Most news outlets are reporting the latest results from the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008. The previous report was 18 years ago. Some of the highlights were: 15% of Americans now claim no religion at all which was up from 8%, Paganism increased, and mainlines dropped. Those calling themselves "evangelical" or "born again" stayed proportionally the same at about one-third of the population. One interesting tidbit was that mega-church attendance rose from about 200,000 to 8,000,000. The news media focuses primarily on the fact that more people are "coming out" as having no religion.
These surveys never ask the questions that I would want to hear. It would take some doctrinal questions to do that, but I would like to make some comments. I don't think that more than 10% of the population are Christian. Our churches are literally filled with people who do not show signs of having been born anew, from above. I'm not talking about how they live, or how often they go to church, or wearing a cross, or answers to a survey. Although I, or anyone else, cannot and would not want to judge any individual, there are two categories of people that seem to fall into this 35%. The first does not seem to be overwhelmed by what has happened to them. Some can study the Bible regularly but the topics would fit well in many religious cults, social gospel adherents, liberation, ethnic or feminist theology. There are ministers, elders and deacons everywhere that would utterly fail any understanding of the gospel and actually deny Biblical truth. These folks would still be represented in the 35% evangelical area. The other category are in various denominations. They may hold to unsound non-essential doctrines. They can be pious and non-political or loud and political, but when you talk to them for any period of time,you know that they truly have a Savior, they know when they sin and they weep for it. They know that scripture is God's very breathed Word to us. I can't believe that this group exceeds 10% of the population.
The survey does give valuable information. The northeast and northwest lead the way in disdain for religion. The Bible belt still exists, these poor folks who still cling to their God. Actually, the survey gives us a group that it does not name, and that is God-fearing Americans. These are the folks who do believe in God, they want to serve Him and think that they are but this is not the definition of a redeemed soul. The church has evolved in such a way that it fails to proclaim what John Bunyan would describe as a burden of sin that must be shed and a gate that must be walked through, nor what Johnathon Edwards would describe as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God who could very easily release us to fall into eternal punishment. Hell is passe' in today's church. These "God-fearing" people can affect God's mercy on America as the Ninevite's repentance did in Jonah's day. Most importantly, the survey should cause our heads to drop as so few have come to believe. We need to address those who believe in God with the gospel that others gave to us. We also need to address those who do not believe with the confidence in knowing that it is God who opens eyes. We need not be discouraged in this.
These surveys never ask the questions that I would want to hear. It would take some doctrinal questions to do that, but I would like to make some comments. I don't think that more than 10% of the population are Christian. Our churches are literally filled with people who do not show signs of having been born anew, from above. I'm not talking about how they live, or how often they go to church, or wearing a cross, or answers to a survey. Although I, or anyone else, cannot and would not want to judge any individual, there are two categories of people that seem to fall into this 35%. The first does not seem to be overwhelmed by what has happened to them. Some can study the Bible regularly but the topics would fit well in many religious cults, social gospel adherents, liberation, ethnic or feminist theology. There are ministers, elders and deacons everywhere that would utterly fail any understanding of the gospel and actually deny Biblical truth. These folks would still be represented in the 35% evangelical area. The other category are in various denominations. They may hold to unsound non-essential doctrines. They can be pious and non-political or loud and political, but when you talk to them for any period of time,you know that they truly have a Savior, they know when they sin and they weep for it. They know that scripture is God's very breathed Word to us. I can't believe that this group exceeds 10% of the population.
The survey does give valuable information. The northeast and northwest lead the way in disdain for religion. The Bible belt still exists, these poor folks who still cling to their God. Actually, the survey gives us a group that it does not name, and that is God-fearing Americans. These are the folks who do believe in God, they want to serve Him and think that they are but this is not the definition of a redeemed soul. The church has evolved in such a way that it fails to proclaim what John Bunyan would describe as a burden of sin that must be shed and a gate that must be walked through, nor what Johnathon Edwards would describe as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God who could very easily release us to fall into eternal punishment. Hell is passe' in today's church. These "God-fearing" people can affect God's mercy on America as the Ninevite's repentance did in Jonah's day. Most importantly, the survey should cause our heads to drop as so few have come to believe. We need to address those who believe in God with the gospel that others gave to us. We also need to address those who do not believe with the confidence in knowing that it is God who opens eyes. We need not be discouraged in this.
