Word: barnas
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Evangelicalism worries chronically about its youth. Polling by the evangelically oriented Barna research group shows that at least half of regular churchgoers ages 16 to 29 think their church is too judgmental, too political and too negative about homosexuality. Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow describes today's young adults as spiritual "tinkerers...
...used to be, says David Kinnaman, that Christianity was both big and beloved in the U.S. - even among its non-adherents. Back in 1996, a poll taken by Kinnaman's organization, the Barna Group, found that 83% of Americans identified themselves as Christians, and that fewer than 20% of non-Christians held an unfavorable view of Christianity. But, as Kinnaman puts it in his new book (co-authored with Gabe Lyons) UnChristian, "That was then...
...Barna polls conducted between 2004 and this year, sampling 440 non-Christians (and a similar number of Christians) aged 16 to 29, found that 38% had a "bad impression" of present-day Christianity. "It's not a pretty picture" the authors write. Barna's clientele is made up primarily of evangelical groups...
...only has the decline in non-Christians' regard for Christianity been severe, but Barna results also show a rapid increase in the number of people describing themselves as non-Christian. One reason may be that the study used a stricter definition of "Christian" that applied to only 73% of Americans. Still, Kinnaman claims that however defined, the number of non-Christians is growing with each succeeding generation: His study found that 23% of Americans over 61 were non-Christians; 27% among people ages 42-60; and 40% among 16-29 year olds. Younger Christians, he concludes, are therefore likely...
Even within the most religious groups of voters, such as born-again Christians, religious beliefs only have a limited relationship to political beliefs. For example, according to Barna Group research, one-third of born-again Christians believe that abortion is morally acceptable behavior. Nor does the religious right vote as a monolithic bloc. In 2000, 10 million white evangelicals, and almost half of all voters that self-identify as “religious right” but go to church less than once a week, voted for Gore over Bush...