It seems like every other day I see an article or blog post talking about how more than ever people are walking away from church or the faith. Various reasons are cited yet I will not focus on these reasons because they are no the true reasons for this departure from faith. They are rationalizations to help people explain their actions. The true reason is far more simplistic. A recent poll by the Barna group found that 19% of American adults that profess to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ also have a Biblical worldview. That percentage drops to less than 1% of young adults (18-29 yrs of age) of believers that have a Biblical worldview. Now view those figures in light of the fact that 77% (approx. 247 million) of Americans profess to be Christians.
To give perspective to those figures, the Barna survey defined a “biblical worldview” was as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.
Gypsy Smith, a famous European evangelist, once said “There are five gosples: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian. Most people will never read the first four.” Based on the statistic listed above, the “most people” in this quote I believe include the vast majority of professing Christ followers. It is as if many turned to Christ in a reflex reaction to an alter call as a means to solve an immediate problem in their lives. Although Jesus can certainly solve any issue in our lives, His death and resurrection was to solve THE problem of our ultimate demise which was eternal damnation. Coming to Christ for any reason short of that reason leaves open the validity of your conversion. It leaves open the posssibility to hold to a Non-Biblical worldview while clinging to the notion that Jesus saves.
To believe that Jesus died for your sins means you realize you are sinner in need of a Savior. That means you believe the Bible which tells the story of Jesus and His teachings. If you beleive His teachings then you believe the truths revealed in His teachings. If you believe the truths that He taught then you would have a Biblical worldview. If you don’t have a Biblical worldview a domino fell somewhere in the chain and you are left plugging in the world’s beliefs to complete your belief system.
If we as Christians don’t believe what we say we believe, how do we expect the world to believe?
