28% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated---Que the intro:
MUSIC INTRO
Welcome to Christian capsules Season 2 Capsule #3
Here we are Fixing Christianity One dose at a time.
All scripture is read from NASB 95 Edition.
Please subscribe to Christian Capsules via your favorite podcast players.
We are on all of them; Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart etc.
Main Theme: Reaction to Pew Research Poll
This is going to be my reaction to the Pew National Research Poll taken From 2020-2023.
Pew Research Centers National data poll show that 28% of of American Adults have no religious affiliation and are called “ Nones” not the catholic nuns.
Now the data of the survey shows three things worth mentioning about these “ Nones”:
§ Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power.
§ Most say religion does some harm, but many also think it does some good. They are not uniformly anti-religious.
§ Most “nones” reject the idea that science can explain everything. But they express more positive views of science than religiously affiliated Americans do.
Major Points of interest:
What I found extremely interesting is that :
1) By a variety of measures, religious “nones” are less engaged and connected socially than people who identify with a religion..
2) Most ‘nones’ believe in God or higher power, but not in biblical God
3) Most “nones” say they were raised in a religion, usually Christianity.
4) fully 90% of religious “nones” say they seldom or never go to religious services.
5) Half of ‘nones’ say they are spiritual or that spirituality is very important to them
There are tons more in this deep Poll that Pew put out, but I just want to focus on this point number 3 for a bit. Point #3 says: “Most “nones” say they were raised in a religion, usually Christianity.”
So, People are leaving Jesus, leaving Christianity; not finding what they need in the church.
WHY?
The question is why, why do we have a major drop off? Why are people who grew up Christian, leaving Jesus to basically nothing?
Part of it is Satan, working hard to take many souls with him to the lake of fire. But the other part is the church has failed in its attempt to grow the Christian population.
I’m not talking about Church buildings being built as part of church planting.
I’m talking about growing the body of Christ with proper teaching and proper handling of the Scriptures that Paul talks to Timothy about. Some Christians are teaching terrible doctrine, raising for themselves titles and labels but are not led by the Spirit. So, the congregation has nowhere to go for spiritual food. So, they seek something else.
MORE
I am rapidly seeing the decline of the Church in my lifetime in great numbers. These “nones” claim to be spiritual but have no God to call their own. That’s just sounds stupid really, but I can see why they don’t want to be strapped to a religious group especially Christianity.
Christianity in America, and I’m just going to say it, has not given anyone anything to hold on to, or to have faith in. I have found that very few pastors even preach an unadulterated gospel.
Their push for oversea missions have left the home country desolate of local missionaries. Have we forgotten about “love your neighbor as yourself.”
It seems like church missions today is to walk over your neighbor locally to go overseas. We can’t call our country Christian based where we don’t even evangelize to our own people. Jesus went to his own people in Nazareth before going out to other cities, he also went to his own-being Israel first before going to other gentile countries. He reminded the lady Samarian lady about that in Matthew 15:26.
Bad dogma is just being taught all over the place. There is no order of hierarchy in the church as far as who is eligible to be Pastors, teachers, and deacons—so anything goes.
For example, the misinterpretation of the verse about deacons being men of one wife.
1st Timothy 3:12 ESV says “Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.” I overheard someone say in a deacon meeting that means if you are divorced and remarry that disqualifies you. That’s not what Paul was saying to Timothy. Paul was referring back to a point of time where a person, especially in gentile cultures, could or would have multiple wives, or he would leave his wife, but would not divorce her and go on to take another wife..
A person who is divorced and remarries is still a person of one wife.
You see what a difference context makes, context keeps you from misinterpreting scripture. But context is not what is being taught in churches today. You will very rarely hear about historical context.
The next problem is that everyone is running out to become a minister or pastor. No calling from God, but just run out and do it because it would be cool or nice or I feel like it.
So now we have people in the wrong spots, some pastors are not meant to be pastors or teachers, but instead need to be in the congregation to learn.
Health and wealth has taken over as the important gospel. Christians in congregations are not put on notice enough for just being comfortable living the American dream.
And that’s why we have a major drop off of the Christian faith.
The numbers are alarming, but they are not shocking to me. We need to work to change this.
This Pew Research Poll should serve as a wake-up call for all Christians, mainly those who serve on church staff. We should not be having large drop offs if Church Teachings and Pastoring is according to the Word.
Churches, Christianity need to focus on Jesus and not on taking political sides. Because we can clearly see what happens when we do that (King Saul anyone?)
My name is Jermaine and I will talk to you next time.