"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' - Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)
Charisma News ran an article this week bemoaning new statistics from George Barna, who they usually turn to in order to scare their readers into political action. It is difficult from an empirical standpoint to analyze the statistical significance because the data is generalized and framed to fit NAR narratives. For example, the report generated from it erroneously asserts that Christians have a responsibility to be politically engaged, which is biblically absurd. Likewise, it also assumes that God somehow has ordained capitalism as an economic preference, which is also not found anywhere in the bible. That is however, how the NAR rolls. Instead of debunking the Charisma article, the above link is to the report from Barna. I want to focus on Page Four of the report that contains a grid entitled, "Beliefs and Lifestyles Are Substantially Different Among Theological Evangelicals, Evangelical-Church Attenders, and Non-Evangelical Adults." So, let us reason once more beloved as we examine some of these "beliefs and lifestyles" and what the real problems might be. We do this understanding that the three groups identified are theological evangelicals, which indicates a level of biblical understanding, versus churched evangelicals and non-evangelicals.
The first item that stands out to me is, "People are basically good." One would expect that at a bare minimum, the so-called theological evangelicals would know that this is inherently unbiblical as the bible teaches us that none are good. Conversely, one should expect the world to embrace such a concept as we all thought we were not that bad when we were comparing ourselves to other people in the world. Despite these expectations, 54% of theological evangelicals affirmed the belief that people are basically good. What is more stunning is that 61% of churched folks believe it while only 64% of unbelievers. The surprising thing is that 36% of the unsaved rightly believe that people are not basically good and that only 3% more believe that amongst the churched. This highlights how closely aligned the apostate church is with the world, which is hardly surprising when you consider the decades long pursuit of relevance to the world. The fact that more than half of people labeled theological also get this so wrong, is very disturbing. This is basically the Joel Osten theology. I would have expected people deemed theological would know better.
The next item that is worth looking at is, "People are born into sin, and can only be saved from the consequences of sin by Jesus Christ." This is of course biblically accurate and the entire foundation of Christianity, so it is not surprising that 100% of those considered theological agreed. Conversely, those who were unsaved only agreed at a 15% rate, equally unsurprising. The churched folks however clocked in at 58%. That means that nearly half of the people deemed churched evangelicals, do not believe the fundamental underpinning of our faith and the core teaching of the bible. If we really consider this however, it is not as surprising as one would think. Sin is rarely ever talked about in the church today. Joel Osteen proudly declared that he does not preach about sin because he thinks people already know what they do wrong. Sorry Joel, they do not. Today's faux-worship music from Bethel, Hillsong and Elevation reinforce how great we are instead of how great God is. That is followed in most church services by a 20-minute sermonette designed to make us feel better about ourselves either through self-help or motivation. None of that reinforces or teaches about our sin nature and the dire need for repentance. Most altar calls today are equally vacuous and designed to church people, not save people. The church manifesto for congregants is Rick Warren's purpose Driven Life which ironically opens with the line, "It is not all about you"; and then the rest of the book teaches how everything is about us. That is why 42% of people who spend their lives in church, have no clue why they are even there. On a related item, 32% of the churched group did not agree that confession of sin and acceptance of Christ as Savior is a prerequisite for heaven.
On a similar item, "As long as you do no harm to others, you can do whatever you want"; has similar findings. From the church group, 35% agreed with that statement. This again indicates how poorly they are being taught in churches today that focus not on God but rather use the divine as window dressing to make people feel better. While we certainly have a plethora of scripture about not doing harm to others, the first four commandments actually deal with our relationship with God. There are a host of sinful behaviors that we all can succumb to that have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. This is essentially a humanistic view being offered and just for context, the unsaved group only agreed with this item at a 46% rate. So, even the world recognizes that human nature cannot be left alone or trusted to do "whatever they want." This is also another item that shows exactly how close to the world, the views of the churched are.
Another interesting item was, "While on earth, Jesus Christ was fully divine and fully human, but He did not sin, like other people." This is a moderately advanced theological construct but it should be pretty basic for believers, especially the portion about Christ being sinless. So, it is concerning that again, churched folks only agreed with this statement at a 49% rate. Half of people who spend their days in church, appear conflicted about whether Jesus Christ ever sinned. The unsaved even agreed at a 30% rate, once again, relatively close to the beliefs of those who go to church regularly. It is good to point out here the key verses for today. The people who stand before Christ saying "Lord Lord" are churched people. They believed they cast demons out and saw miracles. They seem genuinely confused because they spent their lives in church only to find out in the end that they never knew Christ at all. These should be the most sobering verses for all believers. Actively attending, tithing and even serving in church does not mean we are saved. Especially if that church does not actually preach the gospel. The bible says that without the gospel being preached, no one gets saved.
