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TechnoratiIn a portrait of the "unchurched" in America, a new study found that most are willing to hear what people have to say about Christianity but a majority also sees the church as a place full of hypocrites.
"A full 72 percent of the people interviewed said they think the church ‘is full of hypocrites,’" said LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer. "At the same time, however, 71 percent of the respondents said they believe Jesus ‘makes a positive difference in a person’s life’ and 78 percent said they would ‘be willing to listen’ to someone who wanted to share what they believed about Christianity."
LifeWay Research studied 1,402 adults who were unchurched - those who had not attended a religious service at a church, synagogue or mosque in the previous six months - last spring and summer.
Many unchurched adults don't have a biblical understanding about God and Jesus, according to the survey.
Study results, released this week, showed that while 64 percent of the respondents think "the Christian religion is a relevant and viable religion for today," 72 percent of unchurched adults said they believe God, a higher or supreme being actually exists. Only 48 percent agree there is only one God as described in the Bible and 61 percent believe the God of the Bible is no different from the gods or spiritual being depicted.
"If you went back 100 years in North America, there would have been a consensus that God is the God in the Bible. We can't assume this any longer," said Stetzer. "We no longer have a home-field advantage as Christians in this culture."
LifeWay Research Associate Director Scott McConnell isn't surprised that the unchurched population doesn't understand Bible basics.
"If you aren't going to church, you don’t have an opportunity to be informed about what the Bible teaches or what other faiths teach," he said. "It’s not surprising then that unchurched people lump world religions all together and consider the gods described in them as being the same."
Up from 17 percent in 2004, 22 percent of Americans say they never go to church - the highest ever recorded by the General Social Survey.
But the problem is compounded by a widespread notion of religious tolerance that says religious and spiritual truth is a matter of personal opinion, Stetzer said, according to the report.
"We found a real openness to hearing about matters of faith, but the study also clearly documents what I call the Oprah-ization of American Christianity," he said. "It’s very much a generic ‘big guy in the sky’ view of God and a ‘you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe’ viewpoint on theology. People say, ‘Who am I to judge?’
"We have seen this in the current political campaigns, in regard to Mormonism," Stetzer added. "Recently a Christian leader was asked whether Mormons are Christians, and he replied that no, Mormons are outside the standard definition of what an orthodox Christian is. The host was shocked somebody would say that. How dare we say someone else is or is not a Christian?"
The American public seems to hold a similar opinion, Stetzer indicated.
"Christians begin with a faith system that teaches who God is, but the people in our culture not only don’t believe that, but often consider us intolerant because we dare to believe it," he said. Continue »
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