{"id":5769,"date":"2022-12-31T03:13:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T03:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5769"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:46","slug":"state-of-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5769","title":{"rendered":"STATE OF THEOLOGY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last night I posted about a study on American attitudes toward the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s more poll data to consider along the same lines &#8211; and it&#8217;s just as concerning:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research ask the same questions of the American public every two years in order to discern trends in opinions regarding theology.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 2022 results are shocking.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The poll asks a series of theological questions of a sampling of American adults and then teases out stats for Evangelicals to look at in isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the purposes of this poll, Evangelicals are defined as respondents who &#8220;strongly agree&#8221; with the following 4 statements:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>&#8220;The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n<li>&#8220;It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Jesus Christ\u2019s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God\u2019s free gift of eternal salvation.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now keep those statements in mind as I share the results of just one of the questions on the poll. (Because, if you care about such things, ONE is all you can handle.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: &#8220;Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the question was asked in 2020, 30% of the Evangelicals AGREED.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thirty percent!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And how about the same question in 2022?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently 43% agree that Jesus might have been a great teacher, but He was not God!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both numbers are so shocking I am tempted to hope something is askew in the poll&#8217;s methodology.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And maybe so.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, the numbers are in alignment with my general impression that many American Christians simply don&#8217;t know &#8211; or hold &#8211; orthodox Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I am tempted to believe in the poll&#8217;s accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other results can be seen at<a href=\"https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/\">\u00a0https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I warn you: your head may explode!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night I posted about a study on American attitudes toward the Bible. Here&#8217;s more poll data to consider along the same lines &#8211; and it&#8217;s just as concerning: Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research ask the same questions of the American public every two years in order to discern trends in opinions regarding theology. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5770,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5769\/revisions\/5770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}