AFA: ‘The Mission of the Church Couldn’t Be Clearer: We Must Reach This Generation with the Hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’
TUPELO, Miss. — This year of 2020 has been one of the most difficult in recent memory, on multiple fronts. Americans have battled the coronavirus. We’ve seen frequent episodes of civil unrest and racial violence. Scores of people have lost their jobs or closed their businesses, and schoolkids by the millions have had their educational progress disrupted. In addition, we’re in the midst of a highly divisive presidential election season.
Now comes the troubling results of a recent study—which should put every person of faith on notice. Just 6 percent of American adults hold to a biblical worldview today, while just 2 percent of millennials do, according to the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University and as reported by The Christian Post.
The American Family Association (AFA, afa.net)—which advocates from a biblical worldview for the constitutional rights of parents and children—finds these results both shocking and disappointing. It also urges that we “reach this generation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ” far more effectively than ever before.
Says AFA Vice President Ed Vitagliano, “It is a tragedy to discover that only 6 percent of American adults hold to a biblical worldview. But as bad as that news is, it’s actually worse. The fact is, this survey shows a precipitous drop since the mid-1990s––when the percentage stood at 12. That number isn’t great either, but it’s clear that something dramatic is happening in our country.”
Adds Vitagliano, “To learn that only 2 percent of millennials hold to a biblical worldview is absolutely heartbreaking. Many of these young people grew up in the confusion and pain of broken homes, and also spent 12 years in secular public school systems, which told them they were merely bundles of atoms in a materialistic universe without meaning.”
Data for the annual study by the Cultural Research Center was collected in January 2020, The Christian Post reported. An assessment based on 51 worldview-related questions measured both the beliefs and behaviors of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults.
Along with their “stark rejection of traditional Christian belief, millennials were also found in the study to reject most basic American values, such as respect for others and obligations of civic engagement,” The Christian Post reported. “While millennials have shown the most radical shift away from the Bible, other generations did not fare much better.”
“These profiles are profoundly disturbing,” George Barna, director of research at the Cultural Research Center, said in a statement last week about his group’s survey results. “The significantly divergent worldview perspectives and applications of the four generations … [suggest] a nation that is at war with itself to adopt new values, lifestyles, and a new identity.”
AFA’s Vitagliano shares urgently what must be done to combat this: “The mission of the church today couldn’t be clearer. We either reach this generation with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or face a future with atheistic leaders devoid of God’s hope, who put their trust in Marxist dreams of a state-run utopia. Even a cursory glance at the last century will tell us how that will work out.”
For more than 40 years, AFA has operated within the mission to inform, equip, and activate individuals to strengthen the moral foundations of American culture and give aid to the church here and abroad in its task of fulfilling the Great Commission. Visit AFA Action Alerts here.
AFA—founded in 1977—has long been on the front lines of America’s culture war. Today, AFA is one of the largest and most effective pro-family organizations in the country, with nearly a million online supporters and approximately 160,000 subscribers to the AFA Journal, the ministry’s monthly magazine. In addition, AFA owns and operates nearly 200 radio stations across the country under the American Family Radio banner.
View the media page for AFA here. For more information on American Family Association, visit www.afa.net or follow AFA on Facebook or Twitter @AmericanFamAssc.