Posted on 12/04/2007 9:40:27 AM PST by pby
2007 Trends Analysis: Americans Reformulating Christianity
By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Dec. 04 2007 09:34 AM ET
As fewer Americans identify themselves with Christianity, research indicates that those who remain Christian are redefining what "Christian" means.
Study: Christianity No Longer Looks Like Jesus Younger generations are not bound by traditional parameters of the Christian faith and instead are embracing values that are not necessarily based on biblical foundations, according to a recent analysis by The Barna Group.
Although faith is an acceptable attribute and pursuit among most young people, their notions of faith do not align with conventional religious perspectives or behavior, the research group reported on Monday.
Young Americans have adopted values such as goodness, kindness and tolerance, but they remain skeptical of the Bible, church traditions, and rules or behaviors based upon religious teaching.
They are also reformulating the popular notion of what the Christian life means. Traditional activity such as integrating discipline and regimen in personal faith development is becoming less popular; repeating the same weekly routines in religious events is increasingly deemed anachronistic, stifling and irrelevant; and rigidity of belief, including the notion that there are absolute moral and spiritual truths, is perceived by many young people as evidence of closed-mindedness.
Concluding from an earlier Barna study in May, David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group, had noted that most Americans do not have strong and clear beliefs largely because they do not possess a coherent biblical worldview. The study found that fewer Americans were embracing a traditional view of God and the Bible.
"They lack a consistent and holistic understanding of their faith," he said.
New faith practices that are now in vogue include pursuing spiritual diversity in conversations and relationships; embracing racial diversity and tolerance; valuing interpersonal connections above spiritual education; blending all forms of the arts and novel forms of instruction into religious events; and accepting divergent forms of spiritual community.
"The result is a nouveau form and structure for the Christian faith that will have broad-based consequences on the practice of Christianity for years to come," the latest report stated.
The image of the Christian faith has also taken a beating.
Media criticism, "unchristian" behavior by church people, bad personal experiences with churches, ineffective Christian leadership amid social crises and the like have given rise to this "battered" image, according to the report.
A September study had found that young Americans outside Christianity have more negative perceptions than positive of the Christian faith. A majority say that Christianity is judgmental, anti-homosexual, hypocritical, old-fashioned and too involved in politics.
At the same time, 91 percent of evangelicals believe that Americans are becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.
Analysis of interviews conducted over the past year identified several other patterns significantly affecting the development of American culture, including Americans' unconditional self-love and parenting trends.
Americans have a high opinion of themselves, Barna studies underscored. Most describe themselves as loyal, reliable, an independent thinker, supportive of traditional family values, clear about the meaning and purpose of their life, making a positive difference in the world, and well-informed about current events. A majority also say they are open to new ideas and easily adapt to change.
"Most Americans, it seems, are willing to change as long as the pathway promises benefit and enjoyment, and generally avoids pain, conflict and sacrifice," according to the report.
The data also revealed some oddities of Americans. While Americans increasingly require unique personal applications for the things they experience, they also want to be seen as being in the mainstream of what's happening in society. And although Americans regularly strive to be connected to a substantial number of other people (via social networking on the Internet, text messaging, phone calls, and frequent appearances at common hangouts such as Starbucks), they still possess a nagging sense of loneliness, isolation and restlessness.
When it comes to raising children in this culture, the Barna surveys found that most parents underestimate the influence they can exert on their children. Many parents, even those who are born-again Christians, also overlook the need to foster deeper a connection between their children and God, or to enhance the child’s worldview as a critical component of their decision-making skills, the report stated.
"It is a well-established fact that our society is continually re-inventing itself. The outcome of such innovation and change, however, is largely dependent on the guidance provided by cultural leaders," George Barna, chairman of the research group, noted. "It is the core function of a leader to help people apply their creative ideas and energy to reinvigorating society in alignment with a positive and preferable vision of the future. Without a shaping influence that produces a common good, we devolve into anarchy.
"Our society is running the risk of becoming so independent and self-absorbed that we will abandon our responsibility to society and to making the world a better place," he added. "2008 will be an important year as America chooses future political leaders, pursues new spiritual forms, and shapes critical social policies. The choices will greatly influence the character of America for years to come. Hopefully, Americans will choose to apply their levels of personal influence in ways that generate social good, not just personal security and satisfaction. Identifying what each of us can do to avoid radical self-interest in favor of a more compassionate and collaborative society should find a place on everyone’s list of New Year’s resolutions."
Admittedly there were abuses and wrong practices.
But the Church is, and remains, the instrument of Jesus the Christ. If you examine the authority that the Church has been granted, it, and not Luther, nor Calvin, nor Zwingli, nor their descendents have any authority whatsoever to pronounce, advance, or otherwise counsel anything related to the theology of Christianity.
The article points out that this trend away from Christian belief is not based on a biblical foundation.
Explains all the lawsuits against RC priests.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0405/p01s01-ussc.html says that: Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant...
Better targets. Now, the abuse groups are focusing on the Baptists.
• Volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers. Perhaps more startling, children at churches are accused of sexual abuse as often as are clergy and staff. In 1999, for example, 42 percent of alleged child abusers were volunteers – about 25 percent were paid staff members (including clergy) and 25 percent were other children.
Sadly, volunteers and other children are more likely, or just as likely, to abuse.
What are the stats in the Catholic Church cases?
I couldn’t find much to answer that question definitively.
http://www.catholicleague.org/specialreports.php?id=1 has some interesting information; but points back to the CSMonitor article for some of its information.
I don’t remember reading much about Catholic non-clergy in my experience; but from the estimates in this article, about 1 to 1-1/2 % of Catholic priests have abused, about 2 to 3 % of Protestant ministers have abused, with a much higher rate amongst public school teachers.
Ameriocans have been reformulating Christianity since the 18th Century. The evangelical Christianity of the Jacksonian period was very different from the Protestantism of the colonial period.
I've never heard that phrase before -- "the instrument of Jesus."
Christ is the head of the church on earth which is not the church in Rome, but instead is made up of all the elect ordained to salvation by God from before the foundation of the world.
If you were to speak of the "instrument of our sanctification" it would be more appropriate to define that not as the church, but as the Holy Spirit, given by God to whom He wills who in turn make up the church of God on earth.
And Mark, you speak of the Reformation and the Restoration in the same breath, when they were very different moments in time.
Very true.
The Restoration movement came out of dissatisfaction with the results of the Reformation. The Stone-Campbell movement (both Campbell pere and Barton Stone were Presbyterian ministers, interesting to note) came out of dissatisfaction with the existing Reformation theologies. They rejected the outcome of the Lutheran and Calvinist Reform and decided on their own course.
My often-used inclusion of the Reformation and Restoration movements as a unit are because I see the Restoration as continuing what the Reformation started - the dissatisfaction of man-made religions leading to the creation of more man-made religions and so on.
The 20th Century saw the formation of many thousands of evangelical and non denominational splinter groups and the process continues today. If I recall correctly, the religion that you profess to follow was created in 1936, for example. Look at the thousands of television ministries, many of which don’t really follow anything except their own formulated theologies. Dr. Schuller and his son, of Crystal Cathedral fame, are both ordained Reformed and look at what they present, compared to Calvin’s beliefs, or yours, as you have posted them, for that matter.
My point is that, and I think that you have called for continuing Reform, we have religions changing and more and more being created all the time. And that process started with the Reformation and continues to this day.
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