Poll of US Evangelicals: 43% say Jesus was not God, 94% say extramarital sex is a sin, and more

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

A huge portion of self-identified Evangelicals don't even attend church.  The term has grown from its original meaning to anyone who believes in some idea of Jesus and is socially conservative.

[Associate Justice PiT]

A huge portion of self-identified Evangelicals don't even attend church.  The term has grown from its original meaning to anyone who believes in some idea of Jesus and is socially conservative.

     This is key. It's inevitable that in a society a lot more people will claim to believe than actually take it seriously. Holding a coherent triadology is surprisingly difficult, and I don't expect someone who identifies as Christian for cultural reasons but seldom goes to church to do so. This same criticism can be levied at cafeteria Catholics, but you won't see that happen on the forum because they are overall a relatively liberal demographic.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

A huge portion of self-identified Evangelicals don't even attend church.  The term has grown from its original meaning to anyone who believes in some idea of Jesus and is socially conservative.

     This is key. It's inevitable that in a society a lot more people will claim to believe than actually take it seriously. Holding a coherent triadology is surprisingly difficult, and I don't expect someone who identifies as Christian for cultural reasons but seldom goes to church to do so. This same criticism can be levied at cafeteria Catholics, but you won't see that happen on the forum because they are overall a relatively liberal demographic.

There was a similar divide in the 2016 primaries, with evangelicals who regularly attend church preferring Cruz and Rubio, while those who self-identified as evangelical but attended church less often backed Trump.

It's unfortunate that there's a lot of theological illiteracy, and it's a big problem in the church today.  I will say that the question about Original Sin and the inherent sinfulness of man was worded oddly, but that does nothing to excuse the one about the Trinity.  The Church needs to do better!

As for premarital sex, it's actually pretty common to wait for marriage in my experience among a subset of church-going evangelicals.  It's a widely held belief among my friends.

[Suburban Republican]

A huge portion of self-identified Evangelicals don't even attend church.  The term has grown from its original meaning to anyone who believes in some idea of Jesus and is socially conservative.

Modern evangelism has morphed into a political movement and is so far removed from the values espoused by past evangelical movements. Such movements go back to the protestant reformation and are about reading the Bible yourself, without the interference of human-created institutions that are corrupted by sin. What many "evangelicals" today don't seem to understand is that by combining political and religious authority, we easily lose sight of the important values in scripture and forget wether our primary allegiance is to God or to politicians and political ideologies. It's a tale as old as Christianity itself.

[LabourJersey]

Having actually read the article, I feel it's worth saying: the statements read to the people polled are pretty badly written, and I can totally see people not understanding them and saying the "heretical" view by mistake.

Like one question is asking whether God "learns" or not; and then maintains that since God is immutable, then God cannot learn. Is that really true? Even if it is, people would not interpret learning as being a genuine change.

And also the trinity is such a, quite honestly, weird tenet of a faith (and I say this as a Christian--I find this way harder to believe in than even the Resurrection) that I honestly don't put a whole lot of stock in polling questions about this.

[nicholas.slaydon]

I am quite surprised at the 94% number. Perhaps it is my own prejudices that lead me to think that American Christians do not actually take fornication seriously, but my recollection is that survey data would conclude that the proportion of Americans who actually practice celibacy before marriage is minuscule. I guess believing that an activity is sinful does not preclude participation.

How many of them think extramarital sex is a sin but wouldn't want a loved one who cheated on his wife to burn in hell?

This is a nonsense argument, as you seem to know. Having committed a sin does not imply damnation, least of all in Reformed soteriology where faith in God is the only condition for salvation.

Wait a second, isn't divine election the only precondition to salvation in Calvinist soteriology? Doesn't the U in TULIP stand for Unconditional Election? If faith is a precondition to salvation in Reformed soteriology than how can it be unconditional?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Oh I didn't see this thread in R&P before.

Like one question is asking whether God "learns" or not; and then maintains that since God is immutable, then God cannot learn. Is that really true? Even if it is, people would not interpret learning as being a genuine change.

The definition of learning is one acquiring knowledge one didn't have before. So yes, learning implies change. And if one believes God is omniscient (all-knowing), then God learning anything is impossible. What with the traditional Christian belief that God exists outside of time and so knows everything that has ever happened or will happen. So yes, in Christianity it's a heretical belief to say God learns.

But at any rate this poll should hardly be surprising, when understanding of orthopraxy has always dominated over orthodoxy in religious societies throughout history. (you see this very clearly in the accounts of the beliefs of Medieval peasants etc.) Sexual taboos are just more comprehensible and relevant to the lives of ordinary people than abstruse theological debates like the Trinity.

In the span of world religion it's an extreme peculiarity of (certain strands of) Christianity that correct belief defines oneself more than correct practice anyway - such thinking would be totally alien to Islam, Buddhism etc. and arguably Orthodox and Catholic forms of Christianity, the latter of which has always held to lex orandi, lex credendi.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Having actually read the article, I feel it's worth saying: the statements read to the people polled are pretty badly written, and I can totally see people not understanding them and saying the "heretical" view by mistake.

Like one question is asking whether God "learns" or not; and then maintains that since God is immutable, then God cannot learn. Is that really true? Even if it is, people would not interpret learning as being a genuine change.

And also the trinity is such a, quite honestly, weird tenet of a faith (and I say this as a Christian--I find this way harder to believe in than even the Resurrection) that I honestly don't put a whole lot of stock in polling questions about this.

Fair enough, but people should absolutely understand the one about how "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God." Interestingly, this description exactly matches the Muslim view of Jesus, not the Christian one[1], and since basically the Council of Nicea, belief in the Divinity of Jesus has been one of the key tenants of Christianity, and is one of the few things that Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Churches all agree on.

[1] in fact the wording is so spot-on I almost wonder if the poll was sponsored by a Muslim group looking for strategies for prostleyizing to Christians.

[Ferguson97]

And perhaps controversially, I’d argue that those who formerly identified as Christian but now identify as “none” never actually believed in God in the first place and they feel more comfortable saying that out loud in todays society.

I'm sure that describes some people, but as one of those people I can assure you that it's not a universal truth. I used to genuinely believe in God.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I am quite surprised at the 94% number. Perhaps it is my own prejudices that lead me to think that American Christians do not actually take fornication seriously, but my recollection is that survey data would conclude that the proportion of Americans who actually practice celibacy before marriage is minuscule. I guess believing that an activity is sinful does not preclude participation.

How many of them think extramarital sex is a sin but wouldn't want a loved one who cheated on his wife to burn in hell?

This is a nonsense argument, as you seem to know. Having committed a sin does not imply damnation, least of all in Reformed soteriology where faith in God is the only condition for salvation.

Wait a second, isn't divine election the only precondition to salvation in Calvinist soteriology? Doesn't the U in TULIP stand for Unconditional Election? If faith is a precondition to salvation in Reformed soteriology than how can it be unconditional?

Well the I stands for Irresistible Grace, meaning that every person God Saves is in fact a follower of him. But of course, the belief rests on God knowing the elect will come to have faith in him, so to call it a condition one must meet is not exactly authentic to the belief.

But I think the post above yours is mixing terms up. Irrevocable salvation by faith alone would be a form of Arminianism.

--


Not surprised. Evangelical is a political movement primarily, and when it is religious it seems to rely heavily on abortion, sexual purity, and YEC over other doctrines. Of course, as is pretty known around here, I agree with the first two, but enthusiastically disagree with the latter. This all plays into why I don't identify with the movement and no longer attend an evangelical church.

[Person Man]

A huge portion of self-identified Evangelicals don't even attend church.  The term has grown from its original meaning to anyone who believes in some idea of Jesus and is socially conservative.

Or basically anyone who is generally socially conservative, virtually always on abortion, and does not identify as part of a non-Evangelical theology.

[RFayette]

I am quite surprised at the 94% number. Perhaps it is my own prejudices that lead me to think that American Christians do not actually take fornication seriously, but my recollection is that survey data would conclude that the proportion of Americans who actually practice celibacy before marriage is minuscule. I guess believing that an activity is sinful does not preclude participation.

How many of them think extramarital sex is a sin but wouldn't want a loved one who cheated on his wife to burn in hell?

This is a nonsense argument, as you seem to know. Having committed a sin does not imply damnation, least of all in Reformed soteriology where faith in God is the only condition for salvation.

Wait a second, isn't divine election the only precondition to salvation in Calvinist soteriology? Doesn't the U in TULIP stand for Unconditional Election? If faith is a precondition to salvation in Reformed soteriology than how can it be unconditional?

This is true that all who God unconditionally elects are saved in the Calvinist framework, but faith is still seen as the instrumental cause of justification; even those who are elect are considered to be spiritually unregenerate and apart from God’s friendship prior to their having faith in Christ.  Nonetheless, because they were elect, God would ensure they would put their faith in Christ at some point in their lives.  (There may be additional caveats in cases like eg those who never heard of Christ and infants, but the above is the standard historic Reformed teaching.)

Here is some more information about this topic from the same organization that conducted the survey, Ligonier: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/instrumental-cause-justification

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Well, they inadvertently got the Jeebus part right.

Whoever these people who answered the poll are.

Worshipping the historical Jesus like "a gawd" is akin to, say, worshipping Simon Bolívar as a deity hundreds of years after his/their deaths.

Meaning, if you were to somehow magically resurrect them from their graves several centuries afterwards, they would be shocked to learn that billions of people around the planet revere them as Gods.  And their immediate reactions would be something like:   "ummm.....WOW....yeah....okay?"

that's why i say christianity is a cult, but people have been ridiciluzing me for that.

[John Dule]

And perhaps controversially, I’d argue that those who formerly identified as Christian but now identify as “none” never actually believed in God in the first place and they feel more comfortable saying that out loud in todays society.

I'm sure that describes some people, but as one of those people I can assure you that it's not a universal truth. I used to genuinely believe in God.

What changed?

[Ferguson97]

And perhaps controversially, I’d argue that those who formerly identified as Christian but now identify as “none” never actually believed in God in the first place and they feel more comfortable saying that out loud in todays society.

I'm sure that describes some people, but as one of those people I can assure you that it's not a universal truth. I used to genuinely believe in God.

What changed?

It was a lot of things over a long period of time. I didn’t go directly from Christian to agnostic.

It began with rejecting the church’s teachings on certain topics — including abortion, but primarily LGBT issues. And I frequently debated my youth pastor about the topic, to the point that I was denied a student leadership position because I would not recant my support for gay marriage.

I rationalized this as being a feature of my church’s denomination rather than Christianity as a whole. And to their credit, pro-LGBT churches do exist.

I began identifying as a Deist. I believed that a higher power/God existed, but not necessarily the Christian one, and believed that it took a “hands off” approach to the universe. It created the universe, and then just let things happen without interference. I continued to believe in the afterlife. I wanted to believe that being a good person got you to heaven and being a heinous person got you to hell. Due to 20 years of growing up in the church, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that belief in the Christian God was necessary for salvation. I was still absolutely terrified that hell existed and that I might go there for not believing the “right way”.

I wore the deist label for a few years, but it didn’t feel right. The idea of a hands-off creator seemed like a cop-out. Why create the universe just to allow widespread suffering? To what end? And even if there was a creator who designed the universe, how did the creator come into existence?

Even if there were a hands-off creator, then surely this wouldn’t be the sort of god to punish me eternally for not believing.

It took me a long time to realize that fear of hell was really all that was keeping me from outright identifying as an agnostic — at some point I just accepted that an afterlife wasn’t logical. I’d certainly like there to be one — the only thing worse than Hell is oblivion.

In short, I no longer found the teachings of Christianity to be compatible with what I believed to be morally right, and I no longer found the self-interest justifications to be consistent. If I was only believing because I feared Hell, then my belief wasn’t genuine anymore.

It used to eat me up inside. I had a Hindu friend at school. I literally cried when I asked my pastor if he would go to hell, and he told me yes. I tried to think of anything I could do to save my friend’s soul while still respecting his beliefs and preserving our friendship. Looking back it was a lot more about protecting him from punishment than it was about exposing him to god’s word.

This idea of avoiding punishment being the primary motivator for belief just rubbed me the wrong way. If a god like this DID exist, then he was not worth worshiping. I was born in a Christian household. He was born in a Hindu household. If you need to be Christian to go to Heaven, it hardly seemed fair that I was born with the advantage of already being a Christian. After all it wasn’t likely that you convert to another faith.

In addition to that, all of the suffering in the world made it hard for me to accept that god was worth worshiping. Why create us just to suffer, die, and either return to him or suffer eternally based on what essentially amounts to chance?

It’s difficult to articulate what exactly lead me from “if god exists he’s an ass” to “god probably doesn’t exist”. It just didn’t feel like the logical answer anymore. “Probably not, but I dunno” started to feel as intuitive as “yes of course he exists” felt for years prior. I didn’t see any hard evidence for why god DID exist. And since you can’t really prove that god DOESN’T exist, agnosticism felt more intellectually honest than outright atheism.