May 01 2009
The Proof Is In The Polls???
We live and die by the polls. At least the survey takers would have us think so. While I do not doubt some polls serve a purpose, Christians need to exercise great discernment when placing any value on poll results - especially polls taken by non-Christians which assume to represent something truthful about the Christian community.
Take the recent survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. While the results may contain a kernel of truth, I found them hard to discern.
I believe the danger is when people take such surveys at face value. However, two articles I read recently seem to do just that. USA Today’s recent Religion headline claimed, “Survey: Half of US Adults Have Switched Religions.” Dr. Deb’s April 28th article on Examiner.com stated, “People Leaving Childhood Religion Blame Hypocrisy, Judgmental Behaviors.”
While both headlines are taken from the survey’s actual wording, I suggest we exercise caution when placing any weight on such things. Furthermore, the survey taker claims open-mindedness - not an understanding of the tenants of Christianity. The Pew Research Center, the parent organization, alleges to exercise, “Independence, impartiality, open-mindedness and professional integrity. . .”
There are at least four reasons Christians ought to use caution and discretion when seeking to interpret these poll results:
One - The church is in much of its current state because we have listened to the world. The world said people found church boring or irrelevant or old-fashioned. Instead of turning to Scripture to see if and where we had strayed from God’s original plan, we turned to pollsters to determine ‘what’ people were looking for. As a result we have many worldly churches which, for the most part, entertain the ungodly and starve the sheep.
Two - Most surveys are crafted and conducted by non-Christians. As a result, when conducting a ‘religious’ survey they do not understand those they are attempting to survey (remember 1 Cor 2:14 “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”).
Three - Furthermore, non-Christians are often seeking to discredit Christianity. While this is certainly not always true, there is a good chance the survey has been skewed or interpreted to discredit Christianity.
Four - Religious surveys often use ambiguous and/or broad terms which sound ‘Christian’ but which cannot be pinned down. Take the poll I mentioned above. Consider these familiar terms scattered throughout the survey results:
religion
convert
faith
Religion can mean many different things. The majority of Americans claim to be religious. However, it takes little insight to see our country is heading in a direction which is anything but Christian. Furthermore, you can find people who claim to be religious who hold to nearly every form of religion including cults, Christianity, and even a God of their own crafting.
Convert can also have very numerous meanings. A person can be a convert to Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, atheism, or Christianity. A person can ‘say’ they are a convert while only giving lip service to the reality they claim to have changed their lives. Thus calling someone a ‘convert’ does not necessarily mean they are repentant.
However, I believe faith is the most elusive term used in this recent poll. What is faith? Many Christians cannot define the word biblically. Nonetheless, this survey claims, “Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions.”
If one is truly saved, they have done more than give mental accent to the teachings of their ‘church’. In fact, I would say this survey does much to prove the truth of 1 John 2:19. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
I close with two more quotes from the survey which I believe reinforce the fact many polled were never Christians in the first place.
“Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions”
“Another reason cited by many people who are now unaffiliated is the belief that many religions are partly true but no single religion is completely true.”
Clearly, therefore, without defining terms, both for the survey taker and the survey reader, this poll is just a bunch of worthless numbers and words. Worse yet, it presents a picture which is probably quite skewed and even incorrect.
