30 % of Evangelicals deny Jesus is God !
- Thread starter Jesus is YHWH
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I thought "Evangelical" like "Christian" actually meant something, it used to. That it was more than just a self-identity label one adopts. Something has gone wrong somewhere - why is this 30% identifying as evangelical - I mean what does that term mean to them?
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Well I did a search for the State of Theology Survey itself and glanced at that, unfortunately its hard to know what to make of the results. As another poster pointed out, it shows 97% seem to agree with the doctrine of the Trinity, if that is a true figure then its difficult to know what to make of the 30% who agree that Jesus is a great teacher, but not God? How can one believe the Trinity but not believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) - so to me the 97% is a dubious figure.
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Albion
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Obviously, something is wrong there.
This reminds me of something I've thought on before. I wonder how many people are active members of some denomination for no reason other than that their family went there, they were raised in that faith, it was near to their home, all their friends went there for social events, the people seemed nice, or anything else in that vein.
Yet we persistently assume that the membership is made up of people who carefully weighted alternatives at some point in their lives after careful study of the doctrinal profiles, validity of the worship styles, origins, and all of that.
This reminds me of something I've thought on before. I wonder how many people are active members of some denomination for no reason other than that their family went there, they were raised in that faith, it was near to their home, all their friends went there for social events, the people seemed nice, or anything else in that vein.
Yet we persistently assume that the membership is made up of people who carefully weighted alternatives at some point in their lives after careful study of the doctrinal profiles, validity of the worship styles, origins, and all of that.
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You never know what people are thinking. In other cases you can find people giving very different answers depending upon details of wording of the question.
Perhaps they thought that saying Jesus is God violated the incarnation because it denied his humanity. That's certainly not how the authors of the survey meant it, but you never know how the people taking the survey understand it. While some evangelicals consider "Jesus is God" to be the definition of Christianity, I don't believe it's actually a classical statement. It might have been better if one of the alternatives was that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
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How would you explain that with the Trinity since it declares the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are the One God ?
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The State of Theology
The question is "There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."
Among evangelicals, 81% agree strongly. 12% somewhat.
I agree that this implies that Christ is God. The question referred to in the OP was
"Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God." 32% agreed strongly or somewhat
My suggested explanation won't work with that wording.
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Albion
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Too many people have come to think of "God" and "the Father" as one and the same. So if it is said that Jesus is God, they think "No, he is the Son of God" or something like that. How many times have we heard someone say the Trinity is "God, the Son/Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?"
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Well I thought that too could be a possibility. I agree that the survey could have had a more direct question as to the participants beliefs in regard to the Incarnation. The thrust of a few of the questions is oriented somewhat towards Ligoniers own Reformed Orthodoxy, such as the ones on regeneration and faith, and another on election.
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No, I thought post #165 had found that in the results. I think it depends what filters you put on, and the website says the more filters applied the less the accuracy of the results. I cannot say what filters that poster had applied.
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Those are the figures I get also, if affiliation is set to evangelical, but beliefs to all.
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- Apr 27, 2017
- 7,612
- 8,475
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Methodist
- Marital Status
- Celibate
- Politics
- US-Others
I was in a moderately-sized Sunday School class a few years ago and the person leading it brought up the question of why we decided to join and/or attend that particular church and only a couple people mentioned doctrine or theology and for everyone else it was because they liked the people or they appreciated the family activities or a friend had invited them a long time ago and they just stayed on, etc. Based on some reading I've done on the topic, I don't think this group of people was particularly unusual in that regard. I believe the majority of people attend the churches they do because of similar reasons. In fact, it seems that many people really don't know the doctrinal/theological differences between the denominations and nor do they really care provided that there is some sort of major focus on Jesus.
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- Apr 27, 2017
- 7,612
- 8,475
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Methodist
- Marital Status
- Celibate
- Politics
- US-Others
If only a golden egg fell out of the sky for each time we've heard it even here on CF!
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the "State of Theology survey from Ligonier Ministries conducted with LifeWay Research" from OP
page 7
"There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."
Evangelical Beliefs 97%
page 7
"There is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."
Evangelical Beliefs 97%
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