A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on January 16th, 2012 in Progressive Faith

The Washington Post has a short article relating poll findings from the Barna Group (here is the Barna Group’s write-up on their findings). As with most such polls, it is the results in light of themselves that I find interesting.

Barna Group, an evangelical company based in California, found that 46 percent reported no change [in their life from church attendance]. About a quarter of Americans said their life was greatly affected by church attendance and another quarter said it was somewhat influential.

Remember this as the foundation for the rest of the numbers. Otherwise, it’s just interesting that nearly half of the people who go to church are not being changed by the experience…which could mean a number of things. It could mean that they simply found a church that says things they agree with. It could mean that they aren’t really paying attention. It could mean that what they hear simply isn’t relevant to their daily lives. We just don’t know.

The second thing to note is the polling methodology. Barna writes:

This report is based upon telephone interviews conducted in the OmniPoll? (part of Barna Group’s Barna Poll series). This study consisted of a random sample of 1,022 adults selected from across the continental United States, age 18 and older. The research included 150 interviews conducted among people using cell phones. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample is ±3.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Minimal statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages in relation to several key demographic variables

All this means is that it was pretty standard, which is a good start. I wonder about the 150 cell phone calls…firstly that it’s only 150 out of 1,022, and secondly that these people actually answered a call from someone they didn’t know and answered these questions. I wouldn’t. I’m definitely in the “don’t bother me” section of such things.

The problem lies earlier when they write, “…Barna Group surveyed Americans who have attended a Christian church sometime in the past…” So someone who hasn’t attended church in fifty years (or more) would still be included. Given the problem churches have with ongoing attendance, this is absolutely going to skew the numbers downward. I think a better method might have been to pick churches at random and then poll their membership. Or perhaps asking, “Do you remember the last time you went to church?” and if they said, “No.” then their response should not be counted because if you can’t remember it, it isn’t likely you can answer questions about it.

Back in the Post, we find this: “Two-thirds of respondents said they had felt “a real and personal connection” with God while attending church.” Remember that only “about a quarter” had felt their lives had been changed by attending church. So if everyone who felt their lives changed also had a personal connection with God…then 5/12 (about 41 percent) of the people who felt a connection with God were not changed by the experience. That’s interesting to me because one would tend to think that connecting to the Almighty (or whatever one calls it) would change them. Apparently not. Maybe 41 percent of people were told by God, “Everything is just fine like it is. Don’t change a thing.

Next we find this:

Among weekly church attenders, 44 percent said they felt God’s presence every week and 18 percent said they had that experience once a month.

Unfortunately, we aren’t told how many of the 1,022 people who were polled attend church weekly. SO this is a factoid devoid of any meaning. We also aren’t told what weekly means – how many weeks in a row does one have to go before it is “weekly?” If they miss a single week, is their status revoked? If so, how far back into the past or forward into the future does that revocation reach?

This is the next factoid:

Of those who attended in the previous week, 50 percent could not recall walking away with a significant new understanding.

Again, we have no idea how many people this is. Two? Nine hundred and twelve? Such details matter.

“Significant new understanding” is also undefined. I understand that they are letting people define that however they want, and that should result in more positive responses than if it were defined for them. In that light, it is surprisingly low.

What it does managed to do is show some real researcher bias in that it supposes that the purpose of going to church is to get significant new understandings of faith/God. Somehow, I think that by the time someone has gone to church “weekly” for fifty years or so, they probably are not looking for that. The can find deep meaning in the service without it being a learning experience. It may simply deepen their faith or increase the level of a significant older understanding. It’s important to understand how unimportant this question is, because Barna says it is “One of the most significant gaps uncovered by the research was the fact that most people cannot recall gaining any new spiritual insights the last time they attended church.” In this case, at least, we are told that “most” means 61 percent.

Flipping back to the horse’s mouth, we learn that “connecting with God is perhaps the most important outcome facilitated by churches.” Yet “most” (meaningless term) “describe these encounters as rare.” What does that say about churches failing in their most important outcome? And who says this is the most important outcome?

Churches score much better in the categories of “feeling cared for” and “helping the poor.” However, there is a significant minority of people who don’t identify this at all.

Also, the size of a church doesn’t seem to matter appreciably.

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