New Barna Survey: Only 16% of Christians Believe In The Trinity?
In a new nationwide survey released by George Barna for the Arizona Christian University, only 16% of self-proclaimed Christians believe in the Trinity.
While impossible to fully comprehend, simply put, Christians believe in the “one living and true God, eternally existing in perfect unity as three equally and fully divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Godhead, while executing distinct but complementary roles in redemptive history, has precisely the same nature, attributes, and being, and is equally worthy of the same glory and honor and obedience.”
Barna notes, “The trinity is one of the central theological foundations of Christian churches. However, that teaching is widely misunderstood, often rejected, and rarely acted upon..” and the numbers show.
Only 16% of self-identified Christians have a proper understanding of the Trinity, which makes sense as most “self-identified Christians” are anything but. Only 24% of self-described born-again Christians understand the Trinity, which also isn’t saying much, but the real number is 62% of Integrated disciples, which are people with a ‘biblical worldview.’
Barna defines “biblical worldview” as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.
Notably, people who attend a Roman Catholic church have the worst understanding of the Trinity, with 91% of them holding an erroneous view.
George Barna concludes:
“It could be argued that the primary theologians influencing the spiritual views of America these days are figures such as Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson, Megyn Kelly, and Bill Maher, They mix practical and sometimes unbiblical theology and philosophical points of view into their commentary on life and world events.
Meanwhile, many Christian churches are focused on delivering multi-part series that are not effectively developing or bolstering an integrated, biblical worldview that congregants can rely upon to counteract popular, secular takes on reality.”
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I wonder if Christians becoming more philosemitic and pro-Israel has something to do with it. Jews reject the Trinity as pagan and unbiblical.
No, it is much simpler. Judaism still awaits the Christ.
No – it has more to do with ignorance from the pulpit and Christians who don’t know their Bible.
I’ve never believed in the diabolical Trinity doctrine. I believe what Jesus said – the Father is greater and he – JESUS cannot do anything on his own.
Trinity continues to drive people OUT of this debacle of a religion called ‘Christianity’.
What you said is compatible with the Subordinationist Trinity, just not with the Calvinist perichorasis (spinning) Trinity wherein you really have a modalism with a one-mind being pretending to be 3 persons and each of these persons is completely equal and interchangeable because there aren’t really 3 persons at all but just a spinning blob of divine essence pretending to be 3 persons. Perichorasis, the word Calvinists use to mean each person of the Trinity is “interpenetrating the others” actually means spinning, 3 colors of paint spinning in a bucket and mixing into one color, so in the end, its modalism.
“Existence and human influence of”
What does that even mean? Obviously they didn’t ask the question “Do you believe in the Trinity” but tried to pull some James White style gotcha BS.
And noctice the framing: “Only 16% of self-identified Christians have a proper understanding of the Trinity, ”
According to whose understanding? A Calvinist heretic’s understanding, of course, who defines the Trinity in such a way that God has only one mind and it is not partitioned among the person, and who says God is outside time and cannot think since thought requires time, and God cannot answer prayer but simply prescripted you to pray for what he was gonna do anway, etc.
It demonstrates that Bible teaching in the majority of churches is sadly very lacking, focussing on lifestyle for the here and now, and aping the world to keep non-Christians happy. But how pleased does this make God?
According to the chart, more people believe Jesus is part of who God is than that the God of the Bible, presumably the Father, is part of who God is. So, believing in a conglomerate god is still in the majority–the columns add up to more than 100%. The minority believe the HS is part of who God is.
There should have been two-grouping questions and single-entity questions as well. But that’s what one gets in theology–theologians are not logical people.