The results of a survey on religion have just been released by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey included questions about Christianity, as well as other world religions. We might expect that people would not know much about religions other than their own. However, the results are categorized according to the faith of the participants, and Christians performed terribly, even on questions about Christianity.
The average score of Christians, on the questions about Christianity, was about 50%. Evangelicals scored slightly higher, and Catholics scored slightly lower. Now, understand that these were not deep theological questions. They were relatively simple questions, such as being able to associate the Exodus with Moses; or, naming the first four books of the New Testament.
This is a sad testimony of the work that our churches are doing. Ephesians 4 clearly sets forth the purpose of the church as one of equipping believers with biblical truth. If evangelicals can answer only 55% of simple Bible questions correctly, how well can we perform our cause of evangelism? It’s much more difficult (although not rocket science) to clearly articulate the facets of the Gospel message of Christ. If we can’t do this, upon what do we claim to be evangelicals? Do we think that we’re Christians just because our pastor says we are?
Our churches today have largely become a place to socialize, and a way to pacify our feelings of guilt for not truly living Christian lives. Clearly, we are failing miserably on our mission of equipping and edification.