From Birds of the Air. (H/T Neil Simpson)
Excerpt:
I think, however, that he was accurate and that “self-identified Christian” does not necessarily classify one as actually Christian. Consider the following facts. According to a 2009 Barna survey of “self-described Christians”, 22% believe things contradictory to Christianity about God, such as “everyone is god, god refers to the realization of human potential,” and so on. Did you read that? These are people who call themselves “Christian”. And it doesn’t get better when you ask more questions. Some 59% don’t believe that Satan is real. Nor do 58% believe the Holy Spirit is real. They do believe that evil spirits and supernatural forces exist, just not that Satan or the Holy Spirit are actual beings. When asked about Jesus (remember, “Christian” means “follower of Christ”), 39% believe that Jesus sinned in His lifetime. If this were true, Christianity would be nullified because Jesus would neither have been God Incarnate nor would He have been able to pay for sins. It is no wonder, then, that 38% believe that their beliefs have not transformed their lives much. Oddly, while denying so much essential to Christianity, 89% hold that their main goal in life is to “love God with all their heart, mind, strength and soul.” It begs the question, doesn’t it? “What God?”
The Bible itself is problematic to Christians. In this survey, a majority (63%) believe the Bible is accurate in what it teaches, but 39% think the Koran and the Book of Mormon are just as accurate, that they teach the same principles as the Bible. In another study, there is a sharp decline in how reliable they think the Bible is. Only 30% of 18-to-25-year-olds think the Bible is accurate contrasted with 58% of the 64-plus group. The fear of the Barna group is that “the Bible will continue to lose hold on the next generation.”
Regarding that last point about the Bible, as long as Christians insulate the claims of the Bible from testing against the external world, then yes, it will just be about opinions. If there is no way to test something because we don’t allow the text to be tested, then you just take it or leave if you like it. Personal preference. We need to get away from Christianity as blind faith, and make Christianity something you can know to be true without any leaps of faith.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
How many times have I said to you exactly what this guy is saying but, nooooo, I never read a blog post that says “ECM, that super-intelligent (and handsome) gent said that so and so was true so I’m repeating it here for memorializing for posterity”. Bah.
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Bah! You should be helping me defeat the moral relativists in the Mark Driscoll post! I think that Mary is a professor of women’s studies or something.
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Ooooooh, I almost missed this one. Dreadful man. Bah, moral relativism! Yes, I am professor of women’s studies. We study what the Bible says about us and men and we study men we encounter to see whether they’re all they’re cracked up to be.
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Mary, I study the Bible on my own and line up what it actually says with what men have been telling women that it says.
And there are increasing numbers of women doing this, since they find that not everything men tell women about the Bible is true, but rather what men want the Bible to say.
What else can you tell me about women studies? I’m intrigued.
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I WAS KIDDING!!! She is not a women’s studies professor, she’s an extremely competent Christian woman who loves apologetics and is very solid on theology. Oh, and she isn’t a lobster either.
Yeah, you would be interested in women’s studies, Mara. You big feminist! Blech!
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Wintery, I perceive a lot of anger ;) on your part toward women. Is this something you would like to talk about? :D
What is women’s studies?
Feminism? Guess I knew and forgot. Silly me. Sorry, I was thinking it was Biblical women studies, like studying the women of the Bible, you know, like Deborah and Mary and studying what the Bible means today to the modern woman and her faith.
Didn’t mean to set you off. Really. I’m just only coming back to this and wasn’t even trying to stir things up yet.
Sorry if thinking that Christian women should study the Bible for themselves rather than just let their men tell them what it says upsets you.
But you can’t get me to thinking that only men understand it and women have to take men’s word for it.
I’ve seen enough twisting to know I’m better off going to the Word myself.
Deborah bashing was hard enough to swallow. But when they started bashing Abigail and Bathsheba, I knew their male bias was getting the best of them and I had just better read the text and see for myself if God’s judgement was really on these women for their part in the story.
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What are you talking about?
First of all, never bring up my character in an argument. It’s ad hominem. Do you see me bringing up your history as a lobster-pirate? No! Although that would explain your views a lot.
Second, the whole point of my post is to to chastise this woman who not taking responsibility to know the truth herself! Why listen to other people?
Third, you didn’t set me off at all. I’m agreeing with you! So quit pinching me!
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Oooo.
I get to be a lobster pirate too? Are there any benefits?
Sorry if you thought I meant to attack you. It was a poor (I guess VERY poor) attempt at humor.
My bad.
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The chief benefit of being a lobster pirate is that whenever Wintery is being obstreperous you get to choose between pinching him or making him walk the plank. Arrrrrr…
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Mara, WK meant “women’s studies” as a feminist thing, which it usually is at universities. But I was taking the meaning of studying what the Bible says about women as a rejoinder to WK.
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So I can understand why you would be confused on that point! :-P
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Mara, it sounds like you have a good way of going about it. That is my methodology too.
Like Wintery says, I’m not actually a women’s studies prof. Sorry to disappoint. ;-) I have too high an opinion of the roles of wife and mother to fit in at most such departments.
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I’m still feeling silly for forgetting that Women’s studies=feminism.
But about this lobster-pirate thing…
Where did that originate.
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It’s from an online game I like called Sorcery Quest. I blogged about it once. That lobster pirate is from episode three of Sorcery Quest. I am still on episode two.
Everybody I like is doing water games now. I’m also going to buy Etrian Odyssey 3 when it comes out. It also has pirates. I haven’t played my DS since Christmas though. I’m playing King’s Bounty for about 4 hours a month. Almost all the rest of my free time is spent on a special young lady who gives me incredible joy. I find Christian women incredibly addictive, attractive and appealing. And this one is just amazingly lovable.
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Wintery, how do you define moral relativism?
A woman being forgiven and also protected by God from a world system set out to destroy her and church system that expects perfection from day one, and if she isn’t perfect then she and her children are subject to a life of misery forever at the hands of a man who pretended to be a sheep but turned out to be a wolf?
I think you mistake God’s grace and mercy on sinners as moral relativism.
Maybe I’m wrong, so I’ll leave you to explain what you mean. And I hope you do. Because I perceive that things really haven’t been resolved over on the Driscoll thread.
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Oh, she isn’t a moral relativist! She isn’t a lobster either! That’s just how I bother her.
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And you do it so well. Yeah, calling me a moral relativist is like calling Obama a conservative. But whadya mean I’m not a lobster. I like being a lobster!
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Check out Wintery…getting pretty popular there with the ladies ;)
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Yeah, and they’re all so lovable, intelligent and wonderful! Kelli and Shalini haven’t even stopped by yet, but I’m pretty sure that they’re going to disagree with me as well. The only ones who might agree with me are Marprelate and 1redthread. Honestly, if you want to bash men for something, bash them for not being delighted with intelligent Christian women. Look how much fun they are to talk to! I could talk to them forever, they’re so much fun!
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Lol i was just about to comment on the female attention Wintery’s been getting recently. I feel almost out of place commenting on this blog with all this e-flirting going on =/
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Thanks for this post Wintery, it is scary how many people call themselves Christians. I guess it explains why so many people think Joel Osteen is such a wonderful preacher.
Phil
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It’s unfortunate that no longitudinal study has been done on this, but I suspect that this is a large part of the reason that certain sectors of Christianity appear to be numerically dwindling while the atheists make gains.
They’re getting the weak minded club joiners who were never Christians to begin with.
It meshes well with observations that the so called New Atheists don’t hold a candle to the intellectual power and reason of old atheists. Those guys, generally speaking, had examined and rejected Christianity. The New Atheists’ best attacks are straw man, ad hominem, and non sequitor. Just look at the arguments and logic put up by the *best* in Hitchens and Dawkins.
While the atheists are feeling emboldened by the “gains”, I say they should enjoy that feeling while it lasts…
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