"Twenty-five percent of born-again Christians said all people are eventually saved or accepted by God."
How can you be “born again” if you have so little understanding of the gospel?
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The following is from The God Who Is There by D. A. Carson
Pages 124-124
“Not too long ago a pollster by the name of Barna polled many self-described “born-again” folk. Of course, to conduct such a poll you have to define what born again means. He defined a born-again person as someone with a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important to them today. To be admitted to the polling group they had to affirm things like, “I have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s important to me” and “I believe that I will go to heaven when I die. I have confessed my sins and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.” When he had his group, Barna discovered, rather sadly, that the morals and way of life of these self-identified born-again people are not substantially different from those of the general public. He found that 26 percent of them did not think that premarital sex is wrong. They are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians. Research of this sort had generated book titles such as Ron Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?
So what is the “new birth” or “regeneration” really about? Does it mean that you have changed your name? Your party affiliation? Undergone some sort of religious experience?
Not for a moment am I suggesting that the research of these pollsters is wrong. At the purely phenomenological level, it is doubtless disturbingly accurate. But to reach its conclusions it has horribly abused the “new birth” or “regeneration” language used by the New Testament writers. The pollsters reason something like this: We’ll find those who make a certain evangelical profession of faith; those who make such a profession of faith we’ll acknowledge to be born again. We’ll plot their morals or lack of morals and if we discover that their morals are no different from the morals of the broader culture, we will be forced to conclude that the new birth does not radically change people.
By contrast, the reasoning of the New Testament writers is something like this: The new birth is a powerful regeneration, by God Himself, in the human life, such that those who have been born again are necessarily (emphasis his) transformed. It follows that professing Christians whose lives are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers have no biblical ground for thinking they have been born again. The pollsters are running their logic in exactly the wrong direction.”
Pages 124-124
“Not too long ago a pollster by the name of Barna polled many self-described “born-again” folk. Of course, to conduct such a poll you have to define what born again means. He defined a born-again person as someone with a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important to them today. To be admitted to the polling group they had to affirm things like, “I have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s important to me” and “I believe that I will go to heaven when I die. I have confessed my sins and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.” When he had his group, Barna discovered, rather sadly, that the morals and way of life of these self-identified born-again people are not substantially different from those of the general public. He found that 26 percent of them did not think that premarital sex is wrong. They are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians. Research of this sort had generated book titles such as Ron Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?
So what is the “new birth” or “regeneration” really about? Does it mean that you have changed your name? Your party affiliation? Undergone some sort of religious experience?
Not for a moment am I suggesting that the research of these pollsters is wrong. At the purely phenomenological level, it is doubtless disturbingly accurate. But to reach its conclusions it has horribly abused the “new birth” or “regeneration” language used by the New Testament writers. The pollsters reason something like this: We’ll find those who make a certain evangelical profession of faith; those who make such a profession of faith we’ll acknowledge to be born again. We’ll plot their morals or lack of morals and if we discover that their morals are no different from the morals of the broader culture, we will be forced to conclude that the new birth does not radically change people.
By contrast, the reasoning of the New Testament writers is something like this: The new birth is a powerful regeneration, by God Himself, in the human life, such that those who have been born again are necessarily (emphasis his) transformed. It follows that professing Christians whose lives are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers have no biblical ground for thinking they have been born again. The pollsters are running their logic in exactly the wrong direction.”
If we could just get the number to 51%, then it would really happen I guess. Truth by majority vote! There is only one vote that counts and that is God’s verdict (John 14:6). The ignorance of these so-called Christians is only surpassed by their arrogance.
Pastor Mike Harding
[Joe Whalen] By contrast, the reasoning of the New Testament writers is something like this: The new birth is a powerful regeneration, by God Himself, in the human life, such that those who have been born again are necessarily (emphasis his) transformed. It follows that professing Christians whose lives are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers have no biblical ground for thinking they have been born again. The pollsters are running their logic in exactly the wrong direction.”Too much evangelism focuses on making converts instead of making disciples! Many of those converts have faith in their profession instead of faith in God
CanJAmerican - my blog
CanJAmerican - my twitter
whitejumaycan - my youtube
Far to many of the “born again” are saved to Heaven instead of being save from the just wrath of a holy God.
I remember a man of my casual acquaintance pondering as to why so many sinner’s prayers “didn’t stick”. I responded that it is most likely because their faith was placed on the act of the prayer itself as their salvation, rather than an acknowledgment of sin and of faith in Christ. His answer was, “you may be partially right.” I’ve been in enough churches that teach salvation as fire insurance, rather than faith and obedience to a holy and righteous God.
Peace
Peace
Discussion