Dumb Christians and Smart Atheists?

In the last week news outlets began reporting on the findings of a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey asked 32 questions on tenets, practices, history and leading figures in major world religions. The overall average score was 16 correct. Here is the breakdown of how major religious groups compared as reported by USA today initially on September 29, 2010:

Demographic Group & Number Correct
Atheist/Agnostic 20.9
Jewish 20.5
Mormon 20.3
White Evangelical Protestant 17.6
White Catholic 16.0
White Mainline Protestant 15.8
Black Protestant 13.4
Hispanic Catholic 11.6
By Anne Godlasky, USA TODAY
*Atheists and Agnostics were scored separately but had the same number correct. Source: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life phone survey of 3,412 U.S. adults in May and June. Margins of error: +/-2.5 percentage points overall, larger for subgroups.

You can actually go to the USA Today website and see how you do on five sample questions from the survey. While the USA Today and other national news outlets found it astounding that atheists knew more about religion I, frankly, did not.
Sociologists studying these matters have long reported that atheists and agnostics are highly educated and very knowledgeable of religious matters (The Denominational Society, Andrew Greely, 1972.). As Greg Lewis, Pew senior researcher, reported in the USA Today article 8 in 10 atheists and agnostics grew up in a religious tradition. So while those who say there is no God may be called foolish by the Christian Scripture (Psalm 14:1), this does not mean they are an uneducated or uninformed fool. On the contrary, perhaps as 1 Corinthians 8:1 indicates it is their great knowledge that has “puffed them up’ to where they could reject a belief in God, or at least assert he is unknowable (agnostic). This should remind followers of Jesus that when they speak to an atheist or agnostic one should not assume they are ignorant or unaware of biblical teachings. Rather, we should seek to uncover what they learned or experienced in life that made them turn away from a belief in God.
A second observation I would make is that the research really revealed more about the knowledge of religion, in general, rather than about biblical beliefs or a knowledge of God. Therefore, I believe the Orlando Sentinel’s headline on the article about the research was very misleading. Their headline read: Believe It: Atheists Know God. Yet when one reads the questions asked by Pew Research you find they really are not measuring if people know God. They are asking questions about world religions, church history, and questions about governmental rulings pertaining to the expression of religion. These were hardly questions about “knowing God”. Even questions pertaining to the knowledge of the Bible were very few. Consequently, the survey is truly more about religion and less about God. Sadly, some news outlets cannot seem unable to make this distinction.
However, it is still alarming that so many religiously-involved Americans know so little about the Bible and general religious matters. It was sad to hear just 55% of all respondents knew the Golden Rule isn’t one of the Ten Commandments or that 45% could not name all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). It is lamentable that only 11% knew the fiery preach and theologian who participated in the First Great Awakening, an 18th Century revival, was Jonathan Edwards, not Charles Finney or Billy Graham. These responses seem to reveal the “dumbing down” of American evangelicalism and of the professing Christian populace as a whole. The poor showing by evangelicals reminds me of the warnings given by Mark Noll in his 1994 book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.
In that book Noll stated, “American evangelicals are not exemplary for their thinking” (3) and in his work he outlines why. In part, he cites our desire to be “pragmatic, populist, charismatic, and technological, more than intellectual” (55). Further, “we have tended to define piety as an inward state opposed to careful thought….” Reminding us that this is no small matter Noll quotes Charles Malik who wrote earlier (The Two Tasks, 1980), “The problem is not only to win souls, but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed, it may turn out that you have actually lost the world (26).” Noll moves from that point to challenge American evangelicalism to move from an anti-intellectual posture toward activities that promote Christian thinking at every level.
I can only hope that this Pew Research Survey will also awaken Christians in the pulpits and pews of the need to learn more about their faith, their Scriptures, their religious history, and about the beliefs of others in our pluralistic society. May we, the church of Jesus, love the Lord with our minds as well as our heart, soul, and strength (Luke 10:27). Indeed, may we have a zeal that is based on knowledge (Romans 10:2).

Eager to know Him more & make Him known!
Pastor Scott