Michael Lindsay has, through extensive interviewing, tapped into a feature of American evangelicalism that’s both fascinating and frustrating: two distinct social tiers. He identified these as the “populist” and "cosmopolitan” groups, which he wrote about in Faith in the Halls of Power. But there’s another way of looking at evangelicals that divides them — much along the same lines — into elite and non-elite Christians.

The separation is fairly deep, it seems. So deep that they don’t really go to church together. In fact, Lindsay writes in Monday’s USA Today, many of the evangelical elite (including George W. Bush) hardly go to church at all:

I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country's top leaders — two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half — 60% — had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.

Everybody loses out, Lindsay says: “Community is a virtue for most religious traditions, but evangelicals have excelled at it. Declining church commitment among these leaders, therefore, is ripping at the very fabric that has distinguished American evangelicalism.”

He addresses the reasons for this (frustration with the way churches are run) and the issue of where these elites do have Christian fellowship (exclusive Bible studies, parachurch ministry boards), and takes them gently to task for elitism.

But he doesn’t give them the assignment of solving the problem — in this article, that’s meted out to clergy.

Organized religion is perhaps the one factor that could motivate people to bridge the gap between rich and poor, especially now as more of the faithful move into the halls of power. To turn the tide, clergy around the country must engage and draw in these leaders. Otherwise, affluent believers will continue to leave their congregations — and their fellow believers — behind in their ascent, creating a gated community of the soul.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at February 12, 2008 | Comments (16)

According to a new poll conducted by the Barna Group, a substantial majority of Americans believes in the literal truth of six key Bible stories. For those of us worried about how to communicate biblical truth in our increasingly postmodern and pluralistic culture, the findings indicate that many folks continue to accept the Word of God at face value.

Here are the overall results among adults to the question of whether they thought a specific story in the Bible was “literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible”:

Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (75%);

Daniel in the Lion’s Den (65%);

Moses parting the Red Sea (64%);

David and Goliath (63%);

Peter walking on water (60%);

God creating the universe in six days (60%).

When you break down the numbers, it gets even more interesting. Several factors are correlated with less belief in a literal resurrection: high education, mainline vs. non-mainline Protestantism, Catholicism vs. Protestantism, and white vs. black. So, statistically speaking, a highly educated white Catholic or mainline professor from the Northeast would likely be more skeptical than a blue-collar African-American Protestant from the Midwest or South.

Further, the more skeptical you are about the Bible, the more likely it is that you are a political liberal. On the flip side, the more you take these narratives literally, the more likely you are to be a conservative:

There were very consistent patterns related to people’s political inclinations. Of the six stories examined, just one story (the resurrection of Christ) was considered to be literally true by at least half of all liberals. In contrast, among conservatives, only one of those stories was taken literally by less than 80% (the 76% who embraced the six day creation as absolute truth.) Similarly, the data showed that Republicans were more likely than either Democrats or Independents to accept each of the stories as literally accurate. For all six narratives, Independents were the voting group least likely to hold a literal interpretation, an average of twenty percentage points lower than the norm among Republicans.

This hints, to me at least, that the national Democrats, despite their recent rediscovery of people of faith, have an uphill climb ahead in winning their trust—and their votes. Certainly they have done so with African Americans. It remains to be seen if they will be able to get the much larger numbers of white Protestants to also believe in them.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at October 24, 2007 | Comments (7)

A new study by The Barna Group shows that Americans "remain confident that some of the most amazing stories in the Bible can be taken at face value."

The nationwide survey asked adults their take on six well-known Bible stories (Creation, parting of the Red Sea, David killing Goliath, Daniel in the lion's den, Peter walking on water, the Resurrection of Jesus) whether the story was “literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible” or whether they thought the story was "meant to illustrate a principle but is not to be taken literally."

The results are broken down by faith tradition, geography, race, and education. To take one overall finding, though: "The story of Jesus Christ rising from the dead, after being crucified and buried" was the story most widely embraced. Three out of four adults (75 percent) said they interpreted that narrative literally.

Yet polls and anecdotal evidence suggest that 75 percent of Americans are not living dedicated lives to the resurrected Jesus!

This should give us apologetic pause. A great deal of evangelical apologetics is about proving the historicity of the resurrection (or creation--intelligent design or 7-day--but nearly two-thirds of Americans already believe in a literal 7-day creation). The figures suggest that this is NOT the battle ground for most Americans. It is the relevance or meaning of the resurrection that seems to elude Americans. It is not a stretch for most people to believe that a God who created the universe could raise Jesus from the dead, among other miracles--Duh. What is a stretch is understanding what difference it makes.

Perhaps it's time for a new chapter in evangelical apologetics. Not "The Resurrection--Did it Happen?" but "The Resurrection--So What?"

Posted by Mark Galli at October 22, 2007 | Comments (6)

A new United Nations report, "State of the Future," points to signs of progress across many measures of human development. The document concludes, "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer." According to an analysis by Stephen Moore:

World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

It also turns out that the Malthusians (who worried that we would overpopulate the planet) got the story wrong. Human beings aren't reproducing like Norwegian field mice. Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall.

Yet despite all this progress, much of what hear these days in the mainstream media seems designed to scare us about global warming, environmental destruction, crumbling families, rampant crime, Islamofascism, and global terror. And while these dangers may (or may not) be real, certainly it can't be un-Christian to give thanks to the One who rules unseen in the affairs of human beings, causing his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Many of the causes of these good gifts result from the influernce of Christianity, including political freedom, economic growth, and the rise of modern science. Surely a person of faith can see the glass as half-full, at least sometimes. We don't always have to claim the sky is falling.

Granted, the world still has major problems (such as the fact that more than a billion people subsist on a dollar a day or less). But what does Christianity, which calls the poor blessed and offers mankind real peace, have to say to a world that increasingly feels rich and unthreatened? What do Christians who seek to meet felt needs to introduce people to Christ do when people feel no needs? If your main appeal is helping people to feel better in the here and now, what do you say when they already feel good? And given the fact that the church often grows amid suffering, what happens when there is no suffering? Yes, the kindness of God is intended to lead us to repentance, but sometimes it seems as if few are so led.

Certainly felt needs do not always match real needs. And Christianity teaches that our real, most basic need (whether we know it or not) is forgiveness of our sins in order to have life with God. No matter how much comfort and convenience ths world offers, it cannot give us a relationship with God. Only Christ can do that. How do we communicate the Good News in this context? It hasn't worked out too well in affluent Western Europe, has it?

One final thought: This talk of human progress and development is eerily reminiscent of talk a hundred or so years ago that the 20th century was to be the "Christian century." Then came the Great War. Then Hitler. Then Stalin. What started so brightly turned to chaos in the space of a few years. With the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the decoding of the human genome (with all its potential for good and ill), may the same history not repeat itself in our day.

But there are no guarantees.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at October 10, 2007 | Comments (4)

While an apple a day may (or may not) keep the doctor away, a growing body of research indicates that exercise may keep the psychologist away. Alessandra Pilu of the University of Cagliari in Italy and other investigators reported their conclusions in the online journal of Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health.

"The study found that depressed women who started a supervised exercise regimen had significant improvements in their symptoms over the next 8 months. Those who didn't exercise showed only marginal improvements.

"Before the study, all of the women had tried taking antidepressant medication for at least two months but had failed to improve.

"A number of studies have found that physically active people are less likely than couch potatoes to suffer depression. Some clinical trials have shown regular exercise can help treat the disorder, and perhaps be as effective as antidepressant drugs in some cases.

"The new findings suggest that exercise can even help people whose symptoms have been resistant to medication, according to the study authors."

Since an estimated two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, high rates of mental illness shouldn't surprise us. Mental illness is not just mental. We are integrated, living souls, and approaches must be holistic, treating mind, body, and spirit.

Perhaps being overweight is a largely unexplored factor in the epidemic of depression afflicting children and teens in the United States. Observers say that about 5 percent of adolescents suffer from clinical depression, and suicide is said to be the third-leading cause of death among teenagers.

Combine those figures with statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the number of overweight children has tripled in just 30 years, with 12.5 million teens considered overweight, and you'll see how significant the problem is. No wonder the Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a $324 million ad campaign aimed at stopping obesity.

So if you're feeling down, depressed, or blue, turn off the TV, computer, or video game, get off the couch, and take a hike. Exercise will not solve all your problems, of course (and you may need to check with your doctor first). But for a healthier and happier you, it may be a great place place to start.

Hat tip: Christine Guthrie

Posted by Stan Guthrie at July 25, 2007 | Comments (6)