Two startling surveys segue perfectly into our interview this afternoon with Pete Briscoe about his new book, Belief Matters: Grappling With the Essentials of the Christian Faith.
A new survey just released by the Barna Group indicates than less than half of one percent of young adults age 18 – 23 hold to a biblical worldview, defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists, the Bible is completely accurate, Satan is a real being, a person cannot earn their way into Heaven, Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, and God is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator of the world who still rules the universe today. Just as disturbing, the Barna survey reveals that only 9% of those who claim to be “Born Again” hold to a worldview that could be considered biblical.
Couple those stats with Trinity College’s just released American Religious Identification Survey. Albert Mohler writes, “By any mesasure, the study reveals an increasing secularization of society. The percentage of Americans identifying as unaffiliated with any religious group or denomination has risen sharply (from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008). In fact, the unaffiliated now outnumber all but Catholics and Baptists.”
Pete Briscoe, pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas and one of the keynote speakers at WLQV’s Pastor’s Appreciation Event coming up Wednesday, April 29, will be my guest today at 4:00 pm ET.
Wow! Love this blog design! All the pizazz and readable too…*8 ) I’m positively Google-eyed
I thought about this post last evening and quite frankly I for one, do not find it alarming nor suprizing. This is what is to be expected. With the confussion that has overcome the general whole of the church in this nation there could not be any possibilty of a different outcome. As evidence I offer the folling suggestions;
“the Bible is completely accurate”
Can you find any one in this community that completly holds to this statement? Additionally we have such a disdain for each other and voice it openly, how in the world do we expect our message to find a welcome place in the hearts of men. If you suscribe to the non-reformed position WE must be failing as a church as the results suggest, and if your convictions fall in the reformed camp, it must be God who is declining in His calling. Only a breif viewing of Sunday religious programing, or a breif contemplation of all the various blogs would prove how divided we are. God tells us wine is a mocker and that strong drink is rageing yet many find it use acceptable under the banner of “liberty”. We are told the words of the Lord are pure words and no one seems able to locate these “words” in their pure form. Again, we are instructed form the sacred page that the “gay” activity is an abomination to the Lord and that he turns some, if not all, over to a reprobate mind, yet the previous discorse suggests some do not even agree with God on this matter. We are told to be a seperate people yet we fill our minds with the language, music, and activities of those that we are called to different from. It was not to long ago Elvis was sin and look at the crap our children now listen to. Our ladies are instructed to adorn themselves in modest apparel and we are hard pressed to find a virgin (men and women) in our youth meetings.
In conclusion I am convinced that we now have arrived at the point where evil is being well spoken of and practiced. Indeed; “…when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
Evidently,
The Greeks still seek wisdom, and many still have a doctrine, but is it the wisdom David, or doctrine of Paul?
What a mess! The orginal seed of doubt has come to full fruition, “Yea hath God said”? Our enemy has far more insight into us than we give him credit for.
And that is the rest of the story, Good Day!
“Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
It may be at morn, when the day is awaking,
When sunlight through darkness and shadow is breaking
That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory
To receive from the world “His own.”
O Lord Jesus, how long, how long
Ere we shout the glad song,
Christ returneth! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Amen. Hallelujah! Amen.
I bet His eye is still on the sparrow!
don