Born again Christians becoming complacent

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Complacency has hit America’s born again Christians; a study by the Barna Group warns about a lack of faith commitment.

The study examined faith behaviour of born again Christians over a ten year period and identified a

drop in church attendance,
decline in reading the Bible,
lack of faith priority in things such as volunteering

The study also found that 10% those who self-identify as Christians are less likely to be going to church than in 1991, and 31% who fit this profile have not attended church in the last six months, except for special occasions such as a wedding or funeral.

“As the number of born again adults has increased, the engagement in the Christian life seems to have waned – a common problem when a product, service, movement, or perspective gains massive numbers and velocity,” Barna group founder, George Barna stated.

“In the past decade, even the proportion of born-again adults who say their faith is vitally important to them has dipped substantially,” he noted.

Barna concluded his analysis of the born-again Christian segment of the study by saying that such a spiritual condition reflects the “pursuit of cheap grace,” as described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Barna said the condition “fits America all too snugly today.”

Ministry leader coach Scott Couchenour, founder of Serving Strong based in Ohio, said he was not surprised about the results of the study or Barna’s analysis.

“I believe it’s because of the tremendous wealth of distractions at our fingertips these days,” he said.

Sources