MOST ADULTS SAY BELIEF IN GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE MORAL VALUES

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Adults in more than a dozen countries say it’s not necessary to believe in God to lead moral lives or have good values, according to a recent study. 

The majority of respondents were based in secular Western European countries of Sweden (90%), France (77%), the United Kingdom (76%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (69%), Italy (68%), Germany (62%) and Greece (60%). Most respondents in other countries located outside Western Europe but still considered to be part of Western civilization, including Australia (85%), Canada (73%), and the United States (65%), also maintained that a belief in God is not necessary to “be moral and have good values.” Majorities of respondents in the Eastern European nations of Poland (67%) and Hungary (63%), which have governments sympathetic to traditional values and religion, said the same.

People in Israel and Singapore were more evenly divided on the question, with 50% and 54% of those surveyed, respectively, saying that a belief in God was a prerequisite for morality and having good values. Malaysia, a Muslim country, was the only country where the overwhelming majority of participants (78%) saw belief in God as necessary for leading a moral life with good values.

In the U.S., those who believe religion is not important (92%) and the religiously unaffiliated (88%) were most likely to view a belief in God as unnecessary for living a moral life and having good values. Majorities of all subgroups based on partisan identification, education level, gender, and age group indicated that a belief in God was not necessary to live a moral life. Even among those who described religion as “important” to them, a narrow majority (51%) suggested that a moral life is possible in the absence of a belief in God.

If God does not exist then how do we know what is good or bad or right or wrong? To say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people say or think, e.g. the Holocaust was objectively wrong even though the Nazis thought it right. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether or not any human believes it to be so.

The atheist Richard Dawkins says, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference… we are machines for propagating DNA… It is every living object’s sole reason for being.”

Without God, there is no basis for the objective moral values that do exist.

Paul wrote about “liars whose consciences are seared” (1 Tim. 4:2 ESV). What did he mean? What is a seared conscience? For that matter, what is the conscience? Our conscience is given by God; the inner voice that inflicts us with feelings of guilt when we have sinned.

“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” Romans 2 :15-16

If you want proof that we are living in the prophesied last days before Jesus returns these Poll results are just one of the prophesied signs being revealed in our day.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:1-7

“For in those days, there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.” Mark 13:19-20

A MINORITY OF PASTORS IN THE USA HOLD A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

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A “shocking” new survey from researcher and pollster George Barna of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found just 37% of U.S.-based pastors hold to a “biblical worldview.”

“This is another strong piece of evidence that the culture is influencing the American church more than Christian churches are influencing the culture,” Barna said of the survey results. “The research indicates that Americans are more likely to experience a positive impact on their worldview by hanging out with [spiritually active governance engaged conservative Christians] than they are by being in the presence or under the teaching of pastors.”

Taken on the whole, just under 2/3 of pastors embrace a form of syncretism, which is the blending of various belief systems together as one. In other words, purported ministers of the Christian faith don’t actually hold to the Christian faith, but an eclectic grab-bag of ideological, philosophical, and theological ideas that are fundamentally at odds with one another. 

If America is going to experience a spiritual revival it must happen at the grassroots level.

For the most part, Barna explained, people largely form their perspectives on the world before they reach 13 years old, then go “through a period of refinement during their teens and twenties.”

“From a worldview perspective, a church’s most important ministers are the children’s pastor and the youth pastor,” he stated. “Discovering that seven out of every eight of those pastors lack a biblical worldview helps to explain why so few people in the nation’s youngest generations are developing a heart and mind for biblical principles and ways of life, and why our society seems to have run wild over the last decade, in particular.”

According to information provided to CBN’s Faithwire, Barna’s “American Worldview Inventory” is an annual survey developed in 2020 and conducted by the Cultural Research Center, surveying roughly 2,000 randomly chosen U.S. adults. The survey contains 54 “belief and behavior questions” that determine a “biblical worldview.”

Preachers who hold to a biblical worldview are in the minority,

“The AWVI survey questions relate to eight different categories of life,” states an explainer on the survey. “Those categories are faith practices; human character and nature; God, creation, history; purpose, calling; sin, salvation, God relationship; family and value of life; lifestyle, behavior, relationships; and Bible, truth, morals. The AWVI provides scores for each of those eight areas, as well as identifying one’s dominant worldview.”

“Respondents who answer 80% or more of the belief questions and 80% or more of the behavioral questions in harmony with biblical teaching are identified as Integrated Disciples, people who have integrated biblical principles into their mind and heart in such a way that they clearly have a biblical view of and approach to life,” it adds.

Of all eight categories, the only one showing a majority of pastors holding to a biblical worldview was the purpose of life and calling (57%). In the remaining categories, a minority of pastors were found to hold to a biblical worldview: 47% on family; 44% on God, creation, and history; 43% on faith practices; 43% on sin, salvation, God relationship; 40% on human character and nature; 40% on lifestyle, behavior relationships; and 39% on Bible, truth, morals.

Similar research conducted earlier this year and reported on by CBN News found that, although 67% of parents with pre-teens identified as Christians, only 2% were found to abide by a biblical worldview, which stresses the importance of children and youth pastors believing in and teaching Bible-based perspective on life.

Although concerned, Barna suggested he is not defeated by the survey’s results. It is important, he said, for people to be aware of the problem — because that is the only way to fix it.

“God is in the transformation business,” he stated. “Pastors who are willing to allow Him to transform their thinking and behavior can emerge from that process as a powerful example of what can happen when one’s heart, mind, and soul are surrendered to God.

These are perilous days. And the days to come may even be more perilous than today, but hope in God. Join the throng of God’s people and wage war against the power and principalities of darkness looming over the church. The powers of hell cannot prevail against Christ’s bride; time and time again this keen and hopeful Word has proven true. Be strong and courageous, act like men, and gird up your loins by going about those ordinary works which He prepared beforehand for us to walk in. Lo, Christ is with us, even to the end of the age.

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR WHAT IS ABOUT TO UNFOLD?

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Satan has successfully deceived the world into believing that God did not judge the world with a worldwide flood just 4000 years ago now. He certainly does not want people to know that God will pour out His wrath again on a lawless unrepentant world in the not too distant future and yet that is exactly what God reveals will happen in His Word, the Bible.

The Judeo-Christian ethos, based on God’s absolutes which formed the basis of most Western nations, is fast being supplanted by a secularistic, humanistic, arrogantly arbitrary philosophy. This worldview is spreading rapidly. The legal system is a prominent perpetrator of it. The courts are dangerous because they pontificate arbitrarily on what they personally consider to be “good” for society, yet they demand – and aggressively enforce – absolute allegiance to their arbitrary decrees. But what did we expect? The humanistic, secularistic thinkers have merely carried their philosophy to its logical end. They have remained true to their worldview in both words and actions while, unfortunately, Christians have equivocated. They simply have not taken the Lordship of Christ seriously. Instead, Christians have largely shut up their spirituality into a small corner of life, Sunday church, or their Bible studies instead of realising that the Lordship of Christ is to permeate the whole spectrum of life. They have coasted along complacently, often serving up such dogmas as “you can’t mix religion and politics,” or “you can’t legislate morality,” or “we just need to pray and witness to people” – when what they really meant was we just don’t want to be disturbed.” They are content in their “comfort zone.”

Christians are now paying for their negligence. We have permitted the dominance of a philosophy that sanctions the killing of an unborn child for the mother’s convenience. A philosophy that can talk of euthanasia of the aged and a general devaluation of all human life. A philosophy that has euphemised wrong and self-destructive sexuality into “alternative lifestyles.” A philosophy that drives its proponents to unashamedly seek the banishment of all religious influence from the stream of public life, leaving a totally relativistic value system and law. This secularistic worldview has engulfed every area of society that Christians have chosen to ignore – the government, the courts, education, the media. And it is now threatening the areas that Christians naively took for granted as being beyond its reach: the family, the Christian school, and the church. More and more the state is opening the door to restrict the free exercise of our faith through increased regulation. Christians largely sleep on, as it unfolds.

Jesus told us that what we see unfolding in our day is exactly what it will be like before He returns. It will be like it was during the days of Noah, lawlessness will abound. Moreover, He warns us that intense tribulation is coming.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14

“You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.“ 2 Peter 3:2-6

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.“ Luke 17:26-27

“And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 17:8-9

INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH HAS FAILED

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These statistics are from three different Research organisations.

  1. Less than half of Americans, including just 63% of churchgoing Christians, believe Jesus existed before His virgin birth in Bethlehem, a new study from Lifeway research shows.
  2. A recent survey by Probe Research found that nearly 70% of so-called evangelical Christians disagree with the biblical position that Jesus is the only way to God. Also, the percentage of Born Again Christians with a Biblical Worldview has been cut in half over the last decade
  3. Another study from Arizona Christian University published earlier this year, showed that among an estimated 176 million American adults who identify as Christian, just 6% or 15 million of them actually hold a biblical worldview.
Jesus' Nativity Story
The live reenactment of Jesus’ nativity scene held outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. on Thursday Dec. 2, 2021. | Christian Post

The Lifeway study, conducted Sept. 3-14 through an online survey of a national pre-recruited panel of 1,005 Americans, shows that only 2 in 5 or 41% of American adults, in general, believe Jesus existed before His Bethlehem birth. Some 32% disagree with the idea that Christ existed before His Bethlehem birth, while 28% say they’re not sure.

Researchers also found that even among Christians who attend church four times a month or more, only 63% agree that Jesus existed before His Bethlehem birth even though many Scriptures from the Bible support that position.

“Prophecies such as those in Isaiah 9 reflect that the Messiah would be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. While these titles reflect the Trinity, some Americans do not connect the Jesus born in Bethlehem with the Messiah who already existed as God now coming in the flesh,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

The religiously unaffiliated were the least likely among respondents in the survey to believe Jesus existed before Bethlehem, with fewer than 15% of them supporting the notion.

And yet in John 6:62 for example, Jesus asks His many disciples at the time: “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

The Scripture further highlights how difficult it was for many of them to embrace the idea of His divinity and pre-existence when it notes in John 6:66 that: “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

In a 2016 presentation in New York City, the American Bible Society explained that despite the Bible being the most printed and sold book in the world over the last five decades, less than half of practicing Christians in the U.S. spend serious time engaging with their Bible and the rest of the country is even worse.

At the time, Samuel Harrell, director of Project Ignition at the American Bible Society, presented evidence gathered from a six-year assessment of the state of the Bible conducted by the Barna Group which showed that just 18% of the American population 18 years and older read the Bible. Among practicing Christians, only 37% were found to engage with their Bible.

The good news is that Jesus told us that this would happen just prior to His return and that before God pours out His wrath on unrepentant sinners Christians will be taken to Heaven.

“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matthew 24:9-14

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.“ 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

ANOTHER PROPHESIED “LAST DAYS” SIGN

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A majority of evangelicals now believe that God accepts the worship of all religions, according to a new study released by Ligonier Ministries. At a time when a darkened world needs the light of the Gospel, it’s disheartening to see many within the evangelical church confused about core Biblical doctrine.

“I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me” John 14:6

Chris Larson, president of Ligonier Ministries, says the results of the 2018 State of Theology survey conducted by LifeWay Research and released Tuesday shows an urgent need for bold teaching of historic Christianity.

In the survey in which a representative sample of 3,000 Americans were interviewed, evangelicals were asked about their views on a series of theological statements including: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”

Some 51 percent of respondents were shown to agree with the statement, while 42 percent disagreed. Two years earlier in 2016, 49 percent of evangelicals were found to agree with the statement while 43 percent said they disagreed.

“The Bible is clear that the Gospel is the only way of salvation, and God will not accept the worship of other faiths. It is only through Jesus Christ and by His Spirit that we are able to worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:24),” the researchers note.

Among other troubling theology embraced by evangelicals according to the survey, is that a majority of evangelicals believe that most people are basically good by nature and that Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God the Father — some 78 percent of evangelicals agree with this. Only 71 percent of evangelicals supported this idea in 2016.

“These results are a serious cause for concern. It is the depth of man’s sin that led Jesus to die on the cross. How, then, can a majority of evangelicals say most people are good by nature? Down through history, Christians have proclaimed that Jesus is truly God, not some sort of created being. The evangelical world is in great danger of slipping into irrelevance when it casually forgets the Bible’s doctrine,” he said.

The results of the 2018 State of Theology survey, which was conducted from April 24 to May 4, 2018, echoes previous studies which have been pointing to a rejection of orthodox Christian beliefs by many American Christians.

PREPARE FOR THE NEXT ONSLAUGHT AGAINST THE BIBLE

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Response by Dr Michael Brown, host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program to media on Attorney General, Jeff Sessions quoting Scripture.

“No sooner will we quote a passage from the Bible to a non-believer (or, to a believer of a different persuasion), then they will respond, “You can make the Bible mean whatever you want it to. Remember what Jeff Sessions said?”

Jeff Sessions

In case you somehow missed the massive, swirling controversy surrounding Sessions’ use of Romans 13, the headlines are everywhere.

  • In The Washington Post: “Jeff Sessions defended family separation with the Bible. John Oliver countered with Dr. Seuss.”
  • On CNN: “What does the Bible verse Jeff Sessions quoted really mean?”
  • In USA Today: “Why is Jeff Sessions quoting Romans 13 and why is the Bible verse so often invoked?”
  • In the Huffington Post: “Jeff Sessions Has Got the Bible All Wrong.”
  • In the Star Tribune: “Jeff Sessions, immigration and the Bible: The problems with citing a passage to support an opinion.”

On and on it goes, almost endlessly. Just search for “Jeff Sessions Bible,” and you’ll be flooded with relevant links.

In short, Sessions quoted Romans 13, which calls Christians to submit to the governing authorities, to explain to “church friends” why we must uphold our “zero-tolerance” immigration laws. His exact words were, “I would cite you to the apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”

If Sessions was simply saying that we are a nation of laws, and the Bible reminds us of the importance of obeying our laws, he was saying nothing extraordinary or outlandish.

Context will not matter. Sound interpretive methods will not matter. Logic and reason will not matter.

Instead, no matter what we say and no matter how accurately we say it, the rebuttal will be instant: “The Nazis quoted the Bible too.” Or, “You’re twisting the Bible, just like Jeff Sessions did.” Or, even, “Yeah, you sound just like Trump!” (Let’s be realistic. This will ultimately be tied back to Trump. So, if you’re a conservative evangelical— especially if you’re white—and you quote Scripture, you’re guilty of whatever sins Trump committed in his lifetime. I’m hardly exaggerating.)

I’ve watched over the years as anti-Bible lies become popular memes, which then become enshrined as established truth. An example would be, “You can’t trust the Bible. It’s a translation of a translation of a translation.”

Another would be, “Constantine changed the Bible in A.D. 325. We don’t have the original Bible today.”

Today, millions of people take these falsehoods to be gospel truths, while millions more misquote Jesus’ admonition not to judge. (For what He really meant, see here and here.)

And despite the apparent reverence for Scripture reflected in the liberal response to Sessions’ use of Romans 13 (as if the liberal media were grieved that the Bible was misused), what we’re really witnessing is an outright hostility to Scripture. That’s why Tom Gilson wrote a perceptive article titled, “The Washington Post Hates the Bible. If You’re Christian, It Hates You Too.”

You can expect to see that hatred manifest in the instant dismissal of our appeal to Scripture in the days ahead.

When we quote the Word, we’ll be compared to people who want to separate children from their parents (as is happening with the immigration crisis). We’ll be likened to brainless Trump supporters (regardless of the topic under discussion). And we’ll be reminded that the Bible really has no intentional message. “It means whatever you want it to mean.”

Watch and see.”