Who Loves to Tell the Story?

                                                                                                                                                                      Vol. VI, No. 8, October 1993

[The following article is reprinted from the Baptist Messenger, 2 September, p. 5. The statistics it presents deserve your thoughtful consideration. They indicate a number of things both right and wrong with Christianity in the United States today.]

Who is most likely to share his or her faith with someone else?

A black Protestant who lives in the South, attends church regularly, considers himself "born again," has no college education, and earns less than $20,000 a year.

That is the finding of a nationwide poll by the Barna Research Group of Glendale, CA, which sought to identify the "evangelizers" in America. The poll discovered 46% of American adults (115 million people) believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others. The rest do not – and their numbers include significant segments of the religiously devout.

Only 59% of adults who attend church worship services twice or more a month feel a need to share their faith, the poll found. Among "born again" Christians, 27% see no responsibility to share their faith. That figure is remarkable, researcher George Barna said. "These people have made a commitment to Jesus Christ that they still consider significant in their lives, and they believe they will go to heaven because Christ has forgiven their sins. Yet ... many of them strongly feel they do not need to share the experience with others. For many Americans, even born again Christians, religion remains a very private subject.

The poll reveals clear markers of people most likely to believe they ought to share their faith. "Evangelizers" are more likely to be black than white or hispanic, (62% of blacks feel a need to share their faith, compared to 44% of whites and 32% of hispanics); Southerners (56%) than Northeasteners (38%), earning less than $20,000 per year (54%) rather than earning more than $60,000 (34%), not college educated (54%) than college grads (37%), Protestant (57%) than Catholic (31%).

American "evangelizers" are most likely to hold conservative Christian beliefs, the poll found. Evangelizers are more likely to believe the Bible is totally accurate, Jesus Christ is risen and alive today, and all people will be personally judged by God.

However, about one-third of both the evangelizers and the general public believe "there are some crimes, sins, or other things people might do which cannot be forgiven by God." Also, 42% of evangelizers affirm the notion that "if people are generally good, or do enough good things for others during their lives, they will earn a place in heaven." A majority of Presbyterian and Methodist evangelizers agree with this statement, while 27% of Baptist evangelizers agree with it.

The figures are a cause for concern, Barna said. "The central message of Protestantism is in salvation by faith alone in Christ, yet 45% of Protestant evangelizers seem to be preaching a different message."