"Christian" doesn't mean much if, as Barna presents, you can disbelieve in Satan, believe that Jesus sinned, and not evangelize and still call yourself "Christian". I think that's also why people like Bill Hybels refer to themselves as "Christ-followers" vs. "Christians" (that phrasing is all over his Just Walk Around The Room series)

In a sense, Christ-follower is very accurate, but Christians for centuries have called themselves Christians and I'm rather uncomfortable with jettisoning a historical term simply because people are misusing it. Might "Christian" be a term we can redeem?

And the viral spread of Christianity is great, that's how it spread initially. However, the viral nature needs to be matched with pedagogy. The Word needs to be preached and spread and then followed with disciple-making. Goes back to your post yesterday, Ed. If our movements are making "Christians" who don't believe any of the historical, orthodox teachings, are we really making "Christians"?

This was a painful survey to read. Yet, what did we really expect? When Christians split into a myriad of denominations over technicalities, build our faith on institutions and dogma without much evidence of the tranformative power of the indwelling Spirit in us - we functionally instruct the world that religion is really a buffet table of options since their doesn't seem to be any evidence that a Bible-based Christian faith is any more powerful in life than buddhism or Taoism, etc. We need to Re-Jesus Christiandom - to quote a recently published book.

Overall this information does not cause me a lot of pain. I see it all around me on the college campus. At the same time I see this much more as an opportunity for us. So many college students and other young adults have a certain set of beliefs about Christians and many of them are not the most positive or reflective of biblical standards. Yet when we as believers are able to live out a truly biblical life then people take notice.

I see this opportunity in both how we relate to outsiders and born again believers alike. When people see a lifestyle that is truly reflective of biblical standards then they take notice and they will at least ask questions.

Then again maybe I am a bit of an optimist when it comes to information like this.

Well, I guess what I take from this is that I need to work even harder to teach my students the fundamentals of the faith! Barna is right that we, the church, have largely abandoned a "taught" faith in favor of an absorbed or assumed or intuited one. My question is, when and how did this shift take place? I guess I'm not enough of a student of church history to see when the church moved away from catechism (in the larger sense) and instruction toward buffet-line spirituality.

Being Refomed, I'm just going to go ahead and blame Finney. Is that cool with everyone else? ;)

"What does the all-you-can-eat, buffet style, build-your-own belief system require of the church?"

Well, in relation to Baptist churches, I think one approach could be to invite these people to view historical Baptist confessions of faith that contain a wealth of biblical information.

It's good to not thumb our noses down at our Baptist forefathers.

However, having said that, I think it is also wise to understand that godly people make mistakes as to what gets in a confession so that an error could get passed down for a long, long time.

Hence, it is wise to always be exegetical first.

In other words, don't make the mistake of following the New Geneva Study Bible which says "Bringing the Light of the Reformation to Scripture"

Excuse me--Scripture does not need light. It IS the Light.

We are to read tradition in the light of Scripture and not Scripture in the light of tradition.

A quotation from Tom Schreiner seems appropriate at this point:

"Tom Wells has an intriguing chapter on creeds near the end of the book. He worries that creeds may hinder us from engaging in biblical theology, preventing us from seeing new truths in God’s word. At the same time, he acknowledges that creeds play an important role in codifying the essentials of the faith. He rightly suggests that some matters in our creeds are non-negotiables, while others are less important. This is an important word for Southern Baptists after the doctrinal conflicts of the last few years. The essentials of the faith must not be surrendered. And yet there must be some freedom to analyze creedal statements in the light of scripture. Otherwise, the notion that scripture is our ultimate norm becomes useless in practice. Our seminaries must never deviate from orthodoxy, but neither should we allow our categories to become so hardened and rigid that any questioning of confessional statements is excluded. Otherwise, we are saying that we have already arrived at a perfect expression of the truth something rather hard to believe!"

Grace

Benji

P.S. Those poor SB Calvinists who follow the ESV on 1 Cor. 12:13 [contra Article II:C of the BF&M 2000].

The article is a little confusing (or misleading depending on what they really mean). The survey shows that "half of Americans believe the Christian faith no longer has a lock on people’s hearts." So this shows what people believe about America not necessarily what is true about America? Am I reading this wrong? Still very important information, especially when compared with the other information in the article, but the title of the article says that "Christianity is no longer Americans' Default." Shouldn't it say, "Americans no longer believe that their fellow Americans' default religion is Christianity"?

There is a big difference in people's perception of society and the real data. If I were to answer the question (depending on the wording of course) I might answer from a theoretical morality point of view. "Should America's default religion be Christian?" If I were answering that question I would give a strong Baptist "NOWAY, there's no such thing as a default religion." Everyone should choose for themselves.

So the article is cloudy to me. Maybe I'm overly suspicious, but I smell an agenda. And I can just imagine doom saying preachers all over the country beating their congregation over the head with this to try to encourage growth out of fear.

The rest of the article is nothing new to anyone younger than 30. Why bother doing such a survey? Just read everyone's facebook entry under "religious beliefs."

The statistic about people holding their own set of beliefs instead of accepting a particular church's complete doctrine may be slightly misleading. No doubt it includes those who disagree with their own denomination's stance say on speaking in tongues but who's beliefs don't veer outside mainstream evangelicalism as well as those who may allow for other ways to heaven besides Christ and the one who consults a medium on Tuesday and attends a church on the weekend. The implication of the statistic is that a full 71% of people fall into the "I draw from non-Christian spiritual systems in my beliefs" group. Those who consider themselves "born again" may have responded thinking "no single evangelical church represents my beliefs" and therefore given the same answer as the person who has no faith in Christ at all.
I guess I am hoping the situation isn't THAT bad.

Wow, these surveys (especially Barna) seem to excel in confusing questions. I think most Baptists would gladly say that no church prescribes our beliefs, but that they are based on the conviction of the Spirit through Scripture. Thus most Baptists would answer those questions as coming to their own beliefs, right? We have the BF&M of course, but that's not binding on any church or believer (unless they hold certain SBC positions, but even then they are allowed a little leeway). So does that mean that Southern Baptists don't default as Christian? I don't think so.

The way I understood the stats was perspectives were changing and not necessarily religion. 50% thought folks other than themselves were not necessarily Christian, but that doesn't mean they weren't themselves. So this would be the calm before the storm I guess :P

Our culture has divided so much between "liberal" and "conservative" political options. Sometimes we miss the reality that both of these (as they currently exist) are variants on the broader liberal tradition flowing out of the Enlightment. The emphasis in the Enlightenment - and in our political system is on individual freedom. The folks we call "liberals" and those we call "conservatives" are agree that maximizing personal freedom is what we ought to do, they simply differ on their areas of emphasis.

Given the centrality of personal freedom, a Christianity that tries to claim or enforce particular limits on what counts as "true religion," or even simply "Christianity" is usually incomprehensible at best, seen as evil at worst.

In this context there is a temptation to seek out a kind of Jesus-following that has no necessary connection to institutions. But I don't see such a disembodied Christianity as the real thing- or even possible. Surely our institutions and institutionalizing practices have not served us well, but If we go to the opposite extreme, we're simple giving in to the modern commitment to individualism, albeit occasionally with a Christian veneer.

We've known at least since Habits of the Heart that cafeteria style religion (Bellah's Sheila-ism) is common in America. The latest stats just show its increasing dominance.

This was an interesting study. I've seen it already, but thanks for sharing and discussing it here.

It seems to me that the lie that the serpent told Eve in the garden is still running amok today. When people are formulating their own brands of spirituality, it end up looking an aweful lot like "you will be like God". I think that at the core of this whole issue there is a self-centeredness drive relativism that is going to destry much of religion.

I am about to start teaching a Bible Interpretation class (through a small local Bible college), and I think that I am going to lead off with this study and some of the statements made by it. Biblical literacy is becoming SO extremely important...

Thanks!
Dan King
http://bibledude.net/WordPress

I've been rolling around in my head some today that there might be another way to take the "Bringing the Light of the Reformation to Scripture" phrase than the way I took it.

Maybe. I'm still not sure--I just don't want to think and thus blog the worst about what folk say.

Either way, however, my basic point still stands--It's good to read tradition in the light of Scripture and not Scripture in the light of tradition.

One other point--If we want to help people have a biblical foundation for their beliefs [instead of being arbitrary], then I think a key is to teach them the hermeneutic of Jesus [Jn. 5:39].

I simply find it intriguing that the "new" religion didn't turn out to be scientology.... it turned out to be a mashup of whatever you want. We have done far better comparing and contrasting Christianity against 'established' religions. Well, the mashup is well established now.

There's a reason why the 4th century Church wrot the creeds. It may be a good time to readopt and teach those fundamental creeds.

Our congregation recites the Nicene-Constantinople Creed of 381 at every Sunday service.

God bless... +Timothy