What do you believe about God, salvation, ethics, and the Bible? Does what you believe align with historic Christianity?
As believers, we have a purpose to glorify God in all we do and make Him known to the world around us. In a nutshell, we should strive to live for Christ faithfully in our daily lives. So, what we believe matters because it affects how we live.
How we live is in part due to what we believe. What do we believe about God, Jesus, and the Bible?
In partnership with LifeWay Research, Ligonier Ministries conducted a survey called “State of Theology.” The study intended to gauge American adults’ theological beliefs and convictions across various religious backgrounds. The survey provided valuable insights into the theological landscape of our society and helped us understand how beliefs and attitudes toward Christianity have evolved.
This survey was conducted in 2022 and has been conducted every two years since 2018. So we can hope to see another one this year in 2024.
Here are some findings from the survey:
32% strongly agree that God learns and adapts to different circumstances.
45% strongly agreed God accepts the worship of all religions.
31% strongly agree that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.
65% agree Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.
53% agree that the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.
It was noted from the survey that there is a trend of theological confusion about belief in God and foundational Christian doctrine. Moral relativism is pervasive in our culture today, and the results of the survey reveal its influence on those who claim to be Christians. Many believe right and wrong are determined by individual circumstances rather than objective moral standards. This belief is opposite to foundational Christian doctrine.
This is the world in which we live.
We can’t bury our heads in the sand to what is happening around us. We should try to equip ourselves and others with the truth found in Scripture.
So what can we do?
Know God for yourself
Read and Study the Bible
Apply what you’re learning
Share what you learn/teach others
Pray
It’s essential that if we claim to be followers of Christ, we have a foundation of a Biblical worldview.
Studying the Bible to know, understand it will help us learn how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in our society today.
Let’s remember that Jude said,
“Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Jude 3-4 NLT
References
The State of Theology thestateoftheology.com.
