If ever there was a need to return to the ministry of discipleship, this report shows it is now. We cannot allow another week to go by without educating believers in what the Bible teaches.
"According to a study released last month by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of general religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
Of the 32 religious knowledge questions, the average number of correct answers was 16. Atheists and agnostics averaged 20.9 correct answers, Jews averaged 20.5 correct answers and Mormons averaged 20.3 correct answers. Catholics answered an average of 14.7 questions correctly and Protestants, as a whole, gave an average of 16 correct answers. Of the 12 questions dealing with Christianity, Mormons answered an average of 7.9 correctly and evangelical Christians answered an average of 7.3 correctly.
The survey also dealt with perceptions relating to the separation of church and state, and found some confusion over the line between teaching and preaching in public schools. Among the questions most often answered incorrectly is whether public school teachers are permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature. Two-thirds of those surveyed (67%) said "no" to this question, even though the Supreme Court has stated that the Bible may be taught for its "literary and historic" qualities, as long as it is part of a secular curriculum. The single question that respondents most frequently got right is whether U.S. Supreme Court rulings allow teachers to lead public school classes in prayer. Nine-in-ten (89%) correctly said this is not allowed. (The results of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey were based on interviews with 3,412 randomly sampled adults from May 19 through June 6, 2010. For the complete report go to The Pew Forum.)"
Could it be that as more and more churches have done away with the Sunday morning Discipleship hour (i.e. Sunday School), they have set the stage for the "dumbing-down" of Christians? Let us return - NOW - to teaching the Bible, and away from many of the fads that have prevailed in many churches these past several decades that have set this stage. If you are in a church that does not offer a Discipleship Training hour or small group, ask you Pastor to begin one. If you are a Pastor who has opted out of Discipleship hours for the conveneince of compacted service times, or some other reason, reconsider what you are doing. We cannot do in 30-45 minutes in the pulpit what needs to be done in training and making disciples. I call you to return to the making of disciples through diligent systematic studies of the Bible, that is Sunday School or its equivalent..
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