By the Barna Research Group, Ltd.
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If there is comfort in stability, then there is little doubt that
Christianity in America is in the comfort zone. The annual tracking study of
religious beliefs and behavior conducted by the Barna Research Group
(Ventura, California) shows that there has been no change in nine of the
ten factors the company follows in its yearly tracking survey.
Church Attendance
Four out of every ten adults (40%) attend a church service on a typical
Sunday. That figure is a significant decline from the early Nineties, when
close to half of all adults were found in churches on Sunday, but the figure
is relatively unchanged since 1994. Baby Busters, who range from 18 to
34, are notably less likely than older adults to attend services (28%
compared to 51% of adults 55 or older). Women remain more likely to
attend church than are men, although the attendance of females is
declining in recent years. (It has remained unchanged among men.) Adults
who are conservative on social and political matters are almost twice as
likely to attend church as are adults who describe themselves as liberal on
such issues (53% vs. 28%, respectively). Attendance levels are still higher
in the "Bible belt" areas - the South and Midwest - than in the Northeast
and West. Born again Christians are more than twice as likely to attend
church services as are adults who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their
Savior.
Born Again Christians
Born again Christians - defined in the surveys as people who say they have
made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their
life today and who say they know they will go to Heaven after they die
because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their
savior - still represent about four out of every ten adults (41%). (In the
surveys people are not asked if they consider themselves to be "born
again" - this is not a self-identification measure.) That figure has remained
statistically unchanged since 1995. Women are more likely to be born
again than are men - about half of all women and one-third of all men. Baby
Busters are less likely to be born again than are older adults. Blacks are
more likely to qualify than are whites, with Hispanics the least likely of all.
Six out of ten adults who attend a Protestant church are born again
Christians, compared to one out of four Catholics. However, Catholics
represent about one out of every eight born again adults (13%).
Conservatives are more than twice as likely to be born again as are liberals
(57% vs. 22%, respectively). However, the delineation is not as clear cut in
relation to political party registration: 53% of Republicans are born again,
compared to 41% among Democrats. Forty percent of independents are
born again. Just one-quarter of the adults who are not registered to vote are
born again.
The proportion of born again Christians has remained consistent since
1995, hovering in the 39% to 43% range during that period. The current
figure does appear to be an increase over the level measured in the early
nineties (when born again Christians averaged 36%).
Evangelicals
This group, which is a subset of the born again population, is measured in
relation to nine different belief measures. In addition to being born again,
they have a traditional, biblical view of God; believe the Bible is accurate in
all that it teaches; say that Satan is a real spiritual entity; contend that
Jesus never committed a sin; and believe that salvation is by God's grace
and cannot be earned by good behavior. They also say that their religious
faith is very important in their life and that they have a personal
responsibility to share their faith in Christ with non-believers. This niche
represents 8% of the adult population - a level that has not changed since
1993, when it was at 11%.
The evangelicals, though small in number, are the most religiously active.
They have the highest rates of church attendance (80% in a typical week),
Bible reading (92% in a typical week), sharing their faith in Christ (81% in
the past year), Sunday school attendance (60% in a typical week),
donating money to their church (94% did so in the past month) and
volunteering at the church (48% in a typical week).
Bible Reading
In the early Nineties, Bible reading was "in." From the mid-nineties to late
Nineties, it was out of fashion. Bible reading appears to be making a
comeback, reaching 40% of adults now reading the Bible in a typical week.
The growth in Bible reading seems to be fueled by greater commitment
among blacks, low-income individuals, and men. Despite the rising
readership levels among men, though, women are still substantially more
likely than men to read the Bible during a typical week. Bible reading is
much more common in the South than in any of the other regions of the
nation.
Protestant adults are much more likely than Catholic adults to read the
Bible during the week (53% vs. 38%, respectively). Born again Christians
are three times more likely than non-born again adults to read the Bible
(65% vs. 23%), but not as likely as evangelicals (92%).
Other Forms of Involvement
The other major forms of religious activity measured showed no signs of
change. Those activities include:
Donations to a church. Slightly more than half of all adults (54%)
gives money to a church in a typical month. Baby Busters are
substantially less likely to give (36%) than are adults 35 and older
(61%).
Other Interesting Facts
The annual survey produced some other intriguing results, according to
George Barna, president of the company that conducts the survey. "In a
typical week, about four out of every ten people sitting in the pews of
Christian churches are not born again. Although the figures are
substantially different in Protestant churches than Catholic churches, more
than one-third of the Protestant attenders are not born again. They certainly
represent an accessible and fertile mission field for churches that have a
desire to introduce people to the notion of salvation by grace."
Barna also pointed out that Catholics are much more likely to attend
megachurches - defined as churches that have more than 1000 adults
attending their weekend services - than are Protestants. "Catholics are
22% of the adult population, but they constitute 47% of those who attend a
megachurch. Even though megachurches are seen as a Protestant
phenomenon, barely half (53%) of the adults attending megachurches go to
a Protestant church. That represents about one out of every ten adults
attending a Protestant church and projects to about 5 million of the 53
million adults attending a Protestant church in a typical week."
Addressing some of the current thinking in religious circles, Barna referred
to some of those perspectives as "myths." "There does not seem to be
revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church
attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply
do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions. The increase in Bible
reading may be setting the stage for such a revival, but it does not appear
to be occurring at the moment."
Barna, who has been tracking religious beliefs and behavior in national
surveys since 1981, also addressed the notion of a Christian men's
movement. "There is reason to believe that America experienced a small
increase in the proportion of men who are born again between 1990 and
2000. However, the proportion is not quite beyond the range that can be
explained by sampling error alone. We also find that the increase in the
proportion of women who are born again was double that of men during the
past decade. Church attendance among men has dropped in the past
decade, as has Bible reading, Sunday school attendance and church
volunteerism. Some good things have happened among men during the
Nineties, but it does not appear that there has been a massive
reawakening of the male soul in the last ten years."
The researcher also added a note of encouragement to church leaders. "It
is important to realize that there are some signs of continued interest and
growth. The level of importance assigned by people to their religious faith is
very high - two-thirds say their faith is very important to them. More than
four out of five people pray during the week. Bible reading is on the
increase. Half of all adults claim to have a devotional or quiet time at least
once during a typical week. And the fact that church attendance has
remained stable while participation in virtually every other form of traditional
activity - including the frequency of watching television, exercising, reading
for pleasure, and spending time with the family - has declined in recent
years. Spirituality remains important to people, but we're still in a shake-up
period where people are trying to discover how to fit it into their increasingly
fragmented, busy and changing lives. Few people are seeking to remove
God from their life. They're just not sure when and how often they will pencil
Him into their schedule."
Survey Methodology
The data described above are from telephone interviews with a nationwide
random sample of 1002 adults. The maximum margin of sampling error
associated with the aggregate sample is ±3 percentage points at the 95%
confidence level. The data for previous years' surveys was conducted in the
same manner, using the same sampling techniques and survey questions,
and also based on samples of 1000 or more randomly selected adults. All
of the interviews were conducted from the Barna Research Group telephone
interviewing facility in Ventura, CA. Adults in the 48 continental states were
eligible to be interviewed and the distribution coincided with the geographic
dispersion of the U.S. adult population. Multiple callbacks were used to
increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of adults.
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