Posted on 09/27/2022 10:53:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Every two years, Ligonier Ministries works with LifeWay Research to evaluate the theological temperature of the American church. This year’s State of Theology study’s results show that not just Americans but Evangelicals, in particular, are increasingly muddy on core truths such as the nature and character of God, the reality of human sin, the role of the Church in the world, and the exclusivity and divinity of Jesus Christ.
For context, the survey defines “Evangelical” as a Christian believer who meets four criteria: that the Bible is the highest authority for what someone believes, that it is important for non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their savior, that Jesus’ death on the cross is the only sacrifice that removes the penalty of humanity’s sin, and that only those who trust in Him alone receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.
Though that definition is a promising theological start, the results go quickly downhill from there.
For example, nearly half of Evangelicals agreed that God “learns and adapts” to different circumstances, in stark contrast to the biblical doctrine of unchanging nature, or immutability. 65% of Evangelicals agreed that everyone is “born innocent in the eyes of God,” denying the doctrine of original sin, and with it, the very reason that people need salvation in the first place.
Some 56% of Evangelicals agreed with the idea that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” in contrast to Jesus’ words in Matthew that without Him, “no one knows the Father.”
The most stunning result had to do with the topic of Jesus Christ’s divinity. When asked whether they agreed that “Jesus was a great teacher …but not God,” 43% of American Evangelicals answered yes. That number is up 13% from just two years ago.
Even if we generously allow for some confusion in the phrasing of the questions and what they implied, The State of Theology paints a bleak picture. People who claim the title of “Evangelical,” a title that long was defined, at least in part, by adherence to historic Christian belief, stand a good chance of believing humanity is basically good at birth, that God is not concerned with worship or doctrine being particularly “Christian,” and that Jesus was a good teacher, but not God incarnate.
It’s worth noting that these failures are not because Evangelicals have a low view of Scripture. After all, some 95% still agree with the statement that “the Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.” The implication, then, is that they simply don’t know what it teaches, either because they haven’t been taught or they haven’t cared enough to learn.
In fact, in many corners of evangelicalism, it is assumed that doctrine doesn’t matter. This can take at least two forms: hyper-emotionalism, the idea that God will settle for our sincerity and our affection, even over and above whether or not our beliefs are true; or a hyper-politicization, one that assumes it really matters whom you vote for and what group you belong to, not what you believe about the essential truth of the Gospel or the claims of Christ.
In reply to all this, Jesus was really clear. Here’s what He said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth.” It was for this reason that the divine Logos came into the world “to testify to the truth,” and it’s only the truth that sets us free. And it’s interesting to me that in the Old Testament, idolatry is portrayed not only as worshipping a false God but worshipping a false idea of who God is, such as was the case with the Golden Calf incident.
A bright spot in this survey is what it revealed about hot topics and moral issues: 91% of Evangelicals agreed that abortion is a sin, and 94% agreed that sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin, although that conclusion is muddied by another 28% who agreed that Scripture’s condemnation of homosexual behavior “doesn’t apply today.”
We will never have a clear sense of who God is, His omnipotence and immutability, His character and work in the world, how He sees us and what He requires of us, without a biblical understanding of who Jesus is and the absolute authority He wields over all creation. If our thinking is rooted instead in only our political allegiances or some vague notion of God’s “niceness,” we will have simply obtained a “form of godliness, while denying its power.”
Once in a meeting I attended, a Christian leader quipped, “If we could just get all the Christians saved, we’d be in good shape.” The results of this study show it’s time for many so-called Christians to repent, for many churches to renew their commitments to catechism, and for all of us who claim Christ to commit our hearts and minds to know who He is, who He has revealed Himself to be.
Originally published at Breakpoint.
John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He’s a sought-after author and speaker on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetics.
Kasey Leander is a Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA). Prior to his time at OCCA, Kasey earned an undergraduate degree in history and PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) from Taylor University. While at Taylor, Kasey served in various ministry roles on campus and was active in student government. He has also worked briefly in politics, serving as an intern in the US Senate in Washington, DC.
Indeed
The survey itself says this:
Evangelicals were defined by LifeWay Research as people who strongly agreed with the following four statements:
The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.
It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.
Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.
To my mind, someone who affirms strongly the above propositions but who then does not accept the divinity of Jesus is, to say the least, one very confused "Christian."
There are mysteries surrounding the exact relationship of God and Christ, the exact architecture of heaven, the nature of the miracles in Christ’s birth, life, and resurrection. I don’t expect to completely understand this side of heaven. We’ll all find out when we get there. In the meantime I take the text as it’s written. There may be some deeper meaning I’m not privy to, so I’ll just take scripture at it’s word.
God shows us some things as we walk it out and the rest will wait.
Our church leaders are failing us. Time to go back to teaching basics instead of trying to make everyone feel good.
Sobering statistics. As a pastor I assume everyone in the congregation is on the same page when it comes to basics like Jesus is God. I may need to not make that assumption.
See Jane run, run Jane run.
Spot gets the ball.
We are sinners who need a savior
Jesus is our savior
Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) is one with the Father
This is a damning indictment against the American Church
The Law is based on love. We have duties to God (the first four) and duties to our fellow man. We should strive to keep the commandments in their entirety but , being as we are weak, will fall short unless the Holy Spirit supplants our efforts. But the Law is eternal. It doesn’t save because that is not its purpose. It’s a yardstick to see where we measure up and see why we need a Savior.
The commies are doing a great job in the churches. Just as they planned.
This may seem odd but although the church I was raised in certainly fits within the usual understanding of “evangelical” I never heard the word used to describe us and never thought about it one way or the other.
Only after living in Latin America did I adopt the word, because there the assumption is that you are Catholic or “evangelico”.
I suppose it’s because the church of my youth did not see themselves as “part” of some broader body of Christ. Whereas in my adulthood I did come to see myself as exactly that, part of a broader body of Christ. Christians aren’t limited to any particular denomination, they are where you find them. You can’t go by the sign above the door.
“This is nothing. The deity of Christ was the issue the Nicene counsel assembled to address.”
The rise of the interdenominational megachurch is doing much to erode American religion.
By saying you are interdenominational it means you don’t care about issues of theology. The the trinity, predestination, the nature of sin. These are all core questions that should affect your life entire.
Churches that ignore them are feeding their congregants pablum.
So what exactly are these people evangelizing? It sure isn’t Jesus of Nazareth who was executed and died, but stopped being dead three days later. It’s not the One who created the universe and who sits at the right hand of The Father. It’s not the one who holds the keys to death and hell and who is coming back for His spotless bride. It’s not the One who gave Himself as the one and only sacrifice for our sins.
Lots of fools will be in Hell because they don’t read or believe The Bible.
The word “Christian” is loosely defined these days.
Seems like an awful lot of “professing Christians” these days - might as well be looking to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for their eternity..
I mean.. why even bother?
I prefer to just refer to myself as “Christian”. That seems sufficient.
Exactly right. The common conception of “original sin” is wrong. I stand condemned not because of Adam’s sin, or my father’s sin, but by my own sin. Even in the OT, God said at least twice: “the soul that sins, it shall die,” e.g., Ezek. 18:20, Jer. 31:30. The idea that each newborn baby is born with sins already “charged to its account” is unscriptural nonsense that arose, I suspect, after the post-Constantinian church started to agitate for universal infant baptism.
I suppose it’s because the church of my youth did not see themselves as “part” of some broader body of Christ. Whereas in my adulthood I did come to see myself as exactly that, part of a broader body of Christ. Christians aren’t limited to any particular denomination, they are where you find them. You can’t go by the sign above the door.
I prefer to just refer to myself as “Christian”. That seems sufficient.
In a perfect world where there were no distinctions or divisions among Christians, that would be the ideal, but as your experience in Latin America shows, sometimes one needs to make the distinction to avoid confusion or misunderstanding. In discussing matters of the Faith I would speak differently to a Catholic than I would to a Methodist, than I would to a Baptist, etc., because even though we're all Christians, within our different faith traditions we sometimes have different understandings of things, ways of speaking about them, and even different definitions of words like grace, justification, sanctification, predestination, etc.
So many people who claim to be Christian are forgetting to read the Bible!
He wasn’t God. He said he wasn’t. He was the “son of God”.
This is what you get with the buffet style christianity of paulinism:
a millennia of knot-twisting to the point of incoherency.
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