Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told
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To understand religion in America, we must know about the migration rates in and out of any religious group. Figure 4.11 is a really cool figure that I have borrowed from Michael Bell, who writes for the blog eclecticchristian.com.[16] It’s a little complex, but it’s worth taking the time to figure out. The data come from the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 2008, the same data that I’ve reported in the past two Figures. The top bar of the graph represents the childhood faith group of respondents in the recent Pew Study. The wider the segment, the more people were raised in that religious group. The bottom bar is the current faith group of respondents, at the time of the interview. The lines between them show where people go. For example, the current bar for the “none” group, i.e., the religiously unaffiliated, is wider than the childhood bar, indicating that this group has grown over time. The lines going out of childhood “nones” indicate what happens to people raised without religious affiliation. About half stay unaffiliated, and among the other half, the biggest portion goes to the Evangelical church. The lines going into the current “none” bar vary in thickness. The thickest line comes from childhood Catholics, indicating that a sizable portion of currently unaffiliated people were raised Catholic. Thick lines also come from childhood “nones” and Evangelicals. There’s a lot of cool information in this graph, and it looks even better in color, if you want to look it up on the Web (the link is provided in the endnotes).[17] I won’t review all the information here other than to point out that this graph, perhaps more than any other presentation I’ve seen, demonstrates the fluid nature of religion in the United States.
CHAPTER 5
Do Christians Think and Do Christian Things?
Evangelicals desperately need moral and spiritual renewal—on that everyone agrees.
—Cover of a major evangelical Christian magazine
The behavior and attitudes of the great mass of Evangelicals aren’t what we think they are.
—Christine Wicker, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation.
Only 9% of born-again Christians have a biblical worldview.
—George Barna[1]
Another fear message about Christians goes something like this: “Well, if there still are Christians in the United States, they certainly don’t have proper Christian beliefs and actions, especially when compared to the Christians of the past.” According to this message, today’s Christians are watered down, both in what they believe and what they do.
This message is a central theme in the research of George Barna and the Barna Research Group. For example, their 2007 Annual Tracking Report concluded that since 1984, “commitment to orthodox biblical perspectives is slipping in a number of areas.”[2] In his book Revolution, Barna also writes of the Christian faith in America as “relatively compromised and complacent.”[3] In a recent study, the Barna Group summarized that “Christians have a diverse set of beliefs—but many of those beliefs are contradictory, or at least inconsistent.”[4]
Barna isn’t the only one sounding this message. For example, a recent article from the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) laments American Christians’ lack of knowledge about the Bible.[5] The story starts with the bold claim that “Some Christian leaders say this generation is the most biblically illiterate in history” (though no specific attributions are made). I’m not sure what to make of this, since literacy is a relatively recent phenomenon, at least in historical terms.[6] Many generations could not read anything, let alone the Bible. Nonetheless, the article goes on to defend this claim by describing how its author went to a beach and asked several young people questions, such as about the Ten Commandments. Lo and behold, it turns out that some of the young beachgoers didn’t know much about the Bible.
To get a better sense of Evangelicals’ religious practices, this chapter examines four aspects of religious life: beliefs, practices, commitment, and experiences. It compares Evangelicals to other religions and denominations, and then, when suitable data are available, analyzes if Evangelicals have changed in recent decades.[7]
Central Beliefs
Perhaps the most basic question regarding religion is whether someone believes in God (or a Universal Spirit, for some religions). Since most Americans do believe in God, survey questions also ask about people’s certainty in their beliefs. Figure 5.1 reports the percentage of people in different religions who are “absolutely certain” of the existence of a God. As shown, there is considerable variation across groups, with less than half of Jews and Buddhists being absolutely certain about God, and 90% or more of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Black Protestants, and Evangelicals. Most of the rest of Evangelicals are “fairly certain” about God. Over a third of the religiously unaffiliated are absolutely certain that God exists, and, in fact, 70% of them believe in God at some level of certainty (this highlights, again, that many of the religiously unaffiliated are not atheists or agnostics).
Figure 5.1: Are You Absolutely Certain in Your Belief in God/Universal Spirit?
How has Evangelicals’ belief in God changed over time? Is there a downward trend, as some Christian leaders suggest? The General Social Survey has explored this question since 1988. From the survey, we can divide Evangelicals into three groups: (1) those who believe in God with no doubts, (2) those who sometimes doubt, and (3) those who believe in a higher power (as opposed to the biblical God) or do not believe in God at all. The percentages of all three groups have remained the same over the past two decades, revealing that Evangelicals’ certainty in God does not appear to be in decline. Throughout this time period, about 80% of Evangelicals believe in God without any doubt, about 15% report having some doubt, and about 5% report believing in a higher power or no God at all.
Let’s turn to the Bible. Many religious groups have their own sacred texts, and they vary in the extent to which they view these texts as being the inspired or literal Word of God. Table 5.2 plots the scriptural views of different religions. Buddhists and Jews are the least likely to view their scriptures as from God, and Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Evangelical Christians are the most likely.
Those respondents who believe that the Bible is the Word of God could take this to mean one of two things. They might say that the Bible is the literal Word of God (i.e., it is to be taken as absolute truth, word-for-word), or they might say it is the inspired Word of God (i.e., not everything is word-for-word from God, but the Bible is still inspired by God). Among Evangelical Christians, 59% view the Bible as the literal Word of God, and 30% view it as the Word of God but not literally so. Seven percent of Evangelicals think the Bible was simply written by men and is not the Word of God, and 5% don’t know. Likewise, 62% of Black Protestants take a literal view of the Bible. In contrast, only 22% of Mainline Protestants and 23% of Catholics adopt a word-for-word interpretation of Scripture.
Figure 5.2: Is the Bible/Your Holy Scripture the Word of God?
It is no surprise that Evangelicals take Scripture so seriously, for it is one of our defining characteristics. Recently several well-known Evangelicals, including author Os Guinness, philosopher Dallas Willard, and seminary president Richard Mouw, put together what they call “An Evangelical Manifesto.” In it they state the need to define Evangelical identity in light of a particular orientation toward Scripture.[8] Specifically: “We believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.”
Evangelicals’ attitudes toward the Bible have changed little in recent years. The General Social Survey has plotted these attitudes since the mid-1980s. Few Evangelical Christians think of the Bible as a book of man-made fables, and this number has remained very low, below 10%, since the survey began. The remainder of Evangelicals hold the Bible as the literal or inspired Word of God. In the 1980s, the portion viewing it as literal dropped from its high point of just over 60%, while those viewing it as inspired rose. But it’s been rather steady since about 1990, w
ith about 55% of Evangelicals holding to the literal Word of God and 40% the inspired Word.
Another core belief of Christianity is life after death. According to Pew research, among Christians, Evangelicals have the highest rates of believing in the afterlife, at 86%. The other Christian groups range from 74% to 79% of those who believe in the afterlife. Among other religions, a remarkably high number of Mormons—98%—believe in the afterlife. Now, I’m not sure who the remaining 2% of Mormons are, but I think they might be in trouble. At the other end of the spectrum, fewer than half of Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the religiously unaffiliated believe in life after death.
There are many other theological beliefs in the Christian faith. The General Social Survey has asked about some of these, and Table 5.3 indicates the portion of Evangelicals who believe in heaven, hell, miracles, and angels. In every instance, over 80% but fewer than 90% of Evangelicals affirmed these ideas. Understandably, church leaders would like these numbers to be at 100%, but there isn’t the rampant disbelief in these topics that one might expect, given popular discussions about them by Evangelicals.
Table 5.3: How Many Evangelicals Believe in ?
Another way to think about religious beliefs is in terms of absolute truth. Figure 5.4 graphs how many people believe that there are clear and absolute standards for what is right and wrong. Here we see more agreement across religions, for over half of each religious group represented believed in absolute standards, but no group has more than 90% agreeing with this. Among Christians, Evangelicals had the highest percentage at 84%. The other Christian traditions ranged from 72 to 78%. Among other religions, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses had the highest rates of belief, and Buddhists, Jews, and Hindus had the lowest. Somewhat surprisingly, two-thirds of the religiously unaffiliated believe in absolute truth, indicating that in fact they are not all postmodern, secular humanists who believe in relative truth, as is often assumed by Christians. Once again, conventional wisdom seems to be wrong.
Figure 5.4: Do You Agree That There Are Clear and Absolute Standards for What Is Right and Wrong?
Importance of Religion
Another way of gauging people’s religious faith is to ask them how important religion is to them. In our churches, we all know people who take their faith seriously and those who don’t, and it seems that Christian pastors spend a lot of time and energy trying to move people from the latter group to the former. Does the importance of one’s religion vary across religions? In other words, do some groups take their beliefs more seriously than others? According to the data, the answer is yes. When asked the question “How important is religion in your life?” over three-quarters of Evangelicals and Black Protestants answered “very important.” However, only about half of the other Christian groups—Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians—hold religion as very important. Among other religions, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons were the most likely to answer “very important,” whereas far fewer Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus answered the same. As we might expect, very few of the religiously unaffiliated, only 16%, stated that religion was “very important.”
Prayer and Scripture
The analyses in this chapter so far have focused on what people believe and value, and that’s certainly an essential aspect of religion, but there are also religious activities. In other words, do people’s actions follow their beliefs? Presumably, the people who strongly hold religious beliefs also practice religious activities the most often, but this is not necessarily the case, so it’s worth exploring. Religions have many activities associated with them, so I will start with two of the most basic ones: prayer and reading Scripture. Even if everyone in a religion prays, which is probably not the case, some certainly pray more than others. Likewise, some people read Scripture more often. Figure 5.5 examines how many people, outside of religious services, pray on a daily basis or read Scripture on a weekly basis (or more often). Several patterns emerge in this figure. In every religious tradition, more people pray on a daily basis than read Scripture on a weekly basis. Also, those religions in which people pray the most tend to have the highest rates of Scripture reading. Among Christians, about 80% of Evangelicals and Black Protestants pray daily, and 60% read Scripture at least weekly. In contrast, only 50 to 60% of Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians pray daily, and about a quarter or less read Scripture daily.
Among other religions, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses log the highest rates of daily prayer and weekly Scripture reading, hovering around 80% for both. Hindus, Buddhists, and especially Jews, record low levels of prayer and Scripture reading.
What would probably surprise many outspoken Christian leaders is the fact that over time, Evangelicals are praying more often. For the last three decades, the General Social Survey has asked Evangelicals if they pray on a daily basis. In the 1980s and 1990s, about two-thirds of Evangelicals prayed daily, but in this decade the number has risen to three-quarters. I’m not sure why prayer activity has increased, but it is good news for the Evangelical church. Just a thought—maybe they are praying that church leaders will be more careful in using statistics?
Unfortunately, there were only two years in which the General Social Survey asked respondents how often they read Scripture: 1988 and 1998. While far from conclusive, these two data points show roughly stable Bible reading rates at those two points in time, with about half of Evangelicals reading their Bible on at least a weekly basis.
Figure 5.5: Do You Pray Daily? Do You Read the Bible (Your Holy Scripture) at Least Once a Week?
Going to Church
Christians go to church, but according to George Barna, they will go to church much less often in the near future. In Revolution, Barna writes that in the year 2000, 70% of Americans had a local religious congregation as their “primary means of spiritual experience and expression.” In contrast, according to his prediction, only 30 to 35% of Americans will have this in the year 2025. The rest will focus on alternative faith-based communities and the media, arts, and culture.[9] The specifics of what Barna means by this prediction aren’t entirely clear, but if he’s right, it seems that church attendance rates will drop precipitously in the coming decades. Do we see any evidence of this drop in recent church attendance trends?
Thankfully, there are a lot of data on church attendance because it’s something that sociologists like to measure. Before getting into the data, however, let me tell you about a spirited debate sociologists have had about measuring church attendance.[10] Now, when we talk about sociologists getting into fights, it’s fun to imagine guys in their fifties, wearing sports coats with elbow patches, throwing punches at each other—a nerdy, academic version of a cage match. Alas, it isn’t quite that exciting, being limited to debates in the research literature and the occasional sharp word during a presentation. But this is high drama for sociologists.
Starting in the 1930s, the Gallup Poll asked respondents if they had attended church or synagogue in the previous seven days, and about 40% of the respondents said yes. Gallup continued asking this question, and over the decades, a steady 40% or so of Americans reported having gone to church in the previous week. This percentage number became an article of faith among researchers (pun intended) until the mid-1990s, when researcher Kirk Hadaway and colleagues decided to actually count how many people went to church.[11] They went to Catholic churches in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and they counted how many people showed up for church services over a several-month period. They found that 24% of the Catholics in the county were in church each week. Then they did a traditional phone survey and found that 51% of Catholic respondents said that they had gone to church in the prior week. They termed the difference between actual and reported attendance as the “overstatement gap.” Based on their study of Ashtabula County, Hadaway and friends estimated this gap to be about 100%—meaning that Christians reported double their actual church attendance rates.
Some researchers agree with Hadaway and his colleagues’ claim,
others don’t, believing that they, ironically, exaggerate how much Christians exaggerate. My own impression of the literature is that there is some overstatement, but not as much as Hadaway and his coauthors claim. My views tend toward those of sociologists Claude Fischer and Michael Hout, who write that “The survey-based estimate of church attendance is probably 10 to 30% too high as a measure of a typical Sunday’s congregations.”[12]
Some researchers posit that Christians overstate their church attendance to look good for researchers. This explanation doesn’t resonate with me because I don’t know why Christians would think that researchers would be impressed with weekly church attendance. Based on my own experiences as a Christian churchgoer, I find two other explanations more compelling. Although the survey asks Christians if they attended church in the previous week, this could be interpreted by the respondent as meaning do you intend to go to church every week? They might answer yes, even though they don’t actually go every week, since things come up sometimes, like getting sick or a kid’s soccer tournament. Another explanation is that the survey question could be measuring something other than Sunday services. Researchers have focused on Sunday morning services, but many churches have worship services at other times, and there are also other forms of meetings. As such, someone who says they go to church every week may also be counting going to a weekly Bible study or an informal meeting with friends at church.