Millennials Shifting Further from Biblical Faith - with George Barna

founder at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. All three of us appreciate you listening to the program and sharing it with your friends and family. And sometimes guys, I feel like it's the George Barna show, because we have George Barna on so much, but we do that because he has such great information. And they're constantly doing new studies, and doing great

research. And so this one, today, we're going to be talking to him about the trends out there, after the pandemic, the impact that it had on people and kind of whether or not they shifted their mindset, as they saw a new role of government, and maybe less of a role of the church in too many places. And it shifted, it shifted. Not everybody, but but but some of those different I forget all the different groups, millennials, boomers, all the different

groups. So that's what we'll be talking to George about today. Talking to George about today, I should say.

Alright, thank guys. We'll be right back with George Barna, from COVID, we've seen so many good things come from potentially a bad situation, which is not surprising as Christians who understand the word of God knowing that the Bible tells us God causes all things to work together for good for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. So not surprising to see this. And yet, there were a lot of troubling things we saw as well,

throughout COVID. Also people's response to COVID when people were so willing to do what they were told and embrace things and do things that seemed illogical and didn't make sense. And of course, as Barna investigates so much of the faith aspect, I'm very curious to hear what what they were able to navigate over the last several years and explore some of those faith

related thoughts. It can give us perspective, maybe of what we're seeing in culture, and certainly the important part of as Christians, how can we engage in culture, once we have a better understanding of what's happening in culture around us? you're listening to WallBuilders.

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history, American patriot Paul Revere wrote to alert Americans of the impending arrival of the British, but he also sought Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock to warn them that the British were

seeking their execution. Adams and Hancock were staying with the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington when they asked Pastor Clark if his church was ready for the approaching British, he replied, "I've trained them for this very hour, they will fight and if need be die under the shadow of the house of God." Later that morning, 70 men from his church, faced several 100 British and the first battle of

the War for Independence. As Pastor Clark affirmed, the militia that morning were the same who filled the pews of the church meetinghouse on the Sunday morning before. The American church was regularly at the forefront of the fight for liberty. For more information on this pastor and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com

What's kind of the rough age range there?

1964. That's about the only generation most of us agree on and those are people in their late 50s, maybe around 58 up through their mid 70s, 75-76 somewhere in there. And then the elders, those are people born before the boomers born before 1946, so those typically will be considered people 77 or older.

Christian. So as they were trying to figure out how it is that they could figure out what to do with the pandemic, they were looking to other things. They they turned primarily to their feelings. They would turn to their friends and their family but they didn't turn so much to their faith. When they did basically, what we found is that the pandemic led them to believe, you know, what the elements of the Christian faith that they're aware of, and that they might have access to,

aren't very helpful. And so we saw a decline, for instance, in the number of millennials, the percentage of millennials, who believe that God is the basis of truth as revealed in the Bible, or who spent time reading or studying the Bible, during the course of a typical week, or who would be willing to attend a Christian worship service, all those kinds of things, and

others were on the decline. When we looked at 24 different variables, Faith related variables, what we found is that millennials had the lowest biblical score related to 20 of those 24 variables. And the pandemic didn't really do much at all, to move them closer to God.

into. So they don't have that they don't have mentors, or coaches, who have come up alongside them, people who they trust, who are devoted Christians that are helping them to figure it out. So that's been a real issue for that particular generation.

worldview. You're not buying into secular humanism, Marxism, Eastern mysticism, any of the comprehensive worldviews. What you're doing is saying, "Well, I like these two or three things from Eastern mysticism. I'll combine that with these two things that I liked from Marxism. Oh I like this one thing that comes out of the Bible," and you mix it all together into this customized

worldview. And that is the dominant worldview in America today, regardless of generation, regardless of whether people are churched or not. What we find is that the vast majority of people who regularly attend Christian churches possess syncretism has their dominant worldview. So, yeah, and part of the reason why that's happened is that parents in America have not prioritized or even focused on worldview development. They've let it

happen by default. And what that means essentially is that the arts entertainment media in America, as well as schools and peers and to some extent, government laws and policies have become the primary way that the worldview of our children is developed. A person's worldview is fully developed by the age of 13. So what happens with children is really where you win or lose the worldview game. And we have not taken it seriously.

The world has. And so our children have grown up saying, hey, you know when I watch movies and television, listen to music, read books, play video games, all of those possess a worldview. And I like some of the things they're showing me. And they're very consistent with it. So I'm gonna buy into that.

good at the moment. They believed that there's no foundation that they believe is this is absolute truth is this is this really back to that simple of a thing, that it's really moral relativism instead of moral absolutes?

And the other thing that we find also, that's interesting about people's worldview, is that it's typically inherently contradictory. In other words, we believe things that don't fit together, because we don't think very deeply about it. We base our worldview on whether or not it feels right, whether or not it feels good, whether or not we think it's going to be accepted by or popular with other people. And so those contradictions are just something that we live with.

as bad. But it's often what holds society together, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle push tolerance before anything else. And the results speak for themselves, we need to go back to when we shamed and pushed degeneracy out of society. Tolerance is is what people think is a good value, it's turned into a really bad value, because it's made us not want to stand against anything. Is that kind of at the heart of this as well.

entering that. Nor is there anything that should prevent us from living in the midst of constant chaos. Well, any thinking person, when they hear that we say, well, that's not right. That's not going to work. And yet, that's what that whole philosophy of allowing tolerance is about. It's just like a study that we're in the middle of

right now. We're finding that about three out of four people who regularly attend Christian churches believe, you know, it doesn't matter what faith you buy into, as long as you have some faith that you like. Well, that's just as crazy. Because then what you're doing is you're encouraging and inviting spiritual chaos, spiritual turbulence, which is no different than the kind of cultural turbulence that we're experiencing with this whole hypertolerism movement.

what got us in the mess? What's the turnaround? How do we get people to say okay, there's something stronger and longer lasting than my opinion, I need to rely on these things that have been proven over 6000 years.

But we are the church. And so those of us who love the Bible, who love Jesus, who love God, and who recognize that Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples, this is our moment in

history. And so whatever else we're doing, it's almost like we got to drop everything else, and be thinking about how can I make disciples, this is now the time when I have to stand up, I have to build relationships based on trust with people who don't know Christ, who don't like the Bible, who aren't Christian who don't attend church. And I have to be the one who's going to lead them in that direction of knowing, loving, and serving Christ with all their heart,

mind, strength and soul. That's the only reason those people are on earth, just like you and me. It's the only reason we're here. And so the way that we honor the life that God's given us, is we become disciple-makers. And so, this now is the time when we've got to know what we believe and why we believe it. We've got to be modeling it for other people.

And we've got to be willing to build those relationships, and sit down and have these kinds of Socratic dialogues with people - not where we're telling them, they're stupid, they're wrong, they're going to hell. All of

which may be true. But, you know, I mean, the reality is, we've we've got to love them into the kingdom of God, by showing them what it looks like to be a follower of Christ, answering their questions, you know, after we've posed questions, and we keep asking them why they believe what they believe, being able to answer their questions about what we believe and why we believe it, and what kind of a difference it's made, and how they can have some of that as well.

heard this right. It sounds like you also said, because of all of this being unmoored, and not having that thought people are actually hungry for that, even though they may think they just want to be able to believe anything. There's something in us that wants something solid is did I read between the lines in what you said there that people should be hungry for this truth and knowing that there's something solid?

that emptiness within them. They realize there's an emptiness, they don't believe that Christianity or Jesus or the Bible, or being part of the Christian community is is part of that solution. So it's gonna take time and effort and love and patience, and kindness and generosity, all the fruit of the Spirit, for us to be able to bring them to that conclusion. Some of them won't reach it. Because when we pursue the Great Commission, understand that it's pursued in the midst of

spiritual battle. So at the same time, that we're trying to be true to our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus, Who's called us to love these people into the kingdom, and to bring them His truth, the only real truth, at the same time, God's enemy, you know, Satan is warring against us in the minds and hearts and souls of those same people that we're trying to win over. Satan is trying to keep them away from the truth. So it's not going to be easy. Even though people are in pain. People are hurting,

they're searching. We know three out of four Millennials say they don't feel like they have a sense of purpose in life. 54% of them, you know, tell us Yeah, they're struggling with mental health issues on a regular basis, you know, fear, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, all of that. And yet, they're not willing to turn their lives over to Christ. It is a battle. So we got to be prepared to settle in for the long haul, and not give up if they reject us at first. They're not rejecting us.

They're rejecting, you know, that truth that God has given to them because Satan is war in their souls.

before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the Courageous Leaders Collection.

And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers, and there's a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman. Friends, the list goes on and

on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read into providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at wallbuilders.com. That's www.wallbuilders.com.

answers. And so in the pandemic, when churches shut down, and they stayed quiet, and they, you know, instead of leaning in and engaging, leaned back and stayed out, people look for other solutions, and sounds like it wasn't all the I forget all the generations he listed wasn't all of them. But for some of them, they really did look for other sources as their for their answers.

know what to do with them. And I've thought that a lot recently as I've seen what's happened at school boards and what's happening with the gender movement and the transitioning, etc. Where the parents? Why don't these kids know when they're five and six years old, that there's two genders, and what the differences are. And so I've looked at the parents, but that also takes me back to the church, I don't think the church has done a real good job of

training parents. I know, for generations, there used to be a lot of parenting classes that were done at churches where you dealt with that. And so now you've got a lot of parents who really don't know the Biblical approach to parenting or what to do with discipline, or how much discipline is enough? And how

much is too much. And how do you how do you correct in the right way and right spirit, so you've really got some floating generations here, and what one generation's passing the to the next is weaker than what they had, which is not a good place to be in. But this is, I think, as much as anything, it's an indication of the failure of the church to impact the culture, they've not been able to make disciples of people. They've not been able to say, make disciples of one generation to make

disciples of the next. And so the type of things that used to be there. And you know, the squishiness, one of the things I've kind of become focused on recently, and listening to so many pastors, when they're trying to deal with the culture, they say, now, we don't want to condemn the culture. And you know, we want to love the sinner but hate the sin and they go back and forth. And that's just not even a Biblical thought.

There are so many times in the Bible that God makes clear, if you don't let go of your sin, then the hate goes from the sin to the individual. In other words, a liar. God doesn't like liars. He hates lying. But if you keep lying and lying and lying and lying, that's one of the things in Proverbs 6 it says one of the seven abominations to God, those who are false witnesses. Well, He names false witness, He didn't just name lying, He named false witnesses.

So God really does have this position that look, righteousness is what's the most important. And the church today has has kind of taken the position that love is the most important thing. No, righteousness is the most important thing. If love can bring you to righteousness that's great. If judgment brings you to righteousness, that's great, but the key is righteousness, not just love and

squishiness. And we're gonna all get along, etc. And I think that's where the church is really kind of fallen down.

component. But But Peter says you should be holy as I am holy, quoting from Leviticus. There is something in the New Testament, that that is very clear about lifestyle about behavior, where Jesus even said that he was the vine and were the branches. And if we didn't bear good fruit, we'd be cut often thrown in the

fire. Right? And this is again, I mean, I hear people want Wait a second, no, this This isn't me right you'll go back and navigate, go back and read Jesus being the vine and us being the branches, go back and ponder that for a minute. And I'm not obviously the one in charge of faith or salvation, other than, Dad, to your point we have been under a church that has taught so much grace, they have not promoted truth or righteousness, to the extent where the Bible

balances things. And the Bible shows obviously there is grace. But the Bible says that God gives grace to the humble; He opposes the proud. So the Bible actually says God opposes some people, and if God opposes some people than it means those people were doing something that God did not like and God's position was clear. Now with that being said, this is where as Christians, we even have to be careful not to get into syncretism that we only pick certain parts of the Bible that

we will I like this part. I don't really like that part. I agree with this. I was literally talking with someone just this last weekend, a millennial navigating their faith. And they said, Well, I like this part of the Bible. I don't really like that part of the Bible. And we'd have a hard conversation Well, then you are the one determining what is true, and you don't have an objective standard. And that's not going to work in

reality. This is where we as Christians, as parents, and the church has to do a better job.