Analysis: Bible-based faith anomalous

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Bible-based Christian faith has become an anomaly in the United States, according to California-based pollster George Barna.

In his first major report of the new year on the state of religion in the country, Barna declared: "Many Americans have developed a form of faith that is comforting but only vaguely Bible-related."

This follows on the heels of a Barna discovery that Diane Knippers, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, termed alarming: A mere 22 percent of U.S. citizens believe in the existence of absolute truth.

At the end of 2001, the Barna Research Group of Ventura, Calif., announced that among young American adults ages 18-36, only 13 percent affirmed absolute moral values.

The newest Barna findings underscore this drift toward a post-modern way of thinking, even among a category of Christians Barna defined as "born again but not evangelical."

Of this segment, just a little more than a quarter (27 percent) contend that moral truth is absolute. Barna labeled as "born-again Christians" those respondents who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and that this commitment was still important in their lives. They constituted 33 percent of the 4,000 adults Barna researchers interviewed across the nation. This group differs from evangelicals in that it does not believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches.

The new poll confirms that the share of U.S. citizens calling themselves Christians remains stable at 85 percent but displays "an enormous diversity of belief and practice ... even within individual churches," Barna revealed.

Another 8 percent described themselves as atheists or agnostics, while 7 percent belong to other faiths, such as Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.

According to Barna's analysis, there are "five discernible religious segments," of which evangelicals are the smallest group, comprising 8 percent of the population.

"This group not only includes Protestants but also Roman Catholics," David Kinnamon, Barna's research director, told United Press International on Thursday.

The same applies to the two other categories, the non-evangelical born-again believers and the much less committed "notional Christians," according to Kinnamon.

"About one-fifth of America's Catholics are deeply committed Christians," he said, "although the overwhelming majority tend to be more cultural Catholics."

In other words, they are in a way the 21st-century equivalent of the Kulturprotestanten (cultural Protestants), who emerged first in Germany in the mid-1800s and paved the way for the contemporary liberal mainline Protestantism in the Western world.

Barna describes evangelicals -- Protestant or Catholics -- as "individuals who believe that their relationship with Jesus Christ will provide them with eternal life, and who accept a variety of Bible teachings as accurate and authoritative."

Evangelicals say their faith is very important in their life. They consider it their duty to talk to non-Christians about their faith in Christ.

Only evangelicals are 100 percent certain that Satan is a living being and not just a symbol of evil, and that Jesus was human but sinless when he lived on earth.

Evangelicals are convinced of the apostle Paul's dictum that eternal salvation is possible only through God's grace, not good works (which are the fruits of faith), a doctrine the Vatican has affirmed in its 1999 joint declaration with the Lutherans on justification.

It is also a defining characteristic of evangelicals that they describe God as an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created and rules the universe.

Barna estimates that there are between 15 to 20 million evangelicals in the United States. They are a stable, well-educated and conservative element of the population.

"They are more likely than most other adults to have a college degree (29 percent) and to be married (68 percent)," the pollster reported. "They are less likely to have experienced a divorce than any other faith segment."

Of the five Barna categories, only the evangelicals include a majority affiliated with the Republican Party (58 percent). Half of this group lives in the South.

There are several ethical and theological issues on which evangelicals and non-evangelical born-again Christians are of one mind, albeit in different degrees.

Both consider homosexuality morally unacceptable (evangelicals: 95 percent, born again: 59 percent). In both categories a majority hold Christ sinless (evangelicals: 100 percent, born again: 53 percent).

Both have majorities of regular churchgoers. Of the evangelicals, 80 percent and of the non-evangelical attendchurch and among born again Christians, 53 percent attended services within the past seven days.

In one respect, however, the two groups' views overlap with those of the "notional Christians": By and large they oppose abortions. Four percent of the evangelicals, 24 percent of the born-again Christians and 38 percent of the "notionals" told Barna they found the termination of pregancies morally acceptable.

The "notional Christians" are the largest American faith segment, Barna announced. They encompass 44 percent of the population, or 90 million adults. Unlike the other two categories, they tend to be single.

They are not particularly happy.

"One-third of these people say they are stressed out, one-third admits to struggling with debt and finances, and one-third also claims to be searching for a sense of meaning and purpose in life," according to Barna.

Yet a majority of these Americans believe that they will have eternal life, but not thanks to a faith-based relationship with Christ.

In many ways, their views square with those of the atheists and members of other religions. Like the godless, only 15 percent of the notional Christians think that Satan is not just a symbol but a living being; of the members of other faiths, 20 percent hold this view.

And while 20 percent of the atheists, agnostics and members of other religions told Barna's interviewers Christ was sinless, only a few more notional Christians -- 27 percent -- said the same.

"Fascinating results!" exclaimed Barna's research director Kinnamon -- fascinating because they are far from being the final word on where American religion is heading.

"If nothing else," said Barna, "this indicates that people's faith is a process in motion -- an ever-changing series of views and behaviors that we can rely upon, to differing degrees, to shape our worldview and lifestyle."