Christians with a Biblical Worldview

In 1995, The Barna Group began asking Americans about their beliefs relating to God, the Bible, Jesus, Heaven and Satan in order to determine the percentage of Americans in general and the percentage of "born again Christians" who have a biblical worldview. For the purposes of the survey, The Barna Group defined a "biblical worldview" as believing that:

• Absolute moral truth exists.
• The Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches.
• Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic.
• A person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works.
• Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth.
• God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.

In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a biblical worldview. The same questions were again asked of a random sampling of Americans in 2000, 2005 and 2008. Barna discovered that the percentage of the general population that has a biblical worldview has remained almost unchanged over the past 13 years. In 1995, 7 percent of the population was found to have a biblical worldview. That number went up to 10 percent in 2000, 11 percent in 2005 and then down to 9 percent in 2008.

Among born again Christians, the results were only slightly more encouraging, with 18 percent having a biblical worldview in 1995, 22 percent in 2000, 21 percent in 2005 and 19 percent in 2008. The survey also found that:

• Thirty-four percent of all adults believe that moral truth is absolute. Only 46 percent of born again Christians believe in absolute moral truth.
• Fifty percent of all adults firmly believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. Seventy-nine percent of born again Christians believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches.
• Twenty-seven percent of all adults, and 40 percent of born again Christians, are convinced that Satan is a real being.
• Forty-seven percent of all born again Christians strongly believe that it is impossible for someone to earn their way into heaven through good behavior.
• Only sixty-two percent of born again Christians believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life while He was on earth.

For further details about the survey visit www.barna.org.