As you look back over your career, can you sort of give us a, a broad overview of what those trends are, you know, what's noteworthy and, and what you're concerned about?

Well, Casey, I think the things that right now concern me are, first of all, if we look at the number of people who can be considered to be disciples, and we measure this in our research.

We use the six factors that Jesus gives us in scripture for what makes somebody a disciple.

You know, in John 8, he talked about, uh, "You need to consistently obey my teaching." John 13, he said, uh, "You need to love other disciples." John 15, he said, "You've gotta produce a lot of spiritual fruit.

You will be my disciple if..." was the phrase that he used in front of each of those.

And then in Luke 14, he's got three passages where he says, "You cannot be my disciple unless..." And in, uh, verse 26 of chapter 14, he says, "You can't be my disciple unless you put God first in your life before anything and everything else." Next verse, he says, "And you can't be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and carry me," which meant basically, "Give up your agenda for life.

Adopt the agenda that I have for you for your life." And then in verse 33, he says, "Can't be my disciple unless you surrender everything for me." So we measure those types of things in a variety of ways.

Is that what it means to have a biblical worldview? How narrow is it, uh, or is it just, is it pretty broad?

And so, uh, when we see how little, uh, we, impact we've made on the culture and how much impact culture has made on the church, uh, it's hard not to get a little discouraged and say, "Hey, we hadn't been doing our job."

But, you see, I look at it a little bit differently.

I say, "Well, let's not get discouraged.

Let's be thrilled that the Lord gave us the tools to be able to discern where do we stand." Now that we've been able to measure this, and we can identify, "Oh my goodness, here's our weaknesses," that's how you build up a strong church.

That's how you build a strong nation, by knowing where you are and by addressing the problems that you've got.

So the fact that we now know that only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview, that we've got a weak foundation, that churches have not been doing a good job at presenting these things to the people, and that parents, who according to Deuteronomy 6 are the ones who are responsible for teaching this to their children, they're not doing it.

Great.

Yes.

You need to

get through the day because you're going to be making decisions and you have to make it based on something.

And what my research years ago discovered was that a person's worldview starts developing at 15 to 18 months of age and is completely developed by the age of 13.

So that 12-year window of time when we're children is critically important not just for us to have a good time, to establish friendships and feel like we're part of a great family, but it's most important perhaps because that's when we develop a worldview, this decision-making filter, that we're going to carry with us for the rest of our life.

I did a longitudinal study.

We tracked people's spiritual journey.

One of the things that came out of that research was that a person's worldview barely, if ever, changes after the age of 13.

Do you find many pastors actually consistently teaching these seven cornerstones?

What made you decide to do it?

Alan, as you know, for decades now, I've been trying to figure out what do Americans believe? Why do they believe it? How do they come to that conclusion? What are they doing about it? And what we've discovered essentially is that they're not thinking much of anything.

They have a whole series of beliefs, but it hasn't really been formed by family.

It hasn't been formed by the church.

It's been formed by the culture.

And so the additional research we did was to try to figure out, well, what's that decision-making filter that they're using to make these wild choices that have driven our culture, uh, you know, off the cliff basically? And came to understand that everybody's got a worldview.

It forms really early, and it, it, it-- there are many different options that you can choose.

[laughs]

That's what Charlie prayed.

Yeah, and I think the challenge that we've had for the last four decades, again, that's as long as I've been measuring it, but during that point in time, we've been trying to do it our way.

And essentially our way is, you know what, we can market people into the kingdom of God.

And so we're going to figure out what their felt needs are, and we're going to pander to their felt needs, as opposed to recognizing, no, let's look at it from God's point of view.

We're sinners in need of a Savior.

We are weak people in need of the strength of God, and so he'll send the Holy Spirit.

We are hopeless without Jesus.

Why do we misunderstand sin so much?

When we use the word worldview, what do we mean, and how does one get a worldview?

Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me back, Janet.

I appreciate it.

And, you know, when we talk about worldview, what we're talking about is – a decision-making filter that every one of us possesses.

We have to because we're making decisions all day, every day.

And so we've got to make it based on something.

And that's what our worldview is.

And

So what does a worldview have to do with surviving these lifequakes? Are these trials? Are these things that could potentially rock your world or worldview?

I mean, we face those every day, you know, from major crises to little irritations.

But these are things that are always pressing us to try to figure out who am I? What do I believe? What am I trying to accomplish? You know, what's going to fulfill my destiny? What do I think my destiny is? All of these kinds of core issues and constantly we're being pushed and tugged and challenged and You know, trials and tribulations, as you allude to, are always in our midst.

So the way that you get through life successfully is by understanding that God made you.

He made you for a purpose.

He loves you.

That's why he made you.

Do you want to comment a little bit further on that before we get to the next question?

What would you say to how to think like Jesus?

Well, through the research, we were able to identify what we're calling these seven cornerstones that really become the foundation of from which we build a more complete understanding of how Jesus thought and therefore how he lived.

And when we look at those cornerstones, they're very, I think most people would call them basic Christian beliefs.

You know, it has to do with what you believe about God, knowing that he's the all-knowing, all-powerful creator, ruler of the world, and some of his attributes that go along with that.

understanding that all of us are born as sinners and that sin has consequences, realizing that those consequences don't have to undermine us, that if we're willing to acknowledge that we're sinners and that Jesus died on the cross to forgive us for those sins, we can overcome some of those consequences, realizing that In order to think and live that way, you have to understand that, well, therefore there must be truths, moral truths, absolute moral truths, ones that are always true regardless of the circumstances.

And Jesus would also say, and therefore to know those, turn to your Father in heaven.

Turn to his words given to you because they identify what those absolute moral truths are and why they matter and how you can live in harmony with them.

George, give us a little tease on some of the seven cornerstones, if you don't mind.

Here now from that recent conversation is George

Barna.

You know, there are a lot of big picture observations that come out of this kind of research.

One is that we're rapidly moving away from biblical truth rather than toward it.

We're rapidly moving away from God rather than inviting him into our lives in a deeper, more meaningful way and wanting to do things that bring honor and pleasure to him.

And in fact, we're at a point now where when we look at the proportion of people who believe in the God of the Bible, who we described as the all-powerful, all-knowing, just and merciful god who created the world and still rules it today i mean that's that's you know just a thumbnail of who god really is it's not the whole resume you know it's just a little summary and we found that only 50 percent of americans believe that now now when i started studying research back in grad school you know back in the dark ages i mean we were according to the gallup research at that point about 90 of americans believed in that god so you look at that 40 or 50 year period of time we've lost a lot of altitude really quickly but when i look at the studies i've been doing over the last 40 years what i find is that we've been losing altitude much faster the last 15 years So it's that velocity of the loss of connection with scriptural truth that I find most disturbing.

invest ourselves in studying the word, trying to figure out, is it true? Can I prove it? Do I see it playing out in reality? Instead, how do we make these judgment calls now? And people are very willing to tell us this.

spiritual smorgasbord make up your own theology as you go along and whether it's you know teaching that has been handed down and people develop this this view or just a you know intentional departure from the ways of scripture but but basically when you look at the inroads that syncretism has made which is kind of like a you know uh a selection of a different you know an amalgamation of a bunch of different types of of theology but not biblical theology so go a little bit in depth here as far as what you you are seeing now as a result of the latest study as far as what americans really are are believing with respect to this syncretism

So how do you delineate between – these different categories because depending i would dare say generally speaking depending on the the devotion level as someone that really regards himself or herself as a disciple of christ that really hopefully ideally determines the way they regard the scriptures and think with a christian worldview perspective so how do you how do you sort all that out

Well, Bob, it's a great question, and it's not easy to do and it's not easy to answer.

It's a little complicated.

And in fact, part of the challenge that we have in our research is that we've got so many different segments of the Christian community that we're looking at that close to a third of our survey is taken up with questions just enabling us to classify people before we even get into what they believe, what they do, and so forth.

But there are different groups that I've learned you have to look at separately in order to understand what's really going on.

You've got those people who, as you mentioned, call themselves Christians.

We call them self-identified Christians.

spiritual smorgasbord make up your own theology as you go along and whether it's you know teaching that has been handed down and people develop this this view or just a you know intentional departure from the ways of scripture but but basically when you look at the inroads that syncretism has made which is kind of like a you know uh a selection of a different you know an amalgamation of a bunch of different types of of theology but not biblical theology so go a little bit in depth here as far as what you you are seeing now as a result of the latest study as far as what americans really are are believing with respect to this syncretism

These findings are almost contradictory or at least paradoxical.

Well, and my way of looking at this is whenever you're trying to help somebody to figure out what the Christian faith is all about, you want to start by building a strong foundation.

And so over the course of the seven-plus years that I've been doing the worldview research at ACU Arizona Christian, we've learned a lot of things about what that foundation might consist of.

And when we look at...

Gen Z, what we discover is they don't have a good foundation.

And so what they're doing is they're just launching out there into the religious marketplace, gathering information and experiences and relationships.

And in a vacuum, essentially, they're trying to put that all together and make sense of it.

Why do you think that is?

What do you say? Is not attending church a sign that we have lost faith or are we simply doing our faith differently?

It can be both.

It depends on the individual and what their motives are, what their desires are as a result of that choice.

And I would go back and say, well, I mean, let's be gentle about this because the truth of the matter is The local church, the way that we know it in our country, isn't in the Bible.

We kind of made that up centuries and centuries ago as human beings trying to figure out a bunch of issues.

But it's not in the Bible.

So let's not pretend that that's sacrosanct.

What do you think about social media?

But I- I'm wondering, you, you guys have been doing a deep dive into this, and are we literally experiencing a revival among this youngest adult generation?

You know, Todd, it's a very hard thing to measure, but what I would say is at this point, probably not.We have research tracking the adult portion of Gen Z for the last six or seven years.

So we go back to when they were teenagers, we advance now to when they're young adults, and what we're finding is that there are some changes in their faith perspectives, in their beliefs, their behavior.

But when we put it all together, it's really kind of a mixed bag.

They're, they're certainly a group that's searching.

So I would say this is a great time.

The window is open.

Did, did you guys, in your research, did you see any, any movement there, um, a- in the aftermath? I'm talking about spiritual movement after the, after Charlie's, uh, assassination.

All right, what was your second one? I'm sorry.

Second one is that Church-going Christians are really lukewarm toward Israel.

We ask simple questions about, you know, what's it important to do for Israel? Is it important to pray? Is it important to talk to other people about the importance of supporting Israel? Is it important to have our government support Israel? Is it important for you personally to invest some of your personal resources into supporting Israel? The only one that got a majority of churchgoers saying, yeah, that's very important, was praying for Israel.

So that's a good thing.

But we only had 60% of regular churchgoers saying it's important to even pray for Israel.

So clearly we've got a lot of issues there.

And then, of course, the other thing that we looked at in this study was people's worldview.

I think a lot of people think they're just being a good Christian because they're being nice to people and they just don't know these things that we're asking them about here.