moved away from believing that the Bible contains relevant and reliable moral absolutes for their lives.”
If we are a bible-believing Christians we need to be studying the bible for ourselves and not following man. We need to be praying for a revival to sweep across the western world and put us back on course before it too late.
