Study conducted by Christian university surveying 1,000 pastors.
QUICK FACTS:
- A study released by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University indicates that only around 37% of America’s Christian pastors have a biblical worldview.
- The vast majority, somewhere around 62%, have what they identified as some sort of hybrid worldview with elements of biblical and other ideologies.
- “The pastors who do not have a biblical worldview are unlikely to fully embrace a competing worldview, such as Secular Humanism, Marxism, or others).
- Less than 1% of pastors embody a worldview other than Biblical Theism (i.e., the biblical worldview),” the Cultural Research Center reported in its findings.
DIVISION IN PASTORAL IDEOLOGY:
- “The proportion varies by the pastoral position held. Among Senior Pastors, four out of 10 (41%) have a biblical worldview—the highest incidence among any of the five pastoral positions studied,” the research center’s release stated.
- “Next highest was the 28% among Associate Pastors. Less than half as many Teaching Pastors (13%) and Children’s and Youth Pastors (12%) have a biblical worldview. The lowest level of biblical worldview was among Executive Pastors—only 4% have consistently biblical beliefs and behaviors,” the release went on to say.
- “[The] prevailing worldview is best described as Syncretism, the blending of ideas and applications from a variety of holistic worldviews into a unique but inconsistent combination that represents their personal preferences. More than six out of 10 pastors (62%) have a predominantly syncretistic worldview.”
BACKGROUND:
- The study’s data was gathered by the American Worldview Inventory (AWVI), a group that does annual surveys about the worldview of the United States adult population. The pastors were asked 54 worldview-related questions to measure beliefs and behavior.
- Dr. George Barna, Director of Research for the Culture Research Center, offered a note of hope, saying, “You cannot fix something unless you know it’s broken … Perhaps these findings will cause many of them to take a careful look at how well their beliefs and behavior conform to biblical principles and commands.”
- “God is in the transformation business. Pastors who are willing to allow Him to transform their thinking and behavior can emerge from that process as a powerful example of what can happen when one’s heart, mind and soul are surrendered to God,” Barna said. “It certainly seems that if America is going to experience a spiritual revival, that awakening is needed just as desperately in our pulpits as in the pews.”
