Last month, the Barna Research Group called 1,000 American adults to ask them about their faith. Specifically, they asked, “Has anything related to your religious beliefs, practices, or preferences changed in the past five years?” The results, which they claim are reliable to within 3.2 percentage points, hold a few surprises.
The survey revealed that more than two-thirds of adults say their religious faith is very important to them and a large majority said they regularly talk to others about matters of faith.
Jim White
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The great majority also said, “No, nothing has changed in my religious life in the past five years.” In fact, 93 percent of those sampled said there had been no change in their beliefs, practices or preferences. Even allowing for a maximum margin of error, it still means that 90 percent haven’t changed a thing. Only 3 percent of people over 65 acknowledged religious changes while change occurred most often (13 percent) among the 18-26 year age group.
What about the 7 percent who did change? The good news is one-third of them cited a change that brought them closer to God. But others, 16 percent, said they moved further from their Christian roots. Another 11 percent said their feelings about churches had deteriorated over the past five years and 8 percent had changed churches or denominations. Another 8 percent said they had become less active in church.
Among the 7 percent who changed, 10 percent of those said their perception of some moral issue had shifted. Which moral issues? In two-thirds of the cases it was homosexuality. The number shifting their views from opposition to support and from support to opposition was the same.
Barna reaches four conclusions. First, he says, because not much change is occurring, perhaps it is time churches began to evaluate what they do.
Second, the number of those whose change reflected a move toward the church and God and those who moved in the opposite direction was about the same.
Third, greater devotion driven by emotions accounted for more change, “while the least amount of movement is exhibited in relation to the integration of faith into every dimension of life and the recalibration of personal biblical interpretation or spiritual perspectives,” says Barna. In other words, most of the changes were in feeling rather than doing.
Finally, Barna concludes that our faith-talk appears to be much about comforting and very little about challenging.
If Barna’s research is accurate, and there is no reason to believe it is not, it should constitute enough of a shock to get the church’s attention. Discipleship implies movement. One can’t very well be a “Christ-follower” and remain stationary.
A portion of the blame can surely be laid at the doorstep of a clergy focused too narrowly on attracting new members. Comforting the afflicted has always attracted greater crowds than afflicting the comfortable. Some pulpiteers, conscious of the danger of offending parishioners, have opted to soft-pedal the demands of Christ, or, even worse, they have chosen to reinforce attitudes that should be challenged, evaluated and changed.
While I believe congregational church polity is biblical and has been largely responsible for the effectual spread of Baptists, the down side is a clergy dependent on the good graces of the congregation for continued employment. If preachers become too challenging or too prophetic, church members are apt to take offense and send them packing.
As Christian singer/humorist, Dan McBride, once sang in his “Tiptoe Through the Tithers,” “You can preach brimstone and fire, as long as those offerings go higher.”
Educational psychologist William James is reported to have once remarked, “The only time people think is when they are confronted by a problem.” In examining many of Jesus’ sermons and parables, he often presented his hearers with a problem.
Take, for example, the prodigal son. He didn’t deserve to be accepted back as though nothing had happened. It was the elder son who was faithful. Jesus created an uncomfortable reality causing his hearers to ask, “What is God like?”
Or, consider the good Samaritan. Jesus’ congregation at the time didn’t want to hear that a Samaritan might have redeeming qualities while their own religious leaders could be lacking in charity. He caused them to ask questions; to think critically; to evaluate behavior; to change.
But if the clergy must shoulder some of the blame, the greater portion must lie at the feet of congregations who are so self-consumed that they have lost sight of their missions. They don’t want to be challenged. They are intolerant of perspectives, even from the pulpit, that do not match and reinforce their own viewpoints.
To be sure, preachers are not perfect. In my 25 years in the pulpit I can recall some retractions and corrections I needed to make later. A healthy congregation will listen and evaluate what their pastor says, even if it is uttered from “behind that sacred desk.” Occasionally, as Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos, a pastor also may need to be lovingly challenged. But unless their ideas are opposed to biblical teaching, to become angry at preachers because their messages don’t fit your own ideas is spiritually dangerous.
An example of this is found on page 17 in the article about Lynn Litchfield’s ministry to Teresa Lewis. Lynn confessed to me in an interview that the hatred directed at her by some brothers and sisters in Christ because she dared to challenge their thinking about capital punishment left her disappointed and somewhat disillusioned. The death penalty is an issue people feel strongly about; and good people come down on both sides of the question. But what is exceedingly unfortunate is when we Christians can’t continue to love and serve beside people who disagree with us.
Barna is right. The church needs to heed this wake-up call. When Christians claim that their faith is very important to them, but they aren’t interested in finding ways to apply it to real life situations, something is wrong.