Basic Christian beliefs
What basic beliefs define a Christian?
Do you believe that….
Man does not earn his way into heaven by good works?
Jesus Christ was without sin?
Satan is real?
The Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches?
If so, you disagree with a majority of American Christians, according to surveys. Keep in mind that about 57% of Americans identify themselves as Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, or Episcopalians (Catholics are the largest group at 24.5%). And about 15% of Americans aren't Christians.
Only 21 percent of America's Lutherans, 20 percent of the Episcopalians, 18 percent of Methodists, and 22 percent of Presbyterians believe that man does not earn his way to heaven by good works. (By contrast -- Assemblies of God, Pentecostal/Foursquare and non-denominational groups: 60 %)
Christ was without sin? Of Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists, only 33% agree. Episcopalians: 28%.
(Among Baptists, the nondenominational, the Assemblies of God, and the Pentecostal/Foursquare churches, 55, 63, 70 and 73 percent believe that Christ is sinless.)
Is Satan real? The main Protestant church members disagreed by 78 - 83%.
Only one-quarter of Christians overall (27%) strongly believes that Satan is real while a majority argues that he is merely a symbol of evil.
Mormons, whose church's theology differs from that of Protestants and Catholics, aligned themselves with evangelicals and Pentecostals on most issues, especially Christ's sinless being (70 percent). On the other hand, only 15 percent of the Mormons agreed that man was not saved by good work...
Less than half of all Christians (41%) believe the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches.
Less than one-third of all Christians (32%) believe they have an obligation to share their religious faith, ranging from a high of 73% among Pentecostals to a low of 12% among Episcopalians (Catholics: 17%).
All Barna Research studies define "evangelicals" as individuals who
-- meet the born again criteria;
-- say their faith is very important in their life today;
-- believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians;
-- acknowledge the existence of Satan;
-- contend that eternal salvation is possible only through God's grace, not through good deeds; believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth;
-- and describe God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today.
In this approach, being classified as an evangelical has no relationship to church affiliation or attendance, nor does it rely upon people describing themselves as "evangelical."
This classification model indicates that only 8% of adults are evangelicals. Barna Research data show that 12% of adults were evangelicals a decade ago, but the number has dropped by a third as Americans continue to reshape their theological views.
About 57% of Americans identify themselves as Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, or Episcopalians (Catholics are the largest group at 24.5%).
Baptists (both types) are about 16%. Other Protestant groups are about 10%.
8.2 % identify themselves as non-religious or agnostic (0.7%).
Just under 2% are Jewish, 2% are Mormon, and 0.8% are Jehovah's Witnesses.
Eastern Orthodox are at about 1%.
Islam and Buddhist are estimated at about 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.
2 - 5% in any survey are undesignated.
For more information:
http://www.adherents.com/misc/BarnaPoll.html http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#gallup
Surveys routinely show that about 40% of Americans say that they go to church regularly. That is a higher rate than any 'Western' country except Ireland. Studies of actual behavior put regular church attendance at 20 - 26%. About 8% say they never attend church.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm
What this information does for me, as a non-believer, is raise questions about what people mean when they say 'This is a Christian country'. Or, for that matter, when non-believers reply 'no, it's a secular country'. Really, both statements can be true! Demographics point to the former, while our constitutional structure is secular.
It is a country in which most people call themselves Christian (and as an outsider I pretty much take anyone at their word if they say they're Christian). But they clearly don't share common beliefs about what that means and most don't attend church. Only about 8% are evangelicals, and only about 8% are non-believers--but those are the two groups who drive the most passionate debates about moral and church/state issues.
The vast majority of Americans seem to be somewhere in the middle on those issues: reasonably tolerant of other views, and uncomfortable with viewpoints they perceive as extreme. If anything, as one of the article says, they have gradually adopted a theology more akin to the 18th century deism that was common among American political leaders such as Jefferson.
Deism is defined in Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1941, as: "[From Latin Deus, God.Deity] The doctrine or creed of a Deist." And Deist is defined in the same dictionary as: "One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason."
(from:
http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm)
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Einstein are usually described as deists.