There is a growing of Americans who saythey “love Jesus but not the Church,” as revealed by a data released by the Barna Group.
According to the polling firm, the group comprise of people with a genuine faith in Jesus who have not attended church in the past six months or more — a cohort that makes up about 10 percent of the population, up from 7 percent in 2004.
The group also outpaces practicing Christians when it comes to the belief that “God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect creator of the universe who rules the world today,” with 94 percent embracing that sentiment, versus 85 percent of practicing Christians and 57 percent of U.S. adults at large.
The cohort’s beliefs, alone, show that there’s still, on many levels, a deep spiritual connection.
When it comes to the strong belief that there is only one God, 93 percent of those who “love Jesus but not the church” embrace this sentiment verses 90 percent of practicing Christians and 59 percent of U.S. adults overall. And these individuals are just as likely as practicing Christians to say that they engage in prayer.Consider that 89 percent of these individuals have “made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important to their life today,” according to Barna. In some ways, these individuals are even more fervent than their “practicing Christian” peers.
Quoting, the editor-in-chief of Barna Group Roxanne Stone,“While many people in this group may be suffering from church wounds, we also know from past research that Christians who do not attend church say it’s primarily not out of wounding, but because they can find God elsewhere or that church is not personally relevant to them.”
When it comes to demographics, the majority of those who fall in the “love Jesus but not church” camp are women (61 percent), white individuals (63 percent) and the vast majority are between the ages of 33 and 70.
But things start to change a bit when it comes to this group’s perception of religious truth versus those who would be counted as practicing Christians. Just 55 percent of the “love Jesus but not the church folks” disagree either strongly or somewhat with the statement that “all religions basically teach the same thing.” This aligns more with the general population (51 percent) than the proportion found among practicing Christians (68 percent).
Source: Faithwire.com
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