Thursday and I’m back. My thanks to Bruce Gust for filling in so ably over the last three days. Please do him a solid and visit Muscular Christianity Online. He’s got several other thoughtful blog posts to enjoy.
I was floored by a recent story in The Washington Times titled, “Church leaders sell their souls to the Democratic Party.” In it, Dr. Everett Piper describes the recent findings of a survey of “2000 adults in the United States from four major religious groups: Evangelicals, Pentecostals and charismatics, mainline Protestants and Catholics.”
The survey was conducted by the Christian Research Center of Arizona Christian University. The center’s research director, George Barna, is a well-known authority on matters of Christian faith and practice in the United States.
The most startling finding is “how many people from evangelical churches are adopting unbiblical beliefs.” Piper writes,
According to [Barna’s] research, 52 percent of evangelicals now say they do not believe in objective moral truth or that the Bible is inerrant and trustworthy in all its content. Seventy-five percent believe that people are basically good instead of basically sinful. Forty-three percent believe Jesus sinned during his time on earth. Fifty-eight percent believe that the Holy Spirit is merely a symbol rather than a person. And a majority of respondents do not believe in the exclusivity of the Christian faith.
Other findings from the survey include that 44 percent of evangelicals believe the Bible’s teachings on abortion are ambiguous, 40 percent do not believe human life is sacred, 34 percent do not believe marriage is between one man and one woman and 43 percent do not think that God has a unified purpose for all people.
Reading those numbers again, my brain sputters. Evangelicals?! How can these be evangelicals?
There is no doubt that the meaning of the word “evangelical” has shifted over the centuries. First used by Martin Luther in the 1500s to describe the non-Catholic churches of the Protestant Reformation, it eventually gained purchase in the United States during the Great Awakening. When evangelist Billy Graham was asked one time to define it, he replied, “Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody too.” More recently it’s been a catch-all term to describe white Christians who voted for Trump.
Evangelicalism isn’t a national or international organization with a centralized hierarchy, so you can’t just contact the help desk for the official definition. But there are some fundamental basics that characterize “evangelicals” and set them apart from other forms of the Christian faith. Among these are:
- The belief that through his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, Jesus Christ is the only source of salvation.
- The personal experience of being “born again” or “saved” by placing one’s trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
- The Bible, in its original languages, is the inerrant and infallible Word of God, sufficient for all of life and faith.
- The responsibility to share the gospel, or “good news,” with others outside the faith.
There are others, but I’ve tried to boil it down to the essential essentials. Looking at that list and the findings of Barna’s study, how is it possible to be an evangelical and “not believe in objective moral truth or that the Bible is inerrant and trustworthy in all its content”? Or believe that “Jesus sinned during his time on earth,” thus disqualifying him from being the unblemished Lamb of God? Or “believe that people are basically good instead of basically sinful,” thus having no real need for a Savior?
The answer: it’s not possible because the two descriptions contradict each other. Either my definition of “evangelical” is wrong, or the study’s participants don’t know what being an evangelical means.
The lack of a biblical worldview among Christians in general and evangelicals in particular is alarming. But it helps explain the sharp differences between those self-proclaimed “evangelicals” who will vote for Joe Biden and those who will vote for Donald Trump on November 3.
[Image Credit: Stock Vault]
Incredible. I wonder if “Christian” can sometimes serve as a trendy term to call yourself – a way to let other people know you’re a “good person” without actually believing what the title actually stands for.
I sometimes think people without a true belief in God describe themselves as “Christian” because that’s the majority faith in the US. It’s like an accessory you can add to your persona when you need it.
Ahh that makes a lot of sense. It’s also like an accessory for your persona that you can take off when you don’t need it 😆