It takes most people 16 years to graduate from a four year university and an additional 4-8 years to earn a doctorate in a specific field. This would require a huge variety of courses to include, but not limited to, a native language, a foreign language, science (physical and chemical), art, mathematics (algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc.), psychology, sociology, logic and various other liberal arts. This would make for a well rounded education yet advanced in their chosen field.
The majority of Christians are Christian from their youth, or they were at least raised in a Christian home. This precludes that they would have attended church for many years. Studying Christianity is like studying one subject, albeit a very complex subject with a BIG text book. This means studying one subject or specialty for decades yet there are many studies which state claims such as “only 45% of Americans can name all 4 gospels”. This is basic (elementary school level) information for a Christian and if 78% of Americans say they are Christian, and have been for many years, then what is happening? Are Christian leaders not teaching Christianity? Are individuals not interested in learning about the Bible? If they are not interested in learning about the Bible and they are Christian, why are they disinterested? Are they unconvinced of its reality? Are we not supposed to learn and only need to ‘feel good’ about our belief?
It is usually my primary focus to get people to ask themselves questions. Let me offer one suggestion; if you do not have Bible teaching where you are, then find some resources. There are many resources out there from internet, computer based to literature. We will be held accountable for everything that we have and have not done regardless of whether the information was easy to attain. When life on Earth is over, it is up to us to have accomplished the goals established for us. I’m not referring to a larger house or faster car, but rather those whom we were supposed to help either with encouragement or answered questions. Am I doing my best to accomplish these goals? Are you?
*In 1997, 88% of Americans were either Protestant or Catholic and in 2007 that number dropped to 78%. 25% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 claim no affiliation at all and the number of those subscribing to atheistic thought rose from 8% to 16%.
*The report is based mostly on data from Pew’s 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 Americans and the General Social Survey
"Are individuals not interested in learning about the Bible?"
ReplyDeleteTo most people I think it's a big, old, dusty, (boring) history book. Although, if you asked them, they would wiggle around the truth. Also, if you asked them if they were interested in God "helping" them they would be all for it.. SHOW ME THE MONEY! But they're not interested in investing their time. The part that really kills me though is that the people that think this way don't seem to understand what's wrong with their lives, why God's not blessing them, although they would understand totally why their investment in the stock market wasn't yielding any turns when they haven't invested anything in the first place..
That's my two cents..