Who said this?
“You must defend those who are helpless and have no hope. Be fair and give justice to the poor and homeless.”
16% of Americans surveyed believed the statement came from President Obama–the number one response in the study. 9% said the Dalai Lama. Martin Luther King Jr. came in at 8%, and Oprah Winfrey garnered 4%. And 3% said Bono. Taken together, 54% of American misidentified the correct source. Only 13% got it right–the Bible (Proverbs 31:8-9). (read the full report)
Perhaps the most disturbing finding of the study was that 80% of Americans claim to be familiar with the Bible. In other words, the vast majority of Americans believe they know what the message of the Bible is at least in general terms. And yet survey after survey reveals just the opposite. It seems we have a population that is largely inoculated to the Christian message. They believe they know it and have written it off as invalid, unhelpful, bigoted, or antiquated. But in truth they don’t know what they don’t know.
What’s even more bothersome, however, are the conversations I have with life-long Christians who have never heard about or really experienced life with Christ. For many Christ has been presented as an instrument, a means to an end–eternal life, a happier marriage, a solution to sin, a way through difficult circumstances. But they don’t have any concept of Christ being the end, the goal, focus, and treasure of life. In a way they too have been inoculated to the Gospel right inside the church.
For those of us in church leadership and Christian ministry, we’ve got to stop assuming that most people “get it.†Whether inside our outside the confines of the institutional church, people don’t know what they don’t know.
